TRILBY
Part First
"Mimi Pinson est une blonde, Une blonde que l'on connaît; Elle n'a qu'une robe au monde, Landérirette! et qu'un bonnet!"
It was a fine, sunny, showery day in April.
The big studio window was open at the top, and let in a pleasant breezefrom the northwest. Things were beginning to look shipshape at last. Thebig piano, a semi-grand by Broadwood, had arrived from England by "theLittle Quickness" (_la Petite Vitesse_, as the goods trains are calledin France), and lay, freshly tuned, alongside the eastern wall; on thewall opposite was a panoply of foils, masks, and boxing-gloves.
A trapeze, a knotted rope, and two parallel cords, supporting each aring, depended from a huge beam in the ceiling. The walls were of theusual dull red, relieved by plaster casts of arms and legs and hands andfeet; and Dante's mask, and Michael Angelo's altorilievo of Leda and theswan, and a centaur and Lapith from the Elgin marbles--on none of thesehad the dust as yet had time to settle.
There were also studies in oil from the nude; copies of Titian,Rembrandt, Velasquez, Rubens, Tintoret, Leonardo da Vinci--none of theschool of Botticelli, Mantegna, and Co.--a firm whose merits had not asyet been revealed to the many.
Along the walls, at a great height, ran a broad shelf, on which wereother casts in plaster, terra-cotta, imitation bronze; a little Theseus,a little Venus of Milo, a little discobolus; a little flayed manthreatening high heaven (an act that seemed almost pardonable under thecircumstances!); a lion and a boar by Barye; an anatomical figure of ahorse with only one leg left and no ears; a horse's head from thepediment of the Parthenon, earless also; and the bust of Clytie, withher beautiful low brow, her sweet wan gaze, and the ineffable forwardshrug of her dear shoulders that makes her bosom a nest, a rest, apillow, a refuge--to be loved and desired forever by generation aftergeneration of the sons of men.
Near the stove hung a gridiron, a frying-pan, a toasting-fork, and apair of bellows. In an adjoining glazed corner cupboard were plates andglasses, black-handled knives, pewter spoons, and three-pronged steelforks; a salad-bowl, vinegar cruets, an oil-flask, two mustard-pots(English and French), and such like things--all scrupulously clean. Onthe floor, which had been stained and waxed at considerable cost, laytwo chetah-skins and a large Persian praying-rug. One-half of it,however (under the trapeze and at the farthest end from the window,beyond the model throne), was covered with coarse matting, that onemight fence or box without slipping down and splitting one's self intwo, or fall without breaking any bones.
Two other windows of the usual French size and pattern, with shutters tothem and heavy curtains of baize, opened east and west, to let in dawnor sunset, as the case might be, or haply keep them out. And there werealcoves, recesses, irregularities, odd little nooks and corners, to befilled up as time wore on with endless personal knick-knacks, bibelots,private properties and acquisitions--things that make a place genial,homelike, and good to remember, and sweet to muse upon (with fondregret) in after-years.
And an immense divan spread itself in width and length and delightfulthickness just beneath the big north window, the business window--adivan so immense that three well-fed, well-contented Englishmen couldall lie lazily smoking their pipes on it at once without being in eachother's way, and very often did!
At present one of these Englishmen--a Yorkshireman, by-the-way, calledTaffy (and also the Man of Blood, because he was supposed to bedistantly related to a baronet)--was more energetically engaged.Bare-armed, and in his shirt and trousers, he was twirling a pair ofIndian clubs round his head. His face was flushed, and he was perspiringfreely and looked fierce. He was a very big young man, fair, with kindbut choleric blue eyes, and the muscles of his brawny arm were strong asiron bands.
For three years he had borne her Majesty's commission, and had beenthrough the Crimean campaign without a scratch. He would have been oneof the famous six hundred in the famous charge at Balaklava but for asprained ankle (caught playing leapfrog in the trenches), which kept himin hospital on that momentous day. So that he lost his chance of gloryor the grave, and this humiliating misadventure had sickened him ofsoldiering for life, and he never quite got over it. Then, feelingwithin himself an irresistible vocation for art, he had sold out; andhere he was in Paris, hard at work, as we see.
TAFFY, ALIAS TALBOT WYNNE]
He was good-looking, with straight features; but I regret to say that,besides his heavy plunger's mustache, he wore an immense pair ofdrooping auburn whiskers, of the kind that used to be called Piccadillyweepers, and were afterwards affected by Mr. Sothern in Lord Dundreary.It was a fashion to do so then for such of our gilded youth as couldafford the time (and the hair); the bigger and fairer the whiskers, themore beautiful was thought the youth! It seems incredible in these days,when even her Majesty's household brigade go about with smooth cheeksand lips, like priests or play-actors.
"What's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms ...?"
"THE LAIRD OF COCKPEN"]
Another inmate of this blissful abode--Sandy, the Laird of Cockpen, ashe was called--sat in similarly simple attire at his easel, painting ata lifelike little picture of a Spanish toreador serenading a lady ofhigh degree (in broad daylight). He had never been to Spain, but he hada complete toreador's kit--a bargain which he had picked up for a meresong in the Boulevard du Temple--and he had hired the guitar. His pipewas in his mouth--reversed; for it had gone out, and the ashes werespilled all over his trousers, where holes were often burned in thisway.
Quite gratuitously, and with a pleasing Scotch accent, he began todeclaim:
"A street there is in Paris famous For which no rhyme our language yields; Roo Nerve day Petty Shong its name is-- The New Street of the Little Fields...."
And then, in his keen appreciation of the immortal stanza, he chuckledaudibly, with a face so blithe and merry and well pleased that it didone good to look at him.
He also had entered life by another door. His parents (good, piouspeople in Dundee) had intended that he should be a solicitor, as hisfather and grandfather had been before him. And here he was in Parisfamous, painting toreadors, and spouting the "Ballad of theBouillabaisse," as he would often do out of sheer lightness ofheart--much oftener, indeed, than he would say his prayers.
Kneeling on the divan, with his elbow on the window-sill, was a thirdand much younger youth. The third he was "Little Billee." He had pulleddown the green baize blind, and was looking over the roofs andchimney-pots of Paris and all about with all his eyes, munching thewhile a roll and a savory saveloy, in which there was evidence of muchgarlic. He ate with great relish, for he was very hungry; he had beenall the morning at Carrel's studio, drawing from the life.
Little Billee was small and slender, about twenty or twenty-one, and hada straight white forehead veined with blue, large dark-blue eyes,delicate, regular features, and coal-black hair. He was also verygraceful and well built, with very small hands and feet, and much betterdressed than his friends, who went out of their way to outdo thedenizens of the quartier latin in careless eccentricity of garb, andsucceeded. And in his winning and handsome face there was just a faintsuggestion of some possible very remote Jewish ancestor--just a tinge ofthat strong, sturdy, irrepressible, indomitable, indelible blood whichis of such priceless value in diluted homœopathic doses, like the drywhite Spanish wine called montijo, which is not meant to be taken pure;but without a judicious admixture of which no sherry can go round theworld and keep its flavor intact; or like the famous bull-dog strain,which is not beautiful in itself; and yet just for lacking a little ofthe same no greyhound can ever hope to be a champion. So, at least, Ihave been told by wine-merchants and dog-fanciers--the most veraciouspersons that can be. Fortunately for the world, and especially forourselves, most of us have in our veins at least a minim of thatprecious fluid, whether we know it or show it or not. _Tant pis pour lesautres!_
As Little Billee munched he also gazed at the busy pla
ce below--thePlace St. Anatole des Arts--at the old houses opposite, some of whichwere being pulled down, no doubt lest they should fall of their ownsweet will. In the gaps between he would see discolored, old, cracked,dingy walls, with mysterious windows and rusty iron balconies of greatantiquity--sights that set him dreaming dreams of mediæval French loveand wickedness and crime, bygone mysteries of Paris!
"THE THIRD HE WAS 'LITTLE BILLEE'"]
One gap went right through the block, and gave him a glimpse of theriver, the "Cité," and the ominous old Morgue; a little to the rightrose the gray towers of Notre Dame de Paris into the checkered Aprilsky. Indeed, the top of nearly all Paris lay before him, with a littlestretch of the imagination on his part; and he gazed with a sense ofnovelty, an interest and a pleasure for which he could not have foundany expression in mere language.
Paris! Paris!! Paris!!!
The very name had always been one to conjure with, whether he thought ofit as a mere sound on the lips and in the ear, or as a magical writtenor printed word for the eye. And here was the thing itself at last, andhe, he himself, ipsissimus, in the very midst of it, to live there andlearn there as long as he liked, and make himself the great artist helonged to be.
Then, his meal finished, he lit a pipe, and flung himself on the divanand sighed deeply, out of the over-full contentment of his heart.
He felt he had never known happiness like this, never even dreamed itspossibility. And yet his life had been a happy one. He was young andtender, was Little Billee; he had never been to any school, and wasinnocent of the world and its wicked ways; innocent of Frenchespecially, and the ways of Paris and its Latin quarter. He had beenbrought up and educated at home, had spent his boyhood in London withhis mother and sister, who now lived in Devonshire on somewhatstraitened means. His father, who was dead, had been a clerk in theTreasury.
He and his two friends, Taffy and the Laird, had taken this studiotogether. The Laird slept there, in a small bedroom off the studio.Taffy had a bedroom at the Hôtel de Seine, in the street of that name.Little Billee lodged at the Hôtel Corneille, in the Place de l'Odéon.
He looked at his two friends, and wondered if any one, living or dead,had ever had such a glorious pair of chums as these.
Whatever they did, whatever they said, was simply perfect in his eyes;they were his guides and philosophers as well as his chums. On the otherhand, Taffy and the Laird were as fond of the boy as they could be.
His absolute belief in all they said and did touched them none the lessthat they were conscious of its being somewhat in excess of theirdeserts. His almost girlish purity of mind amused and charmed them, andthey did all they could to preserve it, even in the quartier latin,where purity is apt to go bad if it be kept too long.
"IT DID ONE GOOD TO LOOK AT HIM"]
They loved him for his affectionate disposition, his lively andcaressing ways; and they admired him far more than he ever knew, forthey recognized in him a quickness, a keenness, a delicacy ofperception, in matters of form and color, a mysterious facility andfelicity of execution, a sense of all that was sweet and beautiful innature, and a ready power of expressing it, that had not been vouchsafedto them in any such generous profusion, and which, as they ungrudginglyadmitted to themselves and each other, amounted to true genius.
And when one within the immediate circle of our intimates is gifted inthis abnormal fashion, we either hate or love him for it, in proportionto the greatness of his gift; according to the way we are built.
So Taffy and the Laird loved Little Billee--loved him very much indeed.Not but what Little Billee had his faults. For instance, he didn'tinterest himself very warmly in other people's pictures. He didn't seemto care for the Laird's guitar-playing toreador, nor for his serenadedlady--at all events, he never said anything about them, either in praiseor blame. He looked at Taffy's realisms (for Taffy was a realist) insilence, and nothing tries true friendship so much as silence of thiskind.
But, then, to make up for it, when they all three went to the Louvre, hedidn't seem to trouble much about Titian either, or Rembrandt, orVelasquez, Rubens, Veronese, or Leonardo. He looked at the people wholooked at the pictures, instead of at the pictures themselves;especially at the people who copied them, the sometimes charming younglady painters--and these seemed to him even more charming than theyreally were--and he looked a great deal out of the Louvre windows,where there was much to be seen: more Paris, for instance--Paris, ofwhich he could never have enough.
But when, surfeited with classical beauty, they all three went and dinedtogether, and Taffy and the Laird said beautiful things about the oldmasters, and quarrelled about them, he listened with deference and raptattention, and reverentially agreed with all they said, and afterwardsmade the most delightfully funny little pen-and-ink sketches of them,saying all these beautiful things (which he sent to his mother andsister at home); so life-like, so real, that you could almost hear thebeautiful things they said; so beautifully drawn that you felt the oldmasters couldn't have drawn them better themselves; and so irresistiblydroll that you felt that the old masters could not have drawn them atall--any more than Milton could have described the quarrel betweenSairey Gamp and Betsy Prig; no one, in short, but Little Billee.
Little Billee took up the "Ballad of the Bouillabaisse" where the Lairdhad left it off, and speculated on the future of himself and hisfriends, when he should have got to forty years--an almost impossiblyremote future.
These speculations were interrupted by a loud knock at the door, and twomen came in.
First, a tall, bony individual of any age between thirty and forty-five,of Jewish aspect, well-featured but sinister. He was very shabby anddirty, and wore a red béret and a large velveteen cloak, with a bigmetal clasp at the collar. His thick, heavy, languid, lustreless blackhair fell down behind his ears on to his shoulders, in thatmusicianlike way that is so offensive to the normal Englishman. He hadbold, brilliant black eyes, with long, heavy lids, a thin, sallow face,and a beard of burnt-up black which grew almost from his under eyelids;and over it his mustache, a shade lighter, fell in two long spiraltwists. He went by the name of Svengali, and spoke fluent French with aGerman accent, and humorous German twists and idioms, and his voice wasvery thin and mean and harsh, and often broke into a disagreeablefalsetto.
His companion was a little swarthy young man--a gypsy, possibly--muchpitted with the small-pox, and also very shabby. He had large, soft,affectionate brown eyes, like a King Charles spaniel. He had small,nervous, veiny hands, with nails bitten down to the quick, and carried afiddle and a fiddlestick under his arm, without a case, as though he hadbeen playing in the street.
"Ponchour, mes enfants," said Svengali. "Che vous amène mon ami Checko,qui choue du fiolon gomme un anche!"
Little Billee, who adored all "sweet musicianers," jumped up and madeGecko as warmly welcome as he could in his early French.
"Ha! le biâno!" exclaimed Svengali, flinging his red béret on it, andhis cloak on the ground. "Ch'espère qu'il est pon, et pien t'accord!"
And sitting down on the music-stool, he ran up and down the scales withthat easy power, that smooth, even crispness of touch, which reveal themaster.
AMONG THE OLD MASTERS]
Then he fell to playing Chopin's impromptu in A flat, so beautifullythat Little Billee's heart went nigh to bursting with suppressedemotion and delight. He had never heard any music of Chopin's before,nothing but British provincial home-made music--melodies withvariations, "Annie Laurie," "The Last Rose of Summer," "The Blue Bellsof Scotland;" innocent little motherly and sisterly tinklings, inventedto set the company at their ease on festive evenings, and make all-roundconversation possible for shy people; who fear the unaccompanied soundof their own voices, and whose genial chatter always leaves off directlythe music ceases.
He never forgot that impromptu, which he was destined to hear again oneday in strange circumstances.
Then Svengali and Gecko made music together, divinely. Littlefragmentary things, sometimes consistin
g but of a few bars, but thesebars of _such_ beauty and meaning! Scraps, snatches, short melodies,meant to fetch, to charm immediately, or to melt or sadden or maddenjust for a moment, and that knew just when to leave off--czardas, gypsydances, Hungarian love-plaints, things little known out of easternEurope in the fifties of this century, till the Laird and Taffy werealmost as wild in their enthusiasm as Little Billee--a silent enthusiasmtoo deep for speech. And when these two great artists left off to smoke,the three Britishers were too much moved even for that, and there was astillness....
Suddenly there came a loud knuckle-rapping at the outer door, and aportentous voice of great volume, and that might almost have belonged toany sex (even an angel's), uttered the British milkman's yodel,"Milkbelow!" and before any one could say "Entrez," a strange figureappeared, framed by the gloom of the little antechamber.
It was the figure of a very tall and fully developed young female, cladin the gray overcoat of a French infantry soldier, continued netherwardsby a short striped petticoat, beneath which were visible her bare whiteankles and insteps, and slim, straight, rosy heels, clean cut and smoothas the back of a razor; her toes lost themselves in a huge pair of malelist slippers, which made her drag her feet as she walked.
She bore herself with easy, unembarrassed grace, like a person whosenerves and muscles are well in tune, whose spirits are high, who haslived much in the atmosphere of French studios, and feels at home in it.
This strange medley of garments was surmounted by a small bare head withshort, thick, wavy brown hair, and a very healthy young face, whichcould scarcely be called quite beautiful at first sight, since the eyeswere too wide apart, the mouth too large, the chin too massive, thecomplexion a mass of freckles. Besides, you can never tell how beautiful(or how ugly) a face may be till you have tried to draw it.
But a small portion of her neck, down by the collar-bone, which justshowed itself between the unbuttoned lapels of her military coat collar,was of a delicate privetlike whiteness that is never to be found on anyFrench neck, and very few English ones. Also, she had a very fine brow,broad and low, with thick level eyebrows much darker than her hair, abroad, bony, high bridge to her short nose, and her full, broad cheekswere beautifully modelled. She would have made a singularly handsomeboy.
As the creature looked round at the assembled company and flashed herbig white teeth at them in an all-embracing smile of uncommon width andquite irresistible sweetness, simplicity, and friendly trust, one saw ata glance that she was out of the common clever, simple, humorous,honest, brave, and kind, and accustomed to be genially welcomed wherevershe went. Then suddenly closing the door behind her, dropping her smile,and looking wistful and sweet, with her head on one side and her armsakimbo, "Ye're all English, now, aren't ye?" she exclaimed. "I heard themusic, and thought I'd just come in for a bit, and pass the time of day:you don't mind? Trilby, that's my name--Trilby O'Ferrall."
She said this in English, with an accent half Scotch and certain Frenchintonations, and in a voice so rich and deep and full as almost tosuggest an incipient tenore robusto; and one felt instinctively that itwas a real pity she wasn't a boy, she would have made such a jolly one.
"We're delighted, on the contrary," said Little Billee, and advanced achair for her.
But she said, "Oh, don't mind me; go on with the music," and sat herselfdown cross-legged on the model-throne near the piano.
As they still looked at her, curious and half embarrassed, she pulled apaper parcel containing food out of one of the coat-pockets, andexclaimed:
"WISTFUL AND SWEET"]
"I'll just take a bite, if you don't object; I'm a model, you know, andit's just rung twelve--'the rest.' I'm posing for Durien the sculptor,on the next floor. I pose to him for the altogether."
"The altogether?" asked Little Billee.
"Yes--_l'ensemble_, you know--head, hands, andfeet--everything--especially feet. That's my foot," she said, kickingoff her big slipper and stretching out the limb. "It's the handsomestfoot in all Paris. There's only one in all Paris to match it, and hereit is," and she laughed heartily (like a merry peal of bells), and stuckout the other.
And in truth they were astonishingly beautiful feet, such as one onlysees in pictures and statues--a true inspiration of shape and color, allmade up of delicate lengths and subtly modulated curves and noblestraightnesses and happy little dimpled arrangements in innocent youngpink and white.
So that Little Billee, who had the quick, prehensile, æsthetic eye, andknew by the grace of Heaven what the shapes and sizes and colors ofalmost every bit of man, woman, or child should be (and so seldom are),was quite bewildered to find that a real, bare, live human foot could besuch a charming object to look at, and felt that such a base or pedestallent quite an antique and Olympian dignity to a figure that seemed justthen rather grotesque in its mixed attire of military overcoat andfemale petticoat, and nothing else!
Poor Trilby!
The shape of those lovely slender feet (that were neither large norsmall), fac-similed in dusty, pale plaster of Paris, survives on theshelves and walls of many a studio throughout the world, and many asculptor yet unborn has yet to marvel at their strange perfection, instudious despair.
For when Dame Nature takes it into her head to do her very best, andbestow her minutest attention on a mere detail, as happens now andthen--once in a blue moon, perhaps--she makes it uphill work for poorhuman art to keep pace with her.
It is a wondrous thing, the human foot--like the human hand; even moreso, perhaps; but, unlike the hand, with which we are so familiar, it isseldom a thing of beauty in civilized adults who go about in leatherboots or shoes.
So that it is hidden away in disgrace, a thing to be thrust out of sightand forgotten. It can sometimes be very ugly, indeed--the ugliest thingthere is, even in the fairest and highest and most gifted of her sex;and then it is of an ugliness to chill and kill romance, and scatteryoung love's dream, and almost break the heart.
And all for the sake of a high heel and a ridiculously pointed toe--meanthings, at the best!
Conversely, when Mother Nature has taken extra pains in the building ofit, and proper care or happy chance has kept it free of lamentabledeformations, indurations, and discolorations--all those grewsomeboot-begotten abominations which have made it so generallyunpopular--the sudden sight of it, uncovered, comes as a very rare andsingularly pleasing surprise to the eye that has learned how to see!
Nothing else that Mother Nature has to show, not even the human facedivine, has more subtle power to suggest high physical distinction,happy evolution, and supreme development; the lordship of man overbeast, the lordship of man over man, the lordship of woman over all!
_En, voilà, de l'éloquence--à propos de bottes!_
Trilby had respected Mother Nature's special gift to herself--had neverworn a leather boot or shoe, had always taken as much care of her feetas many a fine lady takes of her hands. It was her one coquetry, theonly real vanity she had.
Gecko, his fiddle in one hand and his bow in the other, stared at her inopen-mouthed admiration and delight, as she ate her sandwich ofsoldier's bread and _fromage à la crème_ quite unconcerned.
When she had finished she licked the tips of her fingers clean ofcheese, and produced a small tobacco-pouch from another military pocket,and made herself a cigarette, and lit it and smoked it, inhaling thesmoke in large whiffs, filling her lungs with it, and sending it backthrough her nostrils, with a look of great beatitude.
Svengali played Schubert's "Rosemonde," and flashed a pair oflanguishing black eyes at her with intent to kill.
But she didn't even look his way. She looked at Little Billee, at bigTaffy, at the Laird, at the casts and studies, at the sky, thechimney-pots over the way, the towers of Notre Dame, just visible fromwhere she sat.
Only when he finished she exclaimed: "Maïe, aïe! c'est rudement bientapé, c'te musique-là! Seulement, c'est pas gai, vous savez! Commentq'ça s'appelle?"
"It is called the 'Rosemonde' of Schuber
t, matemoiselle," repliedSvengali. (I will translate.)
THE "ROSEMONDE" OF SCHUBERT]
"And what's that--Rosemonde?" said she.
"Rosemonde was a princess of Cyprus, matemoiselle, and Cyprus is anisland."
"Ah, and Schubert, then--where's that?"
"Schubert is not an island, matemoiselle. Schubert was a compatriot ofmine, and made music, and played the piano, just like me."
"Ah, Schubert was a _monsieur_, then. Don't know him; never heard hisname."
"That is a pity, matemoiselle. He had some talent. You like this better,perhaps," and he strummed,
"Messieurs les étudiants, S'en vont à la chaumière Pour y danser le cancan,"
striking wrong notes, and banging out a bass in a different key--ahideously grotesque performance.
"Yes, I like that better. It's gayer, you know. Is that also composed bya compatriot of yours?" asked the lady.
"Heaven forbid, matemoiselle."
And the laugh was against Svengali.
But the real fun of it all (if there was any) lay in the fact that shewas perfectly sincere.
"Are you fond of music?" asked Little Billee.
"Oh, ain't I, just!" she replied. "My father sang like a bird. He was agentleman and a scholar, my father was. His name was Patrick MichaelO'Ferrall, fellow of Trinity, Cambridge. He used to sing 'Ben Bolt.' Doyou know 'Ben Bolt'?"
"Oh yes, I know it well," said Little Billee. "It's a very prettysong."
"I can sing it," said Miss O'Ferrall. "Shall I?"
"Oh, certainly, if you will be so kind."
Miss O'Ferrall threw away the end of her cigarette, put her hands on herknees as she sat cross-legged on the model-throne, and sticking herelbows well out, she looked up to the ceiling with a tender, sentimentalsmile, and sang the touching song,
"Oh, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? Sweet Alice, with hair so brown?" etc., etc.
As some things are too sad and too deep for tears, so some things aretoo grotesque and too funny for laughter. Of such a kind was MissO'Ferrall's performance of "Ben Bolt."
From that capacious mouth and through that high-bridged bony nose thererolled a volume of breathy sound, not loud, but so immense that itseemed to come from all round, to be reverberated from every surface inthe studio. She followed more or less the shape of the tune, going upwhen it rose and down when it fell, but with such immense intervalsbetween the notes as were never dreamed of in any mortal melody. It wasas though she could never once have deviated into tune, never once havehit upon a true note, even by a fluke--in fact, as though she wereabsolutely tone-deaf and without ear, although she stuck to the timecorrectly enough.
She finished her song amid an embarrassing silence. The audience didn'tquite know whether it were meant for fun or seriously. One wondered ifshe were not paying out Svengali for his impertinent performance of"Messieurs les étudiants." If so, it was a capital piece of impromptutit-for-tat admirably acted, and a very ugly gleam yellowed the tawnyblack of Svengali's big eyes. He was so fond of making fun of othersthat he particularly resented being made fun of himself--couldn't endurethat any one should ever have the laugh of _him_.
At length Little Billee said: "Thank you so much. It is a capital song."
"Yes," said Miss O'Ferrall. "It's the only song I know, unfortunately.My father used to sing it, just like that, when he felt jolly after hotrum and water. It used to make people cry; he used to cry over ithimself. _I_ never do. Some people think I can't sing a bit. All I cansay is that I've often had to sing it six or seven times running in_lots_ of studios. I vary it, you know--not the words, but the tune. Youmust remember that I've only taken to it lately. Do you know Litolff?Well, he's a great composer, and he came to Durien's the other day, andI sang 'Ben Bolt,' and what do you think he said? Why, he said MadameAlboni couldn't go nearly so high or so low as I did, and that her voicewasn't half so strong. He gave me his word of honor. He said I breathedas natural and straight as a baby, and all I want is to get my voice alittle more under control. That's what _he_ said."
"Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?" asked Svengali. And she said it all over againto him in French--quite French French--of the most colloquial kind. Heraccent was not that of the Comédie Française, nor yet that of theFaubourg St. Germain, nor yet that of the pavement. It was quaint andexpressive--"funny without being vulgar."
"Barpleu! he was right, Litolff," said Svengali. "I assure you,matemoiselle, that I have never heard a voice that can equal yours; youhave a talent quite exceptional."
She blushed with pleasure, and the others thought him a "beastly cad"for poking fun at the poor girl in such a way. And they thought MonsieurLitolff another.
She then got up and shook the crumbs off her coat, and slipped her feetinto Durien's slippers, saying, in English: "Well, I've got to go back.Life ain't all beer and skittles, and more's the pity; but what's theodds, so long as you're happy?"
On her way out she stopped before Taffy's picture--a chiffonnier withhis lantern bending over a dust heap. For Taffy was, or thought himself,a passionate realist in those days. He has changed, and now paintsnothing but King Arthurs and Guineveres and Lancelots and Elaines andfloating Ladies of Shalott.
"That chiffonnier's basket isn't hitched high enough," she remarked."How could he tap his pick against the rim and make the rag fall into itif it's hitched only half-way up his back? And he's got the wrongsabots, and the wrong lantern; it's _all_ wrong."
"Dear me!" said Taffy, turning very red; "you seem to know a lot aboutit. It's a pity you don't paint, yourself."
"Ah! now you're cross!" said Miss O'Ferrall. "Oh, maïe, aïe!"
She went to the door and paused, looking round benignly. "What niceteeth you've all three got. That's because you're Englishmen, I suppose,and clean them twice a day. I do too. Trilby O'Ferrall, that's my name,48 Rue des Pousse-Cailloux!--pose pour l'ensemble, quand ça l'amuse!va-t-en ville, et fait tout ce qui concerne son état! Don't forget.Thanks all, and good-bye."
"En v'là une orichinale," said Svengali.
"I think she's lovely," said Little Billee, the young and tender. "Oh,heavens, what angel's feet! It makes me sick to think she sits for thefigure. I'm sure she's quite a lady."
And in five minutes or so, with the point of an old compass, hescratched in white on the dark red wall a three-quarter profile outlineof Trilby's left foot, which was perhaps the more perfect poem of thetwo.
Slight as it was, this little piece of impromptu etching, in its senseof beauty, in its quick seizing of a peculiar individuality, its subtlerendering of a strongly received impression, was already the work of amaster. It was Trilby's foot, and nobody else's, nor could have been,and nobody else but Little Billee could have drawn it in just thatinspired way.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est, 'Ben Bolt'?" inquired Gecko.
Upon which Little Billee was made by Taffy to sit down to the piano andsing it. He sang it very nicely with his pleasant little throaty Englishbarytone.
TRILBY'S LEFT FOOT]
It was solely in order that Little Billee should have opportunities ofpractising this graceful accomplishment of his, for his own and hisfriends' delectation, that the piano had been sent over from London,at great cost to Taffy and the Laird. It had belonged to Taffy's mother,who was dead.
Before he had finished the second verse, Svengali exclaimed: "Mais c'esttout-à-fait chentil! Allons, Gecko, chouez-nous ça!"
And he put his big hands on the piano, over Little Billee's, pushed himoff the music-stool with his great gaunt body, and, sitting on ithimself, he played a masterly prelude. It was impressive to hear thecomplicated richness and volume of the sounds he evoked after LittleBillee's gentle "tink-a-tink."
And Gecko, cuddling lovingly his violin and closing his upturned eyes,played that simple melody as it had probably never been playedbefore--such passion, such pathos, such a tone!--and they turned it andtwisted it, and went from one key to another, playing into each other'shands, Svengali taking the lead; a
nd fugued and canoned andcounterpointed and battle-doored and shuttlecocked it, high and low,soft and loud, in minor, in pizzicato, and in sordino--adagio, andante,allegretto, scherzo--and exhausted all its possibilities of beauty; tilltheir susceptible audience of three was all but crazed with delight andwonder; and the masterful Ben Bolt, and his over-tender Alice, and histoo submissive friend, and his old schoolmaster so kind and so true, andhis long-dead schoolmates, and the rustic porch and the mill, and theslab of granite so gray,
"And the dear little nook By the clear running brook,"
were all magnified into a strange, almost holy poetic dignity andsplendor quite undreamed of by whoever wrote the words and music of thatunsophisticated little song, which has touched so many simple Britishhearts that don't know any better--and among them, once, that of thepresent scribe--long, long ago!
"Sacrepleu! il choue pien, le Checko, hein?" said Svengali, when theyhad brought this wonderful double improvisation to a climax and a close."C'est mon élèfe! che le fais chanter sur son fiolon, c'est comme sic'était _moi_ qui chantais! ach! si ch'afais pour teux sous de voix, cheserais le bremier chanteur du monte! I cannot sing!" he continued. (Iwill translate him into English, without attempting to translate hisaccent, which is a mere matter of judiciously transposing p's and b's,and t's and d's, and f's and v's, and g's and k's, and turning the softFrench j into sch, and a pretty language into an ugly one.)
"I cannot sing myself, I cannot play the violin, but I can teach--hein,Gecko? And I have a pupil--hein, Gecko?--la betite Honorine;" and herehe leered all round with a leer that was not engaging. "The world shallhear of la betite Honorine some day--hein, Gecko? Listen all--this ishow I teach la betite Honorine! Gecko, play me a little accompaniment inpizzicato."
And he pulled out of his pocket a kind of little flexible flageolet (ofhis own invention, it seems), which he screwed together and put to hislips, and on this humble instrument he played "Ben Bolt," while Geckoaccompanied him, using his fiddle as a guitar, his adoring eyes fixed inreverence on his master.
And it would be impossible to render in any words the deftness, thedistinction, the grace, power, pathos, and passion with which this trulyphenomenal artist executed the poor old twopenny tune on his elasticpenny whistle--for it was little more--such thrilling, vibrating,piercing tenderness, now loud and full, a shrill scream of anguish, nowsoft as a whisper, a mere melodic breath, more human almost than thehuman voice itself, a perfection unattainable even by Gecko, a master,on an instrument which is the acknowledged king of all!
So that the tear which had been so close to the brink of Little Billee'seye while Gecko was playing now rose and trembled under his eyelid andspilled itself down his nose; and he had to dissemble andsurreptitiously mop it up with his little finger as he leaned his chinon his hand, and cough a little husky, unnatural cough--_pour se donnerune contenance_!
He had never heard such music as this, never dreamed such music waspossible. He was conscious, while it lasted, that he saw deeper into thebeauty, the sadness of things, the very heart of them, and theirpathetic evanescence, as with a new, inner eye--even into eternityitself, beyond the veil--a vague cosmic vision that faded when the musicwas over, but left an unfading reminiscence of its having been, and apassionate desire to express the like some day through the plasticmedium of his own beautiful art.
THE FLEXIBLE FLAGEOLET]
When Svengali ended, he leered again on his dumb-struck audience, andsaid: "That is how I teach la betite Honorine to sing; that is how Iteach Gecko to play; that is how I teach '_il bel canto_'! It waslost, the bel canto--but I found it, in a dream--I, and nobodyelse--I--Svengali--I--I--_I!_ But that is enough of music; let us playat something else--let us play at this!" he cried, jumping up andseizing a foil and bending it against the wall.... "Come along, LittlePillee, and I will show you something more you don't know...."
So Little Billee took off coat and waistcoat, donned mask and glove andfencing-shoes, and they had an "assault of arms," as it is nobly calledin French, and in which poor Little Billee came off very badly. TheGerman Pole fenced wildly, but well.
Then it was the Laird's turn, and he came off badly too; so then Taffytook up the foil, and redeemed the honor of Great Britain, as became aBritish hussar and a Man of Blood. For Taffy, by long and assiduouspractice in the best school in Paris (and also by virtue of his nativeaptitudes), was a match for any maître d'armes in the whole French army,and Svengali got "what for."
And when it was time to give up play and settle down to work, othersdropped in--French, English, Swiss, German, American, Greek; curtainswere drawn and shutters opened; the studio was flooded with light--andthe afternoon was healthily spent in athletic and gymnastic exercisestill dinner-time.
But Little Billee, who had had enough of fencing and gymnastics for theday, amused himself by filling up with black and white and redchalk-strokes the outline of Trilby's foot on the wall, lest he shouldforget his fresh vision of it, which was still to him as the thingitself--an absolute reality, born of a mere glance, a mere chance.
Durien came in and looked over his shoulder, and exclaimed: "Tiens! lepied de Trilby! vous avez fait ça d'après nature?"
"Nong!"
"De mémoire, alors?"
"Wee!"
"Je vous en fais mon compliment! Vous avez eu la main heureuse. Jevoudrais bien avoir fait ça, moi! C'est un petit chef-d'œuvre quevous avez fait là--tout bonnement, mon cher! Mais vous élaborez trop. Degrâce, n'y touchez plus!"
And Little Billee was pleased, and touched it no more; for Durien was agreat sculptor, and sincerity itself.
* * * * *
And then--well, I happen to forget what sort of day this particular dayturned into at about six of the clock.
If it was decently fine, the most of them went off to dine at theRestaurant de la Couronne, kept by the Père Trin, in the Rue deMonsieur, who gave you of his best to eat and drink for twenty solsParisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire. Good distending soups,omelets that were only too savory, lentils, red and white beans, meat sodressed and sauced and seasoned that you didn't know whether it werebeef or mutton--flesh, fowl, or good red herring--or even bad, for thatmatter--nor very greatly care.
And just the same lettuce, radishes, and cheese of Gruyère or Brie asyou got at the Trois Frères Provençaux (but not the same butter!). Andto wash it all down, generous wine in wooden "brocs"--that stained alovely æsthetic blue everything it was spilled over.
THE BRIDGE OF ARTS]
And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, students of law andmedicine, painters and sculptors, workmen and blanchisseuses andgrisettes, and found them very good company, and most improving to yourFrench, if your French was of the usual British kind, and even to someof your manners, if these were very British indeed. And the evening wasinnocently wound up with billiards, cards, or dominos at the Café duLuxembourg opposite; or at the Théâtre du Luxembourg, in the Rue deMadame, to see funny farces with screamingly droll Englishmen in them;or, still better, at the Jardin Bullier (la Closerie des Lilas), to seethe students dance the cancan, or try and dance it yourself, which isnot so easy as it seems; or, best of all, at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, tosee some piece of classical _repertoire_.
Or, if it were not only fine, but a Saturday afternoon into the bargain,the Laird would put on a necktie and a few other necessary things, andthe three friends would walk arm in arm to Taffy's hotel in the Rue deSeine, and wait outside till he had made himself as presentable as theLaird, which did not take very long. And then (Little Billee was alwayspresentable) they would, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in the middle,descend the Rue de Seine and cross a bridge to the Cité, and have a lookin at the Morgue. Then back again to the quays on the rive gauche by thePont Neuf, to wend their way westward; now on one side to look at theprint and picture shops and the magasins of bric-à-brac, and haplysometimes buy thereof, now on the other to finger and cheapen thesecond-hand books for sale on the parapet, and
even pick up one or twoutterly unwanted bargains, never to be read or opened again.
When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it, stopping in themiddle to look up the river towards the old Cité and Notre Dame,eastward, and dream unutterable things, and try to utter them. Then,turning westward, they would gaze at the glowing sky and all it glowedupon--the corner of the Tuileries and the Louvre, the many bridges, theChamber of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspective andbroadening its bed as it went flowing and winding on its way betweenPassy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to Englandperhaps--where _they_ didn't want to be just then; and they would tryand express themselves to the effect that life was uncommonly well worthliving in that particular city at that particular time of the day andyear and century, at that particular epoch of their own mortal anduncertain lives.
Then, still arm in arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of theLouvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial Zouaves,up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione, where theywould stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great cornerpastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,pralines, dragées, marrons glacés--saccharine, crystalline substances ofall kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illuminationprecious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds soarranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time ofthe year, the monstrous Easter-eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined likecostly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who was wellread in his English classics and liked to show it, would opine that"they managed these things better in France."
Then across the street by a great gate into the Allée des Feuillants,and up to the Place de la Concorde--to gaze, but quite without baseenvy, at the smart people coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. Foreven in Paris "carriage people" have a way of looking bored, of takingtheir pleasure sadly, of having nothing to say to each other, as thoughthe vibration of so many wheels all rolling home the same way everyafternoon had hypnotized them into silence, idiocy, and melancholia.
And our three musketeers of the brush would speculate on the vanity ofwealth and rank and fashion on the satiety that follows in the wake ofself-indulgence and overtakes it; on the weariness of the pleasures thatbecome a toil--as if they knew all about it, had found it all out forthemselves, and nobody else had ever found it out before!
Then they found out something else--namely, that the sting of healthyappetite was becoming intolerable; so they would betake themselves to anEnglish eating-house in the Rue de la Madeleine (on the left-hand sidenear the top), where they would renovate their strength and theirpatriotism on British beef and beer, and household bread, and bracing,biting, stinging yellow mustard, and horseradish, and noble apple-pie,and Cheshire cheese; and get through as much of these in an hour or soas they could for talking, talking, talking; such happy talk! as full ofsanguine hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure commendation or condemnationof all painters, dead or alive, of modest but firm belief in themselvesand each other, as a Paris Easter-egg is full of sweets and pleasantness(for the young).
And then a stroll on the crowded, well-lighted boulevards, and a bock atthe café there, at a little three-legged marble table right out on thegenial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen to the dozen.
Then home by dark, old, silent streets and some deserted bridge to theirbeloved Latin quarter, the Morgue gleaming cold and still and fatal inthe pale lamplight, and Notre Dame pricking up its watchful twin towers,which have looked down for so many centuries on so many happy, sanguine,expansive youths walking arm in arm by twos and threes, and forevertalking, talking, talking....
The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe to the door of hishôtel garni in the Rue de Seine, where they would find much to say toeach other before they said good-night--so much that Taffy and LittleBillee would see the Laird safe to _his_ door, in the Place St. Anatoledes Arts. And then a discussion would arise between Taffy and the Lairdon the immortality of the soul, let us say, or the exact meaning of theword "gentleman," or the relative merits of Dickens and Thackeray, orsome such recondite and quite unhackneyed theme, and Taffy and the Lairdwould escort Little Billee to _his_ door, in the Place de l'Odéon, andhe would re-escort them both back again, and so on till any hour youplease.
* * * * *
Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio window loomedlead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs under skies that were ashen andsober, and the wild west wind made woful music among the chimney-pots,and little gray waves ran up the river the wrong way, and the Morguelooked chill and dark and wet, and almost uninviting (even to threehealthy-minded young Britons), they would resolve to dine and spend ahappy evening at home.
"THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE BRUSH"]
Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even four), would diveinto back streets and buy a yard or so of crusty new bread, wellburned on the flat side, a fillet of beef, a litre of wine, potatoes andonions, butter, a little cylindrical cheese called "bondon deNeufchâtel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil, parsley, spring onions,and other fine herbs, and a pod of garlic, which would be rubbed on acrust of bread to flavor things with.
Taffy would lay the cloth Englishwise, and also make the salad, forwhich, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special receipt of hisown (putting in the oil first and the vinegar after); and indeed hissalads were quite as good as everybody else's.
The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the onions and beef into asavory Scotch mess so cunningly that you could not taste the beef forthe onions--nor always the onions for the garlic!
And they would dine far better than at le Père Trin's, far better thanat the English Restaurant in the Rue de la Madeleine--better thananywhere else on earth!
And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground on the spot, whatpipes and cigarettes of "caporal," by the light of the three shadedlamps, while the rain beat against the big north window, and the windwent howling round the quaint old mediæval tower at the corner of theRue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres (the old street of the bad lepers), andthe damp logs hissed and crackled in the stove!
What jolly talk into the small hours! Thackeray and Dickens again, andTennyson and Byron (who was "not dead yet" in those days); and Titianand Velasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just out); andMonsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, and Balzac and Stendhal andGeorge Sand; and the good Dumas! and Edgar Allan Poe; and the glory thatwas Greece and the grandeur that was Rome....
Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle--not of the wisest, perhaps, norredolent of the very highest culture (which, by-the-way, can mar as wellas make), nor leading to any very practical result; but quitepathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its convictions, aprofound belief in their importance, and a proud trust in theirlife-long immutability.
Oh, happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship! oh, happytimes of careless impecuniosity, and youth and hope and health andstrength and freedom--with all Paris for a playground, and its dear oldunregenerate Latin quarter for a workshop and a home!
And, up to then, no kill-joy complications of love!
No, decidedly no! Little Billee had never known such happiness asthis--never even dreamed of its possibility.
* * * * *
A day or two after this, our opening day, but in the afternoon, when thefencing and boxing had begun and the trapeze was in full swing, Trilby's"Milk below!" was sounded at the door, and she appeared--clothed thistime in her right mind, as it seemed: a tall, straight, flat-backed,square-shouldered, deep-chested, full-bosomed young grisette, in a snowyfrilled cap, a neat black gown and white apron, pretty faded,well-darned, brown stockings, and well-worn, soft, gray, square-toedslippers of list, without heels and originally shapeless; but which herfeet, uncompromising and inexorable as boot-trees, had ennobled intoeverlasting classic shapeliness, and stamped with an unforgettableindividuality,
as does a beautiful hand its well-worn glove--a factLittle Billee was not slow to perceive, with a curious conscious thrillthat was only half æsthetic.
Then he looked into her freckled face, and met the kind and tendermirthfulness of her gaze and the plucky frankness of her fine wide smilewith a thrill that was not æsthetic at all (nor the reverse), but all ofthe heart. And in one of his quick flashes of intuitive insight hedivined far down beneath the shining surface of those eyes (which seemedfor a moment to reflect only a little image of himself against the skybeyond the big north window) a well of sweetness; and floating somewherein the midst of it the very heart of compassion, generosity, and warmsisterly love; and under that--alas! at the bottom of all--a thin slimylayer of sorrow and shame. And just as long as it takes for a tear torise and gather and choke itself back again, this sudden revelationshook his nervous little frame with a pang of pity, and the knightlywish to help. But he had no time to indulge in such soft emotions.Trilby was met on her entrance by friendly greetings on all sides.
"Tiens! c'est la grande Trilby!" exclaimed Jules Guinot through hisfencing-mask. "Comment! t'es déjà debout après hier soir? Avons-nousassez rigolé chez Mathieu, hein? Crénom d'un nom, quelle noce! V'là unecrémaillère qui peut se vanter d'être diantrement bien pendue, j'espère!Et la petite santé, c'matin?"
"Hé, hé! mon vieux," answered Trilby. "Ça boulotte, apparemment! Et toi?et Victorine? Comment qu'a s'porte à c't'heure? Elle avait un fier coupd'chasselas! c'est-y jobard, hein? de s'fich 'paf comme ça d'vantl'monde! Tiens, v'là, Gontran! ça marche-t-y, Gontran, Zouzou d'moncœur?"
TAFFY MAKES THE SALAD]
"Comme sur des roulettes, ma biche!" said Gontran, _alias_ l'Zouzou--acorporal in the Zouaves. "Mais tu t'es donc mise chiffonnière, àprésent? T'as fait banqueroute?"
(For Trilby had a chiffonnier's basket strapped on her back, and carrieda pick and lantern.)
"Mais-z-oui, mon bon!" she said. "Dame! pas d'veine hier soir! t'as bienvu! Dans la dêche jusqu'aux omoplates, mon pauv' caporal-sous-off! nomd'un canon--faut bien vivre, s'pas?"
Little Billee's heart sluices had closed during this interchange ofcourtesies. He felt it to be of a very slangy kind, because he couldn'tunderstand a word of it, and he hated slang. All he could make out wasthe free use of the "tu" and the "toi," and he knew enough French toknow that this implied a great familiarity, which he misunderstood.
So that Jules Guinot's polite inquiries whether Trilby were none theworse after Mathieu's house-warming (which was so jolly), Trilby's kindsolicitude about the health of Victorine, who had very foolishly taken adrop too much on that occasion, Trilby's mock regrets that her own badluck at cards had made it necessary that she should retrieve her fallenfortunes by rag-picking--all these innocent, playful little amenities(which I have tried to write down just as they were spoken) were couchedin a language that was as Greek to him--and he felt out of it, jealousand indignant.
"Good-afternoon to you, Mr. Taffy," said Trilby, in English. "I'vebrought you these objects of art and virtu to make the peace with you.They're the real thing, you know. I borrowed 'em from le père Martin,chiffonnier en gros et en détail, grand officier de la Légion d'Honneur,membre de l'Institut, et cetera, treize bis, Rue du Puits d'Amour,rez-de-chaussée, au fond de la cour à gauche, vis-à-vis lemont-de-piété! He's one of my intimate friends, and--"
"You don't mean to say you're the intimate friend of a _rag-picker_?"exclaimed the good Taffy.
"Oh yes! Pourquoi pas? I never brag; besides, there ain't any beastlypride about le père Martin," said Trilby, with a wink. "You'd soon findthat out if _you_ were an intimate friend of his. This is how it's puton. Do you see? If _you_'ll put it on, I'll fasten it for you, and showyou how to hold the lantern and handle the pick. You may come to ityourself some day, you know. Il ne faut jurer de rien! Père Martin willpose for you in person, if you like. He's generally disengaged in theafternoon. He's poor but honest, you know, and very nice and clean;quite the gentleman. He likes artists, especially English--they pay. Hiswife sells bric-à-brac and old masters: Rembrandts from two francs fiftyupwards. They've got a little grandson--a love of a child. I'm hisgod-mother. You know French, I suppose?"
"Oh yes," said Taffy, much abashed. "I'm very much obliged to you--verymuch indeed--a--I--a--"
"Y a pas d'quoi!" said Trilby, divesting herself of her basket andputting it, with the pick and lantern, in a corner. "Et maintenant, letemps d'absorber une fine de fin sec [a cigarette] et je m'la brise [I'moff]. On m'attend à l'Ambassade d'Autriche. Et puis zut! Allez toujours,mes enfants. En avant la boxe!"
She sat herself down cross-legged on the model-throne, and made herselfa cigarette, and watched the fencing and boxing. Little Billee broughther a chair, which she refused; so he sat down on it himself by herside, and talked to her, just as he would have talked to any young ladyat home--about the weather, about Verdi's new opera (which she had neverheard), the impressiveness of Notre Dame, and Victor Hugo's beautifulromance (which she had never read), the mysterious charm of Leonardo daVinci's Lisa Gioconda's smile (which she had never seen)--by all ofwhich she was no doubt rather tickled and a little embarrassed, perhapsalso a little touched.
Taffy brought her a cup of coffee, and conversed with her in politeformal French, very well and carefully pronounced; and the Laird triedto do likewise. _His_ French was of that honest English kind that breaksup the stiffness of even an English party; and his jolly manners weresuch as to put an end to all shyness and constraint, and makeself-consciousness impossible.
Others dropped in from neighboring studios--the usual cosmopolite crew.It was a perpetual come and go in this particular studio between fourand six in the afternoon.
There were ladies, too, _en cheveux_, in caps and bonnets, some of whomknew Trilby, and thee'd and thou'd with familiar and friendly affection,while others mademoiselle'd her with distant politeness, and weremademoiselle'd and madame'd back again. "Absolument comme à l'Ambassaded'Autriche," as Trilby observed to the Laird, with a British wink thatwas by no means ambassadorial.
Then Svengali came and made some of his grandest music, which was ascompletely thrown away on Trilby as fireworks on a blind beggar, for allshe held her tongue so piously.
Fencing and boxing and trapezing seemed to be more in her line; andindeed, to a tone-deaf person, Taffy lunging his full spread with afoil, in all the splendor of his long, lithe, youthful strength, was afar gainlier sight than Svengali at the key-board flashing his languidbold eyes with a sickly smile from one listener to another, as if tosay: "N'est-ce pas que che suis peau! N'est-ce pas que ch'ai tu chénie?N'est-ce pas que che suis suplime, enfin?"
"THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE"]
Then enter Durien the sculptor, who had been presented with a baignoireat the Porte St. Martin to see "La Dame aux Camélias," and he invitedTrilby and another lady to dine with him "au cabaret" and share his box.
So Trilby didn't go to the Austrian embassy after all, as the Lairdobserved to Little Billee, with such a good imitation of her wink thatLittle Billee was bound to laugh.
But Little Billee was not inclined for fun; a dulness, a sense ofdisenchantment, had come over him; as he expressed it to himself, withpathetic self-pity:
"A feeling of sadness and longing That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain."
And the sadness, if he had known, was that all beautiful young womenwith kind sweet faces and noble figures and goddess-like extremitiesshould not be good and pure as they were beautiful; and the longing wasa longing that Trilby could be turned into a young lady--say the vicar'sdaughter in a little Devonshire village--his sister's friend andco-teacher at the Sunday-school; a simple, pure, and pious maiden ofgentle birth.
For he adored piety in woman, although he was not pious by any means.His inarticulate, intuitive perceptions were not of form and colorsecrets only, but strove to pierce the veil of deeper mysteries inimpetuous and dogmatic boyish scorn of all received interp
retations. Forhe flattered himself that he possessed the philosophical and scientificmind, and piqued himself on thinking clearly, and was intolerant ofhuman inconsistency.
That small reserve portion of his ever-active brain which should havelain fallow while the rest of it was at work or play, perpetuallyplagued itself about the mysteries of life and death, and was foreverpropounding unanswerable arguments against the Christian belief, througha kind of inverted sympathy with the believer. Fortunately for hisfriends, Little Billee was both shy and discreet, and very tender ofother people's feelings; so he kept all his immature juvenileagnosticism to himself.
To atone for such ungainly strong-mindedness in one so young and tender,he was the slave of many little traditional observances which have novery solid foundation in either science or philosophy. For instance, hewouldn't walk under a ladder for worlds, nor sit down thirteen todinner, nor have his hair cut on a Friday, and was quite upset if hehappened to see the new moon through glass. And he believed in lucky andunlucky numbers, and dearly loved the sights and scents and sounds ofhigh-mass in some dim old French cathedral, and found them secretlycomforting.
Let us hope that he sometimes laughed at himself, if only in his sleeve!
And with all his keenness of insight into life he had a well-brought-up,middle-class young Englishman's belief in the infallible efficacy ofgentle birth--for gentle he considered his own and Taffy's and theLaird's, and that of most of the good people he had lived among inEngland--all people, in short, whose two parents and four grandparentshad received a liberal education and belonged to the professional class.And with this belief he combined (or thought he did) a proper democraticscorn for bloated dukes and lords, and even poor inoffensive baronets,and all the landed gentry--everybody who was born an inch higher up thanhimself.
It is a fairly good middle-class social creed, if you can only stick toit through life in despite of life's experience. It fosters independenceand self-respect, and not a few stodgy practical virtues as well. At allevents, it keeps you out of bad company, which is to be found both aboveand below.
And all this melancholy preoccupation, on Little Billee's part, from themomentary gleam and dazzle of a pair of over-perfect feet in anover-æsthetic eye, too much enamoured of mere form!
Reversing the usual process, he had idealized from the base upward!
Many of us, older and wiser than Little Billee, have seen in lovelyfemale shapes the outer garment of a lovely female soul. The instinctwhich guides us to do this is, perhaps, a right one, more often thannot. But more often than not, also, lovely female shapes are terriblecomplicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life,especially for their owner, and more especially if she be a humbledaughter of the people, poor and ignorant, of a yielding nature, tooquick to love and trust. This is all so true as to be trite--so trite asto be a common platitude!
A modern teller of tales, most widely (and most justly) popular, tellsus of heroes and heroines who, like Lord Byron's corsair, were linkedwith one virtue and a thousand crimes. And so dexterously does he weavehis story that the young person may read it and learn nothing but good.
My poor heroine was the converse of these engaging criminals: she hadall the virtues but one; but the virtue she lacked (the very one of allthat plays the title-role, and gives its generic name to all the rest ofthat goodly company) was of such a kind that I have found it impossibleso to tell her history as to make it quite fit and proper reading forthe ubiquitous young person so dear to us all.
Most deeply to my regret. For I had fondly hoped it might one day besaid of me that whatever my other literary shortcomings might be, I atleast had never penned a line which a pure-minded young British mothermight not read aloud to her little blue-eyed babe as it lies sucking itslittle bottle in its little bassinet.
Fate has willed it otherwise.
Would indeed that I could duly express poor Trilby's one shortcoming insome not too familiar medium--in Latin or Greek, let us say--lest theyoung person (in this ubiquitousness of hers, for which Heaven bepraised) should happen to pry into these pages when her mother islooking another way.
Latin and Greek are languages the young person should not be taught tounderstand--seeing that they are highly improper languages, deservedlydead--in which pagan bards who should have known better have sung thefilthy loves of their gods and goddesses.
But at least am I scholar enough to enter one little Latin plea onTrilby's behalf--the shortest, best, and most beautiful plea I can thinkof. It was once used in extenuation and condonation of the frailties ofanother poor weak woman, presumably beautiful, and a far worse offenderthan Trilby, but who, like Trilby, repented of her ways, and was mostjustly forgiven--
"Quia multum amavit!"
TRILBY'S FOREBEARS]
Whether it be an aggravation of her misdeeds or an extenuatingcircumstance, no pressure of want, no temptations of greed or vanity,had ever been factors in urging Trilby on her downward career after herfirst false step in that direction--the result of ignorance, bad advice(from her mother, of all people in the world), and base betrayal. Shemight have lived in guilty splendor had she chosen, but her wants werefew. She had no vanity, and her tastes were of the simplest, and sheearned enough to gratify them all, and to spare.
So she followed love for love's sake only, now and then, as she wouldhave followed art if she had been a man--capriciously, desultorily, morein a frolicsome spirit of camaraderie than anything else. Like anamateur, in short--a distinguished amateur who is too proud to sell hispictures, but willingly gives one away now and then to some highlyvalued and much admiring friend.
Sheer gayety of heart and genial good-fellowship, the difficulty ofsaying nay to earnest pleading. She was "bonne camarade et bonne fille"before everything. Though her heart was not large enough to harbor morethan one light love at a time (even in that Latin quarter of geniallycapacious hearts), it had room for many warm friendships; and she wasthe warmest, most helpful, and most compassionate of friends, far moreserious and faithful in friendship than in love.
Indeed, she might almost be said to possess a virginal heart, so littledid she know of love's heartaches and raptures and torments andclingings and jealousies.
With her it was lightly come and lightly go, and never come back again;as one or two, or perhaps three, picturesque bohemians of the brush orchisel had found, at some cost to their vanity and self-esteem; perhapseven to a deeper feeling--who knows?
Trilby's father, as she had said, had been a gentleman, the son of afamous Dublin physician and friend of George the Fourth's. He had been afellow of his college, and had entered holy orders. He also had all thevirtues but one; he was a drunkard, and began to drink quite early inlife. He soon left the Church, and became a classical tutor, and failedthrough this besetting sin of his, and fell into disgrace.
Then he went to Paris, and picked up a few English pupils there, andlost them, and earned a precarious livelihood from hand to mouth,anyhow; and sank from bad to worse.
And when his worst was about reached, he married the famous tartaned andtamoshantered bar-maid at the Montagnards Écossais, in the Rue duParadis Poissonnière (a very fishy paradise indeed); she was a mostbeautiful Highland lassie of low degree, and she managed to support him,or helped him to support himself, for ten or fifteen years. Trilby wasborn to them, and was dragged up in some way--_à la grâce de Dieu!_
Patrick O'Ferrall soon taught his wife to drown all care andresponsibility in his own simple way, and opportunities for doing sowere never lacking to her.
Then he died, and left a posthumous child--born ten months after hisdeath, alas! and whose birth cost its mother her life.
Then Trilby became a _blanchisseuse de fin_, and in two or three yearscame to grief through her trust in a friend of her mother's. Then shebecame a model besides, and was able to support her little brother, whomshe dearly loved.
At the time this story begins, this small waif and stray was "enpension" with le père Martin, the rag-picker, an
d his wife, the dealerin bric-à-brac and inexpensive old masters. They were very good people,and had grown fond of the child, who was beautiful to look at, and fullof pretty tricks and pluck and cleverness--a popular favorite in the Ruedu Puits d'Amour and its humble neighborhood.
Trilby, for some freak, always chose to speak of him as her godson, andas the grandchild of le père et la mère Martin, so that these goodpeople had almost grown to believe he really belonged to them.
And almost every one else believed that he was the child of Trilby (inspite of her youth), and she was so fond of him that she didn't mind inthe least.
He might have had a worse home.
La mère Martin was pious, or pretended to be; le père Martin was thereverse. But they were equally good for their kind, and, though coarseand ignorant and unscrupulous in many ways (as was natural enough), theywere gifted in a very full measure with the saving graces of love andcharity, especially he. And if people are to be judged by their works,this worthy pair are no doubt both equally well compensated by now forthe trials and struggles of their sordid earthly life.
So much for Trilby's parentage.
And as she sat and wept at Madame Doche's impersonation of la Dame auxCamélias (with her hand in Durien's) she vaguely remembered, as in awaking dream, now the noble presence of Taffy as he towered cool anderect, foil in hand, gallantly waiting for his adversary to breathe,now the beautiful sensitive face of Little Billee and his deferentialcourtesy.
And during the _entr'actes_ her heart went out in friendship to thejolly Scotch Laird of Cockpen, who came out now and then with suchterrible French oaths and abominable expletives (and in the presence ofladies, too!), without the slightest notion of what they meant.
For the Laird had a quick ear, and a craving to be colloquial andidiomatic before everything else, and made many awkward and embarrassingmistakes.
It would be with him as though a polite Frenchman should say to a fairdaughter of Albion, "D---- my eyes, mees, your tea is getting ---- cold;let me tell that good old ---- of a Jules to bring you another cup."
And so forth, till time and experience taught him better. It is perhapswell for him that his first experiments in conversational French weremade in the unconventional circle of the Place St. Anatole des Arts.