In the Days of My Youth: A Novel
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CHAPTER XXIX.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BREAKFAST.
"Now this, _mon cher_," said Mueller, taking off his hat with a flourishto the young lady at the _comptoir_, "is the immortal Cafe Procope."
I looked round, and found myself in a dingy, ordinary sort of Cafe, inno wise differing from any other dingy, ordinary sort of Cafe in thatpart of Paris. The decorations were ugly enough to be modern. Theceiling was as black with gas-fumes and tobacco smoke as any otherceiling in any other estaminet in the Quartier Latin. The waiters lookedas waiters always look before midday--sleepy, discontented, andunwashed. A few young men of the regular student type were scatteredabout here and there at various tables, reading, smoking, chatting,breakfasting, and reading the morning papers. In an alcove at the upperend of the second room (for there were two, one opening from the other)stood a blackened, broken-nosed, plaster bust of Voltaire, upon thesummit of whose august wig some irreverent customer had perched aparticularly rakish-looking hat. Just in front of this alcove and belowthe bust stood a marble-topped table, at one end of which two young menwere playing dominoes to the accompaniment of the matutinal absinthe.
"And this," said Mueller, with another flourish, "is the still moreimmortal table of the still more supremely immortal Voltaire. Here hewas wont to rest his sublime elbows and sip his _demi-tasse_. Here, uponthis very table, he wrote that famous letter to Marie Antoinette thatFreron stole, and in revenge for which he wrote the comedy called_l'Ecossaise_; but of this admirable satire you English, who only knowVoltaire in his Henriade and his history of Charles the Twelfth, haveprobably never heard till this moment! _Eh bien_! I'm not much wiserthan you--so never mind. I'll be hanged if I've ever read a line of it.Anyhow, here is the table, and at this other end of it we'll have ourbreakfast."
It was a large, old-fashioned, Louis Quatorze piece of furniture, thetop of which, formed from a single slab of some kind of gray and yellowmarble, was stained all over with the coffee, wine, and ink-splashes ofmany generations of customers. It looked as old--nay, older--than thehouse itself.
The young men who were playing at dominoes looked up and nodded, asthree or four others had done in the outer room when we passed through.
"_Bonjour, l'ami_," said the one who seemed to be winning. "Hast thouchanced to see anything of Martial, coming along!"
"I observed a nose defiling round the corner of the Rue de Bussy,"replied Mueller, "and it looked as if Martial might be somewhere in thefar distance, but I didn't wait to see. Are you expecting him?"
"Confound him--yes! We've been waiting more than half an hour."
"If you have invited him to breakfast," said Mueller, "he is sure tocome."
"On the contrary, he has invited us to breakfast."
"Ah, that alters the case," said Mueller, philosophically. "Then he issure _not_ to come." "Garcon!"
A bullet-headed, short-jacketed, long-aproned waiter, who looked as ifhe had not been to bed since his early youth, answered the summons,
"M'sieur!"
"What have you that you can especially recommend this morning?"
The waiter, with that nasal volubility peculiar to his race, rapidly ranover the whole vegetable and animal creation.
Mueller listened with polite incredulity.
"Nothing else?" said he, when the other stopped, apparently from want ofbreath.
"_Mais oui, M'sieur_!" and, thus stimulated, the waiter, having"exhausted worlds and then imagined new," launched forth into a secondand still more impossible catalogue.
Mueller turned to me.
"The resources of this establishment, you observe," he said, verygravely, "are inexhaustible. One might have a Roc's egg a la Sindbad forthe asking."
The waiter looked puzzled, shuffled his slippered feet, and murmuredsomething about "_oeufs sur le plat_."
"Unfortunately, however," continued Mueller, "we are but men--notfortresses provisioning for a siege. Antoine, _mon enfant_, we know theeto be a fellow of incontestible veracity, and thy list is magnificent;but we will be content with a _vol-au-vent_ of fish, a _bifteck auxpommes frites_, an _omelette sucree_, and a bottle of thy 1840 Bordeauxwith the yellow seal. Now vanish!"
The waiter, wearing an expression of intense relief, vanishedaccordingly.
Meanwhile more students had come in, and more kept coming. Hats and capscropped up rapidly wherever there were pegs to hang them on, and thetalking became fast and furious.
I soon found that everybody knew everybody at the Cafe Procope, and thatthe specialty of the establishment was dominoes--just as the specialtyof the Cafe de la Regence is chess. There were games going on beforelong at almost every table, and groups of lookers-on gathered aboutthose who enjoyed the reputation of being skilful players.
Gradually breakfast after breakfast emerged from some mysterious netherworld known only to the waiters, and the war of dominoes languished.
"These are all students, of course," I said presently, "and yet, thoughI meet a couple of hundred fellows at our hospital lectures, I don't seea face I know."
"You would find some by this time, I dare say, in the other room,"replied Mueller. "I brought you in here that you might sit at Voltaire'stable, and eat your steak under the shadow of Voltaire's bust; but thissalon is chiefly frequented by law-students--the other by medical andart students. Your place, _mon cher_, as well as mine, is in the outersanctuary."
"That infernal Martial!" groaned one of the domino-players at the otherend of the table. "So ends the seventh game, and here we are still._Parbleu!_ Horace, hasn't that absinthe given you an inconvenient amountof appetite?"
"Alas! my friend--don't mention it. And when the absinthe is paid for, Ihaven't a sou."
"My own case precisely. What's to be done?"
"Done!" echoed Horace, pathetically. "Shade of Apicius! inspireme...but, no--he's not listening."
"Hold! I have it. We'll make our wills in one another's favor, and die."
"I should prefer to die when the wind is due East, and the moon at thefull," said Horace, contemplatively.
"True--besides, there is still _la mere_ Gaudissart. Her cutlets aretough, but her heart is tender. She would not surely refuse to add onemore breakfast to the score!"
Horace shook his head with an air of great despondency.
"There was but one Job," said he, "and he has been dead some time. Thepatience of _la mere_ Gaudissart has long since been entirelyexhausted."
"I am not so sure of that. One might appeal to her feelings, youknow--have a presentiment of early death--wipe away a tear... Bah! it isworth the effort, anyhow."
"It is a forlorn hope, my dear fellow, but, as you say, it is worth theeffort. _Allons donc!_ to the storming of _la mere_ Gaudissart!"
And with this they pushed aside the dominoes, took down their hats,nodded to Mueller, and went out.
"There go two of the brightest fellows and most improvident scamps inthe whole Quartier," said my companion. "They are both studying for thebar; both under age; both younger sons of good families; and bothdestined, if I am not much mistaken, to rise to eminence by-and-by.Horace writes for _Figaro_ and the _Petit Journal pour Rire_--Theophiledoes _feuilleton_ work--romances, chit-chat, and politicalsquibs--rubbish, of course; but clever rubbish, and wonderful when oneconsiders what boys they both are, and what dissipated lives they lead.The amount of impecuniosity those fellows get through in the course of aterm is something inconceivable. They have often only one decent suitbetween them--and sometimes not that. To-day, you see, they are at theirwits' end for a breakfast. They have run their credit dry at Procope andeverywhere else, and are gone now to a miserable little den in the Ruedu Paon, kept by a fat good-natured old soul called _la mere_Gaudissart. She will perhaps take compassion on their youth andinexperience, and let them have six sous worth of horsebeef soup, stalebread, and the day before yesterday's vegetables. Nay, don't look sopitiful! We poor devils of the Student Quartier hug our Bohemian life,and exalt it above every other. When we have money, we cannot findwindow
s enough out of which to fling it--when we have none, we startupon _la chasse au diner_, and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. Werevel in the extremes of fasting and feasting, and scarcely know whichwe prefer."
"I think your friends Horace and Theophile are tolerably clear as towhich _they_ prefer," I remarked, with a smile.
"Bah! they would die of _ennui_ if they had always enough to eat! Thinkhow it sharpens a man's wits if--given the time, the place, and theappetite--he has every day to find the credit for his dinners! Show me amathematical problem to compare with it as a popular educator of youth!"
"But for young men of genius, like Horace and Theophile..."
"Make yourself quite easy, _mon cher_. A little privation will do themno kind of harm. They belong to that class of whom it has been said that'they would borrow money from Harpagon, and find truffles on the raft ofthe Medusa.' But hold! we are at the end of our breakfast. What say you?Shall we take our _demi-tasse_ in the next room, among ourfellow-students of physic and the fine arts?"