A Voyage of Consolation Part 6

But before we arrived at the third floor we were convinced that it was unnecessary. It was not an elevator that the most burglarious would have cared to take away.

So many Americans surrounded the breakfast table next morning that we might almost have imagined ourselves in Chicago. A small, young priest with furtive brown eyes cowered at one of the side tables, and at another a broad-shouldered, unsmiling lady, dressed in black, with brows and a slight moustache to match, dispensed food to a sallow and shrinking object of preternaturally serious aspect who seemed to be her husband, and a little boy who kept an anxious eye on them both. They were French, too, but all the people who sat up and down the long middle table belonged to the United States of America. They were there in groups and in families representing different localities and different social positions--as momma said, you had only to look at their shoulder seams; and each group or family received the advances of the next with the polite tolerance, head a little on one side, which characterises us when we don't know each other's business standing or church members.h.i.+p; but the tide of conversation which ebbed and flowed had a flavour which made the table a geographical unit. I say "flavour," because there was certainly something, but I am now inclined to think with Mr. Page that "accent" is rather too strong a word to describe it. At all events, the gratification of hearing it after his temporary exile in Great Britain almost brought tears to the Senator's eyes. There were only three vacant places, and, as we took them, making the national circle complete, a little smile wavered round the table. It was a proud, conscious smile; it indicated that though we might not be on terms of intimacy we recognised ourselves to be immensely and uniformly American, and considerably the biggest fraction of the travelling public. As poppa said, the prevailing feeling was also American. As he was tucking his napkin into his waistcoat, and ordering our various breakfasts, the gentleman who sat next to him listened--he could not help it--fidgetted, and finally, with some embarra.s.sment, spoke.

"I don't know, sir," he said, "whether you're aware of it--I presume you're a stranger, like myself--but all they _allow_ for what they call breakfast in this hotel is tea or coffee, rolls, and b.u.t.ter; everything else is charged extra."

Poppa was touched. As he said to me afterward, who but an American would have taken the trouble to tell a stranger a thing like that! Not an Englishman, certainly--he would see you bankrupt first! He disguised his own sophistication, and said he was very much obliged, and he almost apologised for not being able to take advantage of the information, and stick to coffee and rolls.

"But the fact is," he said in self-defence, "we may get back for lunch and we may not."

"That's all right," the gentleman replied with distinct relief. "I didn't mind the omelette or the sole, but when it came to fried chicken and strawberries I just had to speak out. You going to make a long stay in Paris?"

As they launched to conversation momma and I glanced at each other with mutual congratulation. It was at last obvious that the Senator was going to enjoy his European experiences; we had been a little doubtful about it. Left to ourselves, we discussed our breakfast and the waiters, the only French people we could see from where we sat, and expressed our annoyance, which was great, at being offered tooth-picks. I was so hungry that it was only when I asked for a third large roll that I noticed momma regarding me with mild disapproval.

"I fear," she said with a little sigh, "that you are thinking very little of what is past and gone, love."

"Momma," I replied, "don't spoil my breakfast." When momma can throw an emotional chill over anything, I never knew her to refrain. "I _should_ like that _garcon_ to bring me some more bread," I continued.

Momma sighed even more deeply. "You may have part of mine," she replied, breaking it with a gesture that said such callousness she could not understand. Her manner for the next few minutes expressed distinctly that she, at least, meant to do her duty by Arthur.

Presently from the other side of poppa came the words, "_Not_ Wick of Chicago!"

"I guess I can't deny it," said poppa.

"Senator Wick?"

Poppa lowered his voice. "If it's all the same to you," he said, "not for the present. Just plain Joshua P. Wick. I'm not what you call travelling incognito, do you see, but, so far as the U.S. Senate is concerned, I haven't got it with me."

"Well, sir, I won't mention it again. But all the same, if I may be allowed to say so, I am pleased to meet you, sir--very pleased. I suppose they wired you that Mike McConnell's got the Post Office."

Poppa held out his hand in an instant of speechless grat.i.tude. "Sir," he said, "they did not. Put it there. I said no wires and no letters, and I've been sorry for it ever since. Momma," he continued, "daughter, allow me to present to you Mr.?--Mr. Malt, who has heard by cablegram that our friend Mr. McConnell is Postmaster-General of Chicago."

Momma was grateful, too, though she expressed it somewhat more distantly. Momma has a great deal of manner with strangers; it sometimes completely disguises her real feeling toward them. I was also grateful, though I merely bowed, and kicked the Senator under the table. n.o.body would have guessed from our outward bearing the extent to which our political fortunes, as a family, were mixed up with Mike McConnell's.

Mr. Malt immediately said that if there was anything else he could do for us he was at our service.

"Well," said poppa, "I suppose there's a good deal of intrinsic interest in this town--relics of Napoleon, the Bon Marche, and so on--and we've got to see it. I must say," he added, turning to momma, "I feel considerably more equal to it now."

"It will take you a good long week," said Mr. Malt earnestly, "to begin to have an idea of it. You might spend two whole days in the Louvre itself. Is your time limited?"

"I don't need to tell any American the market value of it," said poppa smiling.

"Then you can't do better than go straight to the Louvre. I'd be pleased to accompany you, only I've got to go round and see our Amba.s.sador--I've got a little business with him. I daresay you know that one of our man-of-war s.h.i.+ps is lying right down here in the Seine river. Well, the captain is giving a reception to-morrow in honour of the Russian Admiral who happens to be there, too. I've got ladies with me and I wrote for four tickets. Did I get the four tickets--or two of them--or one? No, sir, I got a letter in the third person singular saying it wasn't a public entertainment! I wrote back to say I guessed it was an American entertainment, and he could expect me, all the same. He hadn't any sort of excuse--my name and business address were on my letter paper. Now I'm just going round to see what a United States Amba.s.sador's for, in this connection."

Mr. Malt rose and the waiter withdrew his chair. "Thank you, _garcon_,"

said he. "I'm coming back again--do you understand? This is not my last meal," and the waiter bowed as if that were a statement which had to be acknowledged, but was of the least possible consequence to him personally. "Well, Mr. Wick," continued Mr. Malt, brus.h.i.+ng the crumbs from his waistcoat, "I'll say good morning, and to your ladies also. I'm very pleased to have met you."

"Well," said momma, as he disappeared, "if every American in Paris has decided to go to that reception there won't be much room for the Russians."

"I suppose he's a voter and a tax-payer, and he's got his feelings,"

replied poppa. The Senator would defend a voter and a tax-payer against any imputation not actually criminal.

"I'm glad I'm not one of his lady-friends," momma continued. "I don't think I _could_ make myself at home on that man-of-war under the circ.u.mstances. But I daresay he'll drag them there with him. He seems to be just that kind of a man."

"He's a very patriotic kind of a man," replied the Senator. "It's his patriotism, don't you see, that's giving him all this trouble. It's been outraged. Personally I consider Mr. Malt a very intelligent gentleman, and if he'd given me an opening as big as the eye of a needle I'm the camel that would have gone with him, Augusta."

This statement of the Senator's struck me as something to be acted upon.

If there was to be a constant possibility of his going off with any chance American in regular communication with the United States, our European tour would be a good deal less interesting than I had been led to expect. While momma was getting ready for the Louvre, therefore, I stepped down to the office and wired our itinerary to his partner in Chicago. "Keep up daily communication by wire in detail," I telegraphed, "forward copies all important letters care Peters." Peters was the tourist agent who had undertaken to bless our comings and goings. I said nothing whatever to poppa, but I felt a glow of conscious triumph when I thought of Mr. Malt.

We stood and realised Paris on the pavement while the fiacre turned in from the road and drew up for us. I had every intention of being fascinated and so had momma. We had both heard often and often that good Americans when they die go to Paris, and that prepares one for a good deal in this life. We were so anxious to be pleased that we fastened with one accord upon the florist's shop under the hotel and said that it was uniquely charming, though we both knew places in Broadway that it couldn't be compared with. We looked amiably at the pa.s.sers-by, and did our best to detect in the manner of their faces that _esprit_ that makes the dialogue of French novels so stimulating. What I usually thought I saw when they looked at us was a leisurely indifferentism ornamented with the suspicion of a sneer, and based upon a certain fundamental acquisitiveness and ability to make a valuation that acknowledged the desirability of our presence on business grounds, if not on personal ones. It seemed to be a preconcerted public intention to make as much noise in a given s.p.a.ce as possible--we spoke of the cheerfulness of it, stopping our ears. The cracking of the drivers' whips alone made a _feu de joie_ that never ceased, and listening to it we knew that we ought to feel happy and elated. The driver of our fiacre was fat and rubicund, he wore a green coat, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a s.h.i.+ny top hat, and looked as if he drank constantly. His jollity was perfunctory, I know, and covered a grasping nature, but it was very well imitated, like everything in Paris. As he whirled us, with a whip-report like a pistol-shot, into the train of traffic in the middle of the street, we felt that we were indeed in the city of appearances; and I put down in my mind, not having my note-book, that Paris lives up to its photographs.

"We mustn't forget our serious object, dear," said momma, as we rolled over the cobblestones--"our literary object. What shall we note this morning? The broad streets, the elegant shops--_do_ look at that one!

Darling, is it absolutely necessary to go to the Louvre this morning?

There are some things we really need."

Momma addressed the Senator. I mentioned to her once that her way of doing it was almost English in its demonstrativeness, and my other parent told me privately he wished I hadn't--it aggravated it so.

"Augusta," said poppa, firmly, "I understand your feeling. I take a human interest in those stores myself, which I do not expect this picture gallery, etc., to inspire in me. But there the Louvre _is_, you see, and it's got to be done. If we spent our whole time in this city in mere pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, you would be the first to reproach yourself, Augusta."

A few minutes later, when we had crossed the stone quadrangle and mounted the stairs, and stood with our catalogue in the Salle Lacaze, momma said that she wouldn't have missed it for anything. She sank ecstatic upon a bench, and gave to every individual picture upon the opposite wall the tribute of her intensest admiration. It was a pleasure to see her enjoying herself so much; and poppa and I vainly tried to keep up to her with the catalogue.

"Oh, why haven't we such things in Chicago!" she exclaimed, at which the Senator checked her mildly.

"It's a mere question of time," said he. "It isn't reasonable to expect Pre-Raphaelites in a new country. But give us three or four hundred years, and we'll produce old masters which, if you ladies will excuse the expression, will knock the spots out of the Middle Ages." Poppa is such an optimist about Chicago.

The Senator went on in a strain of criticism of the pictures perfectly moderate and kindly--nothing he wouldn't have said to the artists themselves--until momma interrupted him. "Don't you think we might be silent for a time, Alexander," she said.

Momma does call him Alexander sometimes. I didn't like to mention it before, but it can't be concealed for ever. She says it's because Joshua always costs her an effort, and every woman ought to have the right to name her own husband.

"Let us offer to all this genius," she continued, indicating it, "the tribute of sealing our lips."

The Senator will always oblige. "Mine are sealed, Augusta," he replied, and so we sat in silence for the next ten minutes. But I could see by his expression, in connection with the angle at which his hat was tipped, that he was comparing the productions before him with the future old masters of Chicago, and wis.h.i.+ng it were possible to live long enough to back Chicago.

"How they do sink in!" said momma at last. "How they sink into the soul!"

"They do," replied the Senator. "I don't deny it. But I see by the catalogue, counting Salles and Salons and all, there's seventeen rooms full of them. If they're all to sink in, for my part I'll have to enlarge the premises. And we've been here three-quarters of an hour already, and life is short, Augusta."

So we moved on where the imperishable faces of Greuze and Velasquez and Rembrandt smiled and frowned and wondered at us. As poppa said, it was easy to see that these people had ideas, and were simply longing to express them. "You feel sorry for them," he said, "just as you feel sorry for an intelligent terrier. But these poor things can't even wag their tails! Just let me know when you've had enough, Augusta."

Momma declared, with an accent of reproach, that she could never have enough. I noticed, however, that we did not stay in the second room as long as in the first one, and that our progress was steadily accelerating. Presently the Senator asked us to sit down for a few minutes while he should leave us.

"There's a picture here Bramley said I was to see without fail," he explained. "It's called 'Mona Lisa,' and it's by an artist by the name of Leonardo da Vinci. Bramley said it was a very fine painting, but I don't remember just now whether he said it was what you might call a picture for the family or not. I'll just go and ascertain," said the Senator. "Judging from some of the specimens here, oil paintings in the Middle Ages weren't intended to be chromo-lithographed."

In his absence momma and I discussed French cookery as far as we had experienced it, in detail, with prodigious yawns for which we did not even apologise. Poppa was gone a remarkably short time and came back radiant. "I've found Mona," he exclaimed, "and--she's all right. Bramley said it was the most remarkable portrait of a woman in the world--looking at it, Bramley said, you become insensible to everything--forget all about your past life and future hopes--and I guess he's about right. Come and see it."

Momma arose without enthusiasm, and I thought I detected adverse criticism in advance in her expression.

"Here she is," said the Senator presently. "Now look at that! Did you ever see anything more intellectual and cynical, and contemptuous and sweet, all in one! Lookin' at you as much as to say, 'Who are you, anyhow, from way back in the State of Illinois--commercial traveller?

And what do you pretend to know?'"

Momma regarded the portrait for a moment in calm disapprobation. "I daresay she was very clever," she said at length, "but if you wish to know my opinion I _don't think much of her_. And before taking us to see another female portrait, Mr. Wick, I should be obliged if you would take the precaution of finding out _who she was_."