When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J. was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris.
The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me, still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of 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, 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 that was 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 are offered in order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them.
The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent, unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant companionship.
This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting.
At one café, quite by accident, we encountered Miss F., whom I had not seen since we left Fishguard, and who was here in Paris doing her best to outshine the women of the gay restaurants in the matter of dresses, hats, and beauty. I must say she presented a ravishing spectacle, quite as wonderful as any of the other women who were to be seen here; but she lacked, as I was to note, the natural vivacity of the French. We Americans, despite our high spirits and our healthy enthusiasm for life, are nevertheless a blend of the English, the German, and some of the sedate nations of the North, and we are inclined to a physical and mental passivity which is not common to the Latins. This girl, vivid creature that she was, did not have the spiritual vibration which accompanies the Frenchwomen. As far as spirit was concerned, she seemed superior to most of the foreign types present; but the Frenchwomen are naturally gayer, their eyes brighter, their motions lighter. She gave us at once an account of her adventures since I had seen her. I could not help marveling at the disposition which set above everything else in the world the privilege of moving in this peculiar realm, which fascinated her much. As she told me on the Mauretania, all she hoped for was to become a woman of Machiavellian finesse, and to have some money. If she had money and attained to real social wisdom, conventional society could go to the devil; for the successful adventuress, according to her, was welcome anywhere—that is, everywhere she would care to go. She did not expect to retain her beauty entirely; but she did expect to have some money, and meanwhile to live brilliantly, as she deemed that she was now doing. Her comments on the various women of her class were as hard and accurate as they were brilliant. I remember her saying of one woman, with an easy sweep of her hand, “Like a willow, don’t you think?” Of another, “She glows like a ruby.” It was true; it was fine character delineation.
At Maxim’s, an hour later, she decided to go home, so we took her to her hotel, and then resumed our pursuit of Rillette. After much wandering, we finally came upon her, about four in the morning, in one of those showy pleasure-resorts that I have described.
“Ah, yes, there she is!” X. exclaimed, and I looked to a distant table to see the figure he indicated, that of a young girl seemingly not more than twenty-four or twenty-five, a white silk neckerchief tied about her brown hair, her body clothed in a rather nondescript costume for a world as showy as this. Most of the women wore evening clothes. She had on a skirt of light-brown wool, a white shirtwaist open in the front, with the collar turned down, showing her pretty neck. Her skirt was short, and her sleeves were short, showing a solid fore arm. Before she noticed X. we saw her take a slender girl in black for a partner and dance, with others, in the open space between the tables that circled the walls. Her face did not suggest the depravity which her career would indicate, although it was by no means ruddy; but she seemed to scorn rouge. Her eyes—eyes are always revealing in a forceful personage—were large and vague and brown, set beneath a wide, full forehead—very wonderful eyes. In her idle security and profound nonchalance, she appeared like a figure out of the Revolution or the Commune. She would have been magnificent in a riot, marching up a Parisian street, her white band about her brown hair, carrying a knife, a gun, or a flag. She would have had the courage, too; for it was plain that life had lost much of its charm and she nearly all of her caring. When her dance was done, she came over to us, and extended an indifferent hand to X. He told me, after their light conversation in French, that he had chided her to the effect that her career was ruining her once lovely voice. “I shall find it again at the next corner,” she said, and walked smartly away.
ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS
“Some one should write a novel about a woman like that,” X. explained. “She ought to be painted. It is amazing the sufficiency of soul that goes with that type. There aren’t many like her. She could be the sensation of Paris again if she wanted to, would try. But she won’t. See what she said of her voice just now.” He shook his head. I smiled approvingly, for obviously the appearance of the woman, her full, compelling eyes, bore him out.