The Dynamiter's Sweetheart.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2020, 2 November 1894, Page 3

The Dynamiter's Sweetheart.

o By Grant Allen.

" The only thing known about her with certainty,*'said the papers next morning, "is that the wretched woman was an associate of the man Laminski, who is believed to have been the real author of this atrocious outrage. She lodged in the same house with him in the Boulevard St Michel; she worked at the same studio; the relations between them are described as most cordial; and it is even said that she was engaged to be married to him. By this fortunate disaster society is well rid " —but, there, you know the way the papers talx about these things, and how very little reason there is, as a rule, in all they say of them.

Let me tell yon the true story of that sweet little American woman. She was small and slight; one of those dainty, delicate,mignonne New England jrirls, with shell-like ears and transparent complexions, who look as if they were made of the finest procelain, yet spring Heaven knows how, out of rough upland farm houses. It was in her native Vermont tbat the hunger of art first came upon Essie Lothrop. You mun know America to know just how it came, seizing her by the throat, as it were, one day, among the cows and the apple-harvest, at sight of some early Italian pictures engraved in a magazine. From her childhood upward, to be sure, Essie had drawn pictures for her own delight with a plain lead pencil: drawn the ducks, and the lambs, and the wild orange-lilies that ran riot in the woods; drawn them instinctively, without teaching of any sort, for pure, pure love of them. But these early Italian pictures, then seen for the first time, crossing her simple horizon on the hills of Vermont, roused a fresh fierce thrill in that eager little breast of hers. She had heard of art, from a distance, as a thing glorious and beautiful, which sprang far from New England. Now, those four or five wood-cuts in the magazine suggested to her mind unknown possibilities of artistic beauty. She said to "herself at orce, " I mus» Know these things. I must see them with my eyes. I must live my life among them." From that day forth it became a fixed idea with Essie Lothrcp that she should go to Paris and study painting. Where Paris was, what Paris could do for her, she only guessed from the meagre details in her common school geography. But with American intuition she was somehow dimly aware that if you wanted an artistic education, Paris was the one right place to go for it. •' Paris !" her father cried, when she spoke of it first to him, in tbe field behind the barn; "why, Essie, do tell ! That's whar folks are alius geuin' up rerolootions, ain't it ? An' I guess them furriners is most all Papishes."

"But it's the place to study art, father," Essie cried with her big eyes open. " And I mean to study art, if I have to die for it."

She didn't know how prophetic a word she had spoken. Thenceforth, however, life meant but one thing to Essie Lothrop. She lived in order to work for the money which would take her to study art in Paris. She was sixteen when that revelation came upon her ; she was twenty when she tound herself, slona and a stranger, in the streets of the wicked, unheeding city. Not that she thought it wicked. Essie was too innocent to have any fears in committing herself to the unknown world of Paris. With true American guilelessne9S, she considered it perfectly natural that a girl of twenty should hire a room for herself, au cii;quieme; in the Boulevard St. Michel, and should present herself as a student at Valentiu's studio. she had learned a little Erench bsforehand in her remote New England home ; learned it direct from a hook, with just a hint or two as to pronunciation from an older and wiser companion ; but she had so much of that strange natural tact which Heaven has been pleased to bestow on New England girls, that shft spoke tolerably well even at the very first outset, and quickly picked up a fair Parisian accent iu the course of a week or two. Sometimes these frail and transparent - looking Yankee girls have mind enough to do anything they choose to undertake, and certainly Essie Lothrop spoke French at the end of three months with a fluency and purity that would have made most Englishmen stare with astonishment.

There was joy at Valentin's the first morning when Essie made her appearance. Slight, smiling, demure, with her American ease and her American frankness, eho took the fancy of all the male students at once.

"She ia good," they said, "the little oae !" When she dropped her brush, it was Stanislas Laminski who picked it up and handed it back to her. She accepted it with a smile, the perfectly-sourteous and good-humored smile of the girl who had come fresh from her Vermont fields to that great teeming Paris, who knew no middle term between her native village and the Boulevard St. ilichtl. She thought no evil. To her these men were just fellowstudents, as the Vermont boys had been in the common-school of her township. She took their obtrusive politeness as her naiural due, never dreaming Jean and Alphonse could mean anything more by it than Joe and Pete would have meant in her upland hamlet. " Is she droll, the little one?" the men students said at first,when she gravely allowed them to carry her things back for her te her room au cinquieme, and even invited them in with smiling grace to share her onp of tea —those noisy youths, who lived upon nothing but cigarettes and absinthe. They looked at one another shamefacedly, and stifled their smiles; then they answered; •• Merci mademoiselle, we do not drink tea. But we thank you from the heart for your amiable hospitality," They bowed and withdrew, Laminski last of all, with a side glance over his shoulder. Then, when ;they reached the bottom of the rive nights of stairs, they burst out laughing simultaneously. But it was a deprecatory laugh. "Is she innocent, the American? She asked us to tea ! Hein, Jules, my boy ! hein, Alphonse ! that was a rich one, wasn't it!"

Bat Lamineki lingered behind, and looked up at her window. As for Essie, she sat down, not one atom abashed, to think oyer her first day's adventures in the studio. An English girl under the circumstances would have been terribly oppressed by a vague sense of loneliness. But Essie was not. It is the genius of her countrywomen. She sat down and smiled to herself at her day's work, contentedly. What nice, friendly young men they had all been, to be sure, and how polite they had seemed to her! And Valentin himself had looked approvingly at her first essay, and had muttered to himself, " She will do, the little one." How delicious co be really in Paris, where men and women learn art, and to feel yourself in touch with all those great masters in the Louvre and the Luxembourg! Essie was quite at home at once, as she brewed her tea, and drank it by herself in her room au cinquieme. Only, she was half sorry to be quite alone that first afternoon ; what a pity those good-looking, nioe-mannered young men hadn't really dropped in to share a friendly cup with her? Next morning she was back at the studio early, neat and demure as ever, her golden hair wound up in the most artistic coil with charming freedom, and her sweet child's face beaming innocent welcome to the men as tbey entered. The girls looked more coldly at. her, and gave her a stiff bow; but only that second day. Before a week was out they understood "the American," and vaguely felt that though her code of proprieties was quite other than their ownshe came without a chaperon—yet she was entirely oomme il faut, and a dear little thing into the bargain also. They never interfered with her; they let her oome and go, recognising the fact that, after all, Americans were Americans, and " que voulez vous, ma ohete ? C'est comme ca la-baa, allez !" Valentin approved of her. "That child will go fax," ha said sometimes confidentially, to Stanislas Laminski. " She has talent, do yon see P Talent! bah, she has genius. She has learnt nothing, of course, but she will learn; she ii plastic.

There's more originality in that child's little finger than in all tbat fat Kerouao's Breton body. Ah, yes, she will go far, if yon ethers leave her alone. She is innocent, the little one; respect her innocence." Laminski sat next her and painted by her side. He did bis best to help her. Often he pointed ont to her wehn things she did were technically wrong; set her right in her drawing, corrected her first crude ideas of oolor. Essie, living for art, put her head on one side and drank it all in eagerly. She was docile like a child; she saw these men knew more about it than she did, and she was anxious to ptofit as far as possible by their instruction. Laminski liked her; she was so small and so pretty. Like a dainty little flower, Laminski thought to himself. With an artist's eye, with a poet's heart, how could he help admiring her ? One afternoon he walked homo with her, and carried her things for her. At the top of the stairs, she turned and took them from him, smiling. " Will you come iu and rest awhile, monsieur?' she asked, with her innocent frankness. Laminski hesitated. The others were not by. After all, what harm! Why not accept that innocent invitation in the spirit in which she gave it ? He stammered out a vague acquiescence. Essie flung open the door and preceded him, iuto the room. It was a bedroom of the common Parisian Jack of-all-trades sort, with the bed huddled away into a niche in the background, and the rest of the apartments furnished like a salon. Essie waved him to the sofa, He seated himself on it, gingerly very close to the edge, as if half afraid of making hiinself too comfortable. Essie noticed it and laughed. " But why so ?" she asked, merrily. Then her eye fell on an envelope on the" table close by. "Ah ! a letter from Dicky !" she cried, and took it up and opened it. "And who is Dioky ?" Laminski asked, gazing hard at her, inquiringly. "My brother," Essie answered, devouring the letter. "He tells me all about our farm, and my father, and the chickens." The young man leaned back snd watched her respectfully with a stifled smile, till she had finished reading it. She went through with it unaffectedly to the end and then laid it down, glowing. Laminski was charmed at so much natural simplicity. "Dicky tells me all about our pets at the farm," she said, simply; and to Laminski the mere mention of the farm was delicious in its naivete. "He tells me about my ducks and how our neighbor has broken his arm, and that Biddy, the servant," (at home she would have said " the hired girl") •• is engaged to be married." Then she felt amused herself, to observe how formal all these domestic details of Vermont society sounded, even in her own ears, when one made French prose of them. But to Laminski, they were stiil stray breaths of Arcadia.

"I suppose you Russians can hardly understand what America's like," she added after a pause, ju9t to keep conversation rolling ; "but we Americans love it."

Laminski started back like one stung " Mademoiselle!" he cried, angrily. " What have I done.' " Essie asked, drawing away in surprise. "What have I said ? Why do you start? Surely we Americans can love America?"

"Alahontu heure .'" he answered, gazing hard at her in a strange way. " But why treat me like this? Why call me a Russian?" "I thought you were one, from your name," Essie replied, taken aback. " Isn't Laminski Russian ?"

" Thank Heaven, no," the dark young man answered, with a fierce flash of the eyes. " I'm a Pole, mademoiselle, and, liko all good Poles, I hate and detest Russia. Call me a Chinaman, if you will, a negro, a monkey; but not a Russian."

"But isn't the Czar your Emperor, too?" Essie inquired, innocently. She was too unversed in European affairs to understand that a Pole could differ from a Russian otherwise than as a Californian differs from a New Englander. Laminski suppressed an oath. Then he went on to explain to her in brief but sufficiently vigorous terms the actual state of feeling between Poles and Russians. Essie listened with the intent interest of the intelligent American ; for, as a rule, with the average Yankee, you may feel pretty sure of rinding that he is absolutely ignorant of any piece of information you may desire to impart to him, but eagerly anxious to know all about it. A ereat desire to learn and capacity for learning co-exist with an astounding want of information and culture. " Then you are a Catholic '.'" Essie said, at last, after listening to his explanation with profound interest. The young man gazed at her with an expression of amused surprise. " 1 am of whatever religion mademoiselle prefers,'' he answered, courteously—" except only the religion of the accursed Russians." "I don't understand you," Essie said, much puzzled. Suoh easy-going gallantry was remote, indeed, from the sober, God fearing New England model. Laminski smiled again. "Well, we advanced politicians in Europe," he said, twirling his black moustache, "don't, as a rule, belong to any religion in particular—unlesi it be the religion of the ladies who interest ..a »

" Oh, how very sad," Essie replied, looking hard at,him, pityingly. "But perhaps you may sec clearer in time." " Perhaps," Laminski answered, with a curious puckering of the corners of his mouth. " Though 1 hardly expect it." " Will you take some tea ?" Essie asked, just to relieve the tension. For the first time in her life she was dimly aware of that barrier of sex which she had never felt with the young men in Vermont. But these European men are so strance and so different ! They always make you remember, somehow, that they are men and that you are a woman." "Thank you,'* he replied; "mademoiselle ir very good." And he sat looking on while Essie prepared it. When it was ready he tasted it. He had drunk tea in quantities when he was a boy near Warsaw, but never since the first day he came to Paris. " How innocent it is !" he exclaimed, as he tasted it. And Essie stared again, not knowing what to make of him.

From that day forth, it was the gossip of the atelier that Laminski had his eyes upor the little American. He walked home with her daily; he took her to cafes more reputable than was his wont; he escorted her on Sundays to the Louvre and to Cluny. The other girl-students gave her dark hints at times, which Essie did not understand, of some mysterious danger which they seemed to think lay in intercourse with Laminski, or for the matter of that, with any of the other men who frequented the studio. But the dark hints glided unnoticed past Essie. Clad in her triple mail of New England innocence, she never even guessed what the hinters were driving at. These men were gentlemen (as Essie understood the word), students of art like herself; and why should a self-respecting girl be afraid or ashamed of accepting their kind escort to the cafe or the theatre ? She walked unharmed through the midst of that strange, unconventional Bohemian Paris, as unconventional as itself, by dint of pure innate goodness and simplicity. The strangest part of it all was that the men themselves were silenced by her innocence. "Chut! Not a word of that!" gros Kerouac would exolaim. to the laughing group around him as Essie entered; "here comes the little one !" and, instantly, a demure silence fell on the noisy crowd; or if they laughed aftsr that, they laughed at something where Essie's own silvery voioe could join them merrily. "As for Laminski he is reformed" Alphonse said more than once, with a shrug, to Jules. "You would not know that man. He half forgets the Dead Rat, and hasn't been seen for fifteen days at Bruant's." Month by month went on, and indeed a strange change came over Laminski. He stopped away more and more from the cafes chantants and the open-air fballs ; he was found continually till fate hours of the evening at Essie Lothrop's "And mind yon," said Alphonse, "what is strange, it is all for the good motive. Laminski reformed! Is itagood one, that? Take my word? or it, comrades, he will many her, at church, and settle down into • brave bourgeois." (to be contutoed.)