And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown.
Part VI
“Vraiment, la reine auprès d’elle était laide
Quand, vers le soir,
Elle passait sur le pont de Tolède
En corset noir!
Un chapelet du temps de Charlemagne
Ornait son cou. …
La vent qui vient à travers la montagne
Me rendra fou!
“Dansez, chantez, villageois! la nuit tombe. …
Sabine, un jour,
A tout donné—sa beauté de colombe,
Et son amour—
Pour l’anneau d’or du Comte de Soldagne,
Pour un bijou. …
La vent qui vient à travers la montagne
M’a rendu fou!”
Behold our three musketeers of the brush once more reunited in Paris, famous, after long years.
In emulation of the good Dumas, we will call it “cinq ans après.” It was a little more.
Taffy stands for Porthos and Athos rolled into one, since he is big and good-natured, and strong enough to assommer un homme d’un coup de poing, and also stately and solemn, of aristocratic and romantic appearance, and not too fat—not too much ongbong-pwang, as the Laird called it—and also he does not dislike a bottle of wine, or even two, and looks as if he had a history.
The Laird, of course, is d’Artagnan, since he sells his pictures well, and by the time we are writing of has already become an Associate of the Royal Academy; like Quentin Durward, this d’Artagnan was a Scotsman:
“Ah, was na he a Roguy, this piper of Dundee!”
And Little Billee, the dainty friend of duchesses, must stand for Aramis, I fear! It will not do to push the simile too far; besides, unlike the good Dumas, one has a conscience. One does not play ducks and drakes with historical facts, or tamper with historical personages. And if Athos, Porthos & Co. are not historical by this time, I should like to know who are!
Well, so are Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee—tout ce qu’il y a de plus historiques!
Our three friends, well groomed, frock-coated, shirt-collared within an inch of their lives, duly scarfed and scarf-pinned, chimney-pot-hatted, and most beautifully trousered, and balmorally booted, or neatly spatted (or whatever was most correct at the time), are breakfasting together on coffee, rolls, and butter at a little round table in the huge courtyard of an immense caravanserai, paved with asphalt, and covered in at the top with a glazed roof that admits the sun and keeps out the rain—and the air.
A magnificent old man as big as Taffy, in black velvet coat and breeches and black silk stockings, and a large gold chain round his neck and chest, looks down like Jove from a broad flight of marble steps—as though to welcome the coming guests, who arrive in cabs and railway omnibuses through a huge archway on the boulevard, or to speed those who part through a lesser archway opening on to a side street.
“Bon voyage, messieurs et dames!”
At countless other little tables other voyagers are breakfasting or ordering breakfast; or, having breakfasted, are smoking and chatting and looking about. It is a babel of tongues—the cheerfulest, busiest, merriest scene in the world, apparently the costly place of rendezvous for all wealthy Europe and America; an atmosphere of banknotes and gold.
Already Taffy has recognized (and been recognized by) half a dozen old fellow-Crimeans, of unmistakable military aspect like himself; and three canny Scotsmen have discreetly greeted the Laird; and as for Little Billee, he is constantly jumping up from his breakfast and running to this table or that, drawn by some irresistible British smile of surprised and delighted female recognition: “What, you here? How nice! Come over to hear la Svengali, I suppose.”
At the top of the marble steps is a long terrace, with seats and people sitting, from which tall glazed doors, elaborately carved and gilded, give access to luxurious drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, reading-rooms, lavatories, postal and telegraph offices; and all round and about are huge square green boxes, out of which grow tropical and exotic evergreens all the year round—with beautiful names that I have forgotten. And leaning against these boxes are placards announcing what theatrical or musical entertainments will take place in Paris that day or night; and the biggest of these placards (and the most fantastically decorated) informs the cosmopolite world that Madame Svengali intends to make her first appearance in Paris that very evening, at nine punctually, in the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, Rue St. Honoré!
Our friends had only arrived the previous night, but they had managed to secure stalls a week beforehand. No places were any longer to be got for love or money. Many people had come to Paris on purpose to hear la Svengali—many famous musicians from England and everywhere else—but they would have to wait many days.
The fame of her was like a rolling snowball that had been rolling all over Europe for the last two years—wherever there was snow to be picked up in the shape of golden ducats.
Their breakfast over, Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee, cigar in mouth, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in the middle (comme autrefois), crossed the sunshiny boulevard into the shade, and went down the Rue de la Paix, through the Place Vendôme and the Rue Castiglione to the Rue de Rivoli—quite leisurely, and with a tender midriff-warming sensation of freedom and delight at almost every step.
Arrived at the corner pastry-cook’s, they finished the stumps of their cigars as they looked at the well-remembered show in the window; then they went in and had, Taffy a Madeleine, the
