At the Café

Wherein the Sterner Necessities of Literature Thwart the Dream of a Lonely Heart

HENRI DUVERNOIS

AUGUSTE CHENOUILLE went home every evening at five o'clock, the neighbourhood in which he lived being somewhat distant from his {dace of business. He had a flat consisting of three rooms at the top of a pretentious-looking house between two tumble-down shops where they sold iron, old shoes and bitter wine. He liked it because it was set among straggling city trees that were hardly alive, for Monsieur Chenouille had an equal dislike for the real country and the real town.

As he came in, one evening, the postman called to him:

"Here you are! Here's a letter for you."

He looked scared.

"A letter for me? Are you quite sure?"

He took the letter, looked it over carefully and put it in his pocket with a sigh.

"Yes ... I know what it is."

Then he went up the stairs with the slow steps of the man whom no one is expecting, and who will find his rooms in the same comfortless state in which he left them. As he passed the different floors, the humble but vigourous vitality of the neighbours asserted itself: here the strumming of a piano to greet the husband's return: there a child's laughter, a murmur of gossiping; or yet again—a simple thing in itself—the big new loaf placed at the door of the home of a large family. This was his dailv martyrdom: everything seemed to be crying aloud:

"What's the use of you?"

Once in his room, and surrounded by his familiar belongings, M. Chenouille stretched his tall figure to its full height, smiled at the portraits of departed friends, looked at himself in the mirror, and with a quick movement stroked his military mustache. For this shy person had the cut of a military man: he sported large grey mustaches and closely-cropped hair. "Not quite done for yet." he muttered. His face was tanned, as if he lived much in the open air, and to people who spoke to him for the first time, his rather prominent eyes gave the impression of a forbidding disposition. It often happened that soldiers attached to the near-by post saluted him, mistaking him for one of their officers. Chenouille returned the salute, flattered and complaisant.

HE hummed to himself by way of enlivening his task, which was that of frying a couple of eggs. One would have thought he was handling dynamite. He broke the eggs into the frying-pan at arm's length, as if he were afraid of the little explosions caused by the friz7.1ing butter. When the eggs were cooked, he threw himself into an armchair by the window so as to get a view of the sky and the tops of the chestnut trees. Down in the park, in each other's arms and sharply silhouetted on the ground, a couple were making love, drawing awav from each other at intervals as if to increase the fervour of their embraces. Absorbed in watching this scene, M. Chenouille found his eggs cold when he came to eat them, and with a shrug of his shoulders wrote on the slate with which he communicated with his landlady: "Again the eggs are not fresh; it's simply disgusting." On second thought, he rubbed out the word "disgusting" and substituted "intolerable"; then he rubbed out the whole sentence and wrote anew: "I believe the eggs are not fresh."

And it was only then that he opened the letter. It was signed "Zizi''—a Zizi of fifty, whom he had known in 1898, whom he had loved for fourteen months and who had absorbed a goodly share of his meagre inheritance, and to whom, in return for benefactions, he allowed a small pension. She was full of the usual lamentations, and as usual asked him for money:

"My generous Auguste, I can't possibly get on to tin* end of the month. 1 am worn out weeping. It would be sweet of you if you could send me a hundred francs by return mail, if possible. It is most urgent, as I am in debt and proceedings are threatened."

Then, as a form of polite closing, she would end by "I remain yours affectionately. . ." as she had done for twenty years, with the inevitable postcript: "In haste!" to excuse such abbreviations as: "Sd. me hundred francs by ret. mail. . . AfTty." In 1898, to the frantic tear stained letters full of avowals of love, she would reply: "Y. know tht. I love y. and that 1 am alwys. yrs." which gave her most passionate effusions the character of the most abbreviated type of business letter.

MONSIEUR CHENOUILLE, whose patience was exhausted, took a sheet of writing paper, and wrote in a firm hand:

"My dear friend, you know how limited my means are, and what sacrifices I have made to continue your allowance. . ."

He tore up the paper and began again: "My dear friend, I cannot possibly send you more than. . ."

He tore up this also, hut there was no more paper. Poor girl! It was in vain for her to repeat: "I keep always young because I have always lived carefully." She was nothing but a wreck, a caricature of what she used to be, with her colourless wig, her toothless gums, and her rheumatic limbs. Well, he would send her the hundred francs. Besides, he was bored to a point that made a little extra shortness of money a distraction, for it would mean devising some means for extra economy. "By return mail," she had said: she should have the money the following morning. And he went off to the Cafe Moderne, where he was wont to take refuge from the weariness of indolence.

There were only two little working girls, who were exchanging confidences with much vivacity, and a fat man, a regular customer, slumbering behind his spectacles, and wearing a sort of ulster formerly used by cabmen.

"Waiter! Writing materials, and a cup of coffee."

M. Chenouille opened the blotting-book which the waiter brought him, and to his surprise, discovered an unfinished letter written in a tremulous hand and full of erasures evidently a draft for one that had been sent. He closed the blotting-book, opened it again, and finally, blushing at his curiosity, read:

"TTrnrv:

Do not smile. Your sarcasms have already caused me sufficient pain. Since it is a cpiestion of really saying good-bye, think of that word with tin* gravity it demands and take me seriously for once—the first time and the last. As you know, I am only twenty, but 1 have suffered so much on your account that love has made me old. And now I am weary of it all; 1 can't go on with it; I am vanquished in the struggle, and you must in pity leave me. You used to say: 'What have you to complain of? Aren't you happy with me?' It is true, our quarrels always ended in reconciliations, but they always left in my heart a sullen rancour and a curious fear, the fear of tomorrow, when 1 knew 1 should so bitterly reproach myself for the little self-indulgence today. What do I want? Something very different. I am longing for peace, for confidence, for two hearts linked together in mutual adoration, willing to suffice one to the other, and live together in seclusion, cut off from all other knowledge of life. That is all I sigh for nowr. You like making new acquaintances; you love the gaiety and glamour, the stir and bustle of the crowd. We could never get on together. W hat I need is a soul that will find its whole delight in me, that will be repelled by the rest of womankind. I picture the man of my choice as being delicate, you are strong; timid, you are bold; silent, you rattle on; melancholy, you arc boisterous; not very young; a man verging on the decline of life, who knows that he is doomed to a miserable old age unless he has constantly near him the faithful companionship of a true helpmate. Do not laugh, Henry, with some women it is impossible to give love without giving devotion. . ."

MCHENOUILLE turned pale, and his heart thrilled with joy. "I am." he thought, "the man whom this woman is in search of; she is the woman I am seeking. We must meet."

He called the waiter.

"Do ladies come here often?"

"Yes, sir. But you will find more of them in Montmartre. As for coming here, yes, certainly, they come sometimes; sometimes they don't. It depends."

He lowered his head, and pointed with his table napkin to the two young women.

"I advise you to have nothing to do with those two: one's very common as well as a bad lot; the other can't speak three words without using vile language. They called me 'fathead' and 'pigface' because I called their attention to the fact that they were carrying off all the sugar. To think that there are men who will make love to such things! Spank them with an old shoe, that's what thev deserve!"

That evening, M. Chenouille did not investigate further. A great happiness, an infinite hope, lifted him to the skies. He pocketed the letter, took it away, read it over a hundred times, covered it with kisses. This was quite a different affair from Zizi's—dull, stupid, selfish Zizi. Here was a "helpmate," sympathetic, intellectual and refined. How happy they might be together up on his sixth floor, with arms entwined at the window.

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Fhe following day he arranged his rooms as if for an expected guest. So many things were necessary for a woman—powder and rouge, scent, scissors and sewing box. She should find everything complete and new. He would say to her: "I was waiting for you." Choice flowers in the vases, and to get rid of the smell of tobacco, orris-root powder scattered over the furniture and hangings. He spent a great deal of time in dressing, curled bis moustache, and polished his nails.

"After this, don't come in without knocking," he ordered his landlady.

In the evening he went again to the cafe.

"Waiter, isn't there a lady who conies here sometimes—who writes letters?"

"Yes, sir."

"A lady about twenty years old— rather sad-looking?"

"That must be Mrs. Fernand, so I have heard her called."

"Ah! And will she come this evening?"

"On the stroke of nine," and the waiter added: "She isvery punctual,sir."

M. Chenouille turned a little faint. She was actually coming! He was going to speak to her! He would begin. "Madame, a fortunate oversight . . ." And already he seemed to detect the perfume heralding her approach. . .

Opposite to where he was sitting, the habitue in the ulster was looking at him over his spectacles. This fat man looked perturbed. He disengaged his bulky form from the marble table, rose with difficulty, and came barging toward M. Chenouille, who also rose, somewhat astonished.

"Excuse me, sir," said the fat man, "but I am told that you were supplied with a blotting-book yesterday, and may I ask you whether you found in it a page I left there. It was the beginning of my forthcoming work, sir. Allow me to introduce myself: Leon Batracard, novelist. . . Please put on your hat, sir. I work here because 1 get little peace at home ... A wife with a most disturbing voice. . . Then you really have not found the sheet? How unfortunate! It was a letter which Armande wrote to Henry—soppy in sentiment and style . . . not a masterpiece by any means, I admit . . . but you see, sir, I can always get two cents a word."