in_madeira_place.txt Part 1

In Madeira Place.

by Heman White Chaplin.

Turning from the street which follows the line of the wharves, into Madeira Place, you leave at once an open region of docks and spars for comparative retirement. Wagons seldom enter Madeira Place: it is too hard to turn them in it; and then the inhabitants, for the most part, have a convenient way of buying their coal by the basket. How much trouble it would save, if we would all buy our coal by the basket!

A few doors up the place a pa.s.sageway makes off to the right, through a high wooden gate that is usually open; and at the upper corner of this pa.s.sage stands a brick house, whose perpetually closed blinds suggest the owner's absence. But the householders of Madeira Place do not absent themselves, even in summer; they could hardly get much nearer to the sea. And if you will take the pains to seat yourself, toward the close of day, upon an opposite doorstep, between two rows of clamorous little girls sliding, with screams of painful joy, down the rough hammered stone, to the improvement of their clothing, you will see that the house is by-no means untenanted.

Every evening it is much the same thing. First, following close upon the heels of sunset, comes a grizzly, tall, and slouching man, in the cap and blouse of a Union soldier, bearing down with his left hand upon a cane, and dragging his left foot heavily behind him, while with his right hand he holds by a string a cl.u.s.ter of soaring toy balloons, and also drags, by its long wooden tongue, a rude child's cart, in which is a small hand-organ.

Next will come, most likely, a dark, bent, keen-eyed old woman, with her parchment face shrunk into deep wrinkles. She bears a dangling placard, stating, in letters of white upon a patent-leather background, what you might not otherwise suspect,--that she was a soldier under the great Napoleon, and fought with him at Waterloo. She also bears, since music goes with war, a worn accordion. She is the old woman to whose shrivelled, expectant countenance you sometimes offer up a copper coin, as she kneels by the flagged crossway path of the Park.

She is succeeded, perhaps, by a couple of black-haired, short, broad-shouldered men, leading a waddling, unconcerned bear, and talking earnestly together in a language which you will hardly follow.

Then you will see six or eight or ten other sons and daughters of toil, most of them with balloons.

All these people will turn, between the high, ball-topped gate-posts, into the alley, and descend at once to the left, by a flight of three or four steps, to a side bas.e.m.e.nt door.

As they begin to flock in, you will see through the alley gate a dark, thick-set man, of middle age, but with very little hair, come and stand at the foot of the steps, in the doorway. It is Sorel, the master of the house; for this is the _Maison Sorel_. Some of his guests he greets with a Noachian deluge of swift French words and high-pitched cries of welcome. It is thus that he receives those capitalists, the bear-leaders from the Pyrenees; it is thus that he greets the grizzled man in the blue cap and blouse,--Fidele the old soldier, Fidele the pensioner, to whom a great government, far away, at Was.h.i.+ngton, doubtless with much else on its mind, never forgets to send by mail, each quarter-day morning, a special, personal communication, marked with Fidele's own name, enclosing the preliminaries of a remittance: "Accept" (as it were) "this slight tribute." "_Ah! que c'est un gouvernement! Voila une republique!_"

Even a Frenchman may be proud to be an American!

Most of his guests, however, Sorel receives with a mere pantomime of wide-opened eyes and extended hands and shrugged-up shoulders, accompanied by a long-drawn "_Eh!_" by which he bodies forth a thousand refinements of thought which language would fail to express. Does a fresh immigrant from the Cevennes bring back at night but one or two of the gay balloons with which she was stocked in the morning, or, better, none; or, on the other hand, does a stalwart man just from the rich Brie country return at sundown in abject despair, bringing back almost all of the red and blue globes which floated like a radiant constellation of hope about his head when he set forth in the early morning, Sorel can express, by his "_Eh!_" and some slight movement, with subtle exactness and with no possibility of being misapprehended, the precise shade of feeling with which the result inspires him.

But there he stops. Nothing is said. Sorel is a philosopher: he has indicated volumes, and he will not dilute with language. One who has fired a little lead bullet does not need to throw after it a bushel of mustard-seed.

The company, as they come in, one by one, wash their hands and faces, if they see fit, at the kitchen sink, and dry them on a long roller-towel,--a device adopted, probably, from the Americans. Then they retire to the room behind the kitchen, and seat themselves at a long table, at which the bear-leaders place themselves only after seeing their animal fed, in the coalhole, where he is quartered.

At the supper-table all is joy, even with the hopeless. Fidele beams with good-humor, and not infrequently is called on to describe, amid a general hush, for the benefit of some new-comer from "_la belle France_"

the quarterly receipt of the communication from Was.h.i.+ngton: how he stays at home that day, and shaves, and waits at the door for "_la poste_;"

how the gray-uniformed letter-carrier appears, hands out a letter "as large as that," and nods smilingly to Fidele: he, too, fought at "_la Montagne du Lookout_." The amount of the sergeant's pension astonishes them, wonted as they are to the pecuniary treatment of soldiers in the Old World. "_Mais_, it is a fortune! Fidele is a _vrai rentier!_ Ah!

_une republique comme ca!_"

Generally, however, Fidele contents himself at the evening meal with smiling good-humoredly on everybody and rapidly pa.s.sing in, under his drooping mustache, spoonfuls of soup, morsels from the long French loaf, and draughts of lager beer; for only the rich can have wine in this country, and in the matter of drink an exile must needs lower his standard, as the prodigal lowered his.

While Sorel and his wife and their busy maid fly in and out with _potage_ and _roti_, "_t-r-r-res succulent_," the history of which we must not pry too deeply into, there is much excited conversation. You see at once that many amusing things happen to one who sells balloons all day upon the Park. And there are varied fortunes to recount. Such a lady actually wished to buy three for fifty cents! Such a "police-er-mann" is to be highly commended; such another looks with an evil eye upon all: he should truly be removed from office. There is a rumor that a license fee is to be required by the city.

All this is food for discussion.

After supper they all sit about the kitchen or in the alley-way, chatting, smoking. She who has been lucky in her sales basks in Sorel's favor. The unfortunate peasant from the Brie country feels the little bullet in his heart, and nurses a desperate resolution to redeem himself on the morrow: one must live.

Sometimes, if you happen to pa.s.s there on a warm evening, you may see a young woman, rather handsome, sitting sidewise on the outer bas.e.m.e.nt steps, looking absently before her, straight-backed, upright, with her hands clasped about one knee, with her skirt sweeping away: a picture of Alsace. I have never been able to find out who she is.

One evening there is a little flutter among this brood. A gentleman, at the alley door, wishes to see M. Sorel. M. Sorel leads the gentleman out, through the alley gate, to the front street-door; then, retiring whence he came, he shortly appears from within at the front door, which opens only after a struggle. A knot of small boys has instantly gathered, apparently impressed with a vague, awful expectation that the gentleman about to enter will never come out. Realizing, however, that in that case there will be nothing to see, they slowly disperse when the door is closed, and resume their play.

Sorel ushers the gentleman into the front parlor, which is Sorel's bedroom, which is also the storehouse of his merchandise, which is also the nursery. At this moment an infant is sleeping in a trundle-bed.

The gentleman takes a chair. So does Sorel.

The gentleman does not talk French. Fortunately, M. Sorel can speak the English: he has learned it in making purchases for his table.

"I am an officer of the government," says Mr. Fox, with a very sharp, distinct utterance, "in the custom-house. You know 'customhouse'?"

M. Sorel does not commit himself. He is an importer of toys. One must be on his guard.

Thereupon, a complicated explanation: this street, and that street, and the other street, and this building, and the market, and the great building standing here.

Ah! yes! M. Sorel identifies the building. Then he is informed that many government officers are there. He knew it very well before.

The conversation goes a step farther.

Mr. Fox is one of those officers. The government is at present in need of a gentleman absolutely trustworthy, for certain important duties: perhaps to judge of silks; perhaps to oversee the weighing of sugar, of iron, of diamonds; perhaps to taste of wines. Who can say what service this great government may not need from its children!

With some labor, since the English is only a translucent, and not a transparent medium to Sorel, this is made clear. Still the horizon is dark.

Mr. Fox draws his chair nearer, facing Sorel, who looks uneasy: Sorel's feelings, to the thousandth degree of subdivision, are always declaring themselves in swift succession upon his face.

Mr. Fox proceeds.

"The great officer of the custom-house, the collector--"

"_Le chef?_" interrupts Sorel.

--yes, the _chef_ (Mr. Fox seizes upon the word and clings to it),--the _chef_ has been speaking anxiously to Mr. Fox about this vacancy: Mr.

Fox is in the _chefs_ confidence.

"Ah!" from Sorel, in a tone of utter bewilderment.

"We must have," the _chef_ had said to Mr. Fox,--"we must have for this place a n.o.ble man, a man with a large heart" (the exact required dimensions Mr. Fox does not give); "a man who loves his government, a man who has showed himself ready to die for her; we must have"--here Mr.

Fox bends forward and lays his hand upon Sorel's knee, and looks him in the eye,--"we must have--_a soldier!_"

"Ah!" says Sorel, moving his chair back a little, unconsciously, "_il faut un soldat!_ I un-'stan',--_le chef_ 'e boun' to 'ave one sol'ier!"

Still no comprehension of the stranger's object. Curiosity, however, prompts Sorel at this point to an inquiry: "'Ow much 'e goin' pay 'im?"

Mr. Fox suggests that he guess. M. Sorel guesses, boldly, and high,--almost insolently high,--eight dollars a week: she is so generous, _la Republique!_

Higher!

"Higher!" Sorel's eyes open. He guesses again, and recklessly: "_Dix dollars par semaine_; you know--ten dol-lar ever-y week."

Try again,--again,--again! He guesses,--madly now, as one risks his gold at Baden: twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen.

Yes, eighteen dollars a week, and more--a thousand dollars every year.

Sorel wipes his brow. A thousand dollars in one year! It is like a temptation of the devil.

Sorel ventures another inquiry. The _chef_ of the customhouse, esteeming the old sol'iers so highly, is an old sol'ier himself,--is it not so?