Part 17 (1/2)

That is the very exclamation I wanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRISTMAS EVE]

Christmas Eve came round. The pieces of resistance and plum-pudding and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London--but there was plenty of time.

Les trois Angliches dined at le pere Trin's, as usual, and played billiards and dominos at the Cafe du Luxembourg, and possessed their souls in patience till it was time to go and hear the midnight ma.s.s at the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great barytone of the Opera Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous Noel.

The whole quartier seemed alive with the reveillon. It was a clear, frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and most exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the Pont de la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the thronged Rue de la Madeleine to the ma.s.sive Parthenaic place of wors.h.i.+p that always has such a pagan, worldly look of smug and prosperous modernity.

They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).

But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and in mere sensuous _attendriss.e.m.e.nt_ they were quickly in unison with all the rest.

For as the clock struck twelve out pealed the organ, and up rose the finest voice in France:

”Minuit, Chretiens! c'est l'heure solennelle Ou l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!”

And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of his little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love--love of his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that is and ever was and ever will be--a very large order indeed, even for Little Billee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'ALLONS GLYCeRE! ROUGIS MON VERRE....'”]

And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one figure especially beloved beyond all the rest--one figure erect on high with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellows.h.i.+p of need; not the sorrowful figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of Our Lord.

It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif all but lost amid the sc.u.m of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like himself, and in woful want of pardon! and in her gray dovelike eyes he saw the s.h.i.+ning of so great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would or could.

”Peuple, debout! Chante ta delivrance!

_Noel! Noel! Voici le Redempteur!_”

So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big, deep, metallic barytone ba.s.s--above the organ, above the incense, above everything else in the world--till the very universe seemed to shake with the rolling thunder of that great message of love and forgiveness!

Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify and exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound, and the singing human voice had especially strange power to penetrate into his inmost depths--even the voice of man!

And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest there is can give worthy utterance to such a message as that, the epitome, the abstract, the very essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its best!

Little Billee reached the Hotel Corneille that night in a very exalted frame of mind indeed, the loftiest, lowliest mood of all.

Now see what sport we are of trivial, base, ign.o.ble earthly things!

Sitting on the door-step and smoking two cigars at once he found Ribot, one of his fellow-lodgers, whose room was just under his own. Ribot was so tipsy that he could not ring. But he could still sing, and did so at the top of his voice. It was not the Noel of Adam that he sang. He had not spent his reveillon in any church.

With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the baccha.n.a.lian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude.

As he lay awake in his bed, trying to recall the deep and high emotions of the evening, he heard the tipsy hog below tumbling about his room and still trying to sing his senseless ditty:

”Allons, Glycere!

Rougis mon verre Du jus divin dont mon cur est toujours jaloux ...

Et puis a table, Bacchante aimable!

Enivrons-nous (hic) Les g-glougloux sont des rendezvous!”...