The American Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  He wandered back to the divan and seated himself on the other side,in view of the great canvas on which Paul Veronese had depictedthe marriage-feast of Cana. Wearied as he was he found the pictureentertaining; it had an illusion for him; it satisfied his conception,which was ambitious, of what a splendid banquet should be. In theleft-hand corner of the picture is a young woman with yellow tressesconfined in a golden head-dress; she is bending forward and listening,with the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her neighbor.Newman detected her in the crowd, admired her, and perceived that shetoo had her votive copyist--a young man with his hair standing onend. Suddenly he became conscious of the germ of the mania of the“collector;” he had taken the first step; why should he not go on? Itwas only twenty minutes before that he had bought the first pictureof his life, and now he was already thinking of art-patronage as afascinating pursuit. His reflections quickened his good-humor, and hewas on the point of approaching the young man with another “_Combien?_” Two or three facts in this relation are noticeable, although the logicalchain which connects them may seem imperfect. He knew MademoiselleNioche had asked too much; he bore her no grudge for doing so, and hewas determined to pay the young man exactly the proper sum. At thismoment, however, his attention was attracted by a gentleman who had comefrom another part of the room and whose manner was that of a strangerto the gallery, although he was equipped with neither guide-book noropera-glass. He carried a white sun-umbrella, lined with blue silk, andhe strolled in front of the Paul Veronese, vaguely looking at it, butmuch too near to see anything but the grain of the canvas. Opposite toChristopher Newman he paused and turned, and then our friend, who hadbeen observing him, had a chance to verify a suspicion aroused by animperfect view of his face. The result of this larger scrutiny was thathe presently sprang to his feet, strode across the room, and, with anoutstretched hand, arrested the gentleman with the blue-lined umbrella.The latter stared, but put out his hand at a venture. He was corpulentand rosy, and though his countenance, which was ornamented with abeautiful flaxen beard, carefully divided in the middle and brushedoutward at the sides, was not remarkable for intensity of expression, helooked like a person who would willingly shake hands with anyone. I knownot what Newman thought of his face, but he found a want of response inhis grasp.

  “Oh, come, come,” he said, laughing; “don’t say, now, you don’t knowme--if I have _not_ got a white parasol!”

  The sound of his voice quickened the other’s memory, his face expandedto its fullest capacity, and he also broke into a laugh. “Why,Newman--I’ll be blowed! Where in the world--I declare--who would havethought? You know you have changed.”

  “You haven’t!” said Newman.

  “Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “I had no idea _you_ were here.”

  “I have been here these six years.”

  “It must be eight or nine since we met.”

  “Something of that sort. We were very young.”

  “It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army.”

  “Oh no, not I! But you were.”

  “I believe I was.”

  “You came out all right?”

  “I came out with my legs and arms--and with satisfaction. All that seemsvery far away.”

  “And how long have you been in Europe?”

  “Seventeen days.”

  “First time?”

  “Yes, very much so.”

  “Made your everlasting fortune?”

  Christopher Newman was silent a moment, and then with a tranquil smilehe answered, “Yes.”

  “And come to Paris to spend it, eh?”

  “Well, we shall see. So they carry those parasols here--the men-folk?”

  “Of course they do. They’re great things. They understand comfort outhere.”

  “Where do you buy them?”

  “Anywhere, everywhere.”

  “Well, Tristram, I’m glad to get hold of you. You can show me the ropes.I suppose you know Paris inside out.”

  Mr. Tristram gave a mellow smile of self-gratulation. “Well, I guessthere are not many men that can show me much. I’ll take care of you.”

  “It’s a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I have just bought apicture. You might have put the thing through for me.”

  “Bought a picture?” said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at thewalls. “Why, do they sell them?”

  “I mean a copy.”

  “Oh, I see. These,” said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians andVandykes, “these, I suppose, are originals.”

  “I hope so,” cried Newman. “I don’t want a copy of a copy.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, “you can never tell. Theyimitate, you know, so deucedly well. It’s like the jewellers, with theirfalse stones. Go into the Palais Royal, there; you see ‘Imitation’ onhalf the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you know; but youcan’t tell the things apart. To tell the truth,” Mr. Tristram continued,with a wry face, “I don’t do much in pictures. I leave that to my wife.”

  “Ah, you have got a wife?”

  “Didn’t I mention it? She’s a very nice woman; you must know her. She’sup there in the Avenue d’Iéna.”

  “So you are regularly fixed--house and children and all.”

  “Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters.”

  “Well,” said Christopher Newman, stretching his arms a little, with asigh, “I envy you.”

  “Oh no! you don’t!” answered Mr. Tristram, giving him a little poke withhis parasol.

  “I beg your pardon I do!”

  “Well, you won’t, then, when--when--”

  “You don’t certainly mean when I have seen your establishment?”

  “When you have seen Paris, my boy. You want to be your own master here.”

  “Oh, I have been my own master all my life, and I’m tired of it.”

  “Well, try Paris. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “_C’est le bel âge_, as they say here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that a man shouldn’t send away his plate till he has eaten hisfill.”

  “All that? I have just made arrangements to take French lessons.”

  “Oh, you don’t want any lessons. You’ll pick it up. I never took any.”

  “I suppose you speak French as well as English?”

  “Better!” said Mr. Tristram, roundly. “It’s a splendid language. You cansay all sorts of bright things in it.”

  “But I suppose,” said Christopher Newman, with an earnest desire forinformation, “that you must be bright to begin with.”

  “Not a bit; that’s just the beauty of it.”

  The two friends, as they exchanged these remarks, had remained standingwhere they met, and leaning against the rail which protected thepictures. Mr. Tristram at last declared that he was overcome withfatigue and should be happy to sit down. Newman recommended in thehighest terms the great divan on which he had been lounging, and theyprepared to seat themselves. “This is a great place; isn’t it?” saidNewman, with ardor.

  “Great place, great place. Finest thing in the world.” And then,suddenly, Mr. Tristram hesitated and looked about him. “I suppose theywon’t let you smoke here.”

  Newman stared. “Smoke? I’m sure I don’t know. You know the regulationsbetter than I.”

  “I? I never was here before!”

  “Never! in six years?”

  “I believe my wife dragged me here once when we first came to Paris, butI never found my way back.”

  “But you say you know Paris so well!”

  “I don’t call this Paris!” cried Mr. Tristram, with assurance. “Come;let’s go over to the Palais Royal and have a smoke.”

  “I don’t smoke,” said Newman.

  “A drink, then.”<
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  And Mr. Tristram led his companion away. They passed through theglorious halls of the Louvre, down the staircases, along the cool, dimgalleries of sculpture, and out into the enormous court. Newman lookedabout him as he went, but he made no comments, and it was only when theyat last emerged into the open air that he said to his friend, “It seemsto me that in your place I should have come here once a week.”

  “Oh, no you wouldn’t!” said Mr. Tristram. “You think so, but youwouldn’t. You wouldn’t have had time. You would always mean to go, butyou never would go. There’s better fun than that, here in Paris. Italy’sthe place to see pictures; wait till you get there. There you have togo; you can’t do anything else. It’s an awful country; you can’t get adecent cigar. I don’t know why I went in there, to-day; I was strollingalong, rather hard up for amusement. I sort of noticed the Louvre as Ipassed, and I thought I would go in and see what was going on. But if Ihadn’t found you there I should have felt rather sold. Hang it, I don’tcare for pictures; I prefer the reality!” And Mr. Tristram tossed offthis happy formula with an assurance which the numerous class of personssuffering from an overdose of “culture” might have envied him.

  The two gentlemen proceeded along the Rue de Rivoli and into thePalais Royal, where they seated themselves at one of the little tablesstationed at the door of the café which projects into the great openquadrangle. The place was filled with people, the fountains werespouting, a band was playing, clusters of chairs were gathered beneathall the lime-trees, and buxom, white-capped nurses, seated along thebenches, were offering to their infant charges the amplest facilitiesfor nutrition. There was an easy, homely gaiety in the whole scene, andChristopher Newman felt that it was most characteristically Parisian.

  “And now,” began Mr. Tristram, when they had tested the decoctionwhich he had caused to be served to them, “now just give an account ofyourself. What are your ideas, what are your plans, where have youcome from and where are you going? In the first place, where are youstaying?”

  “At the Grand Hotel,” said Newman.

  Mr. Tristram puckered his plump visage. “That won’t do! You mustchange.”

  “Change?” demanded Newman. “Why, it’s the finest hotel I ever was in.”

  “You don’t want a ‘fine’ hotel; you want something small and quietand elegant, where your bell is answered and you--your person isrecognized.”

  “They keep running to see if I have rung before I have touched thebell,” said Newman “and as for my person they are always bowing andscraping to it.”

  “I suppose you are always tipping them. That’s very bad style.”

  “Always? By no means. A man brought me something yesterday, and thenstood loafing in a beggarly manner. I offered him a chair and asked himif he wouldn’t sit down. Was that bad style?”

  “Very!”

  “But he bolted, instantly. At any rate, the place amuses me. Hang yourelegance, if it bores me. I sat in the court of the Grand Hotel lastnight until two o’clock in the morning, watching the coming and going,and the people knocking about.”

  “You’re easily pleased. But you can do as you choose--a man in yourshoes. You have made a pile of money, eh?”

  “I have made enough.”

  “Happy the man who can say that? Enough for what?”

  “Enough to rest awhile, to forget the confounded thing, to look aboutme, to see the world, to have a good time, to improve my mind, and,if the fancy takes me, to marry a wife.” Newman spoke slowly, witha certain dryness of accent and with frequent pauses. This was hishabitual mode of utterance, but it was especially marked in the words Ihave just quoted.

  “Jupiter! There’s a programme!” cried Mr. Tristram. “Certainly, all thattakes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she gives it, as minedid. And what’s the story? How have you done it?”

  Newman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms, andstretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at thebustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies.“I have worked!” he answered at last.

  Tristram looked at him for some moments, and allowed his placid eyes tomeasure his friend’s generous longitude and rest upon his comfortablycontemplative face. “What have you worked at?” he asked.

  “Oh, at several things.”

  “I suppose you’re a smart fellow, eh?”

  Newman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted to thescene a kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. “Yes,” he said at last,“I suppose I am.” And then, in answer to his companion’s inquiries,he related briefly his history since their last meeting. It was anintensely Western story, and it dealt with enterprises which it will beneedless to introduce to the reader in detail. Newman had come outof the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in thiscase--without invidious comparisons--had lighted upon shoulders amplycompetent to bear it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was,Newman heartily disliked the business; his four years in the armyhad left him with an angry, bitter sense of the waste of preciousthings--life and time and money and “smartness” and the early freshnessof purpose; and he had addressed himself to the pursuits of peacewith passionate zest and energy. He was of course as penniless when heplucked off his shoulder-straps as when he put them on, and the onlycapital at his disposal was his dogged resolution and his livelyperception of ends and means. Exertion and action were as natural tohim as respiration a more completely healthy mortal had never trod theelastic soil of the West. His experience, moreover, was as wide as hiscapacity; when he was fourteen years old, necessity had taken him byhis slim young shoulders and pushed him into the street, to earn thatnight’s supper. He had not earned it but he had earned the next night’s,and afterwards, whenever he had had none, it was because he had gonewithout it to use the money for something else, a keener pleasure ora finer profit. He had turned his hand, with his brain in it, to manythings; he had been enterprising, in an eminent sense of the term; hehad been adventurous and even reckless, and he had known bitter failureas well as brilliant success; but he was a born experimentalist, and hehad always found something to enjoy in the pressure of necessity, evenwhen it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the mediæval monk.At one time failure seemed inexorably his portion ill-luck becamehis bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, butto ashes. His most vivid conception of a supernatural element in theworld’s affairs had come to him once when this pertinacity of misfortunewas at its climax; there seemed to him something stronger in life thanhis own will. But the mysterious something could only be the devil,and he was accordingly seized with an intense personal enmity to thisimpertinent force. He had known what it was to have utterly exhaustedhis credit, to be unable to raise a dollar, and to find himselfat nightfall in a strange city, without a penny to mitigate itsstrangeness. It was under these circumstances that he made his entranceinto San Francisco, the scene, subsequently, of his happiest strokes offortune. If he did not, like Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march alongthe street munching a penny-loaf, it was only because he had not thepenny-loaf necessary to the performance. In his darkest days he had hadbut one simple, practical impulse--the desire, as he would have phrasedit, to see the thing through. He did so at last, buffeted his way intosmooth waters, and made money largely. It must be admitted, rathernakedly, that Christopher Newman’s sole aim in life had been tomake money; what he had been placed in the world for was, to his ownperception, simply to wrest a fortune, the bigger the better, fromdefiant opportunity. This idea completely filled his horizon andsatisfied his imagination. Upon the uses of money, upon what one mightdo with a life into which one had succeeded in injecting the goldenstream, he had up to his thirty-fifth year very scantily reflected. Lifehad been for him an open game, and he had played for high stakes. He hadwon at last and carried off his winnings; and now what was he to do withthem? He was a man to whom, sooner or later, the question was sure topresent itself, and the answer to it belongs to our story
. A vague sensethat more answers were possible than his philosophy had hithertodreamt of had already taken possession of him, and it seemed softly andagreeably to deepen as he lounged in this brilliant corner of Paris withhis friend.

  “I must confess,” he presently went on, “that here I don’t feel atall smart. My remarkable talents seem of no use. I feel as simple as alittle child, and a little child might take me by the hand and lead meabout.”

  “Oh, I’ll be your little child,” said Tristram, jovially; “I’ll take youby the hand. Trust yourself to me.”

  “I am a good worker,” Newman continued, “but I rather think I am a poorloafer. I have come abroad to amuse myself, but I doubt whether I knowhow.”

  “Oh, that’s easily learned.”

  “Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I am afraid I shall never do it byrote. I have the best will in the world about it, but my genius doesn’tlie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never be original, as I takeit that you are.”

  “Yes,” said Tristram, “I suppose I am original; like all those immoralpictures in the Louvre.”

  “Besides,” Newman continued, “I don’t want to work at pleasure, anymore than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I feel deliciouslylazy, and I should like to spend six months as I am now, sitting undera tree and listening to a band. There’s only one thing; I want to hearsome good music.”

  “Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what my wifecalls intellectual. I ain’t, a bit. But we can find something better foryou to do than to sit under a tree. To begin with, you must come to theclub.”

  “What club?”

  “The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the best ofthem, at least. Of course you play poker?”

  “Oh, I say,” cried Newman, with energy, “you are not going to lock me upin a club and stick me down at a card-table! I haven’t come all this wayfor that.”

  “What the deuce _have_ you come for! You were glad enough to play pokerin St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out.”

  “I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I want tosee all the great things, and do what the clever people do.”

  “The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a blockhead, then?”

  Newman was sitting sidewise in his chair, with his elbow on the back andhis head leaning on his hand. Without moving he looked a while at hiscompanion with his dry, guarded, half-inscrutable, and yet altogethergood-natured smile. “Introduce me to your wife!” he said at last.

  Tristram bounced about in his chair. “Upon my word, I won’t. She doesn’twant any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you, either!”

  “I don’t turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at anyone, oranything. I’m not proud, I assure you I’m not proud. That’s why I amwilling to take example by the clever people.”

  “Well, if I’m not the rose, as they say here, I have lived near it. Ican show you some clever people, too. Do you know General Packard? Doyou know C. P. Hatch? Do you know Miss Kitty Upjohn?”

  “I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to cultivatesociety.”

  Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend askance, andthen, “What are you up to, anyway?” he demanded. “Are you going to writea book?”

  Christopher Newman twisted one end of his moustache a while, in silence,and at last he made answer. “One day, a couple of months ago, somethingvery curious happened to me. I had come on to New York on some importantbusiness; it was rather a long story--a question of getting ahead ofanother party, in a certain particular way, in the stock-market. Thisother party had once played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, Ifelt awfully savage at the time, and I vowed that, when I got a chance,I would, figuratively speaking, put his nose out of joint. There was amatter of some sixty thousand dollars at stake. If I put it out of hisway, it was a blow the fellow would feel, and he really deserved noquarter. I jumped into a hack and went about my business, and it wasin this hack--this immortal, historical hack--that the curious thing Ispeak of occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle dirtier,with a greasy line along the top of the drab cushions, as if it had beenused for a great many Irish funerals. It is possible I took a nap; Ihad been traveling all night, and though I was excited with my errand,I felt the want of sleep. At all events I woke up suddenly, from a sleepor from a kind of a reverie, with the most extraordinary feeling in theworld--a mortal disgust for the thing I was going to do. It came upon melike _that!_” and he snapped his fingers--“as abruptly as an old woundthat begins to ache. I couldn’t tell the meaning of it; I only felt thatI loathed the whole business and wanted to wash my hands of it. The ideaof losing that sixty thousand dollars, of letting it utterly slide andscuttle and never hearing of it again, seemed the sweetest thing in theworld. And all this took place quite independently of my will, and I satwatching it as if it were a play at the theatre. I could feel it goingon inside of me. You may depend upon it that there are things going oninside of us that we understand mighty little about.”

  “Jupiter! you make my flesh creep!” cried Tristram. “And while you satin your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the other man marchedin and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?”

  “I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never foundout. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street,but I sat still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled downoff his seat to see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse.I couldn’t have got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What wasthe matter with me? Momentary idiocy, you’ll say. What I wanted to getout of was Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklynferry and to cross over. When we were over, I told him to drive me outinto the country. As I had told him originally to drive for dear lifedown town, I suppose he thought me insane. Perhaps I was, but in thatcase I am insane still. I spent the morning looking at the first greenleaves on Long Island. I was sick of business; I wanted to throw it allup and break off short; I had money enough, or if I hadn’t I ought tohave. I seemed to feel a new man inside my old skin, and I longed fora new world. When you want a thing so very badly you had better treatyourself to it. I didn’t understand the matter, not in the least; butI gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his way. As soon as Icould get out of the game I sailed for Europe. That is how I come to besitting here.”

  “You ought to have bought up that hack,” said Tristram; “it isn’t asafe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold out, then; you haveretired from business?”

  “I have made over my hand to a friend; when I feel disposed, I can takeup the cards again. I dare say that a twelvemonth hence the operationwill be reversed. The pendulum will swing back again. I shall be sittingin a gondola or on a dromedary, and all of a sudden I shall wantto clear out. But for the present I am perfectly free. I have evenbargained that I am to receive no business letters.”

  “Oh, it’s a real _caprice de prince_,” said Tristram. “I back out; apoor devil like me can’t help you to spend such very magnificent leisureas that. You should get introduced to the crowned heads.”

  Newman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile, “How doesone do it?” he asked.

  “Come, I like that!” cried Tristram. “It shows you are in earnest.”

  “Of course I am in earnest. Didn’t I say I wanted the best? I know thebest can’t be had for mere money, but I rather think money will do agood deal. In addition, I am willing to take a good deal of trouble.”

  “You are not bashful, eh?”

  “I haven’t the least idea. I want the biggest kind of entertainment aman can get. People, places, art, nature, everything! I want to see thetallest mountains, and the bluest lakes, and the finest pictures and thehandsomest churches, and the most celebrated men, and the most beautifulwomen.”

  “Settle down in Paris, then. There are no mountains that I know of, andthe only lake is in the Bois du Boulogne, and not
particularly blue.But there is everything else: plenty of pictures and churches, no end ofcelebrated men, and several beautiful women.”

  “But I can’t settle down in Paris at this season, just as summer iscoming on.”

  “Oh, for the summer go up to Trouville.”

  “What is Trouville?”

  “The French Newport. Half the Americans go.”

  “Is it anywhere near the Alps?”

  “About as near as Newport is to the Rocky Mountains.”

  “Oh, I want to see Mont Blanc,” said Newman, “and Amsterdam, and theRhine, and a lot of places. Venice in particular. I have great ideasabout Venice.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Tristram, rising, “I see I shall have to introduce you tomy wife!”