In the Days of My Youth Part 30

"A strong cup of coffee for Monsieur Bobinet!" cried Gustave, following up the lead of the other two.

The fourth-floor lodger frowned and colored up, beginning to be suspicious of mischief. Seeing this, Muller hastened to apologize.

"You must pardon us, Monsieur Bobinet," he said with the most winning amiability, "if we are all in unusually high spirits to-night. You are not aware, perhaps, that our friend Monsieur Jules Charpentier was married this morning, and that we are here in celebration of that happy event. Allow me to introduce you to the bride."

And turning to one of the ballet ladies, he led her forward with exceeding gravity, and presented her to Monsieur Bobinet as Madame Charpentier.

The fourth-floor lodger bowed, and went through the usual congratulations. In the meantime, some of the others had prepared a mock sofa by means of two chairs set somewhat wide apart, with a shawl thrown over the whole to conceal the s.p.a.ce between. Upon one of these chairs sat a certain young lady named Louise, and upon the other Mam'selle Josephine. As soon as it was ready, Muller, who had been only waiting for it, affected to observe for the first time that Monsieur Bobinet was still standing.

"_Mon Dieu_!" he exclaimed, "has no one offered our visitor a chair?

Monsieur Bobinet, I beg a thousand pardons. Pray do us the favor to be seated. Your coffee will be here immediately, and these ladies on the sofa will be delighted to make room for you."

"Oh yes, pray be seated, Monsieur Bobinet," cried the two girls. "We shall be charmed to make room for Monsieur Bobinet!"

More than ever confused and uncomfortable, poor Monsieur Bobinet bowed; sat down upon the treacherous s.p.a.ce between the two chairs; went through immediately; and presented the soles of his slippers to the company in the least picturesque manner imaginable. This involuntary performance was greeted with a shout of wild delight.

"Bravo, Monsieur Bobinet!"

"_Vive_ Monsieur Bobinet!"

"Three cheers for Monsieur Bobinet!"

Scarlet with rage, the fourth-floor lodger sprang to his feet and made a rush to the door; but he was hemmed in immediately. In vain he stormed; in vain he swore. We joined hands; we called for music; we danced round him; we sang; and at last, having fairly b.u.mped and thumped and hustled him till we were tired, pushed him out on the landing, and left him to his fate.

After this interlude, the mirth grew fast and furious. _Valse_ succeeded _valse_, and galop followed galop, till the orchestra declared they could play no longer, and the gentleman with the shovel and tongs collapsed in a corner of the room and went to sleep with his head in the coal-scuttle. Then the ballet-ladies were prevailed upon to favor us with a _pas de deux_; after which Muller sang a comic song with a chorus, in which everybody joined; and then the orchestra was bribed with hot brandy-and-water, and dancing commenced again. By this time the visitors began to drop away in twos and threes, and even the fair Josephine, to whom I had never ceased paying the most devoted attention, declared she could not stir another step. As for Dalrymple, he had disappeared during supper, without a word of leave-taking to any one.

Matters being at this pa.s.s, I looked at my watch, and found that it was already half-past six o'clock; so, having bade good-night, or rather good-morning, to Messieurs Jules, Gustave, and Adrien, and having, with great difficulty, discovered my own coat and hat among the miscellaneous collection in the adjoining bed-room, I prepared to escort Mademoiselle Josephine to her home.

"Going already?" said Muller, encountering us on the landing, with a roll in one hand and a Bologna sausage in the other.

"Already! Why, my dear fellow, it is nearly seven o'clock!"

"_Qu'importe_? Come up to the supper-room and have some breakfast!"

"Not for the world!"

"Well, _chacun a son gout_. I am as hungry as a hunter."

"Can I not take you any part of your way?"

"No, thank you. I am a Quartier Latinist, _pur sang_, and lodge only a street or two off. Stay, here is my address. Come and see me--you can't think how glad I shall be!"

"Indeed, I will come---and here is my card in exchange. Good-night, Herr Muller."

"Good-night, Marquis of Arbuthnot. Mademoiselle Josephine, _au plaisir_."

So we shook hands and parted, and I saw my innamorata home to her residence at No. 70, Rue Aubry le Boucher, which opened upon the Marche des Innocents. She fell asleep upon my shoulder in the cab, and was only just sufficiently awake when I left her, to accept all the _marrons glaces_ that yet remained in the pockets of my paletot, and to remind me that I had promised to take her out next Sunday for a drive in the country, and a dinner at the Moulin Rouge.

The fountain in the middle of the Marche was now sparkling in the suns.h.i.+ne like a shower of diamonds, and the business of the market was already at its height. The shops in the neighboring streets were opening fast. The "iron tongue" of St. Eustache was calling the devout to early prayer. f.a.gged as I was, I felt that a walk through the fresh air would do me good; so I dismissed the cab, and reached my lodgings just as the sleepy _concierge_ had turned out to sweep the hall, and open the establishment for the day. When I came down again two hours later, after a nap and a bath, I found a _commissionnaire_ waiting for me.

"_Tiens_!" said Madame Bousse (Madame Bousse was the wife of the _concierge_). "_V'la_! here is M'sieur Arbuthnot."

The man touched his cap, and handed me a letter.

"I was told to deliver it into no hands but those of M'sieur himself,"

said he.

The address was in Dalrymple's writing. I tore the envelope open. It contained only a card, on the back of which, scrawled hastily in pencil, were the following words:

"To have said good-bye would have made our parting none the lighter. By the time you decipher this hieroglyphic I shall be some miles on my way: Address Hotel de Russie, Berlin. Adieu, Damon; G.o.d bless you. O.D."

"How long is it since this letter was given to you?" said I, without taking my eyes from the card.

The _commissionnaire_ made no reply. I repeated the question, looked up impatiently, and found that the man was already gone.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHATEAU DE SAINTE AULAIRE.

"Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees, Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze."

My acquaintance with Mademoiselle Josephine progressed rapidly; although, to confess the truth, I soon found myself much less deeply in love than I had at first supposed. For this disenchantment, fate and myself were alone to blame. It was not her fault if I had invested her with a thousand imaginary perfections; nor mine if the spell was broken as soon as I discovered my mistake.

Too impatient to wait till Sunday, I made my way on Sat.u.r.day afternoon to Rue Aubry-le-Boucher. I persuaded myself that I was bound to call on her, in order to conclude our arrangements for the following day. At all events, I argued, she might forget the engagement, or believe that I had forgotten it. So I went, taking with me a magnificent bouquet, and an embroidered satin bag full of _marrons glaces_.

My divinity lived, as she had told me, _sous les toits_--and _sous les toits_, up seven flights of very steep and dirty stairs, I found her. It was a large attic with a sloping roof, overlooking a bristling expanse of chimney-pots, and commanding the twin towers of Notre Dame. There were some colored prints of battles and s.h.i.+pwrecks wafered to the walls; a couple of flower-pots in the narrow s.p.a.ce between the window-ledge and the coping outside; a dingy canary in a wire cage; a rival mechanical cuckoo in a Dutch clock in the corner; a little bed with striped hangings; a rush-bottomed _prie-dieu_ chair in front of a plain black crucifix, over which drooped a faded branch of consecrated palm; and some few articles of household furniture of the humblest description. In all this there was nothing vulgar. Under other circ.u.mstances I might, perhaps, have even elicited somewhat of grace and poetry from these simple materials. But conceive what it was to see them through an atmosphere of warm white steam that left an objectionable clamminess on the backs of the chairs and caused even the door-handle to burst into a tepid perspiration. Conceive what it was to behold my adored one standing in the middle of the room, up to her elbows in soap-suds, was.h.i.+ng out the very dress in which she was to appear on the morrow....

Good taste defend us! Could anything be more cruelly calculated to disturb the tender tenor of a lover's dreams? Fancy what Leander would have felt, if, after swimming across the h.e.l.lespont, he had surprised Hero at the was.h.i.+ng-tub! Imagine Romeo's feelings, if he had scaled the orchard-walls only to find Juliet helping to hang out the family linen!

The worst of it was that my lovely Josephine was not in the least embarra.s.sed. She evidently regarded the was.h.i.+ng-tub as a desirable piece of furniture, and was not even conscious that the act of "soaping in," was an unromantic occupation!

Such was the severity of this first blow that I pleaded an engagement, presented my offerings (how dreadfully inappropriate they seemed!), and hurried away to a lecture on _materia medica_ at the _ecole Pratique_; that being a good, congenial, dismal entertainment for the evening!

Sunday came with the sunrise, and at midday, true as the clock of St.

Eustache, I knocked once more at the door of the _mansarde_ where my Josephine dwelt. This time, my visit being antic.i.p.ated, I found her dressed to receive me. She looked more fresh and charming than ever; and the lilac muslin which I had seen in the was.h.i.+ng-tub some eighteen or twenty hours before, became her to perfection. So did her pretty green shawl, pinned closely at the throat and worn as only a French-woman would have known how to wear it. So did the white camellia and the moss-rose buds which she had taken out of my bouquet, and fastened at her waist.

What I was not prepared for, however, was her cap. I had forgotten that your Parisian grisette[1] would no more dream of wearing a bonnet than of crowning her head with feathers and adorning her countenance with war-paint. It had totally escaped me that I, a bashful Englishman of twenty-one, nervously sensitive to ridicule and gifted by nature with but little of the spirit of social defiance, must in broad daylight make my appearance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a bonnetless grisette! What should I do, if I met Dr. Cheron? or Madame de Courcelles? or, worse than all, Madame de Marignan? My obvious resource was to take her in whatever direction we should be least likely to meet any of my acquaintances. Where, oh fate! might that obscurity be found which had suddenly become the dearest object of my desires?

[1] The grisette of twenty years ago, _bien entendu_. I am writing, be it remembered, of "The days of my youth."

"_Eh bien_, Monsieur Basil," said Josephine, when my first compliments had been paid. "I am quite ready. Where are we going?"

"We shall dine, _mon cher ange_," said I, absently, "at--let me see--at...."

"At the Moulin Rouge," interrupted she. "But that is six hours to come.

In the meantime--"

"In the meantime? Ay, in the meantime...what a delightful day for the time of year!"