Zut, and Other Parisians

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

All that night Little Tapin lay staring at the ceiling of the big dortoir, while the comrades breathed heavily around him. And, little by little, the spirit of rebellion roused and stirred in his simple Breton heart. For he hated it all,—this army, this dreary, rigid routine, this contemptuous comment of trim, sneering young lieutenants, with waxed mustaches, and baggy red riding breeches, and immaculately varnished boots. He hated his own uniform, which another tapin had worn before him, and which, in consequence, had never even had the charm of freshness. He hated the bugles, and the drums,—yes, and, more than all, the tricolor, the flag of the great, cruel Republic which had cooped him up in these desolate barracks of La Pépinière, instead of sending him with other Bretons out to the arms of the blue sea! And, when gray morning crept through the windows of the dortoir, there lay upon the pallet of Little Tapin a deserter, in spirit, at least, from the 107th of the line!

That day, for the third time since joining the regiment, Little Tapin was detailed as drummer to the guard at the Palais du Louvre. He knew what that meant,—a long, insufferably tiresome day, with nothing to do save to idle about a doorway of the palace, opposite the place du Palais Royal, watching the throng of shoppers scurrying to and fro, and passing in and out of the big magasins du Louvre. It was only as sunset approached that the drummer of the guard detail had any duty to perform. Then he marched, all alone, with his drum slung on his hip, across the place du Carrousel, and down the wide central promenade of the Tuileries gardens, to the circular basin at their western end, where, on pleasant afternoons, the little Parisians—and some, too, of larger growth—manœuvred their miniature yachts, to the extreme vexation of the sluggish gold-fish. There, standing motionless, like a sketch by Edouard Detaille, he watched the sun creep lower, lower, behind the arc de l'Etoile, until it went out of sight, and then, turning, he marched back, drumming sturdily, to warn all who lingered in the gardens that the gates were about to close.

But they were not good for Little Tapin, those hours of idleness at the portals of the palace. It is the second busiest and most densely thronged spot in Paris, this: first the place de l'Opéra, and then the place du Palais Royal. And to Little Tapin's eyes, as he glanced up and down the rue de Rivoli, the great city seemed more careless, more cruel than ever, and bit by bit the rebellious impulse born in the dortoir grew stronger, more irresistible. His Breton mind was slow to action, but, once set in a direction, it was obstinacy itself. He took no heed of consequences. If he realized at any stage of his meditation what the outcome of desertion must inevitably be, it was only to put the thought resolutely from him. Capture, court-martial, imprisonment, they were only names to him. What was real was that he should see Plougastel again, sit hand in hand with Rosalie, and refind his comrades, the wide, sunlit harbor, and the impatient western wind, for which his heart was aching. What was false and unbearable was longer service in an army that he loathed.

He arranged the details of escape in his mind, as he sat apart from his comrades of the guard, fingering the drum-cords. An hour's leave upon the morrow—certainly the tambour-major would grant him so much, if he said it was to bid his sister good-by; then, a change from his detested uniform to a cheap civile in the shop of some second-hand dealer in the Gobelins quarter; and, finally, a quick dash to the gare Montparnasse, when he should have learned the hour of his train, and so, away to Finistère. It sounded extremely simple, as all such plans do, when the wish is father to the thought, and in his calculations he went no further than Plougastel. After that, one would see. So the long afternoon stole past.

At seven o'clock the lieutenant of the guard touched Little Tapin upon the shoulder, and, more by instinct than actual perception, he sprang to his feet and saluted.

"Voyons, mon petit," said the officer, not unkindly. "It is time thou wast off. Thou knowest thy duty—eh? There is no need of instructions?"

"Oh, ça me connait, mon lieutenant," answered Little Tapin quaintly, and, presently, he was striding away to his post, under the arc de Triomphe, past the statues, and the flowerbeds, and the dancing fountains, across the rue des Tuileries, and so into the wide, central promenade of the gardens beyond.

The old woman who sold cakes, and reglisse, and balloons to the children, was putting up the shutters of her little booth as he passed, and two others were piling wooden chairs in ungainly pyramids under the trees, though the gardens were still full of people, hurrying north and south on the transverse paths leading to the rue de Rivoli or to the quai and the pont de Solférino. But, curiously enough, the open space around the western basin was almost deserted as Little Tapin took his position, facing the great grille.

The mid-August afternoon had been oppressively warm, and now a thin haze had risen from the wet wood pavement of the place de la Concorde, and hovered low, pink in the light of the setting sun. Directly before Little Tapin the obelisk raised its warning finger, and beyond, the Champs Elysées, thickly dotted with carriages, and half veiled by great splotches of ruddy-yellow dust, swept away in a long, upward curve toward the distant arc de l'Etoile.

But of all this Little Tapin saw nothing. He stood very still, with his back to the basin, where the fat goldfish went to and fro like lazy sentinels, on the watch for a possible belated little boy, with a pocket full of crumbs. He was still deep in his dream of Plougastel, so deep that he could almost smell the salt breeze rollicking in from the Goulet, and hear the chapel bell sending the Angelus out over the strawberry fields and the rock-dotted hillside.