The Project Gutenberg Etext of New Arabian Nights

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"You will permit me to remind you," replied Leon, in thrilling
tones, "that I am a guest in your house, that I am properly
inscribed, and that I have deposited baggage to the value of four
hundred francs."

"You cannot get in at this hour," returned the man. "This is no
thieves' tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and organ-grinders."

"Brute!" cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her home.

"Then I demand my baggage," said Leon, with unabated dignity.

"I know nothing of your baggage," replied the landlord.

"You detain my baggage? You dare to detain my baggage?" cried the
singer.

"Who are you?" returned the landlord. "It is dark - I cannot
recognise you."

"Very well, then - you detain my baggage," concluded Leon. "You
shall smart for this. I will weary out your life with
persecutions; I will drag you from court to court; if there is
justice to be had in France, it shall be rendered between you and
me. And I will make you a by-word - I will put you in a song - a
scurrilous song - an indecent song - a popular song - which the
boys shall sing to you in the street, and come and howl through
these spars at mid-night!"

He had gone on raising his voice at every phrase, for all the while
the landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, when the last
glimmer of light had vanished from the arch, and the last footstep
died away in the interior, Leon turned to his wife with a heroic
countenance.

"Elvira," said he, "I have now a duty in life. I shall destroy
that man as Eugene Sue destroyed the concierge. Let us come at
once to the Gendarmerie and begin our vengeance."

He picked up the guitar-case, which had been propped against the
wall, and they set forth through the silent and ill-lighted town
with burning hearts.

The Gendarmerie was concealed beside the telegraph office at the
bottom of a vast court, which was partly laid out in gardens; and
here all the shepherds of the public lay locked in grateful sleep.
It took a deal of knocking to waken one; and he, when he came at
last to the door, could find no other remark but that "it was none
of his business." Leon reasoned with him, threatened him, besought
him; "here," he said, "was Madame Berthelini in evening dress - a
delicate woman - in an interesting condition" - the last was thrown
in, I fancy, for effect; and to all this the man-at-arms made the
same answer:

"It is none of my business," said he.

"Very well," said Leon, "then we shall go to the Commissary."
Thither they went; the office was closed and dark; but the house
was close by, and Leon was soon swinging the bell like a madman.
The Commissary's wife appeared at a window. She was a thread-paper
creature, and informed them that the Commissary had not yet come
home.

"Is he at the Maire's?" demanded Leon.

She thought that was not unlikely.

"Where is the Maire's house?" he asked.

And she gave him some rather vague information on that point.

"Stay you here, Elvira," said Leon, "lest I should miss him by the
way. If, when I return, I find you here no longer, I shall follow
at once to the Black Head."

And he set out to find the Maire's. It took him some ten minutes
wandering among blind lanes, and when he arrived it was already
half-an-hour past midnight. A long white garden wall overhung by
some thick chestnuts, a door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-
pull, that was all that could be seen of the Maire's domicile.
Leon took the bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon
the side-walk. The bell itself was just upon the other side of the
wall, it responded to his activity, and scattered an alarming
clangour far and wide into the night.

A window was thrown open in a house across the street, and a voice
inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.

"I wish the Maire," said Leon.

"He has been in bed this hour," returned the voice.

"He must get up again," retorted Leon, and he was for tackling the
bell-pull once more.

"You will never make him hear," responded the voice. "The garden
is of great extent, the house is at the farther end, and both the
Maire and his housekeeper are deaf."

"Aha!" said Leon, pausing. "The Maire is deaf, is he? That
explains." And he thought of the evening's concert with a
momentary feeling of relief. "Ah!" he continued, "and so the Maire
is deaf, and the garden vast, and the house at the far end?"

"And you might ring all night," added the voice, "and be none the
better for it. You would only keep me awake."

"Thank you, neighbour," replied the singer. "You shall sleep."

And he made off again at his best pace for the Commissary's.
Elvira was still walking to and fro before the door.

"He has not come?" asked Leon.

"Not he," she replied.

"Good," returned Leon. "I am sure our man's inside. Let me see
the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am
angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my
Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be
importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him up - and set him up."

He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, and fell
into an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.

"Now," he continued, "feel your voice. Are you ready? Follow me!"

The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and
with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Beranger's:-

"Commissaire! Commissaire!
Colin bat sa menagere."

The stones of Castel-le-Gachis thrilled at this audacious
innovation. Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and
nightcaps; and now what was this? Window after window was opened;
matches scratched, and candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy
faces peered forth into the starlight. There were the two figures
before the Commissary's house, each bolt upright, with head thrown
back and eyes interrogating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed,
shouted, and reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices,
with a crisp and spirited delivery, hurled the appropriate burden
at the Commissary's window. All the echoes repeated the
functionary's name. It was more like an entr'acte in a farce of
Moliere's than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gachis.

The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw
open the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage.
He leaned far over the window-sill, raying and gesticulating; the
tassel of his white night-cap danced like a thing of life: he
opened his mouth to dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his
voice, instead of escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and
choked and tottering. A little more serenading, and it was clear
he would be better acquainted with the apoplexy.

I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious
topics by the way for a quiet story-teller. Although he was known
for a man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong
expression at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night
that one maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear
the serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the second clause.
Even what she had heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she
said she scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.

Leon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but
threats of arrest by way of answer.

"If I come down to you!" cried the Commissary.

"Aye," said Leon, "do!"

"I will not!" cried the Commissary.

"You dare not!" answered Leon.

At that the Commissary closed his window.

"All is over," said the singer. "The serenade was perhaps ill-
judged. These boors have no sense of humour."

"Let us get away from here," said Elvira, with a shiver. "All
these people looking - it is so rude and so brutal." And then
giving way once more to passion - "Brutes!" she cried aloud to the
candle-lit spectators - "brutes! brutes! brutes!"

"Sauve qui peut," said Leon. "You have done it now!"

And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led
the way with something too precipitate to be merely called
precipitation from the scene of this absurd adventure.

CHAPTER IV

To the west of Castel-le-Gachis four rows of venerable lime-trees
formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles
of pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed
between the trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy
atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood
stock-still upon its twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn
or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an
amiable contention, Leon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and
they sat down together on the first bench in silence. Leon made a
cigarette, which he smoked to an end, looking up into the trees,
and, beyond them, at the constellations, of which he tried vainly
to recall the names. The silence was broken by the church bell; it
rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling measure; then
followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with a thrill;
and stillness resumed its empire.

"One," said Leon. "Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it is
starry; I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exaggerate,
Elvira - the experience is positively charming. I feel a glow
within me; I am born again. This is the poetry of life. Think of
Cooper's novels, my dear."

"Leon," she said fiercely, "how can you talk such wicked, infamous
nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors - it is like a nightmare!
We shall die."

"You suffer yourself to be led away," he replied soothingly. "It
is not unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, let us repeat a
scene. Shall we try Alceste and Celimene? No? Or a passage from
the 'Two Orphans'? Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will
play up to you as I never have played before; I feel art moving in
my bones."

"Hold your tongue," she cried, "or you will drive me mad! Will
nothing solemnise you - not even this hideous situation?"

"Oh, hideous!" objected Leon. "Hideous is not the word. Why,
where would you be? 'Dites, la jeune belle, ou voulez-vous
aller?'" he carolled. "Well, now," he went on, opening the guitar-
case, "there's another idea for you - sing. Sing 'Dites, la jeune
belle!' It will compose your spirits, Elvira, I am sure."

And without waiting an answer he began to strum the symphony. The
first chords awoke a young man who was lying asleep upon a
neighbouring bench.

"Hullo!" cried the young man, "who are you?"

"Under which king, Bezonian?" declaimed the artist. "Speak or
die!"

Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much the same
purpose from a French tragedy.

The young man drew near in the twilight. He was a tall, powerful,
gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, dressed in a grey
tweed suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the same material; and as he
now came forward he carried a knapsack slung upon one arm.

"Are you camping out here too?" he asked, with a strong English
accent. "I'm not sorry for company."

Leon explained their misadventure; and the other told them that he
was a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking tour, that he had run
short of money, could no longer pay for his night's lodging, had
already been camping out for two nights, and feared he should
require to continue the same manoeuvre for at least two nights
more.

"Luckily, it's jolly weather," he concluded.

"You hear that, Elvira," said Leon. "Madame Berthelini," he went
on, "is ridiculously affected by this trifling occurrence. For my
part, I find it romantic and far from uncomfortable; or at least,"
he added, shifting on the stone bench, "not quite so uncomfortable
as might have been expected. But pray be seated."

"Yes," returned the undergraduate, sitting down, "it's rather nice
than otherwise when once you're used to it; only it's devilish
difficult to get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and
things."

"Aha!" said Leon, "Monsieur is an artist."

"An artist?" returned the other, with a blank stare. "Not if I
know it!"

"Pardon me," said the actor. "What you said this moment about the
orbs of heaven - "

"Oh, nonsense!" cried the Englishman. "A fellow may admire the
stars and be anything he likes."

"You have an artist's nature, however, Mr.- I beg your pardon; may
I, without indiscretion, inquire your name?" asked Leon.

"My name is Stubbs," replied the Englishman.

"I thank you," returned Leon. "Mine is Berthelini - Leon
Berthelini, ex-artist of the theatres of Montrouge, Belleville, and
Montmartre. Humble as you see me, I have created with applause
more than one important ROLE. The Press were unanimous in praise
of my Howling Devil of the Mountains, in the piece of the same
name. Madame, whom I now present to you, is herself an artist, and
I must not omit to state, a better artist than her husband. She
also is a creator; she created nearly twenty successful songs at
one of the principal Parisian music-halls. But, to continue, I was
saying you had an artist's nature, Monsieur Stubbs, and you must
permit me to be a judge in such a question. I trust you will not
falsify your instincts; let me beseech you to follow the career of
an artist."

"Thank you," returned Stubbs, with a chuckle. "I'm going to be a
banker."

"No," said Leon, "do not say so. Not that. A man with such a
nature as yours should not derogate so far. What are a few
privations here and there, so long as you are working for a high
and noble goal?"

"This fellow's mad," thought Stubbs; "but the woman's rather
pretty, and he's not bad fun himself, if you come to that." What
he said was different. "I thought you said you were an actor?"

"I certainly did so," replied Leon. "I am one, or, alas! I was."

"And so you want me to be an actor, do you?" continued the
undergraduate. "Why, man, I could never so much as learn the
stuff; my memory's like a sieve; and as for acting, I've no more
idea than a cat."

"The stage is not the only course," said Leon. "Be a sculptor, be
a dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and
do some thorough work before you die."

"And do you call all these things ART?" inquired Stubbs.

"Why, certainly!" returned Leon. "Are they not all branches?"

"Oh! I didn't know," replied the Englishman. "I thought an artist
meant a fellow who painted."

The singer stared at him in some surprise.

"It is the difference of language," he said at last. "This Tower
of Babel, when shall we have paid for it? If I could speak English
you would follow me more readily."

"Between you and me, I don't believe I should," replied the other.
"You seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business.
For my part, I admire the stars, and like to have them shining -
it's so cheery - but hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do
with art! It's not in my line, you see. I'm not intellectual; I
have no end of trouble to scrape through my exams., I can tell you!
But I'm not a bad sort at bottom," he added, seeing his
interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim starshine, "and I
rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and things."

Leon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete. He
changed the subject.

"And so you travel on foot?" he continued. "How romantic! How
courageous! And how are you pleased with my land? How does the
scenery affect you among these wild hills of ours?"

"Well, the fact is," began Stubbs - he was about to say that he
didn't care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the
contrary, only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had
begun to suspect that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat,
and substituted something else - "The fact is, I think it jolly.
They told me it was no good up here; even the guide-book said so;
but I don't know what they meant. I think it is deuced pretty -
upon my word, I do."

At this moment, in the most unexpected manner, Elvira burst into
tears.

"My voice!" she cried. "Leon, if I stay here longer I shall lose
my voice!"

"You shall not stay another moment," cried the actor. "If I have
to beat in a door, if I have to burn the town, I shall find you
shelter."

With that he replaced the guitar, and comforting her with some
caresses, drew her arm through his.

"Monsieur Stubbs," said he, taking of his hat, "the reception I
offer you is rather problematical; but let me beseech you to give
us the pleasure of your society. You are a little embarrassed for
the moment; you must, indeed, permit me to advance what may be
necessary. I ask it as a favour; we must not part so soon after
having met so strangely."

"Oh, come, you know," said Stubbs, "I can't let a fellow like you -
" And there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.

"I do not wish to employ menaces," continued Leon, with a smile;
"but if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly."

"I don't quite see my way out of it," thought the undergraduate;
and then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough,
"All right. I - I'm very much obliged, of course." And he
proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, "But it's bad
form, all the same, to force an obligation on a fellow."

CHAPTER V

Leon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the
sobs of Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a
word. A dog barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then
the church clock struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or
preceded it in piping tones. And just then Berthelini spied a
light. It burned in a small house on the outskirts of the town,
and thither the party now directed their steps.

"It is always a chance," said Leon.

The house in question stood back from the street behind an open
space, part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood
forward from either wing at right angles to the front. One of
these had recently undergone some change. An enormous window,
looking towards the north, had been effected in the wall and roof,
and Leon began to hope it was a studio.

"If it's only a painter," he said with a chuckle, "ten to one we
get as good a welcome as we want."

"I thought painters were principally poor," said Stubbs.

"Ah!" cried Leon, "you do not know the world as I do. The poorer
the better for us!"

And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.

The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly
illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that
there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a
certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live
fire contributed to the effect. The sound of a voice now became
audible; and the trespassers paused to listen. It was pitched in a
high, angry key, but had still a good, full, and masculine note in
it. The utterance was voluble, too voluble even to be quite
distinct; a stream of words, rising and falling, with ever and
again a phrase thrown out by itself, as if the speaker reckoned on
its virtue.

Suddenly another voice joined in. This time it was a woman's; and
if the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of
fury. There was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering
males; that colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit
accurately balanced between homicide and hysterics; the tone in
which the best of women sometimes utter words worse than death to
those most dear to them. If Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to
be endowed with the gift of speech, thus, and not otherwise, would
it discourse. Leon was a brave man, and I fear he was somewhat
sceptically given (he had been educated in a Papistical country),
but the habit of childhood prevailed, and he crossed himself
devoutly. He had met several women in his career. It was obvious
that his instinct had not deceived him, for the male voice broke
forth instantly in a towering passion.

The undergraduate, who had not understood the significance of the
woman's contribution, pricked up his ears at the change upon the
man.

"There's going to be a free fight," he opined.

There was another retort from the woman, still calm but a little
higher.

"Hysterics?" asked Leon of his wife. "Is that the stage
direction?"

"How should I know?" returned Elvira, somewhat tartly.

"Oh, woman, woman!" said Leon, beginning to open the guitar-case.
"It is one of the burdens of my life, Monsieur Stubbs; they support
each other; they always pretend there is no system; they say it's
nature. Even Madame Berthelini, who is a dramatic artist!"

"You are heartless, Leon," said Elvira; "that woman is in trouble."

"And the man, my angel?" inquired Berthelini, passing the ribbon of
his guitar. "And the man, M'AMOUR?"

"He is a man," she answered.

"You hear that?" said Leon to Stubbs. "It is not too late for you.
Mark the intonation. And now," he continued, "what are we to give
them?"

"Are you going to sing?" asked Stubbs.

"I am a troubadour," replied Leon. "I claim a welcome by and for
my art. If I were a banker could I do as much?"

"Well, you wouldn't need, you know," answered the undergraduate.

"Egad," said Leon, "but that's true. Elvira, that is true."

"Of course it is," she replied. "Did you not know it?"

"My dear," answered Leon impressively, "I know nothing but what is
agreeable. Even my knowledge of life is a work of art superiorly
composed. But what are we to give them? It should be something
appropriate."

Visions of "Let dogs delight" passed through the undergraduate's
mind; but it occurred to him that the poetry was English and that
he did not know the air. Hence he contributed no suggestion.

"Something about our houselessness," said Elvira.

"I have it," cried Leon. And he broke forth into a song of Pierre
Dupont's:-

"Savez-vous ou gite,
Mai, ce joli mois?"

Elvira joined in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an
imperfect acquaintance with the music. Leon and the guitar were
equal to the situation. The actor dispensed his throat-notes with
prodigality and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his
heroic way, tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the
very stars contributed a dumb applause to his efforts, and the
universe lent him its silence for a chorus. That is one of the
best features of the heavenly bodies, that they belong to everybody
in particular; and a man like Leon, a chronic Endymion who managed
to get along without encouragement, is always the world's centre
for himself.

He alone - and it is to be noted, he was the worst singer of the
three - took the music seriously to heart, and judged the serenade
from a high artistic point of view. Elvira, on the other hand, was
preoccupied about their reception; and, as for Stubbs, he
considered the whole affair in the light of a broad joke.

"Know you the lair of May, the lovely month?" went the three voices
in the turnip-field.

The inhabitants were plainly fluttered; the light moved to and fro,
strengthening in one window, paling in another; and then the door
was thrown open, and a man in a blouse appeared on the threshold
carrying a lamp. He was a powerful young fellow, with bewildered
hair and beard, wearing his neck open; his blouse was stained with
oil-colours in a harlequinesque disorder; and there was something
rural in the droop and bagginess of his belted trousers.

From immediately behind him, and indeed over his shoulder, a
woman's face looked out into the darkness; it was pale and a little
weary, although still young; it wore a dwindling, disappearing
prettiness, soon to be quite gone, and the expression was both
gentle and sour, and reminded one faintly of the taste of certain
drugs. For all that, it was not a face to dislike; when the
prettiness had vanished, it seemed as if a certain pale beauty
might step in to take its place; and as both the mildness and the
asperity were characters of youth, it might be hoped that, with
years, both would merge into a constant, brave, and not unkindly
temper.

"What is all this?" cried the man.

CHAPTER VI

Leon had his hat in his hand at once. He came forward with his
customary grace; it was a moment which would have earned him a
round of cheering on the stage. Elvira and Stubbs advanced behind
him, like a couple of Admetus's sheep following the god Apollo.

"Sir," said Leon, "the hour is unpardonably late, and our little
serenade has the air of an impertinence. Believe me, sir, it is an
appeal. Monsieur is an artist, I perceive. We are here three
artists benighted and without shelter, one a woman - a delicate
woman - in evening dress - in an interesting situation. This will
not fail to touch the woman's heart of Madame, whom I perceive
indistinctly behind Monsieur her husband, and whose face speaks
eloquently of a well-regulated mind. Ah! Monsieur, Madame - one
generous movement, and you make three people happy! Two or three
hours beside your fire - I ask it of Monsieur in the name of Art -
I ask it of Madame by the sanctity of womanhood."

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