A Chair on the Boulevard | Page 6

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. 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
déjeuner 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