“No, but I’ve got a job, a steady job. I’m doing cartoons every night at the Noctambules. You must come round and see me.”
I promised I would, and returned to the Passage d’Enfer, where Anastasia was busy putting our new apartment in order. There was a bedroom, dining-room, and a kitchen, about the size of a packing-box; but she was greatly pleased with everything. We supplemented our old furniture with some new articles from the bazaars. A dressing-table of walnut, a wardrobe with mirror doors, and cretonne curtains with a design of little roses. Soon, we found ourselves installed with a degree of comfort we had not hitherto known.
It was one evening that Anastasia, who had been papering the dining-room, retired to bed quite early, that I decided to accept Lorrimer’s invitation and visit the Noctambules. This is a cabaret in a dark side-street that parallels the “Boul’ Mich’.” I found myself in a long, low room whose walls were covered with caricatures of artists who in their Bohemian days had been habitués of the place. There was an array of chairs, a shabby little platform, and a piano. As each chansonnier came on he was introduced by an irrepressible young man with a curly mop of hair and merry eyes. Then, as the singer finished, the volatile young man called for three rounds of hearty applause.
The cabaret chansonniers of Paris are unique in their way. They are a connecting-link between literature and the stage—hermaphrodites of the entertaining world. They write, compose, and sing their own songs, which, often, not only have a distinctive note that makes for art, but are sung inimitably well. Ex-poets, students with a turn for satiric diversion, journalists of Bohemia, all go to swell the ranks of these inheritors of the traditions of Beranger. From that laureate of the gutter, Aristide Bruant, down to the smallest of them, they portray with passionate fidelity the humour and tragedy of the street—irreverently Rabelaisian at one moment, pathetically passionate at the next.
As I enter, Marcel Legay is in the midst of a song of fervid patriotism. In spite of his poetic name, he is a rubicund little man with a voice and the mane of a lion. Then follows Vincent Hispy, with catlike eyes and droll, caustic wit. Then comes Zavier Privas, big and boisterous as the west wind, lover to his soul of the chansons he writes and sings. Finally, with a stick of charcoal and an eager smile, Lorrimer appears. A screen is wheeled up on which are great sheets of coarse paper. The artist announces that his first effort will be Sarah Bernhardt. He makes about five lightning lines, and there is the divine Sarah. Then follow in swift succession Polaire, Dranem, Mistinguette, Mayol, and other lights of the Paris stage.
And now the cartoonist turns to the audience and asks them to name some one high in politics. A voice shouts Clemenceau. In a moment the well-known features are on the board. Poincaré! It is done. And so on for a dozen others. Applause greets every new cartoon, and the artist retires covered with glory.
“How did you like it?” grins Lorrimer, as he joins me in the audience.
“Splendid! Why, man, you could make barrels of money in America doing that sort of thing.”
“I’d rather be a pauper in Paris than a money-changer in Chicago. But there’s Rougette at the back of the hall. Doesn’t she look stunning? Thanks to this job, I’ve been able to pay her for a good many sittings, and now she’s got a new gown and hat. By Jove! that girl will be the making of me yet. Her loveliness really inspires me. Nature leaves me cold, but woman, beautiful woman!—I could go on painting her eternally and not ask for other reward.”
And, indeed, the Breton girl, with her ash-gold hair and her complexion of roses and cream, was a delicate vision of beauty.