CHAPTER VI
THE HANGING GARDENS OF PARIS
Henceforth Phil had glorious days. Poufaille, whom he made his assistant gardener, dug and watered and trimmed the alleys. It increased Phil’s expenses, but what a pleasure for him, after work, to pursue his dreams as he walked amid the flowers!
Long months had gone by since Phil’s reception into the studio. He had passed through many trials since then, and known discouragements and dogged labor and the joy of progress. Should he walk on a ball to earn his bread or hold the globe in his hand like a Cæsar? An effort, and then another, and an effort once more! The periods of want did not discourage him. Still he had a sad existence, and his only amusement was to come up here and breathe the pure air.
The garden of the Louvre, on top of Perrault’s colonnade, was a resting-place for the pigeons in their flight over Paris. They lighted there in bands, heedless of Phil and Poufaille. But one day the birds were all a-flutter. The hanging garden had its Semiramis—Helia!
Phil, while they held their dismayed flight above him, sat at the feet of Helia, who looked down and smiled at him. To the young girl it was a strange place. For thirty years the inspector of the Louvre roofs—the same man whom Phil had already seen at Mère Michel’s—had been making this garden, bringing up little by little the earth in which the plants grew, and the pebbles which covered the alleys. Boxes hidden among the foliage held great shrubs; the perfume of iris and gillyflower, of mignonette and roses, breathed from the flower-beds. Hanging over the borders were ripening currants and peaches and apples; and laurels gave their purple flowers. A whole row of statues and busts outlined the plots. Helia pointed to the busts.
“The one who looks like a circus-rider with his big mustaches—who is he?”
“Napoleon III,” Phil answered.
“And that other with his hair brushed up to a point like a clown?”
“That is Louis-Philippe.”
“And this one? and that one?”