Читать книгу Harper of Heaven - Robert William Service - Страница 8

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I was sitting lonely on the terrace of the Dôme when an oldish man approached me. He made me think of a Skye terrier, for he had a shaggy moustache and friendly blue eyes under a thatch of eyebrow. He addressed me with a Scotch accent that immediately appealed to me.

“Peter McQuattie’s my name. I’m a journalist of sorts and I would like to write an article on you for the Morning Post.”

“Let’s have a drink,” said I. I called the waiter and though it was early in the day he ordered a Pernod. Then, chain-smoking, he told me of himself.

“I was a school teacher in a wee Scotch toon but I always longed for a larger life. Paris particularly allured me, so when a millionaire offered me a post to tutor his son with a year’s stay in France I accepted it as Fate. For some time we lived in Tours where one of my friends was Hugh Walpole, than a young student with no thought of writing. Hugh wanted to make a pact of life friendship with me, but somehow he wasn’t my sort—didn’t have enough of the devil in him. I liked to smoke and drink and tell salty yarns and I’m not very strong on skirt resistance. Hugh was too respectable for me. I like freedom and variety—so I’ve never married. Are you single?”

“For the moment: but I’d like a wife and a home. Everyone comes to it in the end.”

“I never will. I’m a born bachelor. I’ve a little apartment underneath the tiles and I’m happy as the day is long. I meet my pals, do a bit of writing, make just enough to jog along. I’d rather be like that than be Head in a Scotch school. I came to France for a year and now I’ve been over twenty. At times it’s been hard but I’ve scraped by. Always enough for a crust and a wee dram. And how I’ve loved poetry! I can quote it by the yard.”

“For God’s sake don’t quote mine.”

“I might if I get drunk enough. But, come on, man—ye’ll no refuse to help a fellow Scot. Tell me something about yersel’ for my article.”

The result was a column in the Morning Post, for which he was paid ten guineas and went on a big binge. But such successes were not frequent. As Paris correspondent for a Sunday paper he made three pounds a week. Once in a while he sold a short story to a cheap weekly and the quid or two it brought him was reason for a celebration. After a fling he was often hard up but only once did he ask me to help him. When he repaid me I tactlessly remarked: “You’re the first of my friends who ever returned to me money they borrowed.” He bristled and said: “D’ye think I’d have asked for a loan if I wasn’t sure I could pay ye back?” And never again would he accept a penny of aid from me.

But he was incorrigibly lazy. Day after day he would sit on the terrace of the Dôme greeting his friends. I think his failure as a writer was because he was a great talker. He was the garrulous Scot with a talent for detail, that made his conversation realistic and riveting. I loved to get him gabbing and could have listened to him all night. Even stories he had told me before seemed more interesting in the retelling. But his conversational gift was really his curse for it made him too convivial.

However, the dream of his life was to write a book about Paris. It was to be called Youth and a City, and was to recapture his first rapture on arriving. He had conceived it twenty years before and each year he had decided to make a beginning. But perhaps laziness intervened; or it may have been that he was dismayed at the job and had secret doubts if he could fulfil it. So always he put it off for another year. Then one day I said to him: “I think I’ll write a novel on Paris and the Latin Quarter and youth and rapture,” but he gave me what I called his “school master look.”

“You haven’t been here long enough,” he said. “You don’t know the City.” So I told him: “You’ve been here too long. You know it over well. You’ll never write your book.”

I hoped that would goad him; but no, he hesitated to make a start. So I went off to the country and wrote and wrote. I said nothing to him about it, then months later I went to him. “Here’s your book,” I said, “Only I wrote it. I did it in six months, but I kept my nose to the grindstone. It’s the only way.” He agreed, yet I could see something shrank affrighted in him. I am sure he realised then he would never write his book, and though he spoke of it hopefully to his dying day he never got beyond the title.

One day Peter sought me eagerly. His eyes bulged with joy as he said: “Who d’ye think’s coming to see me, all the way from Clydeside?—my old pal Neil Munro.” I, too, was excited, for Neil was at that time our leading Scotch novelist. I had never read any of his books which were what I called “tushery.” They were historical and though he had a pretty style modelled on Stevenson, I was too much a lover of the present to be interested in the past. Yet, to meet a man who writes books, even though one doesn’t care to read them, is thrilling enough, and I was happy indeed when that evening in the Napolitan I was introduced to the only Scots author with more than a local reputation.

The “Nap” was the café where the journalists foregathered, and I found them toasting our celebrity. Neil was a slim, fair man, not outwardly striking, yet giving an impression of being fey. He asked me about my work and I assured him I was doing nothing with great enthusiasm. He shook his head sadly: “I’d give a lot to be independent and write only books. But there’s the grey grind of a newspaper office, and by the time I get home my imagination just won’t work. Yet my heart’s in the Highlands, in the good old days when clansmen clashed and claymores flashed. I was born a hundred years too late.” “Damned if I feel that way,” I told him. “I’d rather be here drinking a bonny dram with you than stinking in the coffin of the great Sir Walter. But I get your point, and here’s to Romance.”

I liked Neil a lot. We got on fine. Besides being a good writer he was a good fellow, enjoying his liquor and not above listening to a racy yarn. He was my kind, human all through. And that evening we had a great feed in Larue’s. There were present Adam of The Times, Jerrold and Grey of The Telegraph, MacAlpine of the Daily Mail, Hill of the Montreal Star, Donahoe the Australian journalist, Peter, Neil Munro and myself. What a glorious, uproarious evening! Grand lads they were, with a great thirst and a rollicking wit. How the table rang with their sallies! ... Yet today, of all that gleeful gang, only I am left alive.

Another celebrity I met at that time was Ibáñez, the Spanish novelist. Fisher Unwin was our mutual publisher, and I acted as interpreter between them. Blasco was as romantic looking as Neil was prosaic. He was brimming over with a vitality that would not let him rest a moment. A big, handsome, dynamic man.... Yet, when I met him years later he was walking across the courtyard of the Louvre with a worn and weary air. Gone was his exuberant zest. He was flabby and stooped with dull eyes and a pasty face. He told me he was having trouble with the Spanish Government who had denounced him as a traitor, while even the French authorities regarded him invidiously. Rich, world-famous but broken-hearted, soon after he passed on. I believe his last regret was that he could not die fighting for his country.

These literary contacts kindled in me the spark of inspiration and soon it burst into a blaze. In the meantime I wrote a series of articles on Paris. Into them I put all my enthusiasm and zest for living. From every facet I flashed joy as I wrote of my beloved city. It was easy to write those articles for I was so supremely happy. Again and again I thanked the Gods for their gift of ecstasy. Little things that others took for granted—my morning croissant and coffee on the terrace of a tavern, my reflective pipe, my lonely walk along the Seine, evenings under the trees in the purple twilight—all of these were to me sources of divine content. I was amazed at my former idleness and rattled on my typewriter with exuberant ease. Again I discovered the rich satisfaction of creative effort. How I radiated joy! It did not seem right to be so lyric with gladness. I was so happy it almost hurt.

Now I had resumed work I wanted to do nothing else, and I neglected Peter. I had no time to waste in café loafing. I despised the four-flushers and failures who crowded the Dôme. “A bunch of boozing wasters,” I told him. “Don’t let yourself be one of them.” But after twenty-years of it he was too much of a flâneur to reform. Shaking his head sadly he ordered another Pernod, while indignantly I strode away.... Always a tremendous walker I indulged in it more violently than ever. No man had ever stauncher legs and they carried me all over Paris till I came to know it like my pocket. And the better I knew it the more I loved it. At one moment I do not believe there was another writer of English who knew the City as well as I.

More and more I came to despise the sodden sybarites of the Quarter; then, as the demand came for more articles I realised I must broaden my field, so I went to Barbizon. I was enchanted with the woodland. Dithyrambic with delight I wondered how I could bear to live anywhere else. And truly after sun-baked streets those cool, leafy aisles seemed heavenly. So I walked the forest far and wide, thinking it a fairy land. I embraced trees and caressed boulders for the joy they gave me. Sometimes in the solitude of a green glade I laughed like a lunatic from sheer ecstasy.

But in the evenings I was often intoxicated by more than sun and sky. There were many artists in the forest and after their day of work they were inclined to make merry. The vine bequeathed to us the jewelled joy of its mellowing so that we drank till the night ended in a rich, confused rapture. And it was on one of those occasions I had a curious adventure.

Oh yes, I was a little drunk as I walked from the tavern to my hotel in Barbizon. The distance was some three kilometres and the way lay through the forest; but I knew the trail and the moon was bright. The walk would serve to sober me. So after a final glass I set out. I sang as I marched, with a step that did not wobble too much. When one is lit up distances don’t seem to matter. The miles pass like magic and soon one tumbles into bed. So I went singing along, ever so pleased with myself and all the rest of the world when—suddenly I saw it—a LION.

Incredulously I rubbed my eyes. It was in a forest glade and the moon was like silver. At first I thought it was a fantastic boulder, then I took it for a forgotten bit of sculpture, for it was as still as stone, staring at me. Sombrely I reflected: “I’m pickled and I’m just seeing things. Must cut down on the booze.... Pythons or pink elephants I could understand. But lions—no Sir!” So, bravely I went up to the brute. I would dispel this apparition of my drink-distorted brain. I would ... When suddenly that lion snarled. How it happened I don’t know but in two shakes of that big cat’s tail I was six feet up the nearest birch and still climbing. But when I looked down again from what I judged was a height discouraging to lions there was nothing there.

“Let this be a lesson to me,” I thought gloomily. “From now on the water-wagon has a new passenger. No more fruity old vintage for me.” But prudently I stayed up that tree for a full hour and when I descended it was with a precipitation much greater than I intended. Bruised and shaken I returned to my inn and went to bed without saying a word to anyone. I was not going to expose myself to derision and disbelief.

And next morning, with a bit of a hangover, I was dully drinking my morning coffee when Gerrard, the sheep painter, said to me abruptly. “Well, they shot the lion.” “Lion!” I exclaimed. “Yes. Is it possible you didn’t hear? There was a lion loose in the woods last night. The Pathé people were making a picture over Melun way. It was one of those jungle stories and they built a compound and hired a live lion from the Zoo to give the scene atmosphere. But the palisade wasn’t high enough and the brute leapt it and got away. Rather nasty if anyone had encountered it. But an expert rifle-man got it in the early dawn. Lucky shot, for it was a big brute and considered dangerous.... You were out late. You didn’t happen to trip over a stray lion by any chance?” I shook my head sourly, knowing that if I had said “yes” I would have been the butt of all that ribald gang. Still, I thought—what I vowed about the water-wagon goes—with latitude.

There are at least five inducements to live in a foreign land—freedom, strangeness, irresponsibility, romance and adventure. It was the hope of a little of this last that finally started me roving again. For the moment I was fed up with Paris, so I bought a push-bike and started off with no definite goal. The first day I did fifty miles with enthusiasm, the second, ten with a sore fanny. From then on I averaged twenty, depending on the distance between pubs. When I found one that was sympathetic I stayed and wrote an article. In that way I pedalled up and down Normandy, then went on to Brittany.

The Breton country charmed me, and I lingered lazily in that Land of Wooden Shoes. I wrote of the fisher-folk of Finisterre, and its cider-swigging sons of the soil. I did some swigging myself, in oak-panelled taverns or sunny seashore buvettes, and the more I saw of Brittany the more it grew on me. From the sky-blue sardine nets of Douarnanez to the grim cairns of Carnac; from the quaint coiffes of Concarneau to the brilliant brocades of Landerneau; from the fantastic off-shore rocks to the grey stone cottages with their oak-fringed farms—How I loved it! I called it the Land of Little Fields and wrote articles about it.

Then one day I happened on a village that seemed lovelier than all. In a sea coast famed for its charm its beauty took my breath away. Tiny bays of golden sand were caught between rugged arms of rock with beyond a blaze of gorse and broom. Off shore were fairy isles, then a large one shutting in the bay from the outer ocean. It was an island of fantastic battlements and cliffs of grotesque device, and when the tide went out one could walk to it across miles of green-pooled sand. Clad only in trunks I would go daily to the tidal flats, coming back with lobsters, conger eels and jumbo shrimps. My body became Indian brown and all alone on that waste of reed-strewn pool I felt a nearness to nature I had long missed. As I stalked the sands with spear and shrimping net I was like a primitive savage. When the tide came up I would swim a mile or so, returning lazily to my cove. There I would linger, dreaming on a heather-clad headland and longing to express lyrically my feeling for the loveliness about me.

But somehow my eyes always went to a little red-roofed house that stood on a sea-jutting rock. It was far apart from any other and seemed so lonely. It was flanked by coves of golden sand and backed by a yellow blaze of gorse. Somehow, wherever I gazed, my eyes returned to that little house till at last it seemed to call to me saying: “I am empty and sad. I want to be lived in. Please take pity on me. Buy me. You will love me. You will never, never be sorry....”

So I asked the landlord of my hotel: “What about the little red-roofed house on the point? Is it really for sale?” He answered: “Everything is for sale, Monsieur, if you are willing to pay the price. But this one will be high. It belongs to the Maire and is the apple of his eye. He built it himself and really it is a jewel. But he is a hard man and wants too much—twenty-five thousand francs—completely furnished, of course.”

“It seems exorbitant,” I said. “Would he not come down a bit?” But the landlord said: “Not if you begged him with your derrière sticking out of your pants. He is hard as nails. He will never take a franc less.”

However, my host had given me an idea and next day I interviewed the Maire at his home. He was indeed a gnarled and withered man who looked as hard as hickory, and behind him was a moustached wife who seemed equally difficult to deal with. I had made myself as miserable as possible, though I had drawn the line at exposing my derrière. But I wore stained pants, a ragged shirt, a broken straw hat and disreputable sandals. Even the natives appeared more respectable. “I want to buy your house,” I said, “and I offer you seventeen thousand francs.”

He looked me up and down. “My poor Monsieur, you mock me,” he began. But I checked him. “Wait a moment. I do not know if I will be able to pay you even that sum. All I possess is seven thousand francs. I will have to beg, borrow or steal the other ten. I do not know if I can do so, but I will pay you seven thousand now and try to pay you the balance by noon on Saturday. If I cannot I will forfeit the seven thousand.”

With that I took from my ragged shirt seven lovely milles and spread them before him. Dubiously he looked at them. Then I overheard his wife whisper: “He’s a poor devil. He will never raise the balance. You take a chance, my brave Gustave.”

Her eyes were fixed greedily on the notes, so reluctantly he took them. Then he made out a document in duplicate in which he agreed to sell me the entire property in the state it stood for seventeen thousand francs, seven thousand down to be forfeited if three days later the balance of ten thousand was not paid. Then we all signed and I went away.

That night I took the Paris train, withdrew ten thousand francs from the bank and the following day I was back. With the local lawyer I arrived at eleven on the fateful Saturday. On the way we had to ferry over on a small boat and I was worried we might not be able to get there in time. “If this boat upsets I’ll swim,” I vowed, “but I’ll be right there with that dough.” However, we reached the Maire’s house a few minutes before the time had expired and I’ll never forget the look of disgust on his face as he saw me. For now I was togged up in flannels made by a Paris tailor and I overheard Madame whisper, “My poor Gustave, you should never have trusted him. I told you he was a Monsieur.” However, they put the best face on it, the papers were signed, the payment made, the place was mine.

It was difficult for the Maire to conceal his chagrin. Yet he proved a good sport. “Would you not like to make an inventory?” he asked “You know the house is furnished, even to silver and bed linen. Everything complete.”

“Not quite,” I grumbled. “You’ve forgotten a car for the garage. But I know you’re honest people and I trust you to leave everything as it is. I do not want to see the interior of the house. I fell in love with the outside and I want the inside to be a pleasure in store.”

I returned to Paris that day after a final gloat over my house. DREAM HAVEN I called it, and I wanted to keep it a dream, something insubstantial and only half conceived. I had a whimsical feeling I did not want to realise it too quickly. So I went back to Peter and the Dôme and Montparnasse. “I have a home, old man,” I said. “And now what I want is a wife. I am ready for the greatest of all life’s adventures—Marriage.”