Grey Roses | Page 3

in the hand to a
brace in the bush. From half a dozen to a score of us dined at her long
table every evening; as many more drank her appetisers in the
afternoon, and came again at night for grog or coffee. You see, it was a

sort of club, a club of which Childe was at once the chairman and the
object. If we had had a written constitution, it must have begun: 'The
purpose of this association is the enjoyment of the society of Alfred
Childe.'
Ah, those afternoons, those dinners, those ambrosial nights! If the
weather was kind, of course, we would begin our session on the
terrasse, sipping our vermouth, puffing our cigarettes, laughing our
laughs, tossing hither and thither our light ball of gossip, vaguely
conscious of the perpetual ebb and flow and murmur of people in the
Boulevard, while the setting sun turned Paris to a marvellous
water-colour, all pale lucent tints, amber and alabaster and
mother-of-pearl, with amethystine shadows. Then, one by one, those of
us who were dining elsewhere would slip away; and at a sign from
Hippolyte the others would move indoors, and take their places down
either side of the long narrow table, Childe at the head, his daughter
Nina next him. And presently with what a clatter of knives and forks,
clinking of glasses, and babble of human voices the Café Bleu would
echo. Madame Chanve's kitchen was not a thing to boast of, and her
price, for the Latin Quarter, was rather high--I think we paid three
francs, wine included, which would be for most of us distinctly a
prix-de-luxe. But oh, it was such fun; we were so young; Childe was so
delightful. The fun was best, of course, when we were few, and could
all sit up near to him, and none need lose a word. When we were many
there would be something like a scramble for good seats.
I ask myself whether, if I could hear him again to-day, I should think
his talk as wondrous as I thought it then. Then I could thrill at the verse
of Musset, and linger lovingly over the prose of Théophile, I could
laugh at the wit of Gustave Droz, and weep at the pathos ... it costs me
a pang to own it, but yes, I'm afraid ... I could weep at the pathos of
Henry Mürger; and these have all suffered such a sad sea-change since.
So I could sit, hour after hour, in a sort of ecstasy, listening to the talk
of Nina's father. It flowed from him like wine from a full measure,
easily, smoothly, abundantly. He had a ripe, genial voice, and an
enunciation that made crystals of his words; whilst his range of subjects
was as wide as the earth and the sky. He would talk to you of God and

man, of metaphysics, ethics, the last new play, murder, or change of
ministry; of books, of pictures, specifically, or of the general principles
of literature and painting; of people, of sunsets, of Italy, of the high
seas, of the Paris streets--of what, in fine, you pleased. Or he would
spin you yarns, sober, farcical, veridical, or invented. And, with
transitions infinitely rapid, he would be serious, jocose--solemn,
ribald--earnest, flippant--logical, whimsical, turn and turn about. And
in every sentence, in its form or in its substance, he would wrap a
surprise for you--it was the unexpected word, the unexpected assertion,
sentiment, conclusion, that constantly arrived. Meanwhile it would
enhance your enjoyment mightily to watch his physiognomy, the
movements of his great, grey, shaggy head, the lightening and
darkening of his eyes, his smile, his frown, his occasional slight shrug
or gesture. But the oddest thing was this, that he could take as well as
give; he could listen--surely a rare talent in a monologist. Indeed, I
have never known a man who could make you feel so interesting.
After dinner he would light an immense brown meerschaum pipe, and
smoke for a quarter-hour or so in silence; then he would play a game or
two of chess with some one; and by and by he would open his piano,
and sing to us till midnight.
IV.
I speak of him as old, and indeed we always called him Old Childe
among ourselves; yet he was barely fifty. Nina, when I first made her
acquaintance, must have been a girl of sixteen or seventeen;
though--tall, with an amply-rounded, mature-seeming figure--if one had
judged from her appearance, one would have fancied her three or four
years older. For that matter, she looked then very much as she looks
now; I can perceive scarcely any alteration. She had the same dark hair,
gathered up in a big smooth knot behind, and breaking into a tumult