Max
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CHAPTER XVIII
Comradeship in its broader sense is Bohemianism at its best;Bohemianism, not as it is imagined by the _dilettante_--a thing ofpicturesque penury and exotic vice--but a spontaneous intermingling ofpersonalities, an understanding, a fraternity as purely a gift of thegods as love or beauty.
It is true that the sense of regained happiness beat strong in the mindof Max when he followed Jacqueline into her unpicturesque living-roomwith its sparse, cheap furniture, its piano and its gas stove, and thatthe happiness budded and blossomed like a flower in the sun at the oneswift glance exchanged with Blake; but even had these factors not beenpresent, he must still have been sensible of the pretty touch ofhospitality patent in the girl's manner the moment she crossed her ownthreshold, conscious of the friendly smile of M. Lucien Cartel, typicalartist, typical Frenchman of the southern provinces--short, swarthy,alive from his coarse black hair to the square tips of his fingers. Itwas in the air--the sense of good-will--the desire for conviviality; andin the first greeting, the first hand-shake, the relations of the partywere established.
But the true note of this Bohemianism is not so much spontaneousfriendship as a spontaneous capacity for the interchange ofthought--that instant opening of mind to mind, when place becomes ofslight, and time of no importance.
Such an atmosphere was created by M. Lucien Cartel in his poorMontmartre _appartement_, and under its spell Max and Blake fell assurely, as luxuriously as they might have fallen under the spell of asummer day. It was not that M. Cartel was brilliant; his only capacityfor brilliance lay in his strong, square hands; but he was a good fellowand possessed of a philosophy that at once challenged and interested.For Church and State he had a wide contempt, a scoffing raillery, acandid blasphemy that outraged orthodoxy: for humanity and for his arthe owned an enthusiasm touching on the sublime. Upon every subject--themeanest and the most profound--he held an opinion and aired it withsuperb frankness and incredible fluency. So it was that, when the_poulet bonne femme_ had been picked to the bones and Jacqueline hadretired to some sanctum whence the clatter of plates and the sound ofrunning water told of domestic duties, the three pushed their chairsback from the table and fell to talk.
Precisely how they talked, precisely what they talked of in thatpleasant period subsequent to the meal is not to be related. Theythrashed the paths of morality, science, religion until their contendingvoices filled the room and the tobacco smoke hung in clouds about them.They talked until the last drop of Jacqueline's coffee had been drained;they talked until Jacqueline herself came silently back into the roomand seated herself by Cartel's side, slipping her hand into his withartless spontaneity.
Morality, science, religion, and then, in natural sequence, art--music!The brain of M. Cartel tingled, his fingers twitched as the rival meritsof composers--the varying schools of thought--were touched upon, warmedto, or torn by contending opinions. One end only was conceivable to thatlast discussion. The moment arrived when the brain of M. Cartel criedvehemently for expression, when his hand, imprisoned in the smallfingers of Jacqueline, was no longer to be restrained, when he sprangfrom his chair and rushed to the piano, his coarse black hair an untidymat, his ugly face alight with God's gift of inspiration.
'What had he said? Was this, then, not magnificent--wonderful?'
And, seating himself, he unloosed into the common room a beauty of soundmore adorning than the rarest devices of the decorator's art--a mesh ofdelicate harmonies that snared the imaginations of his three listenersand sent them winging to the very borders of their varying realms.
M. Lucien Cartel in every-day life and to the casual observer was a goodfellow with a fund of enthusiasm and a ready tongue; M. Lucien Cartel tothe woman he loved and in the enchanted world of his art was a mortalimbued warmly and surely with a spark of the divinity he derided. Thereis no niggardliness in Bohemia: it made him as happy to give of hismusic as it made his listeners to receive, with the consequence thattime was dethroned and that four people sat entranced, claiming nothingfrom the world outside, more than content in the knowledge that theworld had no eyes for the doings of a little room on the heights ofMontmartre.
From opera to opera M. Cartel wandered, now humming a passage under hisbreath in accompaniment to his playing, again raising his soft, southernvoice in an abandonment of enthusiasm.
It was following close upon some such enthusiastic moment that Max rose,crossed the room, and taking a violin and bow from where they lay upon awooden bench against the wall, carried them silently to the piano.
As silently M. Cartel received them and, lifting the violin, tucked itunder his chin and raised the bow.
There is no need to detail the magic that followed upon that simpleaction. The world--even his own Paris--has never heard of M. LucienCartel, and cares not to know of the pieces that he played, the degreeof his technique, the truth of his interpretation; but when at last thehand that held the violin dropped to his side and, lifting his rightarm, he wiped his damp forehead with the sleeve of his coat, the facesof his audience were pale as the faces of those who have looked uponhidden places, and in the eyes of the little Jacqueline there weretears.
A moment of silence; then M. Cartel laid down his violin and laughed.The laugh broke the spell: Jacqueline, with a childish cry ofexcitement, flew across the room and, throwing her arms about his neck,kissed him with unashamed fervor; Blake and Max pressed round the piano,and in an instant the room was humming again to the sound of voices, andsome one made the astounding discovery that it was five o'clock.
This was Blake's opportunity--the opportunity loved beyond all others ofthe Irishman, when it is permissible to offer hospitality. The idea cameto him as an inspiration, and was seized upon as such. Eager as a boy,he laid one hand on Max's shoulder, the other on that of M. Cartel.
'He had a suggestion to make! One that admitted of no refusal! M. Cartelhad entertained them regally; he must suffer them to make some poorreturn. There was a certain little _cafe_ where the _chef_ knew hisbusiness and the wine really was wine--' He looked from one face toanother for approval, and perhaps it was but natural that his eyesshould rest last and longest on the face of Max.
So it was arranged. A dinner is a question readily dealt with in thequarter of Montmartre, and soon the four--laughing, talking,arguing--were hurrying down the many steps of the Escalier deSainte-Marie, bent upon the enjoyment of the hour.