The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (25 page)

She is so beautiful, so strangely beautiful ! To tell the truth, I should have fears for my heart if it were not already engaged. Fortunately, the black eyes are here to protect me. Dear black eyes ! I shall go to spend this evening with them, and we shall talk about you all the time, Mother Jacques.

As Little What's-His-Name was finishing his letter, there was a soft knock at the door. It was the White-Cuckoo, sent by the lady of the first floor, with an invitation for him to come to her box to hear the goose at the Theatre-Frangais. He would have accepted gladly, but he reflected that he had no coat, and was obliged to say no.

This put him in a very bad humor. "Jacques ought to have got a coat for me," thought he. " It is indispensable. When the criticisms appear, I shall have to go and see the reviewers, and what shall I do without a coat?" In the evening, he went to the Passage du Saumon, but the visit did not cheer him. Pierrotte laughed loud, and Mdlle. Pierrotte was too much of a brunette. It was in vain that the black eyes signalled to him, and said softly: "Love me," in the mystical language of the stars; the ingrate would not listen. After dinner, when the Lalouettes arrived, he ensconced himself, sad and sulky, in a corner, and all through the airs that accompanied the musical tableau, he imagined Irma Borel enthroned in an uncovered box, her snowy arm flirting her fan, and the golden mist sparkling under the lights of the house. " How ashamed I should be if she saw me here," thought he.

Several days passed without a new incident. Irma Borel gave no sign of life, and relations seemed to be interrupted between the first and the fifth floors. Every night. Little What 's-His-Name, seated at his table, heard the lady's victoria come home, and, involuntarily, the dull rumble of the carriage made him thrill. He could not even hear without emotion the negress coming upstairs to her room ; if he had dared, he would have gone to ask her news of her mistress. In spite of all, however, the black eyes still remained in possession of the field, and Little What's-His-Name spent long hours in their company. The rest of

the time, he shut himself up to hunt for rhymes, to the great amazement of the sparrows, who came from all the roofs round about to see him; for the sparrows of the Latin Quarter are like the very deserving person, and have odd ideas of students' attics. To make amends, the bells of Saint-Germain— those poor bells consecrated to God, and cloistered all their lives, like Carmelites — rejoiced to see their friend, Little What 's-His-Name, seated eternally in front of his table, and, to encourage him, made noble music.

In the meanwhile, news came from Jacques. He was established at Nice, and gave many details of his surroundings there.

What a beautiful place, Daniel, and how the sea under my windows would inspire you ! I cannot enjoy it, for I never go out. The Marquis dictates all day ; what an extraordinary man he is ! Sometimes, in the in-tei-val between two phrases, I lift my head and see a little red sail on the horizon, and then I have to bend over my paper again immediately. Mdlle. d'Hacqueville is still very ill; I can hear her in the room above us coughing and coughing. I myself, directly after my arrival, caught a bad cold that I cannot get rid of.

A little farther on, speaking of the lady of the first floor, Jacques said :

If you believe me, you will not go again to that woman's. She is too complex for you; and even — must I say so?—I detect the adventuress in her. Do you know I saw yesterday in the port a Dutch brig that had just made a voyage round the world, and had

come back with masts from Japan, spars from Chili, and a crew as variegated as a map of the globe. Well, my dear boy, your Irma Borel seems to me like this ship. It is good for a brig to have travelled a great deal, but it is a different thing for a woman. In general, those women who have been to so many countries show the effects of what they have seen. Don't trust her, Daniel, don't trust her, and above all, I implore you, don't make the black eyes cry.

These last vi^ords went straight to Little What's-His-Name's heart. He thought that Jacques' persistence in watching over the happiness of the girl who would not love him, was very beautiful.

" Oh, no ! Jacques, don't be afraid, I won't make her cry," said he, and he immediately formed the firm resolution not to return to the lady of the first floor. You may rely on Little What 's-His-Name for firm resolutions.

When the victoria rolled in under the entrance that evening, he scarcely paid attention to it, and the song of the negress no longer distracted him. It was a September night, stormy and oppressive. All at once, he thought he heard a noise on the wooden staircase that led up to his room. He soon distinguished the sound of light footsteps and the rustle of a gown. Some one was coming up, that was sure, but who was it?

The White-Cuckoo had long gone to her room. Perhaps the lady of the first floor was coming to speak to the negress.

At the thought of this, Little What's-His-Name felt his heart beat violently, but he had the

strength of mind to stay at his table. The steps continued to approach, reached the landing and then stopped. There was silence for a moment, and then a gentle tap on the door of the negress, who made no answer.

" It is she," thought he, without stirring from his place.

Suddenly, a perfumed light spread through the room.

The door creaked, and some one came in.

Then, without turning his head, Little What's-)4is-Name asked trembling:

" Who is there ? "

CHAPTER XL

THE SUGAR HEART.

It is two months since Jacques went away, and there is, as yet, no expectation of his return. Mdlle. d'Hacqueville is dead. The Marquis, escorted by his secretary, is parading his mourning through Italy, without interrupting for a single day the terrible dictation of his memoirs. Jacques, overworked, hardly finds time to write to his brother a few lines, dated from Rome, Naples, Pisa and Palermo, But, though the postmark of his letters often changes, their text does not change. " Are you working? How are the black eyes? Has Gustave Planche's review appeared? Have you gone back to Irma Borel? " To these questions that are always the same Little What's-His-Name invariably answers that he is working hard, that the sale of the book is going on well, and the black eyes, too; that he has not seen Irma Borel, nor heard of Gustave Planche.

How much truth is there in all this? A later letter, written by Little What's-His-Name on a night of madness and tempest, will tell us.

Monsieur Jacques Eyssette. Pisa.

10 o'clock on Sunday evening.

Jacques, I lied to you. For two months I have done

nothing but lie to you. I write you I am working, and

for two months the ink in my inkstand has been dry. I write you that the sale of my book is going on well, and for two months not one copy has been sold. I write you that I do not see Irma Borel, and for two months I have not left her. As for the black eyes, alas! O Jacques, Jacques ! why did n't I listen to you ? Why did I go back to that woman ?

You were right, she is an adventuress, nothing more. At first I thought she was intelligent, but it is not true ; all she says, she has got from some one else. She has no brain and no heart. She is false, cynical, and wicked. In her fits of anger, I have seen her beat the negress unmercifully with a whip, throw her on the ground and stamp upon her. Moreover, she is a strong-minded woman who beheves neither in God nor in the devil, and yet accepts bUndly the predictions of clairvoyants and coffee-grounds. As to her talent for acting, it is useless for her to take lessons of a hunchbacked dwarf, and spend her days at home with elastic balls in her mouth ; I am sure no theatre will have her. In private life, however, she is a fine actress.

How I fell into the clutches of this creature, I who love so well all that is simple and good, I really do not know, dear Jacques : but 1 can swear that I have got away from her, and that now everything is over between us. If you could know how base I was, and what she did with me ! I told her my whole story \ I spoke of you, our mother, and the black eyes. I tell you it is enough to make me die of shame. I gave her all my heart. I confided all my life to her, but she would never confide the least part of hers to me. I do not know who she is, nor from where she comes. One day, when I asked her whether she had been married, she laughed.

You remember the little scar she has on her lip; it

comes from a stab with a knife that she received off there in her country, Cuba. I wanted to know who had done it, and she answered merely: " A Spaniard named Pacheco," and not a word more. That's idiotic, isn't it? Do I know Pacheco? Ought not she to give me some explanation ? A stab with a knife, the devil take it! It's not in the natural course of things. But there — the artists that surround her have given her the name of being strange, and she likes to keep her reputation. Oh, those artists! dear Jacques, I abhor them. If you could know how those people, by dint of living with statues and pictures, come to believe there is nothing else in the world. They always talk to you of form, line, color, and Greek art; of the Parthenon, of the flat and the curved. They examine your nose, your arm, your chin, and look to see if you have type, contour, character ; but for what beats in our breasts, for our passions, tears, and anguish, they care as much as for a dead dog. These good people thought that there was character in my head, but none at all in my poetry. I tell you, they gave me cheering encouragement!

At the beginning of our connection, this woman thought she had caught a little prodigy, a great poet in a garret; how she bored me with that garret of hers! Later, when her circle proved to her that I was but a fool, she kept me for the character of my head. I must explain that this character differed with different people. One of her painters, considering me of the Italian type, made me pose as a piper; another, as an Algerian violet-vendor; another, — how can I remember ? For the most part, I posed at her house, and, to please her, I was obliged to keep on my frippery all day, and figure in her drawing-room, beside the cockatoo. We have passed many hours thus. I, dressed as a Turk, smoking long pipes on one

corner of her sofa, and she, at the other end declaiming with elastic balls in her mouth, stopping from time to time to say: "What a characteristic head you have, dear Dani-dan ! " When I was a Turk, she called me Dani-dan ; and when I was an Italian, Danielo; never Daniel. Besides, I shall have the honour of figuring in these two characters at the next painting exhibition. I shall be down on the catalogue as : " Young Piper of Mme. Irma Borel," or, "Young Fellah of Mme. Irma Borel." And it will be a picture of me; how shameful!

I must stop for a minute, Jacques. I am going to open the window and breathe in the night air for a little. I am suifocating — I can see no longer.

Eleven o'oclock.

The air has done me good. If I leave the window open, I can go on with my letter. It is dark and rainy, and the bells are tolling. How sad this room is ! Dear little room ! I used to love it so much once, and now I am weary of it. It is she who has spoiled me ; she has been here too often. You understand how she had me in her hands, here in the same house with her; it was very convenient for her. Oh, it was no longer the abode of work !

Whether I was at home or not, she came in at any hour, and pried about. One evening, I found her fumbling in a drawer where I keep all that I have most precious in the world, our mother's letters, yours, and those of the black eyes ; these last in a box which you must recall. Just as I entered, Irma Borel held this box, and was about to open it. I had scarcely time to rush and tear it from her hands.

" What are you doing? " I cried indignantly.

She put on her most tragic air. 18

" I have respected your mother's letters, but these belong to me, and I want them. Give me back the box."

" What do you want to do with it ? "

" To read the letters it contains."

" Never," said I. " I know nothing of your Hfe, and you know everything of mine ! "

" Oh ! Dani — Dan !" — I had been a Turk that day. — " Oh ! Dani — Dan, is it possible that you reproach me with that ? Is n't my apartment always open to you ? Don't you know all the people who come to see me ? "

As she said this in her most beguiling tones, she was trying to get the box away from me.

" Very well," said I, " since it is so, I allow you to open it; but on one condition."

"What is that?"

" That you tell me where you go every morning from eight to ten o'clock."

She turned pale, and looked me straight in the eyes. I had never spoken of this to her, though it was not for lack of the desire to do so. This mysterious daily expedition puzzled and disturbed me, like the scar, like Pacheco, and all the course of her strange existence. I should have liked to know, but, at the same time, I was afraid to learn. I felt that beneath it lay some infamous mystery that would oblige me to fly. On that day, however, I dared question her, as you see. It surprised her very much. She hesitated a moment, and then said with effort, in a muffled voice :

" Give me the box, and you shall know all."

Then I gave her the box; Jacques, it was base of me, was n't it? She opened it, with a quiver of pleasure, and began to read all the letters -— there were some twenty of them — slowly, and half aloud, without skipping a line.

This fresh pure love-story seemed to interest her greatly. I had already told it to her, but in my own way, giving out the black eyes as a young girl of very noble family, whom her parents refused to marry to the little plebeian Daniel Eyssette; in this you may recognize my absurd vanity.

From time to time she paused in her reading to say: "There, that's nice," or again: "What do you think of this for a girl of noble family? " Then, as she read the letters, she put them one by one into the flame of the candle, and watched them burn, with a malicious laugh. I let her do it, for I wanted to find out where she went every morning from eight to ten.

Now, among these letters, there happened to be one written on the paper belonging to Pierrotte's shop, business paper with three little green plates at the top, and underneath: China and Glass. Pierrette, successor to Lalouette. Poor black eyes, evidently one day in the shop, th.ey had felt the need of writing me, and had been content to use the paper nearest at hand. You may imagine what a discovery it was for the actress ! Until then, she had believed in my story of a girl of noble family, and highborn parents ; but when she came to this letter, she understood everything and burst into loud laughter.