Max
Page 37
CHAPTER XXXVII
Max swung down the Escalier de Sainte-Marie in as reckless a mood asever possessed being of either sex. Nothing of the sweet Maxine wasdiscernible in face or carriage; the boy predominated, but a boypossessed of a callousness that was pathetic seen hand-in-hand withyouth.
For the first time he was viewing Paris bereft of the glamour ofromance; for the first time the Masque of Folly passed before him,licentious and unashamed. Many an hour, in days gone by, he haddiscussed with Blake this lighter side of many-sided Paris, and withBlake's wise and penetrating gaze he had seen it in true perspective;but to-night there was no sane interpreter to temper vision, to-night hewas bitterly alone, and his mind, from long austerity, longconcentration upon work, had swung with grievous suddenness to theopposing pole of thought. He had no purpose in his descent from the rueMueller, he had no desire of vice as an antidote to pain, but hisloathing of Paris was drawing him to her with that morbid craving tohurt and rehurt his bruised soul that assails the artist in times ofmisery.
The streets were quiet, for it was scarcely nine o'clock, and as yet thelethargy of the day lay heavy on the air. The heat and the accompanyinglaxity breathed an atmosphere of its own; every window of every housegaped, and behind the casements one caught visions of men and womennegligent of attire and heedless of observation.
Romance was dead! Of that supreme fact Max was very sure. A hard smiletouched his lips, and hugging his cynicism, he went forward--crossingthe Boulevard de Clichy, plunging downward into the darker regions ofthe rue des Martyrs and the rue Montmartre, where the lights of theboulevards are left behind, and the sight-seer is apt to look askance atthe crude facts that the street lamps divulge to his curious eyes. Tothe boy, these corners had no terrors, for in his untarnished friendshipwith Blake all sides of life had been viewed in turn, as all topics hadbeen discussed as component parts of a fascinatingly interesting world.To-night he went forward, mingling with the inhabitants of the district,revelling with morbid realism in the forbidding dinginess of theirappearance. He was not of that quarter--that was patent to every roughwho lounged outside a _cafe_ door, as it was patent to every slovenlywoman who gave him a glance in passing. He was not of the quarter, buthe was an artist--and a shabby one at that--so the men accorded him anindifferent shrug and the women a second glance.
Forward he went, possessed by his morbidity--forward into the growingmurkiness of environment until, association of ideas suddenly curbingimpulse, he stopped before the door of a shabby _cafe_ bearing thefanciful appellation of the Cafe des Cerises-jumelles. Once, when boundupon a night exploration in this same region, he and Blake had stoppedto smile at this odd name and wonder at its origin, and finally they hadpassed through the portal to find that the twin cherries smiled upondoubtful patrons. The vivid memory of that night smote him now as, drawnby some unquestioned influence, he again entered the _cafe_, passingthrough a species of bar to a long, low-ceiled eating-room set withsmall tables. How Blake had talked that night! How thoughtfully, howhumanely and tolerantly he had judged their fellow-guests, as they satat one of these tables, rubbing shoulders with the worst--or, as he hadlaughingly insisted, the best--of an odd fraternity!
The recollection was keen as a knife when Max entered the eating-room,sat down and ordered a drink with the supreme indifference ofdisillusion. Six months ago he would have trembled to find himself alonein such a place; to-night he was beyond such a commonplace as fear.
He smiled again cynically, emptied his glass and looked about him. Hisfirst experience of the place had been in the hours succeeding midnight,when the quarter hummed with its unsavory life; but now it was early,the lights were not yet at their fullest, the waiters had not as yettaken on their nocturnal air of briskness. In one corner three men wereengrossed in a game of cards, in another a thin girl of fifteen sat withher arm round the neck of a boy scarce older than herself, whisperingjests into his ear, at which they both laughed in coarse low murmurs,while in the middle of the room, with her back turned to him, a woman ina tight black dress and feathered hat was eating a meal of poached eggs.
In a vague way, absorbed in his own thoughts, Max fell to studying thissolitary woman, until something in her impassivity, something in thesphinx-like calm with which she went through the business of her meal,blent with his imaginings, and he suddenly found her placed beside Blakein the possession of his thoughts--an integral part of their jointlives. In a flash of memory the large black hat, the opulent figure tookplace within his consciousness and, answering to a new instinct, he roseand took an involuntary step in the woman's direction.
She changed her position at sound of his approach, her large hatdescribed new angles, and she looked back over her shoulder.
"What!" she said aloud. "The little friend of Blake! But how droll!"
She showed no surprise, she merely waved her hand to a chair facing herown.
Max sat down; a hot and dirty waiter came forward languidly, and winewas ordered.
Lize pushed aside the glass of green-tinted liquid that she had beenconsuming through a straw, and waited for what was to come. Max, lookingat her in the crude light of a gas-jet, saw that her face was whiter,her eyes more hollow than when her wrath had fallen on him at the BalTabarin; also, he noted that a little dew of heat showed through themask of powder on her face.
Silence was maintained until the wine was brought; then she drankthirstily, laid down her empty glass and turned her eyes upon him.
"You have parted with your friend, eh?"
The surprise of the question was so sharp that it killed speculation. Hedid not ask how she had probed his secret--whether by mere intuition orthrough some feminine confidence of Jacqueline's. The fact of herknowledge swept him beyond the region of lucid thought; he accepted thesituation as it was offered.
"Yes," he said. "I have parted with my friend."
"And why? He is a good boy--Blake!" She looked at him with herinscrutable eyes, and after many days he was conscious of the touch ofhuman compassion. He did not analyze the woman's feelings--he did noteven conjecture whether she knew him for boy or girl. All hecomprehended was that out of this sordid atmosphere--out of the lethargyof the sultry night--some force had touched him, some force was drawinghim back into the circle of human things. Strange indeed are theworkings of the mind. He, who had shrunk with an agonized sensitivenessfrom the sympathy of M. Cartel--from the tender comprehension of thelittle Jacqueline--suddenly felt his reserve melt and break in presenceof this woman of the boulevards with her air of impassive _ennui_.Theoretically, he knew life in all its harder aspects, and it called forno vivid imagination to trace the descent of the fresh _grisette_ of the_Quartier Latin_ to the creature who sought her meals in the Cafe desCerises-jumelles, yet hers was the accepted compassion.
"Madame!" he said, suddenly. "Madame, tell me! You knew him once?"
Lize wiped the dew of heat from her forehead; emptied a second glass ofwine. "A thousand years ago, _mon petit_, when the world was as young asyou!"
"In the _Quartier_?"
"In the _Quartier_--on the Boul' Mich'--at Bulliers--" She stopped,falling into a dream; then, suddenly, from the farthest corner of theroom, came the sound of a loud kiss, and the boy and girl at the distanttable began to sing in unison--a ribald song, but instinct with the zestof life. Lize started, as though she had been struck.
"They have it--youth!" she cried, with a jerk of her head toward thedistant corner. "The world is for them!" Then her voice and herexpression altered. She leaned across the table, until her face wasclose to Max.
"What a little fool you are!" she said. "It is written in those eyes ofyours--that see too little and see too much. Go home! Think of what Ihave said! He is a good boy--this Blake!"
Max mechanically replenished her glass, and mechanically she drank; thenshe produced a little mirror and made good the ravages of the heat uponher face with the nonchalance of her kind; finally, she looked at theclock.
"Come!" she said. "We go the same way."<
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He rose obediently. He made no question as to her destination. He hadcome to drown himself in the sordidness of Paris and, behold, his heartwas beating with a human quickness it had not known since the moment heheld Blake's first letter unopened in his hand; his throat was dry, hiseyes were smarting with the old, half-forgotten smart of unshed tears.
He followed her with a strange docility as she passed out of theunsavory Cerises-jumelles into the close, ill-smelling street. Incomplete silence they walked through what seemed a nightmare world ofunpleasant sights, unpleasant sounds, until across his dazed thoughtsthe familiar sense of Paris--the sense of the pleasure-chase--swept fromthe Boulevard de Clichy.
Lize paused; he saw her fully in the brave illumination--the large blackhat, the close-clad figure, the pallid face--and as he looked, shesmiled unexpectedly and, putting out her hand, patted him on theshoulder.
"Good-bye, _mon enfant_! Go home! Youth comes but once; and thisBlake--he is a good boy!"
Before he could answer, before he could return smile or touch, she wasgone--absorbed into the maze of lights, and he was alone, to turn whichway he would.