without augmenting the casualties of that war zone of a table by slamming out halfway through the meal, I left. I bade Charles a brisk adieu and walked by myself beside the river until well past midnight, powerlessly on the boil. As I told Anette, my entertaining friend was out of favor now completely. I reckoned never to see him again, for it was not simple, after the fact, to forgive him this exposure to alien filial strife. I even in a wild moment suspected some joke at my expense.
However, my having ignored two notes and a subsequent attempted visit, he finally caught me up in the gardens of the Palais. There was an argument, at least on my side, but Charles was not to be fought with if he had no mind for it.
"I can only apologize," he said, in broken accents. "What more can I say?"
"Why in God's name did you make me a party to the bloody affair?"
"Well, frankly, my friend, because—though you'll find it hard to credit—he is kinder to us when there is some stranger present."
I fell silent at that, moodily staring away between the green groves of trees. Now and then, Anette and I had contrived a meeting here, and the gardens filled me always with a piercing sweet sadness that tended to override other emotions. I looked at Charles, who seemed genuinely contrite, and acknowledged there might be some logic in his statement. Although the idea of Monsieur Laurent un kind, if such was a version of his restraint, filled one with laughing horror.
So, if you will, ends the first act.
The second act commences with a scene or two going on offstage. There had been an improvement in my own fortunes, to wit, Anette's father deeming it necessary, in the way of business, to travel to England. This brought an unexpected luster to the summer. It also meant that I saw very little of Charles Laurent.
Then one morning, strolling through the covered market near the cathedral, I literally bumped into Semery and, after the usual exchanges, was invited to an apartment above a chandler's, on the left bank of the river.
Here is the area of the Montmoulin, the medieval hill of the windmill, the namesake of which is long since gone. One hears the place referred to frequently as being of a "picturesque, quaint squalor." Certainly, the poor do live here, and the fallen angels of the bourgeoisie perch in the garrets and studios above the twisting cobbled lanes. The smell of cabbage soup and the good coffee even the poverty-stricken sometimes manage to get hold of, hang in the air, along with the marvelous inexpressible smell of the scarlet geraniums that explode over balconies and on walls above narrow stairways, and against a sky tangled with washing and pigeons.
We got up into a suitable attic studio and found a table already laid with cheese and bread and fruit and wine, and a fawn cat at play with an apple. A very pretty girl came from behind a curtain. She ran to kiss Semery and, her arms still around him, turned to beam at me in just the way women in love so often do when another man comes on the scene. Even in her loose blouse, I could tell she was carrying a child. Little doubt of the father, though her hand was ringless. I remembered, with a fleeting embarrassment, Semery's supposed request for money from his brother, or Monsieur Laurent. Here might be the excuse.
There were pictures, naturally, everywhere—on the walls, on easels, stacked up, or even horizontal on the floor for the cat to sit on.
"Courage," said Semery, seeing me glance around, "I won't try to sell anything to you. Not at all." This in turn reflected Charles' avowal, on first inviting me to the gruesome dinner party, that they would not try to marry Honorine off to me. It was a little thing, but it made me conscious of some strange defensiveness inherent, and probably engendered in them by their disgusting father. "But," added Semery, "look, if you like." "Of course he will like," said the girl mischievously. "How nice the table is, Miou," said Semery. "Let's
However, my having ignored two notes and a subsequent attempted visit, he finally caught me up in the gardens of the Palais. There was an argument, at least on my side, but Charles was not to be fought with if he had no mind for it.
"I can only apologize," he said, in broken accents. "What more can I say?"
"Why in God's name did you make me a party to the bloody affair?"
"Well, frankly, my friend, because—though you'll find it hard to credit—he is kinder to us when there is some stranger present."
I fell silent at that, moodily staring away between the green groves of trees. Now and then, Anette and I had contrived a meeting here, and the gardens filled me always with a piercing sweet sadness that tended to override other emotions. I looked at Charles, who seemed genuinely contrite, and acknowledged there might be some logic in his statement. Although the idea of Monsieur Laurent un kind, if such was a version of his restraint, filled one with laughing horror.
So, if you will, ends the first act.
The second act commences with a scene or two going on offstage. There had been an improvement in my own fortunes, to wit, Anette's father deeming it necessary, in the way of business, to travel to England. This brought an unexpected luster to the summer. It also meant that I saw very little of Charles Laurent.
Then one morning, strolling through the covered market near the cathedral, I literally bumped into Semery and, after the usual exchanges, was invited to an apartment above a chandler's, on the left bank of the river.
Here is the area of the Montmoulin, the medieval hill of the windmill, the namesake of which is long since gone. One hears the place referred to frequently as being of a "picturesque, quaint squalor." Certainly, the poor do live here, and the fallen angels of the bourgeoisie perch in the garrets and studios above the twisting cobbled lanes. The smell of cabbage soup and the good coffee even the poverty-stricken sometimes manage to get hold of, hang in the air, along with the marvelous inexpressible smell of the scarlet geraniums that explode over balconies and on walls above narrow stairways, and against a sky tangled with washing and pigeons.
We got up into a suitable attic studio and found a table already laid with cheese and bread and fruit and wine, and a fawn cat at play with an apple. A very pretty girl came from behind a curtain. She ran to kiss Semery and, her arms still around him, turned to beam at me in just the way women in love so often do when another man comes on the scene. Even in her loose blouse, I could tell she was carrying a child. Little doubt of the father, though her hand was ringless. I remembered, with a fleeting embarrassment, Semery's supposed request for money from his brother, or Monsieur Laurent. Here might be the excuse.
There were pictures, naturally, everywhere—on the walls, on easels, stacked up, or even horizontal on the floor for the cat to sit on.
"Courage," said Semery, seeing me glance around, "I won't try to sell anything to you. Not at all." This in turn reflected Charles' avowal, on first inviting me to the gruesome dinner party, that they would not try to marry Honorine off to me. It was a little thing, but it made me conscious of some strange defensiveness inherent, and probably engendered in them by their disgusting father. "But," added Semery, "look, if you like." "Of course he will like," said the girl mischievously. "How nice the table is, Miou," said Semery. "Let's
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