“I planted them all myself,” said Marcelle, “except this last row, which the poet helped me to do. You see they are jumbled—as I told him, like some of his verses. He is a symbolist, you know. Nothing the poet writes can one ever understand. But he says we all will do so some day—that the cheap realism of the present will soon sink into oblivion and be forgotten.”
There were beds of giroflees, masses of pinks, odd corners of velvety pansies, and bower-like arbors covered with Jacqueminot roses. We descended some stepping-stones to a smaller lower garden and entered a thatched kiosk lined with turkey red, upon which were hung bas-reliefs and pen-and-ink drawings, souvenirs from those who loved the good-fellowship of this Arcadian nook.
And now Juliette, Marcelle’s bonne, her sleeves rolled over the elbows of her plump arms, came to the kiosk with vermouth and cigarettes. Following her, a green parrot pigeontoed his way down the gravel walk, muttering to himself a jumble of phrases.
“Come, my good Jacquot!” called Marcelle to the parrot. “Jacquot is one of my family; you shall see the others: my cat, my big Frou-Frou, and her pretty kittens, and the pigeons, and all the rest of the ménagerie after déjeuner.”
Jacquot climbed to the table and bent his beak to his breast. While Marcelle rubbed the pinfeathers of his green neck, he clucked and sang to himself in delight. Then he shook himself, dilated the pupils of his yellow eyes as he took a careful look at me, and, having satisfied himself as to my character, pigeontoed his way slowly to my shoulder. He sang quite clearly a song that Marcelle had taught him:
“J’ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J’ai du bon tabac, tu n’en auras pas.”
Half an hour later Juliette laid the table in the kiosk for breakfast, with two extra places set for the clown and the poet, who both came late, with endless apologies to Marcelle for their tardiness.
“There had been an extra rehearsal at the Nouveau Cirque,” explained the merry old fun-maker, and he mopped his brow, perspiring from his quick walk up the Butte. Marcelle straightway forgave him, and further cheered him with an affectionate pat on the top of his shining bald pate as he slid into his chair. As he unfolded his napkin there tumbled into his lap a boutonnière of mignonette, which our hostess had thoughtfully hidden for her old comrade. He had been her counselor and friend, often sharing with her the little he had during her days of penury, for Marcelle’s life, as I have said, had been from babyhood a struggle for existence. She was a flower that had fought its way to the sunshine from between the stones of Paris.
