II
by Robert W. Chambers
“It’s a good thing,” Severn said, sitting up and stretching, “that we’ve made it past dinner time, because all I have to offer you for supper is something that costs just one silver franc.”
The cat on his lap stretched, arched her back, yawned, and then looked up at him.
“What do you feel like? A roast chicken with salad? No? Maybe you’d prefer beef? Of course—I'll just have an egg and some white bread. Now, for the drinks. Milk for you? Great. I’ll just grab a bit of water, fresh from the wood,” he added, gesturing toward the bucket in the sink.
He put on his hat and stepped out of the room. The cat followed him to the door, and after he closed it behind him, she settled down, sniffing at the cracks and perking up her ears at every creak from the old building.
The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious for a moment, her ears flattening in nervous anticipation. Suddenly, she sprang up, her tail flicking, and began a silent exploration of the studio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, quickly retreating to the table, where she climbed up and curiously inspected a roll of red modeling wax. After that, she returned to the door and sat down, her eyes fixed on the crack above the threshold. Then she let out a thin, plaintive meow.
When Severn returned, he looked serious, but the cat, joyful and affectionate, circled around him, rubbing her slender body against his legs, nudging her head eagerly into his hand, and purring until her voice rose to a squeak.
He placed a piece of meat, wrapped in brown paper, on the table and used a penknife to cut it into small shreds. The milk came from a bottle that had once held medicine, and he poured it into a saucer on the hearth.
The cat crouched in front of it, purring and lapping at the same time.
He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her as she busied herself with the shredded meat. Once he finished and filled a cup with water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, pulling her into his lap. She immediately curled up and began grooming herself. He started to speak again, occasionally stroking her to emphasize his words.
“Cat, I’ve found out where your mistress lives. It’s not far from here; in fact, it’s right under this leaky roof, but in the north wing, which I thought was empty. My janitor told me this. By chance, he’s almost sober tonight. The butcher on rue de Seine, where I got your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker recognized you with a bit too much sarcasm. They tell me some harsh stories about your mistress, but I refuse to believe them. They say she’s idle and vain, pleasure-seeking; they say she’s reckless and flighty. The little sculptor on the ground floor, who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me for the first time tonight, even though we’ve always nodded to each other. He said she’s very good and very beautiful. He’s only seen her once and doesn’t know her name. I thanked him; I don’t even know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabane said, ‘In this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all things evil.’ The sculptor looked confused, but as he left with his rolls, he said to me, ‘I’m sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she is beautiful.’”
The cat had finished grooming herself and, springing softly to the floor, went to the door to sniff. He knelt beside her, unclasping the garter and holding it for a moment in his hands. After a while, he said, “There’s a name engraved on the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It’s a lovely name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman’s name, and Elven is the name of a town. In Paris, especially in this quarter, in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and discarded as fashions change with the seasons. I know the little town of Elven; it’s where I met Fate face to face, and Fate was unkind. But do you know that in Elven, Fate had another name, and that name was Sylvia?”
He replaced the garter and stood up, looking down at the cat crouched before the closed door.
“The name Elven has a certain charm for me. It brings to mind meadows and clear rivers. The name Sylvia, however, troubles me like the scent of wilted flowers.”
The cat mewed.
“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly, “I’ll take you back. Your Sylvia isn’t my Sylvia; the world is vast, and Elven isn’t unknown. Yet in the darkness and grime of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these names hold a certain sweetness for me.”
He lifted her into his arms and walked through the quiet hallways to the stairs. He descended five flights, stepping into the moonlit courtyard, past the little sculptor’s studio, and entered the north wing through its gate. He climbed the worn stairs until he reached a closed door. After knocking for what felt like an eternity, he heard movement behind the door; it creaked open, and he stepped inside.
The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat leaped from his arms into the shadows. He listened intently but heard nothing. The silence was heavy, so he struck a match. A table stood nearby, and on it was a candle in a gilded holder. He lit it and looked around.
The chamber was vast, its walls draped with richly embroidered hangings. Above the fireplace loomed a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of long-extinguished fires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, its linens soft and fine like lace, trailing down to the polished floor. He raised the candle above his head and noticed a handkerchief at his feet, faintly perfumed.
Turning toward the windows, he saw a canapé piled with a silk gown, a heap of delicate lace garments, long, crumpled gloves, and on the floor beneath, stockings, little pointed shoes, and a garter of rosy silk, whimsically flowered and adorned with a silver clasp. Curious, he stepped forward and pulled back the heavy curtains from the bed. For a moment, the candle flickered in his hand, and then his eyes met two others—wide open, smiling—and the candlelight danced over hair as golden as the sun.
She was pale, though not as white as he was; her eyes were as untroubled as a child’s. He stared, trembling from head to toe, while the candle flickered in his grasp.
Finally, he whispered, “Sylvia, it’s me.”
He repeated, “It’s me.”
Then, realizing she was gone, he kissed her on the lips. Throughout the long hours of the night, the cat purred on his knee, tightening and relaxing her soft claws, until the sky began to lighten above the Street of the Four Winds.
---
“Be of good cheer, the sullen month will die,
And a young moon will reward us by and by:
Look how the old one, meager, bent, and wan
With age and fasting, is fading from the sky.”
I.
The room was already dark. The high ceilings blocked out the last remnants of December daylight. The girl pulled her chair closer to the window, choosing a large needle and threading it, knotting the thread around her fingers. She smoothed a tiny garment across her knees, bent down to bite off the thread, and drew a smaller needle from where it rested in the hem. After brushing away stray threads and bits of lace, she laid the garment over her knees again, tenderly.
She slipped the threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as the button slipped down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped, and the button rolled across the floor. She lifted her head, her eyes fixed on a strip of fading light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the city came sounds like distant drums, and beyond that, a vague muttering grew louder, swelling and rumbling like surf crashing against rocks, then receding, growling, menacing.
The cold had become intense, a biting chill that strained and cracked the wood beams and turned the slush of yesterday into hard ice. From the street below, every sound rang sharp and metallic—the clatter of wooden shoes, the rattle of shutters, or the rare sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighed down by the bitter cold like a shroud. Breathing was painful, moving felt like an effort.
In the desolate sky, there was something wearying; in the brooding clouds, something sad. It seeped into the freezing city, cut by the icy river, the magnificent city with its towers and domes, its quays and bridges, and its thousand spires. It filled the squares, seized the avenues and palaces, crept across bridges, and slithered through the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the dull December sky. Sadness, pure sadness. A fine icy sleet fell, dusting the pavement with tiny crystalline flakes. It sifted against the windowpanes and drifted in heaps along the sill.
The light at the window had nearly faded, and the girl bent low over her work. After a moment, she raised her head, brushing the curls from her eyes.
“Jack?”
“Dearest?”
“Don’t forget to clean your palette.”
“Okay,” he replied, picking up the palette and sitting down on the floor in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were shrouded in shadow, but the firelight glowed across his knees and shimmered red on the blade of the palette knife. Beside him, in the firelight, stood a color box. On the lid, it was carved:
+-------------------------+
| J. TRENT. |
| École des Beaux Arts. |
| 1870. |
+-------------------------+
The inscription was adorned with both an American and a French flag.
Sleet battered against the windowpanes, transforming them into a canvas of stars and diamonds. As the warmth from inside melted the icy crystals, they trickled down, only to freeze again in delicate fern-like patterns.
A dog whined, and the soft patter of tiny paws echoed against the zinc behind the stove.
“Jack, sweetheart, do you think Hercules is hungry?”
The sound of paws quickened behind the stove.
“He’s whining,” she continued anxiously. “If it’s not because he’s hungry, then it must be—”
Her voice trailed off as a loud humming filled the air, making the windows vibrate.
“Oh, Jack,” she exclaimed, “another—” but her words were swallowed by the deafening roar of a shell ripping through the sky above.
“That was the closest one yet,” she murmured.
“Oh, no,” he replied cheerfully, “it probably landed way over by Montmartre.” When she didn’t respond, he added with exaggerated nonchalance, “They wouldn’t bother firing at the Latin Quarter; besides, they don’t have a battery that could do any real damage.”
After a moment, she brightened. “Jack, when are you going to take me to see Monsieur West’s statues?”
“I bet,” he said, tossing aside his palette and moving to the window beside her, “that Colette has been here today.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked, her eyes widening. Then she added, “Oh, it’s too bad! Honestly, men can be so tiresome when they think they know everything! And I warn you, if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette—”
Another shell whistled through the sky, its screech echoing above them and leaving the windows humming.
“That,” he blurted, “was too close for comfort.”
They fell silent for a moment, then he spoke again, trying to lighten the mood. “Go on, Sylvia, and give poor West a hard time,” but she only sighed, “Oh, I can never seem to get used to the shells.”
He perched on the arm of her chair.
Her scissors clattered to the floor as she tossed the unfinished dress aside. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him down into her lap.
“Don’t go out tonight, Jack.”
He kissed her upturned face. “You know I have to; don’t make it harder for me.”
“But when I hear the shells and—and know you’re out in the city—”
“They all fall in Montmartre—”
“They might as well fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two hit the Quai d’Orsay—”
“Mere accidents—”
“Jack, have mercy! Take me with you!”
“And who will cook dinner?”
She got up and threw herself onto the bed.
“Oh, I can’t get used to this! I know you have to go, but please don’t be late for dinner. If you only knew what I endure! I—I can’t help it, and you have to be patient with me, dear.”
“It’s as safe there as it is in our own home.”
She watched him fill the alcohol lamp, and when he lit it and reached for his hat, she jumped up and clung to him in silence. After a moment, he said, “Now, Sylvia, remember that my courage comes from yours. Come on, I really must go!” She didn’t move, and he repeated, “I must go.” Then she stepped back, and he thought she was about to speak, but she just looked at him. A bit impatiently, he kissed her again, saying, “Don’t worry, my love.”
As he reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street, a woman hobbled out of the housekeeper’s lodge, waving a letter and calling, “Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! This was left by Monsieur Fallowby!”
He took the letter and leaned against the threshold of the lodge to read it:
“Dear Jack,
“I believe Braith is completely broke, and I’m sure Fallowby is too. Braith insists he isn’t, and Fallowby insists he is, so you can draw your own conclusions. I’ve got a plan for a dinner, and if it works out, I’ll let you guys in.
“Yours faithfully, West.
“P.S.—Fallowby has shaken off Hartman and his crew, thank the Lord! There’s something rotten there—or maybe he’s just a miser.
“P.P.S.—I’m more desperately in love than ever, but I’m sure she doesn’t care a bit for me.”
“All right,” Trent said with a smile to the concierge. “But tell me, how is Papa Cottard?”
The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the lodge.
“Père Cottard!” he called cheerfully, “how’s the wound today?”
He walked over to the bed and pulled back the curtains. An old man lay among the rumpled sheets.
“Better?” Trent smiled.
“Better,” the man replied wearily, and after a pause, he asked, “Have you any news, Monsieur Jack?”
“I haven’t been out today. I’ll bring you any rumors I hear, though goodness knows I’ve heard enough,” he muttered to himself. Then, louder, he said, “Cheer up; you’re looking better.”
“And the sortie?”
“Oh, the sortie is scheduled for this week. General Trochu sent orders last night.”
“It will be terrible.”
“It will be sickening,” Trent thought as he stepped out into the street and turned the corner toward the rue de Seine. “Slaughter, slaughter, ugh! I’m glad I’m not going.”
The street was nearly empty. A few women wrapped in worn military capes shuffled along the icy pavement, while a ragged boy lingered near a sewer grate on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope tied around his waist held his tattered clothes together, and from it dangled a rat, still warm and bleeding.
“There’s another one down there,” he shouted at Trent. “I got one, but the other got away.”
Trent crossed the street and asked, “How much?”
“Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that’s what they pay at the St. Germain Market.”
He broke into a violent cough but quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand, eyeing Trent with a sly look.
“Last week, you could get a rat for six francs, but,” he swore under his breath, “the rats have left rue de Seine, and they’re catching them over by the new hospital now. I’ll let you have this one for seven francs; I can sell it for ten in the Isle St. Louis.”
“You’re lying,” Trent replied. “And let me warn you, if you try to swindle anyone in this neighborhood, the locals will take care of you and your rats.”
He studied the boy for a moment, who pretended to sniffle. Then, with a laugh, he tossed him a franc. The boy caught it and quickly shoved it into his mouth before turning back to the sewer grate. For a brief moment, he crouched, still and alert, eyes fixed on the bars of the drain. Then, with a sudden leap, he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish off a fierce gray rat that was writhing and squealing at the mouth of the sewer.
“Imagine if Braith ended up like that,” he thought, feeling a pang of sympathy. Hurrying, he turned into the grimy passage des Beaux Arts and entered the third house on the left.
“Monsieur is at home,” croaked the old concierge.
Home? It was a bare attic, furnished only with an iron bed in the corner and an iron basin and pitcher on the floor.
West appeared at the door, winking conspiratorially, and gestured for Trent to come in. Braith, painting in bed to keep warm, looked up, laughed, and shook his hand.
“Any news?”
The usual response came: “Nothing but the cannon.”
Trent settled onto the bed. “Where on earth did you get that?” he asked, pointing to a half-finished chicken resting in a washbasin.
West grinned. “Are you two millionaires or what? Spill it.”
Braith, looking a bit embarrassed, started, “Oh, it’s one of West’s exploits,” but West interrupted, eager to tell the story himself.
“Before the siege, I had an introduction to a ‘type’ here—a fat banker, the German-American kind. You know the type, I’m sure. Well, of course, I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, thinking it was a good chance, I decided to pay him a visit.
“The guy lives in luxury—fires, my friend!—fires in the anterooms! Finally, the butler deigns to take my letter and card upstairs, leaving me standing in the hallway, which I didn’t like at all. So I stepped into the first room I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet spread out on a table by the fire. Down comes the butler, all haughty. No, no, his master ‘is not at home, and in fact, is too busy to receive letters of introduction right now; the siege and all the business troubles—’
“I kicked the butler, grabbed this chicken from the table, tossed my card onto the empty plate, and called him a Prussian pig before marching out with my spoils.”
Trent shook his head.
“I forgot to mention that Hartman often dines there, so I have my suspicions,” West continued. “Now, about this chicken—half of it is for Braith and me, and half for Colette, but of course, you’ll help me eat my share since I’m not hungry.”
“Neither am I,” Braith started, but Trent, smiling at their gaunt faces, shook his head. “What nonsense! You know I’m never hungry!”
West hesitated, reddened, and then, slicing off Braith’s portion but not eating any himself, said goodnight and hurried off to number 470 rue Serpente, where a pretty girl named Colette lived. She was an orphan since Sedan, and heaven only knew how she managed to keep the roses in her cheeks, given how hard the siege hit the poor.
“That chicken will make her happy, but I really think she’s in love with West,” Trent mused. Then, walking over to the bed, he said, “Now, come on, no dodging—how much do you have left?”
Braith hesitated, his face flushing.
“Come on, old chap,” Trent urged.
Braith pulled out a purse from beneath his pillow and handed it to Trent with a simplicity that touched him.
“Seven francs,” he counted. “You’re exhausting! Why on earth don’t you come to me? I take it very poorly, Braith! How many times do I have to go over this? Because I have money, it’s my duty to share it, and it’s your duty—and every American’s duty—to share it with me! You can’t get a cent; the city’s blockaded, and the American Minister is swamped with all the German riff-raff and who knows what else! Why don’t you act sensibly?”
“I—I will, Trent, but it’s an obligation I might never be able to repay, I’m poor and—”
“Of course you’ll pay me! If I were a loan shark, I’d take your talent as collateral. Just think, when you’re rich and famous—”
“Don’t, Trent—”
“Fine, but no more fooling around.”
He slipped a dozen gold coins into the purse, tucking it back under the mattress with a smile at Braith.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen.”
Trent placed his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m twenty-two, which gives me the authority of a grandfather in your case. You’ll do what I say until you turn twenty-one.”
“By then, I hope this siege will be over,” Braith replied, trying to laugh. But the prayer echoing in their hearts—“How long, O Lord, how long!”—was abruptly interrupted by the piercing scream of a shell soaring through the stormy clouds of that December night.