Idle Hours in a Library

by William Henry Hudson

And now for the sequel of the story.

“A week after these festivities, Marcel found out the gallery in which his picture had been placed. In passing through the Faubourg St. Honoré, he stopped in the midst of a group which seemed to be watching with curious interest a sign that was being placed over a shop. This sign was neither more nor less than Marcel’s picture, which had been sold by Médicis to a grocer. Only, ‘The Passage of the Red Sea’ had undergone one more change, and bore a new name. A steamboat had been added, and it was now called ‘The Harbor of Marseilles.’ The curious onlookers, when they saw the picture, burst out in a flattering ovation; and Marcel returned home in ecstasy over the triumph, murmuring—‘The voice of the people is the voice of God.’”

What part the synoptic charger was now called on to fill, unfortunately we cannot say.

The third member of our quartet is Gustave Colline, student of “hyperphysical philosophy,” and inveterate perpetrator of alarming puns. He too is a composite character, the principal ingredients of his make-up being furnished by two of Murger’s old associates—Jean Walton and Trapadoux, both of whom were men of immense and curious erudition and many eccentricities. Colline himself, of a somewhat more steady way of life than his companions, gains a fairly regular income by teaching mathematics, botany, Arabic, and various other subjects, as occasion demands, and spends the greater part of it in the accumulation of second-hand books. “What he did with all these volumes,” remarks the historian, “so numerous that the life of a man would never have sufficed to read them, no one knew—he least of all.” But still he goes on adding tome to tome, and when he chances to return to his lodgings at night without bringing a new specimen to his store, he feels that, like the good Titus, he has wasted his day. Thus his strange, shapeless mouth, pouting lips, double chin, shaggy light hair, and threadbare, hazel-colored overcoat, are well known upon the quays and wherever ancient volumes are exposed for sale. His tastes are catholic in the extreme; for he will buy anything and everything that is to be bought, provided only it is rare, out of the way, and for all practical purposes useless. Some idea of the range and versatility of his interests may be given by reference to a single episode in his history. When, in company with Marcel, Rodolphe gave that famous Christmas entertainment, whereof the record is to be found in its proper place in the annals of Bohemia, he insisted on borrowing for the occasion the philosopher’s famous swallowtail coat. Now, this coat, as the chronicler justly suggests, deserves a word or two. By courtesy it was held to be black by candle-light, though it was really of a decided blue. It was also cut upon a wild and startling plan, very short in the waist and exceedingly long in the tails. But its most astonishing features were the pockets—“positive gulfs, in which Colline was accustomed to lodge some thirty of the volumes which he everlastingly carried about with him; which caused his friends to say that during the times when the libraries were closed scientists and men of letters could always seek information in the skirts of Colline’s coat—a library always open to readers.” Well, on this particular day, strange to relate, the great swallowtail apparently harbored only a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise in three volumes on the hyperphysical faculties, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg, and Pope’s “Essay on Man.” “Hullo!” exclaimed Rodolphe, when the philosopher had turned out this odd collection and allowed the other to don the imposing habit; “the left pocket still feels very heavy; there is still something in it.”—“Ah!” replied Colline, “that is true; I forgot to empty the foreign language pocket.” Whereupon he drew out two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and “The Perfect Stock-Breeder” in Chinese—his favorite reading.[^[29]] Nor was this quite all. Later on, in looking for his handkerchief, Rodolphe came accidentally upon a small Tartar volume, overlooked in the department of foreign literature.

For the rest, Colline is a very agreeable companion, pleasant of manner, and courteous of bearing; and his conversation is amusingly spiced with quaint technical expressions and the most outrageous puns. Unlike his three companions, who are in perpetual bondage to love, he passes on, for the most part, in bachelor meditation, fancy free, as becomes a philosopher of the “hyperphysical school.” Once in a while, we find him flirting a little with the bonne amie of one of his friends, and we recall a single occasion on which, according to his own statement, he had an appointment of a romantic character. We read also, in the most incidental way, of his devotion to a waistcoat-maker, whom he keeps day and night copying the manuscripts of his philosophical works. But at these, as at all other times, the lady of his affections remains “invisible and anonymous.” In general, it may be said that he shows himself markedly superior to the human weakness which does so much to disturb the byways of Bohemia no less than the highways of the outer world.

Music, painting, and philosophy are thus well represented in the Bohemian cénacle, and in Rodolphe, the last of the group, the sister art of poetry finds a worthy exponent. Rodolphe is the real hero of the book, and is indeed an approximately faithful sketch of the author himself. In the fancy-poet of the Latin Quarter, the man who, in the very cut of his clothes, manners, appearance, conversation, “confessed his association with the Muses,” many of Murger’s well-known traits of character and personal idiosyncrasies are frankly reproduced. We have a brief but sufficiently detailed description of him when he makes his first appearance in the Café Momus, and there can be no doubt as to the artist’s model from which the study is made. He is presented as “a young man whose face was almost lost in an enormous thicket of many-colored beard. But, as a set-off against this abundance of hair on the chin, a precocious baldness had dismantled his forehead, which looked like a knee, and the nakedness of which a few stray hairs that one might have counted vainly endeavored to cover. He wore a black coat, tonsured at the elbows, and with practical ventilators under the armpits, which could be seen whenever he raised his arm too high. His trousers might once have been black, but his shoes, which had never been new, seemed to have several times made the tour of the world on the feet of the Wandering Jew.” In all this—in the precocious baldness and parti-colored beard especially—we have the historian of Bohemia himself. We do not, therefore, wonder that the character of Rodolphe should stand out from among the other figures of the “Scenes,” by reason of a certain autobiographic distinctness of outline and color, nor that he should prevail upon us by a kind of personal charm which his companions rarely possess.

To follow Rodolphe’s various adventures and enterprises back to their originals in Murger’s life, would be an interesting task, but it is one that cannot be attempted here; and for the time being we must keep to the poet in the book. Like his friends Schaunard and Marcel, this young man has pinned his faith to one ambitious work, a drama called the “The Avenger,” which has already gone the round of all the theatres of Paris, and of which in the course of a couple of years, he has accumulated a dozen or so huge manuscript copies, weighing collectively something like fifteen pounds. “The Avenger” was ultimately produced, and ran for five successive nights, after large portions of these carefully wrought versions had been used up in the humble service of lighting the fire. But this does not come till towards the end of the story; and during the days when we know him best, Rodolphe, awaiting his dramatic triumph, is willing enough to turn his literary talents to account in less dignified ways. The main sources of his income appear to be “The Scarf of Iris,” a fashion-journal, and “The Castor,” a paper devoted to the interests of the hat-trade, both of which he edits, and in which he publishes from time to time his opinions on tragedy and kindred subjects. It is to the columns of the latter periodical, by-the-by, that Gustave Colline contributes a discussion on “The Philosophy of Hats, and Other Things in General”—how much to the amusement and instruction of its readers we are unfortunately not told. Probably the financial advantages of these two undertakings are of a rather slight and unsubstantial character; at any rate, the editor-in-chief shows himself at all times ready to supplement his official emoluments whensoever occasion offers. Witness his most famous piece of hack-work, the composition of “The Perfect Chimney Constructor.” Rodolphe, who has been sadly down on his luck for a time—fluctuating between going to bed without supper and supping without going to bed—happens accidentally to run across his Uncle Monetti, a stove-maker and physician of smoky chimneys, whom he has not seen for an age. Now, Monsieur Monetti is an enthusiast in his art, and has conceived the idea of drawing up for the benefit of future generations, a manual of chimney-construction, in which his own numerous patents shall be given adequate presentation. Finding his nephew fallen upon evil days, he intrusts him with this literary enterprise, promising him a remuneration of three hundred francs, and rashly giving him outright fifty francs on account. Of course, Rodolphe incontinently disappears, and only turns up again when the money has disappeared also. Uncle Monetti then resorts to drastic measures. He locks the volatile young gentleman in a small room, six stories up, with stoves and ovens for his company, and takes away his clothes, leaving in their stead a ridiculous Turkish dressing-gown. In this attic solitude the unfortunate young poet is fain to wax eloquent over ventilators, till he is rescued in the most romantic way by a certain Mademoiselle Sidonia, as the reader will find recorded at length in its proper place in the Bohemian chronicles.

In connection with one extraordinary episode in Rodolphe’s career—his sudden receipt of five hundred francs in hard cash—we have an excellent opportunity of studying some of the mysteries of Bohemian finance. He and Marcel, who was then his fellow-lodger, regarded this colossal sum as practically inexhaustible; they were not a little surprised, therefore, to find, before a fortnight had gone by, that it had vanished into air, as though by magic. The strictest frugality had presided over all their expenditures, and the question was, where in the world the money could have gone to. Into this problem the two economists forthwith made inquisition, analyzing their accounts, and carefully weighing them item by item. This is about the way in which the audit was conducted:—

“March 19.—Received five hundred francs. Paid, one Turkish pipe, twenty-five francs; dinner, fifteen francs; miscellaneous expenses, forty francs,” Marcel read out.

“What in the world are these miscellaneous expenses?” asked Rodolphe.