“My poor friend,” replied Barfleur, “I pity you. From the bottom of my heart I pity you. You are degrading your life and ruining your soul. Come now, to-morrow is Sunday. The church bells will be ringing. Go to church. Reform your life. Make a new start—do. You will never regret it. Your old mother will be so glad—and your sister.”
“Oh, say,” said the man, walking off, “you don’t want a guide. You want a church.” And he did not even look back.
“It is the only way I have of getting rid of them,” commented Barfleur. “They always stop when I begin to talk to them about their mother. They can’t stand the thought of their mother.”
“Very true,” I said. “Cut it out now, and come on. You have preached enough. Let us see the worst that Paris has to show.” And off we went, arm in arm.
Thereafter we visited restaurant after restaurant,—high, low, smart, dull,-and I can say truly that the strange impression which this world made on me lingers even now. Obviously, when we arrived at Fysher’s at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these places, like this Bar Fysher, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but crowded with a gay and festive throng—Americans, South Americans, English and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant successful is to keep it small so that it has an air of overflow and activity. Here at Fysher’s Bar, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, the piano and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle and champagne was all they served. It was necessary here, as at all the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things were offered in order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at each and all of them.
CHAPTER XXIV
“THE POISON FLOWER”
It was after this night that Barfleur took his departure for London for two weeks, where business affairs were calling him during which time I was to make myself as idle and gay as I might alone or with the individuals to whom he had introduced me or to whom I had introductions direct. There was so much that I wished to see and that he did not care to see over again with me, having seen it all before—the Musée de Cluny, for instance, the Louvre, the Luxembourg and so on.
The next afternoon after a more or less rambling day I saw him off for London and then I plunged into this treasure world alone.
One of the things that seriously impressed me was the never-failing singing air of the city which was everywhere; and another the peculiarly moody atmosphere of the cemetery of Père-Lachaise—that wonderful world of celebrated dead—who crowd each other like the residents of a narrow city and who make a veritable fanfare of names. What a world! One whole day I idled here over the tombs of Balzac, Daudet, De Musset, Chopin, Rachel, Abélard and Héloise—a long, long list of celebrities. My brain fairly reeled with the futility of life—and finally I came away immensely sad. Another day I visited Versailles and all its splendor with one of the most interesting and amusing Americans I met abroad, a publisher by the name of H——, who regaled me with his own naïve experiences. I fairly choked at times over his quaint, slangy, amusing comments on things as when at Versailles, in the chambers of Marie Antoinette, he discovered a small secret stair only to remark, “There’s where Louis XVI took a sneak often enough no doubt,” or on one of the towers of Notre Dame when to a third person who was present he commented, “There’s your gargoyles, old sox!” Think of the artistic irreverence of it! Concerning a group of buildings which related to the Beaux-Arts I believe he inquired, “What’s the bunch of stuff to the right?” and so it went. But the beauty of Versailles—its stately artificiality!—how it all comes back.