Comedy_American Style

  But mostly the passengers consisted of Americans . . . school-teachers travelling for amusement or more schooling; students; a few business men; a tranquil minister; a couple of weary doctors and their wives; a few musicians who kept the salon wearisome with their ceaseless practicing.

  There was an impresario too, who, leaning over the rail beside Teresa one afternoon, told her that this was his thirty-sixth trip. . . . His initial voyage had been in the steerage, coming, a baby, from Russia. . . . Often he travelled second-class like this because in this way he discovered new talents. People whose paths you would never cross in New York . . . the only city in the world worth considering . . . often let themselves go on shipboard. In the early evening he came and sat beside her watching the dances. . . .

  “That colored girl there,” he said, pointing to one of the passengers, “has something attractive about her. I like to watch her dance. But she’s too civilized. . . . It’s a pity too; she might be another Marise, with a little more abandon, a little more give to her . . . if you know what I mean.” He watched the girl, an odd expression of mingled pleasure and regret suffusing his face.

  “It’s too bad, she just misses having . . . that certain something. I don’t know what to call it but when colored people do have it they have it as no other people have it, by God!” . . . From his superlative cigar, he flicked an inch of perfect ash. “You said you came from Philadelphia . . . guess you’ve never seen Marise. I understand she never dances outside of New York.”

  “Why, yes,” she began, taken off her guard, “I’ve seen her . . . is she a young girl, perhaps a year or so older than I?”

  He turned his head and looked at her squarely for perhaps the first time; quiet, conventional young women being out of his line. “I don’t know how old she is and that’s the God’s truth; she might be eighty, so much poise she’s got, and she might be eighteen. Yes, I guess she is about your age. Why?”

  “Because if she is, she probably is a girl I went to school with in Philadelphia . . . she was a beautiful dancer, even then.”

  He stared at her. “Went to school with you! Is that a fact? In Philadelphia!” He struck his hand on his thigh and broke into ringing laughter. “The little son-of-a-gun! And she gives it out that she’s from New Orleans, that she never associated with white people, that that’s how she’s kept her art intact! Ain’t that something! ! . . . And here she’s a Philadelphian of all things and went to mixed schools!

  “Why, it’s as hard for a white person in New York to get near her . . . it would be harder, I’m telling you, for you to get in and see your little school-mate than it would be for you to meet the Prince of Wales. . . . She don’t see nobody, that girl, but press agents and people recommended by her manager. Ain’t that good publicity? Bet she thought it up herself. . . . Well, I wouldn’t give her away. She’s clever . . . wish I was her manager. I’d put her so far past Josephine Baker!”

  They landed at Cherbourg and went down to Paris by easy stages, Olivia proving herself unexpectedly human on the trip. Teresa felt her spirits rising with the unbelievable quaintness of places and people; the precious fillip too that came from speaking a foreign language for the first time in the land of its origin, and finding it succeed!

  “They actually understood me . . . right away,” she wrote to her father. “Never asked me to repeat or anything. . . . I had a little trouble understanding them at first. . . . Great Scott but they talk fast! . . . You should see Mother open her eyes at me!”

  Olivia did indeed open her eyes . . . and her mind to a new thought.

  In Paris they stayed briefly . . . Teresa did not like it. She could see that it was a great, beautiful city but staying as they did on the Avenue de l’Opéra, near the Rue de la Paix, she found it too full of the remembered noise and traffic of New York, too cosmopolitan, not enough French and far, far too hot. . . .

  And over everything and everywhere Americans, loud-voiced, determined, pushing. . . . They sat in the brilliant afternoon at a table outside of the Café Rue de la Paix and Teresa met a half-dozen classmates from Smith and Christie’s, accompanied by mothers, fathers, and brothers. There was a grand re-union, plans for endless sight-seeing excursions . . . “if you can ever make these French understand what you’re saying to them . . . so dumb! . . .”

  They could have accepted invitations for a half-dozen teas and Teresa could see her mother’s interest rising, but she remembered that they had to be in Toulouse within the next two days.

  On the day they left they paid a final visit to the American Express for that most perfect of foreign luxuries, mail from home. These two were amply rewarded. There were letters for both of them; for Olivia all sorts of bulky envelopes containing, Teresa divined correctly, a great many circulars, programs, “notices” and what not; all the “literature” on her committees which had accumulated in Philadelphia which Oliver had incontinently forwarded here.

  There was a thin letter too from Dr. Cary, containing a draft. . . . Teresa knew this from the serene look that settled on her mother’s face. . . . For herself there were letters from her father, from Oliver and a rather thick packet from Christopher; and three cards, one from Dinty, one from Buck and one from Sally beseeching her to bring her some of that “Cotty face-powder” from Paris.

  Teresa decided to postpone the reading of her mail until she should be in her own room. But then in the taxi outside of Morgan and Harjes, waiting for her mother to cash the draft, she would, she thought, glance at Christopher’s letter. Something simply must have happened to him to induce him, who rarely sent anything but postal cards, to pen a letter so long and thick. She slit the envelope to find it contained an enclosure, another envelope in Alicia’s writing. . . . In a moment she had it open.

  “Dear Tessa,” the letter began, “I want to tell you about Henry—”

  She stuffed the crackling paper into her bag.

  At night she locked her door, stretched out on her bed and took out the letter. He was married . . . Alicia had told her as tenderly, as kindly as she could. “I wanted you to hear it from me first,” her friend said, “for fear you might run across it in the Chicago Defender.” . . .

  Somehow she hadn’t thought of that. . . . He had said “—God, you know he said that he hadn’t any intention of marrying until he was thirty-five; that he had changed his mind only because he was going to marry me!”

  And now he was married . . . to Dolores Mendez . . . “she must be Cuban or Mexican, or something,” Alicia said succinctly. “We’re all so surprised! Darling, whatever did you do to him? . . . I hope you’re completely over him by now, Tessa. If you aren’t, believe me when I tell you, you have my sympathy from my heart . . . I liked him too once, you know. . . . He was a mighty sweet boy. . . .”

  The old agony surged up anew. . . . She hoped never to see Paris again.

  In the morning there was the hurried déjeuner, which she barely tasted, and the rush to the Quai d’Orsay. . . . Her mother liked to look after such things. She sat in the big empty Gare watching the huge French clocks that showed the time from one to twenty-four and thought how silly, how useless, everything was!

  For no reason at all she thought of Mary Giles up in the little Maine town near Dover. She recalled the rich and idle uncles and aunts, and their perpetual discussions. How strange she had thought them! But how much wiser for them to be sitting off there beside their tea-tables littered with priceless silver and bric-à-brac and their magazines bordering almost on the occult; discussing the revision of the numerical system . . . how much saner to do these things in their passionless, civilized way than to be sitting here, breaking your heart.

  She followed her mother into the train. . . . And presently they were dropping down, down across the face of France, past dun-colored Limoges, so at variance with its delicate product; down, down till at last at ten o’clock that night they reached Toulouse. . . . She was never afterward to be able to reconcile her first impression of that city with her later knowl
edge; the town was so still, so peaceful, so dream-like under the almost tropical sky.

  CHAPTER XV

  TOULOUSE appealed to her as strongly as Paris had offended her. For the first time in her life she was satisfied with the town which afforded a background for the school which she was to attend. She liked the narrow twisting streets, the chattering, clattering groups in them; she found herself a little awed by the age of the University buildings, the old decaying cloisters.

  Some day she would stroll through them . . . and remember Henry; she would think and think deliberately of how his bright boyish slang and demeanor would embellish and enliven this old-worldness and she would weep, right there for all the world to see if so she felt minded. Until perhaps she dissolved into tears.

  But today she could do none of these things. She must enroll in the classes of Professor Gaspard Deschamps and of Professor Etienne Leroux. Among the group of neophytes whom she met in corridors and halls she had heard their names mentioned again and again. Probably their classes would be too crowded, but according to her catalogue they were to give the courses which she would need most to take.

  The enrollment was intricate; it was confusing and took time . . . but for the services of a rather slender young man who, after eying her and her evident dismay for a few moments, came forward and proffered his help, she might have been there endlessly. . . .

  He was a pleasant young man; she found it interesting to look at him with his very white clear skin, his serious dark eyes and his small pointed beard which seemed so odd in a man no older than he. In an American of his age she would have thought it an affectation. . . . With some diffidence she said a word, a phrase, to him in French and was immediately rewarded by his congratulations.

  “You really speak very well,” he said himself in clear though accented English. . . . She returned the compliment; they were like Alphonse and Gaston, she told her mother later. “Perhaps we shall have an opportunity to practice with each other,” he told her, “that is if Mademoiselle permits me to see her again.”

  She could not tell whether or not this was a bid for an exchange of names, for a bit of personal history, for a date or what not. Hastily recalling all that she had ever heard about the formalities of French people she thought it best to thank him and withdraw.

  The next morning on entering the class-room where she was expecting to meet Professor Gaspard Deschamps for her course in Phonetics she was amazed to find herself assigned to another room and section. There were too many applicants for Professor Deschamps to handle; he had solved this problem by summarily cutting off the last twenty-five to enroll and handing them over to his esteemed colleague, Professor Aristide Pailleron.

  Slightly annoyed she moved on to the new division to find that the presiding genius was the young man who, the day before, had come to her assistance. . . . After class he asked her to remain for a moment, walked down the corridor with her. . . .

  “You see we shall have plenty of chance for practice after all, Mademoiselle Cary (he pronounced it as though it were spelled Carrie). By the way, are you just come? Tell me where you live and if you are comfortable? How long do you plan to stay?”

  She told him the name of her hotel. “But my mother thinks she would like a small apartment.”

  “You remain for a long time then?”

  “No, only for the summer.”

  “Ah! You Americans who must always be comfortable. I envy you your ability to get what you want. . . . Perhaps I can help your mother out . . . I know the town well. . . . When can she be seen?”

  Surprised at the business-like turn which the conversation had taken she invited him to have tea with them in the late afternoon.

  “I shall like that,” he said with a smile which invaded his serious eyes. “See, Mademoiselle, I am very glad that you and your mother out of all the other cities in our glorious France have selected our Toulouse for your sojourn. . . . You must let me show my appreciation by rendering any service possible.”

  Pleased, she thanked him with some faint showing of coquetry: “You must have your hands full if you put yourself out for all the American girls as much as you have for me.”

  “I am not putting myself . . . without . . . how did you say that? . . . I am not putting myself out for you, pas du tout . I am merely giving myself a great pleasure. If it seems to you too great a favor to accept from a stranger, just think then, Mademoiselle, that I am getting an opportunity to learn very good English at first hand from a very good teacher. . . . If Mademoiselle will permit I will escort her as far as the Place du Capitole and then I will return to my next class.”

  She thought him very charming and told her mother about it. . . . “If he were an American,” she said, relapsing for a moment into the gay vernacular of her age, “I’d say he was a very fast worker. As it is he seems just a simple, rather sweet, little man. . . . I don’t know as he’s so little, though,” she corrected herself after a moment’s reflection . . . “he just seemed small compared with Chris. . . .”

  “And Henry,” her mind added. She sat inert in her chair reflecting how for several hours she had lost sight of him and the agony which accompanied the thought of him. The realization made her both glad and sorry.

  Her mother continued polishing her nails. . . . “I want to go this afternoon to see about some trips to the nearby towns. . . . You ought to make the most of this chance to visit several of these historical places, it seems to me, Teresa. . . . But I can be back by five o’clock to give you tea. Did you say he was a professor? . . . I hope he can find a little apartment for us . . . we could entertain a little.”

  She went on avoiding her daughter’s eye. “And I’m sure it would be cheaper than this ruinous hotel. . . . I was down in the office just now and they were charging a guest for a soap dish she had broken! Was she furious!”

  He was there promptly at five o’clock. He was charmed to meet Madame the mother of her so charming daughter. Drinking many cups of tea and eating innumerable sandwiches he talked on many things. He had been born in this very town and he knew the locality well, having left it to go to the war. . . . “But yes, I was in the war, Madame, Mademoiselle. I am older than you think.”

  He had spent two years in Paris perfecting himself as a linguist. He spoke German, English and Italian with equal facility, but he preferred teaching his own so-beautiful language. . . . And he had never been out of France. Perhaps he would go one day, far, far away, as far as America maybe to seek his fortune.

  “I should like,” he said, helping himself to cake, “to visit your Chicago; to see your Red-skins and your bandits.”

  Teresa lay back in her chair and laughed. “I never expected to meet a Frenchman like you outside of an English novel,” she said, “picturing our streets full of Indians and men running about with sawed-off shot-guns.”

  He took her amusement in good part. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to correct my errors,” he said gaily. “I would like to know your country better.”

  Yes, he had news about an apartment. He had hesitated to mention it because: “See you, it is the house of the cousin of my aunt.”

  He himself laughed at this. “That sounds, I know, like a sentence in an old-fashioned French exercise book. . . . I always have trouble with your apostrophe and s. . . . This cousin has a large house; to be frank she runs a pension , but she has no longer many pensionnaires . You could have the second floor and could have your meals either in your rooms or down in the general salle à manger .It would afford Mademoiselle a more intimate knowledge of French life than she could hope to gain in a hotel.”

  They went to see the rooms in the Faubourg Matabiau . They consisted of a large sitting-room, two sizable bedrooms, a small study for Teresa and a bath-room for which the water had to be heated at extra cost.

  Teresa fell in love with it at once. The fittings of course were typical. Neither she nor her mother would have endured for a moment in America the chenille curtains and table covers, the ginger-bre
ad effect of the furniture. But for the time being the difference was amusing and stimulating; it added to the sense of foreignness. They had breakfast served in their rooms but elected to eat in the general dining-room. . . .

  Neither the girl, nor her mother, was completely surprised to find Aristide Pailleron awaiting them there for their first meal. His mother, with whom he lived in his little house was in Pau for the summer with their single bonne . So he had availed himself of his relative’s good cooking and hospitality. . . .

  Now if it was agreeable he could be almost constantly at their service. Nothing would please him more than to be their guide, their general courier. No one, he was quite sure, could direct them to as many and as fascinating places of interest as he.

  Certainly in this respect he was far from over-rating his prowess. Not only was he thoroughly conversant with the history of Toulouse but he had the faculty of transforming his knowledge into a real and interesting story. He took them to see the marvellous Church of St. Sernin, which dates from the third century, and showed them the tombs of the early counts of Toulouse, making them live again. . . . For successive days they drove along the Boulevards Allée St. Etienne, Allée St. Michel and the Grande Allée , and Teresa, through the eyes of Aristide, was able to reconstruct the old city walls whose place the splendid avenues had taken.

  It was he who opened their eyes to the beauties of those fine old Renaissance buildings, the Hôtel Bernuy and the Hôtel d’Assézat. Olivia stood in the court of the latter structure and listened with an interest which amazed herself to the tale of Clémence Isaure and her rich gifts to the Académie . . . a story recalled to Aristide by the sight of her statue.