Part 11 (1/2)
MARRIED ABROAD.
AN AMERICAN ROMANCE OF THE QUARTIER LATIN.
PART I.
TEMPTATION.
To say that Ralph Flare was ”lonesome” would convey a feeble idea of his condition. Four months in England had gone by wearily enough; but in this great city of Paris, where he might as well have had no tongue at all, for the uses he could put it to, he pined and chafed--and finally swore.
An oath, if not relief in itself, conduces to that effect, and it happened in this case that a stranger heard it.
”You are English,” said the stranger, turning shortly upon Ralph Flare.
”I am not,” replied that youth, ”I am an American.”
”Then we are countrymen,” cried the other. ”Have you dwelt long in the Hotel du Hibou?”
Ralph Flare stated that he hadn't and that he had, and that he was bored and sick of it, and had resolved to go back to the Republic, and fling away his life in its armies.
”Pooh! pooh!” shouted the other, ”I see your trouble--you have no acquaintances. It is six o'clock; come with me to dinner, and you shall know half of Paris, men and women.”
They filed down the tortuous Rue Jacob, now thrice gloomy by the closing shadows of evening, and turning into the Rue de Seine, stopped before the doorway of a little painted _boutique_, whereon was written ”_Cremery du Quartier Latin_.”
A tall, sallow, bright-eyed Frenchman was seated at a fragment of counter within the smallest apartment in the world, and addressing this man as ”Pere George” the stranger pa.s.sed through a second sash doorway and introduced Ralph Flare to the most miscellaneous and democratic a.s.semblage that he had ever beheld in his life.
Two long yellow tables reached lengthwise down a long, narrow _salon_, the floor whereof was made of tiles, and the light whereof fizzed and flamed from two unruly burners. A door at the farther end opened upon a cook-room, and the cook, a scorched and meagre woman, was standing now in the firelight, talking in a high key, as only a Frenchwoman can talk.
Then there was Madame George, fat and handsome, and gossipy likewise, with a baby, a boy, and a daughter; and the patrons of the place, twenty or more in number, were eating and laughing and all speaking at the same time, so that Ralph Flare was at first stunned and afterward astonished.
His new acquaintance, Terrapin, went gravely around the table, shaking hands with every guest, and Ralph was wedged into the remotest corner, with Terrapin upon his right, and upon his left a creature so nave and pet.i.te that he thought her a girl at first, but immediately corrected himself and called her a child.
Terrapin addressed her as Suzette, and stated that his friend Ralph was a stranger and quite solitary; whereat Suzette turned upon him a pair of soft, twinkling eyes, and laughed very much as a peach might do, if it were possible for a peach to laugh. He could only say a horrible _bon jour_, and make the superfluous intimation that he could not speak French; and when Madame George gave him his choice of a dozen unp.r.o.nounceable dishes, he looked so utterly blank and baffled that Suzette took the liberty of ordering dinner for him.
”You won't get the run of the language, Flare,” said Terrapin, carelessly, ”until you find a wife. A woman is the best dictionary.”
”You mean, I suppose,” said Flare, ”a wife for a time.”
Little Suzette was looking oddly at him as he faced her, and when Ralph blushed she turned quietly to her _potage_ and gave him a chance to remark her.
She had dark, smooth hair, closing over a full, pale forehead, and her shapely head was balanced upon a fair, round neck. There was an alertness in her erect ear, and open nostril, and pointed brows which indicated keen perception and comprehension; yet even more than this generic quickness, without which she could not have been French, the gentleness of Suzette was manifest.
Ralph thought to himself that she must be good. It was the face of a sweet sister or a bright daughter, or one of those school-children with whom he had played long ago. And withal she was very neat. If any commandment was issued especially to the French, it enjoined tidiness; but this child was so quietly attired that her cleanliness seemed a matter of nature, not of command. Her cheap coral ear-drops and the thin band of gold upon her white finger could not have been so fitting had they been of diamonds; and her tresses, inclosed in a fillet of beads, were tied in a breadth of blue ribbon which made a cunning lover's-knot above. A plain collar and wristbands, a bright cotton dress and dark ap.r.o.n, and a delicate slipper below--these were the components of a picture which Ralph thought the loveliest and pleasantest and best that he had ever known.
In his own sober city of the Middle States he would have been ashamed to connect with these innocent features a doubt, a light thought, a desire.
Yet here in France, where climate, or custom, or man had changed the relations though not the nature of woman, he did but as the world, in blending with Suzette's tranquil face a series of ideas which he dared not a.s.sociate with what he had called pure, beautiful, or happy.
Now and then they spoke together, unintelligibly of course, but very merrily, and Ralph's appet.i.te was that of the great carnivora; potage, beef, mutton, pullet, vanished like waifs, and then came the salad, which he could not make, so that Suzette helped him again with her sprightly white fingers, contriving so marvellous a dish that Ralph thought her a little magician, and wanted to eat salad till daybreak.