THE FETE AT COURBEVOIE.
"Halte là! I thought I should catch you about this time! They've been giving you unconscionable good measure to-day, though, haven't they? I thought Bollinet's lecture was always over by three; and here I've been moralizing on the flight of Time for more than twenty minutes."
So saying, Müller, having stopped me as I was coming down the steps of the Hôtel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles out its waters.
"I thought you'd like to know about the Tapottes, you see--and I was dying to tell you. I went to your rooms last night between eight and nine, and you were out; so I thought the only sure way was to come here--I know you never miss Bollinet's Lectures. Well, as I was saying, the Tapottes.... Oh, mon cher! I am your debtor for life in that matter of Milord Smithfield. It has been the making of me. What do you think? Tapotte is not only going to sit for a companion half-length to Madame's portrait, but he has given me a commission for half-a-dozen ancestors. Fancy--half-a-dozen illustrious dead-and-done Tapottes! What a scope for the imagination! What a bewildering vista of billets de banque! I feel--ah, mon ami! I feel that the wildest visions of my youth are about to be realized, and that I shall see my tailor's bill receipted before I die!"
"I'm delighted," said I, "that Tapotte has turned up a trump card."
"A trump card? Say a California--a Pactolus--a Golden Calf. Nay, hath not Tapotte two golden calves? Is he not of the precious metal all compact? Stands he not, in the amiable ripeness of his years, a living representative of the Golden Age? 'O bella età dell' oro!'"
And to my horror, he then and there executed a frantic pas seul.
"Gracious powers!" I exclaimed. "Are you mad?"
"Yes--raving mad. Have you any objection?"
"But, my dear fellow--in the face of day--in the streets of Paris! We shall get taken up by the police!"
"Then suppose we get out of the streets of Paris? I'm tired enough, Heaven knows, of cultivating the arid soil of the Pavé. See, it's a glorious afternoon. Let's go somewhere."
"With all my heart. Where?"
"Ah, mon Dieu! ça m'est égal. Enghien--Vincennes--St. Cloud--Versailles ... anywhere you like. Most probably there's a fête going on somewhere, if we only knew where,"
"Can't we find out?"
"Oh, yes--we can drop into a Café and look at the Petites Affiches; only that entails an absinthe; or we can go into the nearest Omnibus Bureau and see the notices on the walls, which will be cheaper."
So we threaded our way along the narrow thoroughfares of the Ile de la Cité, and came presently to an Omnibus Bureau on the Quai de l'Horloge, overlooking the Pont Neuf and the river. Here the first thing we saw was a flaming placard setting forth the pleasures and attractions of the great annual fête at Courbevoie; a village on the banks of the Seine, a mile or two beyond Neuilly.
"Voilà, notre affaire!" said Müller, gaily. "We can't do better than steer straight for Courbevoie."
Saying which, he hailed a passing fiacre and bade the coachman drive to the Embarcadère of the Rive Droite.
"We shall amuse ourselves famously at Courbevoie," he said, as we rattled over the stones. "We'll dine at the Toison d'Or--an excellent little restaurant overlooking the river; and if you're fond of angling, we can hire a punt and catch our own fish for dinner. Then there will be plenty of fiddling and dancing at the guingettes and gardens in the evening. By the way, though, I've no money! That is to say, none worth speaking of--voilà!... one franc, one piece of fifty centimes, another of twenty centimes, and some sous. I hope your pockets are better lined than mine."
"Not much, I fear," I replied, pulling out my porte-monnaie, and emptying the contents into my hand. They amounted to nine francs and seventy-five centimes.
"Parbleu! we've just eleven francs and a half between us," said Müller. "A modest sum-total; but we must make it as elastic as we can. Let me see, there'll be a franc for the fiacre, four francs for our return tickets, four for our dinner, and two and a half to spend as we like in the fair. Well, we can't commit any great extravagance with that amount of floating capital."
"Better turn back and go to my rooms for some more money?" I exclaimed. "I've two Napoleons in my desk."
"No, no--we should miss the three-fifty train, and not get another till between five and six."
"But we shall have no fun if we have no money!"
"I dissent entirely from that proposition, Monsieur Englishman. I have always had plenty of fun, and I have been short of cash since the hour of my birth. Come, it shall be my proud task to-day to prove to you the pleasures of impecuniosity!"
So with our eleven francs and a half we went on to the station, and took our places for Courbevoie.
We travelled, of course, by third class in the open wagons; and it so happened that in our compartment we had the company of three pretty little chattering grisettes, a fat countrywoman with a basket, and a quiet-looking elderly female with her niece. These last wore bonnets, and some kind of slight mourning. They belonged evidently to the small bourgeoise class, and sat very quietly in the corner of the carriage, speaking to no one. The three grisettes, however, kept up an incessant fire of small talk and squabble.
"I was on this very line last Sunday," said one. "I went with Julie to Asnières, and we were so gay! I wonder if it will be very gay at Courbevoie."
"Je m'en doute," replied another, whom they called Lolotte. "I came to one of the Courbevoie fêtes last spring, and it was not gay at all. But then, to be sure, I was with Edouard, and he is as dull as the first day in Lent. Where were you last Sunday, Adéle?"
"I did not go beyond the barriers. I went to the Cirque with my cousin, and we dined in the Palais Royal. We enjoyed ourselves so much! You know my cousin?"
"Ah! yes--the little fellow with the curly hair and the whiskers, who waits for you at the corner when we leave the workshop."
"The same--Achille."
"Your Achille is nice-looking," said Mademoiselle Lolotte, with a somewhat critical air. "It is a pity he squints."
"He does not squint, mam'selle."
"Oh, ma chère! I appeal to Caroline."
"I am not sure that he actually squints," said Mam'selle Caroline, speaking for the first time; "but he certainly has one eye larger than the other, and of quite a different color."
"Tiens, Caroline--it seems to me that you look very closely into the eyes of young men," exclaims Adèle, turning sharply upon this new assailant.
"At all events you admit that Caroline is right," cries Lolotte, triumphantly.
"I admit nothing of the kind. I say that you are both very ill-natured, and that you say what is not true. As for you, Lolotte, I don't believe you ever had the chance of seeing a young man's eyes turned upon you, or you would not be so pleased with the attentions of an old one."
"An old one!" shrieked Mam'selle Lolotte. "Ah, mon Dieu! Is a man old at forty-seven? Monsieur Durand is in the prime of life, and there isn't a girl in the Quartier who would not be proud of his attentions!"
"He's sixty, if an hour," said the injured Adèle. "And as for you, Caroline, who have never had a beau in your life...."
"Ciel! what a calumny!--I--never had a ... Holy Saint Geneviève! why, it was only last Thursday week...."
Here the train stopped at the Asnières station, and two privates of the Garde Impériale got into the carriage. The horizon cleared as if by magic. The grisettes suddenly forgot their differences, and began to chat quite amicably. The soldiers twirled their mustachios, listened, smiled, and essayed to join in the conversation. In a few minutes all was mirth and flirtation.
Meanwhile Müller was casting admiring glances on the young girl in the corner, whilst the fat countrywoman, pursing up her mouth, and watching the grisettes and soldiers, looked the image of offended virtue.
"Dame! Madame," she said, addressing herself to the old lady in the bonnet, "girls usen't to be so forward in the days when you and I were young!"
To which the old lady in the bonnet, blandly smiling, replied:--
"Beautiful, for the time of year."
"Eh? For the time of year? Dame! I don't see that the time of year has anything to do with it," exclaimed the fat countrywoman.
Here the young girl in the corner, blushing and smiling very sweetly, interposed with--"Pardon, Madame--my aunt is somewhat deaf. Pray, excuse her."
Whereupon the old lady, watching the motion of her niece's lips, added--
"Ah, yes--yes! I am a poor, deaf old woman--I don't understand what you say. Talk to my little Marie, here--she can answer you."
"I, for one, desire nothing better than permission to talk to Mademoiselle," said Müller, gallantly.
"Mais, Monsieur..."
"Mademoiselle, with Madame her aunt, are going to the fête at Courbevoie?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"The river is very pretty thereabouts, and the walks through the meadows are delightful."
"Indeed, Monsieur!"
"Mademoiselle does not know the place?"
"No, Monsieur."
"Ah, if I might only be permitted to act as guide! I know every foot of the ground about Courbevoie."
Mademoiselle Marie blushed again, looked down, and made no reply.
"I am a painter," continued Müller; "and I have sketched all the windings of the Seine from Neuilly to St. Germains. My friend here is English--he is a student of medicine, and speaks excellent French."
"What is the gentleman saying, mon enfant?" asked the old lady, somewhat anxiously.
"Monsieur says that the river is very pretty about Courbevoie, ma tante," replied Mademoiselle Marie, raising her voice.
"Ah! ah! and what else?"
"Monsieur is a painter."
"A painter? Ah, dear me! it's an unhealthy occupation. My poor brother Pierre might have been alive to this day if he had taken to any other line of business! You must take great care of your lungs, young man. You look delicate."
Müller laughed, shook his head, and declared at the top of his voice that he had never had a day's illness in his life.
Here the pretty niece again interposed.
"Ah, Monsieur," she said, "my aunt does not understand....My--my uncle Pierre was a house-painter."
"A very respectable occupation, Mademoiselle," replied Müller, politely. "For my own part, I would sooner paint the insides of some houses than the outsides of some people."
At this moment the train began to slacken pace, and the steam was let off with a demoniac shriek.
"Tiens, mon enfant," said the old lady, turning towards her niece with affectionate anxiety. "I hope you have not taken cold."
The excellent soul believed that it was Mademoiselle Marie who sneezed.
And now the train had stopped--the porters were running along the platform, shouting "Courbevoie! Courbevoie!"--the passengers were scrambling out en masse--and beyond the barrier one saw a confused crowd of charrette and omnibus-drivers, touters, fruit-sellers, and idlers of every description. Müller handed out the old lady and the niece; the fat countrywoman scrambled up into a kind of tumbril driven by a boy in sabots; the grisettes and soldiers walked off together; and the tide of holiday-makers, some on foot, some in hired vehicles, set towards the village. In the meanwhile, what with the crowd on the platform and the crowd outside the barrier, and what with the hustling and pushing at the point where the tickets were taken, we lost sight of the old lady and her niece.
"What the deuce has become of ma tante?" exclaimed Müller, looking round.
But neither ma tante nor Mademoiselle Marie were anywhere to be seen. I suggested that they must have gone on in the omnibus or taken a charrette, and so have passed us unperceived.
"And, after all," I added, "we didn't want to enter upon an indissoluble union with them for the rest of the day. Ma tante's deafness is not entertaining, and la petite Marie has nothing to say."
"La petite Marie is uncommonly pretty, though," said Müller. "I mean to dance a quadrille with her by-and-by, I promise you."
"A la bonne heure! We shall be sure to chance upon them again before long."
We had come by this time to a group of pretty villa-residences with high garden walls and little shady side-lanes leading down to the river. Then came a church and more houses; then an open Place; and suddenly we found ourselves in the midst of the fair.
It was just like any other of the hundred and one fêtes that take place every summer in the environs of Paris. There was a merry-go-round and a greasy pole; there was a juggler who swallowed knives and ribbons; there were fortune-tellers without number; there were dining-booths, and drinking-booths, and dancing-booths; there were acrobats, organ-boys with monkeys, and Savoyards with white mice; there were stalls for the sale of cakes, fruit, sweetmeats, toys, combs, cheap jewelry, glass, crockery, boots and shoes, holy-water vessels, rosaries, medals, and little colored prints of saints and martyrs; there were brass bands, and string bands, and ballad-singers everywhere; and there was an atmosphere compounded of dust, tobacco-smoke, onions, musk, and every objectionable perfume under heaven.
"Dine at the Restaurant de l'Empire, Messieurs," shouted a shabby touter in a blouse, thrusting a greasy card into our faces. "Three dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and a band of music, for one franc-fifty. The cheapest dinner in the fair!"
"The cheapest dinner in the fair is at the Belle Gabrielle!" cried another. "We'll give you for the same money soup, fish, two dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and take your photograph into the bargain!"
"Bravo! mon vieux--you first poison them with your dinner, and then provide photographs for the widows and children," retorts touter number one. "That's justice, anyhow."
Whereupon touter number two shrieks out a torrent of abuse, and we push on, leaving them to settle their differences after their own fashion.
At the next booth we are accosted by a burly fellow daubed to the eyes with red and blue paint, and dressed as an Indian chief.
"Entrez, entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames" he cries, flourishing a war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each, and an opportunity that will never occur again!"
"Only fifty centimes!" shouts another public orator; "the most ingenious little machine ever invented! Goes into the waistcoat pocket--is wound up every twenty-four hours--tells the day of the month, the day of the year, the age of the moon, the state of the Bourse, the bank rate of discount, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, the price of new-laid eggs in Paris and the provinces, the rate of mortality in the Fee-jee islands, and the state of your sweetheart's affections!"
A little further on, by dint of much elbowing, we made our way into a crowded booth where, for the modest consideration of two sous per head, might be seen a Boneless Youth and an Ashantee King. The performances were half over when we went in. The Boneless Youth had gone through his feats of agility, and was lying on a mat in a corner of the stage, the picture of limp incapability. The Ashantee monarch was just about to make his appearance. Meanwhile, a little man in fleshings and a cocked hat addressed the audience.
"Messieurs and Mesdames--I have the honor to announce that Caraba Radokala, King of Ashantee, will next appear before you. This terrific native sovereign was taken captive by that famous Dutch navigator, the Mynheer Van Dunk, in his last voyage round the globe. Van Dunk, having brought his prisoner to Europe in an iron cage, sold him to the English government in 1840; who sold him again to Milord Barnum, the great American philanthropist, in 1842; who sold him again to Franconi of the Cirque Olympique; who finally sold him to me. At the time of his capture, Caraba Radokala was the most treacherous, barbarous, and sanguinary monster upon record. He had three hundred and sixty-five wives--a wife, you observe, for every day in the year. He lived exclusively upon human flesh, and consumed, when in good health, one baby per diem. His palace in Ashantee was built entirely of the skulls and leg-bones of his victims. He is now, however, much less ferocious; and, though he feeds on live pigeons, rabbits, dogs, mice, and the like, he has not tasted human flesh since his captivity. He is also heavily ironed. The distinguished company need therefore entertain no apprehensions. Pierre--draw the bolt, and let his majesty loose!"
A savage roar was now heard, followed by a rattling of chains. Then the curtains were suddenly drawn back, and the Ashantee king--crowned with a feather head-dress, loaded with red and blue war-paint, and chained from ankle to ankle--bounded on the stage.
Seeing the audience before him, he uttered a terrific howl. The front rows were visibly agitated. Several young women faintly screamed.
The little man in the cocked hat rushed to the front, protesting that the ladies had no reason to be alarmed. Caraba Radokala, if not wantonly provoked, was now quite harmless--a little irritable, perhaps, from being waked too suddenly--would be as gentle as a lamb, if given something to eat:--"Pierre, quiet his majesty with a pigeon!"
Pierre, a lank lad in motley, hereupon appeared with a live pigeon, which immediately escaped from his hands and perched on the top of the proscenium. Caraba Radokala yelled; the little man in the cocked hat raved; and Pierre, in default of more pigeons, contritely reappeared with a lump of raw beef, into which his majesty ravenously dug his royal teeth. The pigeon, meanwhile, dressed its feathers and looked complacently down, as if used to the incident.
"Having fed, Caraba Radokala will now be quite gentle and good-humored," said the showman. "If any lady desires to shake hands with him, she may do so with perfect safety. Will any lady embrace the opportunity?"
A faint sound of tittering was heard in various parts of the booth; but no one came forward.
"Will no lady be persuaded? Well, then, is there any gentleman present who speaks Ashantee?"
Müller gave me a dig with his elbow, and started to his feet.
"Yes," he replied, loudly. "I do."
Every head was instantly turned in our direction.
The showman collapsed with astonishment. Even the captive, despite his ignorance of the French tongue, looked considerably startled.
"Comment!" stammered the cocked hat. "Monsieur speaks Ashantee?"
"Fluently."
"Is it permitted to inquire how and when monsieur acquired this very unusual accomplishment?"
"I have spoken Ashantee from my infancy," replied Müller, with admirable aplomb. "I was born at sea, brought up in an undiscovered island, twice kidnapped by hostile tribes before attaining the age of ten years, and have lived among savage nations all my life."
A murmur of admiration ran through the audience, and Müller became, for the time, an object of livelier interest than Caraba Radokala himself. Seeing this, the indignant monarch executed a warlike pas, and rattled his chains fiercely.
"In that case, monsieur, you had better come upon the stage, and speak to his majesty," said the showman reluctantly.
"With all the pleasure in life."
"But I warn you that his temper is uncertain."
"Bah!" said Müller, working his way round through the crowd, "I'm not afraid of his temper."
"As monsieur pleases--but, if monsieur offends him, I will not be answerable for the consequences."
"All right--give us a hand up, mon vieux!" And Muller, having clambered upon the stage, made a bow to the audience and a salaam to his majesty.
"Chickahominy chowdar bang," said he, by way of opening the conversation.
The ex-king of Ashantee scowled, folded his arms, and maintained a haughty silence.
"Hic hac horum, high cockalorum," continued Müller, with exceeding suavity.
The captive monarch stamped impatiently, ground his teeth, but still made no reply.
"Monsieur had better not aggravate him," said the showman. "On the contrary--I am overwhelming him with civilities Now observe--I condole with him upon his melancholy position. I inquire after his wives and children; and I remark how uncommonly well he is looking."
And with this, he made another salaam, smiled persuasively, and said--
"Alpha, beta, gamma, delta--chin-chin--Potz tausend!--Erin-go-bragh!"
"Borriobooloobah!" shrieked his majesty, apparently stung to desperation.
"Rocofoco!" retorted Müller promptly.
But as if this last was more than any Ashantee temper could bear, Caraba Rodokala clenched both his fists, set his teeth hard, and charged down upon Müller like a wild elephant. Being met, however, by a well-planted blow between the eyes, he went down like a ninepin--picked himself up,--rushed in again, and, being forcibly seized and held back by the cocked hat, Pierre of the pigeons, and a third man who came tumbling up precipitately from somewhere behind the stage, vented his fury, in a torrent of very highly civilized French oaths.
"Eh, sacredieu!" he cried, shaking his fist in Müller's face, "I've not done with you yet, diable de galérien!"
Whereupon there burst forth a general roar--a roar like the "inextinguishable laughter" of Olympus.
"Tiens!" said Müller, "his majesty speaks French almost as well as I speak Ashantee!"
"Bourreau! Brigand! Assassin!" shrieked his Ferocity, as his friends hustled him off the stage.
The curtains then fell together again; and the audience, still laughing vociferously, dispersed with cries of "Vive Caraba Rodokala!" "Kind remembrances to the Queens of Ashantee!" "What's the latest news from home?" "Borriobooloo-bah--ah--ah!"
Elbowing our way out with the crowd, we now plunged once more into the press of the fair. Here our old friends the dancing dogs of the Champs Elysées, and the familiar charlatan of the Place du Châtelet with his chariot and barrel-organ, transported us from Ashantee to Paris. Next we came to a temporary shooting-gallery, adorned over the entrance with a spirited cartoon of a Tyrolean sharpshooter; and then to an exhibition of cosmoramas; and presently to a weighing machine, in which a great, rosy-cheeked, laughing Normandy peasant girl, with her high cap, blue skirt, massive gold cross and heavy ear-rings, was in the act of being weighed.
"Tiens! Mam'selle est joliment solide!" remarks a saucy bystander, as the owner of the machine piles on weight after weight.
"Perhaps if I had no more brains than m'sieur, I should weigh as light!" retorts the damsel, with a toss of her high cap.
"Pardon! it is not a question of brains--it is a question of hearts," interposes an elderly exquisite in a white hat. "Mam'selle has captured so many that she is completely over weighted."
"Twelve stone six ounces," pronounces the owner of the machine, adjusting the last weight.
Whereupon there is a burst of ironical applause, and the big paysanne, half laughing, half angry, walks off, exclaiming, "Eh bien! tant mieux! I've no mind to be a scarecrow--moi!"
By this time we have both had enough of the fair, and are glad to make our way out of the crowd and down to the riverside. Here we find lovers strolling in pairs along the towing-path; family groups pic-nicking in the shade; boats and punts for hire, and a swimming-match just coming off, of which all that is visible are two black heads bobbing up and down along the middle of the stream.
"And now, mon ami, what do you vote for?" asks Müller. "Boating or fishing? or both? or neither?"
"Both, if you like--but I never caught anything in my life,"
"The pleasure of fishing, I take it," says Müller, "is not in the fish you catch, but in the fish you miss. The fish you catch is a poor little wretch, worth neither the trouble of landing, cooking, nor eating; but the fish you miss is always the finest fellow you ever saw in your life!"
"Allons donc! I know, then, which of us two will have most of the pleasure to-day," I reply, laughing. "But how about the expense?"
To which Müller, with a noble recklessness, answers:--
"Oh, hang the expense! Here, boatman! a boat à quatre rames, and some fishing-tackle--by the hour."
Now it was undoubtedly a fine sentiment this of Müller's, and had we but fetched my two Napoleons before starting, I should have applauded it to the echo; but when I considered that something very nearly approaching to a franc had already filtered out of our pockets in passing through the fair, and that the hour of dinner was looming somewhat indefinitely in the distance, I confess that my soul became disquieted within me.
"Don't forget, for heaven's sake," I said, "that we must keep something for dinner!"
"My dear fellow," he replied, "I have already a tremendous appetite for dinner--that is something."
After this, I resigned myself to whatever might happen.
We then rowed up the river for about a mile beyond Courbevoie. moored our boat to a friendly willow, put our fishing-tackle together, and composed ourselves for the gentle excitement that waits upon the gudgeon and the minnow.
"I haven't yet had a single nibble," said Müller, when we had been sitting to our work for something less than ten minutes.
"Hush!" I said. "You mustn't speak, you know."
"True--I had forgotten. I'll sing instead. Fishes, I have been told, are fond of music.
'Fanfan, je vous aimerais bien;
Contre vous je n'ai nul caprice;
Vous êtes gentil, j'en convien....'"
"Come, now!" I exclaimed pettishly, "this is really too bad. I had a bite--a most decided bite--and if you had only kept quiet"....
"Nonsense, my dear fellow! I tell you again--and I have it on the best authority--fishes like music. Did you never hear of Arion! Have you forgotten about the Syrens? Believe me, your gudgeon nibbled because I sang him to the surface--just as the snakes come out for the song of the snake-charmer. I'll try again!"
And with this he began:--
"Jeannette est une brune
Qui demeure à Pantin,
Où toute sa fortune
Est un petit jardin!"
"Well, if you go on like that, all I have to say is, that not a fish will come within half a mile of our bait," said I, with tranquil despair.
"Alas! mon cher, I am grieved to observe in your otherwise estimable character, a melancholy want of faith," replied Müller "Without faith, what is friendship? What is angling? What is matrimony? Now, I tell you that with regard to the finny tribe, the more I charm them, the more enthusiastically they will flock to be caught. We shall have a miraculous draught in a few minutes, if you are but patient."
And then he began again:--
"Mimi Pinson est une blonde,
Une blonde que l'on connaît.
Elle n'a qu'une robe au monde,
Landerirette!
Et qu'un bonnet."
I laid aside my rod, folded my arms, and when he had done, applauded ironically.
"Very good," I said. "I understand the situation. We are here, at some--indeed, I may say, considering the state of our exchequer, at a considerable mutual expense; not to catch fish, but to afford Herr Müller an opportunity of exercising his extensive memory, and his limited baritone voice. The entertainment is not without its agréments, but I find it dear at the price."
"Tiens, Arbuthnot! let us fish seriously. I promise not to open my lips again till you have caught something."
"Then, seriously, I believe you would have to be silent the whole night, and all I should catch would be the rheumatism. I am the worst angler in the world, and the most unlucky."
"Really and truly?"
"Really and truly. And you?"
"As bad as yourself. If a tolerably large and energetic fish did me the honor to swallow my bait, the probability is that he would catch me. I certainly shouldn't know what to do with him."
"Then the present question is--what shall we do with ourselves?"
"I vote that we row up as far as yonder bend in the river, just to see what lies beyond; and then back to Courbevoie."
"Heaven only grant that by that time we shall have enough money left for dinner!" I murmured with a sigh.
We rowed up the river as far as the first bend, a distance of about half a mile; and then we rowed on as far as the next bend. Then we turned, and, resting on our oars, drifted slowly back with the current. The evening was indescribably brilliant and serene. The sky was cloudless, of a greenish blue, and full of light. The river was clear as glass. We could see the flaccid water-weeds swaying languidly with the current far below, and now and then a shoal of tiny fish shooting along half-way between the weeds and the surface. A rich fringe of purple iris, spear-leaved sagittarius, and tufted meadow-sweet (each blossom a bouquet on a slender thyrsus) bordered the towing-path and filled the air with perfume. Here the meadows lay open to the water's edge; a little farther on, they were shut off by a close rampart of poplars and willows whose leaves, already yellowed by autumn, were now fiery in the sunset. Joyous bands of gnats, like wild little intoxicated maenads, circled and hummed about our heads as we drifted slowly on; while, far away and mellowed by distance, we heard the brazen music of the fair.
We were both silent. Müller pulled out a small sketch-book and made a rapid study of the scene--the reach in the river; the wooded banks; the green flats traversed by long lines of stunted pollards; the church-tops and roofs of Courbevoie beyond.
Presently a soft voice, singing, broke upon the silence. Müller stopped involuntarily, pencil in hand. I held my breath, and listened. The tune was flowing and sweet; and as our boat drifted on, the words of the singer became audible.
"O miroir ondoyant!
Je rève en te voyant
Harmonie et lumière,
O ma rivière,
O ma belle rivière!
"On voit se réfléchir
Dans ses eaux les nuages;
Elle semble dormir
Entre les pâturages
Où paissent les grands boeufs
Et les grasses genisses.
Au pâtres amoureux
Que ses bords sont propices!"
"A woman's voice," said Müller. "Dupont's words and music. She must be young and pretty ... where has she hidden herself?"
The unseen singer, meanwhile, went on with another verse.
"Près des iris du bord,
Sous une berge haute,
La carpe aux reflets d'or
Où le barbeau ressaute,
Les goujons font le guet,
L'Ablette qui scintille
Fuit le dent du brochet;
Au fond rampe l'anguille!
"O miroir ondoyant!
Je rève en te voyant
Harmonic et lumière,
O ma rivière,
O ma belle rivière!"
"Look!" said Müller. "Do you not see them yonder--two women under the trees? By Jupiter! it's ma tante and la petite Marie!"
Saying which, he flung himself upon his oars and began pulling vigorously towards the shore.