After this they sauntered through the Tuileries Gardens, and by the quay to their favorite Pont des Arts, and looked up and down the river—comme autrefois!
It is an enchanting prospect at any time and under any circumstances; but on a beautiful morning in mid-October, when you haven’t seen it for five years, and are still young! and almost every stock and stone that meets your eye, every sound, every scent, has some sweet and subtle reminder for you—
Let the reader have no fear. I will not attempt to describe it. I shouldn’t know where to begin (nor when to leave off!).
Not but what many changes had been wrought; many old landmarks were missing. And among them, as they found out a few minutes later, and much to their chagrin, the good old Morgue!
They inquired of a gardien de la paix, who told them that a new Morgue—“une bien jolie Morgue, ma foi!”—and much more commodious and comfortable than the old one, had been built beyond Notre Dame, a little to the right.
“Messieurs devraient voir ça—on y est très bien!”
But Notre Dame herself was still there, and la Sainte Chapelle, and Le Pont Neuf, and the equestrian statue of Henri IV. C’est toujours ça!
And as they gazed and gazed, each framed unto himself, mentally, a little picture of the Thames they had just left—and thought of Waterloo Bridge, and St. Paul’s, and London—but felt no homesickness whatever, no desire to go back!
And looking down the river westward there was but little change.
On the left-hand side the terraces and garden of the Hôtel de la Rochemartel (the sculptured entrance of which was in the Rue de Lille) still overtopped the neighboring houses and shaded the quay with tall trees, whose lightly falling leaves yellowed the pavement for at least a hundred yards of frontage—or backage, rather; for this was but the rear of that stately palace.
“I wonder if l’Zouzou has come into his dukedom yet?” said Taffy.
And Taffy the realist, Taffy the modern of moderns, also said many beautiful things about old historical French dukedoms; which, in spite of their plentifulness, were so much more picturesque than English ones, and constituted a far more poetical and romantic link with the past; partly on account of their beautiful, high-sounding names!
“Amaury de Brissac de Roncesvaulx de la Rochemartel-Boisségur was a generous mouthful! Why, the very sound of it is redolent of the twelfth century! Not even Howard of Norfolk can beat that!”
For Taffy was getting sick of “this ghastly thin-faced time of ours,” as he sadly called it (quoting from a strange and very beautiful poem called “Faustine,” which had just appeared in the Spectator—and which our three enthusiasts already knew by heart), and beginning to love all things that were old and regal and rotten and forgotten and of bad repute, and to long to paint them just as they really were.
“Ah! they managed these things better in France, especially in the twelfth century, and even the thirteenth!” said the Laird. “Still, Howard of Norfolk isn’t bad at a pinch—fote de myoo!” he continued, winking at Little Billee. And they promised themselves that they would leave cards on Zouzou, and, if he wasn’t a duke, invite him to dinner; and also Dodor, if they could manage to find him.
Then along the quay and up the Rue de Seine, and by well-remembered little mystic ways to the old studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts.
Here they found many changes: A row of new houses on the north side, by Baron Haussmann—the well-named; a boulevard was being constructed right through the place; but the old house had been respected, and, looking up, they saw the big north window of their good old abode blindless and blank and black but for a white placard in the middle of it with the words: “À louer. Un atelier, et une chambre à coucher.”
They entered the courtyard through the little door in the porte-cochère, and beheld Madame Vinard standing on the step of her loge, her arms akimbo, giving orders to her husband—who was sawing logs for firewood, as usual at that time of the year—and telling him he was the most helpless log of the lot.
She gave them one look, threw up her arms, and rushed at them, saying, “Ah, mon Dieu! les trois Angliches!”
And they could not have complained of any lack of warmth in her greeting, or in Monsieur Vinard’s.
“Ah! mais quel bonheur de vous revoir! Et comme vous avez bonne mine, tous! Et Monsieur Litrebili, donc! il a grandi!” etc., etc. “Mais vous allez boire la goutte avant tout—vite, Vinard! Le ratafia de cassis que Monsieur Durien nous a envoyé la semaine dernière!”
And they were taken into the loge and made free of it—welcomed like prodigal sons; a fresh bottle of black-currant brandy was tapped, and did duty for the fatted calf. It was an ovation, and made quite a stir in the quartier.
Le Retour des trois Angliches—cinq ans après!
She told them all the news: about Bouchardy; Papelard; Jules Guinot, who was now in the Ministère de la Guerre; Barizel, who had given up the arts and gone into his father’s business (umbrellas); Durien, who had married six months ago, and had a superb atelier in the Rue Taitbout, and was coining money; about her own family—Aglaë, who was going to be married to the son of the charbonnier at the corner of the Rue de la Canicule—“un bon mariage; bien solide!” Niniche, who was studying the piano at the Conservatoire, and had won the silver medal; Isidore, who, alas! had gone to the bad—“perdu par les femmes! un si joli garçon, vous concevez! ça ne lui a pas porté bonheur, par exemple!” And
