H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ Pelisson was half asleep, and Toto as white as a ghost. Gaillard, his cuff scribbled over with lunatic poetry, cast his mournful eyes at the dawn peeping in white over the silent Boulevard des Capucines.
“I was once a youth,” said Gaillard. “That is what the world says to us in the dawn. The dawn ever fills me with despair—a delicious despair. I do not know why, but it seems forever linked to that divine forlorn hope, love. This is the light from which we rebuild old castles and recall vanished faces. In the faint wind that moves we hear the whisper of voices. ”

“ I never praise—old age has made a wreck of my enthusiasm; but my heart rekindles when I see art thus wrested from the hands of the hateful canaille by one of us.”
“Indeed!” said Helen Powers, whose father had been a pig-slaughterer.
“Indeed yes, mademoiselle!” replied the old man, winking and blinking like a delirious goat, whilst Toto looked on with a grin. “I have left all my ambition behind me, buried beneath the ruins of the Empire, else would I wish to be young like M. le Prince, and gifted like the painter of these treasures.” ”

“ We will not have the walls papered; most have, but we need not be vulgar though we are poor. Oh, Toto, poverty is a romance if it is taken in the right way; we will teach the poor how to endure their poverty romantically. No, we will not have paper—plain plaster and an etching or two of Albrecht Dürer’s, a little library confined to one bookshelf. Loti, Baudelaire, and a few mystics; a lark to sing to one whilst one paints or writes; a girl with blue eyes to love; a pipe to smoke—what more does one want? In the name of Heaven, what more does one want? ”

“ When people cried “What a droll fellow this Papillard is!” Gaillard’s tongue had to lie mute at the bottom of his mouth—a cruel torture. You cannot be two people at once. You cannot be a mystical poet, and a buffoon—at least, before the eyes of the world. He had discovered his genius by accident, and too late. His self-love had crystallized round poetry, and, in fact, the poet was the true him. Papillard was a clove of garlic in a bonbon box, placed there by accident or freak, smelt by everyone, but never localized. ”

“ They are not in flower yet; but no matter—one cannot have everything.”
“True,” said Gaillard, trying to ogle Célestin and failing, for she was entirely engrossed with Toto and the bread and butter; “one cannot have everything. We will go to Montmorency, and sit beneath the chestnut trees and tell each other fairy tales.”
“Oh, how delightful!” murmured Célestin.
“I will tell you the tale of the giant and the dwarf,” resumed Gaillard. “It is my own—one of a series of fin-de-siècle fairy tales I am writing for Lévy. There is a terrible battle in it, and the giant beats the dwarf. ”

“ In this world, Toto, some fate ordains that men live on each other’s absurdities.143 Absurdity is to men as grass to cattle, air to life. Could you place a great cupping-glass over Paris, and, with an air-pump, remove all its absurdity, the place would fall to pieces; ten thousand men would starve; the journals would wither like autumn leaves; Struve, Pelisson, De Brie, and a thousand others would vanish; women would no longer wear pompons in their hats, and poor little Angélique would die from want of folly in others. ”

“ Then he left her and took his hat, and left the atelier leaning on Gaillard’s arm, whilst Garnier sat on the couch and mused.
“I must leave Paris at once—I must leave Paris at once!” burst out Toto when they were in the Rue de Perpignan. “I must leave it forever; nothing like this ever happened to anyone before. My God! I am going mad. It is like one of those dreams when we seem to be walking about the streets naked. Did you see that fool De Harnac’s face, and Valfray looking all round with his eyeglass?” ”

“ Angélique has a lame brother who lives at Villers Cotterets; he is a great trial to us—an incessant drain. You often laugh at me for my expenses; the fact is, Toto, I am always being tapped, like a person with the dropsy. The affection between this brother and sister is a poem; I weep my money away over it. Now you are casting in your lot with art, Angélique rises up in my mind, and I hear her say “What will become of me?” I will not hide it from you that you have, through me, been the mainstay of an unfortunate man. ”

“ With my blouse I become a man like other men; I give myself a year, and then—we will see what Otto Struve and De Nani say.”
“But you are not serious, Toto?” cried Gaillard, who was now the man alarmed, for Toto was a little income to him, a cigarette mine, and a most joyous companion. “You would die, my child, under the hardships of such a life; you were not born to the blouse, you were born to the purple.” ”

“ The fact was, the great Garnier was miraculously in love. When an elephant falls into a pit he does it in a whole-hearted manner; so fell Garnier into this passion. Célestin had been for him that dangerous thing—a revelation. She had eclipsed the Intransigèant, and robbed Henri Rochefort of his power; she had touched Prince Rudolph, and he had slunk back into his impossible mysteries; she had taken the charm from garlic, and even the wizard café lost its fascination. ”

“ He was standing before the indifferent looking-glass that adorned the mantel, examining his face and informing Scribe, the cashier, that Pantin had given him ten new wrinkles. A café near by had just sent in déjeuner for two and a bottle of Pommery.
“I am expecting M. Gaillard to breakfast,” explained De Nani. “A most promising young man, whose interests I have at heart.”
Scribe bowed and left the room. He was a shock-headed man, with musical instincts and a genius for figures; he held the Marquis in great reverence, and had an implicit faith in him that somewhat troubled Pelisson. ”

“ THE GENESIS OF “PANTIN.”
They returned to Paris at five, leaving the luncheon basket at the Montmorency Station.
“Églantine will send for it,” said Gaillard.
At the Nord they took an open carriage driven by a cabman in a white beaver, and drawn by two white ponies. In this conveyance they tore down the Rue de Faubourg St. Denis, along the Boulevard Nouvelle, and down the Rue Richelieu. Toto sat beside Célestin; Gaillard on the front seat, his stick between his legs, chattered like a magpie, so delighted was he to find himself back in his dear Paris. ”

“ Dear Toto, come and give me my dinner, and lend me a thousand francs, and comfort me. Sit here with me, and have an absinthe, and look at Paris as it passes; and then we will go to the Maison Dorée and dine.”
“You are just the man I want,” said Toto, as they took their seats at a café, where the marble-topped tables had ventured out now that the weather was fine, and even a bit warm. “I want your help and advice. I’ve been with that villain Struve, and he has depressed me, and flung cold water on me.”
“Struve is a critic,” said Gaillard in a vicious voice; “he is one of the sorrows of art. ”

“ Gaillard’s fairy people visited her, and Bastiche and Fantoff commanded her terrified attention as they did battle once more on the greensward in front of the Castle of Flowers, whilst Fantoum watched them across the holly hedge. Then the battle scene vanished, and Mizar the cat came and took his seat upon her chest. His eyes were pale blue, and flickered like spirit lamps in a draught; she implored of him to give her water to drink, and for answer he changed into Gaillard.
Through all these fancies ran the form of an old man. ”

“ Liard’s cat may kill him. What shall I do?”
“Why, the girl has a baby!” thought Gaillard in astonishment.
“Well, this is a nuisance!” said Toto in a voice of tribulation.
“How old is Dodor, mademoiselle?” asked the poet.
“He is two years and a little bit,” wept Célestin.
“Ah, then be assured, mademoiselle, he is safe; cats never attack children of that age.”
Toto made horrible faces at his companion.
“He is not a child, monsieur,” murmured Dodor’s mistress—“I often wish that he were; he is my lark, and Mme. Liard’s cat may kill him.” ”

“ She was the wife of his soul. Never was there a purer passion begotten of man and woman; yet, strangely enough, it did not purify him. He talked of women in the same old free-and-easy way, and the jokes of Castanet, Lorillard, Floquet & Co. did not shock him.
Had Célestin lived in a romance, she would doubtless have cast her light on womanhood. She would have elevated Garnier, and he certainly would have been none the worse for that. In reality, however, her effulgence showed him nothing but herself. ”

“ Genius was never intended to buffet with the world, to pay rent and fight with tradespeople; it is always allied to a fine nature, and I predict the most horrible sufferings for you should you continue this fictitious and insane battle with the world. It is only the duffers and the dullards who succeed in this game; they have blunt noses, and they do not feel blows. Look at De Nani, a miserable wreck without an idea, of whom all Paris is talking. ”

“ Bastiche, then, as if oblivious of the presence of a foe, gazed up at the clouds and sniffed, and asked the sky where could the smell of manure be coming from; whilst Fantoff inquired of the tulips whether this was the washing-day at the castle? This allusion to his birth quite upset the calm of Bastiche, who descended the steps, opened the garden gate, and like a fool left the protection of the tulip army and holly hedge. ”

“ At this Célestin, with Dodor in her mind, said “No, no.” So the poet passed on to the cat Mizar and the dwarf Blizzard, whom the giant had, one day in a fit of idleness, carved from a forked carrot; and Célestin, remembering Garnier’s tulip, believed that this might possibly be true.
Blizzard, forgetful of the debt of creation, dared to fall in love with the lady beloved by Fantoff, whose name was Primavera, and whose abode was the Castle of Flowers. A hundred thousand tulips defended this castle from behind a holly hedge. ”

“ I go to Struve, and he sneers at me, tells me to grind a coffee mill.”
“Oh, that Struve!” mourned Gaillard. “What led you to a critic for advice or sympathy? He told you to grind a coffee mill? Give me a cigarette, Toto; my case is empty; I will take three. He told you that! They fancy their cheap wit kills, these critics do; but you are not alone, Toto. Did you see the critique on my little poem ‘Satanitie’ in the Écho de Paris? Well, that is what they fling nowadays at an artist, and call it wit. ”

“ I clung to Mme. Liard, I was so frightened. You cannot think how terrible it was till the door broke open and his father rushed in,—he was the son of a duke in disguise,—and the concierge came after, and a lot of people, and they cut him down. Everyone wept. There was a villain in the piece, and, oh! such a pretty girl,” finished Célestin. “But I liked the artist best. Are all artists very poor, M. Désiré?”
“Oh, we manage to scrape along,” said Toto, “when we can sell our pictures; we can’t always do that—we can’t always get them exhibited, even. I sent one last year to the Salon.” ”

“ Have you seen that article in the Tribune on Mallarmé?—Mallarmé, that divine shadow moving in the twilight of the gods, even he is not safe from their mud.67 But what is this, Toto, you say about help and advice? Are you being worried by some woman? Is your mother tormenting? Unfold yourself to me.”
“Look here, Gaillard: you are a man of sense, you have sympathy. I am sick of life, living like a cabbage, and I want to live really, I want to be famous without the assistance of anyone; I have a talent.”
“You have an undoubted genius.” ”

“ They washed De Nani’s face with white wine and Toto’s handkerchief, whilst the old man struggled and resisted like a child. It was a mournful spectacle, and Toto did not laugh as the others did.
“That’s what’s the end of all,” he thought. “Eugh! what a beastly thing life is!”
“Now put on his hat,” commanded Pelisson, who acted as master of the ceremonies, “and jam it down—that’s right. I will carry his cane. Drive him before you, and call a cab,” he cried to the garçon, handing him a napoleon for pourboire. ”

“ Then she ran away to get some money, and Célestin stood by the table, on which lay feathers, patterns of silk, and those pompons which, according to Gaillard, were the mainstay and support of the mysterious Angélique.
“This is for the work,” said Mme. Hümmel, paying the stipulated amount, “and this is for yourself. It is a wedding gift. Poor child! are you happy?”
“Oh, very happy!” said Célestin, putting the napoleon just given to her for a wedding gift into her glove, and the six francs into her purse. “Happier than I can tell. How good it is of you! A whole napoleon! ”

“ I do not think you will find in Europe a more foul-minded person than the rapin, or a more joyous, or a more lovable, or a more pitiable. And though he is certainly the most consequential creature154 in the world, he is the greatest knocker-down of pedestals. Delacroix declared he could smell corruption in the air of Paris. I think he must have smelt the rapin. Yet out of this dung spring the fairest flowers of art.
Toto, forsaking his world for a space, had cast in his lot with this creation, and Célestin, like an angel made blind by love, followed him. ”

“ Those two children of hers, Toto and Dodor! They crossed her imagination together, feckless creatures, one so like the other in character, either jumping about on their perches, or moping, irresponsible, and terribly in need of someone to tidy their cages, talk to them, and love them.
She was passing a frightful criticism on Toto, but she did not know it. Perhaps the only people who criticise us justly are the people who love us,224 for our perfections and imperfections are to them all one country, and of that country perhaps our imperfections are the fairest part. ”

“ Fanfoullard may be there; he always crawls out at dark and rides to the Rue de Rivoli in an omnibus with his eyes shut, for fear of seeing the terrible people who make use of those vehicles. They put him out in the Rue de Rivoli, and he opens his eyes. Should he have any fans finished, he takes them to Nadar, who monopolizes his work; then he always comes to my rooms and smokes—I leave tobacco for him on the mantel. He is my familiar. For days sometimes we do not meet, when I happen to be out, but I always know that he has been; he leaves a smell of withered flowers behind him. ”