"On m'a dit hier de passer à la caisse ... l'edition était épuisée, vous voyez--il paraît, la fortune est venue ... même à moi."
But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately in the brasseries about a man in quest of a quiet village where he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away from us, and I had to tell my companion the story.
"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the café--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins.
"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the café, but when morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some night to the Nouvelle Athènes to hear him; leaning across the table he will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle Athènes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it."
The commerçant's wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of sensual Christ? He, too, was after the commerçant's wife. And didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody.
"Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or.
Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore."
The commerçant's wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here and there?
"Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite
Elle effleurait la Marguerite."
The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt Herring."
"He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty,
A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed,
And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy.
He placed the ladder high, high, high,
Against the wall white, white, white.
He went up the ladder high, high, high,
Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed
Against the wall--toc! toc! toc!
He tied to the nail a string long, long, long,
And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry,
And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy,
He got down from the ladder high, high, high,
And went away, away, away.
Since then at the end of the string long, long, long,
A salt herring dry, dry, dry,
Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly.
Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple,
To make all serious men mad, mad, mad,
And to amuse children, little, little, little."