Moods and Memories, VI (Concluded)

Dana, 1904-10-01, pages 170-175, 2,391 words

The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two women, with ease, were kicking off men’s hats; while watching them I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in Marie’s honour, the news having got about that this was her last night at the Elysée. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The falling fire changed again and again.

Marie stood on a chair and watched till the last sparks vanished.

“Doesn’t she look like my picture now?” said Octave.

“You seemed to have divined her soul.”

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. ‘I’m not a psychologist, I am a painter.'' But he must get a word with her, and with a carelessness that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the bal together. I could not understand his indifference to her charm … I asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a little while they returned.

“l’ll do my best,” I heard her say, and she ran back to join her companions.

"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysée? … Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le Russe.”

We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia.

“I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to paint.”

“Do you think she’ll go to Russia?”

“Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of the art of painting, the art is forgotten. The old masters did perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days Rubens finished his grisaille, and the glazing was done with certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more depth of colour with a glaze than anyone can to-day, however much paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method, now there’s none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it doesn’t matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and Cézanne has — well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt.”

I listened to him a little wearily for I had heard all he was saying many times before, but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted.

“You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow, I hope he'll buy the portrait.”

"I hope he will,” I said. "I’d buy it myself if I could afford it.”

“I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the woman you’re after. Good night … but one minute. You’re coming to sit to me the day after to-morrow?”

“Yes.” I said. “I’ll come.”

“And then I’ll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture.”

Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian had bought the portrait.

“No, there it is,” and then he told me that Marie had gone to St, Petersburg with the prince, and this was the last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed without something happening to remind me of her. One day a book of travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts where he had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He disappeared and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, returned for her holiday to the Quartier Breda?

A few days afterwards I heard in Barrè’s studio that she had escaped from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine’s to dinner, hoping to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the Elysée Montmartre, The number I could inquire out, she said, and I went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing the café and then the brasserie and a little higher up the fruit seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. The first house happened to be the right one, and the concierge said, ‘the fourth floor.” I thought of La Glue, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and it was La Glue who opened the door. I was asked into an empty drawing-room, and we stood by the empty chimney piece.

“She’s talking of going to the Elysée to-night. Won't you come in? She’d like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know them, Clementine, Margaret Byron?” And she mentioned some other names that I did not remember, and opening a door, she cried, "Marie, here’s a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine’s. You know, dear, the Englishman, Octave Barrè’s friend,”

She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while.

"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Dès qu’on est malade —”

I don’t think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for cards.

“You didn’t play that night at Alphonsine’s when I lost all my money. You preferred to look at Victorine’s drawings. She has done some better ones. Go and look at them, and let’s finish our game. Then I'll talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine’s? They say I’m very ill, don’t they? But now that I’ve come back I’ll soon get well. I’m always well at Montmartre, amn’t I, Victorine?” “Nous ne sommes pas installées encore,” Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself — her soul; and Marie’s soul rose up like a water flower in her eyes, and then the soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, une grue, playing cards with five others from Alphonsine’s, losing her money and her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful empire table that her prince had given her, and Bigou, Clementine’s little dog, slept on an embroidered cushion. Bigou was one of those dear little Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard Clementine’s voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and La Glue told Clementine that she was not wanted, that "elle ferait bien de débarrasser les planches,” that was the expression she used. I heard further accusations, and amid them the plaintive voice of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught each other by the hair, and tore at each other’s faces, and Marie raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bigou jumped from her chair and followed her mistress.

"Help me to look,” Marie said, and looking I saw her faint hands seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a bracelet and some pearls as well as all her money. Marie back among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had been paid her by a fournisseur in the Quartier, who had given her two thousand francs for her garniture de cheminée. A few francs were found among the bed clothes, and these few francs, she said, were sufficient pour passer sa soirée, and she begged me to go to the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised for ten o’clock.

“I shall be at the Elysée by eleven. Au revoir, au revoir! Let me rest a little now, I shall see you to-night. You know where I always sit, in the left-hand corner, they always keep those seats for me.”

Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid the bed-clothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the Elysée! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes in the streets. And this decadence — was it her fault? Octave would say, “Qu’est que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ont moins fichue … si je pouvais réussir un peu dans ce sacre métier!” But there was something in Marie beyond Octave’s philosophy.

She was going to the Elysée to-night. It was just six o’clock, and she wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten to the dressmaker at once; it might be wiser not — she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the Elysée she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until three in the morning.

But I went to the dressmaker, and said the dress must be there at nine. At half-past ten I was at the Elysée waiting for her.

How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that Marie’s friends spent their evening in the left hand corner; but they did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money they were spending was stolen money.

I left the place discontented and wearied, glad in a way that Marie had not come. In the morning I dressed quickly; I had to; I was breakfasting with Octave, and sitting to him after breakfast.

We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, when we heard the news. She had been found dead on her balcony dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker.

I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. “Even Octave,” I said, "refrains, on ne blague pas a mort.”

"But what was she doing on the balcony?” he asked. “What I don’t understand is the balcony.”

We all stood looking at her picture trying to read the face.

"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about eleven.”

It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to explain the picture.

 GEORGE MOORE.

(To be continued.)