"'My child,' he stammered, 'you will sup here as my guest.'
"Adolphe set before her champagne that she sipped feverishly, and a supper that she was too ill to eat. And cabs came rattling from the Boulevard with boisterous men and women who no longer recalled her name—and with other 'Little-Flowers-of-the-Wood,' who had sprung up since her day.
"The woman who used to reign there sat among them looking back, until the last jest was bandied, and the last bottle was drained. Then she bade her host 'good-bye,' and crawled home—to the garret where she 'heard the music of the ball'; the garret where she 'prayed that the laughter would come up to her right at the end, before she died.'"
Janiaud finished the absinthe, and lurched to his feet. "That's all."
"Great Scott," said the Editor, "I wish he could write in English! But —but it's very pitiable, she may starve there; something ought to be done…. Can you tell us where she is living, monsieur?"
The poet shrugged his shoulders. "Is there no satisfying you? You asked me for the history of the Bon Vieux Temps, and there are things that even I do not know. However, I have done my best. I cannot say where the lady is living, but I can tell you where she was born." He pointed, with a drunken laugh, to his glass: "There!"
A MIRACLE IN MONTMARTRE
Lajeunie, the luckless novelist, went to Pitou, the unrecognized composer, saying, "I have a superb scenario for a revue. Let us join forces! I promise you we shall make a fortune; we shall exchange our attics for first floors of fashion, and be wealthy enough to wear sable overcoats and Panama hats at the same time." In ordinary circumstances, of course, Pitou would have collaborated only with Tricotrin, but Tricotrin was just then engrossed by a tragedy in blank verse and seven acts, and he said to them, "Make a fortune together by all means, my comrades; I should be unreasonable if I raised objections to having rich friends."
Accordingly the pair worked like heroes of biography, and, after vicissitudes innumerable, Patatras was practically accepted at La Coupole. The manager even hinted that Fifi Blondette might be seen in the leading part. La Coupole, and Blondette! Pitou and Lajeunie could scarcely credit their ears. To be sure, she was no actress, and her voice was rather unpleasant, and she would probably want everything rewritten fifteen times before it satisfied her; but she was a beautiful woman and all Paris paid to look at her when she graced a stage; and she had just ruined Prince Czernowitz, which gave her name an additional value. "Upon my word," gasped Pitou, "our luck seems as incredible, my dear Lajeunie, as the plot of any of your novels! Come and have a drink!"
"I feel like Rodolphe at the end of La Vie de Bohème," he confided to Tricotrin in their garret one winter's night, as they went supper-less to their beds. "Now that the days of privation are past, I recall them with something like regret. The shock of the laundress's totals, the meagre dinners at the Bel Avenir, these things have a fascination now that I part from them. I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but I cannot help wondering if my millions will impair the taste of life to me."