The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol Part 17

"And what are you doing?" asked Aristide, after the first explosions of astonishment and reminiscence.

A cloud overspread the battered man's features. He had a wife and five children and played in theatre orchestras. At the present time he was trombone in the "Tournee Gulland," a touring opera company. It was not gay for a sensitive artist like him, and the trombone gave one a thirst which it took half a week's salary to satisfy. _Mais enfin, que veux-tu?_ It was life, a dog's life, but life was like that. Aristide, he supposed, was making a fortune. Aristide threw back his head, and laughed at the exquisite humour of the hypothesis, and gaily disclosed his Micawberish situation. Roulard sat for a while thoughtful and silent. Presently a ray of inspiration dispelled the cloud from the features of the battered man.

"_Tiens, mon vieux_," said he, "I have an idea."

It was an idea worthy of Aristide's consideration. The drum of the Tournee Gulland had been dismissed for drunkenness. The vacancy had not been filled. Various executants who had drummed on approval--this being an out-week of the tour--had driven the chef d'orchestre to the verge of homicidal mania. Why should not Aristide, past master in drumming, find an honourable position in the orchestra of the Tournee Gulland?

Aristide's eyes sparkled, his fingers itched for the drumsticks, he started to his feet.

"_Mon vieux Roulard!_" he cried, "you have saved my life. More than that, you have resuscitated an artist. Yes, an artist. _Sacre nom de Dieu!_ Take me to this chef d'orchestre."

So Roulard, when the hour of rehearsal drew nigh, conducted Aristide to the murky recesses of a dirty little theatre in the Batignolles, where Aristide performed such prodigies of repercussion that he was forthwith engaged to play the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the castagnettes and the tambourine, in the orchestra of the Tournee Gulland at the dazzling salary of thirty francs a week.

To tell how Aristide drummed and cymballed the progress of Les Huguenots, Carmen, La Juive, La Fille de Madame Angot and L'Arlesienne through France would mean the rewriting of a "Capitaine Fraca.s.se." To hear the creature talk about it makes my mouth as a brick kiln and my flesh as that of a goose. He was the Adonis, the Apollo, the Don Juan, the Irresistible of the Tournee. Fled truculent ba.s.s and haughty tenor before him; from diva to moustachioed contralto in the chorus, all the ladies breathlessly watched for the fall of his handkerchief; he was recognized, in fact, as a devil of a fellow. But in spite of these triumphs, the manipulation of the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castagnettes and tambourine, which at first had given him intense and childish delight, at last became invested with a mechanical monotony that almost drove him mad. All day long the thought of the ill-lit corner, on the extreme right of the orchestra, garnished with the accursed instruments of noise to which duty would compel him at eight o'clock in the evening hung over him like a hideous doom. Sweet singers of the female s.e.x were powerless to console. He pa.s.sed them by, and haughty tenor and swaggering ba.s.so again took heart of grace.

"_Mais, mon Dieu, c'est le metier!_" expostulated Roulard.

"_Sale metier!_" cried Aristide, who was as much fitted for the merciless routine of a theatre orchestra as a quagga for the shafts of an omnibus. "A beast of a trade! One is no longer a man. One is just an automatic system of fog-signals!"

In this depraved state of mind he arrived at Perpignan, where that befell him which I am about to relate.

Now, Perpignan is the last town of France on the Gulf of Lions, a few miles from the Spanish border. From it you can see the great white monster of Le Canigou, the pride of the Eastern Pyrenees, far, far away, blocking up the valley of the Tet, which flows sluggishly past the little town. The Quai Sadi-Carnot (is there a provincial town in France which has not a _something_ Sadi-Carnot in it?) is on the left bank of the Tet; at one end is the modern Place Arago, at the other Le Castillet, a round, castellated red-brick fortress with curiously long and deep machicolations of the 14th century with some modern additions of Louis XI, who also built the adjoining Porte Notre Dame which gives access to the city. Between the Castillet and the Place Arago, the Quai Sadi-Carnot is the site of the Prefecture, the Grand Hotel, various villas and other resorts of the aristocracy. Any little street off it will lead you into the seething centre of Perpignan life--the Place de la Loge, which is a great block of old buildings surrounded on its four sides by narrow streets of shops, cafes, private houses, all with balconies and jalousies, all cramped, crumbling, Spanish, picturesque.

The oldest of this conglomerate block is a corner building, the Loge de Mer, a thirteenth century palace, the cloth exchange in the glorious days when Perpignan was a seaport and its merchant princes traded with Sultans and Doges and such-like magnificoes of the Mediterranean. But nowadays its glory has departed. Below the great gothic windows spreads the awning of a cafe, which takes up all the ground floor. Hugging it tight is the Mairie, and hugging that, the Hotel de Ville. Hither does every soul in the place, at some hour or other of the day, inevitably gravitate. Lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, merchants, lovers, soldiers, market-women, loafers, horses, dogs, wagons, all crowd in a noisy medley the narrow cobble-paved streets around the Loge. Of course there are other streets, tortuous, odorous and cool, intersecting the old town, and there are various open s.p.a.ces, one of which is the broad market square on one side flanked by the Theatre Munic.i.p.al.

From the theatre Aristide Pujol issued one morning after rehearsal, and, leaving his colleagues, including the ever-thirsty Roulard, to refresh themselves at a humble cafe hard by, went forth in search of distraction. He idled about the Place de la Loge, pa.s.sed the time of day with a cafe waiter until the latter, with a disconcerting "_Voila!

Voila!_" darted off to attend to a customer, and then strolled through the Porte Notre Dame onto the Quai Sadi-Carnot. There a familiar sound met his ears--the roll of a drum followed by an incantation in a quavering, high-pitched voice. It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the day before.

They met by the parapet of the Quai, just as Pere Braca.s.se had come to the end of his incantation. The old man, grizzled, tanned and seamed, leant weakly against the parapet.

"How goes it, Pere Braca.s.se?"

"Alas, mon bon Monsieur, it goes from bad to worse," sighed the old man.

"I am at the end of my strength. My voice has gone and the accursed rheumatism in my shoulder gives me atrocious pain whenever I beat the drum."

"How much more of your round have you to go?" asked Aristide.

"I have only just begun," said Pere Braca.s.se.

The Southern sun shone from a cloudless sky; a light, keen wind blowing from the distant snow-clad Canigou set the blood tingling. A lunatic idea flashed through Aristide's mind. He whipped the drum strap over the old man's head.

"Pere Braca.s.se," said he, "you are suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns, and you must go home to bed. I will finish your round for you. Listen," and he beat such a tattoo as Pere Braca.s.se had never accomplished in his life. "Where are your words?"

The old man, too weary to resist and fascinated by Aristide's laughing eyes, handed him a dirty piece of paper. Aristide read, played a magnificent roll and proclaimed in a clarion voice that a gold bracelet having been lost on Sunday afternoon in the Avenue des Platanes, whoever would deposit it at the Mairie would receive a reward.

"That's all?" he enquired.

"That's all," said Pere Braca.s.se. "I live in the Rue Pet.i.te-de-la-Real, No. 4, and you will bring me back the drum when you have finished."

Aristide darted off like a dragon-fly in the suns.h.i.+ne, as happy as a child with a new toy. Here he could play the drum to his heart's content with no score or conductor's baton to worry him. He was also the one and only personage in the drama, concentrating on himself the attention of the audience. He pitied poor Roulard, who could never have such an opportunity with his trombone....

The effect of his drumming before the Cafe de la Loge was electric.

Shopkeepers ran out of their shops, housewives craned over their balconies to listen to him. By the time he had threaded the busy strip of the town and emerged on to the Place Arago he had collected an admiring train of urchins. On the Place Arago he halted on the fringe of a crowd surrounding a cheap-jack whose vociferations he drowned in a roll of thunder. He drummed and drummed till he became the centre of the throng. Then he proclaimed the bracelet. He had not enjoyed himself so much since he left Paris.

He was striding away, merry-eyed and happy, followed by his satellites when a prosperous-looking gentleman with a very red face, a prosperous roll of fat above the back of his collar, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his b.u.t.tonhole, descending the steps of the great gla.s.s-covered cafe commanding the Place, hurried up and laid his finger on his arm.

"Pardon, my friend," said he, "what are you doing there?"

"You shall hear, monsieur," replied Aristide, clutching the drumsticks.

"For the love of Heaven!" cried the other hastily interrupting. "Tell me what are you doing?"

"I am crying the loss of a bracelet, monsieur!"

"But who are you?"

"I am Aristide Pujol, and I play the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castagnettes and tambourine in the orchestra of the Tournee Gulland. And now, in my turn, may I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?"

"I am the Mayor of Perpignan."

Aristide raised his hat politely. "I hope to have the pleasure," said he, "of Monsieur le Maire's better acquaintance."

The Mayor, attracted by the rascal's guileless mockery, laughed.

"You will, my friend, if you go on playing that drum. You are not the Town Crier."

Aristide explained. Pere Braca.s.se was ill, suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns. He was replacing him. The Mayor retorted that Pere Braca.s.se being a munic.i.p.al functionary could not transmit his functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum.

"But I was enjoying myself so much, Monsieur le Maire. You have spoiled my day," said he.

The Mayor laughed again. There was an irresistible charm and roguishness about the fellow, with his intelligent oval face, black Vand.y.k.e beard and magically luminous eyes.

"I should have thought you had enough of drums in your orchestra."

"Ah! there I am cramped!" cried Aristide. "I have it in horror, in detestation. Here I am free. I can give vent to all the aspirations of my soul!"

The Mayor mechanically moved from the spot where they had been standing.

Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him; and, such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, Ancient Mariner-like power of Aristide--did not I, myself, on my first meeting with him at Aigues-Mortes fall helplessly under the spell--that, in a few moments, the amateur Town Crier and the Mayor were walking together, side by side, along the Quai Sadi-Carnot, engaged in amiable converse.

Aristide told the Mayor the story of his life--or such incidents of it as were meet for Mayoral ears--and when they parted--the Mayor to lunch, Aristide to yield up the interdicted drum to Pere Braca.s.se--they shook hands warmly and mutually expressed the wish that they would soon meet again.

They met again; Aristide saw to that. They met again that very afternoon in the cafe on the Place Arago. When Aristide entered he saw the Mayor seated at a table in the company of another prosperous, red-ribboned gentleman. Aristide saluted politely and addressed the Mayor. The Mayor saluted and presented him to Monsieur Querin, the President of the Syndicat d'Initiative of the town of Perpignan. Monsieur Querin saluted and declared himself enchanted at the encounter. Aristide stood gossiping until the Mayor invited him to take a place at the table and consume liquid refreshment. Aristide glowingly accepted the invitation and cast a look of triumph around the cafe. Not to all mortals is it given to be the boon companion of a Mayor and a President of the Syndicat d'Initiative!

Then ensued a conversation momentous in its consequences.

The Syndicat d'Initiative is a semi-official body existing in most provincial towns in France for the purpose of organising public festivals for the citizens and developing the resources and possibilities of the town for the general amenity of visitors. Now Perpignan is as picturesque, as sun-smitten and, in spite of the icy tramontana, even as joyous a place as tourist could desire; and the Carnival of Perpignan, as a spontaneous outburst of gaiety and pageantry, is unique in France. But Perpignan being at the end of everywhere and leading nowhere attracts very few visitors. Biarritz is on the Atlantic coast at the other end of the Pyrenees; Hyeres, Cannes and Monte Carlo on the other side of the Gulf of Lions. No English or Americans--the only visitors of any account in the philosophy of provincial France--flock to Perpignan. This was a melancholy fact bewailed by Monsieur Querin. The town was peris.h.i.+ng from lack of Anglo-Saxon support. Monsieur Coquereau, the Mayor, agreed. If the English and Americans came in their hordes to this paradise of mimosa, fourteenth century architecture, suns.h.i.+ne and unique Carnival, the fortunes of all the citizens would be a.s.sured. Perpignan would out-rival Nice. But what could be done?

"Advertise it," said Aristide. "Flood the English-speaking world with poetical descriptions of the place. Build a row of palatial hotels in the new part of the town. It is not known to the Anglo-Saxons."

"How can you be certain of that?" asked Monsieur Querin.