Tales of Trail and Town by Bret Harte (knowledgeable books to read txt) 📕

untarnished by the gilded dust of the boulevards or the filth of by-ways; knew all the best shops for her friends, and the cheapest for her own scant purchases; discovered breakfasts for a few sous with pale sempstresses, whose sadness she understood, and reckless chorus girls, whose gayety she didn’t; she knew where the earliest chestnut buds were to be found in the Bois, when the slopes of the Buttes Chaumont were green, and which was the old woman who sold the cheapest flowers before the Madeleine. Alone and independent, she earned the affection of Madame Bibelot, the concierge, and, what was more, her confidence. Her outgoings and incomings were never questioned. The little American could take care of herself. Ah, if her son Jacques were only as reasonable! Miss Maynard might have made more friends had she cared; she might have joined hands with the innocent and light-hearted poverty of the coterie of her own artistic compatriots, but something in her blood made her distrust Bohemianism; her poverty was something to her too sacred for jest or companionship; her own artistic aim was too long and earnest for mere temporary enthusiasms. She might have found friends in her own profession. Her professor opened the sacred doors of his family circle to the young American girl. She appreciated the delicacy, refinement, and cheerful equal responsibilities of that household, so widely different from the accepted Anglo-Saxon belief, but there were certain restrictions that rightly or wrongly galled her American habits of girlish freedom, and she resolutely tripped past the first etage four or five flights higher to her attic, the free sky, and independence! Here she sometimes met another kind of independence in Monsieur Alphonse, aged twenty two, and she who ought to have been Madame Alphonse, aged seventeen, and they often exchanged greetings on the landing with great respect towards each other, and, oddly enough, no confusion or distrait. Later they even borrowed each other’s matches without fear and without reproach, until one day Monsieur Alphonse’s parents took him away, and the desolated soi-disant Madame Alphonse, in a cheerful burst of confidence, gave Helen her private opinion of monsieur, and from her seventeen years’ experience warned the American infant of twenty against possible similar complications.

One day—it was near the examination for prizes, and her funds were running low—she was obliged to seek one of those humbler restaurants she knew of for her frugal breakfast. But she was not hungry, and after a few mouthfuls left her meal unfinished as a young man entered and half abstractedly took a seat at her table. She had already moved towards the comptoir to pay her few sous, when, chancing to look up in a mirror which hung above the counter, reflecting the interior of the cafe, she saw the stranger, after casting a hurried glance around him, remove from her plate the broken roll and even the crumbs she had left, and as hurriedly sweep them into his pocket-handkerchief. There was nothing very strange in this; she had seen something like it before in these humbler cafes,—it was a crib for the birds in the Tuileries Gardens, or the poor artist’s substitute for rubber in correcting his crayon drawing! But there was a singular flushing of his handsome face in the act that stirred her with a strange pity, made her own cheek hot with sympathy, and compelled her to look at him more attentively. The back that was turned towards her was broad-shouldered and symmetrical, and showed a frame that seemed to require stronger nourishment than the simple coffee and roll he had ordered and was devouring slowly. His clothes, well made though worn, fitted him in a smart, soldier-like way, and accentuated his decided military bearing. The singular use of his left hand in lifting his cup made her uneasy, until a slight movement revealed the fact that his right sleeve was empty and pinned to his coat. He was one-armed. She turned her compassionate eyes aside, yet lingered to make a few purchases at the counter, as he paid his bill and walked away. But she was surprised to see that he tendered the waiter the unexampled gratuity of a sou. Perhaps he was some eccentric Englishman; he certainly did not look like a Frenchman.

She had quite forgotten the incident, and in the afternoon had strolled with a few fellow pupils into the galleries of the Louvre. It was “copying-day,” and as her friends loitered around the easels of the different students with the easy consciousness of being themselves “artists,” she strolled on somewhat abstractedly before them. Her own art was too serious to permit her much sympathy with another, and in the chatter of her companions with the young painters a certain levity disturbed her. Suddenly she stopped. She had reached a less frequented room; there was a single easel at one side, but the stool before it was empty, and its late occupant was standing in a recess by the window, with his back towards her. He had drawn a silk handkerchief from his pocket. She recognized his square shoulders, she recognized the handkerchief, and as he unrolled it she recognized the fragments of her morning’s breakfast as he began to eat them. It was the one-armed man.

She remained so motionless and breathless that he finished his scant meal without noticing her, and even resumed his place before the easel without being aware of her presence. The noise of approaching feet gave a fresh impulse to her own, and she moved towards him. But he was evidently accustomed to these interruptions, and worked on steadily without turning his head. As the other footsteps passed her she was emboldened to take a position behind him and glance at his work. It was an architectural study of one of Canaletto’s palaces. Even her inexperienced eyes were struck with its vigor and fidelity. But she was also conscious of a sense of disappointment. Why was he not—like the others—copying one of the masterpieces? Becoming at last aware of a motionless woman behind him, he rose, and with a slight gesture of courtesy and a half-hesitating “Vous verrez mieux la, mademoiselle,” moved to one side.

“Thank you,” said Miss Maynard in English, “but I did not want to disturb you.”

He glanced quickly at her face for the first time. “Ah, you are English!” he said.

“No. I am American.”

His face lightened. “So am I.”

“I thought so,” she said.

“From my bad French?”

“No. Because you did not look up to see if the woman you were polite to was old or young.”

He smiled. “And you, mademoiselle,—you did not murmur a compliment to the copy over the artist’s back.”

She smiled, too, yet with a little pang over the bread. But she was relieved to see that he evidently had not recognized her. “You are modest,” she said; “you do not attempt masterpieces.”

“Oh, no! The giants like Titian and Corregio must be served with both hands. I have only one,” he said half lightly, half sadly.

“But you have been a soldier,” she said with quick intuition.

“Not much. Only during our war,—until I was compelled to handle nothing larger than a palette knife. Then I came home to New York, and, as I was no use there, I came here to study.”

“I am from South Carolina,” she said quietly, with a rising color.

He put his palette down, and glanced at her black dress. “Yes,” she went on doggedly, “my father lost all his property, and was killed in battle with the Northerners. I am an orphan,—a pupil of the Conservatoire.” It was never her custom to allude to her family or her lost fortunes; she knew not why she did it now, but something impelled her to rid her mind of it to him at once. Yet she was pained at his grave and pitying face.

“I am very sorry,” he said simply. Then, after a pause, he added, with a gentle smile, “At all events you and I will not quarrel here under the wings of the French eagles that shelter us both.”

“I only wanted to explain why I was alone in Paris,” she said, a little less aggressively.

He replied by unhooking his palette, which was ingeniously fastened by a strap over his shoulder under the missing arm, and opened a portfolio of sketches at his side. “Perhaps they may interest you more than the copy, which I have attempted only to get at this man’s method. They are sketches I have done here.”

There was a buttress of Notre Dame, a black arch of the Pont Neuf, part of an old courtyard in the Faubourg St. Germain,—all very fresh and striking. Yet, with the recollection of his poverty in her mind, she could not help saying, “But if you copied one of those masterpieces, you know you could sell it. There is always a demand for that work.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but these help me in my line, which is architectural study. It is, perhaps, not very ambitious,” he added thoughtfully, “but,” brightening up again, “I sell these sketches, too. They are quite marketable, I assure you.”

Helen’s heart sank again. She remembered now to have seen such sketches—she doubted not they were his—in the cheap shops in the Rue Poissoniere, ticketed at a few francs each. She was silent as he patiently turned them over. Suddenly she uttered a little cry.

He had just uncovered a little sketch of what seemed at first sight only a confused cluster of roof tops, dormer windows, and chimneys, level with the sky-line. But it was bathed in the white sunshine of Paris, against the blue sky she knew so well. There, too, were the gritty crystals and rust of the tiles, the red, brown, and greenish mosses of the gutters, and lower down the more vivid colors of geraniums and pansies in flower-pots under the white dimity curtains which hid the small panes of garret windows; yet every sordid detail touched and transfigured with the poetry and romance of youth and genius.

“You have seen this?” she said.

“Yes; it is a study from my window. One must go high for such effects. You would be surprised if you could see how different the air and sunshine”—

“No,” she interrupted gently, “I HAVE seen it.”

“You?” he repeated, gazing at her curiously.

Helen ran the point of her slim finger along the sketch until it reached a tiny dormer window in the left-hand corner, half-hidden by an irregular chimney-stack. The curtains were closely drawn. Keeping her finger upon the spot, she said, interrogatively, “And you saw THAT window?”

“Yes, quite plainly. I remember it was always open, and the room seemed empty from early morning to evening, when the curtains were drawn.”

“It is my room,” she said simply.

Their eyes met with this sudden confession of their equal poverty. “And mine,” he said gayly, “from which this view was taken, is in the rear and still higher up on the other street.”

They both laughed as if some singular restraint had been removed; Helen even forgot the incident of the bread in her relief. Then they compared notes of their experiences, of their different concierges, of their housekeeping, of the cheap stores and the cheaper restaurants of Paris,—except one. She told him her name, and learned that his was Philip, or, if she pleased, Major Ostrander. Suddenly glancing at her companions, who were ostentatiously lingering at a little distance, she became conscious for the first time that she was talking quite confidentially to a very handsome man, and for a brief moment wished, she knew not why, that he had been plainer. This momentary restraint was accented by the entrance of a lady and gentleman, rather distingue in dress and bearing, who had stopped before them, and were eying equally the artist, his work, and his companion with somewhat