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The American, by Henry James A Project Gutenberg E
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The American
by Henry James
1877
CHAPTER I
On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was
reclining at his ease on the great circular divan which at that
period occupied the centre of the Salon Carre, in the Museum of
the Louvre. This commodious ottoman has since been removed, to
the extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts,
but the gentleman in question had taken serene possession of its
softest spot, and, with his head thrown back and his legs
outstretched, was staring at Murillo's beautiful moon-borne
Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture. He had removed
his hat, and flung down beside him a little red guide-book and
an opera-glass. The day was warm; he was heated with walking,
and he repeatedly passed his handkerchief over his forehead,
with a somewhat wearied gesture. And yet he was evidently not a
man to whom fatigue was familiar; long, lean, and muscular, he
suggested the sort of vigor that is commonly known as
"toughness." But his exertions on this particular day had been
of an unwonted sort, and he had performed great physical feats
which left him less jaded than his tranquil stroll through the
Louvre. He had looked out all the pictures to which an asterisk
was affixed in those formidable pages of fine print in his
Badeker; his attention had been strained and his eyes dazzled,
and he had sat down with an aesthetic headache. He had looked,
moreover, not only at all the pictures, but at all the copies
that were going forward around them, in the hands of those
innumerable young women in irreproachable toilets who devote
themselves, in France, to the propagation of masterpieces, and
if the truth must be told, he had often admired the copy much
more than the original. His physiognomy would have sufficiently
indicated that he was a shrewd and capable fellow, and in truth
he had often sat up all night over a bristling bundle of
accounts, and heard the cock crow without a yawn. But Raphael
and Titian and Rubens were a new kind of arithmetic, and they
inspired our friend, for the first time in his life, with a
vague self-mistrust.
An observer with anything of an eye for national types would
have had no difficulty in determining the local origin of this
undeveloped connoisseur, and indeed such an observer might have
felt a certain humorous relish of the almost ideal completeness
with which he filled out the national mould. The gentleman on
the divan was a powerful specimen of an American. But he was
not only a fine American; he was in the first place, physically,
a fine man. He appeared to possess that kind of health and
strength which, when found in perfection, are the most
impressive--the physical capital which the owner does nothing to
"keep up." If he was a muscular Christian, it was quite without
knowing it. If it was necessary to walk to a remote spot, he
walked, but he had never known himself to "exercise." He had no
theory with regard to cold bathing or the use of Indian clubs;
he was neither an oarsman, a rifleman, nor a fencer--he had
never had time for these amusements--and he was quite unaware
that the saddle is recommended for certain forms of indigestion.
He was by inclination a temperate man; but he had supped the
night before his visit to the Louvre at the Cafe Anglais--some
one had told him it was an experience not to be omitted--and he
had slept none the less the sleep of the just. His usual
attitude and carriage were of a rather relaxed and lounging
kind, but when under a special inspiration, he straightened
himself, he looked like a grenadier on parade. He never smoked.
He had been assured--such things are said--that cigars were
excellent for the health, and he was quite capable of believing
it; but he knew as little about tobacco as about homeopathy. He
had a very well-formed head, with a shapely, symmetrical balance
of the frontal and the occipital development, and a good deal of
straight, rather dry brown hair. His complexion was brown, and
his nose had a bold well-marked arch. His eye was of a clear,
cold gray, and save for a rather abundant mustache he was
clean-shaved. He had the flat jaw and sinewy neck which are
frequent in the American type; but the traces of national origin
are a matter of expression even more than of feature, and it was
in this respect that our friend's countenance was supremely
eloquent. The discriminating observer we have been supposing
might, however, perfectly have measured its expressiveness, and
yet have been at a loss to describe it. It had that typical
vagueness which is not vacuity, that blankness which is not
simplicity, that look of being committed to nothing in
particular, of standing in an attitude of general hospitality to
the chances of life, of being very much at one's own disposal so
characteristic of many American faces. It was our friend's eye
that chiefly told his story; an eye in which innocence and
experience were singularly blended. It was full of
contradictory suggestions, and though it was by no means the
glowing orb of a hero of romance, you could find in it almost
anything you looked for. Frigid and yet friendly, frank yet
cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive yet skeptical,
confident yet shy, extremely intelligent and extremely
good-humored, there was something vaguely defiant in its
concessions, and something profoundly reassuring in its reserve.
The cut of this gentleman's mustache, with the two premature
wrinkles in the cheek above it, and the fashion of his garments,
in which an exposed shirt-front and a cerulean cravat played
perhaps an obtrusive part, completed the conditions of his
identity. We have approached him, perhaps, at a not especially
favorable moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait.
But listless as he lounges there, rather baffled on the
aesthetic question, and guilty of the damning fault (as we have
lately discovered it to be) of confounding the merit of the
artist with that of his work (for he admires the squinting
Madonna of the young lady with the boyish coiffure, because he
thinks the young lady herself uncommonly taking), he is a
sufficiently promising acquaintance. Decision, salubrity,
jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover within his call; he is
evidently a practical man, but the idea in his case, has
undefined and mysterious boundaries, which invite the
imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.
As the little copyist proceeded with her work, she sent every
now and then a responsive glance toward her admirer. The
cultivation of the fine arts appeared to necessitate, to her
mind, a great deal of byplay, a great standing off with folded
arms and head drooping from side to side, stroking of a dimpled
chin with a dimpled hand, sighing and frowning and patting of
the foot, fumbling in disordered tresses for wandering
hair-pins. These performances were accompanied by a restless
glance, which lingered longer than elsewhere upon the gentleman
we have described. At last he rose abruptly, put on his hat,
and approached the young lady. He placed himself before her
picture and looked at it for some moments, during which she
pretended to be quite unconscious of his inspection. Then,
addressing her with the single word which constituted the
strength of his French vocabulary, and holding up one finger in
a manner which appeared to him to illuminate his meaning,
"Combien?" he abruptly demanded.
The artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her
shoulders, put down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing
her hands.
"How much?" said our friend, in English. "Combien?"
"Monsieur wishes to buy it?" asked the young lady in French.
"Very pretty, splendide. Combien?" repeated the American.
"It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It's a very beautiful
subject," said the young lady.
"The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it.
Combien? Write it here." And he took a pencil from his pocket
and showed her the fly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood
looking at him and scratching her chin with the pencil. "Is it
not for sale?" he asked. And as she still stood reflecting, and
looking at him with an eye which, in spite of her desire to
treat this avidity of patronage as a very old story, betrayed an
almost touching incredulity, he was afraid he had offended her.
She simply trying to look indifferent, and wondering how far she
might go. "I haven't made a mistake--pas insulte, no?" her
interlocutor continued. "Don't you understand a little English?"
The young lady's aptitude for playing a part at short notice was
remarkable. She fixed him with her conscious, perceptive eye
and asked him if he spoke no French. Then, "Donnez!" she
said briefly, and took the open guide-book. In the upper corner
of the fly-leaf she traced a number, in a minute and extremely
neat hand. Then she handed back the book and took up her
palette again.
Our friend read the number: "2,000 francs." He said nothing for
a time, but stood looking at the picture, while the copyist
began actively to dabble with her paint. "For a copy, isn't
that a good deal?" he asked at last. "Pas beaucoup?"
The young lady raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him
from head to foot, and alighted with admirable sagacity upon
exactly the right answer. "Yes, it's a good deal. But my copy
has remarkable qualities, it is worth nothing less."
The gentleman in whom we are interested understood no French,
but I have said he was intelligent, and here is a good chance to
prove it. He apprehended, by a natural instinct, the meaning of
the young woman's phrase, and it gratified him to think that she
was so honest. Beauty, talent, virtue; she combined everything!
"But you must finish it," he said. "FINISH, you know;" and
he pointed to the unpainted hand of the figure.
"Oh, it shall be finished in perfection; in the perfection of
perfections!" cried mademoiselle; and to confirm her promise,
she deposited a rosy blotch in the middle of the Madonna's cheek.
But the American frowned. "Ah, too red, too red!" he rejoined.
"Her complexion," pointing to the Murillo, "is--more delicate."
"Delicate? Oh, it shall be delicate, monsieur; delicate as
Sevres biscuit. I am going to tone that down; I know all
the secrets of my art. And where will you allow us to send it
to you? Your address?"
"My address? Oh yes!" And the gentleman drew a card from his
pocket-book and wrote something upon it. Then hesitating a
moment he said, "If I don't like it when it it's finished, you
know, I shall not be obliged to take it."
The young lady seemed as good a guesser as himself. "Oh, I am
very sure that monsieur is not capricious," she said with a
roguish smile.
"Capricious?" And at this monsieur began to laugh. "Oh no, I'm
not capricious. I am very faithful. I am very constant.
Comprenez?"
"Monsieur is constant; I understand perfectly. It's a rare
virtue. To recompense you, you shall have your picture on the
first possible day; next week--as soon as it is dry. I will
take the card of monsieur." And she took it and read his name:
"Christopher Newman." Then she tried to repeat it aloud, and
laughed at her bad accent. "Your English names are so droll!"
"Droll?" said Mr. Newman, laughing too. "Did you ever hear of
Christopher Columbus?"
"Bien sur! He invented America; a very great man. And is
he your patron?"
"My patron?"
"Your patron-saint, in the calendar."
"Oh, exactly; my parents named me for him."
"Monsieur is American?"
"Don't you see it?" monsieur inquired.
"And you mean to carry my little picture away over there?" and
she explained her phrase with a gesture.
"Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures--beaucoup,
beaucoup," said Christopher Newman.
"The honor is not less for me," the young lady answered, "for I
am sure monsieur has a great deal of taste."
"But you must give me your card," Newman said; "your card, you
know."
The young lady looked severe for an instant, and then said, "My
father will wait upon you."
But this time Mr. Newman's powers of divination were at fault.
"Your card, your address," he simply repeated.
"My address?" said mademoiselle. Then with a little shrug,
"Happily for you, you are an American! It is the first time I
ever gave my card to a gentleman." And, taking from her pocket
a rather greasy porte-monnaie, she extracted from it a small
glazed visiting card, and presented the latter to her patron.
It was neatly inscribed in pencil, with a great many flourishes,
"Mlle. Noemie Nioche." But Mr. Newman, unlike his companion,
read the name with perfect gravity; all French names to him were
equally droll.
"And precisely, here is my father, who has come to escort me
home," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "He speaks English. He will
arrange with you." And she turned to welcome a little old
gentleman who came shuffling up, peering over his spectacles at
Newman.
M. Nioche wore a glossy wig, of an unnatural color which
overhung his little meek, white, vacant face, and left it hardly
more expressive than the unfeatured block upon which these
articles are displayed in the barber's window. He was an
exquisite image of shabby gentility. His scant ill-made coat,
desperately brushed, his darned gloves, his highly polished
boots, his rusty, shapely hat, told the story of a person who
had "had losses" and who clung to the spirit of nice habits even
though the letter had been hopelessly effaced. Among other
things M. Nioche had lost courage. Adversity had not only ruined
him, it had frightened him, and he was evidently going through
his remnant of life on tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile
fates. If this strange gentleman was saying anything improper
to his daughter, M. Nioche would entreat him huskily, as a
particular favor, to forbear; but he would admit at the same
time that he was very presumptuous to ask for particular favors.
"Monsieur has bought my picture," said Mademoiselle Noemie.
"When it's finished you'll carry it to him in a cab."
"In a cab!" cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in a bewildered way,
as if he had seen the sun rising at midnight.
"Are you the young lady's father?" said Newman. "I think she
said you speak English."
"Speak English--yes," said the old man slowly rubbing his hands.
"I will bring it in a cab."
"Say something, then," cried his daughter. "Thank him a
little--not too much."
"A little, my daughter, a little?" said M. Nioche perplexed.
"How much?"
"Two thousand!" said Mademoiselle Noemie. "Don't make a fuss or
he'll take back his word."
"Two thousand!" cried the old man, and he began to fumble for
his snuff-box. He looked at Newman from head to foot; he looked
at his daughter and then at the picture. "Take care you don't
spoil it!" he cried almost sublimely.
"We must go home," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "This is a good
day's work. Take care how you carry it!" And she began to put
up her utensils.
"How can I thank you?" said M. Nioche. "My English does not
suffice."
"I wish I spoke French as well," said Newman, good-naturedly.
"Your daughter is very clever."
"Oh, sir!" and M. Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful
eyes and nodded several times with a world of sadness. "She has
had an education--tres-superieure! Nothing was spared.
Lessons in pastel at ten francs the lesson, lessons in oil at
twelve francs. I didn't look at the francs then. She's an
artiste, ah!"
"Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?" asked
Newman.
"Reverses? Oh, sir, misfortunes--terrible."
"Unsuccessful in business, eh?"
"Very unsuccessful, sir."
"Oh, never fear, you'll get on your legs again," said Newman
cheerily.
The old man drooped his head on one side and looked at him with
an expression of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest.
"What does he say?" demanded Mademoiselle Noemie.
M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. "He says I will make my
fortune again."
"Perhaps he will help you. And what else?"
"He says thou art very clever."
"It is very possible. You believe it yourself, my father?"
"Believe it, my daughter? With this evidence!" And the old man
turned afresh, with a staring, wondering homage, to the
audacious daub on the easel.
"Ask him, then. if he would not like to learn French."
"To learn French?"
"To take lessons."
"To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?"
"From you!"
"From me, my child? How should I give lessons?"
"Pas de raisons! Ask him immediately!" said Mademoiselle
Noemie, with soft brevity.
M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter's eye he
collected his wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable
smile, he executed her commands. "Would it please you to
receive instruction in our beautiful language?" he inquired,
with an appealing quaver.
"To study French?" asked Newman, staring.
M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his
shoulders. "A little conversation!"
"Conversation--that's it!" murmured Mademoiselle Noemie, who had
caught the word. "The conversation of the best society."
"Our French conversation is famous, you know," M. Nioche
ventured to continue. "It's a great talent."
"But isn't it awfully difficult?" asked Newman, very simply.
"Not to a man of esprit, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty
in every form!" and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his
daughter's Madonna.
"I can't fancy myself chattering French!" said Newman with a
laugh. "And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the
better."
"Monsieur expresses that very happily. Helas, oui!"
"I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris,
to know the language."
"Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say:
difficult things!"
"Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?"
Poor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more appealingly. "I
am not a regular professor," he admitted. "I can't nevertheless
tell him that I'm a professor," he said to his daughter.
"Tell him it's a very exceptional chance," answered Mademoiselle
Noemie; "an homme du monde--one gentleman conversing with
another! Remember what you are--what you have been!"
"A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and
much less to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?"
"He won't ask it," said Mademoiselle Noemie.
"What he pleases, I may say?"
"Never! That's bad style."
"If he asks, then?"
Mademoiselle Noemie had put on her bonnet and was tying the
ribbons. She smoothed them out, with her soft little chin
thrust forward. "Ten francs," she said quickly.
"Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare."
"Don't dare, then! He won't ask till the end of the lessons,
and then I will make out the bill."
M. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again, and stood
rubbing his hands, with an air of seeming to plead guilty which
was not intenser only because it was habitually so striking. It
never occurred to Newman to ask him for a guarantee of his skill
in imparting instruction; he supposed of course M. Nioche knew
his own language, and his appealing forlornness was quite the
perfection of what the American, for vague reasons, had always
associated with all elderly foreigners of the lesson-giving
class. Newman had never reflected upon philological processes.
His chief impression with regard to ascertaining those
mysterious correlatives of his familiar English vocables which
were current in this extraordinary city of Paris was, that it
was simply a matter of a good deal of unwonted and rather
ridiculous muscular effort on his own part. "How did you learn
English?" he asked of the old man.
"When I was young, before my miseries. Oh, I was wide awake,
then. My father was a great commercant; he placed me for a
year in a counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me;
but I have forgotten!"
"How much French can I learn in a month?"
"What does he say?" asked Mademoiselle Noemie.
M. Nioche explained.
"He will speak like an angel!" said his daughter.
But the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to secure
M. Nioche's commercial prosperity flickered up again.
"Dame, monsieur!" he answered. "All I can teach you !" And
then, recovering himself at a sign from his daughter, "I will
wait upon you at your hotel."
"Oh yes, I should like to learn French," Newman went on, with
democratic confidingness. "Hang me if I should ever have
thought of it! I took for granted it was impossible. But if you
learned my language, why shouldn't I learn yours?" and his
frank, friendly laugh drew the sting from the jest. "Only, if
we are going to converse, you know, you must think of something
cheerful to converse about."
"You are very good, sir; I am overcome!" said M. Nioche,
throwing out his hands. "But you have cheerfulness and
happiness for two!"
"Oh no," said Newman more seriously. "You must be bright and
lively; that's part of the bargain."
M. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. "Very well, sir;
you have already made me lively."
"Come and bring me my picture then; I will pay you for it, and
we will talk about that. That will be a cheerful subject!"
Mademoiselle Noemie had collected her accessories, and she gave
the precious Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated
backwards out of sight, holding it at arm's-length and
reiterating his obeisance. The young lady gathered her shawl
about her like a perfect Parisienne, and it was with the smile
of a Parisienne that she took leave of her patron.
CHAPTER II
He wandered back to the divan and seated himself on the other
side, in view of the great canvas on which Paul Veronese had
depicted the marriage-feast of Cana. Wearied as he was he found
the picture entertaining; it had an illusion for him; it
satisfied his conception, which was ambitious, of what a
splendid banquet should be. In the left-hand corner of the
picture is a young woman with yellow tresses confined in a
golden head-dress; she is bending forward and listening, with
the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her
neighbor. Newman detected her in the crowd, admired her, and
perceived that she too had her votive copyist--a young man with
his hair standing on end. Suddenly he became conscious of the
germ of the mania of the "collector;" he had taken the first
step; why should he not go on? It was only twenty minutes
before that he had bought the first picture of his life, and now
he was already thinking of art-patronage as a fascinating
pursuit. His reflections quickened his good-humor, and he was
on the point of approaching the young man with another
"Combien?" Two or three facts in this relation are noticeable,
although the logical chain which connects them may seem
imperfect. He knew Mademoiselle Nioche had asked too much; he
bore her no grudge for doing so, and he was determined to pay
the young man exactly the proper sum. At this moment, however,
his attention was attracted by a gentleman who had come from
another part of the room and whose manner was that of a stranger
to the gallery, although he was equipped with neither guide-book
nor opera-glass. He carried a white sun-umbrella, lined with
blue silk, and he strolled in front of the Paul Veronese,
vaguely looking at it, but much too near to see anything but the
grain of the canvas. Opposite to Christopher Newman he paused
and turned, and then our friend, who had been observing him, had
a chance to verify a suspicion aroused by an imperfect view of
his face. The result of this larger scrutiny was that he
presently sprang to his feet, strode across the room, and, with
an outstretched hand, arrested the gentleman with the blue-lined
umbrella. The latter stared, but put out his hand at a venture.
He was corpulent and rosy, and though his countenance, which
was ornamented with a beautiful flaxen beard, carefully divided
in the middle and brushed outward at the sides, was not
remarkable for intensity of expression, he looked like a person
who would willingly shake hands with any one. I know not what
Newman thought of his face, but he found a want of response in
his grasp.
"Oh, come, come," he said, laughing; "don't say, now, you don't
know me--if I have NOT got a white parasol!"
The sound of his voice quickened the other's memory, his face
expanded to its fullest capacity, and he also broke into a
laugh. "Why, Newman--I'll be blowed! Where in the world--I
declare--who would have thought? You know you have changed."
"You haven't!" said Newman.
"Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?"
"Three days ago."
"Why didn't you let me know?"
"I had no idea YOU were here."
"I have been here these six years."
"It must be eight or nine since we met."
"Something of that sort. We were very young."
"It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army."
"Oh no, not I! But you were."
"I believe I was."
"You came out all right?"
"I came out with my legs and arms--and with satisfaction . All
that seems very far away."
"And how long have you been in Europe?"
"Seventeen days."
"First time?"
"Yes, very much so."
"Made your everlasting fortune?"
Christopher Newman was silent a moment, and then with a tranquil
smile he answered, "Yes."
"And come to Paris to spend it, eh?"
"Well, we shall see. So they carry those parasols here--the
menfolk?"
"Of course they do. They're great things. They understand
comfort out here."
"Where do you buy them?"
"Anywhere, everywhere."
"Well, Tristram, I'm glad to get hold of you. You can show me
the ropes. I suppose you know Paris inside out."
Mr. Tristram gave a mellow smile of self-gratulation. "Well, I
guess there are not many men that can show me much. I'll take
care of you."
"It's a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I have just
bought a picture. You might have put the thing through for me."
"Bought a picture?" said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at
the walls. "Why, do they sell them?"
"I mean a copy."
"Oh, I see. These," said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians
and Vandykes, "these, I suppose, are originals."
"I hope so," cried Newman. "I don't want a copy of a copy."
"Ah," said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, "you can never tell.
They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the
jewelers, with their false stones. Go into the Palais Royal,
there; you see 'Imitation' on half the windows. The law obliges
them to stick it on, you know; but you can't tell the things
apart. To tell the truth," Mr. Tristram continued, with a wry
face, "I don't do much in pictures. I leave that to my wife."
"Ah, you have got a wife?"
"Didn't I mention it? She's a very nice woman; you must know
her. She's up there in the Avenue d'Iena."
"So you are regularly fixed--house and children and all."
"Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters."
"Well," said Christopher Newman, stretching his arms a little,
with a sigh, "I envy you."
"Oh no! you don't!" answered Mr. Tristram, giving him a little
poke with his parasol.
"I beg your pardon; I do!"
"Well, you won't, then, when--when--"
"You don't certainly mean when I have seen your establishment?"
"When you have seen Paris, my boy. You want to be your own
master here."
"Oh, I have been my own master all my life, and I'm tired of it."
"Well, try Paris. How old are you?"
"Thirty-six."
"C'est le bel age, as they say here."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that a man shouldn't send away his plate till he has
eaten his fill."
"All that? I have just made arrangements to take French
lessons."
"Oh, you don't want any lessons. You'll pick it up. I never
took any."
"I suppose you speak French as well as English?"
"Better!" said Mr. Tristram, roundly. "It's a splendid
language. You can say all sorts of bright things in it."
"But I suppose," said Christopher Newman, with an earnest desire
for information, "that you must be bright to begin with."
"Not a bit; that's just the beauty of it."
The two friends, as they exchanged these remarks, had remained
standing where they met, and leaning against the rail which
protected the pictures. Mr. Tristram at last declared that he
was overcome with fatigue and should be happy to sit down.
Newman recommended in the highest terms the great divan on which
he had been lounging, and they prepared to seat themselves.
"This is a great place; isn't it?" said Newman, with ardor.
"Great place, great place. Finest thing in the world." And
then, suddenly, Mr. Tristram hesitated and looked about him. "I
suppose they won't let you smoke here."
Newman stared. "Smoke? I'm sure I don't know. You know the
regulations better than I."
"I? I never was here before!"
"Never! in six years?"
"I believe my wife dragged me here once when we first came to
Paris, but I never found my way back."
"But you say you know Paris so well!"
"I don't call this Paris!" cried Mr. Tristram, with assurance.
"Come; let's go over to the Palais Royal and have a smoke."
"I don't smoke," said Newman.
"A drink, then."
And Mr. Tristram led his companion away. They passed through
the glorious halls of the Louvre, down the staircases, along the
cool, dim galleries of sculpture, and out into the enormous
court. Newman looked about him as he went, but he made no
comments, and it was only when they at last emerged into the
open air that he said to his friend, "It seems to me that in
your place I should have come here once a week."
"Oh, no you wouldn't!" said Mr. Tristram. "You think so, but
you wouldn't. You wouldn't have had time. You would always
mean to go, but you never would go. There's better fun than
that, here in Paris. Italy's the place to see pictures; wait
till you get there. There you have to go; you can't do anything
else. It's an awful country; you can't get a decent cigar. I
don't know why I went in there, to-day; I was strolling along,
rather hard up for amusement. I sort of noticed the Louvre as I
passed, and I thought I would go in and see what was going on.
But if I hadn't found you there I should have felt rather sold.
Hang it, I don't care for pictures; I prefer the reality!" And
Mr. Tristram tossed off this happy formula with an assurance
which the numerous class of persons suffering from an overdose
of "culture" might have envied him.
The two gentlemen proceeded along the Rue de Rivoli and into the
Palais Royal, where they seated themselves at one of the little
tables stationed at the door of the cafe which projects into the
great open quadrangle. The place was filled with people, the
fountains were spouting, a band was playing, clusters of chairs
were gathered beneath all the lime-trees, and buxom,
white-capped nurses, seated along the benches, were offering to
their infant charges the amplest facilities for nutrition.
There was an easy, homely gayety in the whole scene, and
Christopher Newman felt that it was most characteristically
Parisian.
"And now," began Mr. Tristram, when they had tested the
decoction which he had caused to be served to them, "now just
give an account of yourself. What are your ideas, what are your
plans, where have you come from and where are you going? In the
first place, where are you staying?"
"At the Grand Hotel," said Newman.
Mr. Tristram puckered his plump visage. "That won't do! You
must change."
"Change?" demanded Newman. "Why, it's the finest hotel I ever
was in."
"You don't want a 'fine' hotel; you want something small and
quiet and elegant, where your bell is answered and you--your
person is recognized."
"They keep running to see if I have rung before I have touched
the bell," said Newman "and as for my person they are always
bowing and scraping to it."
"I suppose you are always tipping them. That's very bad style."
"Always? By no means. A man brought me something yesterday,
and then stood loafing in a beggarly manner. I offered him a
chair and asked him if he wouldn't sit down. Was that bad
style?"
"Very!"
"But he bolted, instantly. At any rate, the place amuses me.
Hang your elegance, if it bores me. I sat in the court of the
Grand Hotel last night until two o'clock in the morning,
watching the coming and going, and the people knocking about."
"You're easily pleased. But you can do as you choose--a man in
your shoes. You have made a pile of money, eh?"
"I have made enough"
"Happy the man who can say that? Enough for what?"
"Enough to rest awhile, to forget the confounded thing, to look
about me, to see the world, to have a good time, to improve my
mind, and, if the fancy takes me, to marry a wife." Newman
spoke slowly, with a certain dryness of accent and with frequent
pauses. This was his habitual mode of utterance, but it was
especially marked in the words I have just quoted.
"Jupiter! There's a programme!" cried Mr. Tristram. "Certainly,
all that takes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she
gives it, as mine did. And what's the story? How have you done
it?"
Newman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his
arms, and stretched his legs. He listened to the music, he
looked about him at the bustling crowd, at the plashing
fountains, at the nurses and the babies. "I have worked!" he
answered at last.
Tristram looked at him for some moments, and allowed his placid
eyes to measure his friend's generous longitude and rest upon
his comfortably contemplative face. "What have you worked at?"
he asked.
"Oh, at several things."
"I suppose you're a smart fellow, eh?"
Newman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted
to the scene a kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. "Yes,"
he said at last, "I suppose I am." And then, in answer to his
companion's inquiries, he related briefly his history since
their last meeting. It was an intensely Western story, and it
dealt with enterprises which it will be needless to introduce to
the reader in detail. Newman had come out of the war with a
brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this
case--without invidious comparisons--had lighted upon shoulders
amply competent to bear it. But though he could manage a
fight, when need was, Newman heartily disliked the business; his
four years in the army had left him with an angry, bitter sense
of the waste of precious things--life and time and money and
"smartness" and the early freshness of purpose; and he had
addressed himself to the pursuits of peace with passionate zest
and energy. He was of course as penniless when he plucked off
his shoulder-straps as when he put them on, and the only capital
at his disposal was his dogged resolution and his lively
perception of ends and means. Exertion and action were as
natural to him as respiration; a more completely healthy mortal
had never trod the elastic soil of the West. His experience,
moreover, was as wide as his capacity; when he was fourteen
years old, necessity had taken him by his slim young shoulders
and pushed him into the street, to earn that night's supper. He
had not earned it but he had earned the next night's, and
afterwards, whenever he had had none, it was because he had gone
without it to use the money for something else, a keener
pleasure or a finer profit. He had turned his hand, with his
brain in it, to many things; he had been enterprising, in an
eminent sense of the term; he had been adventurous and even
reckless, and he had known bitter failure as well as brilliant
success; but he was a born experimentalist, and he had always
found something to enjoy in the pressure of necessity, even when
it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the mediaeval
monk. At one time failure seemed inexorably his portion;
ill-luck became his bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he
turned, not to gold, but to ashes. His most vivid conception of
a supernatural element in the world's affairs had come to him
once when this pertinacity of misfortune was at its climax;
there seemed to him something stronger in life than his own
will. But the mysterious something could only be the devil, and
he was accordingly seized with an intense personal enmity to
this impertinent force. He had known what it was to have
utterly exhausted his credit, to be unable to raise a dollar,
and to find himself at nightfall in a strange city, without a
penny to mitigate its strangeness. It was under these
circumstances that he made his entrance into San Francisco, the
scene, subsequently, of his happiest strokes of fortune. If he
did not, like Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march along the
street munching a penny-loaf, it was only because he had not the
penny-loaf necessary to the performance. In his darkest days he
had had but one simple, practical impulse--the desire, as he
would have phrased it, to see the thing through. He did so at
last, buffeted his way into smooth waters, and made money
largely. It must be admitted, rather nakedly, that Christopher
Newman's sole aim in life had been to make money; what he had
been placed in the world for was, to his own perception, simply
to wrest a fortune, the bigger the better, from defiant
opportunity. This idea completely filled his horizon and
satisfied his imagination. Upon the uses of money, upon what
one might do with a life into which one had succeeded in
injecting the golden stream, he had up to his thirty-fifth year
very scantily reflected. Life had been for him an open game,
and he had played for high stakes. He had won at last and
carried off his winnings; and now what was he to do with them?
He was a man to whom, sooner or later, the question was sure to
present itself, and the answer to it belongs to our story. A
vague sense that more answers were possible than his philosophy
had hitherto dreamt of had already taken possession of him, and
it seemed softly and agreeably to deepen as he lounged in this
brilliant corner of Paris with his friend.
"I must confess," he presently went on, "that here I don't feel
at all smart. My remarkable talents seem of no use. I feel as
simple as a little child, and a little child might take me by
the hand and lead me about."
"Oh, I'll be your little child," said Tristram, jovially; "I'll
take you by the hand. Trust yourself to me"
"I am a good worker," Newman continued, "but I rather think I am
a poor loafer. I have come abroad to amuse myself, but I doubt
whether I know how."
"Oh, that's easily learned."
"Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I am afraid I shall never do
it by rote. I have the best will in the world about it, but my
genius doesn't lie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never
be original, as I take it that you are."
"Yes," said Tristram, "I suppose I am original; like all those
immoral pictures in the Louvre."
"Besides," Newman continued, "I don't want to work at pleasure,
any more than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I
feel deliciously lazy, and I should like to spend six months as
I am now, sitting under a tree and listening to a band. There's
only one thing; I want to hear some good music."
"Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what
my wife calls intellectual. I ain't, a bit. But we can find
something better for you to do than to sit under a tree. To
begin with, you must come to the club."
"What club?"
"The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the
best of them, at least. Of course you play poker?"
"Oh, I say," cried Newman, with energy, "you are not going to
lock me up in a club and stick me down at a card-table! I
haven't come all this way for that."
"What the deuce HAVE you come for! You were glad enough to
play poker in St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out."
"I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I
want to see all the great things, and do what the clever people
do."
"The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a
blockhead, then?"
Newman was sitting sidewise in his chair, with his elbow on the
back and his head leaning on his hand. Without moving he looked
a while at his companion with his dry, guarded,
half-inscrutable, and yet altogether good-natured smile.
"Introduce me to your wife!" he said at last.
Tristram bounced about in his chair. "Upon my word, I won't.
She doesn't want any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you,
either!"
"I don't turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at any one,
or anything. I'm not proud, I assure you I'm not proud. That's
why I am willing to take example by the clever people."
"Well, if I'm not the rose, as they say here, I have lived near
it. I can show you some clever people, too. Do you know
General Packard? Do you know C. P. Hatch? Do you know Miss
Kitty Upjohn?"
"I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to
cultivate society."
Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend
askance, and then, "What are you up to, any way?" he demanded.
"Are you going to write a book?"
Christopher Newman twisted one end of his mustache a while, in
silence, and at last he made answer. "One day, a couple of
months ago, something very curious happened to me. I had come
on to New York on some important business; it was rather a long
story--a question of getting ahead of another party, in a
certain particular way, in the stock-market. This other party
had once played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, I
felt awfully savage at the time, and I vowed that, when I got a
chance, I would, figuratively speaking, put his nose out of
joint. There was a matter of some sixty thousand dollars at
stake. If I put it out of his way, it was a blow the fellow
would feel, and he really deserved no quarter. I jumped into a
hack and went about my business, and it was in this hack--this
immortal, historical hack--that the curious thing I speak of
occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle dirtier,
with a greasy line along the top of the drab cushions, as if it
had been used for a great many Irish funerals. It is possible I
took a nap; I had been traveling all night, and though I was
excited with my errand, I felt the want of sleep. At all events
I woke up suddenly, from a sleep or from a kind of a reverie,
with the most extraordinary feeling in the world--a mortal
disgust for the thing I was going to do. It came upon me like
THAT!" and he snapped his fingers--"as abruptly as an old
wound that begins to ache. I couldn't tell the meaning of it; I
only felt that I loathed the whole business and wanted to wash
my hands of it. The idea of losing that sixty thousand dollars,
of letting it utterly slide and scuttle and never hearing of it
again, seemed the sweetest thing in the world. And all this
took place quite independently of my will, and I sat watching it
as if it were a play at the theatre. I could feel it going on
inside of me. You may depend upon it that there are things
going on inside of us that we understand mighty little about."
"Jupiter! you make my flesh creep!" cried Tristram. "And while
you sat in your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the
other man marched in and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?"
"I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never
found out. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in
Wall Street, but I sat still in the carriage, and at last the
driver scrambled down off his seat to see whether his carriage
had not turned into a hearse. I couldn't have got out, any more
than if I had been a corpse. What was the matter with me?
Momentary idiocy, you'll say. What I wanted to get out of was
Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn ferry
and to cross over. When we were over, I told him to drive me
out into the country. As I had told him originally to drive for
dear life down town, I suppose he thought me insane. Perhaps I
was, but in that case I am insane still. I spent the morning
looking at the first green leaves on Long Island. I was sick of
business; I wanted to throw it all up and break off short; I had
money enough, or if I hadn't I ought to have. I seemed to feel
a new man inside my old skin, and I longed for a new world.
When you want a thing so very badly you had better treat
yourself to it. I didn't understand the matter, not in the
least; but I gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his
way. As soon as I could get out of the game I sailed for
Europe. That is how I come to be sitting here."
"You ought to have bought up that hack," said Tristram; "it
isn't a safe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold
out, then; you have retired from business?"
"I have made over my hand to a friend; when I feel disposed, I
can take up the cards again. I dare say that a twelvemonth
hence the operation will be reversed. The pendulum will swing
back again. I shall be sitting in a gondola or on a dromedary,
and all of a sudden I shall want to clear out. But for the
present I am perfectly free. I have even bargained that I am to
receive no business letters."
"Oh, it's a real caprice de prince," said Tristram. "I back
out; a poor devil like me can't help you to spend such very
magnificent leisure as that. You should get introduced to the
crowned heads."
39 Newman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile,
"How does one do it?" he asked.
"Come, I like that!" cried Tristram. "It shows you are in
earnest."
"Of course I am in earnest. Didn't I say I wanted the best? I
know the best can't be had for mere money, but I rather think
money will do a good deal. In addition, I am willing to take a
good deal of trouble."
"You are not bashful, eh?"
"I haven't the least idea. I want the biggest kind of
entertainment a man can get. People, places, art, nature,
everything! I want to see the tallest mountains, and the bluest
lakes, and the finest pictures and the handsomest churches,.
and the most celebrated men, and the most beautiful women."
"Settle down in Paris, then. There are no mountains that I know
of, and the only lake is in the Bois du Boulogne, and not
particularly blue. But there is everything else: plenty of
pictures and churches, no end of celebrated men, and several
beautiful women."
"But I can't settle down in Paris at this season, just as summer
is coming on."
"Oh, for the summer go up to Trouville."
"What is Trouville?"
"The French Newport. Half the Americans go."
"Is it anywhere near the Alps?"
"About as near as Newport is to the Rocky Mountains."
"Oh, I want to see Mont Blanc," said Newman, "and Amsterdam, and
the Rhine, and a lot of places. Venice in particular. I have
great ideas about Venice."
"Ah," said Mr. Tristram, rising, "I see I shall have to
introduce you to my wife!"
CHAPTER III
He performed this ceremony on the following day, when, by
appointment, Christopher Newman went to dine with him. Mr. and
Mrs. Tristram lived behind one of those chalk-colored facades
which decorate with their pompous sameness the broad avenues
manufactured by Baron Haussmann in the neighborhood of the Arc
de Triomphe. Their apartment was rich in the modern
conveniences, and Tristram lost no time in calling his visitor's
attention to their principal household treasures, the gas-lamps
and the furnace-holes. "Whenever you feel homesick," he said,
"you must come up here. We'll stick you down before a register,
under a good big burner, and--"
"And you will soon get over your homesickness," said Mrs.
Tristram.
Her husband stared; his wife often had a tone which he found
inscrutable he could not tell for his life whether she was in
jest or in earnest. The truth is that circumstances had done
much to cultivate in Mrs. Tristram a marked tendency to irony.
Her taste on many points differed from that of her husband, and
though she made frequent concessions it must be confessed that
her concessions were not always graceful. They were founded upon
a vague project she had of some day doing something very
positive, something a trifle passionate. What she meant to do
she could by no means have told you; but meanwhile,
nevertheless, she was buying a good conscience, by installments.
It should be added, without delay, to anticipate misconception,
that her little scheme of independence did not definitely
involve the assistance of another person, of the opposite sex;
she was not saving up virtue to cover the expenses of a
flirtation. For this there were various reasons. To begin
with, she had a very plain face and she was entirely without
illusions as to her appearance. She had taken its measure to a
hair's breadth, she knew the worst and the best, she had
accepted herself. It had not been, indeed, without a struggle.
As a young girl she had spent hours with her back to her mirror,
crying her eyes out; and later she had from desperation and
bravado adopted the habit of proclaiming herself the most
ill-favored of women, in order that she might--as in common
politeness was inevitable--be contradicted and reassured. It
was since she had come to live in Europe that she had begun to
take the matter philosophically. Her observation, acutely
exercised here, had suggested to her that a woman's first duty
is not to be beautiful, but to be pleasing, and she encountered
so many women who pleased without beauty that she began to feel
that she had discovered her mission. She had once heard an
enthusiastic musician, out of patience with a gifted bungler,
declare that a fine voice is really an obstacle to singing
properly; and it occurred to her that it might perhaps be
equally true that a beautiful face is an obstacle to the
acquisition of charming manners. Mrs. Tristram, then, undertook
to be exquisitely agreeable, and she brought to the task a
really touching devotion. How well she would have succeeded I
am unable to say; unfortunately she broke off in the middle.
Her own excuse was the want of encouragement in her immediate
circle. But I am inclined to think that she had not a real
genius for the matter, or she would have pursued the charming
art for itself. The poor lady was very incomplete. She fell
back upon the harmonies of the toilet, which she thoroughly
understood, and contented herself with dressing in perfection.
She lived in Paris, which she pretended to detest, because it
was only in Paris that one could find things to exactly suit
one's complexion. Besides out of Paris it was always more or
less of a trouble to get ten-button gloves. When she railed at
this serviceable city and you asked her where she would prefer
to reside, she returned some very unexpected answer. She would
say in Copenhagen, or in Barcelona; having, while making the
tour of Europe, spent a couple of days at each of these places.
On the whole, with her poetic furbelows and her misshapen,
intelligent little face, she was, when you knew her, a decidedly
interesting woman. She was naturally shy, and if she had been
born a beauty, she would (having no vanity) probably have
remained shy. Now, she was both diffident and importunate;
extremely reserved sometimes with her friends, and strangely
expansive with strangers. She despised her husband; despised
him too much, for she had been perfectly at liberty not to marry
him. She had been in love with a clever man who had slighted
her, and she had married a fool in the hope that this thankless
wit, reflecting on it, would conclude that she had no
appreciation of merit, and that he had flattered himself in
supposing that she cared for his own. Restless, discontented,
visionary, without personal ambitions, but with a certain
avidity of imagination, she was, as I have said before,
eminently incomplete. She was full--both for good and for
ill--of beginnings that came to nothing; but she had
nevertheless, morally, a spark of the sacred fire.
Newman was fond, under all circumstances, of the society of
women, and now that he was out of his native element and
deprived of his habitual interests, he turned to it for
compensation. He took a great fancy to Mrs. Tristram; she
frankly repaid it, and after their first meeting he passed a
great many hours in her drawing-room. After two or three talks
they were fast friends. Newman's manner with women was
peculiar, and it required some ingenuity on a lady's part to
discover that he admired her. He had no gallantry, in the usual
sense of the term; no compliments, no graces, no speeches. Very
fond of what is called chaffing, in his dealings with men, he
never found himself on a sofa beside a member of the softer sex
without feeling extremely serious. He was not shy, and so far
as awkwardness proceeds from a struggle with shyness, he was not
awkward; grave, attentive, submissive, often silent, he was
simply swimming in a sort of rapture of respect. This emotion
was not at all theoretic, it was not even in a high degree
sentimental; he had thought very little about the "position" of
women, and he was not familiar either sympathetically or
otherwise, with the image of a President in petticoats. His
attitude was simply the flower of his general good-nature, and a
part of his instinctive and genuinely democratic assumption of
every one's right to lead an easy life. If a shaggy pauper had
a right to bed and board and wages and a vote, women, of course,
who were weaker than paupers, and whose physical tissue was in
itself an appeal, should be maintained, sentimentally, at the
public expense. Newman was willing to be taxed for this
purpose, largely, in proportion to his means. Moreover, many of
the common traditions with regard to women were with him fresh
personal impressions; he had never read a novel! He had been
struck with their acuteness, their subtlety, their tact, their
felicity of judgment. They seemed to him exquisitely organized.
If it is true that one must always have in one's work here below
a religion, or at least an ideal, of some sort, Newman found his
metaphysical inspiration in a vague acceptance of final
responsibility to some illumined feminine brow.
He spent a great deal of time in listening to advice from Mrs.
Tristram; advice, it must be added, for which he had never
asked. He would have been incapable of asking for it, for he
had no perception of difficulties, and consequently no curiosity
about remedies. The complex Parisian world about him seemed a
very simple affair; it was an immense, amazing spectacle, but it
neither inflamed his imagination nor irritated his curiosity.
He kept his hands in his pockets, looked on good-humoredly,
desired to miss nothing important, observed a great many things
narrowly, and never reverted to himself. Mrs. Tristram's
"advice" was a part of the show, and a more entertaining
element, in her abundant gossip, than the others. He enjoyed
her talking about himself; it seemed a part of her beautiful
ingenuity; but he never made an application of anything she
said, or remembered it when he was away from her. For herself,
she appropriated him; he was the most interesting thing she had
had to think about in many a month. She wished to do something
with him--she hardly knew what. There was so much of him; he
was so rich and robust, so easy, friendly, well-disposed, that
he kept her fancy constantly on the alert. For the present, the
only thing she could do was to like him. She told him that he
was "horribly Western," but in this compliment the adverb was
tinged with insincerity. She led him about with her, introduced
him to fifty people, and took extreme satisfaction in her
conquest. Newman accepted every proposal, shook hands
universally and promiscuously, and seemed equally unfamiliar
with trepidation or with elation. Tom Tristram complained of
his wife's avidity, and declared that he could never have a
clear five minutes with his friend. If he had known how things
were going to turn out, he never would have brought him to the
Avenue d'Iena. The two men, formerly, had not been intimate,
but Newman remembered his earlier impression of his host, and
did Mrs. Tristram, who had by no means taken him into her
confidence, but whose secret he presently discovered, the
justice to admit that her husband was a rather degenerate
mortal. At twenty-five he had been a good fellow, and in this
respect he was unchanged; but of a man of his age one expected
something more. People said he was sociable, but this was as
much a matter of course as for a dipped sponge to expand; and it
was not a high order of sociability. He was a great gossip and
tattler, and to produce a laugh would hardly have spared the
reputation of his aged mother. Newman had a kindness for old
memories, but he found it impossible not to perceive that
Tristram was nowadays a very light weight. His only aspirations
were to hold out at poker, at his club, to know the names of all
the cocottes, to shake hands all round, to ply his rosy
gullet with truffles and champagne, and to create uncomfortable
eddies and obstructions among the constituent atoms of the
American colony. He was shamefully idle, spiritless, sensual,
snobbish. He irritated our friend by the tone of his allusions
to their native country, and Newman was at a loss to understand
why the United States were not good enough for Mr. Tristram. He
had never been a very conscious patriot, but it vexed him to see
them treated as little better than a vulgar smell in his
friend's nostrils, and he finally broke out and swore that they
were the greatest country in the world, that they could put all
Europe into their breeches' pockets, and that an American who
spoke ill of them ought to be carried home in irons and
compelled to live in Boston. (This, for Newman was putting it
very vindictively.) Tristram was a comfortable man to snub, he
bore no malice, and he continued to insist on Newman's finishing
his evening at the Occidental Club.
Christopher Newman dined several times in the Avenue d'Iena, and
his host always proposed an early adjournment to this
institution. Mrs. Tristram protested, and declared that her
husband exhausted his ingenuity in trying to displease her.
"Oh no, I never try, my love," he answered. "I know you loathe
me quite enough when I take my chance."
Newman hated to see a husband and wife on these terms, and he
was sure one or other of them must be very unhappy. He knew it
was not Tristram. Mrs. Tristram had a balcony before her
windows, upon which, during the June evenings, she was fond of
sitting, and Newman used frankly to say that he preferred the
balcony to the club. It had a fringe of perfumed plants in
tubs, and enabled you to look up the broad street and see the
Arch of Triumph vaguely massing its heroic sculptures in the
summer starlight. Sometimes Newman kept his promise of
following Mr. Tristram, in half an hour, to the Occidental, and
sometimes he forgot it. His hostess asked him a great many
questions about himself, but on this subject he was an
indifferent talker. He was not what is called subjective,
though when he felt that her interest was sincere, he made an
almost heroic attempt to be. He told her a great many things he
had done, and regaled her with anecdotes of Western life; she
was from Philadelphia, and with her eight years in Paris, talked
of herself as a languid Oriental. But some other person was
always the hero of the tale, by no means always to his
advantage; and Newman's own emotions were but scantily
chronicled. She had an especial wish to know whether he had
ever been in love--seriously, passionately--and, failing to
gather any satisfaction from his allusions, she at last directly
inquired. He hesitated a while, and at last he said, "No!" She
declared that she was delighted to hear it, as it confirmed her
private conviction that he was a man of no feeling.
"Really?" he asked, very gravely. "Do you think so? How do you
recognize a man of feeling?"
"I can't make out," said Mrs. Tristram, "whether you are very
simple or very deep."
"I'm very deep. That's a fact."
"I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that
you have no feeling, you would implicitly believe me."
"A certain air?" said Newman. "Try it and see."
"You would believe me, but you would not care," said Mrs.
Tristram.
"You have got it all wrong. I should care immensely, but I
shouldn't believe you. The fact is I have never had time to
feel things. I have had to DO them, to make myself felt."
"I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously,
sometimes."
"Yes, there's no mistake about that."
"When you are in a fury it can't be pleasant."
"I am never in a fury."
"Angry, then, or displeased."
"I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been
displeased that I have quite forgotten it."
"I don't believe," said Mrs. Tristram, "that you are never
angry. A man ought to be angry sometimes, and you are neither
good enough nor bad enough always to keep your temper."
"I lose it perhaps once in five years."
"The time is coming round, then," said his hostess. "Before I
have known you six months I shall see you in a fine fury."
"Do you mean to put me into one?"
"I should not be sorry. You take things too coolly. It
exasperates me. And then you are too happy. You have what must
be the most agreeable thing in the world, the consciousness of
having bought your pleasure beforehand and paid for it. You
have not a day of reckoning staring you in the face. Your
reckonings are over."
"Well, I suppose I am happy," said Newman, meditatively.
"You have been odiously successful."
"Successful in copper," said Newman, "only so-so in railroads,
and a hopeless fizzle in oil."
"It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their
money. Now you have the world before you. You have only to
enjoy."
"Oh, I suppose I am very well off," said Newman. "Only I am
tired of having it thrown up at me. Besides, there are several
drawbacks. I am not intellectual."
"One doesn't expect it of you," Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in
a moment, "Besides, you are!"
"Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no," said Newman.
"I am not cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing
about history, or art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned
matters. But I am not a fool, either, and I shall undertake to
know something about Europe by the time I have done with it. I
feel something under my ribs here," he added in a moment, "that
I can't explain--a sort of a mighty hankering, a desire to
stretch out and haul in."
"Bravo!" said Mrs. Tristram, "that is very fine. You are the
great Western Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and
might, gazing a while at this poor effete Old World and then
swooping down on it."
"Oh, come," said Newman. "I am not a barbarian, by a good deal.
I am very much the reverse. I have seen barbarians; I know what
they are."
"I don't mean that you are a Comanche chief, or that you wear a
blanket and feathers. There are different shades."
"I am a highly civilized man," said Newman. "I stick to that.
If you don't believe it, I should like to prove it to you."
Mrs. Tristram was silent a while. "I should like to make you
prove it," she said, at last. "I should like to put you in a
difficult place."
"Pray do," said Newman.
"That has a little conceited sound!" his companion rejoined.
"Oh," said Newman, "I have a very good opinion of myself."
"I wish I could put it to the test. Give me time and I will."
And Mrs. Tristram remained silent for some time afterwards, as
if she was trying to keep her pledge. It did not appear that
evening that she succeeded; but as he was rising to take his
leave she passed suddenly, as she was very apt to do, from the
tone of unsparing persiflage to that of almost tremulous
sympathy. "Speaking seriously," she said, "I believe in you,
Mr. Newman. You flatter my patriotism."
"Your patriotism?" Christopher demanded.
"Even so. It would take too long to explain, and you probably
would not understand. Besides, you might take it--really, you
might take it for a declaration. But it has nothing to do with
you personally; it's what you represent. Fortunately you don't
know all that, or your conceit would increase insufferably."
Newman stood staring and wondering what under the sun he
"represented."
"Forgive all my meddlesome chatter and forget my advice. It is
very silly in me to undertake to tell you what to do. When you
are embarrassed, do as you think best, and you will do very
well. When you are in a difficulty, judge for yourself."
"I shall remember everything you have told me," said Newman.
"There are so many forms and ceremonies over here--"
"Forms and ceremonies are what I mean, of course."
"Ah, but I want to observe them," said Newman. "Haven't I as
good a right as another? They don't scare me, and you needn't
give me leave to violate them. I won't take it."
"That is not what I mean. I mean, observe them in your own way.
Settle nice questions for yourself. Cut the knot or untie it,
as you choose."
"Oh, I am sure I shall never fumble over it!" said Newman.
The next time that he dined in the Avenue d'Iena was a Sunday, a
day on which Mr. Tristram left the cards unshuffled, so that
there was a trio in the evening on the balcony. The talk was of
many things, and at last Mrs. Tristram suddenly observed to
Christopher Newman that it was high time he should take a wife.
"Listen to her; she has the audacity!" said Tristram, who on
Sunday evenings was always rather acrimonious.
"I don't suppose you have made up your mind not to marry?" Mrs.
Tristram continued.
"Heaven forbid!" cried Newman. "I am sternly resolved on it."
"It's very easy," said Tristram; "fatally easy!"
"Well, then, I suppose you do not mean to wait till you are
fifty."
"On the contrary, I am in a great hurry."
"One would never suppose it. Do you expect a lady to come and
propose to you?"
"No; I am willing to propose. I think a great deal about it."
"Tell me some of your thoughts."
"Well," said Newman, slowly, "I want to marry very well."
"Marry a woman of sixty, then," said Tristram.
" 'Well' in what sense?"
"In every sense. I shall be hard to please."
"You must remember that, as the French proverb says, the most
beautiful girl in the world can give but what she has."
"Since you ask me," said Newman, "I will say frankly that I want
extremely to marry. It is time, to begin with: before I know it
I shall be forty. And then I'm lonely and helpless and dull.
But if I marry now, so long as I didn't do it in hot haste when
I was twenty, I must do it with my eyes open. I want to do the
thing in handsome style. I do not only want to make no
mistakes, but I want to make a great hit. I want to take my
pick. My wife must be a magnificent woman."
"Voila ce qui s'appelle parler!" cried Mrs. Tristram.
"Oh, I have thought an immense deal about it."
"Perhaps you think too much. The best thing is simply to fall
in love."
"When I find the woman who pleases me, I shall love her enough.
My wife shall be very comfortable."
"You are superb! There's a chance for the magnificent women."
"You are not fair." Newman rejoined. "You draw a fellow out and
put him off guard, and then you laugh at him."
"I assure you," said Mrs. Tristram, "that I am very serious. To
prove it, I will make you a proposal. Should you like me, as
they say here, to marry you?"
"To hunt up a wife for me?"
"She is already found. I will bring you together."
"Oh, come," said Tristram, "we don't keep a matrimonial bureau.
He will think you want your commission."
"Present me to a woman who comes up to my notions," said Newman,
"and I will marry her tomorrow."
"You have a strange tone about it, and I don't quite understand
you. I didn't suppose you would be so coldblooded and
calculating."
Newman was silent a while. "Well," he said, at last, "I want a
great woman. I stick to that. That's one thing I CAN treat
myself to, and if it is to be had I mean to have it. What else
have I toiled and struggled for, all these years? I have
succeeded, and now what am I to do with my success? To make it
perfect, as I see it, there must be a beautiful woman perched on
the pile, like a statue on a monument. She must be as good as
she is beautiful, and as clever as she is good. I can give my
wife a good deal, so I am not afraid to ask a good deal myself.
She shall have everything a woman can desire; I shall not even
object to her being too good for me; she may be cleverer and
wiser than I can understand, and I shall only be the better
pleased. I want to possess, in a word, the best article in the
market."
"Why didn't you tell a fellow all this at the outset?" Tristram
demanded. "I have been trying so to make you fond of ME!"
"This is very interesting," said Mrs. Tristram. "I like to see
a man know his own mind."
"I have known mine for a long time," Newman went on. "I made up
my mind tolerably early in life that a beautiful wife was the
thing best worth having, here below. It is the greatest victory
over circumstances. When I say beautiful, I mean beautiful in
mind and in manners, as well as in person. It is a thing every
man has an equal right to; he may get it if he can. He doesn't
have to be born with certain faculties, on purpose; he needs
only to be a man. Then he needs only to use his will, and such
wits as he has, and to try."
"It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of
vanity."
"Well, it is certain," said Newman, "that if people notice my
wife and admire her, I shall be mightily tickled."
"After this," cried Mrs. Tristram, "call any man modest!"
"But none of them will admire her so much as I."
"I see you have a taste for splendor."
Newman hesitated a little; and then, "I honestly believe I
have!" he said.
"And I suppose you have already looked about you a good deal."
"A good deal, according to opportunity."
"And you have seen nothing that satisfied you?"
"No," said Newman, half reluctantly, "I am bound to say in
honesty that I have seen nothing that really satisfied me."
"You remind me of the heroes of the French romantic poets, Rolla
and Fortunio and all those other insatiable gentlemen for whom
nothing in this world was handsome enough. But I see you are in
earnest, and I should like to help you."
"Who the deuce is it, darling, that you are going to put upon
him?" Tristram cried. "We know a good many pretty girls, thank
Heaven, but magnificent women are not so common."
"Have you any objections to a foreigner?" his wife continued,
addressing Newman, who had tilted back his chair. and, with his
feet on a bar of the balcony railing and his hands in his
pockets, was looking at the stars.
"No Irish need apply," said Tristram.
Newman meditated a while. "As a foreigner, no," he said at
last; "I have no prejudices."
"My dear fellow, you have no suspicions!" cried Tristram. "You
don't know what terrible customers these foreign women are;
especially the 'magnificent' ones. How should you like a fair
Circassian, with a dagger in her belt?"
Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. "I would marry
a Japanese, if she pleased me," he affirmed.
"We had better confine ourselves to Europe," said Mrs. Tristram.
"The only thing is, then, that the person be in herself to your
taste?"
"She is going to offer you an unappreciated governess!" Tristram
groaned.
"Assuredly. I won't deny that, other things being equal, I
should prefer one of my own countrywomen. We should speak the
same language, and that would be a comfort. But I am not afraid
of a foreigner. Besides, I rather like the idea of taking in
Europe, too. It enlarges the field of selection. When you
choose from a greater number, you can bring your choice to a
finer point!"
"You talk like Sardanapalus!" exclaimed Tristram.
"You say all this to the right person," said Newman's hostess.
"I happen to number among my friends the loveliest woman in the
world. Neither more nor less. I don't say a very charming
person or a very estimable woman or a very great beauty; I say
simply the loveliest woman in the world."
"The deuce!" cried Tristram, "you have kept very quiet about
her. Were you afraid of me?"
"You have seen her," said his wife, "but you have no perception
of such merit as Claire's."
"Ah, her name is Claire? I give it up."
"Does your friend wish to marry?" asked Newman.
"Not in the least. It is for you to make her change her mind.
It will not be easy; she has had one husband, and he gave her a
low opinion of the species."
"Oh, she is a widow, then?" said Newman.
"Are you already afraid? She was married at eighteen, by her
parents, in the French fashion, to a disagreeable old man. But
he had the good taste to die a couple of years afterward, and
she is now twenty-five."
"So she is French?"
"French by her father, English by her mother. She is really
more English than French, and she speaks English as well as you
or I--or rather much better. She belongs to the very top of the
basket, as they say here. Her family, on each side, is of
fabulous antiquity; her mother is the daughter of an English
Catholic earl. Her father is dead, and since her widowhood she
has lived with her mother and a married brother. There is
another brother, younger, who I believe is wild. They have an
old hotel in the Rue de l'Universite, but their fortune is
small, and they make a common household, for economy's sake.
When I was a girl I was put into a convent here for my
education, while my father made the tour of Europe. It was a
silly thing to do with me, but it had the advantage that it made
me acquainted with Claire de Bellegarde. She was younger than I
but we became fast friends. I took a tremendous fancy to her,
and she returned my passion as far as she could. They kept such
a tight rein on her that she could do very little, and when I
left the convent she had to give me up. I was not of her
monde; I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. They are
terrible people--her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high,
and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the
milk of the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist is, or
an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's drawing-room some
afternoon, at five o'clock, and you will see the best preserved
specimens. I say go, but no one is admitted who can't show his
fifty quarterings."
"And this is the lady you propose to me to marry?" asked Newman.
"A lady I can't even approach?"
"But you said just now that you recognized no obstacles."
Newman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking his mustache.
"Is she a beauty?" he demanded.
"No."
"Oh, then it's no use--"
"She is not a beauty, but she is beautiful, two very different
things. A beauty has no faults in her face, the face of a
beautiful woman may have faults that only deepen its charm."
"I remember Madame de Cintre, now," said Tristram. "She is as
plain as a pike-staff. A man wouldn't look at her twice."
"In saying that HE would not look at her twice, my husband
sufficiently describes her," Mrs. Tristram rejoined.
"Is she good; is she clever?" Newman asked.
"She is perfect! I won't say more than that. When you are
praising a person to another who is to know her, it is bad
policy to go into details. I won't exaggerate. I simply
recommend her. Among all women I have known she stands alone;
she is of a different clay."
"I should like to see her," said Newman, simply.
"I will try to manage it. The only way will be to invite her to
dinner. I have never invited her before, and I don't know that
she will come. Her old feudal countess of a mother rules the
family with an iron hand, and allows her to have no friends but
of her own choosing, and to visit only in a certain sacred
circle. But I can at least ask her."
At this moment Mrs. Tristram was interrupted; a servant stepped
out upon the balcony and announced that there were visitors in
the drawing-room. When Newman's hostess had gone in to receive
her friends, Tom Tristram approached his guest.
"Don't put your foot into THIS, my boy," he said, puffing
the last whiffs of his cigar. "There's nothing in it!"
Newman looked askance at him, inquisitive. "You tell another
story, eh?"
"I say simply that Madame de Cintre is a great white doll of a
woman, who cultivates quiet haughtiness."
"Ah, she's haughty, eh?"
"She looks at you as if you were so much thin air, and cares for
you about as much."
"She is very proud, eh?"
"Proud? As proud as I'm humble."
"And not good-looking?"
Tristram shrugged his shoulders: "It's a kind of beauty you must
be INTELLECTUAL to understand. But I must go in and amuse
the company."
Some time elapsed before Newman followed his friends into the
drawing-room. When he at last made his appearance there he
remained but a short time, and during this period sat perfectly
silent, listening to a lady to whom Mrs. Tristram had
straightway introduced him and who chattered, without a pause,
with the full force of an extraordinarily high-pitched voice.
Newman gazed and attended. Presently he came to bid good-night
to Mrs. Tristram.
"Who is that lady?" he asked.
"Miss Dora Finch. How do you like her?"
"She's too noisy."
"She is thought so bright! Certainly, you are fastidious," said
Mrs. Tristram.
Newman stood a moment, hesitating. Then at last "Don't forget
about your friend," he said, "Madame What's-her-name? the proud
beauty. Ask her to dinner, and give me a good notice." And with
this he departed.
Some days later he came back; it was in the afternoon. He found
Mrs. Tristram in her drawing-room; with her was a visitor, a
woman young and pretty, dressed in white. The two ladies had
risen and the visitor was apparently taking her leave. As
Newman approached, he received from Mrs. Tristram a glance of
the most vivid significance, which he was not immediately able
to interpret.
"This is a good friend of ours," she said, turning to her
companion, "Mr. Christopher Newman. I have spoken of you to him
and he has an extreme desire to make your acquaintance. If you
had consented to come and dine, I should have offered him an
opportunity."
The stranger turned her face toward Newman, with a smile. He was
not embarrassed, for his unconscious sang-froid was
boundless; but as he became aware that this was the proud and
beautiful Madame de Cintre, the loveliest woman in the world,
the promised perfection, the proposed ideal, he made an
instinctive movement to gather his wits together. Through the
slight preoccupation that it produced he had a sense of a long,
fair face, and of two eyes that were both brilliant and mild.
"I should have been most happy," said Madame de Cintre.
"Unfortunately, as I have been telling Mrs. Tristram, I go on
Monday to the country."
Newman had made a solemn bow. "I am very sorry," he said.
"Paris is getting too warm," Madame de Cintre added, taking her
friend's hand again in farewell.
Mrs. Tristram seemed to have formed a sudden and somewhat
venturesome resolution, and she smiled more intensely, as women
do when they take such resolution. "I want Mr. Newman to know
you," she said, dropping her head on one side and looking at
Madame de Cintre's bonnet ribbons.
Christopher Newman stood gravely silent, while his native
penetration admonished him. Mrs. Tristram was determined to
force her friend to address him a word of encouragement which
should be more than one of the common formulas of politeness;
and if she was prompted by charity, it was by the charity that
begins at home. Madame de Cintre was her dearest Claire, and
her especial admiration but Madame de Cintre had found it
impossible to dine with her and Madame de Cintre should for once
be forced gently to render tribute to Mrs. Tristram.
"It would give me great pleasure," she said, looking at Mrs.
Tristram.
"That's a great deal," cried the latter, "for Madame de Cintre
to say!"
"I am very much obliged to you," said Newman. "Mrs. Tristram
can speak better for me than I can speak for myself."
Madame de Cintre looked at him again, with the same soft
brightness. "Are you to be long in Paris?" she asked.
"We shall keep him," said Mrs. Tristram.
"But you are keeping ME!" and Madame de Cintre shook her
friend's hand.
"A moment longer," said Mrs. Tristram.
Madame de Cintre looked at Newman again; this time without her
smile. Her eyes lingered a moment. "Will you come and see me?"
she asked.
Mrs. Tristram kissed her. Newman expressed his thanks, and she
took her leave. Her hostess went with her to the door, and left
Newman alone a moment. Presently she returned, rubbing her
hands. "It was a fortunate chance," she said. "She had come to
decline my invitation. You triumphed on the spot, making her
ask you, at the end of three minutes, to her house."
"It was you who triumphed," said Newman. "You must not be too
hard upon her."
Mrs. Tristram stared. "What do you mean?"
"She did not strike me as so proud. I should say she was shy."
"You are very discriminating. And what do you think of her
face?"
"It's handsome!" said Newman.
"I should think it was! Of course you will go and see her."
"To-morrow!" cried Newman.
"No, not to-morrow; the next day. That will be Sunday; she
leaves Paris on Monday. If you don't see her; it will at least
be a beginning." And she gave him Madame de Cintre's address.
He walked across the Seine, late in the summer afternoon, and
made his way through those gray and silent streets of the
Faubourg St. Germain whose houses present to the outer world a
face as impassive and as suggestive of the concentration of
privacy within as the blank walls of Eastern seraglios. Newman
thought it a queer way for rich people to live; his ideal of
grandeur was a splendid facade diffusing its brilliancy outward
too, irradiating hospitality. The house to which he had been
directed had a dark, dusty, painted portal, which swung open in
answer to his ring. It admitted him into a wide, graveled
court, surrounded on three sides with closed windows, and with a
doorway facing the street, approached by three steps and
surmounted by a tin canopy. The place was all in the shade; it
answered to Newman's conception of a convent. The portress
could not tell him whether Madame de Cintre was visible; he
would please to apply at the farther door. He crossed the court;
a gentleman was sitting, bareheaded, on the steps of the
portico, playing with a beautiful pointer. He rose as Newman
approached, and, as he laid his hand upon the bell, said with a
smile, in English, that he was afraid Newman would be kept
waiting; the servants were scattered, he himself had been
ringing, he didn't know what the deuce was in them. He was a
young man, his English was excellent, and his smile very frank.
Newman pronounced the name of Madame de Cintre.
"I think," said the young man, "that my sister is visible. Come
in, and if you will give me your card I will carry it to her
myself."
Newman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight
sentiment, I will not say of defiance--a readiness for
aggression or defense, as they might prove needful--but of
reflection, good-humored suspicion. He took from his pocket,
while he stood on the portico, a card upon which, under his
name, he had written the words "San Francisco," and while he
presented it he looked warily at his interlocutor. His glance
was singularly reassuring; he liked the young man's face; it
strongly resembled that of Madame de Cintre. He was evidently
her brother. The young man, on his side, had made a rapid
inspection of Newman's person. He had taken the card and was
about to enter the house with it when another figure appeared on
the threshold--an older man, of a fine presence, wearing evening
dress. He looked hard at Newman, and Newman looked at him.
"Madame de Cintre," the younger man repeated, as an introduction
of the visitor. The other took the card from his hand, read it
in a rapid glance, looked again at Newman from head to foot,
hesitated a moment, and then said, gravely but urbanely, "Madame
de Cintre is not at home."
The younger man made a gesture, and then, turning to Newman, "I
am very sorry, sir," he said.
Newman gave him a friendly nod, to show that he bore him no
malice, and retraced his steps. At the porter's lodge he
stopped; the two men were still standing on the portico.
"Who is the gentleman with the dog?" he asked of the old woman
who reappeared. He had begun to learn French.
"That is Monsieur le Comte."
"And the other?"
"That is Monsieur le Marquis."
"A marquis?" said Christopher in English, which the old woman
fortunately did not understand. "Oh, then he's not the butler!"
CHAPTER IV
Early one morning, before Christopher Newman was dressed, a
little old man was ushered into his apartment, followed by a
youth in a blouse, bearing a picture in a brilliant frame.
Newman, among the distractions of Paris, had forgotten M. Nioche
and his accomplished daughter; but this was an effective
reminder.
"I am afraid you had given me up, sir," said the old man, after
many apologies and salutations. "We have made you wait so many
days. You accused us, perhaps, of inconstancy of bad faith.
But behold me at last! And behold also the pretty Madonna.
Place it on a chair, my friend, in a good light, so that
monsieur may admire it." And M. Nioche, addressing his
companion, helped him to dispose the work of art.
It had been endued with a layer of varnish an inch thick and its
frame, of an elaborate pattern, was at least a foot wide. It
glittered and twinkled in the morning light, and looked, to
Newman's eyes, wonderfully splendid and precious. It seemed to
him a very happy purchase, and he felt rich in the possession of
it. He stood looking at it complacently, while he proceeded
with his toilet, and M. Nioche, who had dismissed his own
attendant, hovered near, smiling and rubbing his hands.
"It has wonderful finesse," he murmured, caressingly. "And
here and there are marvelous touches, you probably perceive
them, sir. It attracted great attention on the Boulevard, as we
came along. And then a gradation of tones! That's what it is
to know how to paint. I don't say it because I am her father,
sir; but as one man of taste addressing another I cannot help
observing that you have there an exquisite work. It is hard to
produce such things and to have to part with them. If our means
only allowed us the luxury of keeping it! I really may say,
sir--" and M. Nioche gave a little feebly insinuating laugh--"I
really may say that I envy you! You see," he added in a moment,
"we have taken the liberty of offering you a frame. It
increases by a trifle the value of the work, and it will save
you the annoyance--so great for a person of your delicacy--of
going about to bargain at the shops."
The language spoken by M. Nioche was a singular compound, which
I shrink from the attempt to reproduce in its integrity. He had
apparently once possessed a certain knowledge of English, and
his accent was oddly tinged with the cockneyism of the British
metropolis. But his learning had grown rusty with disuse, and
his vocabulary was defective and capricious. He had repaired it
with large patches of French, with words anglicized by a process
of his own, and with native idioms literally translated. The
result, in the form in which he in all humility presented it,
would be scarcely comprehensible to the reader, so that I have
ventured to trim and sift it. Newman only half understood it,
but it amused him, and the old man's decent forlornness appealed
to his democratic instincts. The assumption of a fatality in
misery always irritated his strong good nature--it was almost
the only thing that did so; and he felt the impulse to wipe it
out, as it were, with the sponge of his own prosperity. The
papa of Mademoiselle Noemie, however, had apparently on this
occasion been vigorously indoctrinated, and he showed a certain
tremulous eagerness to cultivate unexpected opportunities.
"How much do I owe you, then, with the frame?" asked Newman.
"It will make in all three thousand francs," said the old man,
smiling agreeably, but folding his hands in instinctive
suppliance.
"Can you give me a receipt?"
"I have brought one," said M. Nioche. "I took the liberty of
drawing it up, in case monsieur should happen to desire to
discharge his debt." And he drew a paper from his pocket-book
and presented it to his patron. The document was written in a
minute, fantastic hand, and couched in the choicest language.
Newman laid down the money, and M. Nioche dropped the napoleons
one by one, solemnly and lovingly, into an old leathern purse.
"And how is your young lady?" asked Newman. "She made a great
impression on me."
"An impression? Monsieur is very good. Monsieur admires her
appearance?"
"She is very pretty, certainly."
"Alas, yes, she is very pretty!"
"And what is the harm in her being pretty?"
M. Nioche fixed his eyes upon a spot on the carpet and shook
his head. Then looking up at Newman with a gaze that seemed to
brighten and expand, "Monsieur knows what Paris is. She is
dangerous to beauty, when beauty hasn't the sou."
"Ah, but that is not the case with your daughter. She is rich,
now."
"Very true; we are rich for six months. But if my daughter were
a plain girl I should sleep better all the same."
"You are afraid of the young men?"
"The young and the old!"
"She ought to get a husband."
"Ah, monsieur, one doesn't get a husband for nothing. Her
husband must take her as she is: I can't give her a sou. But the
young men don't see with that eye."
"Oh," said Newman, "her talent is in itself a dowry."
"Ah, sir, it needs first to be converted into specie!" and M.
Nioche slapped his purse tenderly before he stowed it away.
"The operation doesn't take place every day."
"Well, your young men are very shabby, said Newman; "that's all
I can say. They ought to pay for your daughter, and not ask
money themselves."
"Those are very noble ideas, monsieur; but what will you have?
They are not the ideas of this country. We want to know what we
are about when we marry."
"How big a portion does your daughter want?"
M. Nioche stared, as if he wondered what was coming next; but he
promptly recovered himself, at a venture, and replied that he
knew a very nice young man, employed by an insurance company,
who would content himself with fifteen thousand francs.
"Let your daughter paint half a dozen pictures for me, and she
shall have her dowry."
"Half a dozen pictures--her dowry! Monsieur is not speaking
inconsiderately?"
"If she will make me six or eight copies in the Louvre as pretty
as that Madonna, I will pay her the same price," said Newman.
Poor M. Nioche was speechless a moment, with amazement and
gratitude, and then he seized Newman's hand, pressed it between
his own ten fingers, and gazed at him with watery eyes. "As
pretty as that? They shall be a thousand times prettier--they
shall be magnificent, sublime. Ah, if I only knew how to paint,
myself, sir, so that I might lend a hand! What can I do to
thank you? Voyons!" And he pressed his forehead while he
tried to think of something.
"Oh, you have thanked me enough," said Newman.
"Ah, here it is, sir!" cried M. Nioche. "To express my
gratitude, I will charge you nothing for the lessons in French
conversation."
"The lessons? I had quite forgotten them. Listening to your
English," added Newman, laughing, "is almost a lesson in French."
"Ah, I don't profess to teach English, certainly," said M.
Nioche. "But for my own admirable tongue I am still at your
service."
"Since you are here, then," said Newman, "we will begin. This
is a very good hour. I am going to have my coffee; come every
morning at half-past nine and have yours with me."
"Monsieur offers me my coffee, also?" cried M. Nioche. "Truly,
my beaux jours are coming back."
"Come," said Newman, "let us begin. The coffee is almighty hot.
How do you say that in French?"
Every day, then, for the following three weeks, the minutely
respectable figure of M. Nioche made its appearance, with a
series of little inquiring and apologetic obeisances, among the
aromatic fumes of Newman's morning beverage. I don't know how
much French our friend learned, but, as he himself said, if the
attempt did him no good, it could at any rate do him no harm.
And it amused him; it gratified that irregularly sociable side
of his nature which had always expressed itself in a relish for
ungrammatical conversation, and which often, even in his busy
and preoccupied days, had made him sit on rail fences in young
Western towns, in the twilight, in gossip hardly less than
fraternal with humorous loafers and obscure fortune-seekers. He
had notions, wherever he went, about talking with the natives;
he had been assured, and his judgment approved the advice, that
in traveling abroad it was an excellent thing to look into the
life of the country. M. Nioche was very much of a native and,
though his life might not be particularly worth looking into, he
was a palpable and smoothly-rounded unit in that picturesque
Parisian civilization which offered our hero so much easy
entertainment and propounded so many curious problems to his
inquiring and practical mind. Newman was fond of statistics; he
liked to know how things were done; it gratified him to learn
what taxes were paid, what profits were gathered, what
commercial habits prevailed, how the battle of life was fought.
M. Nioche , as a reduced capitalist, was familiar with these
considerations, and he formulated his information, which he was
proud to be able to impart, in the neatest possible terms and
with a pinch of snuff between finger and thumb. As a
Frenchman--quite apart from Newman's napoleons--M. Nioche loved
conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown
rusty. As a Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of
things, and--still as a Frenchman--when his knowledge was at
fault he could supply its lapses with the most convenient and
ingenious hypotheses. The little shrunken financier was
intensely delighted to have questions asked him, and he scraped
together information, by frugal processes, and took notes, in
his little greasy pocket-book, of incidents which might interest
his munificent friend. He read old almanacs at the book-stalls
on the quays, and he began to frequent another cafe, where more
newspapers were taken and his postprandial demitasse cost
him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets
for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange
coincidences. He would relate with solemnity the next morning
that a child of five years of age had lately died at Bordeaux,
whose brain had been found to weigh sixty ounces--the brain of a
Napoleon or a Washington! or that Madame P--, charcutiere in
the Rue de Clichy, had found in the wadding of an old petticoat
the sum of three hundred and sixty francs, which she had lost
five years before. He pronounced his words with great
distinctness and sonority, and Newman assured him that his way
of dealing with the French tongue was very superior to the
bewildering chatter that he heard in other mouths. Upon this M.
Nioche's accent became more finely trenchant than ever, he
offered to read extracts from Lamartine, and he protested that,
although he did endeavor according to his feeble lights to
cultivate refinement of diction, monsieur, if he wanted the real
thing, should go to the Theatre Francais.
Newman took an interest in French thriftiness and conceived a
lively admiration for Parisian economies. His own economic
genius was so entirely for operations on a larger scale, and, to
move at his ease, he needed so imperatively the sense of great
risks and great prizes, that he found an ungrudging
entertainment in the spectacle of fortunes made by the
aggregation of copper coins, and in the minute subdivision of
labor and profit. He questioned M. Nioche about his own manner
of life, and felt a friendly mixture of compassion and respect
over the recital of his delicate frugalities. The worthy man
told him how, at one period, he and his daughter had supported
existence, comfortably upon the sum of fifteen sous per
diem; recently, having succeeded in hauling ashore the last
floating fragments of the wreck of his fortune, his budget had
been a trifle more ample. But they still had to count their
sous very narrowly, and M. Nioche intimated with a sigh that
Mademoiselle Noemie did not bring to this task that zealous
cooperation which might have been desired.
"But what will you have?"' he asked, philosophically. "One is
young, one is pretty, one needs new dresses and fresh gloves;
one can't wear shabby gowns among the splendors of the Louvre."
"But your daughter earns enough to pay for her own clothes,"
said Newman.
M. Nioche looked at him with weak, uncertain eyes. He would
have liked to be able to say that his daughter's talents were
appreciated, and that her crooked little daubs commanded a
market; but it seemed a scandal to abuse the credulity of this
free-handed stranger, who, without a suspicion or a question,
had admitted him to equal social rights. He compromised, and
declared that while it was obvious that Mademoiselle Noemie's
reproductions of the old masters had only to be seen to be
coveted, the prices which, in consideration of their altogether
peculiar degree of finish, she felt obliged to ask for them had
kept purchasers at a respectful distance. "Poor little one!"
said M. Nioche, with a sigh; "it is almost a pity that her work
is so perfect! It would be in her interest to paint less well."
"But if Mademoiselle Noemie has this devotion to her art,"
Newman once observed, "why should you have those fears for her
that you spoke of the other day?"
M. Nioche meditated: there was an inconsistency in his
position; it made him chronically uncomfortable. Though he had
no desire to destroy the goose with the golden eggs--Newman's
benevolent confidence--he felt a tremulous impulse to speak out
all his trouble. "Ah, she is an artist, my dear sir, most
assuredly," he declared. "But, to tell you the truth, she is
also a franche coquette. I am sorry to say," he added in a
moment, shaking his head with a world
of harmless bitterness, "that she comes honestly by it. Her
mother was one before her!"
"You were not happy with your wife?" Newman asked.
M. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks of his head.
"She was my purgatory, monsieur!"
"She deceived you?"
"Under my nose, year after year. I was too stupid, and the
temptation was too great. But I found her out at last. I have
only been once in my life a man to be afraid of; I know it very
well; it was in that hour! Nevertheless I don't like to think
of it. I loved her--I can't tell you how much. She was a bad
woman."
"She is not living?"
"She has gone to her account."
"Her influence on your daughter, then," said Newman
encouragingly, "is not to be feared."
"She cared no more for her daughter than for the sole of her
shoe! But Noemie has no need of influence. She is sufficient
to herself. She is stronger than I."
"She doesn't obey you, eh?"
"She can't obey, monsieur, since I don't command. What would be
the use? It would only irritate her and drive her to some
coup de tete. She is very clever, like her mother; she would
waste no time about it. As a child--when I was happy, or
supposed I was--she studied drawing and painting with
first-class professors, and they assured me she had a talent. I
was delighted to believe it, and when I went into society I used
to carry her pictures with me in a portfolio and hand them round
to the company. I remember, once, a lady thought I was offering
them for sale, and I took it very ill. We don't know what we
may come to! Then came my dark days, and my explosion with
Madame Nioche. Noemie had no more twenty-franc lessons; but in
the course of time, when she grew older, and it became highly
expedient that she should do something that would help to keep
us alive, she bethought herself of her palette and brushes.
Some of our friends in the quartier pronounced the idea
fantastic: they recommended her to try bonnet making, to get a
situation in a shop, or--if she was more ambitious--to advertise
for a place of dame de compagnie. She did advertise, and an
old lady wrote her a letter and bade her come and see her. The
old lady liked her, and offered her her living and six hundred
francs a year; but Noemie discovered that she passed her life in
her arm-chair and had only two visitors, her confessor and her
nephew: the confessor very strict, and the nephew a man of
fifty, with a broken nose and a government clerkship of two
thousand francs. She threw her old lady over, bought a
paint-box, a canvas, and a new dress, and went and set up her
easel in the Louvre. There in one place and another, she has
passed the last two years; I can't say it has made us
millionaires. But Noemie tells me that Rome was not built in a
day, that she is making great progress, that I must leave her to
her own devices. The fact is, without prejudice to her genius,
that she has no idea of burying herself alive. She likes to see
the world, and to be seen. She says, herself, that she can't
work in the dark. With her appearance it is very natural.
Only, I can't help worrying and trembling and wondering what may
happen to her there all alone, day after day, amid all that
coming and going of strangers. I can't be always at her side.
I go with her in the morning, and I come to fetch her away, but
she won't have me near her in the interval; she says I make her
nervous. As if it didn't make me nervous to wander about all
day without her! Ah, if anything were to happen to her!" cried
M. Nioche, clenching his two fists and jerking back his head
again, portentously.
"Oh, I guess nothing will happen," said Newman.
"I believe I should shoot her!" said the old man, solemnly.
"Oh, we'll marry her," said Newman, "since that's how you manage
it; and I will go and see her tomorrow at the Louvre and pick
out the pictures she is to copy for me."
M. Nioche had brought Newman a message from his daughter, in
acceptance of his magnificent commission, the young lady
declaring herself his most devoted servant, promising her most
zealous endeavor, and regretting that the proprieties forbade
her coming to thank him in person. The morning after the
conversation just narrated, Newman reverted to his intention of
meeting Mademoiselle Noemie at the Louvre. M. Nioche appeared
preoccupied, and left his budget of anecdotes unopened; he took
a great deal of snuff, and sent certain oblique, appealing
glances toward his stalwart pupil. At last, when he was taking
his leave, he stood a moment, after he had polished his hat with
his calico pocket-handkerchief, with his small, pale eyes fixed
strangely upon Newman.
"What's the matter?" our hero demanded.
"Excuse the solicitude of a father's heart!" said M. Nioche.
"You inspire me with boundless confidence, but I can't help
giving you a warning. After all, you are a man, you are young
and at liberty. Let me beseech you, then, to respect the
innocence of Mademoiselle Nioche!"
Newman had wondered what was coming, and at this he broke into a
laugh. He was on the point of declaring that his own innocence
struck him as the more exposed, but he contented himself with
promising to treat the young girl with nothing less than
veneration. He found her waiting for him, seated upon the great
divan in the Salon Carre. She was not in her working-day
costume, but wore her bonnet and gloves and carried her parasol,
in honor of the occasion. These articles had been selected with
unerring taste, and a fresher, prettier image of youthful
alertness and blooming discretion was not to be conceived. She
made Newman a most respectful curtsey and expressed her
gratitude for his liberality in a wonderfully graceful little
speech. It annoyed him to have a charming young girl stand
there thanking him, and it made him feel uncomfortable to think
that this perfect young lady, with her excellent manners and her
finished intonation, was literally in his pay. He assured her,
in such | |
