A Traveler at Forty

by Theodore Dreiser

Miss N.’s studio is in the Rue Deñfert-Rochereau. In calling here I had my first taste of the Paris concierge, the janitress who has an eye on all those who come and go and to whom all not having keys must apply. In many cases, as I learned, keys are not given to the outer gate or door. One must ring and be admitted. This gives this person a complete espionage over the affairs of all the tenants, mail, groceries, guests, purchases, messages—anything and everything. If you have a charming concierge, it is well and good; if not, not. The thought of anything so offensive as a spying concierge irritated me greatly and I found myself running forward in my mind picking fights with some possible concierge who might at some remote date possibly trouble me. Of such is the contentious disposition.

The studio of Mr. McG., in the Boulevard Raspail, overlooks a lovely garden—a heavenly place set with trees and flowers and reminiscent of an older day in the bits of broken stone-work lying about, and suggesting the architecture of a bygone period. His windows, reaching from floor to ceiling and supplemented by exterior balconies, were overhung by trees. In both studios were scores of canvases done in the neo-impressionistic style which interested me profoundly.

It is one thing to see neo-impressionism hung upon the walls of a gallery in London, or disputed over in a West End residence. It is quite another to come upon it fresh from the easel in the studio of the artist, or still in process of production, defended by every thought and principle of which the artist is capable. In Miss N.’s studio were a series of decorative canvases intended for the walls of a great department store in America which were done in the raw reds, yellows, blues and greens of the neo-impressionist cult—flowers which stood out with the coarse distinctness of hollyhocks and sunflowers; architectural outlines which were as sharp as those of rough buildings, and men and women whose details of dress and feature were characterized by colors which by the uncultivated eye would be pronounced unnatural.

For me they had an immense appeal if for nothing more than that they represented a development and an individual point of view. It is so hard to break tradition.

It was the same in the studio of Mr. McG. to which we journeyed after some three-quarters of an hour. Of the two painters, the man seemed to me the more forceful. Miss N. worked in a softer mood, with more of what might be called an emotional attitude towards life.

During all this, Barfleur was in the heyday of his Parisian glory, and appropriately cheerful. We took a taxi through singing streets lighted by a springtime sun and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier where it was necessary for him to secure a table and order dinner in advance; and thence to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where tickets for a farce had to be secured, and thence to a bar near the Avenue de l’Opéra where we were to meet the previously mentioned Mme. de B. who, out of the goodness of her heart, was to help entertain me while I was in the city.

This remarkable woman who by her beauty, simplicity, utter frankness, and moody immorality would shock the average woman into a deadly fear of life and make a horror of what seems a gaudy pleasure world to some, quite instantly took my fancy. Yet I think it was more a matter of Mme. de B.’s attitude, than it was the things which she did, which made it so terrible. But that is a long story.

One of the thousands upon thousands of cafés on the boulevards of Paris

We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people—the gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York, but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can easily resent—it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about it; they are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians feel keenly that they are living now and that they wish to enjoy themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman—the Englishman much more than the American—have decided that they are going to live in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision and the Englishman a little meek or patient. They both feel that life is intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it, decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books, restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally. The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see each other—out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the thousands upon thousands of cafés; and make themselves comfortable and talkative and gay on the streets. It is so obvious that everybody is having a good time—not trying to have it; that they are enjoying the wine-like air, the cordials and apéritifs of the brasseries, the net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing lights of the roadways, and the flare of the shops. It may be chill or drizzling in Paris, but you scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive the people off the streets. Literally it does not. There are crowds whether it rains or not, and they are not despondent. This particular hour that brought us to G.’s Bar was essentially thrilling, and I was interested to see what Mme. de B. was like.