Читать книгу Tinker's Leave - Maurice Baring - Страница 4

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Aunt Fanny was defeated, and, being a sensible woman, she acknowledged the fact at once. There was no possible reason why Miles should not go to Paris if he wished to, nor any reason why he should not go by himself.

Thus it happened that Miles started for Paris shortly before his twenty-seventh birthday.

He stayed at an hotel which had been recommended to him by M. Mourieux. It was on the other side of the river. Aunt Fanny had also recommended him an hotel. Hers was not far from the Avenue de l’Opéra, where you could live reasonably en pension; but Miles preferred M. Mourieux’ choice, an old-fashioned hotel where no meals were served.

Never was there a less adventurous tourist than Miles Consterdine in Paris. He wanted to go to one of the well-known restaurants, but he never could muster up courage to pass through the doors. He took refuge in a Duval, and went over and over again to the same one, till the night before he was to leave Paris. He wanted to go to the Théatre Français, to see a modern play, but he made a mistake in reading the yellow affiche, and instead of seeing, as he had expected, a play by Dumas fils, he found himself watching a tragedy in five acts in verse, the action of which took place in the thirteenth century. He found it tedious. His seat, too, was uncomfortable; he had wanted a stall, but instead of saying “Fauteuil d’orchestre,” he had said “Parterre,” which turned out to be a different affair.

Miles had dined early. The play was long. When it was over, Miles felt hungry—so hungry that he was determined to go to a restaurant. He walked up the Boulevard. He was not dressed, so he dared not go into several places where he saw men in white ties feasting at bright tables with elegant ladies; but at last he found a place which he thought would do. Here were people sitting at small tables in the street, drinking beer; and inside, supper was going on. Nobody was dressed, but everybody was talking. Miles chose a table against the wall.

He ordered some cold meat and a whisky and soda. He had hardly begun his supper when the table next to him was suddenly occupied by a family who, although they were talking loudly, and in French and English alternately, did not seem to Miles to be French, and were certainly not English.

There was a tall man with short grey whiskers, an oblong, distinguished face, and rather pale-blue vague eyes, dressed in a long black frock-coat; there was a rather large middle-aged lady, dressed in black, with her hair parted in the middle, and a comb in the back of it—voluble, brisk, and full of gesture, talking torrential English, interlarded with French sentences and German words, and not without parentheses in another strange language which Miles did not understand.

With them was a girl, who might have been thirty. She, too, was dressed in black; she was neat and serene. There was another girl, possibly a sister—more likely, thought Miles, a cousin—who was smaller, with regular features, rather rebellious hair, and mischievous eyes. There were two other men. One, Miles concluded, was an Englishman, as all the others spoke English to him, although he, too, had something foreign about him—something slightly Teutonic; but that was perhaps because he wore a pince-nez, and because his fair hair was rather long at the back. The other man was certainly a foreigner, nor could Miles make a guess at his age. Nor did he know whether he belonged to the others, or whether he was just a friend. There was a distinct likeness between him and the smaller girl. He was certainly over forty; his face, or rather his expression, had the stamp of manifold experience. His shoulders were wide and square. He was one of those people whose backs have been made stiff and straight in their teens, and cannot afterwards unbend. You would have called him ugly at first sight. There was a permanent frown; his hair was thick, black, and unkempt; his cheek-bones high, his face full of little wrinkles—not wrinkles of age—his skin yellow and tanned; his nose was short and turned up; but his eyes arrested you; and the moment he smiled—and he always smiled before he spoke—his face lit up, and then he seemed almost good-looking.

He was the least talkative. He sat with his head rested on his hands, looking out in front of him, as if he were unaware of his surroundings. He was the most interesting member of the party. You looked at him, and the others receded into the background.

He and the younger girl, thought Miles, must be brother and sister. They, too, had been to a play, to an Opera which Miles had never heard of. It was called Pelléas et Mélisande. The older gentleman, who had a whiff of 1830 about him, and made you think of Guizot, Lamartine, and the Reform Bill, said:

“Ce n’est pas de la musique, c’est de la cacophonie.”

“No, no, papa; you are too unjust,” said the elder girl.

“It is interesting, an interesting experiment,” said the elderly lady decisively. “I will try and get them to mount it à Petersbourg; j’écrirai à Dubkin demain; c’est une honte de ne pas donner cela. It is something new. One must remember that people thought Wagner a bad joke when it was first done—malo tovo, Wagner—Gluck; and Mr. Lawrence,” she pointed to the man Miles had thought to be an Englishman, “who is un musicien sérieux, une autorité, agrees with me that it is something, and something new and très remarquable.”

“I wonder whether M. Lawrence really admires him,” the old man said in slow, deliberate English, “or whether it is only sa politesse?”

“Mr. Lawrence is the only person who so far has said nothing, and he is the only one of us who has the right to speak. What do you think, Mr. Lawrence?” asked the lady. “Now let him speak, please, and don’t interrupt, Pierre.”

Pierre, Miles supposed, was the older man, and so far he had shown no wish to interrupt.

“The first time I heard it,” said the Englishman in quiet, low tones, “I enjoyed the music so much that I thought it was perhaps over-obtrusive; but the second and third time I heard it I thought, on the contrary, the music so appropriate, you hardly noticed it. It never says too much; it is simply right; and in itself I think it absolutely on the first line; the beginning of a new tradition. You saw how the audience appreciated it?”

“But I speak of the libretto, cher Monsieur; it is the words that I find so idiotical,” said the older man.

“But, papa,” said the elder girl, “Mr. Lawrence is un vrai musicien; he has studied at the Hochschule, and he knows.”

“I know, I know; I do not wish to be wanting in respect to Mr. Lawrence’s knowledge, nor to pretend I know anything about music—mais j’affirme que cet opéra n’a pas le sens commun. It is the libretto that I find infecte.”

“But you must admit,” said the older lady, “Mr. Lawrence, that Wagner is greater than all that.... Think of Tristan, and the Meistersinger——”

“I think——” said the Englishman. He was not allowed to finish his sentence because the younger of the girls, who had been talking to the tall man, and paying no attention to the others, broke into the conversation and said:

“You will bear me witness, Mary, that I never, never said such a thing! Alyosha has the face to say that I used to say that Wagner was ridiculous; I never said such a thing. Did I, Mr. Lawrence? You know how I always admired Wagner from the first—ever since the first time I ever heard an Opera.”

“Never again will I go with you to the Opera,” said the old man. “Cela finit toujours par une dispute. If you had only gone, as I wished, to the Théatre Français, we should not have had all this unpleasantness.”

“It is all Alyosha’s fault,” said the younger girl. “Never will I go anywhere with him again.”

At that moment the waiter brought the wrangling party their food, and as they had all apparently ordered different things, there was some dispute as to who had ordered what. In the first place, the old gentleman had been given a glass of beer, and the elder girl at once interposed and said:

“No, no, papa; you must not drink that beer; you know it disagrees with you; you must have your camomille. I ordered it—garçon, apportez à monsieur la camomille que j’ai commandée.” And handing the beer to the dark man, she said, “You can drink that, Alyosha.”

Alyosha said nothing, but handed the glass to the younger girl, and said wearily to the waiter:

“Un grog Américain.”

“Tu sais que je déteste la bière,” said the younger girl violently; “besides which I have ordered some tea.”

“Je vous en supplie, mes enfants; teesche, teesche,” said the old man, and Miles wondered what teesche might mean.

The whole conversation of all the company, with the exception of the Englishman, was from that moment suddenly carried on in a tongue which was unintelligible to Miles, but which he guessed to be Russian. His guess was confirmed by the old man saying to the company:

“It is very rude of you all to talk Russian before Mr. Lawrence.”

“That is what I am always telling Alyosha,” said the young girl. “I am always telling him he never talks Russian except when there are people there who don’t understand it. Il choisit ce moment. On dirait qu’il fait cela exprès, pour le plaisir!”

Never had Miles felt so lonely. The effect of this intimate, animated conversation going on next to him, so near and yet, as he thought, so infinitely remote, so impossibly out of reach, made him homesick and almost inclined to cry.

At that moment a waiter brought him the whisky and the syphon. Miles stretched out his hand to press the metal lever.