Trilby Part 33

"Ah, ca, c'est trois cents francs, monsieur. Mais--"

"Je p.r.o.ng!" said the Laird.

"Et voici les souliers qui vont avec, et que--"

"Je pr--"

But here Taffy took the Laird by the arm and dragged him by force out of this too seductive siren's cave.

The Laird told her where to send his purchases; and with many expressions of love and good-will on both sides, they tore themselves away from Monsieur et Madame Vinard.

The Laird, however, rushed back for a minute, and hurriedly whispered to Madame Vinard: "Oh--er--le piay de Trilby--sur le mure, vous savvy--avec le verre et toot le reste--coopy le mure--comprenny?... Combiang?"

"Ah, monsieur!" said Madame Vinard--"c'est un peu difficile, vous savez--couper un mur comme ca! On parlera au proprietaire si vous voulez, et ca pourrait peut-etre s'arranger, si c'est en bois! seulement il fau--"

"Je p.r.o.ng!" said the Laird, and waved his hand in farewell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'JE p.r.o.nG!'"]

They went up the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, and found that about twenty yards of a high wall had been pulled down--just at the bend where the Laird had seen the last of Trilby, as she turned round and kissed her hand to him--and they beheld, within, a quaint and ancient long-neglected garden; a gray old garden, with tall, warty, black-boled trees, and damp, green, mossy paths that lost themselves under the brown and yellow leaves and mould and muck which had drifted into heaps here and there, the acc.u.mulation of years--a queer old faded pleasance, with wasted bowers and dilapidated carved stone benches and weather-beaten discolored marble statues--noseless, armless, earless fauns and hamadryads! And at the end of it, in a tumble-down state of utter ruin, a still inhabited little house, with shabby blinds and window-curtains, and broken window-panes mended with brown paper--a Pavillon de Flore, that must have been quite beautiful a hundred years ago--the once mysterious love-resort of long-buried abbes with light hearts, and well-forgotten lords and ladies gay--red-heeled, patched, powdered, frivolous, and shameless, but oh! how charming to the imagination of the nineteenth century! And right through the ragged lawn, (where lay, upset in the long dewy gra.s.s, a broken doll's perambulator by a tattered Punchinello) went a desecrating track made by cart-wheels and horses'

hoofs; and this, no doubt, was to be a new street--perhaps, as Taffy suggested, "La Rue _Neuve_ des Mauvais Ladres!" (The _New_ Street of the Bad Lepers!).

"Ah, Taffy!" sententiously opined the Laird, with his usual wink at Little Billee, "I've no doubt the _old_ lepers were the best, bad as they were!"

"I'm quite _sure_ of it!" said Taffy, with sad and sober conviction and a long-drawn sigh. "I only wish I had a chance of painting one--just as he really was!"

How often they had speculated on what lay hidden behind that lofty old brick wall! and now this melancholy little peep into the once festive past, the touching sight of this odd old poverty-stricken abode of Heaven knows what present grief and desolation, which a few strokes of the pickaxe had laid bare, seemed to chime in with their own gray mood that had been so bright and sunny an hour ago; and they went on their way quite dejectedly, for a stroll through the Luxembourg Gallery and Gardens.

The same people seemed to be still copying the same pictures in the long, quiet, genial room, so pleasantly smelling of oil-paint--Rosa Bonheur's "Labourage Nivernais"--Hebert's "Malaria"--Couture's "Decadent Romans."

And in the formal dusty gardens were the same pioupious and zouzous still walking with the same nounous, or sitting by their sides on benches by formal ponds with gold and silver fish in them--and just the same old couples petting the same toutous and loulous![A]

[A] _Glossary._--Pioupiou (_alias_ pousse-caillou, _alias_ tourlourou)--a private soldier of the line. Zouzou--a Zouave. Nounou--a wet-nurse with a pretty ribboned cap and long streamers. Toutou--a nondescript French lapdog, of no breed known to Englishmen (a regular little beast!) Loulou--a Pomeranian dog--not much better.

Then they thought they would go and lunch at le pere Trin's--the Restaurant de la Couronne, in the Rue du Luxembourg--for the sake of auld lang syne! But when they got there the well-remembered fumes of that humble refectory, which had once seemed not unappetizing, turned their stomachs. So they contented themselves with warmly greeting le pere Trin, who was quite overjoyed to see them again, and anxious to turn the whole establishment topsy-turvy that he might entertain such guests as they deserved.

Then the Laird suggested an omelet at the Cafe de l'Odeon. But Taffy said, in his masterful way, "d.a.m.n the Cafe de l'Odeon!"

And hailing a little open fly, they drove to Ledoyen's, or some such place, in the Champs elysees, where they feasted as became three prosperous Britons out for a holiday in Paris--three irresponsible musketeers, lords of themselves and Lutetia, _beati possidentes!_--and afterwards had themselves driven in an open carriage and pair through the Bois de Boulogne to the fete de St. Cloud (or what still remained of it, for it lasts six weeks), the scene of so many of Dodor's and Zouzou's exploits in past years, and found it more amusing than the Luxembourg Gardens; the lively and irrepressible spirit of Dodor seemed to pervade it still.

But it doesn't want the presence of a Dodor to make the blue-bloused sons of the Gallic people (and its neatly shod, white-capped daughters) delightful to watch as they take their pleasure. And the Laird (thinking perhaps of Hampstead Heath on an Easter Monday) must not be blamed for once more quoting his favorite phrase--the pretty little phrase with which the most humorous and least exemplary of British parsons began his famous journey to France.

When they came back to the hotel to dress and dine, the Laird found he wanted a pair of white gloves for the concert--"Oon pair de gong blong,"

as he called it--and they walked along the boulevards till they came to a haberdasher's shop of very good and prosperous appearance, and, going in, were received graciously by the "patron," a portly little bourgeois, who waved them to a tall and aristocratic and very well dressed young commis behind the counter, saying, "Une paire de gants blancs pour monsieur."

And what was the surprise of our three friends in recognizing Dodor!

The gay Dodor, Dodor l'irresistible, quite unembarra.s.sed by his position, was exuberant in his delight at seeing them again, and introduced them to the patron and his wife and daughter, Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Pa.s.sefil. And it soon became pretty evident that, in spite of his humble employment in that house, he was a great favorite in that family, and especially with mademoiselle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'OON PAIR DE GONG BLONG'"]

Indeed, Monsieur Pa.s.sefil invited our three heroes to stay and dine then and there; but they compromised matters by asking Dodor to come and dine with _them_ at the hotel, and he accepted with alacrity.

Thanks to Dodor, the dinner was a very lively one, and they soon forgot the regretful impressions of the day.

They learned that he hadn't got a penny in the world, and had left the army, and had for two years kept the books at le pere Pa.s.sefil's and served his customers, and won his good opinion and his wife's, and especially his daughter's; and that soon he was to be not only his employer's partner, but his son-in-law; and that, in spite of his impecuniosity, he had managed to impress them with the fact that in marrying a Rigolot de Lafarce she was making a very splendid match indeed!

His brother-in-law, the Honorable Jack Reeve, had long cut him for a bad lot. But his sister, after a while, had made up her mind that to marry Mlle. Pa.s.sefil wasn't the worst he could do; at all events, it would keep him out of England, and _that_ was a comfort! And pa.s.sing through Paris, she had actually called on the Pa.s.sefil family, and they had fallen prostrate before such splendor; and no wonder, for Mrs. Jack Reeve was one of the most beautiful, elegant, and fas.h.i.+onable women in London, the smartest of the smart.

"And how about l'Zouzou?" asked Little Billee.

"Ah, old Gontran! I don't see much of him. We no longer quite move in the same circles, you know; not that he's proud, or me either! but he's a sub-lieutenant in the Guides--an officer! Besides, his brother's dead, and he's the Duc de la Rochemartel, and a special pet of the Empress; he makes her laugh more than anybody! He's looking out for the biggest heiress he can find, and he's pretty safe to catch her, with such a name as that! In fact, they say he's caught her already--Miss Lavinia Hunks, of Chicago. Twenty million dollars!--at least, so the _Figaro_ says!"

Then he gave them news of other old friends; and they did not part till it was time for them to go to the Cirque des Bas.h.i.+bazoucks, and after they had arranged to dine with his future family on the following day.

In the Rue St. Honore was a long double file of cabs and carriages slowly moving along to the portals of that huge hall, Le Cirque des Bas.h.i.+bazoucks. Is it there still, I wonder? I don't mind betting not!

Just at this period of the Second Empire there was a mania for demolition and remolition (if there is such a word), and I have no doubt my Parisian readers would search the Rue St. Honore for the Salle des Bas.h.i.+bazoucks in vain!

Our friends were shown to their stalls, and looked round in surprise.

This was before the days of the Albert Hall, and they had never been in such a big place of the kind before, or one so regal in aspect, so gorgeously imperial with white and gold and crimson velvet, so dazzling with light, so crammed with people from floor to roof, and cramming itself still.

A platform carpeted with crimson cloth had been erected in front of the gates where the horses had once used to come in, and their fair riders, and the two jolly English clowns; and the beautiful n.o.bleman with the long frock-coat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and soft high boots, and four-in-hand whip--"la chambriere."

In front of this was a lower stand for the orchestra. The circus itself was filled with stalls--stalles d'orchestre. A pair of crimson curtains hid the entrance to the platform at the back, and by each of these stood a small page, ready to draw it aside and admit the diva.

The entrance to the orchestra was by a small door under the platform, and some thirty or forty chairs and music-stands, grouped around the conductor's estrade, were waiting for the band.

Little Billee looked round, and recognized many countrymen and countrywomen of his own--many great musical celebrities especially, whom he had often met in London. Tiers upon tiers of people rose up all round in a widening circle, and lost themselves in a dazy mist of light at the top--it was like a picture by Martin! In the imperial box were the English amba.s.sador and his family, with an august British personage sitting in the middle, in front, his broad blue ribbon across his breast and his opera-gla.s.s to his royal eyes.

Little Billee had never felt so excited, so exhilarated by such a show before, nor so full of eager antic.i.p.ation. He looked at his programme, and saw that the Hungarian band (the first that had yet appeared in western Europe, I believe) would play an overture of gypsy dances. Then Madame Svengali would sing "un air connu, sans accompagnement," and afterwards other airs, including the "Nussbaum" of Schumann (for the first time in Paris, it seemed). Then a rest of ten minutes; then more csardas; then the diva would sing "Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre," of all things in the world! and finish up with "un impromptu de Chopin, sans paroles."

Truly a somewhat incongruous bill of fare!

[Ill.u.s.tration: GECKO]

Close on the stroke of nine the musicians came in and took their seats.

They were dressed in the foreign hussar uniform that has now become so familiar. The first violin had scarcely sat down before friends recognized in him their old friend Gecko.

Just as the clock struck, Svengali, in irreproachable evening dress, tall and stout and quite splendid in appearance, notwithstanding his long black mane (which had been curled), took his place at his desk. Our friends would have known him at a glance, in spite of the wonderful alteration time and prosperity had wrought in his outward man.

He bowed right and left to the thunderous applause that greeted him, gave his three little baton-taps, and the lovely music began at once. We have grown accustomed to strains of this kind during the last twenty years; but they were new then, and their strange seduction was a surprise as well as an enchantment.

Besides, no such band as Svengali's had ever been heard; and in listening to this overture the immense crowd almost forgot that it was a mere preparation for a great musical event, and tried to encore it. But Svengali merely turned round and bowed--there were to be no encores that night.

Then a moment of silence and breathless suspense--curiosity on tiptoe!

Then the two little page-boys each drew a silken rope, and the curtains parted and looped themselves up on each side symmetrically; and a tall female figure appeared, clad in what seemed like a cla.s.sical dress of cloth of gold, embroidered with garnets and beetles' wings; her snowy arms and shoulders bare, a gold coronet of stars on her head, her thick light brown hair tied behind and flowing all down her back to nearly her knees, like those ladies in hair-dressers' shops who sit with their backs to the plate-gla.s.s windows to advertise the merits of some particular hair-wash.