Читать книгу The Royal Road to Romance - Richard Halliburton - Страница 6

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Irvine and I had seen Mademoiselle Piety the first day after our reunion in Paris, in the dining-room of our little family hotel, where, pretty and appealing, she had sat opposite us at the long center table. We hadn’t dared speak to her because, in the first place, she seemed painfully shy, and in the second place, we were surrounded by a number of scandalmongers who would have started meowing in chorus at such an impropriety. Not knowing the girl’s name Irvine always spoke of her as “Miss Piety,” concluding from her rigidly circumspect deportment that she must be taking Bible courses in some convent.

Perhaps it was her very aloofness that charmed us; perhaps it was because she was the only girl in the pension. But something about Miss Piety was so intriguing we began to concoct evil plots against her continued and unreasonable asceticism.

We had it all arranged to kidnap the damsel and drag her out to tea by force—and no doubt would have, had not a much less violent introduction offered itself in the shape of three Folies-Bergères tickets sent us by a young American and his bride who had picked me up in their honeymoon motor-car on the Lake Geneva road between Montreux and Lausanne, and given me a free ride all the way to Paris. I was asked to bring Irvine, of course, to the theater party, and one girl—any girl we liked. Naturally we hastened to accept, and immediately determined to use the third ticket as a means of bringing about a rapprochement with the demure little Madonna at our table. We had a good reason now to speak to her. And yet when the critical moment arrived that night at dinner, Irvine and I began to lose the nerve we had been developing all afternoon. It seemed so tactless proposing Folies-Bergères to this chaste grave violet, especially before being introduced. But she was the only girl we knew about, so it was Piety or nobody. Being the more familiar with French, I was delegated to make the attack, and, gulping down my glass of wine, I leaned across the table, trying to look as trustworthy as possible.

But I never got any further than the “Pardon, Mademoiselle—” Piety began to blush crimson at my very first word, and seeing her discomfiture I hesitated—and of course was lost. Before I could rally my forces, she had fled from the field.

We consoled ourselves, on departing girl-less for the theater, with the fact that she never in the world would have gone to such a place anyway, or if so would have made us bring her home after the second act.

As a matter of fact, the second act might seriously have been questioned as a proper spectacle for convent students. It was a voluptuous Turkish harem scene with harem maidens dressed in proverbial Folies-Bergères costumes, lounging on the divans or splashing merrily in the pool. During the height of their revels, the queen, arrayed in a few beads, burst in among them and threw herself into a wild, leaping, Oriental dance.

Irvine suddenly clutched my arm. “Look!” he gasped.

“Look at what?”

“—the dancer!”

“Do you know her?”

“Know her!” he exclaimed. “It’s Mademoiselle Piety!”

And it was. Our shrinking saint at the pension was queen of the Folies harem. Almost overcome by astonishment, yet intrigued by this dual personality, we found her name on the program and wrote a note, requesting that she meet us after the performance if she really was our table mate, and if she was not, to meet us anyway.

Her reply came back:

“Messieurs les Américains—Oui, je suis la même demoiselle. Quand je me tiens tranquille à notre table vous me dédaignez; Quand je suis la reine d’Orient vous vous empressez. Méchants! Je ne devrais pas vous reconnaître, mais je me hasarde—à la porte de côté du théatre.”

(Messieurs Americans—Yes, I am the same young woman. When I am demure at our table, you scorn me; when I am the Oriental queen, you rush to meet me. Wretches! I ought not to recognize you, but I’ll risk it—at the stage door.)

And sure enough, shortly after eleven, she appeared in the doorway, highly amused over our consternation at seeing the fragile Bible student turned Scheherazade and rioting on the Folies stage.

The problem before us now, since it was approaching midnight, was how to celebrate our alliance. I suggested a buggy ride up the Champs Élysées to the Étoile, but Irvine thought we should climb the Eiffel Tower and view the twinkling lights of Paris. Mademoiselle Piety gleefully voted with Irvine. Vividly recalling the Matterhorn outrage, I made him promise before I consented, that if we got to the top he would not make any disgusting salivary remarks.

The subway took us to the Champs de Mars station, from which point the Tower is only a short distance away. On investigation we found that our noble idea was doomed to failure, for every door was locked fast and the summit platforms were all darkness. We were bitterly disappointed. What now?

“I have it!” Piety suddenly exclaimed in excited French. “The Trocadéro towers! They must be all of three hundred feet high. We can see enough from one of these.”

The Trocadéro Palais, an enormous ornamental building left standing after the exposition of 1878, loomed up just across the Seine. In a moment we had walked over the Pont d’ Iéna, up the broad sweeping steps, found the concierge’s house, and emboldened by numbers, knocked at his door.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça?” growled the warden.

We knew if we mentioned the tower key at this hour he would never get out of bed, so we just knocked again.

In a savage humor he opened the door. Piety, whom we had chosen to be spokesman, since she had the power to charm any man into capitulation, made the request.

But our plan did not meet at all with his approval.

“Mon Dieu!” he moaned. “Climb the tower now? Imbéciles! Allez-vous en!”

Just the same, being irresistible, she got the key—and his guidance through the building as far as the tower steps as well.

Our climb to the top, round and round the long-since-abandoned elevator-shaft, was one of the strangest adventures that was to befall me on the road to romance. We could see, literally, nothing. The blackness was absolute and unrelieved. A few windows that might have admitted a ray of starlight were covered with the grime of years. The tower had not been cleaned since the exposition, a long generation before. The steps were padded with dust. Dense masses of cobwebs festooned themselves across our path. Legions of bats, so unexpectedly disturbed, squeaked and whirred about our heads. The stagnant air was stifling. We had to feel our way upward, step by step, flight by flight. Irvine blasted our passage through the cobwebs, leading Piety by one hand, who with the other led me. Irvine and I felt very much at home, having rehearsed this adventure in more than one rickety old tower in Germany and Holland, so that the only real amateur cobweb climber among us was Piety, but she threw herself into the sport with enthusiasm and seemed to be having a glorious time. Her peals of laughter as Irvine stumbled and tumbled back upon us echoed up and down the dismal shaft and dissipated any regret we might have felt over the expedition.

By prying and jerking we opened the door leading on to the summit balcony, and stepped out into the fresh air.

Paris! Paris! Never was it so beautiful as on that autumn night. The deep blackness made the myriads of twinkling lights dance and gleam and beckon. They lined the winding Seine as it cleaved in twain the conflagration; they were marshalled in the Champs de Mars; they melted into one great blaze over the Grand Boulevards; they rushed before taxicabs across the Jena bridge and down the quays. The horizon became a fading glow. Up through the midst of this phosphorescent sea the Tour Eiffel rose in silhouette against the fire, commanding all Paris to sleep in peace while it stood guard. The Panthéon, the Dôme des Invalides, the Arc de Triomph, the Campanile du Sacré Coeur—all were hidden. Only the soaring lance of steel before us kept the vigil.

For a moment Irvine and Piety and I stood quiet, moved profoundly by this loveliness. Then, in English, half to herself, the Oriental dancer broke the silence:

“Ze God will do.”

Perhaps “Piety” was not such a misnomer after all.