A Chair on the Boulevard | Page 5

a caf�� table, and he talks, the fianc��, of the bliss that is to come to them. She attends to not a word, not a syllable. While she smiles, she questions herself, frenzied, how she can escape. She has commanded a sirop. As she lifts her glass to the syphon, her gaze falls on the ring she wears--the ring of their betrothal. 'To the future, cher ange!' says the fianc��. 'To the future, vieux ch��ri!' she says. And she laughs in her heart--for she resolves to sell the ring!"
Tricotrin had become absolutely enthralled.
"She obtained for the ring forty-five francs the next day--and for the little pastrycook all is finished. She wrote him a letter--'Good-bye.' He has lost his reason. Mad with despair, he has flung himself before an electric car, and is killed.... It is strange," she added to the poet, who regarded her with consternation, "that I did not think sooner of the ring that was always on my finger, n'est-ce-pas? It may be that never before had I felt so furious an impulse to desert him. It may be also--that there was no ring and no pastrycook!" And she broke into peals of laughter.
"Ah, mon Dieu," exclaimed the young man, "but you are enchanting! Let us go to breakfast--you are the kindred soul I have looked for all my life. By-the-bye, I may as well know your name?"
Then, monsieur, this poor girl who had trembled before her laundress, she told him a name which was going, in a while, to crowd the Ambassadeurs and be famous through all Paris--a name which was to mean caprices, folly, extravagance the most wilful and reckless. She answered--and it said nothing yet--"My name is Paulette Fleury."
* * * * *
The piano-organ stopped short, as if it knew the Frenchman had reached a crisis in his narrative. He folded his arms and nodded impressively.
"Voil��! Monsieur, I 'ave introduced you to Paulette Fleury! It was her beginning."
He offered me a cigarette, and frowned, lost in thought, at the lady who was chopping bread behind the counter.
"Listen," he resumed.
* * * * *
They have breakfasted; they have fed the sparrows around their chairs, and they have strolled under the green trees in the sunshine. She was singing then at a little caf��-concert the most obscure. It is arranged, before they part, that in the evening he shall go to applaud her.
He had a friend, young also, a composer, named Nicolas Pitou. I cannot express to you the devotion that existed between them. Pitou was employed at a publisher's, but the publisher paid him not much better than his art. The comrades have shared everything: the loans from the mont-de-pi��t��, the attic, and the dreams. In Montmartre it was said "Tricotrin and Pitou" as one says "Orestes and Pylades." It is beautiful such affection, hein? Listen!
Tricotrin has recounted to his friend his meeting with Paulette, and when the hour for the concert is arrived, Pitou accompanied him. The musician, however, was, perhaps, the more sedate. He has gone with little expectation; his interest was not high.
What a surprise he has had! He has found her an actress--an artist to the ends of the fingers. Tricotrin was astonished also. The two friends, the poet and the composer, said "Mon Dieu!" They regarded the one the other. They said "Mon Dieu!" again. Soon Pitou has requested of Tricotrin an introduction. It is agreed. Tricotrin has presented his friend, and invited the chanteuse to drink a bock--a glass of beer.... A propos, you take a liqueur, monsieur, yes? What liqueur you take? Sst, gar?on!... Well, you conjecture, no doubt, what I shall say? Before the bock was finished, they were in love with her--both!
At the door of her lodging, Paulette has given to each a pressure of the hand, and said gently, "Till to-morrow."
"I worship her!" Tricotrin told Pitou.
"I have found my ideal!" Pitou answered Tricotrin.
It is superb, such friendship, hein?
In the mind of the poet who had accomplished tragedies majestic--in the mind of the composer, the most classical in Montmartre--there had been born a new ambition: it was to write a comic song for Paulette Fleury!
It appears to you droll, perhaps? Monsieur, to her lover, the humblest divette is more than Patti. In all the world there can be no joy so thrilling as to hear the music of one's brain sung by the woman one adores--unless it be to hear the woman one adores give forth one's verse. I believe it has been accepted as a fact, this; nevertheless it is true.
Yes, already the idea had come to them, and Paulette was well pleased when they told her of it. Oh, she knew they loved her, both, and with both she coquetted. But with their intention she did not coquet; as to that she was in earnest.