II

von Robert W. Chambers

“Are you pleased with Paris, Monsieur Hastings?” Madame Marotte asked the next morning as Hastings entered the breakfast room of the pension, his cheeks flushed from his quick dip in the small bath upstairs.

“I’m sure I will be,” he replied, surprised by the heaviness in his heart.

A maid brought him coffee and rolls. He exchanged a blank look with the big-headed young man at the table and nodded shyly at the older gentlemen who were sniffing and grumbling. He didn’t bother to finish his coffee, instead sitting there, absentmindedly crumbling a roll, unaware of Madame Marotte’s sympathetic glances; she wisely chose not to disturb him.

Soon, another maid entered, balancing two bowls of chocolate on a tray, and the older men leered at her ankles. She set the chocolate down at a table by the window and smiled at Hastings. Just then, a thin young woman, followed closely by her mother, marched into the room and took a seat at the same window table. They were clearly American, but Hastings, hoping for a nod of recognition, was disappointed. Being ignored by fellow countrymen only deepened his gloom. He fidgeted with his knife and stared at his plate.

The young woman was chatty enough. She was fully aware of Hastings’ presence and was ready to be flattered if he glanced her way. Yet, she also felt superior, having spent three weeks in Paris while he, clearly, had yet to unpack his steamer trunk.

Her conversation was self-satisfied. She debated with her mother about the merits of the Louvre versus the Bon Marché, while her mother mostly interjected with, “Why, Susie!”

The older gentlemen eventually left the room in a huff, outwardly polite but seething inside. They couldn’t stand the Americans who filled the space with their chatter.

The big-headed young man watched them go, coughing knowingly and muttering, “Old birds, aren’t they?”

“They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen,” the girl replied.

Mr. Bladen smiled and said, “They’ve had their day,” implying that he was now enjoying his own.

“And that’s why they all have baggy eyes,” the girl exclaimed. “It’s a shame for young gentlemen—”

“Why, Susie!” her mother interrupted, and the conversation faltered.

After a while, Mr. Bladen tossed aside the _Petit Journal_, which he read daily at the expense of the pension, and turned to Hastings, eager to make conversation. “I see you’re American,” he began, with all the originality of a travel guide.

Feeling homesick, Hastings replied gratefully, and the conversation was kept alive by Miss Susie Byng, who directed her comments toward Mr. Bladen. Eventually, Susie, forgetting her audience, addressed Hastings directly, and he responded to her general question. This led to a friendly rapport, with Susie and her mother claiming a protective role over what was clearly neutral ground.

“Mr. Hastings, you can’t just disappear from the pension every evening like Mr. Bladen does. Paris can be a tough place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is a dreadful cynic,” Susie said.

Mr. Bladen looked pleased.

“I’ll be at the studio all day, and I’m sure I’ll be glad to come back at night,” Hastings replied.

Mr. Bladen, who worked as an agent for the Pewly Manufacturing Company in Troy, N.Y., earning a meager fifteen dollars a week, gave a skeptical smile and excused himself to meet a customer on Boulevard Magenta.

Hastings followed Mrs. Byng and Susie into the garden, and at their invitation, he settled down in the shade by the iron gate.

The chestnut trees were still adorned with their fragrant pink and white spikes, and bees buzzed among the roses climbing the white-walled house.

A gentle freshness filled the air. Watering carts rolled up and down the street, and a clear stream bubbled over the pristine gutters of the rue de la Grande Chaumière. Sparrows flitted about the curb, joyfully bathing in the water and fluffing their feathers. In a walled garden across the street, a pair of blackbirds chirped among the almond trees.

Hastings swallowed hard, as the birds’ songs and the sound of water in a Paris gutter brought back memories of the sunny meadows of Millbrook.

“That’s a blackbird,” Miss Byng pointed out, “look at him on that bush with pink blossoms. He’s all black except for his bill, which looks like it’s been dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says—”

“Why, Susie!” Mrs. Byng exclaimed.

“That garden belongs to a studio where two Americans live,” Susie continued, undeterred. “I often see them pass by. They seem to need a lot of models, mostly young women—”

“Why, Susie!” Mrs. Byng interrupted again.

“Maybe they prefer that kind of painting, but I don’t understand why they invited five people, plus three more young men, all of whom piled into two cabs and drove off singing. This street,” she continued, “is so dull. There’s nothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of Boulevard Montparnasse through rue de la Grande Chaumière. The only one who ever walks by is a policeman. There’s a convent on the corner.”

“I thought it was a Jesuit college,” Hastings started to say, but he was quickly swept away by her enthusiastic description of the place, which ended with, “On one side are the grand hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and Guillaume Bouguereau, and across the street, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duran creates the masterpieces that captivate the world.”

Suddenly, a blackbird burst into a cascade of golden notes, and from some distant green spot in the city, an unknown wild bird responded with a frenzy of liquid trills, causing the sparrows to pause in their bathing and look up with curious chirps.

Then a butterfly landed on a cluster of heliotrope, its crimson-banded wings fluttering in the warm sunshine. Hastings recognized it as a friend, and before him appeared a vision of tall mulleins and fragrant milkweed alive with colorful wings. He saw a white house with a woodbine-covered porch, a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaning over a bed of pansies—his heart swelled with nostalgia. He was jolted back to reality by Miss Byng’s voice.

“I think you’re homesick!” Hastings felt his cheeks flush. Miss Byng looked at him with a sympathetic sigh and continued, “Whenever I felt homesick at first, I would go with my mom to walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don’t know why, but those old-fashioned gardens always made me feel closer to home than anything else in this artificial city.”

“But they’re filled with marble statues,” Mrs. Byng interjected gently. “I don’t see the connection myself.”

“Where is the Luxembourg?” Hastings asked after a moment of silence.

“Come with me to the gate,” Miss Byng said. He stood up and followed her as she pointed out rue Vavin at the end of the street.

“You pass the convent on your right,” she smiled, and Hastings set off.