Ballads of a Bohemian | Page 5

waits the sanguine Seine . . .
It is later than you think.
Lastly, you who read; aye, you
Who this very line may scan:
Think
of all you planned to do . . .
Have you done the best you can?
See!
the tavern lights are low;
Black's the night, and how you shrink!

God! and is it time to go?
Ah! the clock is always slow;
It is later
than you think;
Sadly later than you think;
Far, far later than you
think.
Scarcely do I scribble that last line on the back of an old envelope when
a voice hails me. It is a fellow free-lance, a short-story man called
MacBean. He is having a feast of ~Marennes~ and he asks me to join
him.
MacBean is a Scotsman with the soul of an Irishman. He has a keen,
lean, spectacled face, and if it were not for his gray hair he might be
taken for a student of theology. However, there is nothing of the
Puritan in MacBean. He loves wine and women, and money melts in
his fingers.
He has lived so long in the Quarter he looks at life from the Parisian
angle. His knowledge of literature is such that he might be a Professor,
but he would rather be a vagabond of letters. We talk shop. We discuss
the American short story, but MacBean vows
they do these things
better in France. He says that some of the ~contes~ printed every day in

the ~Journal~ are worthy of Maupassant. After that he buys more beer,
and we roam airily over the fields of literature, plucking here and there
a blossom of quotation. A fine talk, vivid and eager. It puts me into a
kind of glow.
MacBean pays the bill from a handful of big notes, and the thought of
my own empty pockets for a moment damps me. However, when we
rise to go, it is well after midnight, and I am in a pleasant daze.
The
rest of the evening may be summed up in the following jingle:
Noctambule
Zut! it's two o'clock.
See! the lights are jumping.
Finish up your
~bock~,
Time we all were humping.
Waiters stack the chairs,
Pile
them on the tables;
Let us to our lairs
Underneath the gables.
Up the old Boul' Mich'
Climb with steps erratic.
Steady . . . how I
wish
I was in my attic!
Full am I with cheer;
In my heart the joy
stirs;
Couldn't be the beer,
Must have been the oysters.
In obscene array
Garbage cans spill over;
How I wish that they

Smelled as sweet as clover!
Charing women wait;
Cafes drop their
shutters;
Rats perambulate
Up and down the gutters.
Down the darkened street
Market carts are creeping;
Horse with
wary feet,
Red-faced driver sleeping.
Loads of vivid greens,

Carrots, leeks, potatoes,
Cabbages and beans,
Turnips and
tomatoes.
Pair of dapper chaps,
Cigarettes and sashes,
Stare at me, perhaps

Desperate ~Apache\s~.
"Needn't bother me,
Jolly well you know it;

~Parceque je suis
Quartier Latin poe e.~
"Give you villanelles,
Madrigals and lyrics;
Ballades and rondels,

Odes and panegyrics.

Poet pinched and poor,
Pricked by cold and
hunger;
Trouble's troubadour,
Misery's balladmonger."

Think how queer it is!
Every move I'm making,
Cosmic gravity's

Center I am shaking;
Oh, how droll to feel
(As I now am feeling),

Even as I reel,
All the world is reeling.
Reeling too the stars,
Neptune and Uranus,
Jupiter and Mars,

Mercury and Venus;
Suns and moons with me,
As I'm homeward
straying,
All in sympathy
Swaying, swaying, swaying.
Lord! I've got a head.
Well, it's not surprising.
I must gain my bed

Ere the sun be rising;
When the merry lark
In the sky is soaring,

I'll refuse to hark,
I'll be snoring, snoring.
Strike a sulphur match . . .
Ha! at last my garret.
Fumble at the latch,

Close the door and bar it.
Bed, you graciously
Wait, despite my
scorning . . .
So, bibaciously
Mad old world, good morning.
III
My Garret,
Montparnasse,
April.
Insomnia
Heigh ho! to sleep I vainly try;
Since twelve I haven't closed an eye,

And now it's three, and as I lie,
From Notre Dame to St. Denis

The bells of Paris chime to me;
"You're young," they say, "and strong
and free."
I do not turn with sighs and groans
To ease my limbs, to rest my
bones,
As if my bed were stuffed with stones,
No peevish murmur
tips my tongue --
Ah no! for every sound upflung
Says: "Lad,
you're free and strong and young."
And so beneath the sheet's caress
My body purrs with happiness;

Joy bubbles in my veins. . . . Ah yes,
My very blood that leaps along


Is chiming in a joyous song,
Because I'm young and free and

strong.
Maybe it is the springtide. I am so happy I am afraid.