ONE REFLECTION
WITH his rusty, black felt hat in his hand and oblivious of passers-by, Ventrillon stooped before the shop window until the reflection of his finely chiselled young face came into place, with the forehead of the image nicely adjusted into the crown of the hat behind the clear plate glass. It was a magnificent hat, an elegant hat, a formidable hat, a hat which was all there was of chic, a genuine, glistening stove-pipe hat, a véritable chapeau à huit reflets—an authentic hat of eight reflections—and the Ventrillon in the glass was wearing it. The effect was amazing.
“But why should it surprise me,” said Ventrillon, “when such is my present character? C’est idiot!”
For not only was this shabby young man contorting himself before the shop window the youngest prize winner of the spring Salon, but that afternoon he was going into society; for the first time, it is true, and into a very curious stratum of it, but society even so. Nevertheless, though he had spent the last of the three hundred francs of his prize money on an elegantly tailored costume of morning coat and striped trousers, he had expected to wear the rusty, broad-brimmed black felt he held in his hand. But as he marvelled at the effect of his reflection in the window, the hat before him became essential. It was the final touch, and it is the final touch which is vital.
And yet, once he appeared on the boulevards in such a hat, he would never dare to face his comrades at the Closerie des Lilas again.
They were a gay company of vagabonds: Sabrin, who worshipped Ventrillon like a mild-eyed dog; Clo-clo, whose golden ringlets outside her head would have compensated fully for the complete emptiness inside it even if there had not been her childlike adoration of Sabrin; Pinettre from Marseilles, whose passionate tenor he had heard so often seizing upon the stars above the terrace of the café, r-r-rolling the r’s of “Tor-rn a Sor-r-rento!” cow-eyed scarlet-mouthed Ginette, who always wept at Italian music; poor little Tric-trac, the poet, who invariably, when drunk, recited “Le moulin de mon pays,” the only poem he had ever managed to have published; Olga, the husky Russian girl, who invariably, when drunk, bussed Tric-trac resoundingly with what she called “little soul kisses”; Noiraud, the wag; Hélène, the inviolate; LePaulle, whose capital P was an affectation; Margoton, who had no taste—all of them penniless and none of them disturbed by that fact. For if one of them had the price of the beer, all drank. They had made the bomb together, ah, they had made the bomb! One would not soon forget that night when they had invaded the Cabaret of the Two Armadillos and had driven the regular clients into the streets by thundering with full lungs:
“Elle ne fait que des trucs comme ça—
Elle m’aime pas! Elle m’aime PAS!”
pounding the tables with their beer mugs to the terrific rhythm of their music; nor yet those mad evenings when they raced arm-in-arm down the broad pavements of the Boulevard St.-Michel, startling the bourgeois and screaming with laughter.
He could conceal that damning morning coat beneath his well worn imperméable, but how could one conceal a hat of eight reflections and wear it? They would think that he had become a snob, they would say that his prize had mounted to his head, they would ridicule him, they would begin to misconstrue his every statement, they would take offence; for them the hat would amount to betrayal, and he knew that he would not be able to bear it.
But Ventrillon at that moment visualized himself entering the carved portals of a great house in the Avenue Victor Hugo, the whole effect of his newly bought elegance destroyed by the rusty black felt. It was indeed the final touch which was vital. “I am beginning to see,” said Ventrillon, “that though they are undeniably amusing, they are all a little vulgar. It appears that my taste is improving in advance.” But having spent the last franc of his prize money, in the whole wide world he possessed not a single perforated sou.
He crossed the Seine to his garret in the Rue Jacob, stripped off the clothes he wore, and carefully arrayed himself in the full splendour of his new garments. From the slim patent-leather shoes to the exquisitely tied cravat he was perfect. Then he went bareheaded into the streets.
When he reached the shop he hesitated not, but entered with an air of command.
“My hat has just blown off into the Seine,” he explained to the first clerk in sight. “Show me the best silk hat you have in the shop; and quickly, or I shall be late for my appointment.”
The clerk, after inquiring the head size of this elegant, bareheaded youth, produced a counterpart of the hat in the window.
Ventrillon put the hat on his head and adjusted it before a mirror.
“The fit is perfect,” he said, “though I had hoped for a better quality. But—I have no time to waste. You will place it on my account.” He turned to walk out of the shop.
The clerk came hurriedly, but politely, from behind the counter, and modestly touched Ventrillon’s elbow.
“Then monsieur has an account here?” he inquired.
“Of course,” said Ventrillon, impatiently, and with his fingertips dusted the sleeve the clerk had touched. “And have I not told you that I have an important appointment?”
The clerk adroitly interposed himself between Ventrillon and the door.
“But I do not know the name of monsieur,” he persisted, always polite.
“You do not know who I am!” cried Ventrillon, as if the statement were proof positive of an utter imbecility he had already suspected.
“I am afraid not, sir,” faltered the clerk.
Then Ventrillon’s voice, a huge baritone absolutely astounding from a throat so young, roared out to its full, thundering in the clerk’s ears and frightening him half out of his wits:
“I am Odillon Ventrillon, name of God!” shouted Ventrillon.
The clerk, who for some reason he has never fully understood was under the impression that this was the family name of the Prince of Monaco or perhaps the King of Spain, and murmured, “Oh, I demand a thousand pardons, sir,” has never been able to explain this affair to the complete satisfaction of the proprietor.
For, before the clerk could recover, Ventrillon had left the shop and, having dashed impudently past the ticket puncher, was well on his way in the Métro, wearing the hat of eight reflections. In the dark tunnel he could see his image facing him in the windows of the lighted car.
“Undoubtedly,” reflected Ventrillon, adjusting his lapels, “it is the final touch which is vital.”