The Arm Chair at the Inn Part 19

Herbert drew his chair closer, a.s.suming his favorite gesture, his hands on the edge of the table.

"I say 'poor fellow' too, Louis, but High-Muck has not put his finger on the right spot. It was not the man's pride that was wounded; nor did he die of a broken heart. He died because he had not reached his pinnacle, and that is quite a different thing. What blinded him and destroyed his reason--for it cannot be thought very sensible for a man to abandon a certain fixed income for a rainbow--was not your reviving his belief in himself, but your giving him, for the first time, an opportunity to spread his wings. But for that you could not have persuaded him to write a line. The pitiful thing was that the wings were not large enough--still they were _wings_ to be used in the air of romance, and not legs with which to tread the roads of the commonplace, and he knew it. He had felt them growing ever since he was a boy. It is only a question of the spread of one's feathers, after all, whether one succeeds soaring over mountains with a view of the never-ending Valley of Content below, or whether one keeps on grovelling in the mud."

As Herbert paused a tremulous silence fell upon the group. That he, of all men, should thus penetrate, if not espouse, the cause of failure--the hardest of all things for a man of phenomenal success to comprehend or excuse in his fellows--came as a new note.

"To ill.u.s.trate this theory," he continued, unconscious of the effect he had produced, "I will tell you about a man whom I once came across in one of the studios of Paris, back of the Pantheon. All his life he had determined to be a sculptor--and when I say 'determined' I mean he had thought of nothing else. By day he worked in the atelier, at night he drew from a cast--a custom then of the young sculptors. In the Louvre and in the Luxembourg--out in the gardens of the Tuileries--wherever there was something moulded or cut into form, there at odd hours you could always find this enthusiast. At night too, when the other students were trooping through the Quartier, breaking things or outrunning the gendarmes, this poor devil was working away, doing Ledas and Venuses and groups of nudes, with rearing horses and chariots,--all the trite subjects a young sculptor attempts whose imagination outruns his ability.

"Year after year his things would come up before the jury and be rejected; and they deserved it. Soon it began to dawn on his a.s.sociates, but never on him, that, try as he might, there was something lacking in his artistic make-up. With the master standing over him advising a bit of clay put on here, or a slice taken off there, he had seemed to progress; when, however, he struck out for himself his results were most disheartening. It was during this part of his life that I came to know him. He was then a man of forty, ten years younger than your dead novelist, High-Muck, and, like him, a man of many sorrows. The difference was that all his life my man had been poor; at no time for more than a week had he ever been sure of his bread. As he was an expert moulder and often gratuitously helped his brother sculptors in taking casts of their clay figures, he had often been begged to accept employment at good wages with some of the stucco people, but he had refused and had fought on, preferring starvation to _patisserie_, as he called this kind of work.

"Nor had he, like your novelist, happiness to look back upon. He had married young, as they all do, and there had come a daughter who had grown to be eighteen, and who had been lost in the whirl--slipped in the mud, they said, and the city had rolled over her. And then the wife died and he was alone. The girl had crept up his stairs one night and lay s.h.i.+vering outside his door; he had taken her in, put her to bed, and fed her. Later on her last lover discovered by chance her hiding-place, and in the mould-maker's absence the two had found the earthen pot with the few francs he owned and had spent them. After that he had shut his door in her face. And so the fight went on, his ideal still alive in his heart, his one purpose to give it flight--'soaring over the heads of the millions,' as he put it, 'so that even dullards might take off their hats in recognition.'

"When I again met him he was living in an old, abandoned theatre on the outskirts of Paris, a weird, uncanny ruin--rats everywhere--the scenery hanging in tatters, the stage broken down, the pit filled to the level of the footlights with a ma.s.s of coal--for a dealer in fuels had leased it for this purpose, his carts going in and out of the main entrance.

One of the dressing-rooms over the flies was his studio, reached by a staircase from the old stage entrance. A former tenant had cut a skylight under which my friend worked.

"In answer to his 'Entrez' I pushed open his door and found him in a sculptor's blouse cowering over a small sheet-iron stove on which some food was being cooked. He raised his head, straightened his back, and came toward me--a small, shrunken man now, prematurely old, his two burning eyes looking out from under his ledge of a forehead like coals beneath a half-burnt log, a shock of iron-gray hair sticking straight up from his scalp as would a brush. About his nose, up his cheeks, around his mouth, and especially across his throat, which was free of a cravat, ran pasty wrinkles, like those on a piece of uncooked tripe. Only half-starved men who have lived on greasy soups and sc.r.a.ps from the kitchens have these complexions.

"I describe him thus carefully to you because that first glance of his scarred face had told me his life's story. It is the same with every man who suffers.

"He talked of his work, of the conspiracies that had followed him all his career, shutting him out of his just rewards, while less brilliant men s.n.a.t.c.hed the prizes which should have been his; of his hopes for the future; of the great compet.i.tion soon to come off at Rheims, in which he would compete--not that he had yet put his idea into clay--that was always a mere question of detail with him. Then, as if by the merest accident--something he had quite forgotten, but which he thought might interest me--he told me, with a quickening of his glance and the first smile I had seen cross his pasty face, of a certain statue of his, 'a Masterpiece,' which a great connoisseur had bought for his garden, and which faced one of the open s.p.a.ces of Paris. I could see it any day I walked that way--indeed, if I did not mind, he would go with me--he had been housed all the morning and needed the air.

"I pleaded an excuse and left him, for I knew all about this masterpiece which had been bought by a tradesman and planted in his garden among groups of cast-iron dogs and spouting dolphins, the hedge in front cut low enough for pa.s.sers-by to see the entire collection. Hardly a day elapsed that the poor fellow did not walk by, drinking in the beauty of his work, comforting himself with the effect it produced on the plain people who stopped to admire. Sometimes he would accost them and bring the conversation round to the sculptor, and then abruptly take his leave, they staring at him as he bowed his thanks.

"The following year I again looked him up; his poverty and his courage appealed to me; besides, I intended to help him. When I knocked at his door he did not cry 'Entrez'--he kept still, as if he had not heard me or was out. When I pushed the door open he turned, looked at me for an instant, and resumed his work. Again my eyes took him in--thinner, dryer, less nourished. He was casting the little images you buy from a board carried on a vendor's back.

"Without heeding his silence I at once stated my errand. He should make a statue for my garden; furthermore, his name and address should be plainly cut in the pedestal.

"He thanked me for my order, but he made no more statues, he said. He was now engaged in commercial work. Art was dead. n.o.body cared. Did I remember his great statue--the one in the garden?--his Apollo?--the Greek of modern times? Well, the place had changed hands, and the new owner had carted it away with the cast-iron dogs and the dolphins and ploughed up the lawn to make an artichoke-bed. The masterpiece was no more. 'I found all that was left of my work,' he added, 'on a dirt heap in the rear of his out-house, the head gone and both arms broken short off.'

"His voice wavered and ceased, and it was with some difficulty that he straightened his back, moved his drying plaster casts one side, and offered me the free part of the bench for a seat.

"I remained standing and broke out in protest. I abused the ignorance and jealousy of the people and of the juries--did everything I could, in fact, to rea.s.sure him and pump some hope into him--precisely what you did to your own author, High-Muck. I even agreed to pay in advance for the new statue I had ordered. I told him, too, that if he would come back to the country with me, I would make a place for him in an empty greenhouse, where he could work undisturbed. He only shook his head.

"'What for?' he answered--'for money? I am alone in the world, and it's of no use to me. I am accustomed to being starved. For fame? I have given my life to express the thoughts of my heart and n.o.body would listen. Now it is finished. I will keep them for the good G.o.d--perhaps He will listen.'

"A week later I found him sitting bolt upright in his chair under the skylight, dead. Above in the dull gloom hung a row of plaster models, his own handiwork--fragments of arms and hands with fists clenched ready to strike; queer torsos writhing in pain; queerer masks with hollow eyes. In the grimy light these seemed to have come to life--the torsos leaning over, hunching their shoulders at him as if blaming him for their suffering; the masks mocking at his misery, leering at each other.

It was a grewsome sight, and I did not shake off the memory of the scene for days.

"And so I hold," added Herbert, with a sorrowful shake of his head "that it is neither pride nor suffering that kills men of this cla.s.s. It is because they have failed to reach the pinnacle of their ideals--that goal for which some spirits risk both their lives and their hopes of heaven."

XIV

A WOMAN'S WAY

However serious the talk of the night before--and Herbert's pathetic story of the poor mould-maker was still in our memory when we awoke--the effect was completely dispelled as soon as we began to breathe the air of the out of doors.

The weather helped--another of those caressing Indian-summer days--the sleepy sun with half-closed eyes dozing at you through its lace curtains of mist; every fire out and all the windows wide open.

Lea helped. Never were her sabots so active nor so musical in their scuffle: now hot milk, now fresh coffee, now another crescent--all on the run, and all with a spontaneous, uncontrollable laugh between each serving--all the more unaccountable as of late the dear old woman's face, except at brief intervals, had been as long as an undertaker's.

And Mignon helped!

Helped? Why, she was the whole programme--with another clear, ringing, happy song that came straight from her heart; her head thrown back, her face to the sun as if she would drink in all its warmth and cheer, the coffee-roaster keeping time to the melody.

And it was not many minutes before each private box and orchestra chair in and about the court-yard, as well as the top galleries, were filled with spectators ready for the rise of the curtain. Herbert leaned out over his bedroom sill, one story up; Brierley from the balcony, towel in hand, craned his head in attention; Louis left his seat in the kiosk, where he was at work on a morning sketch of the court, and I abandoned my chair at one of the tables: all listened and all watched for what was going to happen. For happen something certainly must, with our pretty Mignon singing more merrily than ever.

I, being nearest to the footlights, beckoned to old Lea carrying the coffee, and pointed inquiringly to the blissful girl.

"What's the meaning of all this, Lea?--what has happened? Your Mignon seemed joyous enough the other morning when she came from market, but now she is beside herself."

The old woman lowered her voice, and, with a shake of her white cap, answered:

"Don't ask me any questions; I am too happy to tell you any lies and I won't tell you the truth. Ah!--see how cold monsieur's milk is--let me run to Pierre for another"--and she was off; her flying sabots, like the upturned feet of a duck chased to cover, kicking away behind her short skirts.

Lemois, too, had heard the song and, picking up Coco, strolled toward me his fingers caressing the bird, his uneasy glance directed toward the happy girl as he walked, wondering, like the rest of us, at the change in her manner. To watch them together as I have done these many times, the old man smoothing its plumage and Coco rubbing his black beak tenderly against his master's cheek, is to get a deeper insight into our landlord's character and the subtle sympathy which binds the two.

The bird once settled comfortably on his wrist, Lemois looked my way.

"You should get him a mate, monsieur," I called to him in answer to his glance, throwing this out as a general drag-net.

The old man s.h.i.+fted the bird to his shoulder, stopped, and looked down at me.

"He is better without one. Half the trouble in the world comes from wanting mates; the other half comes from not knowing that this is true.

My good Coco is not so stupid"--and he reached up and stroked the bird's crest and neck. "All day long he ponders over what is going on down below him. And just think, monsieur, what _does_ go on down below him in the season! The wrong man and the wrong woman most of the time, and the pressure of the small foot under the table, and the little note slipped under the napkin. Ah!--they don't humbug Coco! He laughs all day to himself--and I laugh too. There is nothing, if you think about it, so comical as life. It is really a Punch-and-Judy show, with one doll whacking away at the other--'Now, will you be good!--Now, will you be good!'--and they are never good. No--no--never a mate for my Coco--never a mate for anybody if I can help it."

"Would you have given the same advice thirty years ago to madame la marquise?" Madame was the one and only subject Lemois ever seemed to approach with any degree of hesitancy. My objective point was, of course, Mignon; but I had opened madame's gate, hoping for a short cut.

"Ah!--madame is quite different," he replied with sudden gravity. "All the rules are broken in the case of a woman of fas.h.i.+on and of rank and of very great wealth. These people do not live for themselves--they are part of the State. But I will tell you one thing, Monsieur High-Muck, though you may not believe it, and that is that Madame la Marquise de la Caux was never so contented as she is at the present moment. She is free now to do as she pleases. Did you hear what Monsieur Le Blanc said last night about the way the work is being pressed? The old marquis would have been a year deciding on a plan; madame will have that villa on its legs and as good as new in a month. You know, of course, that she is coming down this afternoon?"

I knew nothing of the kind, and told him so.

"Yes; she sent me word last night by a mysterious messenger, who left the note and disappeared before I could see him--Lea brought it to me.

You see, madame is most anxious about her flowers for next year, and this afternoon I am going with her to a nursery and to a great garden overlooking the market-place to help her pick them out." Here he caressed his pet again. "No, Monsieur Coco, you will not be allowed down here in the court where your pretty white feathers and your unblemished morals might be tarnished by the dreadful people all about.

You shall go up on your perch; it is much better"--and with a deprecatory wave of his hand he strolled up the court-yard, Coco still nibbling his cheek with his h.o.r.n.y black beak, the old man crooning a little love song as he walked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Just think, monsieur, what does go on below Coco in the season"]

I rose from my chair and began bawling out the good news of madame's expected visit to the occupants of the several windows, the effect being almost as startling as had been Mignon's song.

Instantly plans were cried down at me for her entertainment. Of course she must stay to dinner, our last one for the season! This was carried with a whoop. There must be, too, some kind of a special ceremony when the invitation was delivered. We must greet her at the door--all of us drawn up in a row, with Herbert stepping out of the ranks, saluting like a drum-major, and requesting the "distinguished honor"--and the rest of it: that, too, was carried unanimously. Whatever her gardening costume, it would make no difference, and no excuse on this score would receive a moment's consideration. Madame even in a fisherman's tarpaulins would be welcome--provided only that she was really inside of them.

With the whirl of her motor into the court-yard at dusk, and the breathing of its last wheeze in front of the Marmouset, the plump little woman sprang from her car m.u.f.fled to her dimpled chin in a long waterproof, her two brown, squirrel eyes laughing behind her goggles.

Instantly the importuning began, everybody crowding about her.