The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (23 page)

Suddenly, in the midst of the general silence and consternation, a voice, — and what a voice ! — pale, dull, cold and toneless, a phantom voice, arose behind the piano, and made me shudder in my chair. It was the first time in ten years that the man with the bird-like head, the venerable Lalouette, had been heard to speak. " I am very glad they killed the butterfly," said the strange old man, nibbling fiercely his bit of sugar ; " I don't like butterflies."

Everybody laughed, and then began to discuss my poem.

The member of the music hall thought it was rather too long, and advised me to reduce it to the dimensions cf two short songs, so as to make it essentially French in character. The student from the School of Alfort, a learned naturalist, called my attention to the fact that lady-birds had wings, which took away all reality from my fable. The younger Ferrouillat declared that he had read it all somewhere. " Don't listen to them," Jacques said to me in a whisper, " it is a masterpiece." Pierrotte said nothing; he appeared much preoccupied. Perhaps, as the good man was sitting beside his daughter all the time of the reading, he may have felt a little sensitive hand tremble in his, or he may have caught a black passionate glance upon the wing; but, however this may be, it is certain that on this occasion, Pierrotte — if I may be allowed to say so — looked very strange, and stayed all the evening hanging on to his daughter's petticoats, so that I could not say a word to the black eyes, and went home early, without staying to hear a new song from the member of the music hall, who never forgave me for it.

Two days after this memorable reading I received from Mdlle. Pierrotte a note as short as it was eloquent: " Come at once; my father knows all; " and below, my dear black eyes had written: " I love you."

I was a little disturbed, I must confess, by this important news. For two days, I had been run-

ning about to publishers with my manuscript, and was much less absorbed in the black eyes than in my poem. Then the idea of an explanation with that big peasant of a Pierrotte was not agreeable to me. So, in spite of the pressing appeal from the black eyes, I waited some time before going over there, repeating to myself, so as to feel secure with regard to my intentions : " When I shall have sold my poem."

Unfortunately, I did not sell it.

At that time, — I do not know if it is still the same to-day, — publishers were very kind, polite, generous, and cordial; but they had one fatal defect, and that was that they were never at home. Like certain lesser stars that are revealed only by the large telescopes of the Observatory, these gentlemen were not visible to the crowd. No matter at what hour you called, you were always told to return.

Heavens! How many of those shops I went to, and how many knobs of glass doors I turned! How many times I stationed myself outside the booksellers', saying : " Shall I go in, or shall I not go in?"

Inside it was warm, and smelt of new books. It was full of little bald, busy men who answered you from behind a counter, on the top of a double ladder. As to the publisher, he was invisible. Every evening I went home, sad, weary, and spiritless. " Courage," Jacques would say to me, " you will be luckier to-morrow." And on the next day I started on a new campaign, armed with my manu-

script. I felt it growing daily heavier and more troublesome. At first, I carried it under my arm, proudly, like a new umbrella; but in the end I was ashamed of it, and stuck it in my breast, with my coat carefully buttoned over it.

A week passed thus, and Sunday came. Jacques went as usual to dine with the Pierrottes. I was so tired with my pursuit of invisible stars that I stayed in bed all day. When he came back in the evening, he sat on the edge of my bed, and gave me a gentle scolding.

" Listen to me, Daniel. You do very wrong in not going over there. The black eyes are forlorn and cry for you ; they are dying to see you. We talked of you all the evening. Oh, you rascal, how she loves you ! "

My poor Mother Jacques had tears in his eyes as he said this.

"And how about Pierrotte?" I asked timidly. "What did Pierrotte say?"

" Nothing, but he seemed very much surprised not to see you. You must go there, Daniel; you will go, won't you?"

" I will, to-morrow, Jacques ; I promise you,"

While we were speaking, the White-Cuckoo, who had just gone into her room, began her interminable song — Tolocototignan ! Tolocototignan ! Jacques laughed. "You don't know," said he, in a whisper, "that the black eyes are jealous of our neighbor. They think she is a rival. It was useless for me to explain, for she would not believe me. The black eyes jealous of the White-Cuckoo!

It's droll, is n't it? I pretended to laugh, too; but in my heart I was ashamed when I reflected that it was my own fault if the black eyes were jealous of the White-Cuckoo.

The next day, in the afternoon", I went to the Passage du Saumon. I should have liked to go straight up to the fourth floor and speak to the black eyes before seeing Pierrotte, but he was on the watch for me at the door of the shop, and I could not avoid him. I had to go in and sit down beside him, behind the counter. From time to time a few notes of the flute floated in unobtrusively from the back-room.

" Monsieur Daniel," said Pierrotte with an assurance of tongue and facility of elocution that I had never known him to possess before, " what I want to know from you is very simple, and I am not going to beat about the h ush. If I may be allowed to say so — my little girl is in love with you. Do you really love her, too?"

" With all my soul. Monsieur Pierrotte."

" All is well, then. Here is what I have to propose to you. You and the little girl are too young to think of marrying for three years to come. So there are three years before you to obtain a position for yourself. I don't know whether you expect to remain always in the blue butterfly business, but I know what I should do in your place. If I may be allowed to say so, I should bid good-bye to my little stories and should enter the shop of Lalouette's successor; I should learn the ropes of the china trade, and should manage so that in three

years, Pierrette, who is getting old, could accept me as a partner as well as a son-in-law. Well, what do you say to that, old fellow?"

Thereupon, Pierrotte gave me a great nudge with his elbow, and began to laugh and laugh. It is certain the poor man thought he was filling me with joy, by proposing that I should sell china at his side. I had not the heart to be angry, or even to answer; I was overwhelmed.

The plates, colored glasses, and globes of alabaster were dancing round me. On a stand, opposite the counter, shepherds and shepherdesses, in delicate-tinted Parian porcelain, looked slyly at me and seemed to say as they brandished their crooks: " You must sell china ! " A little farther off, grotesque Chinese figures in violet robes nodded their venerable pates, as if to approve what the shepherds said : " You must sell china ! " And far away, back of the shop, the ironical and mocking flute whistled softly: "You must sell china, you must sell china! " It was enough to make me mad.

Pierrotte thought that joy and emotion had stopped my speech.

" We will talk about it this evening," said he, to give me time to recover myself. " Now, go up and see the little girl. If I may be allowed to say so, the time must seem very long to her."

I went up to the little girl, and found her installed in the yellow drawing-room, embroidering her eternal slippers, in the company of the very deserving person. May my dear Camille par-

don me, but Mdlle. Pierrette never seemed to me so much of a Pierrotte as on that day; never had her placid manner of drawing out her needle and counting her stitches aloud caused me so much irritation. With her little red fingers, her rosy-cheeks and tranquil air, she was like one of the shepherdesses in colored Parian that had been crying so impertinently to me: "You must sell china! " Luckily, the black eyes were there, too ; a little veiled, and rather melancholy, but so artlessly overjoyed to see me again that I was quite touched. But this did not last long, for Pierrotte came in, almost upon my heels. He had probably lost confidence in the very deserving person.

From this moment on, the black eyes disappeared, and china triumphed all along the line. Pierrotte was very gay, talkative and unbearable; his repetitions of " if I may be allowed to say so " rained thicker than hail. The dinner was noisy and much too long. As we left the table, Pierrotte took me aside to remind me of his offer. I had had time to recover myself, and said with sufficient composure that my decision required reflection and that I should give him an answer in a month.

Pierrotte was certainly much astonished by the lack of eagerness I showed to accept his proposal, but he had the good taste not to appear so.

" It is agreed," said he, " in a month," and no more was said. No matter, the blow had fallen. Through all the evening, the sinister and fatal " You must sell china " resounded in my ears. I heard it in the nibbling of the old bird who came

in with Mme. Lalouette and established himself at the corner of the piano. I heard it in the roulades of the flute-player, and in the Reverie of Rosellen that Mdlle. Pierrotte did not fail to play; I read it in the gestures of those bourgeois marionnettes; in the cut of their clothes, in the design of the worsted-work hangings, in the allegory of the clock — Venus gathering a rose, out of which a tarnished Cupid was flying—in the form of the furniture, and in the slightest details of that frightful yellow drawing-room, where the same people said the same things, where the same piano played the same Reverie nightly, and which, through the very uniformity of the evenings spent in it, was like a tableau set to music. The yellow drawing-room, a tableau set to music! Where were you hiding then, beautiful black eyes?

When I reached home after this tiresome evening, and told my Mother Jacques of Pierrette's offer, he was still more indignant than I.

" Daniel Eyssette in a china-shop ! I declare I should like to see that! " said the dear boy, flushed with anger. " It is just as if somebody proposed selling matches to Lamartine or peddling horsehair brushes to Saint-Beuve. No, thank you, Pierrotte, you old fool! But, after all, we must n't owe him a grudge, for the poor man doesn't understand. When he sees the success of your book and the newspapers all full of you, he will change his tone, sure enough."

" That may be, Jacques; but my book must come out before I am spoken of in the newspapers,

and I know that it won't come out. Why? Because, my dear fellow, I can't get hold of a publisher, and those people are never at home to poets. The great Baghavat himself is obliged to print his verses at his own expense."

" Well, we '11 do the same," said Jacques bringing down his fist on the table; " we '11 print at our own expense."

I looked at him in amazement.

" At our expense? "

" Yes, my dear boy, at our own expense. Just now, the Marquis is having the first volume of his memoirs printed. I see his printer every day: he is an Alsatian, with a red nose and a good-humored expression. I am sure he will do it on credit, and I tell you we can pay him as soon as your book sells. There, it's all decided, and tomorrow I '11 go to see him."

In fact, the next day, Jacques goes to see the printer, and comes back enchanted. " It's settled," says he triumphantly : " your book will be set up in type to-morrow. It will cost us nine hundred francs, and that's a mere trifle. I shall make notes of three hundred francs each, payable every three months. Now, follow my reasoning. We sell the book at three francs a volume, and make an edition of a thousand copies; therefore your book ought to bring us in three thousand francs, — you hear what I say,—three thousand francs. Out of this we pay the printer, also the sum of one franc a copy to the booksellers who sell the book, also the expenses of sending to the

newspaper reviewers. There will remain a perfectly-clear profit of eleven hundred francs. Is n't that nice for a beginning?"

Nice? I should think so. No more pursuit of invisible stars, no longer to stand humiliated at the doors of booksellers' shops, and, moreover, eleven hundred francs to lay up for rebuilding the hearth. What happiness there was that day in the tower of Saint-Germain! What projects and dreams! And then, on the following days, how many little joys, tasted drop by drop— going to the printer's, correcting the proofs, discussing the color of the cover, seeing the paper issue moist from the press, with your thoughts printed upon it, running two or three times to the binders, and finally returning with the first copy, that you open with trembling fingers. Tell me, is there anything more delicious in this world?

You may believe that the first copy of the Pastoral Comedy went of course to the black eyes. I carried it, that same evening, accompanied by my Mother Jacques, who wanted to enjoy my triumph. We made our entrance into the yellow drawing-room, proud and radiant. Everybody was there.

" Monsieur Pierrotte," said I to the old man, " allow me to offer my first work to Camille." And I put my volume into a dear little hand that was quivering with pleasure. Oh, if you could have seen how prettily the black eyes thanked me, and how they shone as they read my name on the cover! Pierrotte was less enthusiastic. I heard

him ask Jacques how much a volume like that might bring me in.

" Eleven hundred francs," answered Jacques with assurance.

After that, they talked for a long time in a low tone, but I did not listen to them. I was entirely blissful as I saw the black eyes cast their long silken lashes down to the pages of my book, and then lift them up toward me with admiration. My book, and the black eyes! Two joys that I owed my Mother Jacques.

That evening, before going home, we went prowling about the Galleries of the Odeon, to judge of the effect of my book in the booksellers' windows.

" Wait," said Jacques; " I am going to see how many copies they have sold."

I waited, walking up and down, and looking out of the corner of my eye at a certain green cover with black lines on it that was flaunting among the other books. Jacques rejoined me, after a minute, pale with emotion.