Читать книгу The Poisoned Paradise - Robert William Service - Страница 7

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Two o'clock in the morning at the Gare du Montparnasse. The girl was dazed and weary. She sat on her bundle in the stale greyness of the station, waiting anxiously for the dawn. About six o'clock she ventured forth, and holding her precious envelope in her hand inquired her way at the corner of every street.

A morning of exquisite metal, vivid, spacious, resplendent. As she crossed the Seine by the Pont Royal, the sky was golden and against it gloomed the twin towers of Notre Dame. The palaces of the Louvre swam in lovely light and the Gardens of the Tuileries seemed washed in yellow wine. Up the long rise of the Champs-Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe was superbly radiant, its turquoise heart stillettoed by the glittering lunge of the Luxor Column.

The girl gazed with awestruck eyes. As she thought of the sunrise in the forest the violence of the change dulled her brain. The city amazed and appalled her; but, impelled by fear, she came at length to the heights of Montmartre. There before a gloomy house in the Rue Lepic she paused, her heart beating thickly.

She knocked at the heavy oak-door, timidly at first, then loudly. She had a sudden fear that there might be no one there. As she was wondering what she should do she heard slow, shuffling footsteps, and a withdrawal of bolts, then the door opened a little. An old woman regarded her angrily. She was bent almost double, and held her head sideways. Her face was hard and sour. She snarled:

"What are you making all this row for? Couldn't you have the patience to wait till I got down?"

The girl presented her letter. The old woman regarded it suspiciously.

"Who gave you this?"

"The old man who paints in the forest."

"Ah! Monsieur Frossard. Well, you can't expect me to read it without my glasses. Wait there."

She closed the door, leaving the girl on the step; but soon she came back, and her face was grimmer than ever.

"Another of 'em. Well, I suppose I must take you in. He's quite the philanthropist, Monsieur Frossard. He! He!"

The old woman preceeded her down a long corridor, her back bent and her feet splayed out. They mounted a broad flight of stairs, then a narrow one.

"There! that's your room, and lucky you are to have it. I'll warrant a pig-stye is more in your line. You are a poor bit of skin and bone anyway. Leave your bundle on the bed and come with me to the kitchen."

The girl soon fell into the ways of the household. She rose at five and prepared the coffee. She scrubbed and rubbed, washed and swept. She did everything but the cooking and the marketing. The old woman seldom spoke to her, and forbade her to put a foot out-of-doors.

The house was a private one, with a large studio facing the north, and a small, weedy garden shut in by high walls. The girl was allowed to go into the garden, but its damp melancholy oppressed her. Some headless statues leaned against the mouldering wall. It was very quiet. She felt as if she were in a prison.

One Sunday morning Monsieur Frossard arrived. For days before they had been making preparations, dusting statuettes and bric-à-brac, sweeping in unwonted nooks and corners. The old woman sidled everywhere like a crab, with her neck twisted awry, her bent back and large splay feet in felt slippers. She kept Margot at work, constantly impressing on her the necessity of pleasing the Master. So much did she harp on this that the girl looked forward to the old man's return almost with dread.

On his arrival he went to his room and retired into his great four-poster bed. The old woman attended to him, carrying him specially prepared dishes, and dusty bottles of wine.

That evening she said to the girl: "Margot, put on a clean apron and take this plate of peaches up to the Master."

Tremblingly the girl obeyed. Monsieur Frossard was propped up in bed, a skull cap on his head, and a cigar in his mouth. Around him was the debris of his evening meal, the carcase of a lobster, some bones of frog-legs, and a half finished bottle of champagne. As she approached she was conscious of a strange odour of decay. The old man looked at her, licking his little slimy lips while a score of flies buzzed and settled around him. The pink cotton wool was still in his ears. She wondered if there was any connection between the cotton wool and the flies. An odd revulsion seized her, yet she continued to approach with the fruit.

"Tiens! it's the little girl I found in the forest. What's your name?"

"Margot, Sir."

"Come here, Margot, close to me. Let me offer you a peach."

The girl, standing with her head bent, refused.

"Ah! you are too timid. We must cure you of that."

He put out one of his pudgy hands and took hold of a long bright strand of her hair. The girl raised her startled blue eyes. The hand on her shining hair made her think of a toad. She shuddered. The old man's face changed; it became hard and cruel.

"Go away," he said harshly. "I will see you to-morrow."

Next morning Madame Mangepain said to her:

"The Master wants to see you in the studio."

The girl went reluctantly. The studio had always awed her. It was so huge, so rich. There were costly rugs on the floor and lovely pictures on the wall. The paintings all bore the signature of Abel Frossard, and ranged from nudes to landscapes.

The painter, in his velvet cap and dressing gown, was sitting before a fresh canvas. He turned heavily and beckoned her to enter. His manner was bland, even ingratiating.

"Well, Margot, you are commencing this morning your new career, that of a model."

"Yes, sir," said the girl meekly.

"You'd better say 'Yes, Master.'"

"Yes, Master."

"Now as a model, you may be a success or you may be a failure. I will do my best to make you a success, but it will largely depend on yourself. There's many a woman to-day with her limousine and her appartement in the Champs-Elysées who began life as a model. On the other hand, if you are a failure there is only the street for you, the hospital, prison, death ... you understand."

"Yes, Master."

"Ah, good! By the way, why were you afraid of me last night?"

The girl did not answer. She was looking at a fly that was crawling on the pink cotton wool in his ear.

"You mustn't be afraid. You'll never make a success as a model if you are afraid. Now to work."

He motioned her to a dais, on which stood a chair that seemed all curves.

"Sit there and loosen your hair."

The girl obeyed. It fell in a sheen of gold around her. He handed her a brush.

"Brush it out so that it is like an aura."

She did not understand, but brushed and brushed, with long, sweeping strokes. The old man had forgotten he was anything but a painter.

"Fine," he said enthusiastically. "Now raise your head and look at the statuette above the book case. There! That's good. Just hold the position. I will make a preliminary study to-day."

The girl sat quite still, and the old man painted intently. She posed until luncheon, which she ate with Madame Mangepain in the kitchen, and at two o'clock returned to the studio and resumed the pose. At five o'clock the old man laid down his brush and rubbed his hands.

"There! I've finished. Come and see it."

She looked at the beautiful bit of brush work. She could not believe that this ethereal girl-face with the eyes so thrillingly blue and the nimbus of bright gold hair was herself. The old man observed her awe with satisfaction.

"You like it, eh? Yes, it's good. A bit idealized. Well, it's nothing to what I will do before I finish. I'll make Chabas look to his laurels yet. Ah! your hair! it's what inspires me. Tadé Stycka has no better model. I'll make your hair famous."

Turning her to admire it the more, he parted it behind; then suddenly the girl felt his lips pressed to the back of her neck. She started as if a serpent had stung her and put her hand to the place. Again a shudder passed over her. For a moment a strange look came into his eyes, then they went cold again, and he laughed reassuringly.

"Ha! Ha! you mustn't mind me. It's purely paternal. It won't do you any harm. Now go and get a good supper. I'll want you to-morrow. Don't look at me in such a frightened way. I'm not an ogre. I won't eat you."

The next day she posed for him again, but this time he did not attempt to kiss her. He was very authoritative.

"Pull up your sleeves," he said sharply.

She obeyed. He looked derisively at her skinny arms.

"Now, open your dress and show me your shoulders. Coil up your hair on your head first."

Again she obeyed. When he was like this she was not afraid of him. It was as if there were two men in him, the artist and the satyr. He was all artist as he continued:

"Humph! You'll never do. You're nothing but bones and green shadows."

He threw down his palette and walked heavily about the room.

"Too bad you're so thin. I feel I could do big things with you. But I must, I must! We'll fatten you up if it takes a year. Listen, I'm going away to-morrow to Morocco. I'll be gone a month. In that time I want you to get fat. Do nothing, eat lots, read, amuse yourself. Turn your angles into curves. You hear?"

"Yes, Master."

"Now, don't forget. If you're not round and smooth by the time I come back, I will have no more use for you. Then it's the street. You know what that means. Go!"

She went, and later on she heard him instructing the housekeeper.

"I'm going to-morrow, Madame Mangepain, to Morocco, and I want that girl to be plumped up. Fatten her as you would a chicken. She's going to be my favourite model. I can do great things with her. Great things! Let her do no work. Wait on her. Feed her dainty dishes. Buy her fine clothes, silks and that sort of thing. Books too. Don't let her move about too much. Remember, it's for my sake not hers. I rely on you, Madame Mangepain. And I say, address her as mademoiselle."

He left next morning and Margot felt a huge sense of relief. It was as if something corrupt had gone out of the house. She could not get over this feeling of pourriture even when she was posing for him in the big studio. Perhaps his breath was so fetid, that it pervaded every room he entered.

When he had gone, her life changed completely. Madame Mangepain said to her at supper:

"Don't get up to-morrow morning. I'll bring you your breakfast in bed."

"Oh, no, madame."

"I tell you I will. It's the Master's orders. I've been told to serve you and I will ... mademoiselle."

"Oh, please don't call me mademoiselle."

"It's the Master's orders."

The next morning the girl remained in bed until the old woman sidled in with a tray of café au lait, croissants and fine butter.

"Now stay in bed till I come back."

The girl heard her go out, locking the door. She returned an hour later carrying a large parcel containing a kimono of mauve silk, fine lace underwear, silk stockings, and velvet shoes.

"There! Put these on. It's the Master's orders. And I'll go and prepare your bath."

It must be said that Madame Mangepain entered on her undertaking with zeal if not with enthusiasm. She taught the girl the elegancies of the toilette, the care of her skin, how to point and polish her nails and to bring to perfection her teeth and her hair. She had quite a battery of bottles and brushes, of oils and paints and perfumes. Margot spent every morning in the white-tiled bathroom, meticulously following the régime that the old woman demanded of her.

For luncheon, each day she was given dainty dishes such as she had never dreamed of; then, wrapt in the mauve kimono and stretched out on the great divan in the studio amid a pile of cushions, she would read one of the luridly covered novels the old woman bought for her. Among them were Chéri-Bebé, Dracula and Les deux Gosses. These books absorbed her, made her forget her strange surroundings, which otherwise filled her with a vague fear. Sometimes she even thought of escape, when she sat on fine afternoons in the wild unweeded garden amid the headless statues. By climbing upon one of them she could have gained the top of the wall and freedom. But after that ... what? The streets! She had a horror of the outer world which the old woman never lost an opportunity of developing. According to Madame Mangepain Paris was a merciless ogre, demanding its daily tribute of a thousand girls such as she, crushing and devouring them.

One day as she peered through a window into the street, she saw a girl about her age in a violet blouse with black, oily hair banged on her forehead, and at her side, a pale stunted youth with a reckless mouth and eyes cold as those of a snake. They seemed to be having words. Suddenly the youth struck the girl, knocking her down; then snatched a cheap trinket from her throat, and with a final vicious kick, went off laughing cynically. This typical scene of apaché life made a deep impression on her.

"It's all like that," she thought,—"the life out there, It's what will happen to me."

"Ah, I'll make a beauty of you yet," said Madame Mangepain at the end of the second week. "Monsieur Frossard won't know you when he comes back."

And indeed the girl was amazed at the change in herself. Her skin had become smooth and velvety, her limbs round and firm. Her face, too, had changed. It had retained its quality of childishness, but had lost its cowed and shrinking look. Hints of sweetness and charm revealed themselves. If only she could get away, find decent work, escape from the sinister old man into whose clutches she had fallen. Every day the dread of his return grew upon her.

Then one night Monsieur Frossard came back.

When she brought Margot her coffee next morning Madame Mangepain said to her:

"Get up and make yourself as beautiful as you can. Monsieur Frossard wants to see you in the studio. Be sure you are a credit to me."

The old woman went so far as to superintend her toilette, putting a faint flush of rouge high on her cheeks, and brushing her hair like spun gold down over the mauve kimono. But nothing could mask the wretchedness in the depths of the girl's eyes.

As she stood in the doorway of the studio Monsieur Frossard turned ponderously.

"Entrez, voyons. Don't stand there like a Christian martyr going to the stake. Come here."

With eyes cast down she obeyed. He pulled up the sleeve of her kimono and looked at her arm with a critical, dispassionate gaze.

"Ah, bon. Now do up your hair in the glass and bare your shoulders. I'm going to do a bust of you to-day."

Again she obeyed, his eyes following her eagerly.

"Sit on the model's chair. Bare your breast more. What are you afraid of, you little fool? Remember, I'm an artist. I've been itching to paint you, itching. I've thought of you all the time I've been away. I have a dozen ideas. I'm going to make you famous."

A passion almost cruel in its intensity seemed to seize him. Imperiously he made her hold the pose and painted with swift sure strokes. He stopped reluctantly for lunch and bade her hurry and again take the pose. He worked until the light failed, then laid aside his brush with a regretful sigh.

"Voila! Come and look at this."

Again the girl marvelled at what she saw. These curves of milky shoulders, that slim, silky beauty of neck and throat, the shell-like ear, the faintly hollow cheek with its suggestion of pathetic sweetness, and above all the superb mass of hair,—here glinting with the brightness of stubble in September sunshine, there richly gold as the ripened grain. Could this really be she? Frossard might be a devil, but he painted like an angel.

"I'm tired now," he said, "I want to rest until dinner. You'll take dinner with me in the studio. We'll celebrate."

She heard him with a heaviness of heart. All his artistic fire had left him and he seemed to be very old. More than ever she was conscious of his odour, and the flies that followed him everywhere. The joy the sight of her picture had given her was extinguished. She went away quickly.

Madame Mangepain served them a dinner that excelled anything the girl had ever conceived. Margot ate scarcely at all. Frossard, however, made up for her lack of appetite. He filled himself with delicious food, washed down with draughts of Beaune from a dusty bottle. He lingered long over the dessert, talking to her of his travels in Morocco, and looking for all the world, like a bloated, heavy-eyed pasha.

"Have one of these cigarettes," he said. "I get them specially in Cairo."

The girl refused.

"Then, you must have a glass of this champagne. It's quite harmless. You can dip one of those biscuits in it."

He bade her finish the champagne. It was the first she had ever tasted and it made her dizzy. The old man seemed to have grown very vivacious. He was taking glass after glass, and talking more and more excitedly. Suddenly he reached out and took hold of her.

Then fear seized her. She struggled to escape, but he held her tight. All at once she felt his shiny little lips on her neck, cold as the mouth of the fish called a sucker. She had just been reading "Dracula," a story about vampires, and the idea flashed into her mind that this old man was going to bite her neck and suck her blood. She screamed.

He was panting, and a wild light was in his eyes. "It's no use to squeal. Madame Mangepain has gone out. You are all alone in the house with me."

Terror gave her strength. With a wrench and a twist she broke away, leaving the mauve kimono in his hands. She ran to the door of the studio; but before she reached it he was after her. He had her again in his arms. Great strength seemed suddenly to come to him. His eyes glared, his breath came with a hiss.

"Ah! you won't escape. I'll have you. Ach! you struggle, you little vixen! But your resistance only maddens me. It's no use, you're mine, mine."

Fighting with all the force that was in her, she was borne backward, and thrown heavily on the divan. She saw his face bending over her, his eyes alight, the saliva drooling from his mouth. Once more she struggled but he held her with a grip of steel. She felt herself grow faint. Again and again she shrieked. Oh God! Would no one come to her aid?

She felt her strength leaving her. All she could see were his eyes, flaming with cruel lust. How she hated those eyes. She would destroy them, put out their light, if it cost the last effort of her life. Wrenching her arms free she caught his head at the temples, and with a fierce thrust pushed her small, pointed thumbs into the gloating eyes. With an oath the man pulled himself free and struck her down. Then he threw himself on the couch, screaming, screaming.

She ran to the front door but it was locked. She rushed up to her room and bolted herself in. She lay on her bed sobbing hysterically. She heard the sound of hurried feet, much coming and going. In the silence that followed Madame Mangepain knocked at her door.

"Open, you little viper."

The face of Madame Mangepain was cold and deadly in its fury. "You've done it now. You've finished the Master. The doctor says he'll never see again. He'll be blind, do you hear; blind. A great artist, a genius worth a dozen little trollops like you. Now go, and an old woman's curse go with you!"

With that Madame Mangepain took her by the shoulders and threw her into the street. She heard the door bang behind her. She was alone in Paris.