Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Oh no; it is always best to begin school with a vacation. To Longchamps — we!”

  I should say at once that through this young man I soon became an amateur of the remarkable North-American idioms, of humour and incomparable brevities often more interesting than those evolved by the thirteen or more dialects of my own Naples. Even at our first breakfast I began to catch lucid glimpses of the intention in many of his almost incomprehensible statements. I was able, even, to penetrate his meaning when he said that although he was “strong for aged parent,” he himself had suffered much anguish from overwork of the “earnest youth racquette” in his late travels, and now desired to “create considerable trouble for Paris.”

  Naturally, I did not wish to begin by antagonizing my pupil — an estrangement at the commencement would only lead to his deceiving me, or a continued quarrel, in which case I should be of no service to my kind patron, so that after a strained interval I considered it best to surrender.

  We went to Longchamps.

  That was my first mistake; the second was to yield to him concerning the latter part of his programme; but opposition to Mr. Poor, Jr. had a curious effect of inutility. He had not in the least the air of obstinacy, — nothing could have been less like rudeness; he neither frowned not smiled; no, he did not seem even to be insisting; on the contrary, never have I beheld a milder countenance, nor heard a pleasanter voice; yet the young man was so completely baffling in his mysterious way that I considered him unique to my experience.

  Thus, when I urged him not to place large wagers in the pesage, his whispered reply was strange and simple— “Watch me!” This he conclusively said as he deposited another thousand-franc note, which, within a few moments, accrued to the French government.

  Longchamps was but the beginning of a series of days and nights which wore upon my constitution — not indeed with the intensity of mortification which my former conspicuosity had engendered, yet my sorrows were stringent. It is true that I had been, since the age of seventeen, no stranger to the gaieties and dissipations afforded by the capitals of Europe; I may say I had exhausted these, yet always with some degree of quiet, including intervals of repose. I was tired of all the great foolishnesses of youth, and had thought myself done with them. Now I found myself plunged into more uproarious waters than I had ever known I, who had hoped to begin a life of usefulness and peace, was forced to dwell in the midst of a riot, pursuing my extraordinary charge.

  There is no need that I should describe those days and nights. They remain in my memory as a confusion of bad music, crowds, motor-cars and champagne of which Poor Jr. was a distributing centre. He could never be persuaded to the Louvre, the Carnavalet, or the Luxembourg; in truth, he seldom rose in time to reach the museums, for they usually close at four in the afternoon. Always with the same inscrutable meekness of countenance, each night he methodically danced the cake-walk at Maxim’s or one of the Montemarte restaurants, to the cheers of acquaintances of many nationalities, to whom he offered libations with prodigal enormity. He carried with him, about the boulevards at night, in the highly powerful car he had hired, large parties of strange people, who would loudly sing airs from the Folie-Rouge (to my unhappy shudderings) all the way from the fatiguing Bal Bullier to the Cafe’ de Paris, where the waiters soon became affluent.

  And how many of those gaily dressed and smiling ladies whose bright eyes meet yours on the veranda of the Theatre Marigny were provided with excessive suppers and souvenir fans by the inexhaustible Poor Jr.! He left a trail of pink hundred-franc notes behind him, like a running boy dropping paper in the English game; and he kept showers of gold louis dancing in the air about him, so that when we entered the various cafes or “American bars” a cheer (not vocal but to me of perfect audibility) went up from the hungry and thirsty and borrowing, and from the attendants. Ah, how tired I was of it, and how I endeavoured to discover a means to draw him to the museums, and to Notre Dame and the Pantheon!

  And how many times did I unwillingly find myself in the too enlivening company of those pretty supper-girls, and what jokings upon his head-top did the poor bald gentleman not undergo from those same demoiselles with the bright eyes, the wonderful hats, and the fluffy dresses!

  How often among those gay people did I find myself sadly dreaming of that grey pongee skirt and the beautiful heart that had understood! Should I ever see that lady? Not, I knew, alas! in the whirl about Poor Jr.! As soon look for a nun at the Cafe’ Blanche!

  For some reason I came to be persuaded that she had left Paris, that she had gone away; and I pictured her — a little despairingly — on the borders of Lucerne, with the white Alps in the sky above her, — or perhaps listening to the evening songs on the Grand Canal, and I would try to feel the little rocking of her gondola, making myself dream that I sat at her feet. Or I could see the grey flicker of the pongee skirt in the twilight distance of cathedral aisles with a chant sounding from a chapel; and, so dreaming, I would start spasmodically, to hear the red-coated orchestra of a cafe’ blare out into “Bedelia,” and awake to the laughter and rouge and blague which that dear pongee had helped me for a moment to forget!

  To all places, Poor Jr., though never unkindly, dragged me with him, even to make the balloon ascent at the Porte Maillot on a windy evening. Without embarrassment I confess that I was terrified, that I clung to the ropes with a clutch which frayed my gloves, while Poor Jr. leaned back against the side of the basket and gazed upward at the great swaying ball, with his hands in his pockets, humming the strange ballad that was his favourite musical composition:

  “The prettiest girl I ever saw

  Was sipping cider through a straw-aw-haw!”

  In that horrifying basket, scrambling for a foothold while it swung through arcs that were gulfs, I believed that my sorrows approached a sudden conclusion, but finding myself again upon the secure earth, I decided to come to an understanding with the young man.

  Accordingly, on the following morning, I entered his apartment and addresses myself to Poor Jr. as severely as I could (for, truthfully, in all his follies I had found no ugliness in his spirit — only a good-natured and inscrutable desire of wild amusement) reminding him of the authority his father had deputed to me, and having the venturesomeness to hint that the son should show some respect to my superior age.

  To my consternation he replied by inquiring if I had shaved my head as yet that morning. I could only drop in a chair, stammering to know what he meant.

  “Didn’t you suppose I knew?” he asked, elevating himself slightly on his elbow from the pillow. “Three weeks ago I left my aged parent in London and ran over here for a day. I saw you at the Cafe’ de la Paix, and even then I knew that it was shaved, not naturally bald. When you came here I recognized you like a shot, and that was why I was glad to accept you as a guardian. I’ve enjoyed myself considerably of late, and you’ve been the best part of it, — I think you are a wonderation! I wouldn’t have any other governess for the world, but you surpass the orchestra when you beg me to respect your years! I will bet you four dollars to a lead franc piece that you are younger than I am!”

  Imagine the completeness of my dismay! Although he spoke in tones the most genial, and without unkindness, I felt myself a man of tatters before him, ashamed to have him know my sorry secret, hopeless to see all chance of authority over him gone at once, and with it my opportunity to earn a salary so generous, for if I could continue to be but an amusement to him and only part of his deception of Lambert R. Poor, my sense of honour must be fit for the guillotine indeed.

  I had a little struggle with myself, and I think I must have wiped some amounts of the cold perspiration from my absurd head before I was able to make an answer. It may be seen what a coward I was, and how I feared to begin again that search for employment. At last, however, I was in self-control, so that I might speak without being afraid that my voice would shake.

  “I am sorry,” I said. “It seemed to me that my deception would not cause any harm, and
that I might be useful in spite of it — enough to earn my living. It was on account of my being very poor; and there are two little children I must take care of. — Well, at least, it is over now. I have had great shame, but I must not have greater.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked me rather sharply.

  “I will leave immediately,” I said, going to the door. “Since I am no more than a joke, I can be of no service to your father or to you; but you must not think that I am so unreasonable as to be angry with you. A man whom you have beheld reduced to what I was, at the Cafe’ de la Paix, is surely a joke to the whole world! I will write to your father before I leave the hotel and explain that I feel myself unqualified—”

  “You’re going to write to him why you give it up!” he exclaimed.

  “I shall make no report of espionage,” I answered, with, perhaps, some bitterness, “and I will leave the letter for you to read and to send, of yourself. It shall only tell him that as a man of honour I cannot keep a position for which I have no qualification.”

  I was going to open the door, bidding him adieu, when he called out to me.

  “Look here!” he said, and he jumped out of bed in his pajamas and came quickly, and held out his hand. “Look here, Ansolini, don’t take it that way. I know you’ve had pretty hard times, and if you’ll stay, I’ll get good. I’ll go to the Louvre with you this afternoon; we’ll dine at one of the Duval restaurants, and go to that new religious tragedy afterwards. If you like, we’ll leave Paris to-morrow. There’s a little too much movement here, maybe. For God’s sake, let your hair grow, and we’ll go down to Italy and study bones and ruins and delight the aged parent! — It’s all right, isn’t it?”

  I shook the hand of that kind Poor Jr. with a feeling in my heart that kept me from saying how greatly I thanked him — and I was sure that I could do anything for him in the world!

  Chapter Five

  THREE DAYS LATER saw us on the pretty waters of Lake Leman, in the bright weather when Mont Blanc heaves his great bare shoulders of ice miles into the blue sky, with no mist-cloak about him.

  Sailing that lake in the cool morning, what a contrast to the champagne houpla nights of Paris! And how docile was my pupil! He suffered me to lead him through the Castle of Chillon like a new-born lamb, and even would not play the little horses in the Kursaal at Geneva, although, perhaps, that was because the stakes were not high enough to interest him. He was nearly always silent, and, from the moment of our departure from Paris, had fallen into dreamfulness, such as would come over myself at the thought of the beautiful lady. It touched my heart to find how he was ready with acquiescence to the slightest suggestion of mine, and, if it had been the season, I am almost credulous that I could have conducted him to Baireuth to hear Parsifal!

  There were times when his mood of gentle sorrow was so like mine that I wondered if he, too, knew a grey pongee skirt. I wondered over this so much, and so marvellingly, also, because of the change in him, that at last I asked him.

  We had gone to Lucerne; it was clear moonlight, and we smoked on our little balcony at the Schweitzerhof, puffing our small clouds in the enormous face of the strangest panorama of the world, that august disturbation of the earth by gods in battle, left to be a land of tragic fables since before Pilate was there, and remaining the same after William Tell was not. I sat looking up at the mountains, and he leaned on the rail, looking down at the lake. Somewhere a woman was singing from Pagliacci, and I slowly arrived at a consciousness that I had sighed aloud once or twice, not so much sadly, as of longing to see that lady, and that my companion had permitted similar sounds to escape him, but more mournfully. It was then that I asked him, in earnestness, yet with the manner of making a joke, if he did not think often of some one in North America.

  “Do you believe that could be, and I making the disturbance I did in Paris?” he returned.

  “Yes,” I told him, “if you are trying to forget her.”

  “I should think it might look more as if I were trying to forget that I wasn’t good enough for her and that she knew it!”

  He spoke in a voice which he would have made full of ease— “off-hand,” as they say; but he failed to do so.

  “That was the case?” I pressed him, you see, but smilingly.

  “Looks a good deal like it,” he replied, smoking much at once.

  “So? But that is good for you, my friend!”

  “Probably.” He paused, smoking still more, and then said, “It’s a benefit I could get on just as well without.”

  “She is in North America?”

  “No; over here.”

  “Ah! Then we will go where she is. That will be even better for you! Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She asked me not to follow her. Somebody else is doing that.”

  The young man’s voice was steady, and his face, as usual, showed no emotion, but I should have been an Italian for nothing had I not understood quickly. So I waited for a little while, then spoke of old Pilatus out there in the sky, and we went to bed very late, for it was out last night in Lucerne.

  Two days later we roared our way out of the gloomy St. Gotthard and wound down the pass, out into the sunshine of Italy, into that broad plain of mulberries where the silkworms weave to enrich the proud Milanese. Ah, those Milanese! They are like the people of Turin, and look down upon us of Naples; they find us only amusing, because our minds and movements are too quick for them to understand. I have no respect for the Milanese, except for three things: they have a cathedral, a picture, and a dead man.

  We came to our hotel in the soft twilight, with the air so balmy one wished to rise and float in it. This was the hour for the Cathedral; therefore, leaving Leonardo and his fresco for the to-morrow, I conducted my uncomplaining ward forth, and through that big arcade of which the people are so proud, to the Duomo. Poor Jr. showed few signs of life as we stood before that immenseness; he said patiently that it resembled the postals, and followed me inside the portals with languor.

  It was all grey hollowness in the vast place. The windows showed not any colour nor light; the splendid pillars soared up into the air and disappeared as if they mounted to heights of invisibility in the sky at night. Very far away, at the other end of the church it seemed, one lamp was burning, high over the transept. One could not see the chains of support nor the roof above it; it seemed a great star, but so much all alone. We walked down the long aisle to stand nearer to it, the darkness growing deeper as we advanced. When we came almost beneath, both of us gazing upward, my companion unwittingly stumbled against a lady who was standing silently looking up at this light, and who had failed to notice our approach. The contact was severe enough to dislodge from her hand her folded parasol, for which I began to grope.

  There was a hurried sentence of excusation from Poor Jr., followed by moments of silence before she replied. Then I heard her voice in startled exclamation:

  “Rufus, it is never you?”

  He called out, almost loudly,

  “Alice!”

  Then I knew that it was the second time I had lifted a parasol from the ground for the lady of the grey pongee and did not see her face; but this time I placed it in her own hand; for my head bore no shame upon it now.

  In the surprise of encountering Poor Jr. I do not think she noticed that she took the parasol or was conscious of my presence, and it was but too secure that my young friend had forgotten that I lived. I think, in truth, I should have forgotten it myself, if it had not been for the leaping of my heart.

  Ah, that foolish dream of mine had proven true: I knew her, I knew her, unmistaking, without doubt or hesitancy — and in the dark! How should I know at the mere sound of her voice? I think I knew before she spoke!

  Poor Jr. had taken a step toward her as she fell back; I could only see the two figures as two shadows upon shadow, while for them I had melted altogether and was forgotten.

  “You think I have followed you,” he cried, “but you have no right to think it. I
t was an accident and you’ve got to believe me!”

  “I believe you,” she answered gently. “Why should I not?”

  “I suppose you want me to clear out again,” he went on, “and I will; but I don’t see why.”

  Her voice answered him out of the shadow: “It is only you who make a reason why. I’d give anything to be friends with you; you’ve always known that.”

  “Why can’t we be?” he said, sharply and loudly. “I’ve changed a great deal. I’m very sensible, and I’ll never bother you again — that other way. Why shouldn’t I see a little of you?”

  I heard her laugh then — happily, it seemed to me, — and I thought I perceived her to extend her hand to him, and that he shook it briefly, in his fashion, as if it had been the hand of a man and not that of the beautiful lady.

  “You know I should like nothing better in the world — since you tell me what you do,” she answered.

  “And the other man?” he asked her, with the same hinting of sharpness in his tone. “Is that all settled?”

  “Almost. Would you like me to tell you?”

  “Only a little — please!”

  His voice had dropped, and he spoke very quietly, which startlingly caused me to realize what I was doing. I went out of hearing then, very softly. Is it creible that I found myself trembling when I reached the twilit piazza? It is true, and I knew that never, for one moment, since that tragic, divine day of her pity, had I wholly despaired of beholding her again; that in my most sorrowful time there had always been a little, little morsel of certain knowledge that I should some day be near her once more.