Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  And he made off again at his best pace for the Commissary’s. Elvira was still walking to and fro before the door.

  “He has not come?” asked Léon.

  “Not he,” she replied.

  “Good,” returned Léon. “I am sure our man’s inside. Let me see the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him up — and set him up.”

  He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, and fell into an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.

  “Now,” he continued, “feel your voice. Are you ready? Follow me!”

  The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Béranger’s: —

  “Commissaire! Commissaire!

  Colin bat sa ménagère.”

  The stones of Castel-le-Gâchis thrilled at this audacious innovation. Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and nightcaps; and now what was this? Window after window was opened; matches scratched, and candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy faces peered forth into the starlight. There were the two figures before the Commissary’s house, each bolt upright, with head thrown back and eyes interrogating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed, shouted, and reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices, with a crisp and spirited delivery, hurled the appropriate burden at the Commissary’s window. All the echoes repeated the functionary’s name. It was more like an entr’acte in a farce of Molière’s than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gâchis.

  The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw open the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage. He leaned far over the window-sill, raying and gesticulating; the tassel of his white night-cap danced like a thing of life: he opened his mouth to dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his voice, instead of escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and choked and tottering. A little more serenading, and it was clear he would be better acquainted with the apoplexy.

  I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious topics by the way for a quiet story-teller. Although he was known for a man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong expression at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night that one maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear the serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the second clause. Even what she had heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she said she scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.

  Léon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but threats of arrest by way of answer.

  “If I come down to you!” cried the Commissary.

  “Aye,” said Léon, “do!”

  “I will not!” cried the Commissary.

  “You dare not!” answered Léon.

  At that the Commissary closed his window.

  “All is over,” said the singer. “The serenade was perhaps ill-judged. These boors have no sense of humour.”

  “Let us get away from here,” said Elvira, with a shiver. “All these people looking — it is so rude and so brutal.” And then giving way once more to passion— “Brutes!” she cried aloud to the candle-lit spectators— “brutes! brutes! brutes!”

  “Sauve qui peut,” said Léon. “You have done it now!”

  And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led the way with something too precipitate to be merely called precipitation from the scene of this absurd adventure.

  CHAPTER IV

  To the west of Castel-le-Gâchis four rows of venerable lime-trees formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Léon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first bench in silence. Léon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end, looking up into the trees, and, beyond them, at the constellations, of which he tried vainly to recall the names. The silence was broken by the church bell; it rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling measure; then followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with a thrill; and stillness resumed its empire.

  “One,” said Léon. “Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it is starry; I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exaggerate, Elvira — the experience is positively charming. I feel a glow within me; I am born again. This is the poetry of life. Think of Cooper’s novels, my dear.”

  “Léon,” she said fiercely, “how can you talk such wicked, infamous nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors — it is like a nightmare! We shall die.”

  “You suffer yourself to be led away,” he replied soothingly. “It is not unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, let us repeat a scene. Shall we try Alceste and Célimène? No? Or a passage from the ‘Two Orphans’? Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will play up to you as I never have played before; I feel art moving in my bones.”

  “Hold your tongue,” she cried, “or you will drive me mad! Will nothing solemnise you — not even this hideous situation?”

  “Oh, hideous!” objected Léon. “Hideous is not the word. Why, where would you be? ‘Dites, la jeune belle, où voulez-vous aller?’” he carolled. “Well, now,” he went on, opening the guitar-case, “there’s another idea for you — sing. Sing ‘Dites, la jeune belle!’ It will compose your spirits, Elvira, I am sure.”

  And without waiting an answer he began to strum the symphony. The first chords awoke a young man who was lying asleep upon a neighbouring bench.

  “Hullo!” cried the young man, “who are you?”

  “Under which king, Bezonian?” declaimed the artist. “Speak or die!”

  Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much the same purpose from a French tragedy.

  The young man drew near in the twilight. He was a tall, powerful, gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, dressed in a grey tweed suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the same material; and as he now came forward he carried a knapsack slung upon one arm.

  “Are you camping out here too?” he asked, with a strong English accent. “I’m not sorry for company.”

  Léon explained their misadventure; and the other told them that he was a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking tour, that he had run short of money, could no longer pay for his night’s lodging, had already been camping out for two nights, and feared he should require to continue the same manœuvre for at least two nights more.

  “Luckily, it’s jolly weather,” he concluded.

  “You hear that, Elvira,” said Léon. “Madame Berthelini,” he went on, “is ridiculously affected by this trifling occurrence. For my part, I find it romantic and far from uncomfortable; or at least,” he added, shifting on the stone bench, “not quite so uncomfortable as might have been expected. But pray be seated.”

  “Yes,” returned the undergraduate, sitting down, “it’s rather nice than otherwise when once you’re used to it; only it’s devilish difficult to get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and things.”

  “Aha!” said Léon, “Monsieur is an artist.”

  “An artist?” returned the other, with a blank stare. “Not if I know it!”

  “Pardon me,” said the actor. “What you said this moment about the orbs of heaven—”

  “Oh, nonsense!” cried the Englishman. “A fellow may admire the stars and be anything he likes.”

  “You have an artist’s nature, however, Mr. — I beg your pardon; may I, without indiscretion, inquire your name?” asked Léon.

  “My name is Stubbs,” replied the Englishman.

  “I tha
nk you,” returned Léon. “Mine is Berthelini — Léon Berthelini, ex-artist of the theatres of Montrouge, Belleville, and Montmartre. Humble as you see me, I have created with applause more than one important rôle. The Press were unanimous in praise of my Howling Devil of the Mountains, in the piece of the same name. Madame, whom I now present to you, is herself an artist, and I must not omit to state, a better artist than her husband. She also is a creator; she created nearly twenty successful songs at one of the principal Parisian music-halls. But, to continue, I was saying you had an artist’s nature, Monsieur Stubbs, and you must permit me to be a judge in such a question. I trust you will not falsify your instincts; let me beseech you to follow the career of an artist.”

  “Thank you,” returned Stubbs, with a chuckle. “I’m going to be a banker.”

  “No,” said Léon, “do not say so. Not that. A man with such a nature as yours should not derogate so far. What are a few privations here and there, so long as you are working for a high and noble goal?”

  “This fellow’s mad,” thought Stubbs; “but the woman’s rather pretty, and he’s not bad fun himself, if you come to that.” What he said was different. “I thought you said you were an actor?”

  “I certainly did so,” replied Léon. “I am one, or, alas! I was.”

  “And so you want me to be an actor, do you?” continued the undergraduate. “Why, man, I could never so much as learn the stuff; my memory’s like a sieve; and as for acting, I’ve no more idea than a cat.”

  “The stage is not the only course,” said Léon. “Be a sculptor, be a dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and do some thorough work before you die.”

  “And do you call all these things art?” inquired Stubbs.

  “Why, certainly!” returned Léon. “Are they not all branches?”

  “Oh! I didn’t know,” replied the Englishman. “I thought an artist meant a fellow who painted.”

  The singer stared at him in some surprise.

  “It is the difference of language,” he said at last. “This Tower of Babel, when shall we have paid for it? If I could speak English you would follow me more readily.”

  “Between you and me, I don’t believe I should,” replied the other. “You seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business. For my part, I admire the stars, and like to have them shining — it’s so cheery — but hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do with art! It’s not in my line, you see. I’m not intellectual; I have no end of trouble to scrape through my exams., I can tell you! But I’m not a bad sort at bottom,” he added, seeing his interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim starshine, “and I rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and things.”

  Léon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete. He changed the subject.

  “And so you travel on foot?” he continued. “How romantic! How courageous! And how are you pleased with my land? How does the scenery affect you among these wild hills of ours?”

  “Well, the fact is,” began Stubbs — he was about to say that he didn’t care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the contrary, only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had begun to suspect that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat, and substituted something else— “The fact is, I think it jolly. They told me it was no good up here; even the guide-book said so; but I don’t know what they meant. I think it is deuced pretty — upon my word, I do.”

  At this moment, in the most unexpected manner, Elvira burst into tears.

  “My voice!” she cried. “Léon, if I stay here longer I shall lose my voice!”

  “You shall not stay another moment,” cried the actor. “If I have to beat in a door, if I have to burn the town, I shall find you shelter.”

  With that he replaced the guitar, and comforting her with some caresses, drew her arm through his.

  “Monsieur Stubbs,” said he, taking of his hat, “the reception I offer you is rather problematical; but let me beseech you to give us the pleasure of your society. You are a little embarrassed for the moment; you must, indeed, permit me to advance what may be necessary. I ask it as a favour; we must not part so soon after having met so strangely.”

  “Oh, come, you know,” said Stubbs, “I can’t let a fellow like you—” And there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.

  “I do not wish to employ menaces,” continued Léon, with a smile; “but if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly.”

  “I don’t quite see my way out of it,” thought the undergraduate; and then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough, “All right. I — I’m very much obliged, of course.” And he proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, “But it’s bad form, all the same, to force an obligation on a fellow.”

  CHAPTER V

  Léon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the sobs of Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a word. A dog barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then the church clock struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or preceded it in piping tones. And just then Berthelini spied a light. It burned in a small house on the outskirts of the town, and thither the party now directed their steps.

  “It is always a chance,” said Léon.

  The house in question stood back from the street behind an open space, part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood forward from either wing at right angles to the front. One of these had recently undergone some change. An enormous window, looking towards the north, had been effected in the wall and roof, and Léon began to hope it was a studio.

  “If it’s only a painter,” he said with a chuckle, “ten to one we get as good a welcome as we want.”

  “I thought painters were principally poor,” said Stubbs.

  “Ah!” cried Léon, “you do not know the world as I do. The poorer the better for us!”

  And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.

  The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live fire contributed to the effect. The sound of a voice now became audible; and the trespassers paused to listen. It was pitched in a high, angry key, but had still a good, full, and masculine note in it. The utterance was voluble, too voluble even to be quite distinct; a stream of words, rising and falling, with ever and again a phrase thrown out by itself, as if the speaker reckoned on its virtue.

  Suddenly another voice joined in. This time it was a woman’s; and if the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of fury. There was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering males; that colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit accurately balanced between homicide and hysterics; the tone in which the best of women sometimes utter words worse than death to those most dear to them. If Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to be endowed with the gift of speech, thus, and not otherwise, would it discourse. Léon was a brave man, and I fear he was somewhat sceptically given (he had been educated in a Papistical country), but the habit of childhood prevailed, and he crossed himself devoutly. He had met several women in his career. It was obvious that his instinct had not deceived him, for the male voice broke forth instantly in a towering passion.

  The undergraduate, who had not understood the significance of the woman’s contribution, pricked up his ears at the change upon the man.

  “There’s going to be a free fight,” he opined.

  There was another retort from the woman, still calm but a little higher.

  “Hysterics?” asked Léon of his wife. “Is that the stage direction?”

  “How should I know?” returned Elvira, somewhat tartly.

  “Oh, woman, woman!” said Léon, beginning to open the guitar-case. “It is one of the burdens of my life, Monsieur Stubbs; they support each other; they always pretend there is no system; they say it’s n
ature. Even Madame Berthelini, who is a dramatic artist!”

  “You are heartless, Léon,” said Elvira; “that woman is in trouble.”

  “And the man, my angel?” inquired Berthelini, passing the ribbon of his guitar. “And the man, m’amour?”

  “He is a man,” she answered.

  “You hear that?” said Léon to Stubbs. “It is not too late for you. Mark the intonation. And now,” he continued, “what are we to give them?”

  “Are you going to sing?” asked Stubbs.

  “I am a troubadour,” replied Léon. “I claim a welcome by and for my art. If I were a banker could I do as much?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t need, you know,” answered the undergraduate.

  “Egad,” said Léon, “but that’s true. Elvira, that is true.”

  “Of course it is,” she replied. “Did you not know it?”

  “My dear,” answered Léon impressively, “I know nothing but what is agreeable. Even my knowledge of life is a work of art superiorly composed. But what are we to give them? It should be something appropriate.”

  Visions of “Let dogs delight” passed through the undergraduate’s mind; but it occurred to him that the poetry was English and that he did not know the air. Hence he contributed no suggestion.

  “Something about our houselessness,” said Elvira.

  “I have it,” cried Léon. And he broke forth into a song of Pierre Dupont’s: —

  “Savez-vous où gite,

  Mai, ce joli mois?”

  Elvira joined in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an imperfect acquaintance with the music. Léon and the guitar were equal to the situation. The actor dispensed his throat-notes with prodigality and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his heroic way, tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the very stars contributed a dumb applause to his efforts, and the universe lent him its silence for a chorus. That is one of the best features of the heavenly bodies, that they belong to everybody in particular; and a man like Léon, a chronic Endymion who managed to get along without encouragement, is always the world’s centre for himself.