A Chair on the Boulevard | Page 6

Every day they discussed it with enthusiasm-- they were to write a song that should make for her a furore.
What happened? I shall tell you. Monday, when Tricotrin was to depart for Lyons, he informed his uncle that he will not go. No less than that! His uncle was furious--I do not blame him--but naturally Tricotrin has argued, "If I am to create for Paulette her great chance, I must remain in Paris to study Paulette! I cannot create in an atmosphere of commerce. I require the Montmartrois, the boulevards, the inspiration of her presence." Isn't it?
And Pitou--whose very soul had been enraptured in his leisure by a fugue he was composing--Pitou would have no more of it. He allowed the fugue to grow dusty, while day and night he thought always of refrains that ran "Zim-la-zim-la zim-boum-boum!" Constantly they conferred, the comrades. They told the one the other how they loved her; and then they beat their heads, and besought of Providence a fine idea for the comic song.
It was their thought supreme. The silk manufacturer has washed his 'ands of Tricotrin, but he has not cared--there remained to him still one of the bank-notes. As for Pitou, who neglected everything except to find his melody for Paulette, the publisher has given him the sack. Their acquaintances ridiculed the sacrifices made for her. But, monsieur, when a man loves truly, to make a sacrifice for the woman is to make a present to himself.
Nevertheless I avow to you that they fretted because of her coquetry. One hour it seemed that Pitou had gained her heart; the next her encouragement has been all to Tricotrin. Sometimes they have said to her:
"Paulette, it is true we are as Orestes and Pylades, but there can be only one King of Eden at the time. Is it Orestes, or Pylades that you mean to crown?"
Then she would laugh and reply:
"How can I say? I like you both so much I can never make up my mind which to like best."
It was not satisfactory.
And always she added. "In the meantime, where is the song?"
Ah, the song, that song, how they have sought it!--on the Butte, and in the Bois, and round the Halles. Often they have tramped Paris till daybreak, meditating the great chance for Paulette. And at last the poet has discovered it: for each verse a different phase of life, but through it all, the pursuit of gaiety, the fever of the dance--the gaiety of youth, the gaiety of dotage, the gaiety of despair! It should be the song of the pleasure-seekers--the voices of Paris when the lamps are lit.
Monsieur, if we sat 'ere in the restaurant until it closed, I could not describe to you how passionately Tricotrin, the devoted Tricotrin, worked for her. He has studied her without cease; he has studied her attitudes, her expressions. He has taken his lyric as if it were material and cut it to her figure; he has taken it as if it were plaster, and moulded it upon her mannerisms. There was not a moue that she made, not a pretty trick that she had, not a word that she liked to sing for which he did not provide an opportunity. At the last line, when the pen fell from his fingers, he shouted to Pitou, "Comrade, be brave--I have won her!"
And Pitou? Monsieur, if we sat 'ere till they prepared the tables for d��jeuner to-morrow, I could not describe to you how passionately Pitou, the devoted Pitou, worked that she might have a grand popularity by his music. At dawn, when he has found that strepitoso passage, which is the hurrying of the feet, he wakened the poet and cried, "Mon ami, I pity you--she is mine!" It was the souls of two men when it was finished, that comic song they made for her! It was the song the organ has ground out--"Partant pour le Moulin."
And then they rehearsed it, the three of them, over and over, inventing always new effects. And then the night for the song is arrived. It has rained all day, and they have walked together in the rain--the singer, and the men who loved her, both--to the little caf��-concert where she would appear.
They tremble in the room, among the crowd, Pitou and Tricotrin; they are agitated. There are others who sing--it says nothing to them. In the room, in the Future, there is only Paulette!
It is very hot in the caf��-concert, and there is too much noise. At last they ask her: "Is she nervous?" She shakes her head: "Mais non!" She smiles to them.
Attend! It is her turn. Ouf; but it is hot in the caf��-concert, and there is too much noise! She mounts the platform. The audience are careless; it continues, the jingle of