It is presumably safe to take it for granted that you are located in the neighbourhood of the Louvre, on the north side of the river which is so unimportant a factor to Paris. For all good Englishmen have been, or hope in the near future to be, located near this spot. All good Americans, we are told, relegate6 the sojourn7 to a more distant future.
The bridge to cross is that of the Holy Fathers. So called to-day. Once upon a time—but no matter. Bridges are peculiarly liable to change in troubled times. The Rue St. Gingolphe is situated8 between the Boulevard St. Germain and Quai Voltaire. One hears with equal facility the low-toned boom of the steamers' whistle upon the river, and the crack of whips in the boulevard. Once across the bridge, turn to the right, and go along the Quay9, between the lime-trees and the bookstalls. You will probably go slowly because of the bookstalls. No one worth talking to could help doing so. Then turn to the left, and after a few paces you will find upon your right hand the Rue St. Gingolphe. It is noted10 in the Directory “Botot” that this street is one hundred and forty-five mètres long; and who would care to contradict “Botot,” or even to throw the faintest shadow of a doubt upon his statement? He has probably measured.
If your fair and economical spouse11 should think of repairing to the Bon-Marché to secure some of those wonderful linen12 pillow-cases (at one franc forty) with your august initial embroidered13 on the centre with a view of impressing the sleeper's cheek, she will pass the end of the Rue St. Gingolphe on her way—provided the cabman be honest. There! You cannot help finding it now.
The street itself is a typical Parisian street of one hundred and forty-five mètres. There is room for a baker's, a café, a bootmaker's, and a tobacconist who sells very few stamps. The Parisians do not write many letters. They say they have not time. But the tobacconist makes up for the meanness of his contribution to the inland revenue of one department by a generous aid to the other. He sells a vast number of cigarettes and cigars of the very worst quality. And it is upon the worst quality that the Government makes the largest profit. It is in every sense of the word a weed which grows as lustily as any of its compeers in and around Oran, Algiers, and Bonah.
The Rue St. Gingolphe is within a stone's-throw of the école des Beaux-Arts, and in the very centre of a remarkably14 cheap and yet respectable quarter. Thus there are many young men occupying apartments in close proximity—and young men do not mind much what they smoke, especially provincial15 young men living in Paris. They feel it incumbent16 upon them to be constantly smoking something—just to show that they are Parisians, true sons of the pavement, knowing how to live. And their brightest hopes are in all truth realised, because theirs is certainly a reckless life, flavoured as it is with “number one” tobacco, and those “little corporal” cigarettes which are enveloped17 in the blue paper.
The tobacconist's shop is singularly convenient. It has, namely, an entrance at the back, as well as that giving on to the street of St. Gingolphe. This entrance is through a little courtyard, in which is the stable and coach-house combined, where Madame Perinère, a lady who paints the magic word “Modes” beneath her name on the door-post of number seventeen, keeps the dapper little cart and pony18 which carry her bonnets19 to the farthest corner of Paris.
The tobacconist is a large man, much given to perspiration20. In fact, one may safely make the statement that he perspires21 annually22 from the middle of April to the second or even third week in October. In consequence of this habit he wears no collar, and a man without a collar does not start fairly on the social race. It is always best to make inquiries23 before condemning24 a man who wears no collar. There is probably a very good reason, as in the case of Mr. Jacquetot, but it is to be feared that few pause to seek it. One need not seek the reason with much assiduity in this instance, because the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe is always prepared to explain it at length. French people are thus. They talk of things, and take pleasure in so doing, which we, on this side of the Channel, treat with a larger discretion25.
Mr. Jacquetot does not even wear a collar on Sunday, for the simple reason that Sunday is to him as other days. He attends no place of worship, because he acknowledges but one god—the god of most Frenchmen—his inner man. His pleasures are gastronomical26, his sorrows stomachic. The little shop is open early and late, Sundays, week-days, and holidays. Moreover, the tobacconist—Mr. Jacquetot himself—is always at his post, on the high chair behind the counter, near the window, where he can see into the street. This constant attention to business is almost phenomenal, because Frenchmen who worship the god of Mr. Jacquetot love to pay tribute on fête-days at one of the little restaurants on the Place at Versailles, at Duval's, or even in the Palais Royal. Mr. Jacquetot would have loved nothing better than a pilgrimage to any one of these shrines27, but he was tied to the little tobacco store. Not by the chains of commerce. Oh, no! When rallied by his neighbours for such an unenterprising love of his own hearth28, he merely shrugged29 his heavy shoulders.
“What will you?” he would say; “one has one's affairs.”
Now the affairs of Mr. Jacquetot were, in the days with which we have to do, like many things on this earth, inasmuch as they were not what they seemed.
It would be inexpedient, for reasons closely connected with the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe, as well as with other gentlemen still happily with us in the flesh, to be too exact as to dates. Suffice it, therefore, to say that it was only a few years ago that Mr. Jacquetot sat one evening as usual in his little shop. It happened to be a Tuesday evening, which is fortunate, because it was on Tuesdays and Saturdays that the little barber from round the corner called and shaved the vast cheeks of the tobacconist. Mr. Jacquetot was therefore quite presentable—doubly so, indeed, because it was yet March, and he had not yet entered upon his summer season.
The little street was very quiet. There was no through traffic, and folks living in this quarter of Paris usually carry their own parcels. It was thus quite easy to note the approach of any passenger, when such had once turned the corner. Some one was approaching now, and Mr. Jacquetot threw away the stump32 of a cheap cigar. One would almost have said that he recognised the step at a considerable distance. Young people are in the habit of considering that when one gets old and stout33 one loses in intelligence; but this is not always the case. One is apt to expect little from a fat man; but that is often a mistake. Mr. Jacquetot weighed seventeen stone, but he was eminently34 intelligent. He had recognised the footstep while it was yet seventy mètres away.
In a few moments a gentleman of middle height paused in front of the shop, noted that it was a tobacconist's, and entered, carrying an unstamped letter with some ostentation35. It must, by the way, be remembered that in France postage-stamps are to be bought at all tobacconists'.
The new-comer's actions were characterised by a certain carelessness, as if he were going through a formula—perfunctorily—without admitting its necessity.
He nodded to Mr. Jacquetot, and rather a pleasant smile flickered36 for a moment across his face. He was a singularly well-made man, of medium height, with straight, square shoulders and small limbs. He wore spectacles, and as he looked at one straight in the face there was a singular contraction37 of the eyes which hardly amounted to a cast—moreover, it was momentary38. It was precisely39 the look of a hawk40 when its hood5 is suddenly removed in full daylight. This resemblance was furthered by the fact that the man's profile was birdlike. He was clean-shaven, and there was in his sleek41 head and determined42 little face that smooth, compact self-complacency which is to be noted in the head of a hawk.
The face was small, like that of a Greek bust43, but in expression it suggested a yet older people. There was that mystic depth of expression which comes from ancient Egypt. No one feature was obtrusive—all were chiselled44 with equal delicacy45; and yet there was only one point of real beauty in the entire countenance46. The mouth was perfect. But the man with a perfect mouth is usually one whom it will be found expedient31 to avoid. Without a certain allowance of sensuality no man is genial—without a little weakness there is no kind heart. This Frenchman's mouth was not, however, obtrusively47 faultless. It was perfect in its design, but, somehow, many people failed to take note of the fact. It is so with the “many,” one finds. The human world is so blind that at times it would be almost excusable to harbour the suspicion that animals see more. There may be something in that instinct by which dogs, horses, and cats distinguish between friends and foes48, detect sympathy, discover antipathy49. It is possible that they see things in the human face to which our eyes are blinded—intentionally and mercifully blinded. If some of us were a little more observant, a few of the human combinations which we bring about might perhaps be less egregiously51 mistaken.
It was probably the form of the lips that lent pleasantness to the smile with which Mr. Jacquetot was greeted, rather than the expression of the velvety52 eyes, which had in reality no power of smiling at all. They were sad eyes, like those of the women one sees on the banks of the Upper Nile, which never alter in expression—eyes that do not seem to be busy with this life at all, but fully50 occupied with something else: something beyond to-morrow or behind yesterday.
“Not yet arrived?” inquired the new-comer in a voice of some distinction. It was a full, rich voice, and the French it spoke53 was not the French of Mr. Jacquetot, nor, indeed, of the Rue St. Gingolphe. It was the language one sometimes hears in an old chateau54 lost in the depths of the country—the vast unexplored rural districts of France—where the bearers of dangerously historical names live out their lives with a singular suppression and patience. They are either biding55 their time or else they are content with the past and the part played by their ancestors therein. For there is an old French and a new. In Paris the new is spoken—the very newest. Were it anything but French it would be intolerably vulgar; as it is, it is merely neat and intensely expressive56.
“Not yet arrived, sir,” said the tobacconist, and then he seemed to recollect57 himself, for he repeated:
“Not yet arrived,” without the respectful addition which had slipped out by accident.
The new arrival took out his watch—a small one of beautiful workmanship, the watch of a lady—and consulted it. His movements were compact and rapid. He would have made a splendid light-weight boxer58.
“That,” he said shortly, “is the way they fail. They do not understand the necessity of exactitude. The people—see you, Mr. Jacquetot, they fail because they have no exactitude.”
“But I am of the people,” moving ponderously59 on his chair.
“Essentially so. I know it, my friend. But I have taught you something.”
The tobacconist laughed.
“I suppose so. But is it safe to stand there in the full day? Will you not pass in? The room is ready; the lamp is lighted. There is an agent of the police always at the end of the street now.”
“Ah, bah!” and he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “I am not afraid of them. There is only one thing to be feared, Citizen Jacquetot—the press. The press and the people, bien entendu.”
“In default of better, my friend. If one has not steam one uses the river to turn the mill-wheel. The river is slow; sometimes it is too weak, sometimes too strong. One never has full control over it, but it turns the wheel—it turns the wheel, brother Jacquetot.”
“And eventually sweeps away the miller61,” suggested the tobacconist lightly. It must be remembered that though stout he was intelligent. Had he not been so it is probable that this conversation would never have taken place. The dark-eyed man did not look like one who would have the patience to deal with stupid people.
Again the pleasant smile flickered like the light of a fire in a dark place.
“That,” was the reply, “is the affair of the miller.”
“But,” conceded Jacquetot, meditatively62 selecting a new cigar from a box which he had reached without moving from his chair, “but the people—they are fools, hein!”
Then he passed through into a little room behind the shop—a little room where no daylight penetrated65, because there was no window to it. It depended for daylight upon the shop, with which it communicated by a door of which the upper half was glass. But this glass was thickly curtained with the material called Turkey-red, threefold.
And the tobacconist was left alone in his shop, smoking gravely. There are some people like oysters66, inasmuch as they leave an after-taste behind them. The man who had just gone into the little room at the rear of the tobacconist's shop of the Rue St. Gingolphe in Paris was one of these. And the taste he left behind him was rather disquieting67. One was apt to feel that there was a mistake somewhere in the ordering of human affairs, and that this man was one of its victims.
In a few minutes two men passed hastily through the shop into the little room, with scarcely so much as a nod for Mr. Jacquetot.
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1
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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morbidly
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| adv.病态地 | |
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obliterating
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| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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relegate
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| v.使降级，流放，移交，委任 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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13
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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perspires
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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24
condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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gastronomical
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| adj.美食法的，美食学的 | |
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shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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29
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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ostentation
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| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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chiselled
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| adj.凿过的，凿光的； （文章等）精心雕琢的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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45
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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46
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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obtrusively
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| adv.冒失地，莽撞地 | |
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48
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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49
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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50
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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51
egregiously
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| adv.过份地，卓越地 | |
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52
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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53
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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54
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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55
biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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58
boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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ponderously
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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61
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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platitude
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| n.老生常谈，陈词滥调 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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66
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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