A Chair on the Boulevard Part 40

Finally, he found it impossible to address her with civility. And Clairette married Flouflou, after all.

"Clairette," said Flouflou on the day they were engaged, "if you don't chuck the Statuary turn, I know that one night I shall ma.s.sacre the audience! Won't you give it up for me, peach?"

"So you are beginning your ructions already?" laughed Clairette, "I told you what a handful you would be. Oh, well then, just as you like, old dear!--in this business a girl may meet with a worse kind of jealousy than yours."

"PARDON, YOU ARE MADEMOISELLE GIRARD!"

A newsvendor pa.s.sed along the terrace of the Cafe d'Harcourt bawling _La Voix Parisienne_. The Frenchman at my table made a gesture of aversion. Our eyes met; I said:

"You do not like _La Voix?_"

He answered with intensity:

"I loathe it."

"What's its offence?"

The wastrel frowned; he fiddled with his frayed and filthy collar.

"You revive painful a.s.sociations; you ask me for a humiliating story,"

he murmured--and regarded his empty gla.s.s.

I can take a hint as well as most people.

He prepared his poison reflectively,

"I will tell you all," he said.

One autumn the Editor of _La Voix_ announced to the a.s.sistant-editor: "I have a great idea for booming the paper."

The a.s.sistant-editor gazed at him respectfully. "I propose to prove, in the public interest, the difficulty of tracing a missing person. I shall instruct a member of the staff to disappear. I shall publish his description, and his portrait; and I shall offer a prize to the first stranger who identifies him."

The a.s.sistant-editor had tact and he did not reply that the idea had already been worked in London with a disappearing lady. He replied:

"What an original scheme!"

"It might be even more effective that the disappearing person should be a lady," added the chief, like one inspired.

"That," cried the a.s.sistant-editor, "is the top brick of genius!"

So the Editor reviewed the brief list of his lady contributors, and sent for mademoiselle Girard.

His choice fell upon mademoiselle Girard for two reasons. First, she was not facially remarkable--a smudgy portrait of her would look much like a smudgy portrait of anybody else. Second, she was not widely known in Paris, being at the beginning of her career; in fact she was so inexperienced that hitherto she had been entrusted only with criticism.

However, the young woman had all her b.u.t.tons on; and after he had talked to her, she said cheerfully:

"Without a chaperon I should be conspicuous, and without a fat purse I should be handicapped. So it is understood that I am to provide myself with a suitable companion, and to draw upon the office for expenses?"

"Mademoiselle," returned the Editor, "the purpose of the paper is to portray a drama of life, not to emulate an opera bouffe. I shall explain more fully. Please figure to yourself that you are a young girl in an unhappy home. Let us suppose that a stepmother is at fault. You feel that you can submit to her oppression no longer--you resolve to be free, or to end your troubles in the Seine. Weeping, you pack your modest handbag; you cast a last, lingering look at the oil painting of your own dear mother who is with the Angels in the drawing-room; that is to say, of your own dear mother in the drawing-room, who is with the Angels. It still hangs there--your father has insisted on it. Unheard, you steal from the house; the mysterious city of Paris stretches before your friendless feet. Can you engage a chaperon? Can you draw upon an office for expenses? The idea is laughable. You have saved, at a liberal computation, forty francs; it is necessary for you to find employment without delay. But what happens? Your father is distracted by your loss, the thought of the perils that beset you frenzies him; he invokes the aid of the police. Well, the object of our experiment is to demonstrate that, in spite of an advertised reward, in spite of a published portrait, in spite of the Public's zeal itself, you will be pa.s.sed on the boulevards and in the slums by myriads of unsuspecting eyes for weeks."

The girl inquired, much less blithely:

"How long is this experiment to continue?"

"It will continue until you are identified, of course. The longer the period, the more triumphant our demonstration."

"And I am to have no more than forty francs to exist on all the time?

Monsieur, the job does not call to me."

"You are young and you fail to grasp the value of your opportunity,"

said the Editor, with paternal tolerance. "From such an a.s.signment you will derive experiences that will be of the highest benefit to your future. Rejoice, my child! Very soon I shall give you final instructions."

The Frenchman lifted his gla.s.s, which was again empty.

"I trust my voice does not begin to grate upon you?" he asked solicitously. "Much talking affects my uvula."

I made a trite inquiry.

He answered that, since I was so pressing, he would!

"Listen," he resumed, after a sip.

I am not in a position to say whether the young lady humoured the Editor by rejoicing, but she obeyed him by going forth. Her portrait was duly published, _La Volx_ professed ignorance of her whereabouts from the moment that she left the rue Louis-le-Grand, and a prize of two thousand francs was to reward the first stranger who said to her, "Pardon, you are mademoiselle Girard!" In every issue the Public were urged towards more strenuous efforts to discover her, and all Paris bought the paper, with amus.e.m.e.nt, to learn if she was found yet.

At the beginning of the week, misgivings were ingeniously hinted as to her fate. On the tenth day the Editor printed a letter (which he had written himself), hotly condemning him for exposing a poor girl to danger. It was signed "An Indignant Parent," and teemed with the most stimulating suggestions. Copies of _La Voix_ were as prevalent as gingerbread pigs at a fair. When a fortnight had pa.s.sed, the prize was increased to three thousand francs, and many young men resigned less promising occupations, such as authors.h.i.+p and the fine arts, in order to devote themselves exclusively to the search.

Personally, I had something else to do. I am an author, as you may have divined by the rhythm of my impromptu phrases, but it happened at that time that a play of mine had been accepted at the Grand Guignol, subject to an additional thrill being introduced, and I preferred pondering for a thrill in my garret to hunting for a pin in a haystack,

Enfin, I completed the drama to the Management's satisfaction, and received a comely little cheque in payment. It was the first cheque that I had seen for years! I danced with joy, I paid for a shampoo, I committed no end of follies.

How good is life when one is rich--immediately one joins the optimists!

I feared the future no longer; I was hungry, and I let my appet.i.te do as it liked with me. I lodged in Montmartre, and it was my custom to eat at the unpretentious Bel Avenir, when I ate at all; but that morning my mood demanded something resplendent. Rumours had reached me of a certain Cafe Eclatant, where for one-franc-fifty one might breakfast on five epicurean courses amid palms and plush. I said I would go the pace, I adventured the Cafe Eclatant.

The interior realised my most sanguine expectations. The room would have done no discredit to the Grand Boulevard. I was so much exhilarated, that I ordered a half bottle of barsac, though I noted that here it cost ten sous more than at the Bel Avenir, and I prepared to enjoy the unwonted extravagance of my repast to the concluding crumb.

Monsieur, there are events in life of which it is difficult to speak without bitterness. When I recall the disappointment of that dejeuner at the Cafe Eclatant, my heart swells with rage. The soup was slush, the fish tasted like was.h.i.+ng, the meat was rags. Dessert consisted of wizened grapes; the one thing fit to eat was the cheese.

As I meditated on the sum I had squandered, I could have cried with mortification, and, to make matters more pathetic still, I was as hungry as ever. I sat seeking some caustic epigram to wither the dame- de-comptoir; and presently the door opened and another victim entered.

Her face was pale and interesting. I saw, by her hesitation, that the place was strange to her. An accomplice of the chief brigand pounced on her immediately, and bore her to a table opposite. The misguided girl was about to waste one-franc-fifty. I felt that I owed a duty to her in this crisis. The moment called for instant action; before she could decide between slush and hors d'oeuvres, I pulled an envelope from my pocket, scribbled a warning, and expressed it to her by the robber who had brought my bill.

I had written, "The dejeuner is dreadful. Escape!"