IV
Wynne arrived at the Atelier Jean Paul Laurens at a quarter to the hour of eight A. M. He was the first comer, and had a moment’s leisure to survey his surroundings. The studio itself was not large, and as high as the arm could reach the walls were plastered, generations deep, with palette scrapings. Above in great profusion were studies from the nude, heads and charcoal drawings in every possible mood of form and light. To Wynne, hitherto accustomed to regard paintings as pictures, these canvases struck a note of brutal coarseness, offending his æsthetic sensibilities. They seemed no more than men and women stripped of their clothing and indecently exposed.
“God! I won’t paint like that,” he thought.
From a great pile of easels in the corner he selected one and disposed it a few feet away from the model’s throne; which done, he set his palette with an infinite number of small dabs of colour. He thrust a few brushes through the thumb-hole, and was ready to make a start when the time arrived.
Presently a little Italian girl, with heavy gold rings in her ears, and a coloured kerchief over her head, came in and nodded a greeting.
“Nouveau?” she inquired.
“Oui,” replied Wynne.
She smiled agreeably, and seating herself on the throne kicked her shoes behind a screen and pulled off her stockings.
“O-ooo!” she shivered, “c’est pas chaud.”
She nodded toward the stove, and Wynne was glad of the opportunity to put on some coal, since he was conscious of some small uneasiness, alone and unoccupied while the maiden disrobed. He took as long as possible, and when he had finished discovered that she had finished too, and was calling upon him to provide her with a “couverture.” This he sought and handed to her, not entirely without embarrassment.
“Merci, Bébé,” said the Italian, and draped the old curtain around herself.
From the passage outside came the sound of many footsteps—a clamour of voices, and a moment later some twenty students clattered into the studio, with others at their heels. They were men of all ages and every nationality—some dressed as typical art students, others as conventionally attired as any young gentleman from Bond Street. An impulse which they shared in common was to make a noise, and in this they achieved a very high standard of perfection. A great variety of sounds were produced, mostly patterned from the fowl-run or the asses’ stall. One serious-minded and bearded boy devoted his ingenuity to reproducing the noise of a motor horn; while another, leaping to the model’s throne, hailed the dawn like any chanticleer. Espying Wynne’s beautifully white canvas perched upon its easel, a red-headed Alsatian flung a tabouret which swept all before it, and sent the new palette planing to the floor.
“What the devil do you mean by that?” cried Wynne, and was told to “Shut up, you silly ass. Don’t ask for trouble,” by an English voice at the back of the crowd.
At this moment a very precise little Frenchman stepped forward and made a bow.
“Moi je suis le Massier,” he announced, and asked if Wynne were prepared to stand a drink to the students. Twelve francs was the sum required—payable in advance.
The money was produced, whereat every one, including the model, who had borrowed a long painter’s coat for the occasion, rushed from the studio. Half the crowd became wedged in the doorway, and the other half fell down the stairs en masse. Wynne was swept along by the tidal wave at the rear, and trod on many prostrate pioneers before swinging out into the Rue du Dragon. There was a small café fifty yards distant, and thither they raced, sweeping every one from the pavements as they ran. Further jostling ensued at the doors of the café, but finally every one struggled through and found accommodation.
A chair was set upon a table and Wynne invited to occupy it. This he did with very great satisfaction and a kingly feeling. Busy waiters below hurried round with trays, bearing glasses of black coffee, and a very innocuous fluid known as “grog Americaine.”
When all had been served the Massier called upon the “nouveau” to give a song, and reminded him that failure to do so might result in unhappy consequences.
So Wynne stood upon the chair, with his head touching the ceiling, and sang several questionable limericks at the top of his voice. Hardly a soul understood the words, but from the spirit of their delivery they judged them to be indecent and bawdy, and as such very acceptable to hear. Moreover, there was a refrain in which all were able to join, and this in itself readily popularized the effort.
The Massier personally complimented the vocalist, and suggested that the occasion was almost sufficient to justify a barricade.
Cries were raised that nothing short of the barricade could be contemplated, and in an instant all the chairs and tables from the café were cast outside into the street. Skilled at their work, the barricaders set one table against the other with chairs before them. The company then seated itself and began to sing. Ladies from adjoining houses leaned out and threw smiles of encouragement, and the traffic in both directions ceased to flow.
Many and strange were the songs sung, and they dealt with life and adventure of a coarse but frisky kind.
Thus the passers-by learned what befell an officer who came across the Rhine, a sturdy fellow with an eye for a maid, and a compelling way with him to wit. Some there were who glowered disapprovingly at this morning madness, but more generally the audience were sympathetic, and yielded to the student the right of levity.
All would have gone well but for a surly dray-driver, who, wearying of the hold-up, urged his hairies into the midmost table with a view to breaking the barricade. This churlish act excited the liveliest activity. The horses were drawn from the shafts and led forthwith into a small greengrocer’s shop, where they feasted royally upon the carrots and swedes basketed in abundance about them. The owner of the shop and the driver raised their voices in protest, and their cries attracted the attention of the patron of the café. This good man, supported by three waiters, came forth and argued that the jest had gone far enough.
In so doing he was ill-advised, for in Paris a kill-joy invariably prejudices his own popularity. Some of the students formed a cordon about the good man and his staff, while others seized the chairs and tables and piled them on the tops of the waiting vehicles. This done they started the horses with cries and blows, and a moment later the furniture was careering up the street in all directions.
“C’est fini,” said the Massier.
The cordon broke, Monsieur le Patron and his garçons were away in pursuit, and the students, headed by the bare-footed Italian girl in her paint-smeared jacket, turned once more to their labours.
Wynne was almost exhausted with laughter. It seemed impossible such revels could be conducted by perfectly sober men before half-past eight in the morning. Perhaps strangest of all was the suddenness with which the robes of gaiety were discarded, for ten minutes later each man was at his easel setting out his palette as soberly as a city clerk plays dominoes during the luncheon hour.