THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS
IN this busy Quarter, where so many people are confined throughout the day in work-shops and studios, a breathing-space becomes a necessity. The gardens of the Luxembourg, brilliant in flowers and laid out in the Renaissance, with shady groves and long avenues of chestnut-trees stretching up to the Place de l’Observatoire, afford the great breathing-ground for the Latin Quarter.
If one had but an hour to spend in the Quartier Latin, one could not find a more interesting and representative sight of student life than between the hours of four and five on Friday afternoon, when the military band plays in the Luxembourg Gardens. This is the afternoon when Bohemia is on parade. Then every one flocks here to see one’s friends—and a sort of weekly reception for the Quarter is held. The walks about the band-stand are thronged with students and girls, and hundreds of chairs are filled with an audience of the older people—shopkeepers and their families, old women in white lace caps, and gray-haired old men, many in straight-brimmed high hats of a mode of twenty years past. Here they sit and listen to the music under the cool shadow of the trees, whose rich foliage forms an arbor overhead—a roof of green leaves, through which the sunbeams stream and in which the fat, gray pigeons find a paradise.
THE CHILDREN’S SHOP—LUXEMBOURG GARDENS
There is a booth near-by where waffles, cooked on a small oven in the rear, are sold. In front are a dozen or more tables for ices and drinkables. Every table and
chair is taken within hearing distance of the band. When these musicians of the army of France arrive, marching in twos from their barracks to the stand, it is always the signal for that genuine enthusiasm among the waiting crowd which one sees between the French and their soldiers.
If you chance to sit among the groups at the little tables, and watch the passing throng in front of you, you will see some queer “types,” many of them seldom en evidence except on these Friday afternoons in the Luxembourg. Buried, no doubt, in some garret hermitage or studio, they emerge thus weekly to greet silently the passing world.
A tall poet stalks slowly by, reading intently, as he walks, a well-worn volume of verses—his faded straw hat shading the tip of his long nose. Following him, a boy of twenty, delicately featured, with that purity of expression one sees in the faces of the good—the result of a life, perhaps, given to his ideal in art. He wears his hair long and curling over his ears, with a long stray wisp over one eye, the whole cropped evenly at the back as it reaches his black velvet collar. He wears, too, a dove-gray vest of fine corduroy, buttoned behind like those of the clergy, and a velvet tam-o’-shanter-like cap, and carries between his teeth a small pipe with a long goose-quill stem. You can readily see that to this young man with high ideals there is only one corner of the world worth living in, and that lies between the Place de l’Observatoire and the Seine.
Three students pass, in wide broadcloth trousers, gathered in tight at the ankles, and wearing wide-brimmed black hats. Hanging on the arm of one of the trio is a short snub-nosed girl, whose Cleo-Merodic hair, flattened in a bandeau over her ears, not only completely conceals them, but all the rest of her face, except her two merry black eyes and her saucy and neatly rouged lips. She is in black bicycle bloomers and a white, short duck jacket—a straw hat with a wide blue ribbon band, and a fluffy piece of white tulle tied at the side of her neck.
The throng moves slowly by you. It is impossible, in such a close crowd, to be in a hurry; besides, one never is here.
Near-by sit two old ladies, evidently concierges from some atelier court. One holds the printed program of the music, cut carefully from her weekly newspaper; it is cheaper than buying one for two sous, and these old concierges are economical.
In this Friday gathering you will recognize dozens of faces which you have seen at the “Bal Bullier” and the cafés.
The girl in the blue tailor-made dress, with the little dog, who you remember dined the night before at the Panthéon, is walking now arm in arm with a tall man in black, a mourning band about his hat. The girl is dressed in black, too—a mark of respect to her ami by her side. The dog, who is so small that he slides along the walk every time his chain is pulled, is now tucked under her arm.
One of the tables near the waffle stand is taken by a group of six students and four girls. All of them have arrived at the table in the last fifteen minutes—some alone, some in twos. The girl in the scarlet gown and white kid slippers, who came with the queer-looking “type” with the pointed beard, is Yvonne Gallois—a bonne camarade. She keeps the rest in the best of spirits, for she is witty, this Yvonne, and a great favorite with the crowd she is with. She is pretty, too, and has a whole-souled good-humor about her that makes her ever welcome. The fellow she came with is Delmet the architect—a great wag—lazy, but full of fun—and genius.
The little girl sitting opposite Yvonne is Claire Dumont. She is explaining a very sad “histoire” to the “type” next to her, intense in the recital of her woes. Her alert, nervous little face is a study; when words and expression fail, she shrugs her delicate shoulders, accenting every sentence with her hands, until it seems as if her small, nervous frame could express no more—and all about her little dog “Loisette!”
AT THE HEAD OF THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS
“Yes, the villain of a concierge at Edmond’s studio swore at him twice, and Sunday, when Edmond and I were breakfasting late, the old beast saw ‘Loisette’
on the stairs and threw water over her; she is a sale bête, that grosse femme! She shall see what it will cost her, the old miser; and you know I have always been most amiable with her. She is jealous of me—that is it—oh! I am certain of it. Because I am young and happy. Jealous of me! that’s funny, is it not? The old pig! Poor ‘Loisette’—she shivered all night with fright and from being wet. Edmond and I are going to find another place. Yes, she shall see what it will be there without us—with no one to depend upon for her snuff and her wine. If she were concierge at Edmond’s old atelier she would be treated like that horrid old Madame Fouquet.”
The boys in the atelier over her window hated this old Madame Fouquet, I remember. She was always prying about and complaining, so they fished up her pet gold-fish out of the aquarium on her window-sill, and fried them on the atelier stove, and put them back in the window on a little plate all garnished with carrots. She swore vengeance and called in the police, but to no avail. One day they fished up the parrot in its cage, and the green bird that screamed and squawked continually met a speedy and painless death and went off to the taxidermist. Then the cage was lowered in its place with the door left ajar, and the old woman felt sure that her pet had escaped and would some day find his way back to her—a thing this garrulous bird would never have thought of doing had he had any say in the matter.
So the old lady left the door of the cage open for days in the event of his return, and strange to tell, one morning Madame Fouquet got up to quarrel with her next-door neighbor, and, to her amazement, there was her green pet on his perch in his cage. She called to him, but he did not answer; he simply stood on his wired legs and fixed his glassy eyes on her, and said not a word—while the gang of Indians in the windows above yelled themselves hoarse.
It was just such a crowd as this that initiated a “nouveau” once in one of the ateliers. They stripped the new-comer, and, as is often the custom on similar festive occasions, painted him all over with sketches, done in the powdered water-colors that come in glass jars. They are cheap and cover a lot of surface, so that the gentleman in question looked like a human picture-gallery. After the ceremony, he was put in a hamper and deposited, in the morning, in the middle of the Pont des Arts, where he was subsequently found by the police, who carted him off in a cab.
THE FONTAINE DE MEDICIS
But you must see more of this vast garden of the Luxembourg to appreciate truly its beauty and its charm. Filled with beautiful sculpture in bronze and marble, with its musée of famous modern pictures bought by the Government, with flower-beds brilliant in geraniums and fragrant in roses, with the big basin spouting a jet of water in its center, where the children sail their boats, and with that superb “Fontaine de Medicis” at the end of a long, rectangular basin of water—dark as some pool in a forest brook, the green vines trailing about its sides, shaded by the rich foliage of the trees overhead.
On the other side of the Luxembourg you will find a garden of roses, with a
rich bronze group of Greek runners in the center, and near it, back of the long marble balustrade, a croquet ground—a favorite spot for several veteran enthusiasts who play here regularly, surrounded for hours by an interested crowd who applaud and cheer the participants in this passé sport.
This is another way of spending an afternoon at the sole cost of one’s leisure. It takes but little to amuse these people!
Often at the Punch and Judy show near-by, you will see two old gentlemen,—who may have watched this same Punch and Judy show when they were youngsters,—and who have been sitting for half an hour, waiting for the curtain of the miniature theater to rise. It is popular—this small “Théâtre Guignol,” and the benches in front are filled with the children of rich and poor, who scream with delight and kick their little, fat bare legs at the first shrill squeak of Mr. Punch. The three who compose the staff of this tiny attraction have been long in its service—the old harpist, and the good wife of the showman who knows every child in the neighborhood, and her husband who is Mr. Punch, the hangman, and the gendarme, and half a dozen other equally historical personages. A thin, sad-looking man, this husband, gray-haired, with a careworn look in his deep-sunken eyes, who works harder hourly, daily, yearly, to amuse the heart of a child than almost any one I know.
The little box of a theater is stifling hot in summer, and yet he must laugh and scream and sing within it, while his good wife collects the sous, talking all the while to this and to that child whom she has known since its babyhood; chatting with the nurses decked out in their gay-colored, Alsatian bows, the ribbons reaching nearly to the ground.
A French nurse is a gorgeous spectacle of neatness and cleanliness, and many of the younger ones, fresh from country homes in Normandy and Brittany, with their rosy cheeks, are pictures of health. Wherever you see a nurse, you will see a “piou-piou” not far away, which is a very belittling word for the red-trousered infantryman of the République Française.
Surrounding the Palais du Luxembourg, these “piou-pious,” less fortunate for the hour, stand guard in the small striped sentry-boxes, musket at side, or pace stolidly up and down the flagged walk. Marie, at the moment, is no doubt with the children of the rich Count, in a shady spot near the music. How cruel is the fate of many a gallant “piou-piou”!
Farther down the gravel-walk strolls a young Frenchman and his fiancée—the mother of his betrothed inevitably at her side! It is under this system of rigid chaperonage that the young girl of France is given in marriage. It is not to be wondered at that many of them marry to be free, and that many of the happier marriages have begun with an elopement!
THE PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG
The music is over, and the band is filing out, followed by the crowd. A few linger about the walks around the band-stand to chat. The old lady who rents the chairs is stacking them up about the tree-trunks, and long shadows across the walks tell of the approaching twilight. Overhead, among the leaves, the pigeons coo. For a few moments
the sun bathes the great garden in a pinkish glow, then drops slowly, a blood-red disk, behind the trees. The air grows chilly; it is again the hour to dine—the hour when Paris wakes.
In the smaller restaurants of the Quarter one often sees some strange contrasts among these true bohemians, for the Latin Quarter draws its habitués from every part of the globe. They are not all French—these happy-go-lucky fellows, who live for the day and let the morrow slide. You will see many Japanese—some of them painters—many of them taking courses in political economy, or in law; many of them titled men of high rank in their own country, studying in the schools, and learning, too, with that thoroughness and rapidity which are ever characteristic of their race. You will find, too, Brazilians; gentlemen from Haiti of darker hue; Russians, Poles, and Spaniards—men and women from every clime and every station in life. They adapt themselves to the Quarter and become a part of this big family of Bohemia easily and naturally.
In this daily atmosphere only the girl-student from our own shores seems out of place. She will hunt for some small restaurant, sacred in its exclusiveness and known only to a dozen bon camarades of the Quarter. Perhaps this girl-student, it may be, from the West and her cousin from the East will discover some such cosy little boîte on their way back from their atelier. To two other equally adventurous female minds they will impart this newest find; after that you will see the four dining there nightly together, as safe, I assure you, within these walls of Bohemia as they would be at home rocking on their Aunt Mary’s porch.
There is, of course, considerable awkwardness between these bon camarades, to whom the place really belongs, and these very innocent new-comers, who seek a table by themselves in a corner under the few trees in front of the small restaurant. And yet every one is exceedingly polite to them. Madame the patronne hustles about to see that the dinner is warm and nicely served; and Henriette, who is waiting on them, none the less attentive, although she is late for her own dinner, which she will sit down to presently with madame the patronne, the good cook, and the other girls who serve the small tables.
WHAT IS GOING ON AT THE THEATERS
This later feast will be augmented perhaps by half the good boys and girls who have been dining at the long table. Perhaps they will all come in and help shell the peas for to-morrow’s dinner. And yet this is a public place, where the painters come, and where one pays only for what one orders. It is all very interesting to the four American girls, who are dining at the small table. “It is so thoroughly bohemian!” they exclaim.
But what must Mimi think of these silent and exclusive strangers, and what, too, must the tall girl in the bicycle bloomers think, and the little girl who has been ill and who at the moment is dining with Renould, the artist, and whom every one—even to the cook, is so glad to welcome back after her long illness? There is an unsurmountable barrier between the Americans at the little table in the corner and
that jolly crowd of good and kindly people at the long one, for Mimi and Henriette and the little girl who has been so ill, and the French painters and sculptors with them, cannot understand either the language of these strangers or their views of life.
“Florence!” exclaims one of the strangers in a whisper, “do look at that queer little ‘type’ at the long table—the tall girl in black actually kissed him!”
“You don’t mean it!”
“Yes, I do—just now. Why, my dear, I saw it plainly!”
Poor culprits! There is no law against kissing in the open air in Paris, and besides, the tall girl in black has known the little “type” for a Parisienne age—thirty days or less.
The four innocents, who have coughed through their soup and whispered through the rest of the dinner, have now finished and are leaving, but if those at the long table notice their departure, they do not show it. In the Quarter it is considered the height of rudeness to stare. You will find these Suzannes and Marcelles exceedingly well-bred in the little refinements of life, and you will note a certain innate dignity and kindliness in their bearing toward others, which often makes one wish to uncover his head in their presence.
[ CHAPTER IX]
“THE RAGGED EDGE
OF THE
QUARTER”
THERE are many streets of the Quarter as quiet as those of a country village. Some of them, like the rue Vaugirard, lead out past gloomy slaughter-houses and stables, through desolate sections of vacant lots, littered with the ruins of factory and foundry whose tall, smoke-begrimed chimneys in the dark stand like giant sentries, as if pointing a warning finger to the approaching pedestrian, for these ragged edges of the Quarter often afford at night a lurking-ground for footpads.
In just such desolation there lived a dozen students, in a small nest of studios that I need not say were rented to them at a price within their ever-scanty means. It was marveled at among the boys in the Quarter that any of these exiles lived to see the light of another day, after wandering back at all hours of the night to their stronghold.
Possibly their sole possessions consisted of the clothes they had on, a few bad pictures, and their several immortal geniuses. That the gentlemen with the sand-bags knew of this I am convinced, for the students were never molested. Verily, Providence lends a strong and ready arm to the drunken man and the fool!
The farther out one goes on the rue Vaugirard, the more desolate and forbidding becomes this long highway, until it terminates at the fortifications, near which is a huge, open field, kept clear of such permanent buildings as might shelter an enemy in time of war. Scattered over this space are the hovels of squatters and gipsies—fortune-telling, horse-trading vagabonds, whose living-vans at certain times of the year form part of the smaller fairs within the Quarter.
And very small and unattractive little fairs they are, consisting of half a dozen or more wagons, serving as a yearly abode for these shiftless people; illumined at night by the glare of smoking oil torches. There is, moreover, a dingy tent with a half-drawn red curtain that hides the fortune-telling beauty; and a traveling shooting-gallery, so short that the muzzle of one’s rifle nearly rests upon the painted lady with the sheet-iron breastbone, centered by a pinhead of a bull’s-eye which never rings. There is often a small carousel, too, which is not only patronized by the children, but often by a crowd of students—boys and girls, who literally turn the merry-go-round into a circus, and who for the time are cheered to feats of bareback riding by the enthusiastic bystanders.
These little Quarter fêtes are far different from the great fête de Neuilly across the Seine, which begins at the Porte Maillot, and continues in a long, glittering avenue of side-shows, with mammoth carousels, bizarre in looking-glass panels and golden figures. Within the circle of all this throne-like
gorgeousness, a horse-power organ shakes the very ground with its clarion blasts, while pink and white wooden pigs, their tails tied up in bows of colored ribbons, heave and swoop round and round, their backs loaded with screaming girls and shouting men.
It was near this very same Port Maillot, in a colossal theater, built originally for the representation of one of the Kiralfy ballets, that a fellow student and myself went over from the Quarter one night to “supe” in a spectacular and melodramatic pantomime, entitled “Afrique à Paris.” We were invited by the sole proprietor and manager of the show—an old circus-man, and one of the shrewdest, most companionable, and intelligent of men, who had traveled the world over. He spoke no language but his own unadulterated American. This, with his dominant personality, served him wherever fortune carried him!
So, accepting his invitation to play alternately the dying soldier and the pursuing cannibal under the scorching rays of a tropical limelight, and with an old pair of trousers and a flannel shirt wrapped in a newspaper, we presented ourselves at the appointed hour, at the edge of the hostile country.
Here we found ourselves surrounded by a horde of savages who needed no greasepaint to stain their ebony bodies, and many of whose grinning countenances I had often recognized along our own Tenderloin. Besides, there were cowboys and “greasers” and diving elks, and a company of French Zouaves; the latter, in fact, seemed to be the only thing foreign about the show. Our friend, the manager, informed us that he had thrown the entire spectacle together in about ten days, and that he had gathered with ease, in two, a hundred of those dusky warriors, who had left their coat-room and barber-shop jobs in New York to find themselves stranded in Paris.
He was a hustler, this circus-man, and preceding the spectacle of the African war, he had entertained the audience with a short variety-show, to brace the spectacle. He insisted on bringing us around in front and giving us a box, so we could see for ourselves how good it really was.
During this forepart, and after some clever high trapeze work, the sensation of the evening was announced—a Signore, with an unpronounceable name, would train a den of ten forest-bred lions!
When the orchestra had finished playing “The Awakening of the Lion,” the curtain rose, disclosing the nerveless Signore in purple tights and high-topped boots. A long, portable cage had been put together on the stage during the intermission, and within it the ten pacing beasts. There is something terrifying about the roar of a lion as it begins with its high-keyed moan, and descends in scale to a hoarse roar that seems to penetrate one’s whole nervous system.
But the Signore did not seem to mind it; he placed one foot on the sill of the safety-door, tucked his short riding-whip under his arm, pulled the latch with one hand, forced one knee in the slightly opened door, and sprang into the cage. Click! went the iron door as it found its lock. Bang! went the Signore’s revolver, as he drove the snarling, roaring lot into the corner of the cage. The smoke from his revolver drifted out through the bars; the house was silent. The trainer walked slowly up to the fiercest lion, who reared against the bars as he approached him, striking at the trainer with his heavy paws, while the others slunk into the opposite corner. The man’s head was but half a foot now from the lion’s; he menaced the beast with the little riding-whip; he almost, but did not quite strike him on the tip of his black nose that worked convulsively in rage. Then the lion dropped awkwardly, with a short growl, to his forelegs, and slunk, with the rest, into the corner. The Signore turned and bowed. It was the little riding-whip they feared, for they had never gauged its sting. Not the heavy iron bar within reach of his hand, whose force they knew. The vast audience breathed easier.
“An ugly lot,” I said, turning to our friend the manager, who had taken his seat beside me.
“Yes,” he mused, peering at the stage with his keen gray eyes; “green stock, but a swell act, eh? Wait for the grand finale. I’ve got a girl here who comes on and does art poses among the lions; she’s a dream—French, too!”
A girl of perhaps twenty, enveloped in a bath gown, now appeared at the wings. The next instant the huge theater became dark, and she stood in full fleshings, in the center of the cage, brilliant in the rays of a powerful limelight, while the lions circled about her at the command of the trainer.
“Ain’t she a peach?” said the manager, enthusiastically.
“Yes,” said I, “she is. Has she been in the cages long?” I asked.
“No, she never worked with the cats before,” he said; “she’s new to the show business; she said her folks live in Nantes. She worked here in a chocolate factory until she saw my ‘ad’ last week and joined my show. We gave her a rehearsal Monday and we put her on the bill next night. She’s a good looker with plenty of grit, and is a winner with the bunch in front.”
“How did you get her to take the job?” I said.
“Well,” he replied, “she balked at the act at first, but I showed her two violet notes from a couple of swell fairies who wanted the job, and after that she signed for six weeks.”
“Who wrote the notes?” I said, queryingly.
“I wrote ’em!” he exclaimed dryly, and he bit the corner of his stubby mustache and smiled. “This is the last act in the olio, so you will have to excuse me. So long!” and he disappeared in the gloom.
There are streets and boulevards in the Quarter, sections of which are alive with the passing throng and the traffic of carts and omnibuses. Then one will come to a long stretch of massive buildings, public institutions, silent as convents—their interminable walls flanking garden or court.
The Boulevard St. Germain is just such a highway until it crosses the Boulevard St. Michel—the liveliest roadway of the Quarter. Then it seems to become suddenly inoculated with its bustle and life, and from there on is crowded with bourgeoise and animated with the commerce of market and shop.
An Englishman once was so fired with a desire to see the gay life of the Latin Quarter that he rented a suite of rooms on this same Boulevard St. Germain at about the middle of this long, quiet stretch. Here he stayed a fortnight, expecting daily to see from his “chambers” the gaiety of a Bohemia of which he had so often heard. At the end of his disappointing sojourn, he returned to London, firmly convinced that the gay life of the Latin Quarter was a myth. It was to him.
But the man from Denver, the “Steel King,” and the two thinner gentlemen with the louis-lined waistcoats who accompanied him and whom Fortune had awakened in the far West one morning and had led them to “The Great Red Star copper mine”—a find which had ever since been a source of endless amusement to them—discovered the Quarter before they had been in Paris a day, and found it, too, “the best ever,” as they expressed it.
They did not remain long in Paris, this rare crowd of seasoned genials, for it was their first trip abroad and they had to see Switzerland and Vienna, and the Rhine; but while they stayed they had a good time Every Minute.
The man from Denver and the Steel King sat at one of the small tables, leaning over the railing at the “Bal Bullier,” gazing at the sea of dancers.
“Billy,” said the man from Denver to the Steel King, “if they had this in Chicago they’d tear out the posts inside of fifteen minutes”—he wiped the perspiration from his broad forehead and pushed his twenty-dollar Panama on the back of his head.
“Ain’t it a sight!” he mused, clinching the butt of his perfecto between his teeth. “Say!—say! it beats all I ever see,” and he chuckled to himself, his round, genial face, with its double chin, wreathed in smiles.
“Say, George!” he called to one of the ‘copper twins,’ “did you get on to that little one in black that just went by—well! well!! well!!! In a minute!!”
Already the pile of saucers on their table reached a foot high—a record of refreshments for every Yvonne and Marcelle that had stopped in passing. Two girls approach.
“Certainly, sit right down,” cried the Steel King. “Here, Jack,”—this to the aged garçon, “smoke up! and ask the ladies what they’ll have”—all of which was unintelligible to the two little Parisiennes and the garçon, but quite clear in meaning to all three.
“Dis donc, garçon!” interrupted the taller of the two girls, “un café glacé pour moi.”
“Et moi,” answered her companion gayly, “Je prends une limonade!”
“Here! Hold on!” thundered good-humoredly the man from Denver; “git ’em a good drink. Rye, garsong! yes, that’s it—whiskey—I see you’re on, and two. Deux!” he explains, holding up two fat fingers, “all straight, friend—two whiskeys with seltzer on the side—see? Now go roll your hoop and git back with ’em.”
“Oh, non, monsieur!” cried the two Parisiennes in one breath; “whiskey! jamais! ça pique et c’est trop fort.”
At this juncture the flower woman arrived with a basketful of red roses.
“Voulez-vous des fleurs, messieurs et mesdames?” she asked politely.
“Certainly,” cried the Steel King; “here, Maud and Mamie, take the lot,” and he handed the two girls the entire contents of the basket. The taller buried her face for a moment in the red Jaqueminots and drank in their fragrance. When she looked up, two big tears trickled down to the corners of her pretty mouth. In a moment more she was smiling! The smaller girl gave a little cry of delight and shook her roses above her head as three other girls passed. Ten minutes later the two possessed but a single rose apiece—they had generously given all the rest away.
The “copper twins” had been oblivious of all this. They had been hanging over the low balustrade, engaged in a heart-to-heart talk with two pretty Quartier brunettes. It seemed to be really a case of love at first sight, carried on somewhat under difficulties, for the “copper twins” could not speak a word of French, and the English of the two chic brunettes was limited to “Oh, yes!” “Vary well!” “Good morning,” “Good evening,” and “I love you.” The four held hands over the low railing, until the “copper twins” fairly steamed in talk; warmed by the sun of gaiety and wet by several rounds of Highland dew, they grew sad and earnest, and got up and stepped all over the Steel King and the man from Denver, and the two Parisiennes’ daintily slippered feet, in squeezing out past the group of round tables back of the balustrade, and down on to the polished floor—where they are speedily lost to view in the maze of dancers, gliding into the whirl with the two brunettes. When the waltz is over they stroll out with them into the garden, and order wine, and talk of changing their steamer date.
The good American, with his spotless collar and his well-cut clothes, with his frankness and whole-souled generosity, is a study to the modern grisette. He seems strangely attractive to her, in contrast with a certain type of Frenchman, that is selfish, unfaithful, and mean—that jealousy makes uncompanionable and sometimes cruel. She will tell you that these pale, black-eyed, and black-bearded boulevardiers are all alike—lazy and selfish; so unlike many of the sterling, good fellows of the Quarter—Frenchmen of a different stamp, and there are many of these—rare, good Bohemians, with hearts and natures as big as all out-doors—“bons garçons,” which is only another way of saying “gentlemen.”
As you tramp along back to your quarters some rainy night you find many of the streets leading from the boulevards silent and badly lighted, except for some flickering lantern on the corner of a long block which sends the shadows scurrying across your path. You pass a student perhaps and a girl, hurrying home—a fiacre for a short distance is a luxury in the Quarter. Now you hear the click-clock of an approaching cab, the cocher half asleep on his box. The hood of the fiacre is up, sheltering the two inside from the rain. As the voiture rumbles by near a street-light, you catch a glimpse of a pink silk petticoat within and a pair of dainty, white kid shoes—and the glint of an officer’s sword.
Farther on, you pass a silent gendarme muffled in his night cloak; a few doors farther on in a small café, a bourgeois couple, who have arrived on a late train no doubt to spend a month with relatives in Paris, are having a warming tipple before proceeding farther in the drizzling rain. They have, of course, invited the cocher to drink with them. They have brought all their pets and nearly all their household goods—two dogs, three bird-cages, their tiny occupants protected from the damp air by several folds of newspaper; a cat in a stout paper box with air holes, and two trunks, well tied with rope.
“Ah, yes, it has been a long journey!” sighs the wife. Her husband corroborates her, as they explain to the patronne of the café and to the cocher that they left their village at midday. Anything over two hours on the chemin-de-fer is considered a journey by these good French people!
As you continue on to your studio, you catch a glimpse of the lights of the Boulevard Montparnasse. Next a cab with a green light rattles by; then a ponderous two-wheeled cart lumbers along, piled high with red carrots as neatly arranged as cigars in a box—the driver asleep on his seat near his swinging lantern—and the big Normandy horses taking the way. It is late, for these carts are on their route to the early morning market—one of the great Halles. The tired waiters are putting up the shutters of the smaller cafés and stacking up the chairs. Now a cock crows lustily in some neighboring yard; the majority at least of the Latin Quarter has turned in for the night. A moment later you reach your gate, feel instinctively for your matches. In the darkness of the court a friendly cat rubs her head contentedly against your leg. It is the yellow one that sleeps in the furniture factory, and you pick her up and carry her to your studio, where, a moment later, she is crunching gratefully the remnant of the beau maquereau left from your déjeuner—for charity begins at home.
[ CHAPTER X]