Zut, and Other Parisians

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Only one evidence remained of what had been. Le Pochard, with his absurd inanity, was yet a feature of every dinner in the rue de Seine, and because Grégoire invented daily some new drollery in connection with their senseless toy, Jean was unaware that things were no longer the same,—that his friend was thinner and more nervous, that the circles had deepened under his eyes, that he said no word of his work. They laughed together at Le Pochard, and laughed again at their own amusement. So the days went by and still their paths diverged,—Jean's toward the sungilt hills of promise and prosperity, Grégoire's toward the valley of shadow that a man must tread alone.

Despite his proclivities, neither foresaw the end of Le Pochard. So gradual was his decline toward utter degradation that the varnish was gone from his narrow boots and his round, weak face, and his simple attire was frayed and worn, before they had remarked the change. Then, one night, as Grégoire wound him, the key turned futilely in the spring. Placed in his accustomed position on the table, Le Pochard made one feeble gesture of surrender with his bottle, one unavailing effort to raise his absinthe to his lips, and, reeling dizzily, crashed down upon the floor, his debauches done with forever.

It was a curious thing that, in the face of this absurdity, neither of the comrades smiled. In some unaccountable fashion Le Pochard had come to be so much a part of their association that in his passing there was less of farce than tragedy. And Jean, looking across at Grégoire, saw for the first time the pitiful change that had crept into the face of his friend, the utter weariness where restless energy had been, the dullness of the eyes wherein had played imagination, like a will-o'-the-wisp above the slough of destiny. And Grégoire, looking across at Jean, knew that the moment had come, and dropped his glance, ashamed, fingering the tattered clothes of Le Pochard.

"One might have expected it," said Jean, with a smile that was not a smile. "I suppose we must forgive him his faults, now that he is gone. De mortuis nil nisi bonum!"

Then, as Grégoire made no reply, he added,

"I shall not work to-night. I am tired. Que veux-tu? I have been doing too much. So we will sit by the fire, n'est ce pas, vieux? And thou shalt read to me as before. Dieu! It is a long time since the moths have shown their wings!"

In the tiny grate the cannel coal snapped and spat fretfully, and Jean, buried in the largest chair, winked at the sparks, and, furtively, from the corners of his brown eyes, watched Grégoire reading, half-heartedly, with the lamp-light cutting sharply across his thin cheek and his temples, on which the veins stood singularly out.

He was no critic, little Jean le Gai, yet even he knew that something had touched and bruised the wings of this latest moth that Grégoire had pursued and caught while stupid folk were sleeping, so that it was not, as had been the others, downed with the shifting brilliance of many unimagined hues, but dull and sombre, like the look he had surprised in the face of his friend. And so subtly keyed were the strings of their unspoken sympathy that night, that a sense of the other's feeling stole in upon Grégoire long before the manuscript was finished, and suddenly he cast it from him into the grate, where the little flames caught at it, and wrapped it round, and sucked out its life, exulting, until it lay blackened and dying, writhing on the coals.

"Why?" said Jean. But he knew.

"Because," answered Grégoire slowly, with his eyes upon the shrunken, faintly whispering ashes of his pages, whereat the sparks gnawed with insatiable greed, "because, my little one, it is finished. What I have done I shall never do again. Never didst thou wholly understand—least of all in these last days when thy work absorbed thee. If one is to catch night-moths with such a tender touch, and preserve them for other men to see so carefully, that no one little glint of radiance may be missing from their wings, one has need of a clear eye and of a steady hand. Neither is mine. My father, of whom I have never spoken to thee,—my father, who left me this gift of trapping the thoughts that others see not as they fly, yet love and prize when they are caught and pinned upon the page, yet left me a companion curse,—the curse of absinthe, little Jean, that is not to be gainsaid. For as the gift was beautiful, so was it also frail, and as the curse was subtle, so was it also strong. I have seen the end—long, long. Now it is here. My work is finished. The curse has knocked at the door of my body, and, at the signal, the gift has flown forth from the window of my soul."