“God!” said he—“what enthusiasm!... It is very dramatic.”
The company rose to go, giving André good-night as they went out, and, it being near midnight, Noll and Horace, and the others with them from Gérôme’s atelier, were about to go also and leave the regular frequenters of the place to their intimate gossip in the closed tavern, when André came down to them and asked them to stay. He took them round and showed a sketch of Noll’s framed amongst the many works of celebrities that hung upon the walls. “My friend, you are an artist,” said he.... They went and sat down at André’s table. The others all moved up about them. There was more beer, more absinthe. “The tavern is now closed,” said he—“you are my guests.”
The talk became more intimate.
André Joyeux would rise from his seat between the rallies, restlessly pacing the half-empty room, gesticulating, laughing, frowning, droll—bending his whole wits to the point at issue. His trenchant mind took on a lighter humour. Whatever topic came up, when he felt about it and did not let it pass him with uncaring eyes, he would get up from his seat and get to pacing the room again, playing with it, extolling or condemning, criticising, turning it over and inside out, his keen wit tearing it to shreds or weaving for it a wreath of bays—ever and anon moistening his throat, tilting his glass of absinthe in his shapely white hands.
An hour after midnight he was more than exhausted.
He called for supper....
He drank; none deeper. His talk was wild, his quick tongue and nimble brain were matched against some of the keenest wits of Paris, and his sharp satiric rallies, his rollicking and fantastic humour, never showed to greater advantage than on that night....
Some young fellow asked why Adolphe St. Pierre had not sung this night; it was a somewhat unhappy query, and André Joyeux’s quick ears caught it. It set him brooding; the laughter went out of his eyes:
“His nerves have gone,” he said—“this morning at daybreak he became violent—dangerous—about the double genitive.” He smiled sadly. “It took four poets and a journalist to hold him down, and a musician to pluck at the locked door and wring his hands and say how dreadful it was.... Poor Adolphe! he is gone quite mad.”
The pale youth touched André Joyeux on the sleeve with trembling fingers: