CHAPTER XVI.
THE GREEN BENCH.
In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known for the past fifty years or so—that the focal point of interest in the inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the maids—were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the coachmen in the sheds yonder?
"Allons, mes filles—doucement, là-bas—et vos lits? qui les fait—les bons saints du paradis, peut-être?" And Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble—a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame had an unusually loquacious moment, these more strictly professional conversationists were taught their place.
"E'ben, toi—and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast thou art—swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, hein—how about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection. The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of artistic ability—his was the plastic renascent touch that might have developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a sacrifice? "Parbleu!" she would explode, when the subject was touched on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless, dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for artists—when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they could paint or model—
"Tenez, madame—this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had a son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled so well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he comes back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his nurse—he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks and I hear her. 'Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus fameux—il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais—il n'y a pas deux comme toi!' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The Figaro had placed his name second on a certain list, after a rival's! He alone must be great—there must not be another god of painting save him! He! He! that's fine, that's greatness—to lose one's appetite because another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the true Norman curves in mouth and nostril—the laughter-loving curves. Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles for dinner piled up in his arms.
"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him from all that—he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah, tiens, du monde qui arrive!" And the old woman seated herself, with an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma. Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion and the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad wink than in the loud-whispered "Comme vous voyez, chère dame, de toutes sortes ici, chez nous—mais—toujours bon genre!"
The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped, suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box. That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was treated in quite a different spirit.
A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
"I want indemnity—that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
"For your horse? I do not think I understand—"
"O—h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago, and stayed two days; and you starved my horse—and he died—that is what happened—he died!"
The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled household. The high, angry tones had called together the last serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats, cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded, sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the point of abuse before she crushed him.
Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the still air—what, this gentleman's horse had died—and yet he had waited a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth, altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short memories.
"For we use our eyes—we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen—with Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by turning downward, at this onslaught of the mère's satire), "as I said, with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my fine sir, they return—ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la Conquête!"
With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom, as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of scorn, as each went to his allotted place.