In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards

  CHAPTER XXX.

  A MAN WITH A HISTORY.

  The society of the outer salon differed essentially from the society ofthe inner salon at the Cafe Procope. It was noisier--it wasshabbier--it was smokier. The conversation in the inner salon was of ageneral character on the whole, and, as one caught sentences of it hereand there, seemed for the most part to relate to the literature and newsof the day--to the last important paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, tothe new drama at the Odeon, or to the article on foreign politics in the_Journal des Debats_. But in the outer salon the talk was to the lastdegree shoppy, and overflowed with the argot of the studios. Some fewmedical students were clustered, it is true, in a corner near the door;but they were so outnumbered by the artists at the upper end of theroom, that these latter seemed to hold complete possession, and behavedmore like the members of a recognised club than the casual customers ofa cafe. They talked from table to table. They called the waiters bytheir Christian names. They swaggered up and down the middle of the roomwith their hats on their heads, their hands in their pockets, and theirpipes in their mouths, as coolly as if it were the broad walk of theLuxembourg gardens.

  And the appearance of these gentlemen was not less remarkable than theirdeportment. Their hair, their beards, their clothes, were of the wildestdevising. They seemed one and all to have started from a central idea,that central idea being to look as unlike their fellow-men as possible;and thence to have diverged into a variety that was nothing short ofinfinite. Each man had evidently modelled himself upon his own ideal,and no two ideals were alike. Some were picturesque, some weregrotesque; and some, it must be admitted, were rather dirty ideals, intothe realization of which no such paltry considerations as those of soap,water, or brushes were permitted to enter.

  Here, for instance, were Roundhead crops and flowing locks of Cavalierredundancy--steeple-crowned hats, and Roman cloaks drapedbandit-fashion--moustachios frizzed and brushed up the wrong way in thestyle of Louis XIV.--pointed beards and slouched hats, after the mannerof Vandyke---patriarchal beards _a la Barbarossa_--open collars, smoothchins, and long undulating locks of the Raffaelle type--coats, blouses,paletots of inconceivable cut, and all kinds of unusual colors--in aword, every eccentricity of clothing, short of fancy costume, in whichit was practicable for men of the nineteenth century to walk abroad andmeet the light of day.

  We had no sooner entered this salon, taken possession of a vacant table,and called for coffee, than my companion was beset by a storm ofgreetings.

  "Hola! Mueller, where hast thou been hiding these last few centuries,_mon gaillard?_"

  "_Tiens!_ Mueller risen from the dead!"

  "What news from _la bas,_ old fellow?"

  To all which ingenious pleasantries my companion replied inkind--introducing me at the same time to two or three of the nearestspeakers. One of these, a dark young man got up in the style of aByzantine Christ, with straight hair parted down the middle, abifurcated beard, and a bare throat, was called Eugene Droz.Another--big, burly, warm-complexioned, with bright open blue eyes,curling reddish beard and moustache, slouched hat, black velvet blouse,immaculate linen, and an abundance of rings, chains, and ornaments--wasmade up in excellent imitation of the well-known portrait of Rubens.This gentleman's name, as I presently learned, was Caesar de Lepany.

  When we came in, these two young men, Droz and De Lepany, werediscussing, in enthusiastic but somewhat unintelligible language, themerits of a certain Monsieur Lemonnier, of whom, although till thatmoment ignorant of his name and fame, I at once perceived that he mustbe some celebrated _chef de cuisine_.

  "He will never surpass that last thing of his," said the Byzantineyouth. "Heavens! How smooth it is! How buttery! How pulpy!"

  "Ay--and yet with all that lusciousness of quality, he never wantspiquancy," added De Lepany.

  "I think his greens are apt to be a little raw," interposed Mueller,taking part in the conversation.

  "Raw!" echoed the first speaker, indignantly. "_Eh, mon Dieu!_ What canyou be thinking of! They are almost too hot!"

  "But they were not so always, Eugene," said he of the Rubens make-up,with an air of reluctant candor. "It must be admitted that Lemonnier'sgreens used formerly to be a trifle--just a trifle--raw. EvidentlyMonsieur Mueller does not know how much he has taken to warming them upof late. Even now, perhaps, his olives are a little cold."

  "But then, how juicy his oranges are!" exclaimed young Byzantine.

  "True--and when you remember that he never washes--!"

  "Ah, _sacredie!_ yes--there is the marvel!"

  And Monsieur Eugene Droz held up his hands and eyes with all thereverent admiration of a true believer for a particularly dirty dervish.

  "Who, in Heaven's name, is this unclean individual who used to like hisvegetables underdone, and never washes?" whispered I in Mueller's ear.

  "What--Lemonnier! You don't mean to say you never heard of Lemonnier?"

  "Never, till now. Is he a cook?"

  Mueller gave me a dig in the ribs that took my breath away.

  "_Goguenard!_" said he. "Lemonnier's an artist--the foremost man of thewater-color school. But I wouldn't be too funny if I were you. Supposeyou were to burst your jocular vein--there'd be a catastrophe!"

  Meanwhile the conversation of Messieurs Droz and Lepany had taken afresh turn, and attracted a little circle of listeners, among whom Iobserved an eccentric-looking young man with a club-foot, an enormouslylong neck, and a head of short, stiff, dusty hair, like the bristles ofa blacking-brush.

  "Queroulet!" said Lepany, with a contemptuous flourish of his pipe. "Whospoke of Queroulet? Bah!--a miserable plodder, destitute of ideality--afellow who paints only what he sees, and sees only what iscommonplace--a dull, narrow-souled, unimaginative handicraftsman, towhom a tree is just a tree; and a man, a man; and a straw, a straw, andnothing more!"

  "That's a very low-souled view to take of art, no doubt," croaked in agrating treble voice the youth with the club-foot; "but if trees and menand straws are not exactly trees and men and straws, and are not to berepresented as trees and men and straws, may I inquire what else theyare, and how they are to be pictorially treated?"

  "They must be ideally treated, Monsieur Valentin," replied Lepany,majestically.

  "No doubt; but what will they be like when they are ideally treated?Will they still, to the vulgar eye, be recognisable for trees and menand straws?"

  "I should scarcely have supposed that Monsieur Valentin would jest uponsuch a subject as a canon of the art he professes," said Lepany,becoming more and more dignified.

  "I am not jesting," croaked Monsieur Valentin; "but when I hear men ofyour school talk so much about the Ideal, I (as a realist) always wantto know what they themselves understand by the phrase."

  "Are you asking me for my definition of the Ideal, Monsieur Valentin?"

  "Well, if it's not giving you too much trouble--yes."

  Lepany, who evidently relished every chance of showing off, fell into apicturesque attitude and prepared to hold forth. Valentin winked at oneor two of his own clique, and lit a cigar.

  "You ask me," began Lepany, "to define the Ideal--in other words, todefine the indefinite, which alas! whether from a metaphysical, aphilosophical, or an aesthetic point of view, is a task transcendingimmeasurably my circumscribed powers of expression."

  "Gracious heavens!" whispered Mueller in my ear. "He must have beenreared from infancy on words of five syllables!"

  "What shall I say?" pursued Lepany. "Shall I say that the Ideal is, asit were, the Real distilled and sublimated in the alembic of theimagination? Shall I say that the Ideal is an image projected by thesoul of genius upon the background of the universe? That it is thatdazzling, that unimaginable, that incommunicable goal towards which thesuns in their orbits, the stars in their courses, the spheres with alltheir harmonies, have been chaotically tending since time began! Ideal,say you? Call it ideal, soul, mind, matter, art, eternity,... what arethey all but words? What are words but the weak strivin
gs of thefettered soul that fain would soar to those empyrean heights whereTruth, and Art, and Beauty are one and indivisible? Shall I sayall this..."

  "My dear fellow, you have said it already--you needn't say it again,"interrupted Valentin.

  "Ay; but having said it--having expressed myself, perchance with someobscurity...."

  "With the obscurity of Erebus!" said, very deliberately, a fat studentin a blouse.

  "Monsieur!" exclaimed De Lepany, measuring the length and breadth ofthe fat student with a glance of withering scorn.

  The Byzantine was no less indignant.

  "Don't heed them, _mon ami_!" he cried, enthusiastically. "Thydefinition is sublime-eloquent!"

  "Nay," said Valentin, "we concede that Monsieur de Lepany is sublime; werecognise with admiration that he is eloquent; but we submit that he iswholly unintelligible."

  And having delivered this parting shot, the club-footed realist slippedhis arm through the arm of the fat student, and went off to a distanttable and a game at dominoes.

  Then followed an outburst of offended idealism. His own clique crowdedround Lepany as the champion of their school. They shook hands with him.They embraced him. They fooled him to the top of his bent. Presently,being not only as good-natured as he was conceited, but (rare phenomenonin the Quartier Latin!) a rich fellow into the bargain, De Lepany calledfor champagne and treated his admirers all around.

  In the midst of the chatter and bustle which this incident occasioned, apale, earnest-looking man of about five-and-thirty, coming past ourtable on his way out of the Cafe, touched Mueller on the arm, bent down,and said quietly:--

  "Mueller, will you do me a favor!"

  "A hundred, Monsieur," replied my companion; half rising, and with anair of unusual respect and alacrity.

  "Thanks, one will be enough. Do you see that man yonder, sitting alonein the corner, with his back to the light?"

  "I do."

  "Good--don't look at him again, for fear of attracting his attention. Ihave been trying for the last half hour to get a sketch of his head, butI think he suspected me. Anyhow he moved so often, and so hid his facewith his hands and the newspaper, that I was completely baffled. Now itis a remarkable head--just the head I have been wanting for my MarshalRomero--and if, with your rapid pencil and your skill in seizingexpression, you could manage this for me...."

  "I will do my best," said Mueller.

  "A thousand thanks. I will go now; for when I am gone he will be off hisguard. You will find me in the den up to three o'clock. Adieu."

  Saying which, the stranger passed on, and went out.

  "That's Flandrin!" said Mueller.

  "Really?" I said. "Flandrin! And you know him?"

  But in truth I only answered thus to cover my own ignorance; for I knewlittle at that time of modern French art, and I had never even heard thename of Flandrin before.

  "Know him!" echoed Mueller. "I should think so. Why, I worked in hisstudio for nearly two years."

  And then he explained to me that this great painter (great even then,though as yet appreciated only in certain choice Parisian circles, andnot known out of France) was at work upon a grand historical subjectconnected with the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands--theexecution of Egmont and Horn, in short, in the great square before theHotel de Ville in Brussels.

  "But the main point now," said Mueller, "is to get the sketch--and how?Confound the fellow! while he keeps his back to the light and his headdown like that, the thing is impossible. Anyhow I can't do it without anaccomplice. You must help me."

  "I! What can I do?"

  "Go and sit near him--speak to him--make him look up--keep him, ifpossible, for a few minutes in conversation--nothing easier."

  "Nothing easier, perhaps, if I were you; but, being only myself, fewthings more difficult!"

  "Nevertheless, my dear boy, you must try, and at once. Hey--presto!--away!"

  Placed where we were, the stranger was not likely to have observed us;for we had come into the room from behind the corner in which he wassitting, and had taken our places at a table which he could not haveseen without shifting his own position. So, thus peremptorilycommanded, I rose; slipped quietly back into the inner salon, made apretext of looking at the clock over the door; and came out again, as ifalone and looking for a vacant seat.

  The table at which he had placed himself was very small--only just bigenough to stand in a corner and hold a plate and a coffee-cup; but itwas supposed to be large enough for two, and there were evidently twochairs belonging to it. On one of these, being alone, the stranger hadplaced his overcoat and a small black bag. I at once saw and seized myopportunity.

  "Pardon, Monsieur," I said, very civilly, "will you permit me to hangthese things up?"

  He looked up, frowned, and said abruptly:--

  "Why, Monsieur?"

  "That I may occupy this chair."

  He glanced round; saw that there was really no other vacant; swept offthe bag and coat with his own hands; hung them on a peg overhead;dropped back into his former attitude, and went on reading.

  "I regret to have given you the trouble, Monsieur," I said, hoping topave the way to a conversation.

  But a little quick, impatient movement of the hand was his only reply.He did not even raise his head. He did not even lift his eyes fromthe paper.

  I called for a demi-tasse and a cigar; then took out a note-book andpencil, assumed an air of profound abstraction, and affected to becomeabsorbed in calculations.

  In the meanwhile, I could not resist furtively observing the appearanceof this man whom a great artist had selected as his model for one of thedarkest characters of mediaeval history.

  He was rather below than above the middle height; spare and sinewy;square in the shoulders and deep in the chest; with close-clipped hairand beard; grizzled moustache; high cheek-bones; stern impassivefeatures, sharply cut; and deep-set restless eyes, quick and glancing asthe eyes of a monkey. His face, throat, and hands were sunburnt to adeep copper-color, as if cast in bronze. His age might have been fromforty-five to fifty. He wore a thread-bare frock-coat buttoned to thechin; a stiff black stock revealing no glimpse of shirt-collar; awell-worn hat pulled low over his eyes; and trousers of dark blue cloth,worn very white and shiny at the knees, and strapped tightly down over apair of much-mended boots.

  The more I looked at him, the less I was surprised that Flandrin shouldhave been struck by his appearance. There was an air of stern povertyand iron resolution about the man that arrested one's attention at firstsight. The words "_ancien militaire"_ were written in every furrow ofhis face; in every seam and on every button of his shabby clothing. Thathe had seen service, missed promotion, suffered unmerited neglect (or,it might be, merited disgrace), seemed also not unlikely.

  Watching him as he sat, half turned away, half hidden by the newspaperhe was reading, one elbow resting on the table, one brown, sinewy handsupporting his chin and partly concealing his mouth, I told myself thathere, at all events, was a man with a history--perhaps with a very darkhistory. What were the secrets of his past? What had he done? What hadhe endured? I would give much to know.

  My coffee and cigar being brought, I asked for the _Figaro_, and holdingthe paper somewhat between the stranger and myself, watched him withincreasing interest.

  I now began to suspect that he was less interested in his own newspaperthan he appeared to be, and that his profound abstraction, like my own,was assumed. An indefinable something in the turn of his head seemed totell me that his attention was divided between whatever might be goingforward in the room and what he was reading. I cannot describe what thatsomething was; but it gave me the impression that he was alwayslistening. When the outer door opened or shut, he stirred uneasily, andonce or twice looked sharply round to see what new-comer entered thecafe. Was he anxiously expecting some one who did not come? Or was hedreading the appearance of some one whom he wished to avoid? Might henot be a political refugee? Might he not be a spy?

  "There is nothing
of interest in the papers to-day, Monsieur," said,making another effort to force him into conversation.

  He affected not to hear me.

  I drew my chair a little nearer, and repeated the observation.

  He frowned impatiently, and without looking up, replied:--

  "_Eh, mon Dieu_, Monsieur!--when there is a dearth of news!"

  "There need not, even so, be a dearth of wit. _Figaro_ is as heavyto-day as a government leader in the _Moniteur_."

  He shrugged his shoulders and moved slightly round, apparently to get abetter light upon what he was reading, but in reality to turn still moreaway from me. The gesture of avoidance was so marked, that with the bestwill in the world, it would have been impossible for me to address himagain. I therefore relapsed into silence.

  Presently I saw a sudden change flash over him.

  Now, in turning away from myself, he had faced round towards a narrowlooking-glass panel which reflected part of the opposite side of theroom; and chancing, I suppose, to lift his eyes from the paper, he hadseen something that arrested his attention. His head was still bent; butI could see that his eyes were riveted upon the mirror. There wasalertness in the tightening of his hand before his mouth--in thesuspension of his breathing.

  Then he rose abruptly, brushed past me as if I were not there, andcrossed to where Mueller, sketch-book in hand, was in the very act oftaking his portrait.

  I jumped up, almost involuntarily, and followed him. Mueller, with anunsuccessful effort to conceal his confusion, thrust the book intohis pocket.

  "Monsieur," said the stranger, in a low, resolute voice, "I protestagainst what you have been doing. You have no right to take my likenesswithout my permission."

  "Pardon, Monsieur, I--I beg to assure you--" stammered Mueller.

  "That you intended no offence? I am willing to suppose so. Give me upthe sketch, and I am content."

  "Give up the sketch!" echoed Mueller.

  "Precisely, Monsieur."

  "Nay--but if, as an artist, I have observed that which leads me todesire a--a memorandum--let us say of the pose and contour of a certainhead," replied Mueller, recovering his self-possession, "it is not likelythat I shall be disposed to part from my memorandum."

  "How, Monsieur! you refuse?"

  "I am infinitely sorry, but--"

  "But you refuse?"

  "I certainly cannot comply with Monsieur's request."

  The stranger, for all his bronzing, grew pale with rage.

  "Do not compel me, Monsieur, to say what I must think of your conduct,if you persist in this determination," he said fiercely.

  Mueller smiled, but made no reply.

  "You absolutely refuse to yield up the sketch?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Then, Monsieur, _c'est une infamie_--_et vous etes un lache_!"

  But the last word had scarcely hissed past his lips before Mueller dashedhis coffee dregs full in the stranger's face.

  In one second, the table was upset--blows were exchanged--Mueller, pinnedagainst the wall with his adversary's hands upon his throat, wasstriking out with the desperation of a man whose strength isovermatched--and the whole room was in a tumult.

  In vain I attempted to fling myself between them. In vain the waitersrushed to and fro, imploring "ces Messieurs" to interpose. In vain astout man pushed his way through the bystanders, exclaiming angrily:--

  "Desist, Messieurs! Desist, in the name of the law! I am the proprietorof this establishment--I forbid this brawling--I will have you botharrested! Messieurs, do you hear?"

  Suddenly the flush of rage faded out of Mueller's face. He gasped--becamelivid. Lepany, Droz, myself, and one or two others, flew at the strangerand dragged him forcibly back.

  "Assassin!" I cried, "would you murder him?"

  He flung us off, as a baited bull flings off a pack of curs. For myself,though I received only a backhanded blow on the chest, I staggered as ifI had been struck with a sledgehammer.

  Mueller, half-fainting, dropped into a chair.

  There was a tramp and clatter at the door--a swaying and parting of thecrowd.

  "Here are the sergents de ville!" cried a trembling waiter.

  "He attacked me first," gasped Mueller. "He has half strangled me."

  "_Qu'est ce que ca me fait_!" shouted the enraged proprietor. "You are acouple of _canaille_! You have made a scandal in my Cafe. Sergents,arrest both these gentlemen!"

  The police--there were two of them, with their big cocked hats on theirheads and their long sabres by their sides--pushed through the circle ofspectators. The first laid his hand on Mueller's shoulder; the second wasabout to lay his hand on mine, but I drew back.

  "Which is the other?" said he, looking round.

  "_Sacredie_!" stammered the proprietor, "he was here--there--not amoment ago!"

  "_Diable_!" said the sergent de ville, stroking his moustache, andstaring fiercely about him. "Did no one see him go?"

  There was a chorus of exclamations--a rush to the inner salon--to thedoor--to the street. But the stranger was nowhere in sight; and, whichwas still more incomprehensible, no one had seen him go!

  "_Mais, mon Dieu_!" exclaimed the proprietor, mopping his head and faceviolently with his pocket-handkerchief, "was the man a ghost, that heshould vanish into the air?"

  "_Parbleu_! a ghost with muscles of iron," said Mueller. "Talk of thestrength of a madman--he has the strength of a whole lunatic asylum!"

  "He gave me a most confounded blow in the ribs, anyhow!" said Lepany.

  "And nearly broke my arm," added Eugene Droz.

  "And has given me a pain in my chest for a week," said I, in chorus.

  "If he wasn't a ghost," observed the fat student sententiously, "he mustcertainly be the devil."

  The sergents de ville grinned.

  "Do we, then, arrest this gentleman?" asked the taller and bigger of thetwo, his hand still upon my friend's shoulder.

  But Mueller laughed and shook his head.

  "What!" said he, "arrest a man for resisting the devil? Nonsense, _mesamis_, you ought to canonize me. What says Monsieur le proprietaire?"

  Monsieur the proprietor smiled.

  "I am willing to let the matter drop," he replied, "on the understandingthat Monsieur Mueller was not really the first offender."

  "_Foi d'honneur_! He insulted me--I threw some coffee in his face--heflung himself upon me like a tiger, and almost choked me, as all herewitnessed. And for what? Because I did him the honor to make a roughpencilling of his ugly face ... _Mille tonnerres_!--the fellow hasstolen my sketch-book!"