Guy Wetmore Carryl

“ But, bit by bit, Papa Labesse became accustomed to the new conditions; and every night, an hour before sunset, his high, dry voice summoned Marcelle from the dairy across the way, and the two set forth together up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic, and the old man would smoke his pipe by the low wattled fence at the brink of the bluff, while the child babbled of her little affairs. ”

“ L’amour, Papa Labesse, l’amour, — that which, finally, thou canst never understand, poor Papa Labesse! Tiens! Notre Dame! Ah, ça! A woman like herself, what? — like Paris that sings of love! My pigeon!”
So, for an hour, the thin stream of jumbled phrases slipped from his dry lips. ”

“ Bombiste had wanted her, so there was nothing to be done. And the debate invariably ended with a bit of flattery for Bombiste. It was a beau garçon, after all, name of a good name, with such eyes! And a tongue, bon Dieu, to draw the cork from a bottle! For there are many mysteries of human society, but the greatest of these is the good word of the other women for the man.
Curiously enough, Bombiste’s most eloquent partisan was La Trompette herself. Her first appearance at Le Cheval Blanc, after Fremier’s desertion of her, was the signal for the outburst of ironic condolence. ”

“ A faint smile touched the corners of her lips.
“Pauvre Bombiste!” she added. “It is one who does not know his own heart!”
And this again is unknowable mystery, — the gentle word of the woman for the man!
“He is mowing on the fortifs this week,” went on Marcelle, wistfully echoing her lover’s slang, “and La Trompette is with him. I saw them but to-day, from the porte de Clichy. So, since they are together, for me it is finished. I have come back to the Butte, Papa Labesse — come back to die. For now there is none to receive me, save Paris. ”

“ And for each of us she has something good — something better than ever we have imagined for ourselves, or wished to have; and yet, in whatever form, it is really the same thing always — l’amour, Papa Labesse, l’amour! ”

“ Papa Labesse Up on the Butte Montmartre life is a matter of first principles, and conventionality an undiscovered affliction. A spade is a spade, and the blacker it happens to be, the more apt it is to receive its proper appellation, and the less likely to be confused with the hearts and diamonds. That is why Papa Labesse had no hesitation in referring to Bombiste Fremier as a good-for-nothing, — a vaurien. ”

“ She glanced up and down the street with an air of complete unconcern, and then her eyes came back to Papa Labesse with a vindictive snap.
“Happily,” she added, “he will have taught her a way of earning white pieces in abundance. She is not the first, thy Marcelle. They are sprinkled from here to La Villette, the gonzesses who know the name of Bombiste Premier. Wouldst thou prove it? Walk, then, from the place Pigalle to the place de la Rotonde to-night at twelve!” And La Trompette laughed. ”

“ But thou art going to tell me that it is finished forever! — That never, never,” she went on, clenching her hands, “wilt thou see her again! Else I plant thee, and thou canst earn thine own white pieces, — mackerel!” ”