His Masterpiece, Émile Zola [essential reading txt] 📗

At last, as they reached the Place du Havre, Sandoz exclaimed, “So we are going to Baudequin’s, eh?”

The others looked as if they had dropped from the sky; in fact, it did seem as if they were going to Baudequin’s.

“What day of the week is it?” asked Claude. “Thursday, eh? Then Fagerolles and Gagnière are sure to be there. Let’s go to Baudequin’s.”

And thereupon they went up the Rue d’Amsterdam. They had just crossed Paris, one of their favourite rambles, but they took other routes at times⁠—from one end of the quays to the other; or from the Porte St. Jacques to the Moulineaux, or else to Père-la-Chaise, followed by a roundabout return along the outer boulevards. They roamed the streets, the open spaces, the crossways; they rambled on for whole days, as long as their legs would carry them, as if intent on conquering one district after another by hurling their revolutionary theories at the house-fronts; and the pavement seemed to be their property⁠—all the pavement touched by their feet, all that old battleground whence arose intoxicating fumes which made them forget their lassitude.

The Café Baudequin was situated on the Boulevard des Batignolles, at the corner of the Rue Darcet. Without the least why or wherefore, it had been selected by the band as their meeting-place, though Gagnière alone lived in the neighbourhood. They met there regularly on Sunday nights; and on Thursday afternoons, at about five o’clock, those who were then at liberty had made it a habit to look in for a moment. That day, as the weather was fine and bright, the little tables outside under the awning were occupied by rows of customers, obstructing the footway. But the band hated all elbowing and public exhibition, so they jostled the other people in order to go inside, where all was deserted and cool.

“Hallo, there’s Fagerolles by himself,” exclaimed Claude.

He had gone straight to their usual table at the end of the café, on the left, where he shook hands with a pale, thin, young man, whose pert girlish face was lighted up by a pair of winning, satirical grey eyes, which at times flashed like steel. They all sat down and ordered beer, after which the painter resumed:

“Do you know that I went to look for you at your father’s; and a nice reception he gave me.”

Fagerolles, who affected a low devil-may-care style, slapped his thighs. “Oh, the old fellow plagues me! I hooked it this morning, after a row. He wants me to draw some things for his beastly zinc stuff. As if I hadn’t enough zinc stuff at the Art School.”

This slap at the professors delighted the young man’s friends. He amused them and made himself their idol by dint of alternate flattery and blame. His smile went from one to the other, while, by the aid of a few drops of beer spilt on the table, his long nimble fingers began tracing complicated sketches. His art evidently came very easily to him; it seemed as if he could do anything with a turn of the hand.

“And Gagnière?” asked Mahoudeau; “haven’t you seen him?”

“No; I have been here for the last hour.”

Just then Jory, who had remained silent, nudged Sandoz, and directed his attention to a girl seated with a gentleman at a table at the back of the room. There were only two other customers present, two sergeants, who were playing cards. The girl was almost a child, one of those young Parisian hussies who are as lank as ever at eighteen. She suggested a frizzy poodle⁠—with the shower of fair little locks that fell over her dainty little nose, and her large smiling mouth, set between rosy cheeks. She was turning over the leaves of an illustrated paper, while the gentleman accompanying her gravely sipped a glass of Madeira; but every other minute she darted gay glances from over the newspaper towards the band of artists.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” whispered Jory. “Who is she staring at? Why, she’s looking at me.”

But Fagerolles suddenly broke in: “I say, no nonsense. Don’t imagine that I have been here for the last hour merely waiting for you.”

The others laughed; and lowering his voice he told them about the girl, who was named Irma Bécot. She was the daughter of a grocer in the Rue Montorgueil, and had been to school in the neighbourhood till she was sixteen, writing her exercises between two bags of lentils, and finishing off her education on her father’s doorstep, lolling about on the pavement, amidst the jostling of the throng, and learning all about life from the everlasting tittle-tattle of the cooks, who retailed all the scandal of the neighbourhood while waiting for five sous’ worth of Gruyère cheese to be served them. Her mother having died, her father himself had begun to lead rather a gay life, in such wise that the whole of the grocery stores⁠—tea, coffee, dried vegetables, and jars and drawers of sweetstuff⁠—were gradually devoured. Irma was still going to school, when, one day, the place was sold up. Her father died of a fit of apoplexy, and Irma sought refuge with a poor aunt, who gave her more kicks than halfpence, with the result that she ended by running away, and taking her flight through all the dancing-places of Montmartre and Batignolles.

Claude listened to the story with his usual air of contempt for women. Suddenly, however, as the gentleman rose and went out after whispering in her ear, Irma Bécot, after watching him disappear, bounded from her seat with the impulsiveness of a school girl, in order to join Fagerolles, beside whom she made herself quite at home, giving him a smacking kiss, and drinking out of his glass. And she smiled at the others in a very engaging manner, for she was partial to artists, and regretted that they were generally so miserably poor. As Jory was smoking, she took his cigarette out of his mouth and set it in her own, but without pausing in