From gallery and church and restaurant to theater and opera and café they trailed through the sunny days and the soft nights. They haunted the theaters especially, for the young American—would-be dramatist—felt with sure instinct that here he had discovered the pure gold of his art after the sounding brass of Broadway. They went to the little theaters hidden away in obscure corners, to the theaters of the people, as well as to the stately stages of the Français and the Odéon and to the popular boulevard playhouses.
Brainard was like a dry sponge that soaks and soaks but never satisfies its thirst, so Mme. Vernon declared. With her help, the rapid dialogue of the theater became easily comprehensible. For the young man’s ears seemed attuned, his whole intelligence quickened. He was like one arriving, after a long journey, at the promised land.
“You are an artist,” the Frenchwoman flattered, “and should stay here with us in the land of artists!”
Brainard merely smiled, murmuring:
“We, too, are artists over there, in our way—artists of life!”
The last day came. At midnight the two companions emerged upon the busy Place du Théâtre Français, beside the plashing fountain. It had been “Phèdre,” and the Frenchwoman had yawned through the stately lines of sublime passion. She would have preferred the farce at the Palais Royal, or to prolong their last intimate dinner at Lavenue’s, which she loved so well. But the young American had sat enthralled, and now he walked as in a dream, with head erect.
In a few hours more this dream in which he had lived, this inspired world of beauty and art, would have vanished from his sight, never again, perhaps, to dazzle his eyes. Some careless god had taken him from his dingy corner and had shown him what a wonderful place this world can be. Now, after a week spent in the city of his desires, he must return to his own little hole, and let the clouds of reality fall between him and his vision.
“But why, oh, why,” he murmured aloud, “can’t we have something like that? Why isn’t there a place in all America where poor devils like myself could drop in for a few hours of paradise?”
“My poor poet!” the Frenchwoman exclaimed, guiding his footsteps gently toward a lighted café. “If you like it so much, why dost thou leave thy paradise?”
“Because it is so ordered,” he replied simply.