LE CABARET DU SOLEIL D'OR
IT is only the name of the Cabaret of the Golden Sun that suggests the glorious luminary of day. And yet it is really brilliant in its own queer way, though that brilliancy shines when all else in Paris is dark and dead,—at night, and in the latest hours of the night at that.
My acquaintance with the Golden Sun began one foggy night in a cold November, under the guidance of Bishop.
Lured by the fascinations of nocturnal life in the Quartier Latin, and by its opportunities for the study of life in its strangest phases, Bishop had become an habitual nighthawk, leaving the studio nearly every evening about ten o'clock, after he had read a few hours from treasured books gleaned from the stalls along the river, to prowl about with a sketchbook, in quest of queer characters and queer places, where strange lives were lived in the dark half of the day. His knowledge of obscure retreats and their peculiar habitués seemed unlimited. And what an infinite study they offer! The tourist, "doing" Bohemian Paris as he would the famous art galleries, or Notre-Dame, or the Madeleine, or the cafés on the boulevards, may, under the guidance of a wise and discerning student, visit one after another of these out-of-the-way resorts where the endless tragedy of human life is working out its mysteries; he may see that one place is dirtier or noisier than another, that the men and women are better dressed and livelier here than there, that the crowd is bigger, or the lights brighter; but he cannot see, except in their meaningless outer aspects, those subtle differences which constitute the heart of the matter. In distance it is not far from the Moulin Rouge to the Cabaret du Soleil d'Or, but in descending from the dazzling brilliancy and frothy abandon of the Red Mill to the smoke and grime of the Golden Sun, we drop from the summit of the Tour Eiffel to the rat-holes under the bridges of the Seine; and yet it is in such as the Cabaret of the Golden Sun that the true student finds the deeper, the more lastingly charming, the strangely saddening spell that lends to the wonderful Quartier Latin its distinctive character and everlasting fascination.
Though Bishop spoke to me very little of his midnight adventures, I being very busy with my own work, I began to have grave apprehensions on the score of his tastes in that direction; for during the afternoons ridiculous-looking, long-haired, but gentlemannered persons in shabby attire, well-seasoned with the aroma of absinthe and cigarettes, would favor our studio with a call, undoubtedly at Bishop's invitation. They brought with them black portfolios or rolls of paper tied with black string, containing verses,—their masterpieces, which were to startle Paris, or new songs, which, God favoring, were to be sung at La Scala or the Ambassadeurs, and thus bring them immortal fame and put abundant fat upon their lean ribs! Ah, the deathless hope that makes hunger a welcome companion here!
Bishop would cleverly entertain these aspiring geniuses with shop talk concerning literature and music, and he had a charming way of dwelling upon the finish and subtlety of their work and comparing it with that of the masters. It usually ended with their posing for him in different attitudes of his suggesting. Why waste money on professional models? As Bishop's acquaintances became more numerous among this class, we finally set aside Tuesday afternoons for their reception. Then they would come in generous numbers and enjoy themselves unreservedly with our cognac and biscuits. But ah, the rare pleasures of those afternoons,—as much for the good it did us to see their thin blood warmed with brandy and food as for their delightful entertainment of us and one another.
The studio was warm and cheerful on the night when Bishop invited me to accompany him out. I had been at work, and presently, when I had finished, I flung myself on the divan for a rest and a smoke, and then became aware of Bishop's presence. He was comfortably ensconced in the steamer-chair, propped up with pillows.
"Aren't you going out to-night?" I inquired.
"Why, yes. Let's see the time. A little after eleven. That's good. You are finished, aren't you? Now, if you want a little recreation and wish to see one of the queerest places in Paris, come with me."
I looked out the window. A cold, dreary night it was. The chimney-pots were dimmed by the thick mist, and the street lamps shone murkily far below. It was a saddening, soaking, dripping night, still, melancholy, and depressing,—the kind of night that lends a strange zest to in-door enjoyment, as though it were a duty to keep the mist and the dreariness out of the house and the heart.
But the studio had worn me out, and I was eager to escape from its pleasant coziness. And this was a Saturday night, which means something, even in Paris. To-morrow there would be rest. So I cheerfully assented.
We donned our heaviest top-coats and mufflers, crammed the stove full of coal, and then sallied out into the dripping fog.
Oh, but it was cold and dismal in the streets! The mist was no longer the obscuring, suggestive, mysterious factor that it had been when seen from the window, but was now a tangible and formidable thing, with a manifest purpose. It struck through our wraps as though they had been cheesecloth. It had swept the streets clear, for not a soul was to be seen except a couple of sergents de ville, all hooded in capes, and a cab that came rattling through the murk with horses a-steam. Occasionally a flux of warm light from some café would melt a tunnel through the monotonous opaque haze, but the empty chairs and tables upon the sidewalks facing the cafés offered no invitation.
In front of one of these cafés, in a sheltered corner made by a glass screen, sat a solitary young woman, dressed stylishly in black, the light catching one of her dainty slippers perched coquettishly upon a foot-rest. A large black hat, tilted wickedly down over her face, cast her eyes in deep shadow and lent her that air of alluring mystery which the women of her class know so well how to cultivate. Her neck and chin were buried deep in the collar of her sealskin cape. A gleam of limp white gauze at her throat lent a pleasing relief to the monotone of her attire. Upon the table in front of her stood an empty glass and two saucers. As we passed she peered at us from beneath her big hat, and smiled coquettishly, revealing glistening white teeth. The atmosphere of loneliness and desolation that encompassed her gave a singularly pathetic character to her vigil. Thus she sat, a picture for an artist, a text for a moralist, pretty, dainty, abandoned. It happened not to be her fortune that her loneliness should be relieved by us.... But other men might be coming afterwards.... All this at a glance through the cold November fog.
As we proceeded up the Boul' Mich' the cafés grew more numerous and passers-by more frequent, but all these were silent and in a hurry, prodded on by the nipping cold fangs of the night. Among the tables outside the Café d'Harcourt crouched and prowled an old man, bundled in ill-fitting rags, searching for remnants of cigars and cigarettes on the sanded sidewalk. From his glittering eyes, full of suspicion, he turned an angry glance upon us as we paused a moment to observe him, and growled,—"Allons, tu n' peux donc pas laisser un pauv' malheureux?"
Bishop tossed him a sou, which he greedily snatched without a word of thanks.
At the corner, under the gas-lamps, stood shivering newspaper venders trying to sell their few remaining copies of la dernière édition de la presse. Buyers were scarce.
We had now reached the Place St.-Michel and the left bank of the river. We turned to the right, following the river wall toward Notre-Dame, whose towers were not discernible through the fog.
Here there was an unbounded wilderness of desolation and solitude. The black Seine flowed silently past dark masses that were resolved into big canal-boats, with their sickly green lights reflected in the writhing ink of the river. Notre-Dame now pushed its massive bulk through the fog, but its towers were lost in the sky. Near by a few dim lights shone forth through the slatted windows of the Morgue. But its lights never go out. And how significantly close to the river it stands! Peering under the arches of the bridges, we found some of the social dregs that sleep there with the rats. It was not difficult to imagine the pretty girl in black whom we had passed coming at last through dissipation and wrinkles and broken health to take refuge with the rats under the bridges, and it is a short step thence to the black waters of the river; and that the scheme of the tragedy might be perfect in all its parts, adjustments, and relations, behold the Morgue so near, with its lights that never go out, and boatmen so skilled in dragging the river! And the old man who was gathering the refuse and waste of smokers, it was not impossible that he should find himself taking this route when his joints had grown stiffer, though it would more likely end under the bridges.
The streets are very narrow and crooked around Notre-Dame, and their emanations are as various as the capacity of the human nose for evil odors. The lamps, stuck into the walls of the houses, only make the terrors of such a night more formidable; for while one may feel a certain security in absolute darkness, the shadows to which the lamps lend life have a baffling elusiveness and weirdness, and a habit of movement that makes one instinctively dodge. But that is all the trick of the wind. However that may be, it is wonderful how much more vividly one remembers on such a night the stories of the murders, suicides, and other crimes that lend a particular grewsomeness to the vicinity of the Morgue and Notre-Dame.
We again turned to the right, into a narrow, dirty street,—the Rue du Haut-Pavé,—whose windings brought us into a similar street,—the Rue Galande. Bishop halted in front of a low arched door-way, which blazed sombrely in its coat of blood-red paint. A twisted gas-lamp, demoralized and askew, depended overhead, and upon the glass enclosing it was painted, with artistic flourishes,—"Au Soleil d'Or."
This was the cabaret of the Golden Sun,—all unconscious of the mockery of its name, another of those whimsical disjointings in which the shadowy side of Paris is so prolific. From the interior of the luminary came faintly the notes of a song, with piano accompaniment.
The archway opened into a small court paved with ill-fitted flint blocks. At the farther end of it another gas-lamp flickered at the head of a flight of stairs leading underground. As we approached the steps a woman sprang from the shadow, and with a cry, half of fear and half of anger, fled to the street. At that moment memories of the cosiness of our studio became doubly enticing,—one cannot always approach unfamiliar underground Paris with perfect courage. But Bishop's coolness was reassuring. He had already descended the steps, and there was nothing left for me but to follow.
At the foot of the stairs were half-glass doors curtained with cheap red cloth. A warm, thick, suffocating gust of air, heavy with the fumes of beer, wine, and tobacco, assailed our cold faces as we pushed open the doors and entered the room.
For a moment it was difficult to see clearly, so dense was the smoke. It was packed against the ceiling like a bank of fog, diminishing in density downward, and shot through with long banner-like streamers of smoke freshly emitted.
The human atmosphere of the place could not be caught at once. A stranger would not have known for the moment whether he was with thieves or artists. But very soon its distinctive spirit made its presence and character manifest. The room—which was not a large one—was well filled with an assortment of those queer and interesting people some of whom Bishop had entertained at the studio, only here their characteristics were more pronounced, for they were in their natural element, depressed and hampered by no constraints except of their own devising. A great many were women, although it could be seen at a glance that they were not of the nymphs who flitted among the glittering cafés, gowned in delicate laces and sheeny sculptured silks, the essence of mignonette pervading their environment. No; these were different.
Here one finds, not the student life of Paris, but its most unconventional Bohemian life. Here, in this underground rendezvous, a dirty old hole about twenty feet below the street level, gather nightly the happy-go-lucky poets, musicians, and singers for whom the great busy world has no use, and who, in their unrelaxing poverty, live in the tobacco clouds of their own construction, caring nothing for social canons, obeyers of the civil law because of their scorn of meanness, injustice, and crime, suffering unceasingly for the poorest comforts of life, ambitious without energy, hopeful without effort, cheerful under the direst pressure of need, kindly, simple, proud, and pitiful.
All were seated at little round tables, as are the habitués of the cafés, and their attention was directed upon a slim young fellow with curling yellow hair and a faint moustache, who was singing, leaning meanwhile upon a piano that stood on a low platform in one corner of the room. Their attention was respectful, delicate, sympathetic, and, as might be supposed, brought out the best in the lad. It was evident that he had not long been a member of the sacred circle. His voice was a smooth, velvety tenor, and under proper instruction might have been useful to its possessor as a means of earning a livelihood. But it was clear that he had already fallen under the spell of the associations to which accident or his inclination had brought him; and this meant that henceforth he would live in this strange no-world of dreams, hopes, sufferings, and idleness, and that likely he would in time come to gather cigar-stumps on the sanded pavement of the Café d'Harcourt, and after that sleep with the rats under the bridges of the Seine. At this moment, however, he lived in the clouds; he breathed and glowed with the spirit of shiftless, proud, starving Bohemianism as it is lived in Paris, benignantly disdainful of the great moiling, money-grubbing world that roared around him, and perhaps already the adoration of some girl of poetic or artistic tastes and aspirations, who was serving him as only the Church gives a woman the right.
There was time to look about while he was singing, though that was difficult, so strange and pathetic a picture he made. The walls of the room were dirty and bare, though relieved at rare intervals by sketches and signs. The light came from three gas-burners, and was reflected by a long mirror at one end of the room.
No attention had been paid to our entrance, except by the garçon, a heavy-set, bull-necked fellow, who, with a sign, bade us make no noise.
When the song had finished the audience broke into uproarious applause, shouting, "Bravo, mon vieux!" "Bien fait, Marquis!" and the clapping of hands and beating of glasses on the marble-topped tables and pounding of canes on the floor made a mighty din. The young singer, his cheeks glowing and his eyes blazing, modestly rolled up his music and sought his seat.
We were now piloted to seats by the garçon, who, when we had settled ourselves, demanded to know what we would drink. "Deux bocks!" he yelled across the room. "Deux bocks!" came echoing back from the counter, where a fat woman presided—knitting.
Several long-haired littérateurs—friends of Bishop's—came up and saluted him and shook his hand, all with a certain elegance and dignity. He, in turn, introduced me, and the conversation at once turned to art, music, and poetry. Whatever the sensational news of the day, whatever the crisis in the cabinet, whatever anything might have been that was stirring the people in the great outside commonplace world, these men and women gave it no heed whatever. What was the gross, hard, eager world to them? Did not the glories of the Golden Sun lend sufficient warmth to their hearts, and were not their vague aspirations and idle hopes ample stimulants to their minds and spirits? They quickly found a responsive mood in us, and this so delighted them that they ordered the drinks.
The presiding genius at the piano was a whitehaired, spiritual-looking man, whose snowy locks gave the only indication of his age; for his face was filled with the eternal youthfulness of a careless and contented heart. His slender, delicate fingers told of his temperament, his thin cheeks of his poverty, and his splendid dreamy eyes of the separate life that he lived.
Standing on the platform beside him was a man of a very different type. It was' the pianist's function to be merely a musician; but the other man—the musical director—was one from whom judgment, decision, and authority were required. Therefore he was large, powerful, and big- stomached, and had a pumpkin head, and fat, baggy eyes that shone through narrow slits. He now stepped forward and rang a little bell, upon which all talking was instantly hushed.
"Mesdames et messieurs," he said, in a large, capable voice, "J'ai l'honneur de vous annoncer que Madame Louise Leroux, nous lira ses dernières oeuvres—une faveur que nous apprécierons tous."
A young woman—about twenty-three, I should judge—arose from one of the tables where she had been sitting talking with an insipid-looking gentleman adorned with a blond moustache and vacant, staring-eyes; he wore a heavy coat trimmed with astrachan collar and cuffs, which, being open at the throat, revealed the absence of a shirt from his body. A Latin Quarter top-hat was pushed back on his head, and his long, greasy hair hung down over his collar. Madame Leroux smiled affectionately at him as she daintily flicked the ashes from her cigarette and laid it upon the table, and moistened her thin red lips with a yellow liqueur from her glass. He responded with a condescending jerk of his head, and, diving into one of the inner pockets of his coat, brought forth a roll of paper, which she took. A great clapping of hands and loud cries of her name greeted her as she stepped upon the platform, but it was clearly to be seen from her indifferent air that she had been long accustomed to this attention.
The big musical director again rang his bell.
"Il était une Fois," she said, simply. The pianist fingered the keys softly, and she began to recite.
The room was as still as a chapel. Every one listened in profound absorption; even the stolid bull-necked waiter leaned against the wall, his gaze fastened upon her with respectful interest. She spoke slowly, in a low, sweet tone, the soft accompaniment of the piano following the rhythm of her voice with wonderful effectiveness. She seemed to forget her surroundings,—the hot, close room, crowded with shabby, eccentric geniuses who lived from hand to mouth, the poverty that evidently was her lot,—even her lover, who sat watching her with a cold, critical, half-disdainful air, making notes upon a slip of paper, now nodding his head approvingly, now frowning, when pleased or displeased with her performance. She was a rare picture as she thus stood and recited, a charming swing to her trim figure, half reclining upon the piano, her black hair falling loosely and caressing her forehead and casting her dark eyes in deeper shadow, and all her soul going forth in the low, soft, subdued passion of her verses. She reminded one greatly of Bernhardt, and might have been as great.
During her whole rendering of this beautiful and pathetic tale of "other times" she scarcely moved, save for some slight gesture that suggested worlds. How well the lines suited her own history and condition only she could have told. Who was she? What had she been? Surely this strange woman, hardly more than a mere girl, capable of such feelings and of rendering them with so subtle force and beauty, had lived another life,- -no one knew, no one cared.
Loud shouts of admiration and long applause rang through the room as she slowly and with infinite tenderness uttered the last line with bowed head and a choking voice. She stood for a moment while the room thundered, and then the noise seemed to recall her, to drag her back from some haunting memory to the squalor of her present condition, and then her eyes eagerly sought the gentleman of the fur-collared coat. It was an anxious glance that she cast upon him. He carelessly nodded once or twice, and she instantly became transfigured. The melancholy of her eyes and the wretched dejection of her pose disappeared, and her sad face lit up with a beaming, happy smile. She was starting to return to him, all the woman in her awaking to affection and a yearning for the refuge of his love, when the vociferous cries of the crowd for an encore, and the waving of her lover's hand as a signal for her to comply, sent her back on guard to the piano again. Her smile was very sweet and her voice full of trippling melody when she now recited a gay little ballad,—also her own composition,—"Amours Joyeux,"—in so entirely different a spirit that it was almost impossible to believe her the same mortal. Every fibre of her being participated in the rollicking abandon of the piece, and her eyes were flooded with the mellow radiance of supreme love satisfied and victorious.
Upon regaining her seat she was immediately surrounded by a praise- giving crowd, who shook hands with her and heartily congratulated her; but it was clear that she could think only of him of the fur collar, and that no word of praise or blame would weigh with her the smallest fraction of a feather's weight unless this one man uttered it. She disengaged her hand from her crowding admirers and deftly donned her little white Alpine hat, all the while looking into the face of the one man who could break her heart or send her to heaven. He sat looking at his boot, indifferent, bored. Presently he looked up into her anxious eyes, gazed at her a moment, and then leaned forward and spoke a word. It sent her to heaven. Her face all aglow and her eyes shining with happiness, she called the garçon, paid for the four saucers upon the table, and left the room upon the arm of her lover.
"How she does adore that dog!" exclaimed my friend the musician.
"What does he do?" I asked.
"Do?" he echoed. "Nothing. It is she who does all. Without her he would starve. He is a writer of some ability, but too much of a socialist to work seriously. In her eyes he is the greatest writer in the world. She would sacrifice everything to please him. Without him her life would fall into a complete blank, and her recklessness would quickly send her into the lowermost ranks. When a woman like that loves, she loves—ah, les femmes sont difficiles à comprendre!" My friend sighed, burying his moustaches in a foaming bock.
Individual definition grew clearer as I became more and more accustomed to the place and its habitués. It seemed that nearly all of them were absinthe-drinkers, and that they drank a great deal,—all they could get, I was made to understand. They care little about their dress and the other accessories of their personal appearance, though here and there they exhibit the oddest finery, into whose possession they fall by means which casual investigation could not discover, and which is singularly out of harmony with the other articles of their attire and with the environment which they choose. As a rule, the men wear their hair very long and in heavy, shaggy masses over their ears and faces. They continually roll and smoke cigarettes, though there are many pipes, and big ones at that. But though they constitute a strange crowd, there is about them a distinct air of refinement, a certain dignity and pride that never fail, and withal a gentleness that renders any approach to ruffianism impossible. The women take a little more pride in their appearance than the men. Even in their carelessness and seeming indifference there abides with nearly all of them the power to lend themselves some single touch of grace that is wonderfully redeeming, and that is infinitely finer and more elusive than the showy daintiness of the women of the cafés.
As a rule, these Bohemians all sleep during the day, as that is the best way to keep warm; at night they can find warmth in the cabarets. In the afternoon they may write a few lines, which they sell in some way for a pittance, wherewithal to buy them a meal and a night's vigil in one of these resorts. This is the life of lower Bohemia plain and simple,—not the life of the students, but of the misfit geniuses who drift, who have neither place nor part in the world, who live from hand to mouth, and who shudder when the Morgue is mentioned,—and it is so near, and its lights never go out! They are merely protestants against the formalism of life, rebels against its necessities. They seek no following, they desire to exercise no influence. They lead their vacant lives without the slightest restraint, bear their poverty without a murmur, and go to their dreary end without a sigh. These are the true Bohemians of Paris.
Other visitors came into the Soleil d'Or and sought seats among their friends at the tables, while others kept leaving, bound for other rendezvous, many staying just sufficiently long to hear a song or two. They were all of the same class, very negligently and poorly attired, some displaying their odd pieces of finery with an exquisite assumption of unconsciousness on its account, as though they were millionaires and cared nothing for such trivial things. And the whimsical incongruities of it! If one wore a shining tile he either had no shirt (or perhaps a very badly soiled one), or wore a frayed coat and disreputable shoes. In fact, no complete respectable dress made its appearance in the room that night, though each visitor had his distinctive specialty,—one a burnished top hat, another a gorgeous cravat, another a rich velvet jacket, and so on. But they all wore their hair as long as it would grow. That is the Bohemian mark.
The little bell again rang, and the heavy director announced that "Monsieur Léon Décarmeau will sing one of his newest songs." Monsieur Léon Décarmeau was a lean, half-starved appearing man of about forty, whose eyes were sunk deep in his head, and whose sharp cheek-bones protruded prominently. On the bridge of his thin, angular nose set a pair of "pince-nez," attached by a broad black cord, which he kept fingering nervously as he sang. His song was entitled "Fleurs et Pensées," and he threw himself into it with a broad and passionate eagerness that heavily strained the barrier between melodrama and burlesque. His glance sought the ceiling in a frenzied quest of imaginary nymphs, his arms swayed as he tenderly caressed imaginary flowers of sweet love and drank in their intoxicating perfume instead of the hot, tobacco-rife smoke of the room. His voice was drawn out in tremendous sighs full of tears, and his chest heaved like a blacksmith's bellows. But when he had ceased he was most generously applauded and praised.
During the intervals between the songs and recitations the room was noisy with laughter, talking, and the clinking of glasses. The one garçon was industriously serving boissons and yelling orders to the bar, where the fat woman sat industriously knitting, heedless, as might have been expected of the keeper of the Cave of Adullam, and awakening to activity only when the stentorian yells of the garçon's orders rose above the din of the establishment. Absinthe and beer formed the principal beverages, though, as a rule, absinthe was taken only just before a meal, and then it served as an appetizer,—a sharpener of hunger to these who had so little wherewithal to satisfy the hunger that unaided nature created!
The mystery of the means by which these lighthearted Bohemians sustained their precarious existence was not revealed to me; yet here they sat, and laughed, and talked, and recited the poetry of their own manufacture, and sang their songs, and drank, and smoked their big pipes, and rolled cigarettes incessantly, happy enough in the hour of their lives, bringing hither none of the pains and pangs and numbing evidences of their struggles. And there was no touch of the sordid in the composite picture that they made, and a certain tinge of intellectual refinement, a certain spirituality that seemed to raise them infinitely above the plane of the lowly strugglers who won their honest bread by honest labor, shone about them as a halo.
Their dark hours, no doubt, came with the daylight, and in these meetings at the cabaret they found an agreeable way in which to while away the dismal interval that burdened their lives when they were not asleep; for the cabaret was warm and bright, warmer and brighter than their own wretched little rooms au cinquième,—and coal and candles are expensive luxuries! Here, if their productions haply could not find a larger and more remunerative audience, they could at least be heard,—by a few, it is true, but a most appreciative few, and that is something of value equal to bread. And then, who could tell but what fame might unexpectedly crown them in the end? It has happened thus.
"But why worry?" asked the musician. "'Laugh, and the world laughs with you. If we do not live a long life, it is at least a jolly one,' is our motto and certainly they gave it most faithful allegiance."
I learned from Bishop that the musical director received three francs a night for his services. Should singers happen to be lacking, or should the evening be dull for other reason, he himself must sing and recite; for the tension of the Soleil d'Or must be kept forever taut. The old white-haired pianist received two francs a night, and each of these contributors to the gayety of the place was given a drink gratis. So there was at least some recompense besides the essential one of appreciation from the audience.
Glasses clinked merrily, and poets and composers flitted about the room to chat with their contemporaries. A sketch artist, deftly drawing the portrait of a baritone's jolly little mistress, was surrounded by a bantering group, that passed keen, intelligent, and good-natured criticism on the work as it rapidly grew under his hands. The whitehaired pianist sat puffing at his cigarette and looking over some music with a rather pretty young woman who had written popular songs of La Villette.
The opening of the doors and the straggling entrance of three men sent an instant hush throughout the room.
"Verlaine!" whispered the musician to me.
It was indeed the great poet of the slums,—the epitome and idol of Bohemian Paris, the famous man whose verses had rung throughout the length and breadth of the city, the one man who, knowing the heart and soul of the stragglers who found light and warmth in such places as the Soleil d'Or, had the brains and grace to set the strange picture adequately before the wondering world.
The musical director, as well as a number of others in the place, stepped forward, and with touching deference and tenderness greeted the remarkable man and his two companions. It was easy to pick out Verlaine without relying upon the special distinction with which he was greeted. He had the oddest slanting eyes, a small, stubby nose, and wiry whiskers, and his massive forehead heavily overhung his queerly shaped eyes. He was all muffled up to the chin; wore a badly soiled hat and a shabby dark coat. Under one arm he carried a small black portfolio.
Several of the women ran to him and kissed him on both cheeks, which salutations he heartily returned, with interest.
One of his companions was Monsieur Bi-Bi-dans-la-Purée—so he was called, though seemingly he might have been in anything as well as soup. He was an exceedingly interesting figure. His sunken, drawn, smooth- shaven face gave terrible evidence of the excessive use of absinthe. A large hooked nose overshadowed a wide, loose mouth that hung down at the corners, and served to set forth in startling relief the sickly leaden color of his face. When he spoke, a few straggling teeth gleamed unpleasantly. He wore no overcoat, and his jacket hung open, disclosing a half-opened shirt that exposed his bare breast. His frayed trousers dragged the ground at his heels. But his eyes were the most terrible part of him; they shone with the wild, restless light of a madman, and their gaze was generally flitting and distrait, acknowledging no acquaintances. Afterwards, when Verlaine was dead, I often saw Monsieur Bi-Bi-dansla-Purée on the street, looking most desolate, a roll of white manuscript in his hand, his coat and shirt wide open, exposing his naked breast to the biting cold wind. He seemed to be living altogether in another world, and gazed about him with the same unseeing vacant stare that so startled me that night in the Soleil d'Or.
When Verlaine and his companions were seated—by displacing the artist—the recitations and songs recommenced; and it was noticeable that they were rendered with augmented spirit, that the famous poet of the slums might be duly impressed with the capabilities and hospitable intentions of his entertainers; for now all performed for Verlaine, not for one another. The distinguished visitor had removed his slouch hat, revealing the wonderful oblong dome of his bald head, which shone like the Soleil d'Or; and many were the kisses reverently and affectionately bestowed upon that glistening eminence by the poet's numerous female admirers in the throng.
A reckless-looking young woman, with a black hat drawn down over her eyes, and wearing glasses, was now reciting. Her hands were gloved in black, but the finger-tips were worn through,—a fact which she made all the more evident by a peculiar gesture of the fingers.
As the small hours grew larger these gay Bohemians waxed gayer and livelier. Formalities were gradually abandoned, and the constraint of dignity and reserve slowly melted under the mellowing influences of the place. Ceremonious observances were dropped one by one; and whereas there had been the most respectful and insistent silence throughout the songs, now all joined heartily in the choruses, making the dim lights dance in the exuberance of the enjoyment. I had earnestly hoped that Verlaine, splendid as was his dignity, might thaw under the gathering warmth of the hour, but beyond listening respectfully, applauding moderately, and returning the greetings that were given him, he held aloof from the influence of the occasion, and after draining his glass and bidding good-night to his many friends, with his two companions he made off to another rendezvous.
Monsieur le Directeur came over to our table and asked Bishop to favor the audience with a "chanson Américaine." This rather staggered my modest friend, but he finally yielded to entreaties. The director rang his little bell again and announced that "Monsieur Beeshup" would sing a song à l'Américaine. This was received with uproarious shouts by all, and several left their seats and escorted Bishop to the platform. I wondered what on earth he would sing. The accompanist, after a little coaching from Bishop, assailed the chords, and Bishop began drawling out his old favorite, "Down on the Farm." He did it nobly, too, giving the accompanist occasion for labor in finding the more difficult harmonies. The hearers, though they did not understand a word of the ditty, and therefore lost the whole of its pathos, nevertheless listened with curious interest and respect, though with evident veiled amusement. Many quick ears caught the refrain. At first there came an exceedingly soft chorus from the room, and it gradually rose until the whole crowd had thrown itself into the spirit of the melody, and swelled it to a mighty volume. Bishop led the singers, beating time with his right arm, his left thumb meanwhile hooked in the arm-hole of his waistcoat. "Bravo! Bravo, Beeshup! Bis!" they yelled, when it was finished, and then the room rang with a salvo of hand-clappings in unison: 1-2—3-4-5—1-2-3- 4-5—1-2-3-4-5—1—2—3!! A great ovation greeted him as he marched with glowing cheeks to his seat, and those who knew him crowded round him for a hand-shake. The musician asked him if he would sing the song in private for him, that he might write down the melody, to which Bishop agreed, on condition that the musician pose for him. Bishop had a singularly sharp eye for opportunities.
The sketch artist sauntered over and sat down at our table to have a chat with Bishop. He was a singular fellow. His manner was smoothed by a fine and delicate courtesy, bespeaking a careful rearing, whose effects his loose life and promiscuous associations could not obliterate. His age was about thirty-two, though he looked much older,—this being due in part to his hard life and in other part to the heavy whiskers that he wore. An absurd little round felt hat sat precariously on his riotous mane, and I was in constant apprehension lest it should fall off every time he shook his head. Over his shoulders was a blue cape covering a once white shirt that was devoid of a collar. His fingers were all black with the crayon that he had used in sketching. He said that he had already earned twelve sous that evening, making portraits at six sous a head! But there was not so much money to be made in a place like this as in the big cafés,—the frequenters were too poor.
I asked him where he had studied and learned his art, for it could be easily seen that he had had some training; his portraits were not half bad, and showed a knowledge of drawing. He thereupon told me his story.
He had come to Paris thirteen years before from Nantes, Brittany, to study art. His father kept a small grocery and provision-shop in Nantes, and lived in meagre circumstances. The son having discovered what his father deemed a remarkable talent for drawing when a boy, the father sent him to Paris, with an allowance of a hundred francs a month, and he had to deny himself severely to furnish it. When the young man arrived at Paris he studied diligently at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for a while, and became acquainted with many of the students and models. He soon found the easy life of the cafés, with the models for companions, more fascinating than the dull grind of the school. It was much pleasanter to enjoy the gayety of the nights and sleep all day than drone and labor at his easel. As his small allowance did not permit of extravagance, he fell deeply into debt, and gave more heed to absinthe than his meals,—it is cheaper, more alluring, and brings an exhilaration that sharpens wit and equips the soul with wings.
For a whole year the father was in total ignorance of his son's conduct, but one day a friend, who had seen the young man in Paris, laid the ugly story in his father's ear. This so enraged the father that he instantly stopped the remittances and disowned his son. All appeals for money, all promises to reform, were in vain, and so the young madcap was forced to look about for a means of subsistence. And thus it was that he drifted into the occupation of a sketch artist, making portraits in the cafés all night and sleeping in daytime. This brought him a scant living.
But there was his mistress, Marcelle, always faithful to him. She worked during the day at sewing, and shared her small earnings with him. All went fairly well during the summer, but in winter the days were short, Marcelle's earnings were reduced, and the weather was bitter cold. Still, it was not so bad as it might be, he protested; but underneath his easy flippancy I imagined I caught a shadow,—a flitting sense of the hollowness and misery and hopelessness and shame of it all. But I am not certain of that. He had but gone the way of many and many another, and others now are following in his footsteps, deluding self-denying parents, and setting foot in the road which, so broad and shining at the beginning, narrows and darkens as it leads nearer and nearer to the rat- holes under the bridges of the Seine, and to the grim house whose lights forever shine at night under the shadow of Notre-Dame.
Had monsieur a cigarette to spare? Monsieur had, and monsieur thought that the thanks for it were out of all proportion to its value; but they were totally eclipsed by the praises of monsieur's wonderful generosity in paying for a glass of absinthe and sugar for the man who made faces at six sous apiece.
The quiet but none the less high tension of the place, the noise of the singing, the rattling of glasses and saucers, the stifling foul air of the room, filled me with weariness and threatened me with nausea. Things had moved in a constant whirl all night, and now it was nearly four o'clock. How much longer will this last?
"Till five o'clock," answered the musician; then all the lights go out, and the place is closed; and our friends seek their cold, cheerless rooms, to sleep far into the afternoon.
We paid for our saucers, and after parting adieux left in company with the musician and the aesthetic poet. How deliciously sharp and refreshing was the cold, biting air as we stepped out into the night! It seemed as though I had been breathing molasses. The fog was thicker than ever, and the night was colder. The two twisted gas-lamps were no longer burning as we crossed the slippery stone-paved court and ascended to the narrow street. The musician wrapped a gray muffler about his throat and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. The poet had no top-coat, but he buttoned his thin jacket tightly about him, and shivered.
"Shall we have some lait chaud and a croissant?" inquired the musician.
Yes, anything hot would be good, even milk; but where could we get it?
"Ah, you shall see!"
We had not gone far when it gave me a start to recognize a figure that we had seen in the Boul' Mich' on our way to the Soleil d'Or. It was that of an outcast of the boulevards, now slinking through the shadows toward the river. We had been accosted by him in front of one of the brilliant cafés, as, trembling and rubbing his hands, a picture of hopeless dejection and misery, and in a quavering voice he begged us to buy him a drink of brandy.
It probably saved him from an attack of delirium tremens that night, but here he was drifting, with a singular fatality, toward the river and the Morgue. Now, that his day's work of begging was done, all his jackal watchfulness had disappeared, and an inner vision seemed to look forth from his bleared eyes as their gaze strained straight and dull toward the black river. It may have been a mere fancy, but the expression in his eyes reminded me strongly of similar things that I had seen on the slabs in the Morgue.
We crossed the Rue du Haut-Pavé again to the river wall, and arrived at the bridge leading back of Notre-Dame and past the Morgue. On the farther end of the bridge, propped against the parapet, was a small stand, upon a corner of which a dim lamp was burning. In front were a number of milk-cans, and on a small counter were a row of thick white bowls and a basket of croissants. Inside, upon a small stove, red with heat, were two kettles from which issued clouds of steam bearing an odor of boiling milk. A stout woman, her face so well wrapped in a shawl that only the end of her red nose was visible, greeted us,—"Bon jour, messieurs. En voulez-vous du bon lait bien chaud?"
She poured out four bowls of steaming milk, and gave us each a roll. For this luxury we paid three sous each; and a feast it was, for the shivering poet, at least, for he licked the hot bowl clean and ate the very crumbs of his croissant.
As we were bound for widely separated quarters, our Bohemian friends bade us an affectionate good-night, and were soon swallowed up in the gloom. We turned towards home and the Boul' Mich'. All the cafés were closed and dark, but the boulevard was alive with canal-boatmen, street- sweepers, and rumbling vegetable- and milk-carts. The streets were being washed clean of all evidences of the previous day's life and turmoil, and the great city was creeping forth from its lair to begin another.
