Part 39

As soon as Bonzig had finished a picture, which didn't take very long, he carried it round, still wet, to the small dealers, bearing it very carefully aloft, so as not to smudge it. Sometimes (if there were a sailor by Lirieux) he would get five or even ten francs for it; and then it was "Mon Aldegonde" with him all the rest of the day; for success always took the form, in his case, of nasally humming that amorous refrain.

But it very often happened that he was dumb, poor fellow--no supper, no song!

Lirieux conceived such a liking for Barty that he insisted on taking him into his studio as a pupil-assistant, and setting him to draw things under his own eye; and Barty would fill Bonzig's French sea pieces with Whitby fishermen, and Bonzig got to sing "Mon Aldegonde" much oftener than before.

And chumming with these two delightful men, Barty grew to know a clean, quiet happiness which more than made up for lost past splendors and dissipations and gay dishonor. He wasn't even funny; they wouldn't have understood it. Well-bred Frenchmen don't understand English fun--not even in the quartier latin, as a general rule. Not that it's too subtle for them; that's not why!

Thus pleasantly August wore itself away, Bonzig and Barty nearly always dining together for about a franc apiece, including the waiter, and not badly. Bonzig knew all the cheap eating-houses in Paris, and what each was specially renowned for--"bonne friture," "fricassée de lapin," "pommes sautées," "soupe aux choux," etc., etc.

Then, after dinner, a long walk and talk and cigarettes--or they would look in at a café chantant, a bal de barrière, the gallery of a cheap theatre--then a bock outside a café--et bonsoir la compagnie!

On September the 1st, Lirieux and his brother went to see their people in the south, leaving the studio to Bonzig and Barty, who made the most of it, though greatly missing the genial young painter, both as a companion and a master and guide.

One beautiful morning Bonzig called for Barty at his crémerie, and proposed they should go by train to some village near Paris and spend a happy day in the country, lunching on bread and wine and sugar at some little roadside inn. Bonzig made a great deal of this lunch. It had evidently preoccupied him.

Barty was only too delighted. They went on the impériale of the Versailles train and got out at Ville d'Avray, and found the kind of little pothouse they wanted. And Barty had to admit that no better lunch for the price could be than "small blue wine" sweetened with sugar, and a hunch of bread sopped in it.

Then they had a long walk in pretty woods and meadows, sketching by the way, chatting to laborers and soldiers and farm-people, smoking endless cigarettes of caporal; and finally they got back to Paris the way they came--so hungry that Barty proposed they should treat themselves for once to a "prix-fixe" dinner at Carmagnol's, in the Passage Choiseul, where they gave you hors-d'oeuvres, potage, three courses and dessert and a bottle of wine, for two francs fifty--and everything scrupulously clean.

So to the Passage Choiseul they went; but just on the threshold of the famous restaurant (which filled the entire arcade with its appetizing exhalations) Bonzig suddenly remembered, to his great regret, that close by there lived a young married couple of the name of Lousteau, who were great friends of his, and who expected him to dine with them at least once a week.

"I haven't been near them for a fortnight, mon cher, and it is just their dinner hour. I am afraid I must really just run in and eat an aile de poulet and a pêche au vin with them, and give them of my news, or they will be mortally offended. I'll be back with you just when you are 'entre la poire et le fromage'--so, sans adieu!" and he bolted.

Barty went in and selected his menu; and waiting for his hors-d'oeuvre, he just peeped out of the door and looked up and down the arcade, which was always festive and lively at that hour.

To his great surprise he saw Bonzig leisurely flâning about with his cigarette in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his long spectacled nose in the air--gazing at the shop windows. Suddenly the good man dived into a baker's shop, and came out again in half a minute with a large brown roll, and began to munch it--still gazing at the shop windows, and apparently quite content.

Barty rushed after and caught hold of him, and breathlessly heaped bitter reproaches on him for his base and unfriendly want of confidence--snatched his roll and threw it away, dragged him by main force into Carmagnol's, and made him order the dinner he preferred and sit opposite.

"Ma foi, mon cher!" said Bonzig--"I own to you that I am almost at the end of my resources for the moment--and also that the prospect of a good dinner in your amiable company is the reverse of disagreeable to me. I thank you in advance, with all my heart!"

"My dear M'sieur Bonzig," says Barty, "you will wound me deeply if you don't look on me like a brother, as I do you; I can't tell you how deeply you have wounded me already! Give me your word of honor that you will share ma mangeaille with me till I haven't a sou left!"

And so they made it up, and had a capital dinner and a capital evening, and Barty insisted that in future they should always mess together at his expense till better days--and they did.

But Barty found that his own money was just giving out, and wrote to his bankers in London for more. Somehow it didn't arrive for nearly a week; and they knew at last what it was to dine for five sous each (2-1/2d.)--with loss of appetite just before the meal instead of after.

Of course Barty might very well have pawned his watch or his scarf-pin; but whatever trinkets he possessed had been given him by his beloved Lady Archibald--everything pawnable he had in the world, even his guitar! And he could not bear the idea of taking them to the "Mont de Piété."

So he was well pleased one Sunday morning when his remittance arrived, and he went in search of his friend, that they might compensate themselves for a week's abstinence by a famous déjeuner. But Bonzig was not to be found; and Barty spent that day alone, and Gorged in solitude and guzzled in silence--moult tristement, à l'anglaise.

He was aroused from his first sleep that night by the irruption of Bonzig in a tremendous state of excitement. It seems that a certain Baron (whose name I've forgotten), and whose little son the ex-usher had once coached in early Latin and Greek, had written, begging him to call and see him at his château near Melun; that Bonzig had walked there that very day--thirty miles; and found the Baron was leaving next morning for a villa he possessed near Étretat, and wished him to join him there the day after, and stay with him for a couple of months--to coach his son in more classics for a couple of hours in the forenoon.

Bonzig was to dispose of the rest of his time as he liked, except that he was commissioned to paint six "marines" for the baronial dining-room; and the Baron had most considerately given him four hundred francs in advance!

"So, then, to-morrow afternoon at six, my dear Josselin, you dine with me, for once--not in the Passage Choiseul this time, good as it is there! But at Babet's, en plein Palais Royal! un jour de séparation, vous comprenez! the dinner will be good, I promise you: a calf's head à la vinaigrette--they are famous for that, at Babet's--and for their Pauillac and their St.-Estèphe; at least, I'm told so! nous en ferons l'expérience.... And now I bid you good-night, as I have to be up before the day--so many things to buy and settle and arrange--first of all to procure myself a 'maillot' and a 'peignoir,' and shoes for the beach! I know where to get these things much cheaper than at the seaside. Oh! la mer, la mer! Enfin je vais piquer ma tête [take my header] là dedans--et pas plus tard qu'après-demain soir.... À demain, très-cher camarade--six heures--chez Babet!"

And, delirious with joyful anticipations, the good Bonzig ran away--all but "piquant sa tête" down the narrow staircase, and whistling "Mon Aldegonde" at the very top of his whistle; and even outside he shouted:

"Ouïle--mé--sekile rô, sekile rô, sekile rô ... Ouïle--mé--sekile rô Tat brinn my laddé ôme!"

He had to be silenced by a sergent de ville.

And next day they dined at Babet's, and Bonzig was so happy he had to beg pardon for his want of feeling at seeming so exuberant "un jour de séparation! mais venez aussi, Josselin--nous piquerons nos têtes ensemble, et nagerons de conserve...."