Crowded Out! and Other Sketches | Page 4

once more; the glare and the rattle without, the fever and the ruin, the nerves and the heart within. Poor nerves, poor heart; it is food you want and wine and rest, and I cannot give them to you.
* * * * *
Sing, Hortense, will you? Sit by my side, by our dear river St. Maurice, the clear, the sparkling. See how the floating cribs sail by, each with its gleaming lights! It is like Venice I suppose. Shall we see Venice ever, Hortense, you and I? Sing now for me,
Descendez à l'ombre, Ma Jolie blonde.
Only you are petite brune, there is nothing blonde about you, mignonne, my dear mademoiselle, I should say if I were with you of course as I used to do. But surely I am with you and those lights are the floating cribs I see, and your voice it is that sings, and presently the boatmen hear and they turn and move their hands and join in--Now all together,
Descendez à l'ombre,
* * * * *
It was like you, Hortense, to come all this way. How did you manage it, manage to cross that great water all alone? My poor girl did you grow tired of _Le bon Père_ at last and of the Martyrs and the Saints and the Jesuit Fathers? But you have got your amulet on still I hope. That is right, for there is a chance--there is a chance of these things proving blessings after all to good girls, and you were a good girl Hortense. You will not mind my calling you Hortense, will you? When we are in Le Bas Canada again, in your own seignieury, it will be "Madamoiselle," I promise you. You say it is a strange pillow, Hortense? Books, my girl, and manuscripts; hard but not so hard as London stones and London hearts. Do you know I think I am dying, or else going mad? And no one will listen even if I cry out. There is too much to listen to already in England. Think of all the growing green, Hortense, if you can, where you are, so far away from it all. Where you are it is cold and the snow is still on the ground and only the little bloodroot is up in the woods. Here where I am Hortense, where I am going to die, it is warm and green full of color--oh! Such color! Before I came here, to London you know London that is going to do so much for me, for us both, I had one day--one day in the country. There I saw--No! They will not let me tell you, I knew they would try to prevent me, those long gray fingers stealing in, stealing in! But I will tell you. Listen, Hortense, please. I saw the hawthorne, pink and white, the laburnum-- yellow--not fire-color, I shall correct the Laureate there, Hortense, when I am better, when I--publish!--It is dreadful to be alone in London. Don't come, Hortense. Stay where you are, even if it is cold and gray and there is no color. Keep your amulet round your neck, dear!--I count my pulse beats. It is a bad thing to do. It is broad daylight now and the fingers have gone. I can write again perhaps.--The pen--The paper--The ink--God. Hortense! There is no ink left! And my heart--My heart--Hortense!!!
Descendez à l'ombre, Ma Jolie blonde.

Monsieur, Madame and the Pea-Green Parrot



CHAPTER I.
I am an Englishman by birth. Having however lived for fourteen years out in America or rather in Canada, I am only half an Englishman. All the love for the dear old land which I am now revisiting is still there, deep in my heart, but from so long a residence in another country certain differences arise of character, habit and thought, not to be easily shaken off. I was in the Civil Service in Canada and did very well until I meddled with literature. Discovering that I had a faculty for verse and story-telling, I was ambitious and at the same time foolish enough to work so hard at my new pursuit that I was compelled to "cut" the service, in other words to resign. Some other Englishman got my post and I found myself, rather unexpectedly, it is true, free to write to my heart's content.
I got off a number of things, poems, sketches, etc., but my great work turned out to be a comedy. I slaved at this all day and amused myself by rehearsing it in my lodgings all night. I incurred the odium of the landlady by coaxing the maid of all work to learn a part and act it with me. Finally I resolved to take a great step. I would go down to New York and get my comedy produced. That