F. Berkeley Smith

“ She is the model of the gray-haired man on the left, a man of perhaps fifty, with kindly intelligent eyes and strong, nervous, expressive hands—hands that know how to model a colossal Greek war-horse, plunging in battle, or create a nymph scarcely a foot high out of a lump of clay, so charmingly that the French Government has not only bought the nymph, but given him a little red ribbon for his pains. ”

“ These years of camaraderie—of a life free from all conventionalities, in daily touch with everything about them, and untrammeled by public censure or the petty views of prudish or narrow- 195 - minds, have left them free to cut a straight swath merrily toward the goal of their ideals, surrounded all the while by an atmosphere of art and good-fellowship that permeates the very air they breathe.
If a man can work at all, he can work here, for between the working-hours he finds a life so charming, that once having lived it he returns to it again and again, as to an old love. ”

“ That fellow, in filth and rags, shuffling along, his eyes scrutinizing, like a hungry rat, every nook and corner under the café tables on the terrace, carries a stick spiked with a pin. The next instant, he has raked the butt of your discarded cigarette from beneath your feet with the dexterity of a- 31 - croupier. The butt he adds to the collection in his filthy pocket, and shuffles on to the next café. It will go so far at least toward paying for his absinthe. He is hungry, but it is the absinthe for which he is working. He is a “marchand de mégots”; it is his profession. ”

“ They have seen the gay boulevards and the cafés and generations - 197 -of grisettes, from the true grisette of years gone by, in her dainty white cap and simple dress turned low at the throat, to the tailor-made grisette of to-day.
Yet the eyes of the little old woman still dance; they have not grown tired of this ever-changing kaleidoscope of human nature, this paradise of the free, where many would rather struggle on half starved than live a life of luxury elsewhere.
And the students are equally quixotic. ”

“ You will find her exceedingly interesting, quiet, and refined, and with a knowledge of things in general that will surprise you, until you discover she has, in her life as a model, been thrown daily in conversation with men of genius, and has acquired a smattering of the knowledge of many things—of art and literature—of the theater and its playwrights—plunging now and then into medicine and law and poetry—all these things she has picked up in the studios, in the cafés, in the course of her Bohemian life. ”

“ Madame will wax enthusiastic—her face wreathed in smiles. “Ah! he is a bon garçon; he always eats with the rest, for three or four francs, never more! He is so amiable, and, you know, he is very celebrated and very rich”; and madame will not only tell you his entire history, but about his work—the beauty of his wife and how “aimables” his children are. Mademoiselle Fanny knows them all.
But the men who come here to lunch are not idlers; they come in, many of them, fresh from a hard morning’s work in the studio. ”

“ CHAPTER VII
“POCHARD”
Drunkards are not frequent sights in the Quarter; and yet when these people do get drunk, they become as irresponsible as maniacs. Excitable to a degree even when sober, these most wretched among the poor when drunk often appear in front of a café—gaunt, wild-eyed, haggard, and filthy—singing in boisterous tones or reciting to you with tense voices a jumble of meaningless thoughts.
The man with the matted hair, and toes out of his boots, will fold his arms melodramatically, and regard you for some moments as you sit in front of him on the terrace. ”

“ An hour later he emerges, well fed, revives his knee-sprung horse, lights a fresh cigarette, cracks his whip like a package of torpedoes, and goes clattering off in search of a customer.
The shops along the rue Vaugirard are- 18 - marvels of neatness. The butcher-shop, with its red front, is iron-barred like the lion’s cage in the circus. Inside the cage are some choice specimens of filets, rounds of beef, death-masks of departed calves, cutlets, and chops in paper pantalettes. On each article is placed a brass sign with the current price thereon.
In Paris nothing is wasted. ”

“ A tall poet stalks slowly by, reading intently, as he walks, a well-worn volume of verses—his faded straw hat shading the tip of his long nose. Following him, a boy of twenty, delicately featured, with that purity of expression one sees in the faces of the good—the result of a life, perhaps, given to his ideal in art. ”

“ In a little hotel near the Odéon, there lived a family of just such bohemians—six struggling poets, each with an imagination and a love of good wine and good dinners and good times that left them continually in a state of bankruptcy! As they really never had any money—none that ever lasted for more than two days and two nights at the utmost, their good landlord seldom saw a sou in return for his hospitable roof, which had sheltered these six great minds who wrote of the moon, and of fate, and fortune, and love. ”

“ In a balloon one forgets the world—one is no longer a part of it—no longer mortal. What romance there is in going up above everything with the woman one loves—comrades in danger—the ropes—the wicker cage—the ceiling of stars above one and Paris below no bigger than a gridiron! ”

“ One sees many such derelicts in Paris among these people who have worn themselves out with amusement, for here the world lives for pleasure, for “la grande vie!” To the man, every serious effort he is obliged to make trends toward one idea—that of the bon vivant—to gain success and fame, but to gain it with the idea of how much personal daily pleasure it will bring him. Ennui is a word one hears constantly; if it rains toute le monde est triste. To have one’s gaiety interrupted is regarded as a calamity, and “tout le monde” will sympathize with you. ”

“ Again an atelier of painters may reproduce the frieze of the Parthenon in color; another a float or a decoration, suggesting the works of their master.
The room becomes a thing of splendor, for it is as gorgeous a spectacle as the cleverest of the painters, sculptors, and architects can make it, and is the result of careful study—and all for the love of it!—for the great “Quat’z’ Arts” ball is an event looked forward to for months. ”

“ The air grows chilly; it is again the hour to dine—the hour when Paris wakes.
In the smaller restaurants of the Quarter one often sees some strange contrasts among these true bohemians, for the Latin Quarter draws its habitués from every part of the globe. They are not all French—these happy-go-lucky fellows, who live for the day and let the morrow slide. You will see many Japanese—some of them painters—many of them taking courses in political economy, or in law ”

“ She is trembling with rage; the man at her side hunches his great shoulders, flicks the ashes from his cigarette, looks at her keenly for a moment, and then smiles. In a moment she is herself again, almost penitent; this little savage, half Roumanian, half Russian, has never known what it was to be ruled! She has seen men grow white when she has stamped her little foot, but this big Raoul, whom she loves—who once held a garrison with a handful of men—he does not tremble! she loves him for his devil-me-care indifference—and he enjoys her temper. ”

“ Or perhaps your concierge will be like old Père Valois, who has three pretty daughters who do the housework of the studios, as well as assist in the guardianship of the gate. They are very busy, these three daughters of Père Valois—all the morning you will see these little “femmes de ménage” as busy as bees; the artists and poets must be waked up, and beds made and studios cleaned. There are many that are never cleaned at all, but then there are many, too, who are not so fortunate as to be taken care of by the three daughters of Père Valois. ”

“ It is ideal, this student life with its student loves of four years, but is it right to many an honest little comrade, who seldom knows an hour when she is away from her ami? who has suffered and starved and slaved with him through years of days- 85 - of good and bad luck—who has encouraged him in his work, nursed him when ill, and made a thousand golden hours in this poet’s or painter’s life so completely happy, that he looks back on them in later life as never-to-be-forgotten? He remembers the good dinners at the little restaurant near his studio, where they dined among the old crowd. ”

“ A famous beauty, her black hair bound in a golden fillet with a circle wrought in silver and studded with Oriental turquoises clasping her superb torso, throws her sandals to the crowd and begins an Oriental dance—a thing of grace and beauty—fired with the intensity of the innate nature of this beautifully modeled daughter of Bohemia. ”

“ Then life would, to this impractical philosopher, again become worth living. He would dispatch a “petit bleu” to Marcelle; and the two would meet at the Café Cluny, and dine at La Perruse on filet de sole au vin blanc, and a bottle of Haut Barsac—the bottle all cobwebs and cradled in its basket—the garçon, as he poured its golden contents, holding his breath meanwhile lest he disturb its long slumber. ”

“ Nearly every highway has its popular side, and on the “Boul’ Miche” it is the left one, coming up from the Seine. Here are the cafés, and from 5 P.M. until long past midnight, the life of the Quartier pours- 30 - by them—students, soldiers, families, poets, artists, sculptors, wives, and sweethearts; bicycle girls, the modern grisette, the shop girl, and the model; fakirs, beggars, and vagrants. Yet the word vagrant is a misnomer in this city, where economy has reached a finesse that is marvelous. ”

“ There are so many who can draw, so many who can sing, so many poets and writers and sculptors. To many- 122 - of the cleverest, half a loaf is too often better than no bread.
You will find often in these cabarets and in the cafés and along the boulevard, a man who, for a few sous, will render a portrait or a caricature on the spot. You learn that this journeyman artist once was a well-known painter of the Quarter, who had drawn for years in the academies. The man at present is a wreck, as he sits in a café with portfolio on his knees, his black slouch hat drawn over his scraggly gray hair. ”

“ It is all you expected it to be, and more, too. Below you is a veritable whirlpool of girls and students—a vast sea of heads, and a dazzling display of colors and lights and animation. Little shrieks and screams fill your ears, as the orchestra crashes into the last page of a galop, quickening the pace until Yvonne’s little feet slip and her cheeks glow, and her eyes grow bright, and half her pretty golden hair gets smashed over her impudent little nose. ”

“ That women should become outcasts through the hopelessness of their position or the breaking down of their brains can be understood, but that men of ability should sink into the dregs and stay there seems incredible. But it is often so.
Near the rue Monge there is a small café and restaurant, a place celebrated for its onion soup and its chicken. From the tables outside, one can see into the small kitchen, with its polished copper sauce-pans hanging about the grill.
Lachaume, the painter, and I were chatting at one of its little tables, he over an absinthe and I over a coffee and cognac. ”

“ I’ve got a girl here who comes on and does art poses among the lions; she’s a dream—French, too!”
A girl of perhaps twenty, enveloped in a bath gown, now appeared at the wings. The next instant the huge theater became dark, and she stood in full fleshings, in the center of the cage, brilliant in the rays of a powerful limelight, while the lions circled about her at the command of the trainer. ”

“ If you dine at the Taverne du Panthéon on a Thursday night you will find that the taverne is half deserted by 10 o’clock, and that every one is leaving and walking up- 58 - the “Boul’ Miche” toward the “Bullier.” Follow them, and as you reach the place l’Observatoire, and turn a sharp corner to the left, you will see the façade of this famous ball, illumined by a sizzling blue electric light over the entrance.
The façade, with its colored bas-reliefs of students and grisettes, reminds one of the proscenium of a toy theater. ”

“ The tall sculptor opposite you has- 101 - been at work, since his morning coffee, on a group for the government; another, bare-armed and in his flannel shirt, has been building up masses of clay, punching and modeling, and scraping away, all the morning, until he produces, in the rough, the body of a giantess, a huge caryatide that is destined, for the rest of her existence, to hold upon her broad shoulders part of the façade of an American building. ”

“ The room is bewildering in gay color, the hum of conversation is everywhere, and as there is a corresponding row of tables across the low, narrow room, friendly greetings and often conversations are kept up from one side to the other. The dinner, as it progresses, assumes the air of a big family party of good bohemians. The French do not bring their misery with them to the table. To dine is to enjoy oneself to the utmost ”

“ To be even a cocher in Paris is considered a profession. If he dines at six-thirty and you hail him to take you as he rattles past, he will make his brief apologies to you without slackening his pace, and go on to his plat du jour and bottle of wine at his favorite rendezvous, dedicated to “The Faithful Cocher.” ”