New Arabian Nights

  PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

  CHAPTER I

  MONSIEUR LÉON BERTHELINI had a great care of his appearance, andsedulously suited his deportment to the costume of the hour. He affectedsomething Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit, with a flavourof Rembrandt at home. In person he was decidedly small and inclined tobe stout; his face was the picture of good humour; his dark eyes, whichwere very expressive, told of a kind heart, a brisk, merry nature, andthe most indefatigable spirits. If he had worn the clothes of the periodyou would have set him down for a hitherto undiscovered hybrid betweenthe barber, the innkeeper, and the affable dispensing chemist. But inthe outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and flapped hat, with trousersthat were more accurately described as fleshings, a white handkerchiefcavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock of Olympian curls upon his brow,and his feet shod through all weathers in the slenderest of Molièreshoes—you had but to look at him and you knew you were in the presence ofa Great Creature. When he wore an overcoat he scorned to pass thesleeves; a single button held it round his shoulders; it was tossedbackwards after the manner of a cloak, and carried with the gait andpresence of an Almaviva. I am of opinion that M. Berthelini was nearingforty. But he had a boy’s heart, gloried in his finery, and walkedthrough life like a child in a perpetual dramatic performance. If hewere not Almaviva after all, it was not for lack of making believe. Andhe enjoyed the artist’s compensation. If he were not really Almaviva, hewas sometimes just as happy as though he were.

  I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied himself alone with hisMaker, adopt so gay and chivalrous a bearing, and represent his own partwith so much warmth and conscience, that the illusion became catching,and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature’s pose.

  But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these principles; mancannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failedupon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from hisheights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang aguitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally overthe mysteries of a tombola.

  Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him in these undignifiedlabours, had perhaps a higher position in the scale of beings, andenjoyed a natural dignity of her own. But her heart was not any morerightly placed, for that would have been impossible; and she had acquireda little air of melancholy, attractive enough in its way, but not good tosee like the wholesome, sky-scraping, boyish spirits of her lord.

  He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above earthly troubles.Detonations of temper were not unfrequent in the zones he travelled; butsulky fogs and tearful depressions were there alike unknown. Awell-delivered blow upon a table, or a noble attitude, imitated fromMélingne or Frederic, relieved his irritation like a vengeance. Thoughthe heaven had fallen, if he had played his part with propriety,Berthelini had been content! And the man’s atmosphere, if not hisexample, reacted on his wife; for the couple doated on each other, andalthough you would have thought they walked in different worlds, yetcontinued to walk hand in hand.

  It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Berthelini descended with twoboxes and a guitar in a fat case at the station of the little town ofCastel-le-Gâchis, and the omnibus carried them with their effects to theHotel of the Black Head. This was a dismal, conventual building in anarrow street, capable of standing siege when once the gates were shut,and smelling strangely in the interior of straw and chocolate and oldfeminine apparel. Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a painfulpremonition. In some former state, it seemed to him, he had visited ahostelry that smelt not otherwise, and been ill received.

  The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose from a businesstable under the key-rack, and came forward, removing his hat with bothhands as he did so.

  “Sir, I salute you. May I inquire what is your charge for artists?”inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once splendid and insinuating.

  “For artists?” said the landlord. His countenance fell and the smile ofwelcome disappeared. “Oh, artists!” he added brutally; “four francs aday.” And he turned his back upon these inconsiderable customers.

  A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction—yet is hewelcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist, had he themanners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in all his glory, isreceived like a dog and served like a timid lady travelling alone.

  Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini wasunpleasantly affected by the landlord’s manner.

  “Elvira,” said he to his wife, “mark my words: Castel-le-Gâchis is atragic folly.”

  “Wait till we see what we take,” replied Elvira.

  “We shall take nothing,” returned Berthelini; “we shall feed uponinsults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of divination; and thisplace is accursed. The landlord has been discourteous, the Commissarywill be brutal, the audience will be sordid and uproarious, and you willtake a cold upon your throat. We have been besotted enough to come; thedie is cast—it will be a second Sédan.”

  Sédan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from patriotism(for they were French, and answered after the flesh to the somewhathomely name of Duval), but because it had been the scene of their mostsad reverses. In that place they had lain three weeks in pawn for theirhotel bill, and had it not been for a surprising stroke of fortune theymight have been lying there in pawn until this day. To mention the nameof Sédan was for the Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake andeclipse. Count Almaviva slouched his hat with a gesture expressive ofdespair, and even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personallyinvoked.

  “Let us ask for breakfast,” said she, with a woman’s tact.

  The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gâchis was a large red Commissary,pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous transpiration. I haverepeated the name of his office because he was so very much more aCommissary than a man. The spirit of his dignity had entered into him.He carried his corporation as if it were something official. Whenever heinsulted a common citizen it seemed to him as if he were adroitlyflattering the Government by a side wind; in default of dignity he wasbrutal from an overweening sense of duty. His office was a den, whencepassers-by could hear rude accents laying down, not the law, but the goodpleasure of the Commissary.

  Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurrythither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening’sentertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad. LéonBerthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the streets ofCastel-le-Gâchis; he became a local celebrity, and was pointed out as“the man who was looking for the Commissary.” Idle children attachedthemselves to his footsteps, and trotted after him back and forwardbetween the hotel and the office. Léon might try as he liked; he mightroll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat at a dozendifferent jaunty inclinations—the part of Almaviva was, under thecircumstances, difficult to play.

  As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the Commissarywas pointed out to him, where he stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned andhis hands behind his back, to superintend the sale and measurement ofbutter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market stalls andbaskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which was a triumph of thehistrionic art.

  “I have the honour,” he asked, “of meeting M. le Commissaire?”

  The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He excelledLéon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his salutation.

  “The honour,” said he, “is mine!”

  “I am,” continued the strolling-player, “I am, sir, an artist, and I havepermitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business. To-night Igive a trifling musical entertainment at the Café of the Triumphs of thePlough—permit me to offer you this little programme—and I have come toask you for the necessary authorisation.”

  At the word “artist,” the Commi
ssary had replaced his hat with the air ofa person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly remember theduties of his rank.

  “Go, go,” said he, “I am busy—I am measuring butter.”

  “Heathen Jew!” thought Léon. “Permit me, sir,” he resumed aloud. “Ihave gone six times already—”

  “Put up your bills if you choose,” interrupted the Commissary. “In anhour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now go; I ambusy.”

  “Measuring butter!” thought Berthelini. “Oh, France, and it is for thisthat we made ’93!”

  The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid on thedinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected at one endof the Café of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Léon returned to theoffice, the Commissary was once more abroad.

  “He is like Madame Benoîton,” thought Léon, “Fichu Commissaire!”

  And just then he met the man face to face.

  “Here, sir,” said he, “are my papers. Will you be pleased to verify?”

  But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

  “No use,” he replied, “no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied. Giveyour entertainment.”

  And he hurried on.

  “Fichu Commissaire!” thought Léon.