Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  And she has pressed the kiss of shame,

  Upon my lips. Am I to blame?

  Away, bold siren! Learn to tame

  Thy culpable desire!”

  “Now is that immoral?” asked Fradley.

  Ronald was dozing, eyes wide open.

  “No,” said Garland, “that’s harmless; go on,” and he curled himself up in the armchair and thought of Sara La Rousse. The poem was in cantos and they were numerous. Some cantos were tearful, some tempestuous. Many paid beautiful tribute to temperance, such as the verse beginning:

  “Away! away! with the rose-wreathed cup!”

  A little further along, Fradley’s morals tottered, for the lines,

  “Oh, never shall lips of mine be pressed

  To thy wicked mouth or thy sinful breast!”

  were almost immediately followed by:

  “Beautiful creature, fly with me!

  I’ll build thee a house ‘neath the hawthorn tree.”

  “I thought you said you gave her the shake!” interrupted Garland querulously. Carrington woke up at the same moment and looked terribly ashamed of himself.

  “Very charming,” he murmured, “it’s about Sara, isn’t it?”

  Fradley blushed. “Oh, no — er — it’s only a poetic fancy.”

  “Any red-headed girl — eh?” said Garland rising; “well, I am awfully obliged to you, — we’ll have the rest of it soon I hope — come along, Ronald.”

  Fradley accompanied them to the door.

  “Are you going to that — that orgie at the Bal Bullier on Mi-Carême?” he asked.

  “I am,” said Garland.

  “Are you?” he asked of Carrington.

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so; everybody else is going.”

  “And do you think it right?”

  “No — it’s not decent; you would not enjoy it,” said Garland with a malicious smile. “Don’t go.”

  “I don’t know — I don’t know,” murmured Fradley; “an artist must be broad—”

  “Especially when he’s abroad—”

  “Oh, come on!” grumbled Carrington,—” good night, Fradley, awfully obliged you know.”

  The poet entered his boudoir and lighting a wax candle looked at himself in the mirror. He smoothed his love-locks, touched his lips with glycerine, and crawling into an embroidered night-shirt sank languidly upon the bed, pulling the silken coverlet over his ears. Then he began to think of Sara.

  V.

  From the Seine to the Bullier, the Boulevard St. Michel lay glistening under the frosty stars. On the fountain in the Place St. Michel, the iron griffins which spat water all summer into the basin below, sat grim and helpless, jaws and claws bound in chains of ice. Above them victorious St. Michel lifted the fiat of his sword to spank a prostrate Satan whose nether limbs were now mercifully padded with snow.

  The Boulevard, packed from grutter to gutter, echoed with the fanfare of Carnival. Cabs crowded along five deep; tram-cars and omnibuses wheezed and tooted and ploughed their way through the constantly increasing throngs.

  With mask and horn and mirliton the crowd swept through the boulevard, while from the terraces and windows of every café, students sprawled, and shouted and chanted strange anthems to celebrate the Mi-Carême.

  The Café Vachette was festooned with gas jets, the Café de la Source glowed under clusters of electric globes, the Cafés d’Harcourt and Rouge were ablaze with lanterns and electricity, and the ice-covered fountain in the Place de Medici flashed back from its crystalline basin a million sparkling rays of blue and gold. On top of the hill the Bullier rose terraced with coloured lamps, bathed in a flood of electric light, which traced a trembling network of shadows over the asphalt among the trees of the Avenue de L’Observatoire. And among the shadows which the branches flung across the parkway, partly concealed by the terrace of the café which forms the angle of the avenue, a figure, enveloped in a sealskin overcoat, shivered and peered across the square to where the frivolous and godless were pouring along the sidewalk to the Bullier. On they swept, with horn and song and the rattle of canes on bench and shutter; and past them dashed cab after cab, halting for an instant at the entrance, while visions of light draperies and lighter feet sped across the foyer to the cloak-room. Now a band of architects arrived, chanting the slogan of Lalou, now a masked company of artists in blouse and béret, locking arms with a dozen of the gentler sex. At times the throng closed about some favourite who immediately mounted a boulevard bench to harangue them on the evil of being serious.

  The figure in the sealskin overcoat appeared to be interested, and ventured a little way along the square, but was almost immediately frightened back by the voice of a compatriot, inebriated but melodious;

  “He didn’t come back no more.

  N — o!”

  He didn’t come more.

  “N — n she sat by the fire — hic!”

  It was Arizona.

  “N — n she sat by the fire—”

  here memory proved treacherous, and, after several attempts to recall the fate of the abandoned one, Arizona jerked a large felt hat over one eye, squared his shoulders, advanced his lower jaw and began to yell. Come an’ pick up the dead — aw! Come an’ rescue the dyin’! It’s my night to howl, an’ a souvenir goes with each an’ every corpse!”

  Across the square somebody in the crowd shouted: “Arizona, shut up!”

  “Was that?” demanded Arizona indignantly; and, encircling a tree with one arm, he started the other in a rapid rotary motion increasing in velocity until it looked like an extinct Catherine-wheel.

  “What’s the matter, Arizona?” asked Garland who came running across the street; “you know you mustn’t yell like that in English.”

  “A souvenir goes with each corpse,” said Arizona sullenly, “I’m a pitiless wolf—”

  “You’re a pitiful ass,” said Clifford, coming up, “whom are you scrapping with now?”

  “If I find him I’ll jump on to his neck,” said Arizona sulkily.

  “He means Fradley,” said Elliott to Clifford, “he’s jealous because Sara forbade him to assault Fradley.”

  The figure in the sealskin coat shuddered behind his tree.

  “Arizona, my son,” said Clifford, “you’re a nouveau yet, and you’d better not make yourself too conspicuous. You’re drunk too, and if I catch you trying to get into the Bullier I’ll settle with you in a way you’ll remember. Give me that six-shooter — quick. Now don’t try any of your cheap cowboy humor in the Latin Quarter. Go home.”

  “Look yere, Clifford,” said Arizona, “I’m a noovo but I ain’t no slouch, an’ you fellows never have to tell me to be less fresh. Now I — hic! — I objec’ to Fradley chasin’ Sara—”

  “You have no claims on Sara,” said Elliott laughing.

  “All right, then I hain’t, but I objec’ to that fool-hen Fradley scratchin’ alkali in my sage-bush, Mebbe Sara ain’t my business; but I’m doin’ dooty about thet there public claim, an’ I’m death on jumpers like him!”

  At that moment the uproar on the boulevard was redoubled. A battalion of singing students, each clad in evening dress over which was draped a white blouse, was advancing from the Boulevard Montparnasse.

  “Come on, Garland, — Arizona, go home!” said Clifford, and he hurried across the square to join the procession, followed by Elliott and Garland.

  In the middle of the procession, enthroned upon the roof of a cab sat Sara. She was engaged in exploding squibs while Boissy held the terrified horse down to a sideway prance. Behind the cab marched Julian’s young hopefuls, singing “Le Bal à l’Hôtel de Ville.” Sara fired a whole bunch of squibs as the cab came to a halt before the statue of Marshal Ney, then, as it moved on into the flare of light, a mighty shout arose; “Vive Sara!” to which that young person politely replied, “Vive l’atelier Julien!”

  A moment later Sara and her cohorts were engulfed in the throng passing through the foyer of the Bal Bullier.

  Ha
lf an hour later, Arizona appeared at the box office and charged in with a whoop which raised the hair under the silver helmet of the cavalryman on guard. It was, however, nearly twelve o’clock when Fradley, his eyes bulging with fright, sidled into the lobby, bought his ticket and sought the den of the female harpies who take checks for wraps. He slipped the sealskin overcoat from his meagre frame, and a harpy grabbed it. He hurriedly thrust the zinc check into his pocket, smoothed his love-locks and tripped timidly to the head of the stairs which leads down to the floor of the ballroom. Here a coarse red-necked man relieved him of his ticket, and he stood face to face with the gilded demon — Vice! For a moment he thought of flight; then something on the floor below made him blush violently.

  “Get out of the way! You’re blocking the stairs!” shouted the red-necked man, but Fradley did not hear him in the din. Then a brutal cavalryman seized Fradley and hustled him down the stairs.

  “Stop!” screamed the poet, but somebody in the crowd below caught him by the leg. It was a fearful struggle. The red-necked man vociferated, the soldier pushed and the masked figure below hauled away at his feet. Fradley felt he was losing consciousness; the scene swam before him. For one awful moment he saw, in the gaudy surging masses below, the glittering pit of hell — his ears were stunned by the crash of demoniac music, — then something gave way, the soldier snickered, and Fradley found himself jerked headlong into the gulf, only to be caught in the arms of a stalwart personage wearing a false nose and a tin crown over one ear.

  “Welcome to Pandemonium!” yelled the crowned personage, as he banged Fradley over the head with a bladder; “and may I ask, Monsieur, if you generally come into a Royal Presence on your head?”

  Before Fradley could reply, a Nautch Girl caught him around the neck and swung him into the crush of dancers. He struggled violently.

  “What! you won’t dance?” she cried, with a stamp of her bangled sandals.

  “No, I won’t!” cried Fradley, perspiring with terror.

  “You shall!” she insisted.

  Then a clown with his face all white, came squealing and tumbling along, neatly floored him in an unexpected flip-flap, picked him up, and laying his chalky face on his shoulder, shrieked and sobbed, “oh, mon frère! mon frère!” This was the last straw. With a wrench and a twist he freed himself and fled to the gallery, where he found a vacant table and sat down to collect his thoughts. Little by little his fright gave way to anger. A waiter dusted-the chalk from his coat and told him that there was a mirror behind the musicians’ box. Here he smoothed his hair and rebuttoned his collar, keeping a suspicious eye on two young ladies of the ballet who were practising strange steps before an adjoining mirror.

  “Monsieur,” said one of them, “have the goodness to tell me whether I do the “grand écart,” as well as “La Goulu.”

  “What is the “grand écart,” asked Fradley stiffly.

  He was instructed, and he withdrew in haste to his table in the gallery.

  A quadrille was in progress below. He stood on his chair to see and then sat down again, not to see. This manœuvre he repeated at intervals and ended by remaining on his chair, “For,” he argued, “it’s life, — and an artist must be broad.”

  Before the quadrille ended, he was playfully toppled from his chair by a Spanish dancer, who took his place and offered to reward him with a kiss which he refused. After a while the dancer skipped off with an Arab, and a feeling akin to loneliness took possession of Fradley.

  The dull red and blue woodwork of the Bullier was hung with the banners of all nations. In the musicians’ gallery, Conor and his orchestra banged away at the “March into Hell,” and the tables trembled with the crash of the brass. The floor was crowded to suffocation. Imbecile shrieking clowns in ruffles and powder, went madly bounding about, Turks footed it with Russian peasant girls, gendarmes wearing false noses and enormous moustaches locked arms with “ces messieurs” of the Vilette who wore the charming costume of that quarter including “favoris” and “rouflaquettes.” Students in evening-dress galloped about playing circus, and a pretty Cupid, mounted on one young gentleman’s shoulders, challenged a shepherdess, mounted on another, to a race, so away they went, crying “Allons! houp! houp!” From a near corner a monotonous chanting arose, where some thirty students were squatting in a ring beating upon drums with their hands. It was the rhythmic air of an Egyptian dance which was being executed in the middle by a willowy white-veiled girl who swung two gilded scimitars. Like sheet lightning the broad blades of the swords flashed above the silver-flecked veil, as her slender, supple figure swayed to the music.

  “Brava! Bis! Bis!” they cried, and the girl, with eyes like stars above her veil, whirled the scimitars into circles of flame. Suddenly she stood rigid, there came a clash of steel, the swords lay crossed before her, and, as the minor air swelled out, she whipped off her veil and sent it floating and billowing above her head while her little feet began to move to and fro among the swords, blade upward on the floor. The applause was deafening as she tossed back her head and said with the merriest laugh, “Je veux bien boire un bock!”

  Clifford jumped up from the floor and picking up the swords presented them on one knee.

  “Tiens! c’est toi, mon ami?”

  “Yes. Forgive me the cab, Cécile,” he murmured, drawing her half resisting arm through his.

  “I can’t forgive you. It was too ridiculous to sit there, — and somebody holding the hind wheels.”

  “Oh, Cécile—”

  “No — no!”

  “Ma petite Cécile—”

  “By Jove, she’s going to forgive him,” said Elliott to Rowden who was dancing attendance on the pretty Cupid.

  “Mr. Rowden, I insist,” pouted the Cupid, shaking her curls.

  “But I don’t enjoy playing circus,” pleaded Rowden, as Boissy pranced proudly by, his epaulettes over his ears, bearing Sara as Diana, who prodded him on with a silver-gilt arrow.

  Then Cupid became petulant and signified her intention of seeking another steed, and presently Elliott became the pleased spectator of his friend careering about in company with similarly burdened youths.

  “I’m not in it,” sighed Elliott, until he spied Margot, who stamped her foot and called for a steed. Shortly afterwards he joined the rest in feats of the haut-école.

  To say that Fradley was enjoying himself is not strictly true. Once every ten minutes he subdued some bound of a tortured conscience with the thought; “artists must be broad;” but except for these encounters with his doubts he found it all secretly thrilling and pleasant. He was lonely, in a way, yet he hardly knew what he would want of company. As for speaking to any of those brighteyed young persons who now and then slapped his face with a rose or rattled a tambourine over his hat, — that was out of the question. No, indeed! He would look on, “because an artist must be broad,” but he had no desire to contaminate himself with a word or a smile from such as they. No, indeed! No! No! There seemed to be some need of repeating this frequently to himself, but curiously enough it did not assuage his loneliness. Once a black-eyed Mephistopheles poked her pointed red feather into his eyes and then begged pardon with an irresistible smile which, fortunately for history, came several centuries too late for St. Anthony.

  What Fradley might have done had not the girl been carried off by Garland, nobody can tell. He felt a thump in his throat and a murderous feeling toward Garland, and yet he was sure that he had been about to wither temptation with a frown. Carrington spoke in his car.

  “Look at Sara! Magnificent!” Fradley turned.

  Seated upon a table in the gallery with the air of an Empress, Sara received the homage of the Quarter. Behind her Cécile and Clifford waved gaudy fans and imbibed champagne in tall goblets. The curly-headed Cupid and the black-eyed Mephistopheles were endangering their silken hose by sliding down the balustrade, aided and applauded by a Japanese maid and three fairies.

  Fradley had eyes for Sara only. “Vulgar,” he said. />
  “Yes,” said Carrington doubtfully. A great wave of loneliness swept over Fradley.

  “Shameless!” he gasped.

  Then Sara’s strange grey eyes met his across the whirl of the carnival; he saw her throw up her haughty head and send to him a wonderful smile, — a smile that scorched and yet healed, and in an agony of doubt he opened his lips to cry again to Carrington — to the world, “shameless!” but his lips were dry, and his voice died in his throat with a click.

  The music clashed; Cécile dropped her glass and clasped Clifford’s hand; Sara sprang into Boissy’s arms, — there was a rush, a tempest of cheers, and Fradley, jostled and hustled clung to a pillar, — clung a moment only, then was swept away, into the throng.

  “Dance!” cried a breathless voice behind him, and, “dance!” cried another voice beside him. He tried to stem the tide, — he shut his eyes, but soft arms were around his neck and a puff of perfume smote him like a blow in the face, and “dance! dance!” cried a voice in his ear. He knew the voice, his eyes flew open and he cried out, but “dance! dance! dance!” she panted, and her burnished hair flew in his face. He saw the crescent on her brow, he saw the strange grey eyes below it. Each separate hair in the fiery mane flashed like a perfumed flame, and he reeled and steadied himself with a soft hand that sought his own, while the orchestra thundered and the rosy ring of faces floated away, away, into an endless rosy chain.

  When it was that he drank something, he could not remember. He was very thirsty, and iced champagne was but a temporary relief.

  “Good!” cried Boissy with a stare, “so you’re going in for it!”

  Fradley looked at him, but Sara dropped her hand on his arm saying, “Toi, tu sais bien danser,” and turning scornfully to Boissy, “go away. You dance like a gendarme!”

  The music began again, and with the music bedlam broke loose. There was no pretence of sets. After a couple had danced themselves into exhaustion, they climbed over the balcony and watched the others. Cécile tossed her veil into the human whirlpool below, laughing delightedly as the silver stars were rent from it and sent scaling into the air. Rowden howled through the din for Clifford to pledge him, and smashed glass after glass in a vain effort to make him hear, while the black-eyed Mephistopheles, perched on Garland’s shoulders, poured out goblet after goblet of gold-dust and flung it over the throng until heads and shoulders glittered with the golden scales. Elliott had climbed into the orchestra with a bottle of champagne, and while the grateful musicians were quenching their thirst, he pounded on the spare cymbals until the handles came off and Monsieur Conor ejected him.