Читать книгу How Paris Amuses Itself - F. Berkeley Smith - Страница 3

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It is the small boy who crawls under the circus tent who most keenly enjoys the show.

He has watched while the big double-top canvas was being raised and staked taut, transforming the familiar pasture-lot into a magic realm, more alluring and seductive than the best fishing-hole in the town creek.

Following the parade, a cavalcade of golden chariots, caparisoned horses and swaying elephants, the small boy has walked on air, buoyed by the thump and blare of the brass band. Weeks before he had reveled in every detail of the show as revealed in posters on the barn-doors: the lady with the fluffy skirts bounding through the paper hoops from the well-rosined back of her white horse; the merry, painted clown; the immaculate ringmaster in glistening boots; and, last of all, the showman!—generous, genial and big of heart, whose plain black cravat, fitted neatly under his collar as in the lithographs, and whose beaming blue eye seemed an open guaranty of all he promised at the single price of admission.

Should the small boy grow up to be a connoisseur in much that glitters in life besides golden chariots, and yet manage to keep young enough to preserve a kindly feeling toward the lady of perennial youth upon the white horse, should boyish love of the picturesque still abide in him, he will find within the gates of Paris a city after his own heart, a place where gaiety never ceases, where the finesse of amusement has been brought almost to a state of perfection.

To this great pleasure-ground the whole world flocks for amusement. It is upon this exquisitely fashioned spider-web of Europe that many rare butterflies have beaten their pretty wings to tatters, and in it that many an old wasp has entangled itself and died.

Paris! the polished magnet which attracts the spare change of countless thousands in payment for the wares of folly and fashion, of the dressmaker and the cook!

When the sun shines, the city is en fête.

Rows of geraniums flame in the well ordered gardens of the Tuileries. Masses of flowers, gay in color as the ribbons streaming from the bonnets of the nurses, lie in brilliant patches along gravel walks or within the cool shadow of massive architecture. Brown-legged children, in white socks and white dresses fresh from the blanchisseuse, run screaming after runaway hooples, or watch in silent ecstasy the life and exploits of Mr. Punch at the Théâtre Guignol.

Under a vault of turquoise sky the Alexander Bridge, emblazoned with its golden horses, spans the Seine, crowded with traffic sweeping beneath the great arc. Sturdy steam-tugs with vermilion funnels tow long sausage-like lines of newly varnished canal-boats, whose sunburned captains with their sweethearts or families lounge at déjeuner under improvised awnings stretched from the roofs of cabins shining in fresh paint. Down the great vista of the Seine each successive bridge is choked with thousands of hurrying ant-like humanity. Swift bateaux-mouches dart back and forth to their floating stations. For a few sous these small steamers will take you to St. Cloud or beyond, past feathery green islands, past small rural cafés perched upon grassy banks where all day long old gentlemen wearing white socks and Panama hats wait patiently for a stray nibble.

This bright morning in Paris the boulevards are crowded with a passing throng which is gazed at for hours by those who fill the terraces of the cafés to linger over a morning apéritif. At one café a party of commerçants are transacting business.

It is the fat cognac merchant now who is gesticulating to the rest of the group, pausing at intervals to wipe the perspiration from his oily neck. Near them, four Arabs, swathed in spotless burnooses, their bare feet encased in sandals, sip in silence their steaming petites tasses of café Maure. Omnibuses lumber by. The air is vibrant with strident cries and the cracking of whips. An automobile passes, sputtering and growling through the mêlée of the broad boulevard, taking advantage of every chance space as it threads its way out to the green country beyond with its begoggled occupants to déjeuner at Poissy or perchance to dash farther on at a devilish pace to the sea and Trouville.

At another table on the terrace is a pretty blonde, her dainty feet resting in high-heeled slippers upon the little wooden footstool which the garçon has so thoughtfully tucked under them, and her eyes shaded by the brim of the reddest of hats. She is engrossed in writing a note, which she finally slips in its envelope. Then this dainty Parisienne calls the chasseur, that invaluable messenger attached to every big café, and gives him a few cautionary parting instructions. He springs upon his bicycle and in half an hour returns with another envelope, this one plain and unaddressed and containing a hastily scribbled line in pencil. The corners of the pretty mouth curl upward in a little satisfied smile as the answer is read.

“Madame was in,” explains the chasseur in a low voice. “It was madame’s maid who wrote it for monsieur!”

An hour later, in quite a different café, in a jewel-box of a Louis XVI. room, a well-groomed monsieur gazes in adoration across the snow-white cloth of a breakfast table at a wealth of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes and what is now the sauciest of little mouths. The scarlet hat has been tenderly laid upon the Louis XVI. clock, its brim discreetly covering the dial. The aged garçon allotted to these indiscreet people has just served the hors-d’oeuvre.

There are many other just such déjeuners particuliers in Paris over which no one bothers oneself.

A long line of carriages is ascending the Champs-Élysées. Here and there among them you will see the glitter of smart turnouts. In the cool Bois nearby, the deer from their noon-day hiding-places hear the trot of equestrians passing in the feathery alleys. Upon some grassy corner of the wood a family party have spread themselves and laid out their bread, cheese and wine for a day’s outing. Like a yellow pearl shimmering far up in the azure, a balloon sails briskly toward Vincennes.

All these things happen when the sun shines. When it rains, Paris is in mourning. Cozy corners of café interiors are sought. Here, at least, one can forget for the time the chill, rain-swept city. Somber fiacres, drawn by dejected steeds, splash along the glistening wood pavements, with hoods up, their occupants stowed under huge waterproof aprons, the cocher muffled in his coat to the edge of his yellow, glazed hat.

Susanne, she of the madonna-like eyes, and the painter—their small stove, with its pipe traversing the ceiling, having failed dismally to warm even the cat beneath it—have come from their apartment across the Seine to the café, and are snug in a corner over a game of dominoes. The café is a refuge in raw, dreary weather. Only the wretchedly poor must needs pass by its welcome door. Now and then one does pass: an outcast, pale and hopeless, wrapping her soaking skirts about her shrunken hips with something of her old-time grace; or a man with matted hair, hungry and bitterly cold. Last night, after running a mile behind a closed cab with a trunk strapped on top, he had had the good luck to stagger beneath its weight up five flights of stairs, for which service he had received a franc. He had rushed with it down the winding stairs to the street. Ah, he remembered how happy he was!—how drunk and warm he had been for ten hours! And so among the cheerlessness of leaden roofs and deserted streets the smile of the city has gone.

Suddenly there is a break in the dull gray overhead and the downpour ceases.

“Ah! Sapristi! It is going to clear!” predicts the garçon de café, as he glances up at the scudding clouds, and nods his assurance to those within. Instantly the café becomes animated with good humor. A tall man and a brunette in new high-heeled shoes are the first to venture out. They laugh over the incident of the rain very much as those who have luckily escaped an accident.

In half an hour the boulevards are steaming in warm sunshine. Again the crowd pours by. All Paris is smiling.

If you are an epicure with a fortune, you will find restaurants whose interiors are marvels of refinement and good taste, whose cellars hold priceless wines, and whose cuisines would grace the table of a king; or, if you are a bohemian, there is good-fellowship and a cheering dish awaiting you at a price within the means of even poets and dreamers. But it is after one dines that Paris throws open the doors of her varied attractions. There are the ever-moving fêtes foraines—mushroom growths of tawdry side-shows springing up in the different Quartiers in a night—with their carrousels and menageries, and the smarter circuses, like the Cirque Médrano, the Nouveau Cirque and the Cirque d’Hiver. There are the cheap shows of the small Bouis-Bouis, and the big open-air café concerts of the Champs-Élysées, the Concert des Ambassadeurs and the Alcazar d’Été, and that exquisite music-hall, the Folies Marigny, the Jardin de Paris, the Folies Bergère, the Casino de Paris and the Olympia, and, in contrast to these, the Opéra, the Opéra Comique and the Bouffes Parisiennes. There are serious concerts and little serious concerts like the Concert Rouge. There are the shows and cabarets of Montmartre and those of the rive gauche, the Noctambules, and the Grillon. There are the cheap dramas of the bourgeois theaters in remote quarters of the city, and the risqué plays of the Palais Royal; the daring, independent Théâtre Libre, and the Châtelet, famous for its scenic wonders; the lighter plays of the day at the Vaudeville, interpreted by Réjane; the splendid new theater of the divine Sarah; and the historic Français, with its finished acting in perfect French. The list is endless.

Where shall it be? To roar with the rest at the latest song of Polin or listen to a sadder tale at the Odéon, or, perchance, enjoy your second cigar in the front row under the sparkling eyes and pert nose of that most charming chanteuse, Odette Dulac, at the Boîte à Fursy!

If you have finished your liqueur and have retained the enthusiasm of the small boy who squirmed his way into the circus tent, raise your finger at a passing cocher. He will take you anywhere.

F. B. S.

Paris, 1903.