A MAN WITH A HISTORY.
The society of the outer salon differed essentially from the society of the inner salon at the Café Procope. It was noisier--it was shabbier--it was smokier. The conversation in the inner salon was of a general character on the whole, and, as one caught sentences of it here and there, seemed for the most part to relate to the literature and news of the day--to the last important paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, to the new drama at the Odéon, or to the article on foreign politics in the Journal des Débats. But in the outer salon the talk was to the last degree shoppy, and overflowed with the argot of the studios. Some few medical students were clustered, it is true, in a corner near the door; but they were so outnumbered by the artists at the upper end of the room, that these latter seemed to hold complete possession, and behaved more like the members of a recognised club than the casual customers of a café. They talked from table to table. They called the waiters by their Christian names. They swaggered up and down the middle of the room with their hats on their heads, their hands in their pockets, and their pipes in their mouths, as coolly as if it were the broad walk of the Luxembourg gardens.
And the appearance of these gentlemen was not less remarkable than their deportment. Their hair, their beards, their clothes, were of the wildest devising. They seemed one and all to have started from a central idea, that central idea being to look as unlike their fellow-men as possible; and thence to have diverged into a variety that was nothing short of infinite. Each man had evidently modelled himself upon his own ideal, and no two ideals were alike. Some were picturesque, some were grotesque; and some, it must be admitted, were rather dirty ideals, into the realization of which no such paltry considerations as those of soap, water, or brushes were permitted to enter.
Here, for instance, were Roundhead crops and flowing locks of Cavalier redundancy--steeple-crowned hats, and Roman cloaks draped bandit-fashion--moustachios frizzed and brushed up the wrong way in the style of Louis XIV.--pointed beards and slouched hats, after the manner of Vandyke---patriarchal beards à la Barbarossa--open collars, smooth chins, and long undulating locks of the Raffaelle type--coats, blouses, paletots of inconceivable cut, and all kinds of unusual colors--in a word, every eccentricity of clothing, short of fancy costume, in which it was practicable for men of the nineteenth century to walk abroad and meet the light of day.
We had no sooner entered this salon, taken possession of a vacant table, and called for coffee, than my companion was beset by a storm of greetings.
"Holà! Müller, where hast thou been hiding these last few centuries, mon gaillard?"
"Tiens! Müller risen from the dead!"
"What news from là bas, old fellow?"
To all which ingenious pleasantries my companion replied in kind--introducing me at the same time to two or three of the nearest speakers. One of these, a dark young man got up in the style of a Byzantine Christ, with straight hair parted down the middle, a bifurcated beard, and a bare throat, was called Eugène Droz. Another--big, burly, warm-complexioned, with bright open blue eyes, curling reddish beard and moustache, slouched hat, black velvet blouse, immaculate linen, and an abundance of rings, chains, and ornaments--was made up in excellent imitation of the well-known portrait of Rubens. This gentleman's name, as I presently learned, was Caesar de Lepany.
When we came in, these two young men, Droz and De Lepany, were discussing, in enthusiastic but somewhat unintelligible language, the merits of a certain Monsieur Lemonnier, of whom, although till that moment ignorant of his name and fame, I at once perceived that he must be some celebrated chef de cuisine.
"He will never surpass that last thing of his," said the Byzantine youth. "Heavens! How smooth it is! How buttery! How pulpy!"
"Ay--and yet with all that lusciousness of quality, he never wants piquancy," added De Lepany.
"I think his greens are apt to be a little raw," interposed Müller, taking part in the conversation.
"Raw!" echoed the first speaker, indignantly. "Eh, mon Dieu! What can you be thinking of! They are almost too hot!"
"But they were not so always, Eugène," said he of the Rubens make-up, with an air of reluctant candor. "It must be admitted that Lemonnier's greens used formerly to be a trifle--just a trifle--raw. Evidently Monsieur Müller does not know how much he has taken to warming them up of late. Even now, perhaps, his olives are a little cold."
"But then, how juicy his oranges are!" exclaimed young Byzantine.
"True--and when you remember that he never washes--!"
"Ah, sacredie! yes--there is the marvel!"
And Monsieur Eugène Droz held up his hands and eyes with all the reverent admiration of a true believer for a particularly dirty dervish.
"Who, in Heaven's name, is this unclean individual who used to like his vegetables underdone, and never washes?" whispered I in Müller's ear.
"What--Lemonnier! You don't mean to say you never heard of Lemonnier?"
"Never, till now. Is he a cook?"
Müller gave me a dig in the ribs that took my breath away.
"Goguenard!" said he. "Lemonnier's an artist--the foremost man of the water-color school. But I wouldn't be too funny if I were you. Suppose you were to burst your jocular vein--there'd be a catastrophe!"
Meanwhile the conversation of Messieurs Droz and Lepany had taken a fresh turn, and attracted a little circle of listeners, among whom I observed an eccentric-looking young man with a club-foot, an enormously long neck, and a head of short, stiff, dusty hair, like the bristles of a blacking-brush.
"Queroulet!" said Lepany, with a contemptuous flourish of his pipe. "Who spoke of Queroulet? Bah!--a miserable plodder, destitute of ideality--a fellow who paints only what he sees, and sees only what is commonplace--a dull, narrow-souled, unimaginative handicraftsman, to whom a tree is just a tree; and a man, a man; and a straw, a straw, and nothing more!"
"That's a very low-souled view to take of art, no doubt," croaked in a grating treble voice the youth with the club-foot; "but if trees and men and straws are not exactly trees and men and straws, and are not to be represented as trees and men and straws, may I inquire what else they are, and how they are to be pictorially treated?"
"They must be ideally treated, Monsieur Valentin," replied Lepany, majestically.
"No doubt; but what will they be like when they are ideally treated? Will they still, to the vulgar eye, be recognisable for trees and men and straws?"
"I should scarcely have supposed that Monsieur Valentin would jest upon such a subject as a canon of the art he professes," said Lepany, becoming more and more dignified.
"I am not jesting," croaked Monsieur Valentin; "but when I hear men of your school talk so much about the Ideal, I (as a realist) always want to know what they themselves understand by the phrase."
"Are you asking me for my definition of the Ideal, Monsieur Valentin?"
"Well, if it's not giving you too much trouble--yes."
Lepany, who evidently relished every chance of showing off, fell into a picturesque attitude and prepared to hold forth. Valentin winked at one or two of his own clique, and lit a cigar.
"You ask me," began Lepany, "to define the Ideal--in other words, to define the indefinite, which alas! whether from a metaphysical, a philosophical, or an aesthetic point of view, is a task transcending immeasurably my circumscribed powers of expression."
"Gracious heavens!" whispered Müller in my ear. "He must have been reared from infancy on words of five syllables!"
"What shall I say?" pursued Lepany. "Shall I say that the Ideal is, as it were, the Real distilled and sublimated in the alembic of the imagination? Shall I say that the Ideal is an image projected by the soul of genius upon the background of the universe? That it is that dazzling, that unimaginable, that incommunicable goal towards which the suns in their orbits, the stars in their courses, the spheres with all their harmonies, have been chaotically tending since time began! Ideal, say you? Call it ideal, soul, mind, matter, art, eternity,... what are they all but words? What are words but the weak strivings of the fettered soul that fain would soar to those empyrean heights where Truth, and Art, and Beauty are one and indivisible? Shall I say all this..."
"My dear fellow, you have said it already--you needn't say it again," interrupted Valentin.
"Ay; but having said it--having expressed myself, perchance with some obscurity...."
"With the obscurity of Erebus!" said, very deliberately, a fat student in a blouse.
"Monsieur!" exclaimed De Lepany, measuring the length and breadth of the fat student with a glance of withering scorn.
The Byzantine was no less indignant.
"Don't heed them, mon ami!" he cried, enthusiastically. "Thy definition is sublime-eloquent!"
"Nay," said Valentin, "we concede that Monsieur de Lepany is sublime; we recognise with admiration that he is eloquent; but we submit that he is wholly unintelligible."
And having delivered this parting shot, the club-footed realist slipped his arm through the arm of the fat student, and went off to a distant table and a game at dominoes.
Then followed an outburst of offended idealism. His own clique crowded round Lepany as the champion of their school. They shook hands with him. They embraced him. They fooled him to the top of his bent. Presently, being not only as good-natured as he was conceited, but (rare phenomenon in the Quartier Latin!) a rich fellow into the bargain, De Lepany called for champagne and treated his admirers all around.
In the midst of the chatter and bustle which this incident occasioned, a pale, earnest-looking man of about five-and-thirty, coming past our table on his way out of the Café, touched Müller on the arm, bent down, and said quietly:--
"Müller, will you do me a favor!"
"A hundred, Monsieur," replied my companion; half rising, and with an air of unusual respect and alacrity.
"Thanks, one will be enough. Do you see that man yonder, sitting alone in the corner, with his back to the light?"
"I do."
"Good--don't look at him again, for fear of attracting his attention. I have been trying for the last half hour to get a sketch of his head, but I think he suspected me. Anyhow he moved so often, and so hid his face with his hands and the newspaper, that I was completely baffled. Now it is a remarkable head--just the head I have been wanting for my Marshal Romero--and if, with your rapid pencil and your skill in seizing expression, you could manage this for me...."
"I will do my best," said Müller.
"A thousand thanks. I will go now; for when I am gone he will be off his guard. You will find me in the den up to three o'clock. Adieu."
Saying which, the stranger passed on, and went out.
"That's Flandrin!" said Müller.
"Really?" I said. "Flandrin! And you know him?"
But in truth I only answered thus to cover my own ignorance; for I knew little at that time of modern French art, and I had never even heard the name of Flandrin before.
"Know him!" echoed Müller. "I should think so. Why, I worked in his studio for nearly two years."
And then he explained to me that this great painter (great even then, though as yet appreciated only in certain choice Parisian circles, and not known out of France) was at work upon a grand historical subject connected with the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands--the execution of Egmont and Horn, in short, in the great square before the Hôtel de Ville in Brussels.
"But the main point now," said Müller, "is to get the sketch--and how? Confound the fellow! while he keeps his back to the light and his head down like that, the thing is impossible. Anyhow I can't do it without an accomplice. You must help me."
"I! What can I do?"
"Go and sit near him--speak to him--make him look up--keep him, if possible, for a few minutes in conversation--nothing easier."
"Nothing easier, perhaps, if I were you; but, being only myself, few things more difficult!"
"Nevertheless, my dear boy, you must try, and at once. Hey --presto!--away!"
Placed where we were, the stranger was not likely to have observed us; for we had come into the room from behind the corner in which he was sitting, and had taken our places at a table which he could not have seen without shifting his own position. So, thus peremptorily commanded, I rose; slipped quietly back into the inner salon, made a pretext of looking at the clock over the door; and came out again, as if alone and looking for a vacant seat.
The table at which he had placed himself was very small--only just big enough to stand in a corner and hold a plate and a coffee-cup; but it was supposed to be large enough for two, and there were evidently two chairs belonging to it. On one of these, being alone, the stranger had placed his overcoat and a small black bag. I at once saw and seized my opportunity.
"Pardon, Monsieur," I said, very civilly, "will you permit me to hang these things up?"
He looked up, frowned, and said abruptly:--
"Why, Monsieur?"
"That I may occupy this chair."
He glanced round; saw that there was really no other vacant; swept off the bag and coat with his own hands; hung them on a peg overhead; dropped back into his former attitude, and went on reading.
"I regret to have given you the trouble, Monsieur," I said, hoping to pave the way to a conversation.
But a little quick, impatient movement of the hand was his only reply. He did not even raise his head. He did not even lift his eyes from the paper.
I called for a demi-tasse and a cigar; then took out a note-book and pencil, assumed an air of profound abstraction, and affected to become absorbed in calculations.
In the meanwhile, I could not resist furtively observing the appearance of this man whom a great artist had selected as his model for one of the darkest characters of mediæval history.
He was rather below than above the middle height; spare and sinewy; square in the shoulders and deep in the chest; with close-clipped hair and beard; grizzled moustache; high cheek-bones; stern impassive features, sharply cut; and deep-set restless eyes, quick and glancing as the eyes of a monkey. His face, throat, and hands were sunburnt to a deep copper-color, as if cast in bronze. His age might have been from forty-five to fifty. He wore a thread-bare frock-coat buttoned to the chin; a stiff black stock revealing no glimpse of shirt-collar; a well-worn hat pulled low over his eyes; and trousers of dark blue cloth, worn very white and shiny at the knees, and strapped tightly down over a pair of much-mended boots.
The more I looked at him, the less I was surprised that Flandrin should have been struck by his appearance. There was an air of stern poverty and iron resolution about the man that arrested one's attention at first sight. The words "ancien militaire" were written in every furrow of his face; in every seam and on every button of his shabby clothing. That he had seen service, missed promotion, suffered unmerited neglect (or, it might be, merited disgrace), seemed also not unlikely.
Watching him as he sat, half turned away, half hidden by the newspaper he was reading, one elbow resting on the table, one brown, sinewy hand supporting his chin and partly concealing his mouth, I told myself that here, at all events, was a man with a history--perhaps with a very dark history. What were the secrets of his past? What had he done? What had he endured? I would give much to know.
My coffee and cigar being brought, I asked for the Figaro, and holding the paper somewhat between the stranger and myself, watched him with increasing interest.
I now began to suspect that he was less interested in his own newspaper than he appeared to be, and that his profound abstraction, like my own, was assumed. An indefinable something in the turn of his head seemed to tell me that his attention was divided between whatever might be going forward in the room and what he was reading. I cannot describe what that something was; but it gave me the impression that he was always listening. When the outer door opened or shut, he stirred uneasily, and once or twice looked sharply round to see what new-comer entered the café. Was he anxiously expecting some one who did not come? Or was he dreading the appearance of some one whom he wished to avoid? Might he not be a political refugee? Might he not be a spy?
"There is nothing of interest in the papers to-day, Monsieur," said, making another effort to force him into conversation.
He affected not to hear me.
I drew my chair a little nearer, and repeated the observation.
He frowned impatiently, and without looking up, replied:--
"Eh, mon Dieu, Monsieur!--when there is a dearth of news!"
"There need not, even so, be a dearth of wit. Figaro is as heavy to-day as a government leader in the Moniteur."
He shrugged his shoulders and moved slightly round, apparently to get a better light upon what he was reading, but in reality to turn still more away from me. The gesture of avoidance was so marked, that with the best will in the world, it would have been impossible for me to address him again. I therefore relapsed into silence.
Presently I saw a sudden change flash over him.
Now, in turning away from myself, he had faced round towards a narrow looking-glass panel which reflected part of the opposite side of the room; and chancing, I suppose, to lift his eyes from the paper, he had seen something that arrested his attention. His head was still bent; but I could see that his eyes were riveted upon the mirror. There was alertness in the tightening of his hand before his mouth--in the suspension of his breathing.
Then he rose abruptly, brushed past me as if I were not there, and crossed to where Müller, sketch-book in hand, was in the very act of taking his portrait.
I jumped up, almost involuntarily, and followed him. Müller, with an unsuccessful effort to conceal his confusion, thrust the book into his pocket.
"Monsieur," said the stranger, in a low, resolute voice, "I protest against what you have been doing. You have no right to take my likeness without my permission."
"Pardon, Monsieur, I--I beg to assure you--" stammered Müller.
"That you intended no offence? I am willing to suppose so. Give me up the sketch, and I am content."
"Give up the sketch!" echoed Müller.
"Precisely, Monsieur."
"Nay--but if, as an artist, I have observed that which leads me to desire a--a memorandum--let us say of the pose and contour of a certain head," replied Müller, recovering his self-possession, "it is not likely that I shall be disposed to part from my memorandum."
"How, Monsieur! you refuse?"
"I am infinitely sorry, but--"
"But you refuse?"
"I certainly cannot comply with Monsieur's request."
The stranger, for all his bronzing, grew pale with rage.
"Do not compel me, Monsieur, to say what I must think of your conduct, if you persist in this determination," he said fiercely.
Müller smiled, but made no reply.
"You absolutely refuse to yield up the sketch?"
"Absolutely."
"Then, Monsieur, c'est une infamie--et vous êtes un lâche!"
But the last word had scarcely hissed past his lips before Müller dashed his coffee dregs full in the stranger's face.
In one second, the table was upset--blows were exchanged--Müller, pinned against the wall with his adversary's hands upon his throat, was striking out with the desperation of a man whose strength is overmatched--and the whole room was in a tumult.
In vain I attempted to fling myself between them. In vain the waiters rushed to and fro, imploring "ces Messieurs" to interpose. In vain a stout man pushed his way through the bystanders, exclaiming angrily:--
"Desist, Messieurs! Desist, in the name of the law! I am the proprietor of this establishment--I forbid this brawling--I will have you both arrested! Messieurs, do you hear?"
Suddenly the flush of rage faded out of Müller's face. He gasped--became livid. Lepany, Droz, myself, and one or two others, flew at the stranger and dragged him forcibly back.
"Assassin!" I cried, "would you murder him?"
He flung us off, as a baited bull flings off a pack of curs. For myself, though I received only a backhanded blow on the chest, I staggered as if I had been struck with a sledgehammer.
Müller, half-fainting, dropped into a chair.
There was a tramp and clatter at the door--a swaying and parting of the crowd.
"Here are the sergents de ville!" cried a trembling waiter.
"He attacked me first," gasped Müller. "He has half strangled me."
"Qu'est ce que ça me fait!" shouted the enraged proprietor. "You are a couple of canaille! You have made a scandal in my Café. Sergents, arrest both these gentlemen!"
The police--there were two of them, with their big cocked hats on their heads and their long sabres by their sides--pushed through the circle of spectators. The first laid his hand on Müller's shoulder; the second was about to lay his hand on mine, but I drew back.
"Which is the other?" said he, looking round.
"Sacredie!" stammered the proprietor, "he was here--there--not a moment ago!"
"Diable!" said the sergent de ville, stroking his moustache, and staring fiercely about him. "Did no one see him go?"
There was a chorus of exclamations--a rush to the inner salon--to the door--to the street. But the stranger was nowhere in sight; and, which was still more incomprehensible, no one had seen him go!
"Mais, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the proprietor, mopping his head and face violently with his pocket-handkerchief, "was the man a ghost, that he should vanish into the air?"
"Parbleu! a ghost with muscles of iron," said Müller. "Talk of the strength of a madman--he has the strength of a whole lunatic asylum!"
"He gave me a most confounded blow in the ribs, anyhow!" said Lepany.
"And nearly broke my arm," added Eugène Droz.
"And has given me a pain in my chest for a week," said I, in chorus.
"If he wasn't a ghost," observed the fat student sententiously, "he must certainly be the devil."
The sergents de ville grinned.
"Do we, then, arrest this gentleman?" asked the taller and bigger of the two, his hand still upon my friend's shoulder.
But Müller laughed and shook his head.
"What!" said he, "arrest a man for resisting the devil? Nonsense, mes amis, you ought to canonize me. What says Monsieur le propriétaire?"
Monsieur the proprietor smiled.
"I am willing to let the matter drop," he replied, "on the understanding that Monsieur Müller was not really the first offender."
"Foi d'honneur! He insulted me--I threw some coffee in his face--he flung himself upon me like a tiger, and almost choked me, as all here witnessed. And for what? Because I did him the honor to make a rough pencilling of his ugly face ... Mille tonnerres!--the fellow has stolen my sketch-book!"