Читать книгу The Amazing City - John Frederick Macdonald - Страница 5

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Bright things and sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things, fast-fading things; things and things, and all of them old things.... The past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of it—the past. Come here through a hole in the wall of a narrow, cobbled Paris street—come down a number of crooked stone steps—I now look curiously about me, and wonder what to do next. No one challenges me: the cellar appears to be uninhabited. Yet above its crude, primitive entrance, on a weather-beaten board, I discern the name—Veuve Mollard.

An autumnal mist filled the street outside; and the mist, pouring through the hole in the wall, has invaded the cellar and made it chilly and ghostly. It is a rambling, chaotic place—suggestive of three or four cellars having been thrown into one; for it twists and it turns, and it bulges and recedes, and it slopes and ascends; and the grimy brick ceiling—lofty enough at the entrance—suddenly dips towards the middle, and almost precipitates itself to the ground at the far end. Here and there an unshaded lamp, of the kitchen description, burns dimly. On a stool I perceive a workbox, crowded with sewing materials—but not a sign, not a sound of “Widow” Mollard. I cough loudly. I advance farther into the cellar. And, as I advance, I pass bright things and sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things, fast-fading——

“Monsieur?”

An apparition, a spectre! There, in the background, appears a tall, gaunt woman, with a pale, wrinkled face, large, luminous dark eyes and tumbled white hair. In the dim light from the lamps Veuve Mollard looks a hundred years old. There she stands, old and alone, in a rambling old cellar, amidst old, discarded things.

“Monsieur?”

A deep, even a sepulchral voice—and then from myself an explanation. I should like to examine the old things—all of them, not knowing myself what I want. I have a fancy for old things; like to wonder over them; like, O most respectfully, to handle them. No; unnecessary to turn up the lamps; they give, just as they are, the very light for old things. “Faîtes donc, faîtes donc,” assents the deep voice. Retiring to a corner, Widow Mollard seats herself on a stool and proceeds to darn a rent in a faded yellow velvet curtain.

Silence in the cellar. Shadows, ambiguities, and the mist from the street.

Against the walls, boards have been laid on the floor; and heaped on the boards are tapestries, draperies, all kinds of stuffs. Then, tables, wooden trays, and flat, open receptacles of wicker-work. Also pegs, for gowns. Again, battered, lidless boxes of odds and ends. Thus, embarras de choix: which of the old things shall I examine first? At last I decide on the tapestries. They are of all shapes and sizes, but most of them have been severed, are but parts—no head to this horse, no top to the lance of this knight, and of that saint only the half. Next, a circular piece of tapestry representing what might be a throne—but faded, faded; and the figure on the throne as shadowy as a phantom. Gobelins? Veuve Mollard no doubt knows: but I prefer to pursue my researches alone, unaided; and then the gaunt widow is darning and darning away at the yellow velvet curtain.... Whose velvet curtain? Where has it hung, what fine window has it screened? Once, evidently, a rich, magnificent yellow; now faded, crumpled, damaged. A curtain from the Faubourg St Germain? from a ruined château? even from the palaces of Versailles or Fontainebleau? Again I glance at Widow Mollard. Old, old. Her fingers tremble, and a long lock of white hair has fallen over one pale, wrinkled cheek.

Out of this tray a snuff-box, enamelled, oval-shaped and delicate. A Watteau peasant girl on the lid—but the pretty, pink-cheeked girl, fast fading. Whose snuff-box? Then a shoe buckle. Whose massive, old-fashioned silver buckle? And of whom this miniature: blue eyes, sensitive mouth, delicate eyebrows and powdered hair? Then, a tiny Sèvres tea-cup; a gilt key; a chased silver book-clasp; a string of coral; an ornament of amethysts; bits of embroidery; stray pieces of velvet and silk; lace, satins, furs, and spangled and soft and transparent stuffs. Whose finery? Perhaps a débutante’s, a débutante of years ago—now old, like the things.

Graceful, charming débutante of the past! Behold her dressing—or rather being dressed—for her first, her very first ball, amidst what excitement, what confusion! Her mother on her knees, the maids also on their knees, putting the last touches; and the débutante turned round and round, and exhorted to keep still, and told to walk a little, and ordered to return, and commanded to remain “there,” and not to move, not to move! Radiant, irresistible débutante of long ago. At once dignified and shy, now flushed and now pale when in the ballroom she made her first bow to the world, received her first compliments, achieved her first triumphs, and experienced, no doubt, her first emotions, her first illusions, her first doubts. Here in this cellar, in the half-light and the mist from the street, here lies her first ball-dress; and here too, perhaps, are the shoes in which she danced her first official waltz, her first real cotillon—a pair of small satin shoes which repose on the top of a heap of other frail shoes.

Long, narrow shoes, tiny ridiculous shoes—some of them with loose, dangling rosettes, others showing a bare place where the rosette or a jewel had once been fastened. High heels, and the soles scarcely thicker than a sheet of paper. Sometimes a rent in the satin, and the maker’s name stamped in dim gilt letters. Shoes, no doubt, that long ago stepped daring quadrilles at the bal masqué of the Opera; the shoes of Mademoiselle Liane de Luneville, a former blonde and brilliant courtesan; and next to them remnants from Mademoiselle de Luneville’s wardrobe. A white satin dress, sewn with artificial pearls, dismembered silken sleeves, spangled stuffs, daring gauzes, and other extravagances and audacities. Courtesan finery. Sold, no doubt, in the twilight of the demi-mondaine’s career; or seized roughly by the bailiffs when not a shadow of the beauty or glory of Mademoiselle de Luneville remained.

Now does a moth fly out of a piece of tapestry I have shaken. Now do I behold a black cat, with lurid yellow eyes, perched motionless upon a pile of draperies in a corner. Now do I perceive gigantic cobwebs overhead. Thus, some life—but life of an eerie nature—in the cellar.

“Je ne vous dérange pas, Madame?”

“Faîtes donc, faîtes donc,” replies the deep, sepulchral voice of Veuve Mollard.

A cracked water-colour landscape signed, ever so faintly, “R. E. F.” Disposed of, perhaps, for a five-franc piece; and to-day the painter either dead, or a shabby, lonely, struggling old fellow? or a rich and distinguished “master”? A sword—used in a duel? A small silver mug—from a god-father? Pink, white and black dominoes: they should have been placed amongst the courtesan’s finery. The bâton of a chef d’orchestre, silver-mounted, of ebony. A bunch of tarnished seals; chipped vases and liqueur glasses; a cracked, frameless mirror; a collection of old legal and medical books; a heap of dusty, fantastic draperies of the kind used extensively by the students of the Latin Quarter. Deceptive draperies that once turned a bed into a divan, discreet draperies that hid the scars on the walls—the draperies of Paul and Pierre, of Gaston and René, sons of Henri Mürger, genuine, veritable Bohemians, who, if they lived recklessly and irresponsibly, were nevertheless full of generous impulses, imagination, ideals, but who to-day are become stout, bourgeois, double-chinned inhabitants of such dreary provincial towns as Abbeville and Arras.

Thus the past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of this rambling, chaotic cellar, the past. Changes and changes—but not one change for the better. All around me evidence of somebody’s indifference and faithlessness to old possessions. On all sides, symbols of somebody’s downfall and ruin.

“Je vous remercie, Madame.”

“C’est moi qui vous remercie, Monsieur.”

On my way out—on the crooked stone staircase leading upwards to the hole in the wall—I look back.

And down there, in the dim light from the lamps, the gaunt, white-haired woman darns away at the faded velvet curtain. Down there, from its throne of draperies, the black cat watches the widow with lurid yellow eyes. Down there in vague disorder—in an atmosphere of shadows and ambiguities, of moth, cobweb and mist—down there, lie bright things and sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things, fast-fading things; things and things, and all of them old, discarded, forgotten things.