LITMIR.BIZ

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Even when the first shock of her defeat had passed, she simply heaved a deep sigh, and uttered two words, —

      "Oh, Zut!"

      The which, in Parisian argot, at once means everything and nothing.

      Caffiard

      DEUS EX MACHINA

      THE studio was tucked away in the extreme upper northeast corner of 13 ter rue Visconti, higher even than that cinquième, dearly beloved of the impecunious, and of whoso, between stairs and street odors, chooses the lesser evil, and is more careful of lungs than legs. After the six long flights had been achieved, around a sharp corner and up a little winding stairway, was the door which bore the name of Pierre Vauquelin. Inside, after stumbling along a narrow hall, as black as Erebus, and floundering through a curtained doorway, one came abruptly into the studio, and, in all probability, fell headlong over a little rattan stool, or an easel, or a box of paints, and was picked up by the host, and dusted, and put to rights, and made much of, like a bumped child. Thus restored to equanimity one was better able to appreciate what Pierre called la Boîte.

      The Box was a room eight metres in width by ten in length, with a skylight above, and a great, square window in the north wall, which latter sloped inward from floor to ceiling, by reason of the mansarde roof. Of what might be called furniture there was but little, a Norman cupboard of black wood, heavily carved, a long divan, contrived from various packing boxes and well-worn rugs, a large, square table, a half dozen chairs, three easels, and a repulsive little stove with an interminable pipe, which, with its many twists and turns, gave one the impression of a thick, black snake, that had, a moment before, been swaying about in the room, and had suddenly found a hole in the roof through which to thrust its head.

      But of minor things the Box was full to overflowing. The Norman cupboard was crammed with an assortment of crockery, much of it sadly nicked and cracked, the divan was strewn with boxes of broken pastels, paint-brushes, and palettes coated with dried colors, the table littered with papers, sketches, and books, and every chair had its own particular trap for the unwary, in the form of thumb-tacks or a glass half full of cloudy water: and in the midst of this chaos, late on a certain mid-May afternoon, stood the painter himself, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, and his back turned upon the portrait upon which he had been at work. It was evident that something untoward was in the air, because Pierre, who always smoked, was not smoking, and Pierre, who never scowled, was scowling.

      In the Quartier – that Quartier which alone, of them all, is spelt with a capital Q – there was, in ordinary, no gayer, more happy-go-lucky type than this same Pierre. He lived, as did a thousand of his kind, on eighty sous a day (there were those who lived on less, pardi!), and breakfasted, and dined, at that, – yes, and paid himself an absinthe at the Deux Magots at six o'clock, and a package of green cigarettes, into the bargain. For the rest of the time, he was understood to be working on a portrait in his studio, and, what is more surprising, often was. There was nothing remarkable about Pierre's portraits, except that occasionally he sold one, and for money – for actual money, the astonishing animal! But if any part of the modest proceeds of such a transaction remained, after the rent had been paid and a new canvas purchased, it was not the caisse d'épargne which saw it, be sure of that! For Pierre lived always for the next twenty-four hours, and let the rest of time and eternity look out for themselves.

      Yet he took his work seriously. That was the trouble. Even admitting that, thus far, his orders had come only from the more prosperous tradesmen of the Quartier, did that mean, par exemple, that they would not come in time from the millionaires of the sixteenth arrondissement? By no means, whatever, said Pierre. To be sure, he had never had the Salon in the palm of his hand, so to speak, but what of that? Jean-Paul himself would tell you that it was all favoritism! So Pierre toiled away at his portrait painting, and made a little competency, but, if the truth were told, no appreciable progress from year's beginning to year's end.

      For once, however, his luck had played him false. The fat restaurateur, whose wife's portrait he had finished that afternoon and carried at top speed, with the paint not yet dry, to the rue du Bac, was out of town on business, and would not return until the following evening; and that, so far as Pierre was concerned, was quite as bad as if he were not expected until the following year. Pierre's total wealth amounted to one five-franc piece and three sous, and he had been relying upon the restaurateur's four louis, to enable him to fulfill his promise to Mimi. For the next day was her fête, and they were to have breakfasted in the country, and taken a boat upon the Seine, and returned to dine under the trees. Not at Suresnes or St. Cloud, ah, non! Something better than that – the true country, sapristi! at Poissy, twenty-eight kilometres from Paris. All of which meant at least a louis, and, no doubt, more! And where, demanded Pierre of the great north window, where was a louis to be found?

      For there was a tacit understanding among the comrades in the Quartier that there must be no borrowing and lending of money. It was a clause of their creed, which had been adopted in the early days of their companionship, for what was, clearly, the greatest general good, the chances being that no one of them would ever possess sufficient surplus capital either to accommodate another or to repay an accommodation. For a moment, to be sure, the thought had crossed Pierre's mind, but he had rejected it instantly as impracticable. Aside from the unwritten compact, there was no one of them all who could have been of service, had he so willed. Even Jacques Courbet, who possessed a disposition which would have impelled him to chop off his right hand with the utmost cheerfulness, if thereby he could have gratified a friend, was worse than useless in this emergency. Had it been a matter of forty sous – but a louis! As well have asked him for the Vénus de Milo, and had done with it.

      So it was that, with the premonition of Mimi's disappointed eyes cutting great gaps in his tender heart, Pierre had four times shrugged his shoulders, and quoted to himself this favorite scrap of his remarkable philosophy, – "Oh, lala! All this will arrange itself!" and four times had paused, in the act of lighting a cigarette, and plunged again into the depths of despondent reverie. As he was on the point of again repeating this entirely futile operation, a distant clock struck six, and Pierre, remembering that Mimi must even now be waiting for him at the west door of St. Germain-des-Prés, clapped on his cap, and sallied forth into the gathering twilight.

      It was apéritif hour at the Café des Deux Magots, and the long, leather-covered benches against the windows, and the double row of little marble-topped tables in front were rapidly filling, as Pierre and Mimi took their places, and ordered two Turins à l'eau. A group of American Beaux Arts men at their right were chattering in their uncouth tongue, with occasional scraps of Quartier slang, by way of local color, and now and again hailing a newcomer with exclamations, apparently of satisfaction, which began with "Hello!" The boulevard St. Germain was alive with people, walking past with the admirable lack of haste which distinguishes the Parisian, or waiting, in patient, voluble groups, for a chance to enter the constantly arriving and departing trams and omnibuses; and an unending succession of open cabs filed slowly along the curb, their drivers scanning the terrasse of the café for a possible fare. The air was full of that mingled odor of wet wood pavements and horse-chestnut blossoms, which is the outward, invisible sign of that most wonderful of inward and spiritual combinations – Paris and Spring! And, at the table directly behind Pierre and Mimi sat Caffiard.

      There was nothing about Caffiard to suggest a deus ex machina, or anything else, for that matter, except a preposterously corpulent old gentleman with an amiable smile. But in nothing were appearances ever more deceitful than in Caffiard. For it was he, with his enormous double chin, and his general air of harmless fatuity, who edited the little colored sheet entitled La Blague, which sent half Paris into convulsions of merriment every Thursday morning, and he who knew every caricaturist in town, and was beloved of them all for the heartiness of his appreciation and the liberality of his payments. In the first regard he was but one of many Parisian editors: but in the second he stood without a peer. Caran d'Ache, Léandre, Willette, Forain, Hermann Paul, Abel Faivre – they rubbed their hands when they came out of Caffiard's private office, and if the day chanced to be Saturday, there was something in their hands worth rubbing. A fine example, Caffiard!

      Mimi's black eyes sparkled like a squirrel's as she watched Pierre over the rim of her tumbler of vermouth. She was far from being blind, Mimi, and already,

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