[A Memory of the Commune]

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2134, 13 March 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

[A Memory of the Commune]

I I had a particular, as well as a general, interest in the siege of Palis. The particular interest w as, that I had some pressing business to transact there, and the longer the siege continued the lest chance nad I of transacting my business, satisfactor.ly. Well, at last Paris capitulated and I went across. Years ago (more years than I care to to be accurate in numbering), I thought that it was my vocation in life to be an artist My father thought otherwise, but (but wise old merchant !) did not oppose, rather assisted me in arriving at a real conclusion in the matter. He male all necessary enquiries : found (or so I suppose) that Paris and Laurent weic considered the best place and man for me : lit upon M. Belot, a Lyces schoolmaster and keeper of a pennon, and entered me for "a course" with Laurent. In a few months I had enough of it. I returned contentedly to business, with no more abiding results of my experiment ill art that a general sense of pleasure in beautiful things and a very fair attachment to my master and Madame Belot. I have always kept up a correspondence with these two estimable people, a correspondence varied now and then with small presents, and whenever I go to Paris I always stay at the Beiots.' I arrived, then, late one evening at the Rue de Fontenoy (one of the then new streets by the Ate de Triomphe), and found the Beiots in no wise changed by their experiences of the siege, although Madame Belot at once assured me they were both as thin as slate-pencils. There was no one with them. I had "my room " (as we called it) as usual. After I had had something to eat, and Madame Belot had told me how carefully she had provisioned the house for the siege, but how the little clog I had given her, " that dear Lucy (poor heart)," had been seized and turned into soup, and how etcetera, etcetera, etcetera : after all the news had been told, I went into ray room to unpack. The evening was rather chilly, but I opened wide both windows-doors, for packing and uppackis, at any rate forme, an infliction. lam wont to say^ that it is almost worth getting married, so as to have someone to do your packing for you— ulmoi>tl As for this inevitable trunk 'of mine, I say that it had added ten years of my life. On those occasions I always make these reflections, which have become, as it wore, an inevitable formula at the offering up of myself at the shrine of my garments. Presently I stopped unpacking and took a rest. Then I produced my cigarette case, lit a cigarette, and stepped out into the balcony. There was a splendid view of the city from here. It was not a particularly clear night. There were stars to be sepn now and then in breaks of black floating steaming clouds. I stood smoking and looking out into the night and over the city. A sort of ominious hush seemed brooding everywhere. We have all noticed what somebody calls " the Sabath hush," and I, for my part, do not believe that the perception of it is, as some think, merely subjective, And here, to-night, then— what should have made me perceive this sort of ominous hush if it had not existed? I had no feeling of either oniinousness or hush in myself. My thoughts were full of my business, and then of Madame Belot's experiences, the fate of Lucy, etc., and lastly, there were my reflections about packing in general and this invitable trunk of mine in particular. The great city lay darkly spreading below and before me. The light from the lamp inside came through the door window on to mo, and let me see the smoke wreathing and twisting about as it left my mouth. The evening, I said, was rather chilly, and yet it felt oppressive. I began to feel a strange uneasiness. I looked along the balcony, now this way to where it ended against a block of different buildings, now that way to where it would round the earner of this block. I almost felt as if I should see some dark mysteious figure coming along it, coming along it to me ! I leant over the balcony and looked down. It was many feet to the grouud. One or two were passing along the pavement underneath. They entered the oblong of light cast from a shop window ft few doors higher up, and disappeared from it. I watched several of them, and presently forgot my befooling fancies. I finished my cigarette, and threw the stump out of the way. As it was falling, a little round red dot, I heard someone singing. The cigarette-stump struck the street, threw up a little shower of sparks, and quickly faded away. The singing continued. It was not loud singing— it was soft singing, like that of a girl who sings to herself as she works. I listened. It was the Marseillaise! I have heard the Marseillaise murdered too often on barrel-organs to have much, if any, attachment to it intrinsically. But this girl or woman (some of the notes were -of a depth and richness that made me thiuk it was not likely to be a girl)— this woman sang it in a manuer that made it seem new to me. There is in the song a tramp and forward movement, unrestained, fierce ; as s/ic sang it, the tramp and forward movement had lost their unrestrainedness and fierceness, just as they would if we were to hear them a long way off in a wilderness night. I listened. The sound of the song drew, and, as it were, came nearer. Then it tudenly ended in an inarticulate noise. I started, and at once thought : Where is she ? I looked about me, and especially before and below me to the left, whence the song had seemed to come. On the other side of the street (it was a very narrow street, quite a back street) was a row of houses whose roofs were on the level of the story below mine. Another street ran out at right angles to this one. The window of the top story of the cavern was half open, and light came forth from it. The singer was probably in there. That row of houses was a poor one. The room of the top story of the corner was a poor one— a garret, in fact. The chances were that the singer was poor — probably a milliner ; or, as we called them then (each year, nay, each few month", in Paris, the name changes) a lorettr. The time of my youth and art experionce rose before me. I thought of Alfred de Musset and his sweet g> tsctfr of the roofwindow : of Henri Murger, and Muni and Musette ; and of dear little Josephine and the happy vagabond hours we two spent together at Fontninebleau and Saint Cloud. Ah me, with all their toil and moil (toil and moil that two were much for me and art) those days had a happiness about them that Well, they were miserable enough at the time ; and there are, as I know, other sorts of happiness than that of playing about in the country with dear little Josephine. — Jobcphincl And -where is she now"! Speculations on this subject were not pleasant. Presently I gave them up. What is the use of such ? No use at all it would seem, and yet some trifle, such as the sing of this lorette, will bring back a flood ot old memories, and a fool will waste hows in dreaming about what might hive been but lias not been, what may be but will not be. I want back to my trunk.

II I The business I bad to transact was pot

only pressing but considerable, or, to be more Accurate it was considerable, and some of it was pressing. I had calculated on a week's liard work, and a month's easy work, and then I proposed to myself another niont'i as holiday. calculations were quite tutile. The pro stratton of ordinary business in the cit> was appalling. It was hopeless to think of getting anything done quickly. Add to this an almost universial gloom, in some a fear, in some a belief, that the country was ruined utteily and for ever, and some idea may be got of the material a man in a hurry to get some difficult business done had to work upon. JW<«» volens I had to be idle. I went to see Laurent whom I found arranging his paint brushes, paint pots, etcetera, pre paratory to, as he said, re- commencing his painting seriously ; for during the seige he too, oH man with white head, had done his duty with the rest ! Laurent had a way of saying things that made them amusing. Discontented, not to say surly, as I was, owing to an uselessly spent morning, he set me off laughing at once. (He had never made any difference to me on account of my failure at art. " You know the Scriptures," he said, "Many are called, few chosen. Let us hope that you will achieve a success with your business." That w,\s 'ill : we, as I have said, continued good fiiends). He, too, gave me an account of his experience, duiing the seige and kept me laughing for an hour. Then ho grew gave. (Herein lay, I think, the chief charm of the man, that fun, pcr^ijluji , and seriousness, all found a haimoniouplace in him). He was afraid, he said, that we were not yet at the end Theio were still other things to come. The coiruption of the Empire was something teirifying, so thorough, so universal ! and the socialistic ideas had had time to spread among and permeate the people. France had taken Napoleon to save her from the Republicans, for Napoleon meant, at any rate, order. But to-day ? Who was there? No one. For this poor Thiers, what could he do ? He was beyond measure respectable, a tegular bellwether ; but could he sive us from the Socialists? that was the question. I knew little or nothing about these things, and did not care very much, but the little man's gravity, at times approaching distress, impressed me. He thought that we should have another revolution I hoped not -for the sake of my business principally, but also for the sake of this unhappy country. Who, I asked, would start a revolution, and why ? The workmen prompted by the Socialists, who are also Secularists, (Lament was, as he used to say, a most unworthy son of the Catholic Church.) It could not be successful. The Liberals, the peasant proprietors, and the tradespeople, would ultimately stamp it out, but there would be blood spilt, he was sure of it. It was this talk with Laurent that first set me off really to observe the state of the city. I was very anxious about some of my business, and a revolution now in Paris meant literally a loss of t«o or three thousand pounds to me. Naturally, then, I wanted to make out for myself if I thought one was coming or not. Up at the Rue Fontenoy eveiyt' ing was quiet, but about in the city signs of disaffection were numerous, For all that, I could not make up my mind to a revolution. In the first place, I did not at all want one, and it takes strong proof to make'us disagree with an inclination ; in the second place, I had an average Englishman's distrust, not to jay contempt, of all French revolutions since the Great One. There might, I thought, be a barricade or two shot up and a few vvorkingmen killed, but that would be all. My excellent M. Belot was of the same opinion, and so confirming mine And vi't I was not by any means easy in my mind. Oue il.iy after d'jeinur I was sitting out on the balcony in the sun, smoking and thinking of all this, when I happened to look at the window of the top story of the corner opposite. It was wide open. A small bird-cage was hanging outside on a nail. A woman was sitting in the window, working at something. I could only see her knees and one of her arms which, every now and then, passed across them. I was right, then — the singer was a woman, and this was she ! I looked at the window with some interest. I noticed the cage— it was empty. Suddenly it Hashed across me that it might be Josephine ! Then the absurdity of the idea, came upon me and I laughed. None the less I should like to have seen — should like to — see her face. I got up, bent down over the rail, and tried, vainly to get a glimpse of it. This much, ho we vet, I learnt : she was cleaning a boot. And the bird-cage was empty ! Probably its inmate had been eaten What a fancy, then, of hers to put the empty cage out into the air. A pretty fancy. Alas, poor birdie ! that had, like Lesbia's sparrow, gone, too, on " the darksome journey !" I went into my room to write a letter, and woman and boot and bird cage were all forgotten. Forgotten— but ouly for the time. I never went out into my balcony to smoke that I did not take looks at the window of the top story of the corner opposite It was generally closed — the bird-cage never re-appeared. The woman never sang again ; but two or three times I saw her cleaning her boots, or caught a glimpse of her dress as she moved about the room. One day, leaning over the rail and looking down into the street, I saw a woman coming along with a bag in one hand, and in the other something wrapped up in a piece of newspaper. She was following up a gaunt skulking dog that kept smelling at the piece of newspaper. Presently the dog seemed to have made up his mind for an effort ; he caught hold of the piece of paper with his teeth, dragged it out of the woman's hands and turned to mv. The woman turned also and set iq i cry. The villainous beast had stolen licr meat, she exclaimed She started oil, ejaculating, in pursuit. Of the few |usseis-by, some turned and looked and laughed, some went unconcernedly on their way. I laughed ; it struck me as comical. Then I heard a voice below me enquiring of someone what was the matter. I looked at once to see who was speaking. It was a man with his head and shoulders out of the window below that of the top story of the corner opposite, who was speaking to another man at the window to the light below his own. The other man grow led out that it was nothing ; he thought it might have been the Prussians come back for some more money. Then the first man laughed, and they both drew in again. As I raised my eyes, a sort of a start and a thrill went through me, the woman was at her window, and we were looking at one another. She laughed, I smiled in sympathy with her, aud she, too, drew in. " What a fine face !" I said to myself. I was quite stirred.

( To lw continued).

Compulsory vaccination is now the order of the day in Montreal, where £23.600 has been spent in combating small -pox. The total number of deaths from smallpox in Montreal during the late epidemic exceeds 3000, distributed among 500 houses. Moxs. Gounod, the French composer, although he is now sixty-seven years old, is still doing vigorous and thoughtful work.