H. De Vere Stacpoole

Nothing in particular had happened to Gaillard, yet the poet was in tribulation. To begin with, all his friends were too busy to attend to or amuse themselves with him. Struve was writing his book, or, rather, correcting the proof sheets, an employment that kept him short of temper and time; Pelisson had only one idea—Pantin; Toto was crabbedly finding out his own stupidity in the Rue de Perpignan; whilst De Brie had turned very acid over his connection with the new journal, and flung him commissions for little articles or volumes for review as if they were bones to a dog.

Then his publisher had informed him, with a very long face, that only three hundred copies of “The Fall of the Damned” had sold in three weeks, whereas three thousand of “Satanitie” had gone off in the same time.

To make matters worse, Papillard had stopped working; De Nani had frozen him. De Nani he felt to be the cause of all his misfortunes, and he only continued to exist—so he told himself—that he might witness De Nani’s downfall.

You may imagine, then, how pleased he felt when, on the morning after the same showery day that drenched CÉlestin, Pelisson appeared in his rooms before eight o’clock, and pulled up his blinds.

“Wake up! I want Adam Froissart’s address,” cried Pelisson, standing over the poet, and poking him with his stick to rouse him.

“Froissart!” cried Gaillard, rubbing his eyes. “He is not in Paris.”

“Where is he, then?”

“He is in—Amiens,” said Gaillard.

Froissart was a spiteful genius who possessed the unsavory humor of Papillard. No one had ever seen him, and his sole title to consideration lay in three malevolent articles leveled against De Brie and his political tendencies. They had been submitted to Pelisson by Gaillard, and so had found their way into the DÉbats. Pelisson, who noted down everything, had made a memorandum of this gentleman’s abilities. De Brie had done likewise, and though he hated this unknown journalist, he would have given a good deal to secure him as a member of his staff. He had expressed the desire in the hearing of Gaillard, and he might have obtained his wish, only that Froissart’s genius for malevolence was useless when expended against anyone else than De Brie.

Needless to say, there was no Froissart. He belonged to the shadowy band that included Fanfoullard, Mirmillard, Papillard, Églantine, and AngÉlique.

“This is a great nuisance,” grumbled Pelisson, rubbing his chin.

“What do you want of Froissart?”

“I am going to sack De Nani, and I want a man to take his place.”

Gaillard’s countenance became glorified.

“But, my dear Pierre, why seek for Froissart? Are there not plenty of men of ability in Paris to take the place of this silly old villain of a De Nani?”

“Hundreds, but no use to me. I don’t want one of your bright diamonds—I want a man in the rough; I don’t want an editor—I want a creature, a clever one, too, now: for, upon my soul, I am becoming exhausted between keeping Pantin and De Nani going at the same time. You said this Froissart was poor.”

“Frightfully.”

“That’s just what I want.”

“But I believe he has an aunt who is very rich, and I heard she was dying some little time ago. I would not seek Froissart, Pierre; believe me, he is a very acid man, and quite unfit for an editor. If you want the sort of person you say you want, why not try me? I will do whatever you wish, and write whatever you wish.”

“No, no!” cried Pelisson hastily; “it would not do. You are a poet—stick to your last. Besides, I have been bombarded with your creditors; I’ve had enough of that. That is one of the reasons I am sacking De Nani. The old fool has burst the bladder. Someone went to Auteuil to make inquiries, and found he was living in three rooms, and owed money to his laundress. You can fancy how the news has flown amongst his creditors. Next thing someone will find out that he is a fool.”

“But why not edit the thing yourself?”

“So I do; but I want a shield. Pantin will begin to bellow soon. Well, no matter; I am off for Amiens. I won’t be back till to-morrow. What’s this man’s address?”

“He lives in a cottage near the railway station; you will easily find it—there are roses on the porch. But, see here; who’s taking charge till you return?”

“De Nani, nominally; he cannot do any harm in one day. Besides, I have left everything cut and dried.”

“Does he know he is getting the sack?”

“I should think so. He and I have been at the office all night talking things over. He is quite resigned—going to cut and run. I left him asleep on the sofa. Now good-by. The cottage near the railway station, you say. Mon Dieu! I will scarcely have time to catch the train.”

He darted off, and Gaillard sank down again in bed filled with the bliss of satisfied hatred. De Nani was down at last; the little world of Æsthetic people who required “Satanities” and “Falls of the Damned” would now, perhaps, give their Gaillard undivided attention. He never once thought of Pelisson gone off on a wild-goose chase to Amiens, and soon he forgot even De Nani, immersed in visions of an impossible Gaillard worshiped by an impossible world.

Mme. Plon came in and placed Pantin on the foot of his bed, and a letter in a blue envelope. The letter looked like a bill, so he left it whilst he glanced at the journal with languid interest. Then he picked up the letter, which had been left by a messenger, and, to his surprise, found that it was from De Nani.

“My Dear M. Gaillard [said De Nani]: May I ask you to call upon me immediately on receipt of this? It is of the utmost importance that I should see you without a moment’s delay.”

It was written upon the office paper, bearing the stamp “Pantin, No. ——, Rue Drouot. RÉdacteur, M. le Marquis de Nani. Cable and telegraphic address: ‘Pouf.’ Telephone: No. 1654320.” Over all, the motto and watchword of the journal: “Qui vive?”

“Now, what can he want?” murmured Gaillard. “It is like his impertinence to send for me as if I were his footboy. I shall not go.”

And he turned over on his side. But no mongoose was ever of a more inquisitive nature than our friend Gaillard. What could De Nani want, and without a moment’s delay? He tried to imagine and failed, and then arose and dressed.

M. le Marquis de Nani was in the inner office. Since the night of Toto’s dinner-party at the Grand CafÉ he had grown fat, or, at least, decidedly fatter. His raiment was superb; he had adorned his stomach with a gold and platinum watch-chain. He wore a shawl waistcoat, and his cuff-links, of dull gold, were enameled with pictures of tiny champagne bottles and opera dancers.

He was standing before the indifferent looking-glass that adorned the mantel, examining his face and informing Scribe, the cashier, that Pantin had given him ten new wrinkles. A cafÉ near by had just sent in dÉjeuner for two and a bottle of Pommery.

“I am expecting M. Gaillard to breakfast,” explained De Nani. “A most promising young man, whose interests I have at heart.”

Scribe bowed and left the room. He was a shock-headed man, with musical instincts and a genius for figures; he held the Marquis in great reverence, and had an implicit faith in him that somewhat troubled Pelisson. Yet what could Pelisson do? You cannot tell the cashier to beware of the editor? This implicit faith of Scribe’s was perhaps one factor in the sacking of De Nani, although goodness knows there were others enough.

“You sent for me, I believe,” said Gaillard rather stiffly, as he entered the inner office and made a little bow to his editor, whilst he glanced at the nice little dÉjeuner on the table.

“Ma foi, yes; I trust you will excuse the brusquerie of my note, my dear M. Gaillard. Will you not join me at breakfast? That is right. I will explain myself as we eat; we shall not be interrupted, for Pelisson has gone off somewhere for the day.”

“Pelisson will not be back till to-morrow,” said Gaillard, thawing visibly as he flung a bundle of papers off a chair and took his seat at the table. “He has gone to Amiens.”

De Nani hid his satisfaction at this remark, as he unwired the champagne. Then the two, hobnobbing across the table, shared a Perigord pie, and conversation became general; it swiftly became indelicate, and then confidential.

“You are right,” said the Marquis, in answer to a remark dropped by his vis-À-vis. “Pelisson has his limitations—ahu!”

“Pelisson is a journalist, a recorder of this ill-written tragedy which we are condemned to act in, and which we call, for want of a better name, ‘life.’ Oh, this life that they are always prating about! A scoundrel only the other day accused me of insincerity to life. Could he have paid me a higher compliment?”

“No, egad. Ha! the infernal scamp said that, did he? What will you have?—they must have ‘copy’; that is the watchword of this villainous world, that stinks of printer’s ink. ‘Copy, copy’—I will give them some copy. A word in your ear, M. Gaillard.”

“I am all attention.”

“I feel safe in admitting you into my little secret, for you are a man of honor. I feel safe in admitting you into the secret of my little surprise, inasmuch as it concerns Pelisson, who is not your friend, M. Gaillard.”

“Have you heard him saying things about me?” asked Gaillard, who was under the fixed belief that one half of the world spent its existence in slandering his works to the other half.”

“I have heard him say——”

“Yes?”

“No matter; what is the use of repeating the words of a man like Pelisson—ahu! They are like the crackling of thorns under a pot, as that delightfully humorous book, the Bible, has it. I should not have mentioned the chattering of this magpie. Fill your glass, M. Gaillard.”

“But, my dear Marquis, I implore you to tell me what this Pelisson has been uttering about me; it is always well to know one’s friends.”

“Well, egad, he said so much I have forgotten half of it. One day—it was last week—he said, ‘This Gaillard thinks himself a poet.’ Harmless words, but it was the tone of his voice that set all the office laughing. I did not laugh, it was bad form; but there is no form in this journalistic world. I am leaving it, I have had words with Pelisson; and before I take my departure it is my humble ambition to make Pierre Pelisson dance.”

“He ought to be dancing on an organ,” said Gaillard in a bitter voice. “It is all he is fit for.”

“He ought to be dancing on an organ, as you very truly remark; but I will endeavor to find a broader platform from whence to amuse Paris. And he will not dance a waltz, M. Gaillard, nor yet will he indulge his limbs in the graceful movements of the mazurka. He will dance the can-can, will Pierre Pelisson—ahu!”

“You are going to play a practical joke on him?”

“Oh, no! I am only going to make him dance for my amusement; but to do so, I want Prince Toto’s address. He is in Paris?”

“He is living at No. 10, Rue de Perpignan,” said Gaillard, finishing the champagne. “But I doubt if he will help you.”

“I don’t want him to,” said De Nani, entering the address in his tablets. “I only want the number of the house and the name of the street.”

“I ought not to have told you!” cried Gaillard, suddenly remembering his promise to Toto.

“Why not?”

“He made me promise to tell no one where he is living, nor about CÉlestin.”

“Ah, have no fear!” said De Nani, making another entry in his tablets. “Toto will not object to my knowing his address; he knows that I am a safe man, a man to be trusted—ahu, ventre St. Gris! Could I tell you, M. Maillard——”

“Gaillard.”

“Paillard,” continued De Nani, who, now that he had obtained all or nearly all the information he wanted, began to put on frills and forget names. “Could I tell you, M. Paillard, how I love this dear Toto, you might with your genius make from it a little poem; it transcends the love of David for Jonathan, this affection of mine for Toto. He is so joyous, he is so young, he is such a charming host. You remember that delightful dinner where we first made acquaintance; I feel I can never repay Toto for that piece of hospitality. But I will try, as far as in me lies—I will try.”

“I tell you what,” said Gaillard, putting on his hat and lighting a cigarette: “you would do Toto a great service if you could induce him to leave that wretched hole he is in, and give up art and all that nonsense.”

“And CÉlestin?”

“Yes; she is worse than art. Between you and me, I don’t know how he can stand it, living with an illiterate woman like that; she has not two ideas in her head. I don’t believe she can read, and, what is worse, I don’t believe she wants to. They do their own cooking. Imagine a man of Toto’s position in the world—faugh! it makes me ill.”

This was an untruth—cooking was rarely done in the atelier of Toto, for CÉlestin was the worst cook in the world, excepting perhaps Toto; but it was true enough for De Nani.

“And this CÉlestin—what was she before Toto took her from the mud?”

“She was a hat-maker—she is still. Trims hats and that sort of thing.”

“Whilst Toto paints those delightful pictures of his?”

“Yes. But the worst is, he cannot sell them,—I know by his face,—and he is frightfully hard up.”

“Soon,” said De Nani, with a horrid leer, “our friend Toto will cast his brushes aside, and live upon the diligence of this pretty CÉlestin. It is what all these artists do when unsuccessful. We must save him from this.”

“I wish you would.”

“Before to-morrow evening,” said De Nani, “I hope to cure this charming Toto of his fever for fame and his hunger for art. Who is this? Why, it is M. Wolf. I must bid you now good-day, M. Gaillard, as I have some matters of importance to transact with M. Wolf.”

Wolf came in, hat in hand and spectacles gleaming, as Gaillard went out. De Nani removed the remains of the dÉjeuner from the table onto the floor, and greeted the newcomer.

“You are just the man I want,” said the Marquis. “I have an interview to write, and I want you to assist me. I have all the facts. That is right, take a seat and a pen.”

Gaillard went off feeling rather huffed at the summary manner in which De Nani had dismissed him. His hatred of the old man, which had vanished before the champagne and the knowledge of his downfall, returned somewhat. He determined, having nothing better to do, to betake himself to Toto’s atelier, and spend the afternoon smoking cigarettes and talking to CÉlestin about his poems. CÉlestin made an admirable audience for a minor poet, even although she was an illiterate woman and scarcely knew how to read. She had the power of sympathy, and she listened to Gaillard just as she listened to Dodor and Toto. When Gaillard would spout a sonnet, and then abuse it, declaring that it was too full of color, or too sharp in sound, or destitute of perfume, and that he wished he had never written it, CÉlestin, raising her eyes from her work, would cry, “Oh, but I am sure it is beautiful. It could not be more beautiful. I seem to see those roses you speak of. And how sad, the roses were unhappy! That seems so dreadful, does it not, DÉsirÉ?” And then Toto, if he were busy, would give a grunt, and Gaillard would repeat again the sonnet, and declare that the roses were glad now because CÉlestin had pitied them.

But she would gladden no roses to-day.

“She has a cold,” said Toto, pointing to the closed bedroom door. “She got her feet wet yesterday. How glad I am that you have come!”

He was sitting near the stove, and he rose and put on his hat. Someone had a fit of coughing in the bedroom, and Gaillard stood staring at the tulip manufactured by Gamier as though it were a dragon.

“Surely, my dear DÉsirÉ, you have not descended to things like these!” He touched the pot warily with the point of his stick, as if fearful of infection.

“Oh, that!” said Toto carelessly. “It is not mine; it is CÉlestin’s. Do not touch it; she is awfully proud of it. Come out with me; I want to talk to you.” In the street Toto took Gaillard’s arm. “I am so glad you have come. I am in need of a friend. I am in a state of misery. What shall I do with that girl?”

“Why, has she been troubling you? Mon Dieu! DÉsirÉ, tell me, what is this?”

“No,” said Toto, “she has not been troubling me. I only wish she had, I only wish she had. That woman—pah! she is not a woman, she is an angel.”

“So are all women till you find them out. But go on, DÉsirÉ. Why all this terrible excitement?”

“Why? My God! it is very easy for you to talk. She loves me. Well, then, what am I to do? I have been nearly mad these last few days, and not a soul to speak to. You don’t care. You have been off to the Moulin Rouge and Heaven knows where every night!”

“I swear, DÉsirÉ,” cried Gaillard, “I have been in a worse condition than you. I have been on the edge of suicide. Moulin Rouge! I have not been to the Moulin Rouge. I took to my bed three days ago to read ‘Aucassin and Nicolete’ and try to forget that I was alive. I have not eaten—morphia and cigarettes alone have passed my lips during the last forty-eight hours. Then I thought of you; then I came, and for reward I am accused like this! No matter.”

“If she were an ordinary girl,” said Toto, disregarding Gaillard’s fantasies, “I would give her five thousand francs and set her up in business, and there would be an end of it.”

“Ah, DÉsirÉ! ah, DÉsirÉ!” gasped Gaillard, like a man trying to speak in a shower bath. “Can it be that at last you are going to return to us? Can——”

“Call me Toto,” cried the Prince. “I hate that vile name DÉsirÉ. I put it on with this foolishness—this rotten art business. Don’t mind me, my dear fellow; let me rave. I have had no one to talk to for days but Garnier and CÉlestin. They do not understand me.”

“Go on, go on,” said Gaillard, as if Toto had swallowed poison and he was urging him to vomit. “Speak away, it will do you good; relieve your mind—it will save you perhaps from madness. Ah, I can understand—I can understand what you must have suffered, my poor Toto! I have been through it all myself.”

“Come in here,” said Toto, stopping at a small cafÉ; “we can sit down and talk.”

“Yes, let us enter,” said Gaillard. “No, do not touch absinthe in a place like this; if you wish to die, choose an easier poison. Beer? Yes, let us have some beer. And now, Toto, continue your troubles.”

“I have only one trouble,” said Toto, “and that is CÉlestin.”

“Ah, mon Dieu! that is a trouble easily got rid of.”

“How?”

“Leave CÉlestin to me.”

“What would you do with her?”

“I?—nothing. I would simply say, ‘Mlle. CÉlestin, M. DÉsirÉ has been called away to the death-bed of an aunt in the country. She will leave him her entire fortune if he marries at once and according to her desires.’ Then I would say, ‘The girl upon whom his aunt has fixed——’”

“Oh, rubbish! I could do that myself. Do you think if I wanted to I could not kick CÉlestin over in half an hour? You do not understand. She is like no one else. She is like a child. I cannot hurt her. She would haunt me forever, she and that lark. Oh, why did I ever meet her? But for her I would have been back days ago out of this abominable Rue de Perpignan. If it had not been for her, I would never have come here at all. She drove me on to this stupidity, I don’t know why.”

“If,” said Gaillard rather stiffly, “you still love this girl so much——”

“But I don’t. I mean this: I thought I was in love with her, and, somehow, now everything seems to have gone to pieces all at once; the pleasure went out of my life all at once. I am lingering on in this infernal part of the town like a thing with a broken back. I don’t know what I am to do.”

“I know,” said Gaillard.

“What?”

“Take a little cottage in the country and put your CÉlestin there with her lark.”

“Yes, I might do that; only I will have to go there every day or live there.”

“In the name of Heaven, why?”

“Because it will break her heart if I leave her. I tell you you do not know her. She has wound herself round me.”

“Well, unwind her.”

“She lives for me—I can see it. I did not know that there were such women in the world, and, of course, it is my luck to meet one of them and get myself in this tangle with her. It is very easy for you to sip your beer and say ‘Unwind her.’ Suppose a child were to run up to you and put its arms round you, could you box its ears? And, besides, I have wound myself a bit round her. I have an affection for her, though I am weary of this love business. I do love her as a child, but then one does not want to spend one’s life in the nursery.”

“Take a little cottage,” reiterated Gaillard; “place her in it. We will go down together, you and I, each day for a fortnight. Then we will drop a day by degrees, and wean her, so to speak. It will take you the whole summer. Well, it is an idealistic way of spending the warm weather. We will have a cottage with clematis on the porch, and a garden filled with old-fashioned flowers. There she will, so to speak, gain her legs, and when she is able to run alone, trust her, she will find a playmate.”

“The first thing to be done,” said Toto thoughtfully, “is to get away from this part of the town before anyone finds out I am here. I do not want this affair advertised all over Paris. You are certain that no one knows about it. You have hinted it to no one?”

“Absolutely certain—no one. You are in Corsica; that is enough.”

“Have you seen my mother lately?”

“I dined with her only yesterday.”

“Why, I thought you said you had been in bed for the last four days.”

“So I have; but I got up yesterday evening and called upon Mme. la Princesse in reply to a summons. She detained me to dinner.”

“What did she want?”

“Only to make inquiries as to you.”

“And you said?”

“Oh, I said you were progressing charmingly.”

“I hope no one else was there?”

“No, we dined tÊte-À-tÊte.”

“Well, I think it is the best thing I can do.”

“What?”

“That idea of yours about the country. I could take rooms for a while somewhere. The only thing is, CÉlestin cannot be moved till this cold is better. Isn’t it vile luck? It will mean several days before I can get away from this place.”

“Could you not move her in a cab?”

“No, she is not strong, and if she got another cold on top of this one it might kill her.”

“Have you given her any medicine?”

“I gave her some lozenges, and Garnier brought her some sugar-candy.”

“Who is Garnier?”

“He is a painter.”

“Oh, one of these wretched rapins. Take my advice, Toto, and have a doctor in; he will cure her more quickly than if she were left alone.”

“I wanted to, but she implored me not. She has a horror of doctors and medicine.”

“Have you put poultices on her chest?”

“Mercy, no!”

“You ought to poultice her. I frequently suffer from colds in the early spring, and Mme. Plon declares that I would not be alive but for her poultices. It will cut it short. Have you a bronchitis kettle?”

“No; she hasn’t got bronchitis; she has only got a cough and a pain in the side.”

“No matter; it would stop her from getting bronchitis. You ought also to give her sweet spirits of niter. I assure you, Toto, you never can tell what a cold turns to; and this girl, should she get really ill, may keep her bed for a month, and then where would you be? In cases like this, we ought to act on the principle of the firemen, who play on unconsumed buildings in order to prevent them from catching fire. If I were you, I would insist on a doctor. Well, well, I do not press the point—she is not mine. Let us talk on other things. Have you heard that Pelisson has cut De Nani adrift? No, of course you have not.”

“How can I know what is going on in this place?”

“True; but, even so, it only occurred last night. De Nani seems quite resigned, but I would not wonder if he played some trick upon our friend Pelisson. He wanted your address.”

“Pelisson?”

“No, De Nani,” said Gaillard, who almost bit his tongue for letting this cat out of its bag.

“I hope you did not give it to him.”

Gaillard shrugged his shoulders.

“For that old man is my evil star. I do not believe I would have been here now but for his insult that night. You remember? Well, I am going back to the atelier.”

“How much money have you left, Toto?”

“I have only five hundred francs.”

“You had better let me bring you some more. Give me a check. You have not your check-book? Well, write one out for five hundred francs on a piece of paper, and I will take it and cash it for you, and bring you the money to-morrow.”

“You will not turn up again if I let you have all that.”

“Toto!”

“I know you so well. See here, what time will you promise to turn up, if I give you my check?”

Gaillard debated with himself.

“I will be at your atelier at one o’clock, punctually.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

CHAPTER II.
THE STORY OF FANTOFF AND BASTICHE.

They went back to the atelier, and Toto, who had not breakfasted, got together some wine and bread and cold stewed beef. Gaillard sat down to table also, to keep him company. Then the poet ventured into the bedroom to talk to the sick girl and cheer her up.

CÉlestin was lying on her side, facing the door, with very bright eyes and flushed cheeks. On the wall over the bed hung a colored print of our Lord Jesus carrying a lamb; she had brought it with her from her room near the Rue de Babylone. An orange lay on the quilt, one of six brought by Garnier that morning; she had eaten the other five and swallowed the pulp, an act which would have caused a physician to shudder. On a rush-bottomed chair near by lay the lozenges given to her by Mme. Liard,—redoubtable lozenges, according to the label on the box,—also the sugar candy of Garnier.

Gaillard sat down beside the bed; he took the sick girl’s hand, and, stroking it like a mother, called her his pauvre petite CÉlestin. She quite touched his heart—her sickness, her pitiable air of helplessness; the orange on the quilt, and the picture of the Lord Jesus watching over her.

She had been in great pain all the morning,—a cruel pain, like a hot-iron, in her right lung,—but she was better of the pain now and the cough; she told him so in a mutter, and then asked for a fairy tale.

Toto looked in, munching a biscuit; he nodded his head as if satisfied and withdrew, whilst Gaillard in a fit of genius improvised a fairy tale. It was about a green giant called Fantoff. He was quite green, his hair was grass, and his feet were like roots uprooted in some terrible upheaval; his fingers were like carrots, and he turned brown every autumn with the leaves, the larks in spring mistaking his head for a field built on it; so that in this happy season of the year wherever he walked larks sang above him, and whenever he scratched his head a dozen nests were destroyed. At this CÉlestin, with Dodor in her mind, said “No, no.” So the poet passed on to the cat Mizar and the dwarf Blizzard, whom the giant had, one day in a fit of idleness, carved from a forked carrot; and CÉlestin, remembering Garnier’s tulip, believed that this might possibly be true.

Blizzard, forgetful of the debt of creation, dared to fall in love with the lady beloved by Fantoff, whose name was Primavera, and whose abode was the Castle of Flowers. A hundred thousand tulips defended this castle from behind a holly hedge. They were divided into five armies—red, white, yellow, chocolate, and striped; and CÉlestin in a half-dream beheld the valiant host whilst Gaillard rambled on.

The gardener generalissimo of this army was blind,—he had been blinded by the beauty of Primavera,—and one day as he was wheeling back to the castle a barrow full of roses, who had gone out to fight the camellias and had been badly beaten. Blizzard the dwarf slipped into it under the roses, intent on gaining an entrance to the castle at all hazards, there to declare his love. What happened? Simply this: Algebar, the bird of Paradise, flapped its sapphire wings and shrieked out, “Beware! A carrot is trying to enter the Castle of Flowers. Beware, beware!” and before the faithful bird could call it thrice the door opened, and out came Bastiche, the porter.

Bastiche was a giant, who had once been a clothes basket; he was seven hundred feet high, and creaked as he walked. Primavera in a fit of foolishness had endowed him with life, and as he stood on the castle steps he opened his lid and shut it again. He also quite forgot the warning of Algebar, for at that moment rose up from behind the holly hedge the great green head of Fantoff, the larks singing above it merrily.

Fantoff, be it observed, was quite unconscious of the scheme of Blizzard. He had determined to raid the castle that day on his own account, just as Blizzard had determined to sneak in. Well, listen. There stood Fantoff in all his glory. The tulips shuddered at the sight, and the blind gardener put down his barrow, for he felt in some manner that something was about to happen; and there stood Bastiche, creaking with anger, whilst little Blizzard in the barrow shook the dead roses with laughter. Fantoff and Bastiche stared at each other, Fantoff with derision, Bastiche with envy and hate, whilst Algebar flew through the garden and screamed.

Bastiche, then, as if oblivious of the presence of a foe, gazed up at the clouds and sniffed, and asked the sky where could the smell of manure be coming from; whilst Fantoff inquired of the tulips whether this was the washing-day at the castle? This allusion to his birth quite upset the calm of Bastiche, who descended the steps, opened the garden gate, and like a fool left the protection of the tulip army and holly hedge.

Then, on the plain before the Castle of Flowers, ensued a battle such as never before was witnessed in Fairyland. The mushrooms formed a ring seven miles in diameter, and in this ring the heroes struggled; the sound filled the air for many miles, mixed with the sounds of many things hastening to see the fight. At the end of an hour the plain was strewn with unwashed clothes, and the battle was with Fantoff. He tore the lid off Bastiche, and, not content with this, what must he do but insert his great green head into the yawning opening, to tear the heart of his enemy out with his teeth. But Bastiche had no heart, and here lies one of the morals of the story. For Fantoff had no knowledge of anatomy and he did not know the impossibility of slaying a man without a heart—a critic for instance, or a Bastiche. What did he do? Burrowing deeper and deeper to find his heart, he got his shoulders implicated in the creaking body of Bastiche, and burrowing deeper still he was implicated to the loins.

“He creaks,” cried Fantoff, “so he is still alive!” and went deeper till he was in to the knees. Then he found that he could not get out, for Bastiche had in death taken upon him the revenge of a clothes basket. The fairies tried to pull him out, and also the cat Mizar, but it was of no avail; so they wheeled him away, and the cat Mizar followed to the grave.

In the Castle of Flowers the Lady Primavera turned from watching the fight and its miserable conclusion; she saw an object at her feet. It was Blizzard the dwarf; he had left the barrow during the fight, and, entering the castle by the scullery door, sneaked upstairs, and now upon one knee was declaring his love; and she returned his passion, it seems. But their bliss was of short duration. For one day, chancing to fall asleep in the kitchen, the cook, who was short of vegetables, cut him up and put him in the pot, and the Lady Primavera ate him in her soup, and so there was an end of Blizzard.

For Fantoff read genius; Primavera, fame; Bastiche, the spiteful critics; Blizzard, the popular author, whose books sell by the ton; Mizar, the faithful few. The story also as told by Gaillard had several immoral meanings quite Greek to CÉlestin. It was, in fact, the work of Papillard, for the downfall of De Nani had thawed that humorist in his cell.

“That is all,” said Gaillard. “To-morrow, if you are better, I will tell you of the adventures of the cat Mizar, and of all that happened when he saw his reflection in the looking-glass of the wizard Fantoum. Fantoum had a blue face; he was half-brother to Fantoff, and his enemy was the giant Boum-Boum, whose children under the spell of the wizard were turned into drums before the age of twenty; that is to say, the boys—the girls turned into drumsticks. I will tell you a story each day, my little CÉlestin, and then we will print them all in a pretty volume bound in butterfly-blue vellum, and call them ‘Tales Told to CÉlestin.’ With the money from its sale we will buy a cottage at Montmorency and keep bees; we will support ourselves on bees and fairy tales. And now I must say adieu, and run away until to-morrow.”

“Ah, Montmorency!” murmured CÉlestin, as Gaillard’s high collar and frock-coat vanished and the door closed on them, leaving her alone.

Toto gave the poet his check, imploring him to wait a little longer and keep him company.

But Gaillard had now the check in his pocket, and the vision of Pleasure was kicking her skirts before his eyes, a box of cigars in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other. So he took the opportunity of Garnier’s entrance to make his exit, swearing to return on the morrow at noon, and ran down the Rue de Perpignan, making for the right side of the Seine just as a thirsty animal makes for water.

Then Garnier, like the poet, came in to see the patient; his pockets were bulging with things, and he held in his hands a square paper parcel; it was a little picture he had painted for CÉlestin—a droll little picture of a Cupid with a cold, an ominous little picture, perhaps, for, as Gaillard truly said, who can tell what a cold may turn to?

CHAPTER III.
THE REVENGE OF M. DE NANI.

That night CÉlestin, it would seem, grew worse. Toto, who had made his bed on the couch in the atelier, slept so soundly that he did not hear her delirious and rambling conversation.

Gaillard’s fairy people visited her, and Bastiche and Fantoff commanded her terrified attention as they did battle once more on the greensward in front of the Castle of Flowers, whilst Fantoum watched them across the holly hedge. Then the battle scene vanished, and Mizar the cat came and took his seat upon her chest. His eyes were pale blue, and flickered like spirit lamps in a draught; she implored of him to give her water to drink, and for answer he changed into Gaillard.

Through all these fancies ran the form of an old man. It was De Nani, whom she had seen once for a moment as he talked to Toto at the Gare du Nord: his lascivious and painted face peeped at her here and there from behind hedges and trees in this phantom land, whilst over all flew Algebar, the paradisiacal bird, rending the attenuated air with the constant mournful cry, “Beware! beware! A carrot is trying to enter the Castle of Flowers.”

With daylight all these strange fancies vanished, and at seven o’clock, when Toto entered her room to inquire how she felt, she answered that she was quite well, but had been dreaming terrible things. She implored him in her husky whisper to bring in Dodor, and having placed the cage close to the bed and removed the green cover, he made some coffee and brought her some with half a buttered roll.

She drank the coffee, and when he was gone she hid the buttered roll so that he might think she had eaten it. At all hazards she must keep up the appearance of not being “very bad,” for if Toto were alarmed he would, without doubt, send for a doctor, and that meant spending money. Fully five hundred times had Mme. Liard recounted to her the frightful expense M. Liard had put her to in his last illness; she always spoke of the doctor’s bill with hands outstretched a yard wide.

“Pills—a little box not bigger than a thimble, three francs—three francs, as I am an honest woman! and plasters a yard wide that did nothing, as far as I could see, but put the good man in pain; and not only plasters, but bottles of stuff, sometimes twice a day, red and brown and yellow, and always changing till one grew giddy; and then when he had killed him wanted to cut him open to see what he died of. May I never reach heaven if I tell a lie! That is what doctors are!”

No wonder CÉlestin dreaded the craft, and much preferred Choiseul’s lozenges and Garnier’s sugar candy to the ruinous bottles and the pills at three francs a thimbleful, and the chance of being cut open “to see what she died of.”

Cough lozenges and sugar candy are not perhaps the most effective remedies for acute pneumonia, especially when the patient has only one lung; but perhaps, taking that fact into consideration, they were as serviceable as any others.

At nine o’clock the concierge, a stolid woman, deaf as a stone, came up to settle the bedroom and see to the patient. She brought up with her a newspaper that had just been left in by a little boy. The wrapper was addressed in a crabbed hand to “M. Cammora, No. 10, Rue de Perpignan,” and Toto wondered whose the handwriting could be, for he had never seen the scrawl of M. le Marquis de Nani.

It was a copy of that morning’s Pantin. The first page was occupied with foreign news and a heavy leading article by Pelisson on the prospects of beet sugar turning foreign sugars out of the market, and ending with a regret that the Minister of Agriculture had let several chances slip for the betterment of the prospects of France.

Toto turned to the second page and came upon a long article marked with pencil. He thought at the first glance that it was the review of a novel, for it was headed “Painter and Prince.” Then after six lines he discovered it was an interview, after twelve lines that it was an interview with himself.

The interviewer, it seems, had discovered that a certain illustrious young Prince whom the whole world had imagined to be in Corsica stalking the nimble moufflon, was in fact in Paris, stalking art—working, in fact, like any child of the people in an attic, Rue de Perpignan, No. 10. And as Toto saw his address thus publicly proclaimed the hair of his head stood on end.

The interview was written in Wolf’s chatty manner. Wolf had three manners: the worshipful manner, which he applied to geniuses, great statesmen, and successful tradesmen, when those gentry fell into his hands; the cut-and-dried, for strike leaders, members of the chamber, people whose houses had caught fire suspiciously; and the chatty, for actresses, successful clowns, prominent divorcees, etc. The chatty interview generally began on the stairs, with a short description of first impressions.

The stairs of Toto’s house, it seems, gave one the impression of abject poverty.

“When we reached the first floor,” said this mouthpiece of De Nani, “we inquired of a charwoman for the young Prince ——. She declared her ignorance of such a person, no Prince to her knowledge having ever inhabited the house.

“The interviewer, thus left to his own resources, pursued his quest through this frightful house, which recalled nothing so much as the Maison Corbeau of Victor Hugo. On the fourth floor, a hissing sound rewarded his ear, and knocking at a door, a well-known voice desired him to enter. Here he found a picture that would have gladdened the heart of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

“By the window of a poverty-stricken room sat a girl trimming hats—a girl of the people, exquisitely pretty, and possessing that innate refinement common to all Parisiennes, no matter how humble their origin. By the little stove stood a handsome young man, preparing the modest meal they were evidently to share together.

“It was the Prince, who laughed joyously, and placed the little pan upon the floor, whilst he shook the interviewer warmly by the hand.”

The whole thing had a most horribly actual air. The teeming brain of Wolf had supplied little details impossible, one would say, to be false. The foolish lovers who had renounced, one her home, the other his world, for the sake of art and love in an attic, stood before one in the flesh. Wolf, inspired by champagne and the dictation of his editor, had worked with the fervor and insight of a poet; and one almost wept over the struggling pair, till one remembered that the Prince was worth half a million of money, and then one laughed till one’s sides ached.

“We are very happy,” said the Prince, at the conclusion of this weird interview. “Tell all my friends to come and see me, now that you have found me out. Tell them also that there is only one true happiness—to be young and poor, and mated to the woman one loves.”

“That last line,” had murmured De Nani to himself, “will, I have no doubt, vastly amuse Mme. la Princesse and Mlle. Powhair.”

Toto let Pantin drop, and turned his white face to the window, as if he expected to see all Paris looking in and laughing. He knew, as indeed was the fact, that men were tumbling out of bed bursting with laughter, and running into their wives’ bedrooms Pantin in hand; that starch-faced valets were shaking under their starch, as they handed Pantin to their masters on silver salvers with cups of chocolate; that young De Harnac, who was more English than his own bulldog, was crying “My Gawd!” and kicking his legs about in bed with delight as he read Pantin; that Mme. la Princesse was prostrated, and Mlle. Powhair—he could not imagine what Helen Powers was saying or thinking. The thought of her was somehow the worst part of all this trouble.

His lips were dry, and they felt as if they never could become moist again. He was quite calm, but this calmness of Toto’s would have frightened his mother to behold. He neither shrieked nor tore his hair; but, indeed, the latter feat would have been impossible, for a fortnight ago he had had it cropped to the bone in imitation of Garnier.

The hilt of this dagger was the ingratitude of Pelisson, Gaillard & Co.—the men who had been his guests, to whom he had lent money, and who had now stabbed him in this cruel manner before all Paris. Little did he know of the raving Pelisson, who, having sought vainly for Froissart, had returned by the night mail, which stops at Amiens and arrives in Paris at seven in the morning, only to find this horrible snake curled in Pantin. Pelisson at this moment was dragging the terrified Gaillard out of bed, who was protesting that he knew nothing of the matter, just as Scribe ten minutes ago had protested that eighteen thousand francs were missing from the safe, he could not tell how; and as Saxe, the German foreman, had declared that the usual big edition of Pantin was out, and could not be got back, not if God came out of Himmel, and that it was not Saxe’s fault that this schweinhund article had crawled into print—whilst Struve, whose practical joke had long ago laid the seeds of all this mischief, was the only man unconcerned by it as he lay asleep after a hard night’s work, and dreaming of stained-glass windows and saints who had strayed into art.

But Toto knew nothing of all this: he thought this cruel and spiteful trick the work of his friends. He had always liked Pelisson, and he had liked Gaillard. Gaillard had been, in fact, a kind of necessity to him—a sort of dry-nurse, who wiped his nose and said “There, there!” when he was fretful, and listened to his secrets, and told him tales, and put him up to resist his mother.

A man of the world would have seen at once that some trick had been played on Pantin. Pelisson, of all men in the world, was the last to let such an article appear in his paper; especially as it was leveled against a man who was virtually part proprietor. Gaillard, too, was entirely out of court. But Toto was not a man of the world, and the bitterest thing to him in this severe humiliation was the supposed authorship.

He took up Pantin, folded it, and hid it under one of the cushions of the couch. The act, performed on the impulse of a moment, revealed to him in a dramatic manner his position. Of what use was the hiding of one copy of Pantin under a cushion when fifty thousand Pantins were bellowing his shame all over Paris? So he snatched it out and flung it open on the table as if for everyone to read—a useless act, for everyone was reading it.

Then he smoked a cigarette. In an hour of semi-delirium he smoked ten. The thing was so immensely vile, so wanton, such bad form, that the very enormity of it calmed him. A man who learns that the bank has smashed, that his wife has eloped, and that his house is burnt to the ground all at the same moment, ten to one receives the news with calmness—the blow stuns him. He feels that Fate and Death and other heroic personages have condescended to turn their undivided attention for a moment to his affairs—he is almost a hero, in fact.

So Toto turned from blank horror to the heroic mood. The whole world was against him; well, he would stick to his guns. He almost felt glad that all this had happened, and lit another cigarette just as Garnier entered, bearing in his hand a huge bunch of black grapes for CÉlestin. They were muscatels, and must have cost him a little fortune, unless he stole them, or, what is more probable, obtained them on credit.

“Garnier,” said Toto, his cheeks flushing slightly, “see here,” and he pointed his cigarette with a wave at Pantin lying open on the table.

“And she?” asked Garnier, as he made a sign towards the closed door of CÉlestin’s room, laying his grapes down on the table and taking up the paper all at the same time.

“She is better.”

“Ah, this which is marked with crosses?”

“Yes, read it.”

Garnier began to read, standing under the top-light and holding the paper at full length before him. In a moment he folded the sheet in a more comfortable manner and continued reading calmly and without any sign of astonishment. At one place he frowned slightly, where CÉlestin’s name appeared, then when he had finished he laid Pantin back on the table beside the grapes.

“Well?” inquired Toto.

“I do not think that is in very good taste,” said Garnier dryly.

“What! is that all you have to say—not in very good taste?”

“My friend,” said Garnier, “it is no affair of mine; but it makes my fingers tingle none the less. Were it an affair of mine, I would make you eat that journal and all it contains—vÉ! I have spoken.”

“Ah, stupid!” cried Toto, uncrossing his legs and moving his arms about. “You think I have written that!” and the corners of his mouth went up in a very mirthless rictus.

“But surely——”

“I? Why, cannot you see that it is a hoax? No one came here to see me—I was not frying things over the stove. Do you think for a moment I would expose myself like that, and give my address? It was done to make fun of me—everyone will be laughing at me. Can’t you see?”

“Oh, my friend,” said Garnier, “forgive me, forgive me! How could I have been so stupid and so blind? Ah, owl that you are!” and he gave his great chest a thump with his great fist, and then came to the couch and sat by Toto, and rested his hand on his knee, and poured out consolation in the language of Arles, punctuated with explosive oaths.

“Oh, it does not matter. Do you think that I care? I do in a way, for it shows me the villainy of the world.”

“Ah, you are right; this villain of a world—it is a beast! But tenez! my dear friend, I hear the little CÉlestin coughing. I will give her a grape.”

He ran into CÉlestin’s room with the bunch of grapes, and Toto heard his voice murmuring to her, mixed with Dodor’s voice trying over a few bars of a song in a despondent sort of manner; for CÉlestin’s illness seemed to have put him out of heart during the last couple of days. Then Garnier came back, closing the door softly behind him, and raising up his hands at CÉlestin’s weakness.

“Say, my dear friend,” said Garnier, “do you not think a doctor ought to see her? As for me, I do not believe in them, but still—but still——”

He stopped speaking, and followed the direction of Toto’s frozen stare.

At the door of the atelier, just pushed open, appeared the semi-hysterical figure of Gaillard, his hat tilted back, his long frock-coat hanging loose, and his necktie hastily put on. He had evidently dressed in a hurry, for he wore odd boots—one patent leather and the other plain kid.

“Do you see that man?” said Toto, clutching Garnier’s arm. “Do you see that man?”

“Mais oui.”

“Then you see the biggest scoundrel in Paris,” said Toto, and he struck a match and lit a cigarette to show his coolness, averting his eyes at the same time from the apparition at the door.

Gaillard raised up his two hands like one of Struve’s stained-glass saints, and then dropped them with a flop. He did not cross the threshold, for he was perhaps afraid of being kicked out.

“Do not be afraid to come in,” said Toto; “I will not assault you. I am too utterly lost in admiration of your charming insolence—it is a masterpiece.”

“Afraid!” said Gaillard, coming in very slowly. “Afraid—afraid of what? I have no fear left; Toto, DÉsirÉ, my friend, we are all ruined. Pelisson is in despair; Wolf is committing suicide—I saw him myself being held down by four men. That villain—that villain—that villain of a De Nani, the cause of it all, has vanished. All the money is gone from the safe; Scribe is in a state of dementia. I escape from this inferno and rush to you for sympathy, and I am greeted as a scoundrel!”

“What do I care about De Nani?” inquired Toto. “Look at that.”

“Yes,” said Gaillard, “look at that; but I have no need to look at that—it is burnt into my brain. I could have slain Wolf with my two hands when he confessed an hour ago, but, ma foi! he was too much slain already; besides, it was not his fault. Whose fault? Why, De Nani’s. Pelisson left him in charge; did I not tell you so yesterday?”

“De Nani?”

“Yes. Wolf has confessed he wrote the article under the inspiration of that scoundrel. The old man dictated it word for word; it was a parting shot at Pelisson. My back feels broken. Why, who is this?”

A sound of cackling laughter came from outside, and the foolish and foppish form of young De Harnac appeared at the door, followed by the figure of Valfray, his little black mustache twisted up at the ends and his eyeglass in his eye.

They saw Toto seated on the chintz-covered couch beside Gaillard, a momentary vision ere they found themselves being led like two naughty children across the dusty landing towards the stairs by a huge man with a ProvenÇal accent.

“It is not good to laugh at one’s friends when they are in trouble,” said Garnier in his large way, and with a perfume of garlic. “You will go, please, immediately, and call another day. These are the stairs—yes, if you please.”

“Oh, what have you done?” said Toto, when he came back. “Those two fools will run all over Paris telling lies about me now—no matter! Gaillard, my dear friend, come with me into the street; I must speak to you alone. Garnier, my friend, you will see to CÉlestin till I return, will you not?”

He ran into her room for a moment. She tried to hold up her arms to him, and he kissed her, but he did not see her face; her sunken eyes, the blueness of her lips, all those signs which spoke of that terrible pneumonia which kills like the dagger of an unskillful assassin—with great pain, but none the less surely. He saw only the smooth head of De Harnac, the black mustache and glittering monocle of Valfray, and the broad back of Garnier interposing.

“I am going out for a little; I will not be long, and Garnier will see that you want nothing till my return.”

“Oh, DÉsirÉ, do not leave me! I am very ill—not so very ill, but still—— Oh, what will become of you should I die—and Dodor? Is he in the cage? I have not heard him move.”

“I will be back soon,” said Toto, “and Dodor is all right.”

“But I have not heard him move.”

He lifted the parrot cage, and held it up to show that the bird was safe, and Dodor spread his wings like a little eagle, as if indignant that anyone should touch his house but CÉlestin. She glanced at him as if satisfied.

“Does it rain?”

“No.”

“I hear the sound of rain—do not get wet. You will return?”

“Very soon.”

He did not know what he was saying; it was like a conversation in a dream. Then he left her and took his hat, and left the atelier leaning on Gaillard’s arm, whilst Garnier sat on the couch and mused.

“I must leave Paris at once—I must leave Paris at once!” burst out Toto when they were in the Rue de Perpignan. “I must leave it forever; nothing like this ever happened to anyone before. My God! I am going mad. It is like one of those dreams when we seem to be walking about the streets naked. Did you see that fool De Harnac’s face, and Valfray looking all round with his eyeglass?”

“It is all dreadful,” said Gaillard. “Let us, for Heaven’s sake, sit down somewhere and think—let us, in the name of Heaven, get some brandy somewhere. I was drunk last night,—I confess it without shame,—and my nerves are in pieces. Look at my hand—is that the hand of a person who ought to be troubled? Suppose a fit were to overtake me? Well, then—yes, let us leave Paris. Oh, my God, I have odd boots on! Did you see that woman?—she laughed at them. I must have been absolutely insane all this morning not to have noticed them before. I have been walking about all the morning like this.”

“Yes, I must leave Paris at once. Come in here and sit down. GarÇon, brandy, a decanter, and some Apollinaris water.”

“It is the first warning—I knew it was coming; ataxia always begins like this. My dear Toto, you know nothing about it; I have read the whole subject up in the BibliothÈque Nationale. It begins with forgetfulness in little things; one finds one’s self walking down the street in slippers, or forgetting how to spell one’s name, and one dies like a raving maniac. Then, one has tremor of the hand—look at my hand.”

“Drink some brandy,” said Toto, rousing up a bit from his own misery. “You will be all right; I have often been like that myself.”

“No matter; if I die, Pelisson will have killed me. He burst into my room absolutely like a tiger; you can fancy the shock to one in my condition. I was absolutely dragged from my bed—threatened with violence if I did not divulge all that I knew about this infamous article.”

“Don’t speak of it!” cried Toto, “don’t, don’t! I want to get to some quiet place where I know no one. Come, I am going to Struve’s rooms; I must see him and ask him to take some money to this girl. I will write you a check at his rooms and you can go and cash it; then I will go to some country place. You will come with me, will you not? You are the only friend I have.”

“To the ends of the earth,” answered Gaillard. “This brandy has saved my reason if not my life; I will finish what is in the little decanter if you will not.”

He finished the brandy, and then, rising, took Toto’s arm.

It was half-past eleven now, and the day promised to be very warm—a perfect summer’s day with scarcely a breeze or cloud. The narrow street was black in the shadow, gold in the sunshine, and a barrel-organ was playing “Santa Lucia.”

“Yes, I am better now; the world is not so distinctly horrible as it was a moment ago. But, Toto, if you are intent on going to Struve’s rooms, how are we to get there? We are sure to meet people we know.”

“We must take a carriage. Curse it! I wish it were winter; there are no closed carriages. You can get a brougham to take me to the station when we reach Struve’s, but how are we to get there? I can’t parade myself before Paris. I know,—it is the only thing we can do,—we will take an omnibus from the Boul’ Miche. We shall meet no one that we know in an omnibus.”

In the Boul’ Miche they were fortunate enough to find an omnibus just stopped and disgorging some passengers—one, moreover, that would drop them actually at Struve’s door; but they had to wait whilst three other passengers got in before them. There was a girl in a summer hat that would have brought tears to CÉlestin’s eyes, a priest, and a fat lady bearing a lobster tied to a string; then they found that there was only one inside place left.

“You must go outside,” said Toto.

“But, DÉsirÉ, think for a moment. I cannot possibly do this; everyone will see me. Let us wait and take the next.”

“Struve may be out if we delay,” said Toto, getting into the vehicle wearily, and, as it was starting, Gaillard was forced to mount on the outside, where he sat with his handkerchief to his face as if his nose were bleeding and his hat tilted over his eyes. Fortunately, no one saw him, though he imagined in his agony that all Paris was watching him from the sky, the housetops, the windows, and the street.

Struve was at breakfast. He had evidently been reading Pantin, for it was open before him, and he put a dish of kidneys over the damnable article in a pathetic attempt to hide it as the poet and the painter entered his room, with all the dejection of a couple of cats that have just been washed.

“We are going away,” said Gaillard.

“Sit down,” lisped Struve, jumping up. “Toto, I am very glad to see you—have a cigar, have a cigarette? Now what is all this nonsense I have heard? Gaillard, for goodness’ sake put your head straight; you are not a lily. Pelisson has been here—I know all this cursed nonsense; he has been let in by old De Nani. I always told him he would; everyone is cursing poor old Pelisson for a fool. Well, then, what matter? it will soon blow over.”

“We are going away,” said Toto, taking up Gaillard’s whine; “at least, I am—forever!”

“So,” said Struve, lighting a cigarette, “you are going away forever; and when are you coming back? Toto, for goodness’ sake, don’t think that I am joking. I know what Paris is, and for Heaven’s sake don’t go about with that long face! Laugh, laugh, and you are clad in triple brass; no one ever laughs at a man who is laughing—they always laugh with him. Laugh at Pelisson, laugh at De Nani, do as they do at the carnival ball; a jester strikes me with his bauble, I strike Jules, Jules Alphonse, and so it goes on. Don’t take this thing seriously.”

“I cannot laugh,” said Toto, looking at his boots with the air of a martyr.

“Well, then, smoke.”

“Thanks, yes, I will take a cigarette. I want to speak to you; but first I want Auguste to do something for me.”

He sat down at the writing table and made out a holograph check for ten thousand francs, and dispatched Gaillard with it to the bank.

“Go to Porcheron’s and get a brougham, and come back in it, my dear fellow.”

“But your luggage?”

“Oh, I will buy things wherever I go.”

Gaillard departed, and Toto resumed his seat.

“I want to tell you all,” he said. “There is a girl; she brought this mischief upon me, though it was not entirely her fault.”

“Oh, these girls!” murmured Struve.

“I know they are frightful, but, still, I must do something for this girl.”

“Pah! Give her five hundred francs—I know what girls are—and forget her.”

“Oh, for the matter of that, she is not—she loves me, I think, in her way—of course she does not know all the mischief she has done: how could she? No matter. I want you to call this afternoon and explain that I am gone away for a while.”

“I say, you know,” said Struve, who did not relish the idea of acting as ambassador between Toto and some hussy, who would probably pull his hair for his pains, “would it not be better for you to write? There is something much more final about a letter left in by a postman than a message taken by a friend.”

“I could not write to her, and I want you to give her some money. Gaillard is bringing ten thousand francs back; I will give her three. Of course I will provide for her afterwards. Do, my dear fellow, help me in this, and I will be forever grateful; besides, you will never see me again.”

“All right,” said Struve; “I will do as you ask.”

The three thousand francs decided him. There were few women of this kind who would pull the hair of a messenger armed with the consolation of a three-thousand-franc note; besides, he felt a sympathy for the unfortunate Toto, this sparrow who had built too high. They sat for half an hour smoking.

“Of course,” said Toto, “the affair does not end here between De Nani and me. When I have time to breathe I will find him out.”

“What for?”

“To make him fight.”

The idea of a duel between Toto and De Nani was almost too much for Struve’s gravity. However, he did not laugh.

“You will not find De Nani; he has vanished. Pelisson says the safe has been cleaned out. It was that fool Scribe, the cashier; he lent De Nani the keys for a moment the day before yesterday, and the old fellow must have taken an impression of them in wax. The worst of it is, Pelisson cannot prosecute—the old fellow knows too much about the inner workings of Pantin. And yet Pelisson always thought him a fool. No, you will not find De Nani; and if you did, he would not fight. It is my impression that he is a very deep card, this Marquis. You see, Pelisson thought him only a drunken old man who would be wax in his hands. Who is this?”

Gaillard appeared.

“I have a brougham at the door,” said Gaillard in a mournful voice, “and here is the money, dear Toto, partly in notes, partly in gold.”

CHAPTER IV.
ENVOY.

Meanwhile, Garnier, left alone in the atelier, sat musing on the strangeness of things, and waiting for Toto’s return. Ten minutes passed by, and half an hour. Through the top-light, which was pulled a bit open, he could hear the sparrows bickering on the roof, and the voice of a hawker in the Rue de Perpignan crying “Strawberries!” whilst a broad dash of sunlight, falling upon the lower part of the wall opposite to him, lit the place with an effulgence of its own, like a great lamp radiating sunbeams.

It seemed such a pity that CÉlestin should be ill this glorious weather. Presently he heard her voice calling for DÉsirÉ in a muffled manner.

“He will be back very soon, my little CÉlestin,” said Garnier, as he stood beside the bed, smiling down upon the patient. “Mon Dieu! my poor child, how blue your lips have become, even within so short a time. Say to me, CÉlestin, how you feel.”

“I feel choking,” murmured CÉlestin, with a terrible look of appeal, as though she had but that moment recognized the extent of her illness with the fact that Toto had gone out.

Garnier made a little dramatic back-step, which he corrected by folding his hands loosely in front of him and rubbing them slightly one upon the other as if nothing was the matter. The frightful truth suddenly broke upon him that CÉlestin, his little CÉlestin, was terribly ill.

“I feel choking—it is terrible—my friend.”

“Oh, yes,” said Garnier, dropping beside her on his knees. “What is it? You frighten me. Have you pain? Speak, CÉlestin, and tell me.”

“Oh, no pain, but I cannot breathe. Stay, I am better now—the weight has gone a bit; but it will come back. I am afraid to die; what will he do? I would have worked for him; but it is no use—I cannot if I am dead. And he was in trouble; I could see it on his face. We are so poor, you know.”

Garnier felt horrified, paralyzed in the knees and unable to move.

“What is this you say? what is this you say?” he murmured.

“Is it raining?”

“Oh, no, it is very fine. What is this I hear you say, CÉlestin? Are you very ill? It is bright sunshine outside; there is no rain.”

“I hear the sound of rain.”

“It does not rain,” said Garnier in a heart-broken voice as he watched her eyes wandering about the room as if pursuing some fugitive vision. “Can you not see the sun shining at the window?”

CÉlestin sighed.

“DÉsirÉ has gone out. When did he go? Ah, yes, I remember now; he would not be a moment, he said.”

“He will not be a moment,” said Garnier, stumbling to his feet. “I will run and see if I can fetch him. I will not be absent one little moment.”

He stole out of the bedroom, through the atelier, and rushed down the stairs, hatless and as if the top of the house were on fire. There was, fortunately, a doctor in the street; he lived but a few doors away, and by good luck had just returned from his round of morning visits.

He was a depressed-looking young man with a pointed beard, somewhat like Gaillard in face, but not nearly so well dressed. He came at once with Garnier, and as he took his seat beside CÉlestin he laid his polished silk hat, crown downwards, upon the floor.

Garnier stood at the end of the bed looking on. He suddenly felt a strong belief in doctors. Dr. FÉnÉlon seemed to him a god; his manner was so assured, and he had the air of one who knew, coupled with the gravity of a judge. He noticed that the doctor wore a bone stud in his white shirt front, and every little detail of his dress, to the patent-leather toecaps of his dull kid boots.

The doctor spoke to CÉlestin, just a few words by way of introducing himself, and then drew out a watch to assist him in feeling her pulse. The watch had a large spider hand which went hopping along, making sixty hops to the minute. This spider hand deepened Garnier’s confidence, as did the binaural stethoscope which the doctor drew out of his breast pocket and swung about his neck.

Garnier turned his face away whilst the physician unbuttoned CÉlestin’s nightdress at the neck. A moment he paused, as if undecided as to stripping her to the waist, HÔtel Dieu fashion, then shook his head, and, slipping the ear-pieces in his ears, began his auscultation.

Garnier, standing with his face averted, heard the sparrows on the roof and an occasional pr-rt, pr-rt from Dodor’s cage, as the lark changed his perch, also a piano-organ, the thinnest of sounds fluctuating on the faint breeze blowing from the direction of the Seine.

Sometimes Dr. FÉnÉlon cleared his throat, or said “Pardon.” Then he began to percuss, and the little blows sounded as if against something solid.

Garnier turned; the examination was over, and the doctor, the stethoscope swinging still from his neck, was buttoning the top button of the nightdress. This accomplished, he stood just for a second with hands folded, overlooking the patient from head to feet; one might almost have imagined him measuring her with his eye.

CÉlestin, whose eyes had been half closed, suddenly opened them, and muttered something in an alarmed manner.

“What is it?”

“Fantoum,” she muttered, shrinking slightly as if from some vision in the air.

The doctor led Garnier into the atelier, and by the way he closed the bedroom door Garnier knew that it was all up.

“Your wife?” asked the doctor, removing the instrument from his neck and placing it folded in his breast-pocket.

“Oh, no, the wife of a friend—simply that. Ah, my God! I fear she is worse than we thought.”

“So then I can speak: she is moribund. I can absolutely do nothing. You understand? What can I do? One lung is gone. Well, then, the other is greatly touched at the apex—absolutely solid with pneumonia at the base. She is living by a piece of lung not so large as my hand. We cannot change all that.”

“Can nothing be done?”

“My dear friend, she is to all intents and purposes dead. She has been dying some time—probably since yesterday.”

“Ah, I hear you say all that; you say she is dead. I have never heard a thing like that before so frightful. I have heard of doctors keeping people alive. Well, then, look: it is not the question of payment; it is not a question of one, two, three napoleons, but thousands! You are not speaking to a fool; I am a great painter. I have only to close my hands on the money, and half of what I earn is yours. I am Gustave Garnier; I never told a lie. Ask Melmenotte what I can do.”

“My dear friend,” sighed Dr. FÉnÉlon, “I would save her for nothing, but I am not God.”

“Nothing can be done?”

“Nothing.”

“Brandy?”

“I would not trouble her with brandy—it might even put the flame out; she is just trembling;” and he held out his hand, imitating the motion of a butterfly poised.

“How long?”

“Perhaps not for hours, possibly a day; perhaps in half an hour—a few minutes. Were she to sit up in bed, she would expire as if shot.”

“Ah, well, we must face it. You will come in again? Oh, my God!”

“I will come in this evening. My dear child,” continued the doctor, taking the great arm of Garnier in his thin hand, “I would stay if I could be of use; I can only leave her to you. No, I would not trouble her with a priest; she is, I am afraid, delirious.”

Garnier returned to the bedroom, a look of terrible perplexity on his face. He could not grasp the facts. Full of life and strength, he had never troubled to think of death, it was all so remote; and here it was grasping CÉlestin.

She was semi-conscious again, and the one word kept repeating itself on her lips, “DÉsirÉ, DÉsirÉ!” It was like a person crying for water.

“Oh, why does he not come?” murmured Garnier, remembering again of a sudden the existence of Toto and his long absence.

“He is coming,” he murmured, holding her hand; “he will be here in a little while. Oh, my dear little CÉlestin, what can I give you—what can I do for you?”

He saw the bunch of grapes, and plucked one off and held it to her lips. She sucked it feebly, and then cast her eyes up to heaven in the old familiar way, an action that tore Garnier’s heart as if a knife had ripped it up. Then she seemed to forget Toto, for she lay still, and the man beside her prayed God to send him quickly, for nothing could be more frightful than her reiterated request for this man who had gone away.

He did not feel jealous; it was all one now. She wanted Toto. It was as if she had wanted water to drink; he would not have felt jealous of the water, so why should he feel jealous of Toto? He would have given his whole prospects in life for the return of the Prince.

As if in answer to his prayer came the sounds of footsteps in the atelier, and Dodor moved restlessly in his cage as the door was cautiously opened. It was a priest whom the deaf concierge had sent for after inquiring of Dr. FÉnÉlon the state of his patient.

He was an elderly man with a large stomach and a kind, sweet face. Garnier glanced at him, and threw up his eyes, as if to say “No use,” but he felt glad of the presence of the holy man.

The priest took a chair on the opposite side of the bed, as if to rest his stomach for a moment, and breathed hard and pursed out his lips; then he knelt by the chair to pray. Garnier, kneeling by his side of the bed, was as still as the effigy of the Lord Jesus which hung above. And so the time went on, CÉlestin rousing herself occasionally to call for Toto, and relapsing into stupor. Once she cast her eyes at the bird moping in its cage, and moved her lips at it, as if trying to tell it of her trouble.

It was now late in the afternoon. To Garnier it seemed a very long time since, stopping near the PanthÉon, he had bought the grapes for his little CÉlestin, and brought them so joyously to the atelier. His hearing, strained to the utmost for the footsteps of Toto, was rewarded by all sorts of futile sounds, far away and near.

At five Dr. FÉnÉlon looked in again, and found his patient unconscious. He shook his head and vanished, for Garnier did not attempt to detain him; he had lost all faith in doctors.

“But who is this DÉsirÉ she has been calling for?” whispered the good priest, leaning towards Garnier. “Could we not send for him?”

Garnier shook his head. He had gone out with Gaillard—where he could not tell.

Towards six, CÉlestin, still unconscious, gave a little shiver, as if at the coldness of her lover, and Dodor in the cage fluttered his wings as if in fear.

The priest, who had been standing patiently, fell upon his knees, and prayed with fervor for the passing soul.

Struve told me most of this story as we sat one day before a cafÉ on the boulevards.

“That is the man,” he said, indicating a good-looking young fellow on a coal-black horse, who was riding by, accompanied by a girl with auburn hair, mounted on a magnificent gray; “that is Toto.”

“But the girl?”

“His wife, the Princesse; she was Helen Powers.”

“But surely—is she married to him?”

“Very much so. He confessed all his sins, and she gave him absolution. No woman, you see, can withstand a confession of folly; you see, it is a far more genuine thing than a confession of love—with ordinary men.”

“You do not think Toto an ordinary man?”

“I have never thought of him as a man. Come, it is five o’clock; I am tired of sitting still.”

“A moment. Where has old De Nani gone to?”

“He is living at Monte Carlo. He lost a hundred thousand francs there, and they have pensioned him; they give him sixty francs a week, I believe.”

“Pelisson did not prosecute him?”

“Oh, no! all that did Pantin a lot of good.”

“If I had been Toto, I would have made him fight.”

“Thank goodness we were saved from that! A duel between Toto and De Nani was the only thing wanted to cap the business and kill everyone outright.”

“Kill them?”

“With laughter.”

“And about Garnier?”

“Ah, Garnier—he only wanted one thing before he met CÉlestin.”

“What was that?”

“CÉlestin—she has made him. CÉlestin is not dead; she will never die so long as men have eyes and Garnier’s pictures exist. She might have lived with Toto and produced little Totos; she lives instead with Garnier, and through him will live forever.”

“A moment. What of Gaillard?”

“He has grown very fat. You know, Toto shook him off when he married, Pelisson forsook him, De Brie gave him the cold shoulder; and what did he do? He sat down and wrote ‘Poum-Poum,’ and turned all the minor poets into ridicule, and sold a hundred thousand copies in a month, and ‘slew art,’ to use his own expression, because it tried to slay him. He is making eighty thousand francs a year, if he is making a sou. I am glad of it; he is not a bad sort—Gaillard.”