Part 37 (2/2)
They spent what was left of the morning at the Louvre, and tried to interest themselves in the ”Marriage of Cana,” and the ”Woman at the Well,” and Vandyck's man with the glove, and the little princess of Velasquez, and Lisa Gioconda's smile: it was of no use trying. There was no sight worth looking at in all Paris but Trilby in her golden raiment; no other princess in the world; no smile but hers, when through her parted lips came bubbling Chopin's Impromptu. They had not long to stay in Paris, and they must drink of that bubbling fountain once more--_coute que coute!_ They went to the Salle des Bas.h.i.+bazoucks, and found that all seats all over the house had been taken for days and weeks; and the ”queue” at the door had already begun! and they had to give up all hopes of slaking this particular thirst.
Then they went and lunched perfunctorily, and talked desultorily over lunch, and read criticisms of la Svengali's debut in the morning papers--a chorus of journalistic acclamation gone mad, a frenzied eulogy in every key--but nothing was good enough for them! Brand-new words were wanted--another language!
Then they wanted a long walk, and could think of nowhere to go in all Paris--that immense Paris, where they had promised themselves to see so much that the week they were to spend there had seemed too short!
Looking in a paper, they saw it announced that the band of the Imperial Guides would play that afternoon in the Pre Catelan, Bois de Boulogne, and thought they might as well walk there as anywhere else, and walk back again in time to dine with the Pa.s.sefils--a prandial function which did not promise to be very amusing; but still it was something to kill the evening with, since they couldn't go and hear Trilby again.
Outside the Pre Catelan they found a crowd of cabs and carriages, saddle-horses and grooms. One might have thought one's self in the height of the Paris season. They went in, and strolled about here and there, and listened to the band, which was famous (it has performed in London at the Crystal Palace), and they looked about and studied life, or tried to.
Suddenly they saw, sitting with three ladies (one of whom, the eldest, was in black), a very smart young officer, a guide, all red and green and gold, and recognized their old friend Zouzou. They bowed, and he knew them at once, and jumped up and came to them and greeted them warmly, especially his old friend Taffy, whom he took to his mother--the lady in black--and introduced to the other ladies, the younger of whom, strangely unlike the rest of her countrywomen, was so lamentably, so pathetically plain that it would be brutal to attempt the cheap and easy task of describing her. It was Miss Lavinia Hunks, the famous American millionairess, and her mother. Then the good Zouzou came back and talked to the Laird and Little Billee.
Zouzou, in some subtle and indescribable way, had become very ducal indeed.
He looked extremely distinguished, for one thing, in his beautiful guide's uniform, and was most gracefully and winningly polite. He inquired warmly after Mrs. and Miss Bagot, and begged Little Billee would recall him to their amiable remembrance when he saw them again. He expressed most sympathetically his delight to see Little Billee looking so strong and so well (Little Billee looked like a pallid little washed-out ghost, after his white night).
They talked of Dodor. He said how attached he was to Dodor, and always should be; but Dodor, it seemed, had made a great mistake in leaving the army and going into a retail business (_pet.i.t commerce_). He had done for himself--_degringole!_ He should have stuck to the _dragons_--with a little patience and good conduct he would have ”won his epaulet”--and then one might have arranged for him a good little marriage--_un parti convenable_--for he was ”tres joli garcon, Dodor! bonne tournure--et tres gentiment ne! C'est tres ancien, les Rigolot--dans le Poitou, je crois--Lafarce, et tout ca; tout a fait bien!”
It was difficult to realize that this polished and discreet and somewhat patronizing young man of the world was the jolly dog who had gone after Little Billee's hat on all fours in the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres and brought it back in his mouth--the Caryhatide!
Little Billee little knew that Monsieur le Duc de la Rochemartel-Boissegur had quite recently delighted a very small and select and most august imperial supper-party at Compiegne with this very story, not blinking a single detail of his own share in it--and had given a most touching and sympathetic description of ”le joli pet.i.t peintre anglais qui s'appelait Litrebili, et ne pouvait pas se tenir sur ses jambes--et qui pleurait d'amour fraternel dans les bras de mon copain Dodor!”
”Ah! Monsieur Gontran, ce que je donnerais pour avoir vu ca!” had said the greatest lady in France; ”un de mes zouaves--a quatre pattes--dans la rue--un chapeau dans la bouche--oh--c'est impayable!”
Zouzou kept these blackguard bohemian reminiscences for the imperial circle alone--to which it was suspected that he was secretly rallying himself. Among all outsiders--especially within the narrow precincts of the cream of the n.o.ble Faubourg (which remained aloof from the Tuileries)--he was a very proper and gentlemanlike person indeed, as his brother had been--and, in his mother's fond belief, ”tres bien pensant, tres bien vu, a Frohsdorf et a Rome.”
_On lui aurait donne le bon Dieu sans confession_--as Madame Vinard had said of Little Billee--they would have shriven him at sight, and admitted him to the holy communion on trust!
He did not present Little Billee and the Laird to his mother, nor to Mrs. and Miss Hunks; that honor was reserved for ”the Man of Blood”
alone; nor did he ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call on him. But in parting he expressed the immense pleasure it had given him to meet them again, and the hope he had of some day shaking their hands in London.
As the friends walked back to Paris together, it transpired that ”the Man of Blood” had been invited by Madame d.u.c.h.esse Mere (Maman d.u.c.h.esse, as Zouzou called her) to dine with her next day, and meet the Hunkses at a furnished apartment she had taken in the Place Vendome; for they had let (to the Hunkses) the Hotel de la Rochemartel in the Rue de Lille; they had also been obliged to let their place in the country, le chateau de Boissegur (to Monsieur Despoires, or ”des Poires,” as he chose to spell himself on his visiting-cards--the famous soap-manufacturer--”Un tres brave homme, a ce qu'on dit!” and whose only son, by-the-way, soon after married Mademoiselle Jeanne-Adelade d'Amaury-Brissac de Roncesvaulx de Boissegur de la Rochemartel).
”Il ne fait pas gras chez nous a present--je vous a.s.sure!” Madame d.u.c.h.esse Mere had pathetically said to Taffy--but had given him to understand that things would be very much better for her son, in the event of his marriage with Miss Hunks.
”Good heavens!” said Little Billee, on hearing this; ”that grotesque little bogy in blue? Why, she's deformed--she squints--she's a dwarf, and looks like an idiot! Millions or no millions, the man who marries her is a felon! As long as there are stones to break and a road to break them on, the able-bodied man who marries a woman like that for anything but pity and kindness--and even then--dishonors himself, insults his ancestry, and inflicts on his descendants a wrong that nothing will ever redeem--he nips them in the bud--he blasts them forever! He ought to be cut by his fellow-men--sent to Coventry--to jail--to penal servitude for life! He ought to have a separate h.e.l.l to himself when he dies. He ought to--”
”Shut up, you little blaspheming ruffian!” said the Laird. ”Where do _you_ expect to go to, yourself, with such frightful sentiments? And what would become of your beautiful old twelfth-century dukedoms, with a hundred yards of back-frontage opposite the Louvre, on a beautiful historic river, and a dozen beautiful historic names, and no money--if _you_ had your way?” and the Laird wunk his historic wink.
”Twelfth-century dukedoms be d.a.m.ned!” said Taffy _au grand serieux_, as usual. ”Little Billee's quite right, and Zouzou makes me sick! Besides, what does she marry _him_ for--not for his beauty either, I guess! She's his fellow-criminal, his deliberate accomplice, _particeps delicti_, accessory before the act and after! She has no right to marry at all!
tar and feathers and a rail for both of them--and for Maman d.u.c.h.esse too--and I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to dinner! and now let's go and dine with Dodor--...anyhow Dodor's young woman doesn't marry him for a dukedom--or even his 'de'--_mais bien pour ses beaux yeux!_ and if the Rigolots of the future turn out less nice to look at than their sire, and not quite so amusing, they will probably be a great improvement on him in many other ways. There's room enough--and to spare!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MAMAN d.u.c.h.eSSE”]
”'Ear! 'ear!” said Little Billee (who always grew flippant when Taffy got on his high horse). ”Your 'ealth and song, sir--them's my sentiments to a T! What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin', after that wery nice 'armony?”
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