Very strange, yes? Very strange and memorable. Very curious.
It is possible that you are anxious to learn the precise locality of this Monsieur Charbo. But upon my word, it comes to me that I have never told you the precise locality of Bourdaloue’s, that is to say, of the Rue Balbec! Well, the Rue Balbec is situated, without doubt, in the Ternes Pereire district, or still farther north—it is, perhaps, a street off the Boulevard Pineau, or perhaps, after all, it is in the Levallois Perret district, a street off the Rue Cave, which is near Clichy, where the oil and starch factories are; and, at any rate, the spacious Avenue Mathilde is one of those unfrequented avenues a long way north of the Bois, an avenue manquée, full of a mournful charm when you have walked along it for a great distance, and have left far behind you the bustle of a little street like the Rue Balbec. . . . And always that is the sort of answer that you will receive from the epicures, whenever you have demanded of them the precise locality of their Bourdaloues. Listen! Myself, I did not go a very great distance up the Avenue Mathilde, but stood gazing at a figure that began to emerge out of the mists of my perplexity, and which, to be sure, I had been aware of all the while without being quite certain whether it really existed—the figure of a shabby man, who walked some little way in front of me, at a brisk step, with his eyes glued to the ground. Thinking that he might be able to assist me, I ran after him, and implored him to tell me quickly, quickly—had he seen a big man, with a black beard, passing that way?
‘No, no, Monsieur,’ said he hurriedly, after a little hesitation, ‘I have not seen such a man as you describe’; and his thin cheeks, weak chin, jutting nose, and shifty, hungry eyes, seemed all to be twitching slightly in the fresh wind.
Very strange and memorable. Very curious.
His scraggy neck, rising from his low and not particularly white collar, appeared to me the spirit of the Avenue, a thing forlorn. But, while I was scanning his features in my strained and irresolute manner, there came upon me one of these coups de pied, coups de poing, coups de bâton, coups de sifflet, coups de tonnerre, coups de vent, and coups de dent: that is to say, I was kicked, and fisted, and cudgelled, and whistled at, and thunder-clapped, and winded, and bitten, all at the one moment, by the Imp of Knowledge; moreover, to my very great annoyance, I discovered that I was asking the stranger’s name.
‘Pardon, Monsieur—it was a question which I had no right to ask. A very impertinent question, that! A matter for my deepest apologies!’ He accepted them silently, bowing low, and holding his hat in his hand; then, in his scanty voice, that trembled, I thought, with a note of defiance, he informed me that his name was Adrien Tanrade.
‘Adrien Tanrade,’ I murmured, thinking all the while of my great discovery: ‘but yes, of course, it is Adrien Tanrade!’ The wind blew dismally down the back of my neck as I gazed at his fine, prominent nose. ‘Why, it is that which has given the game away,’ I nodded, ‘for is it not true, what I have heard said, that the nose is the only feature of the face that rarely changes with the passing of time, or on a restricted diet?’ But even while I was so speaking, he had continued upon his journey, dwindling in my sight under the still, wintry trees, to that unknown haven of his, where, without doubt, in the evenings, he took out his music-stand, and piped on the shepherd’s flute pastoral songs.
Ah, gentle Monsieur Tanrade! Yes, gifted Charbo! Sad musician! Slayer of Sylvette! Only one thing is there to be said of these two persons: What an Artist!
A little bit daily off the beard, just a skimming of the black surface: in effect, no more than a faint sprinkle of the best Arabian moka on the white face-towel that he flings every morning over his shoulders and over his chest while he wields the scissors; and a little bit off the voice, just one vibration: in effect, no more than would fill the throat of a cheese-mite (living in one of our delicious Port-Saluts of Normandy, for example)—one vibration in the whole day, Monsieur—oh, what an artist, the miracle of that one vibration!—and a little bit off the weight: that is to say, a little bit off the appetite: in short, a little bit off the meal: and such a very little more, at each sitting, that weeks go by before Monsieur Grégoire is tempted to put these abandoned portions on one side for his own eating. Not by a snap of the scissors, nor by the smallest tremor of the vocal chords, nor by the slightest tip of the scales, did Monsieur Charbo exceed his daily reduction of beard, and voice, and grandeur. Cannot you admire the supreme delicateness of this wicked man? Just so much a day—Just so much a day—So much? No, no, Monsieur—so little!
And we who saw him, lunch after lunch, at Bourdaloue’s, in the Rue Balbec, how would we have noticed the slow change in him, eh? Is it not the same with all of us, in our own homes: that is to say, with those of us whose whole lives are spent in one tiny, monotonous place? Every day we look in the same glass, and every day we see exactly the same person. We live, perhaps, with our father, our mother, or with our wife, our child, or with our brother, our sister, and always it is the same person that enters the room.
On the following day I went again to the Rue Balbec.
The sun was bursting bright; little trees in tubs twinkled with new shoots on both sides of Bourdaloue’s open doorway; somewhere or other the canary bird was singing in its cage, and the April air was of that quickening kind that made me wish for a gratin de crevettes roses et de morilles.
But I did not enter, nor did I sit at my delightful window-table ever again. What would you have? It is hurtful to my dignity, thought I, to be sitting in the neighbourhood of that monster. I had arrived late, so that the commonplace, sordid, vulgar, daily rite was in full swing under my very nose. I judged that Monsieur Prouteau was enjoying his larded guinea-fowl. Preposterous person! Ridiculous people! Oh, you ridiculous people! Pigs! Sots! Guzzlers! Fools! Blind fools! Idiots! Stay-at-homes! ‘You should follow him into the open,’ I shouted (but I shouted it to myself, in the depth of my heart I shouted it), ‘into the wild places, into the Avenue Mathilde; you should open your eyes, instead of only your mouths, you fat, guzzling lunatics, you—poor—fish!’ Then, with the canary bird trilling its song of remarkable freedom somewhere above my head, my eyes, running hither and thither, saw Monsieur Duval sitting at his table, Monsieur Bellechasse sitting at his, Monsieur Barféty, Monsieur Prouteau, Monsieur Pihan, Monsieur Roux—and Monsieur Adrien Tanrade. . . .
***
How peaceful it is by this river bank. Let us walk as far as the bend. And how leafy, too. Yes, how leafy! Look at all these green leaves! It is a real Paradise. Tiens! Little did I know that Spring was upon us. I had an idea that everything was still black trunks, and bare boughs.
The Thorn
A POOL of November sunlight lay in the bowl of faded rose-petals, on the nest of tables beneath the window. Miss Martindale smiled, and put down her sewing. How often had Dr Collins told her not to work so soon after her lunch! But time was short—and so was life itself, with birth, marriage, and death almost on the top of each other—and today she was working roses on to her grand-niece’s wedding trousseau.
The firelight flickered over her white hair.
‘I used to see a lover’s face in the fire,’ she nodded, gazing quizzically towards the far end of the room. At that instant she heard a rustle among the faded petals beside her.
Perhaps a draught had stirred them? Surely not, when the door was shut, and her niece Susan had bolted the french window? She straightened her glasses, stared through the window, and heard no sound from the gusty breeze that shook the twigs and evergreens of the garden. Then Mary peered into the bowl, and thought that she could detect a gleam of white on each yellow petal.
Why was she not more regular with her pepsine tablets? Mary Martindale opened her mouth, and turned her head away in time for the sneeze that almost jerked her passe-menterie cap over her eyes. That was her indigestion back again! What would Dr Collins say? She looked a second time into the bowl, and saw that the white gleams were more than mere reflections from fire or window. These dead rose-petals were beg
inning to live.
‘Dear me,’ sighed Mary Martindale, lifting her hands, ‘I’ll never get my sewing finished!’ Here she picked up the garment, and bowed her head over her embroidery of fullblown roses. In a moment she was patting everywhere for her needle. Good gracious! Susan! Susan! Where has it got to? My needle has come off the thread! It has fallen on to the floor! . . . But of course she was always losing her needle, always finding it again . . . and had not Dr Collins warned her not to strain her eyes? When she looked at the petals once more, she saw that they were beginning to unfold, to reach definite outlines. Yellow was clearing to palest cream.
She took a petal into the palm of her hand, and found that it was growing pliable. She watched the wrinkles flatten out into the satiny surface; and as she dropped the petal back into the bowl, she caught the scent of roses.
Here Mary shut her eyes, and heard a fluttering beside her; and when she looked again, the petals were rising and floating above the table. She watched them flit towards an empty vase that stood at a corner of the tall mantelpiece; and suddenly she held her breath, entranced by a trick of some ghostly Merlin, whose fingers, shaped invisibly before her, and dispensing with their wizard’s conjuring-cloth, now shook out from the secret folds of the air a green stalk, with its attendant leaves. The stalk swayed and dipped, while the advancing petals fluttered above it, clustered, and grouped; the green stalk slipped into the vase; and Mary Martindale was beaming at a snow-white rose in the first freshness of its youth.
The vase had filled with water to the brim, and here and there a drop was sparkling on the leaves and petals.
The drawing-room, too, had changed. The fire was gone, the very coal and sticks were gone, the embers had been swept away, and summer shone through summer curtains. The air was lazy with the buzzing of flies, and for a moment Mary Martindale felt inclined to abandon herself to the sleepiness of the hour; then, with a chuckle, she jumped from her chair, and her glasses jumped from her nose. She ran to the open window, and gazed at the hot burst of garden that greeted her there. The lawn was mottled with sunshine and shadow. Overhead tossed the shrill cry of the swifts. Near her, a rose tree was in bloom.
She tried to catch sight of the swifts in the patches of blue between the tree-tops. For more than a minute—for more than an hour—Mary stood there, listening. The scent of the rose-tree came to her on a flicker of wind. The sun burnt a sudden pain on her cheek.
A swift, darting by his hole under the eaves above her, screamed, and startled Mary Martindale into movement. She crossed the sunny lawn, and mingled with the shadows at the far end of the garden.
The beaded lace on Mary’s cap and dress sparkled at moments when the sun found her. The smell of newmown grass was everywhere; and far off, in the spotted region of dark-green and yellow under the trees, Phillips had stood his mowing-machine. The garden was sleepy and full of sound. Mary never ceased to hear the whistle of the chaffinch and his ringing, musical ‘pinck’ as he called to his mate. A linnet, with his summer crest of bright vermilion, flickered by, and perched for an instant on the handle of the lawnmower. Apples thudded to the ground. The clock struck in the drawing-room.
Four o’clock? A whole hour yet till tea! In summer at five; in winter at four; there was plenty of time to pick some flowers, and to do a bit of weeding. So Mary Martindale turned back to fetch her scissors and her basket from the hall—but on her way, she paused. The rose was in the garden now, a few feet short of the blossoming tree, a foot above the highest blooms and branches.
It was set in air, motionless, as though on wings so swiftly moving that Mary could not see them. She went to it across the sun-drenched lawn, and found that the flower was smaller than when she had last seen it: one or two of the inner petals had begun to fold over its heart. The garden lay now under the bluest and sultriest day of June. A privet hedge was shaking with the passage of some bird buried within it, and insects spun continually round the old lady’s head. She heard the apples thudding to the ground. She heard the clock chime in the drawing-room.
Mary remembered the roses that she had been working on to her grand-niece’s wedding trousseau, and she cried: ‘Dear me! I ought to be hunting for my needle, instead of watching a rose!’ A honey-bee, humming from flower to flower, alighted on the rose, and crept into the petals.
The old lady put up her hand to adjust her glasses, and laughed aloud when she found that they were no longer there. The bee flew away, and she watched it into the sky . . . and her head was still lifted heavenwards when the lark began to sing. The explosion of song caught her unawares, though she had been prepared for it. The throbbing in the sky was answered by a tremor in the hovering rose. The song ended: and the silence that filled the garden was deeper than any that had gone before: the most cunning musician could not have paused as eloquently, with uplifted bow.
In this silence Mary Martindale lifted her lips and shut her eyes, and heard and felt the lovers’ kiss, given and taken above the rose.
The clock struck in the drawing-room. The waning flower began to move towards the blossoming tree; its shadow crept along the lawn, and when Mary opened her eyes at last, the bloom was twinkling on the branch.
It was tucking away the petals, and creeping into the bud. Mary watched, while the perfume of the white rose mingled and circulated with the sap of the tree. An eye was closing . . . a moon was dying . . . to become no more than a distant star, shining amid the branches. . . .
Before the last flicker was dead, Mary Martindale thrust out her hand, and her finger was pricked by a thorn.
***
When, at the same moment, Susan ran into the room, and switched on the light, she found her aunt hunting in the bowl of dead rose-petals; and the old lady, blinking her eyes, muttered that she had lost her needle.
‘You’ve opened the window, too,’ cried Susan. Then she looked at the fire, and saw with dismay that it was out.
‘Oh, what an icy room!’
Even that was not all. Her aunt’s glasses were on the floor; and, stooping down, ‘Why, dear,’ cried Susan mournfully, ‘you’ve pricked your finger!’
So it was. The needle, lost in the bowl of withered rose-petals, had pricked her finger. Her niece tore up a strip of linen from the work-box; but, when the girl had gone away—then, undoing the bandage, and waiting until the little bead of blood appeared again: very quietly, very secretly, and gently smiling, Mary Martindale lifted her finger to her lips.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
‘AND now,’ said Harlock solemnly, pushing back his chair, ‘and now to business.’
We rose to our feet at the far end of the studio, and watched him delicately pinching out the half-burnt candles on the shining dinner table. It was a scene that we had all been waiting for, from past experience—a transformation from the choice and orderly to the grotesque, for it left us standing in the large and leaping firelight.
Sitting at the chimney-side, ready to have our breaths caught by Harlock while we filled our chairs with comfort, we were in another room altogether. Witticisms lay behind us, arguments had been thrashed out and buried, the bowl, for the time being, had flowed; and towering shadows, the perfect background for ghost-stories, had taken their place.
We waited for our host’s thin, fire-crimsoned face to reveal to us that his mounting list of horrors was about to be capped by an effort supremely terrifying for a Christmas occasion . . . but the slow, grim smile never came. He kicked the pine logs into a fiercer blaze; then fell to groping in the remotest corner of his studio.
When he returned, bringing from the shadows an unframed canvas, we supposed that the supreme effort had surely arrived: the story was to be too disturbing for even the remotest of smiles. He stood the canvas on a chair at one end of the fireplace, so that we all had a fairly good view of it. The quality of the painting and the subject of the picture appeared to give to each other a dark and sinister life under the shifting light of the flames; but it was not until the clock had struck, bring
ing him up with a start, that Harlock began to tell us the following story:
‘I found it in a corner of a shop in Fulham Road. It’s a good piece of painting, as you can see—even by firelight; but that was not the reason why I bought it. The reason was not so—so aesthetic as that. I bought it because I knew the subject, and because I knew why the painter had painted it. His reason was not aesthetic, either—the man is quite unknown to me, by the way—and I don’t expect he cared how little he got for his picture. He wanted to thrust it out of his sight . . . and he got rid of it because it had served its turn—the painting of it had prevented him from going mad.’
Harlock put his finger-tips together.
‘I myself had done the same thing, you see. But I never sold my picture. I never tried. Perhaps my professional instinct is not so developed as his. As soon as I had painted it, from memory, putting in that finishing touch, that pinpoint of light in the landscape, I took a knife, and slashed the thing to pieces.
Written With My Left Hand Page 18