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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51491fb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60771 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60771) diff --git a/old/60771-0.txt b/old/60771-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1e57cd6..0000000 --- a/old/60771-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4116 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Poet Assassinated, by Guillaume Apollinaire - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Poet Assassinated - -Author: Guillaume Apollinaire - -Translator: Matthew Josephson - -Release Date: November 23, 2019 [EBook #60771] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POET ASSASSINATED *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - - - - -THE POET ASSASSINATED - -BY - -GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE - -TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE - -AND NOTES BY - -MATTHEW JOSEPHSON - -NEW YORK - -THE BROOM PUBLISHING CO. - -1923 - - - - -[Illustration 01] - - - - -CONTENTS -BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE -I. RENOWN -II. PROCREATION -III. GESTATION -IV. NOBILITY -V. PAPACY -VI. GAMBRINUS -VII. CONFINEMENT -VIII. MAMMON -IX. PEDAGOGY -X. POETRY -XI. DRAMATURGY -XII. LOVE -XIII. MODES -XIV. ENCOUNTERS -XV. VOYAGE -XVI. PERSECUTION -XVII. ASSASSINATION -XVIII. APOTHEOSIS - - - - - -BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE - - -There are men who cannot bring themselves to conform with the rest of -human society, who cannot conceive of a secure and honorable career even -at the hands of a tolerant age. They flee, they are eternally escaping -from the fold by some particularly outrageous or suicidal action. -Rimbaud having mastered the art of poetry in his twenties, deserted -literature to lead caravans through the African desert. Apollinaire at -almost as early an age had also mastered the traditional forms of his -art, but with Rimbaud's example before him could not become "an -explorer, a trapper, a robber, a hunter, a miner." - -Possessed of great energy, curiosity, and disrespect, he was from the -start thrown upon the side of those who flout authority, court disorder -and embrace the glitter and profusion of an intensely mundane existence. - -To regard the spectacle of modern life and to sense the cleavage with -the past and with the art or humanities of the previous day, is to be -"modern". For many the word is hateful; and yet Apollinaire set out -deliberately to be modern: to revalue the contributions of the past in -terms of the phenomenal changes which the twentieth century and the -Great War had brought in. - -The barbarous new age he courted, adopting much of its method, the -character of its institutions and its cruel philosophy. Perhaps he has -interpreted his age best in his own personality, that is to say his -life, a large and daring conception in itself. - -"Vain to be astonished at his continual feast-making," says his friend -the painter, Rouveyre, "at the rash exploits he undertook, at the crown -of thorns he inflicted upon himself... He was a prodigious creator and -all of his literary and social games, were of the most brilliant and -lavish character, far more so than their objects. Like God, who could -make man out of nothing, Apollinaire made many, with the same poverty of -material." (_Souvenirs de mon Commerce_--A. Rouveyre, Paris, 1919, -Mercure de France.) - - -Apollinaire was born in Monte Carlo in 1880. It is still a delicate -matter to approach the facts of his life, to some extent, because of his -confusing boasts and pretensions. We do know that his mother was Mme de -Kostrovitzka, a lady of Polish descent who lived in France, and that -Apollinaire (i. e., Wilhelm de Kostrovitzki) was baptized in Rome on -September 29, 1880. - -He received an extensive and preciose education. He lived with his -mother in a chateau outside of Paris, a huge mansion that had a billiard -room, music parlors, salons, and animals of all kinds: monkeys, dogs, -snakes, parrots, canaries. Apollinaire travelled much when he was quite -young, chiefly in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe; he lived and -studied in the Rhineland. Then he came back to Paris, with "all the -poems he had been collecting in a cigar-box." - -A literary career in Paris, is perfectly conventional by now. You run -after the editors of newspapers, and finally you are allowed to -contribute "feuilletons" to them. Then the magazines, the publishers, -and you have "arrived." Apollinaire became a journalist and lived for a -time by the veriest pot-boiling, some of which included translations of -Aretino, an edition of the Marquis de Sade, introductions to -pornographical classics, and even a great bibliographical work, called, -"The Inferno of the National Library." But he soon became notorious in -Paris. He gathered a motley horde of writers, painters and _types_ (i. -e., idiots, or freaks), and paraded from the right bank to the left, -from the Montmartre to Montparnasse. His associates are now the most -distinguished names of France, Henri-Matisse, Picasso, Dérain, Braque, -Rousseau (the old man whom he "discovered" near the fortifications of -Paris), and André Salmon, Marie Laurencin, Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, -"baron" Mollet, his secretary. - -He was intensely conscious of the time-spirit. An original and rugged -intellect, he disquieted those who were repelled by his lavish and -heedless manner. For him the French literature of the Symbolist era, -which de Gourmont still presided over, was dead, and he became, during -that whole period from 1905 to the end of the Great War, the only living -force in France. He predicted the sterile close of the literature of de -Regnier and Paul Fort, "Prince of Poets" (!), heralding an age of -boundless expansion and experiment, with new zones of experience, new -forms, and a yet more complex and rich civilization. - -Such ideas were in the air of Europe: there was Marinetti, in Italy: -Cézanne had nearly brought his stupendous work to a close; and a group -of painters, Picasso, Duchamps, Picabia, Braque, Dérain (the Cubists), -launched their work upon a frightened world. The abstract investigations -of the Cubists appealed to him powerfully. Apollinaire became their -ringleader. His book, "The Cubist Painters," is an authoritative apology -for this movement. But not content with this, he conceived little -movements of his own, invented names for them, wrote up programs, and -precipitated bad painters into careers. It was not all buffoonery. He -may have placed silly, vacuous individuals at the head of the reviews he -organized, "_Les Soirées de Paris_", _Nord Sud_ (named after the new -subway); but some of the best modern writing of the time, by Max Jacob, -Pierre Reverdy, André Salmon, Paul Valéry, Apollinaire himself, and -some extremely youthful poets who are now Dadaists, were included in -them. His great charm in conversation, his uproarious wit, his complete -shamelessness, made him idol of all who were drawn to him. - -_Alcools_, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1913. It was the -escape of a personality from the "eternal recurrence." The Symbolists -had sought a kind of exalted, objective state; this false mysticism was -accompanied by an attitude of fatigue, and preciose resignation. Even -the language, in their hands had become crystallized, or static. -Apollinaire's attitude was the complete reverse. A wonderfully happy -man, his verse was lustier and sturdier. He had learned much from the -reawakened interest in the "primitive" Italian painters. There was no -false shading in his work. Every line was as direct as in a child's -drawing. No one could use clichés or write of the most common diurnal -experiences as freshly as he. His verse had also a certain heroic -character, an air of prophecy. - -It has always been the good fortune of France that Paris draws gifted -strangers from other lands, who bring real gold to her. Apollinaire, a -weird mixture of what Slavic and Latin strains, laid rough hands on the -language. His aberrations are superb. He could never resist the -foreigner's impulse toward _jeux des mots_; and none are quicker than -the French themselves to accept and enjoy the new puns and -double-entendres. For the French have gone farther, their language has -been more pawed over and revivified through foreign usage than ours. -Apollinaire's exoticisms were not bizarre; they had the air of being -conceived in conversation. - -In the summer of 1914, Apollinaire was in Deauville, surrounded by a -cosmopolitan horde of Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Russians -when the Great War began. He embraced the superb irony of these events -with the utmost ardour; his attitude was precisely that which Pascal -epitomizes: - - -"_Why do you wish to kill brother?" -"Do I not live on the other side of the river?_" - - -He went into the artillery, and was stationed at Nîmes. He became -Second Lieutenant Guillaume Apollinaire. There were dull months upon -months in the barracks. There was also active fighting. He was three -times wounded in the head, and trepanned. In the Fall of 1915, he lay in -a hospital in Paris, recovering from a successful operation. It was at -this time that he assembled the fragments of a novel over which he had -been working for a period of years, _The Poet Assassinated._ - -The poet, Croniamantal, is one of the few frankly epic figures of modern -literature. Apollinaire had never really outlived the poet's age of -twenty-five, and the preposterous life of his hero is drawn against the -artistic and social foibles of his age. By no means mere satire in the -18th century sense. Apollinaire grows positively hilarious and -intoxicated over his characters so that at times he is beside himself -with sheer fun. Results: humor of extraordinary eloquence and sonority, -and a form that is complete unrepresentative, with perpetual digressions -and asides. - -There have been so many tired men in France who wrote like flagellants. -Flaubert made his waking hours a nightmare; Gautier was much too -corseted; to Stendhal writing was a torturesome but resistless destiny; -Villiers was a devout artisan; Mallarmé goaded himself into obscuracy -and speechlessness. - -We must go back to Stendhal to find such extreme opposition to -naturalism. It is enemy of all that was Ibsen. Distortion or -under-emphasis are employed to fantastic ends; when a puppet is -uninteresting or wrung dry he is dismissed or killed. Here is the -destructive side of it: Apollinaire runs all the risks, obeys no rules, -and writes for fun. - -In the following year he was dismissed from the army and pronounced -unfit for anything but censorship service. - -Discharged from the hospital, he bought himself the most immaculate -officer's uniform, somewhat constricting for his already corpulent form -and his double chin, and in a victoria rode up to the editorial offices -of the _Mercure de France._ His manner was perfectly that of "a -Marseillaise tenor in an opera comique." His friends were in an uproar -over him. The art life of Paris, flared up again, under the guns. He -broke loose again upon his maddest tours de forces. A great welcoming -ball was given him, an orgy attended by a howling, cursing, fighting -throng, in which men and women tore about like Chaplin in the films. -There had never been such an outlandish and heterogeneous bazaar. -Apollinaire was ravished at being the orchestra-leader of such disorders -and follies. To stupefy them he gave a production of his preposterous -play, _Les Mammelles de Tiresias._ From the point of view of "action," -of living, these were his greatest moments. Even before the war, these -carryings on had passed all boundaries and were a source of scandal all -over the world. Apollinaire was the man of the day, for this desperate -crowd. He _made_ poets and painters. "He made men and women seem much -madder than they really were." While they understood little his interior -laughter, his rebellious imagination. - -I have stressed Apollinaire's social adventures, regarding them as an -aspect of his creative expression. Wholly absorbed in art, he was -completely wanting in the false reverence and dignity which some affect. -Believing in the new painting of Picasso, Braque, Dérain, he could as -well hold a street demonstration, parading his friends as sandwich-men -bearing cubist paintings. - -In the last days of 1918 he was stricken with influenza and was taken -off very quickly. All the fools and freaks stopped pirouetting. - -_Calligrammes_, his book of war poems had just appeared, and it is -agreed that his strongest and most singular expressions lie in these -reactions to the war. All other artists were involuntarily baffled by -their moral sentiments. Only Apollinaire, with his completely negative -philosophy, his un-morality, his shame in all of the common virtues, -could retort to this war with his gorgeous buffoonery and his ringing -apostrophes. He seized the new meanings of the modern era, from the -phallic zeppelins in the sky, the labels on his tobacco tins, the pages -of newspapers, or the walls of old cities. If these things are unworthy, -if the age is damnable, then Apollinaire is damned. - -"Is there nothing new under the sun?" he asks. "Nothing--for the sun, -perhaps. But for man, everything." He calls upon artists to be at least -as forward as the mechanical genius of the time. The artist is to stop -at nothing in his quest for novelty of form and material; to seize upon -all the infinite possibilities afforded by the new instruments and -opportunities, creating thereby the myths and fables of the future. - - -MATTHEW JOSEPHSON - - - - -_To René Dalize_ - - - - -I. RENOWN - - -The glory of Croniamantal is now universal. One hundred and twenty-three -towns in seven countries on four continents dispute the honor of this -notable hero's birth. I shall attempt, further on, to elucidate this -important question. - -All of these people have more or less modified the sonorous name of -Croniamantal. The Arabs, the Turks and other races who read from right -to left have never failed to pronounce it Latnamainorc, but the Turks -call him, bizarrely enough, Pata, which signifies goose or genital -organ. The Russians surname him Viperdoc, that is, born of a fart, the -reason for this soubriquet will be seen later on. The Scandinavians, or -at least, the Dalecarlians, call him at will, _quoniam_, in Latin, which -means, _because_, but often serves to indicate the noble passages in -popular accounts of the middle ages. It is to be noted that the Saxons -and the Turks manifest with regard to Croniamantal, a similar sentiment, -since they refer to him by an identical surname, whose origin, however, -is still scarcely explained. It is believed that this is an euphemistic -allusion to the fact stressed in the medical report of the Marseilles -doctor, Ratiboul, on the death of Croniamantal. According to this -official document, all the organs of Croniamantal were sound, and the -lawyer-physician added in Latin, as did Napoleon's aide Major Henry: -_partes viriles exiguitatis insignis, sicut pueri._ - -For the rest, there are countries where the notion of the Croniamantalian -virility has entirely disappeared. Thus, the negroes in Moriana -call him Tsatsa or Dzadza or Rsoussour, all feminine names, for -they have feminized Croniamantal as the Byzantines feminized Holy -Friday in making it Saint Parascevia.[1] - - - - -II. PROCREATION - - -Two leagues from Spa, on the road bordered by gnarled trees and bushes, -Vierselin Tigoboth, an ambulant musician who was coming on foot from -Liège, struck his flint to light his pipe. A woman's voice cried: - -He lifted his head, and a wild laugh burst out: "Hahaba! Hohoho! Hihihi! -thine eyelids are the color of Egyptian lentils! My name is Macarée. I -want a tom-cat." - -Vierselin Tigoboth perceived by the roadside a young woman, brunette and -formed of nice curves. How charming she seemed in her short bicyclist's -skirt! And holding her bicycle with one hand, while gathering sloes with -the other, she ardently fixed her great golden eyes on the Flemish -musician. - -"_Vs'estez one belle bâcelle_," said Vierselin Tigoboth, smacking his -tongue. "But, my God, if you eat all those sloes, you will have the -colic tonight, I'm sure." - -"I want a tom-cat," repeated Macarée and unclasping her bodice she -showed Vierselin Tigoboth her breasts, sweet as the buttocks of the -angels, and whose aureole was the tender color of the rose clouds of -sunset. - -"Oh! oh!" cried Vierselin Tigoboth, "As pretty as the pearls of -Amblevia, give them to me. I shall gather a big bouquet of ferns for you -and of irises, color of the moon." - -Vierselin Tigoboth approached to seize this miraculous flesh which was -being offered to him for nothing, like the holy bread at Mass; but then -he restrained himself. - -"You're a sweet lass, by God, you're nicer than the fair of Liège. -You're a nicer little girl than Donnaye, than Tatenne, than Victoire, -whose gallant I have been, and nicer than Rénier's daughters, whom old -Rénier always has for sale. Mind you, if you want to be my love, 'ware -o' the crablouse, by God." - - -MACARÉE - -_They are the color of the moon -And round as the wheel of Fortune._ - - -VIERSELIN TIGOBOTH - -_If you fear not to catch the louse -Then I should love to be your spouse._ - - -And Vierselin Tigoboth approached, his lips full of kisses: "I love you! -It is pooh! O beloved!" - -Soon there were nothing but sighs, the songs of birds and of russet and -horned little hares, like elves, fleet as the seven-league boots, -passing by Vierselin Tigoboth and Macarée, prone under the power of -love behind the plumtrees. - -Then Macarée was off on the old contraption. - -And sad unto death, Vierselin Tigoboth cursed the instrument of velocity -which rolled away and vanished behind the terraced rotunda, at the same -moment that the musician began to make water while humming a jingle... - - - - -[Illustration 02] - - - - -III. GESTATION - - -Macarée soon became aware that she had conceived by Vierselin Tigoboth. - -"How annoying!" she thought at first, "But medicine has made much -progress lately. I shall get rid of it when I want. Ah! that Walloon! He -will have toiled in vain. Can Macarée bring up the son of a vagabond? -No, no, I condemn this embryo to death. I should never even preserve -this foetus in alcohol. And thou, my belly, if thou knewest how much I -love thee since knowing thy goodness. What, wouldst stoop to carry such -baggage as thou findest along the road? O too innocent belly, thou art -unworthy of my selfish soul. - -"What shall I say, o belly? thou'rt cruel, thou partest children from -their parents. No! I love thee no longer. Thou'rt naught but a full bag, -at this moment, o my belly, smiling at the nombril, o elastic belly, -downy, polished, convex, sorrowful, round, silky, which ennobles me. For -thou makest noble, o my belly, more beautiful than the sunlight. Thou -shalt ennoble also the child of the Flemish vagabond and thou art worthy -of the loins of Jupiter. What a misfortune! a moment ago I was about to -destroy a child of noble race, my child who already lives in my beloved -belly." - -She opened the door suddenly and cried: - -"Madame Dehan! Mademoiselle Baba!" - -There was a rattling of doors and bolts and then the proprietors of -Macarée's lodging came running out. - -"I am pregnant," cried Macarée, "I am pregnant!" - -She was sitting up in bed, her legs spread apart. Her skin looked very -delicate. Macarée was narrow at the waist and broad-hipped. - -"Poor little one," said Madame Dehan, who had but one eye, no waistline, -a moustache, and limped. "After confinement women are just like crushed -snail-shells. After confinement women are simply prey to disease (look -at me!) an egg-shell full of all sorts of rubbish, incantations and -other witch-spells. Ah! Ah! You have done very well." - -"All foolishness," said Macarée. "The duty of women is to have -children, and I am sure that their health is generally improved thereby, -both physically and morally." - -"Where are you sick?" asked Mademoiselle Baba. - -"Shut up! I say," exclaimed Madame Dehan. "Better go and look for my -flask of Spa elixir and bring some little glasses." - -Mademoiselle Baba brought the elixir. They drank of it. - -"I feel better now," said Madame Dehan, "After so much emotion, I need -to refresh myself." - -She poured out another little glass of the elixir for herself, drank it -and licked the last few drops up with her tongue. - -"Think of it," she said finally, "think of it, Madame Macarée ... I -swear by all that I hold sacred, Mademoiselle Baba can be my witness, -this is the first time that such a thing has happened to one of my -tenants. And how many I have had! My Lord! Louise Bernier, whom they -nicknamed Wrinkle, because she was so skinny; Marcelle la Carabinière -(the freshest thing you ever saw!); Josuette, who died of a sunstroke in -Christiania, the sun wishing thus to have his revenge of Joshua; Lili de -Mercœur, a grand name, mind you, (not hers of course) and then vile -enough for a chic woman, as Mercœur put it: 'You must pronounce it -Mercure,' screwing up her mouth like a chicken's hole. Well she got -hers, all right, they filled her as full of mercury as a thermometer. -She would ask me in the morning; What sort of weather do you think we'll -have today?' But I would always answer: 'You ought to know better than -I...' Never, never in the world would any of those have become enceinte -in my house." - -"Oh well, it isn't as bad as that," said Macarée, "I also never had it -happen to me before. Give me some advice, but make it short." - -At this moment she arose. - -"Oh!" cried Madame Dehan, "what a well-shaped behind you have! how -sweet! how white! what embonpoint! Baba, Madame Macarée is going to put -on her dressing-gown. Serve coffee and bring the bilberry tart." - -Macarée put on a chemise and then a dressing gown whose belt was made -of a Scotch shawl. - -Mademoiselle Baba came back; she brought a big platter with cups, a -coffee pot, milk-pitcher, jar of honey, butter cakes and the bilberry -tart. - -"If you want some good advice," said Madame Dehan, wiping away with the -back of her hand the coffee that dribbled down her chin, "You had better -go and baptize your child." - -"I shall make sure and do that," said Macarée. - -"And I even think," said Mademoiselle Baba, "that it would be best to do -it on the day he is born." - -"In fact," Madam Dehan mumbled, her mouth full of food, "you can never -tell what may happen. Then you will nurse him yourself, and if I were -you, if I had money like you, I should try to go to Rome before the -confinement and get the Pope to bless me. Your child will never know -either the paternal caress or blow, he will never utter the sweet name -of papa. May the blessing of the Holy Papa at least follow him all his -life." - -And Madame Dehan began to sob like a kettle boiling over, while Macarée -burst into tears as abundant as a spouting whale. But what of -Mademoiselle Baba? Her lips blue with berries, she wept so hard that -from her throat the sobs flooded down to her hymen and nearly choked -her. - - - - -IV. NOBILITY - - -After having won a great deal of money at baccarat, and already rich, -thanks to Love, Macarée, whose corpulency nothing could conceal, came -to Paris, where above all, she ran after the most fashionable modistes. - -How chic she was, how chic she was! - - -* * * - - -One night when she went to the Théâtre Français a play with a moral -was presented. In the first act, a young woman whom surgery had rendered -sterile lamented the fatness of her husband who had the dropsy and was -very jealous. The doctor went out saying: - -"Only a great miracle and great devotion can save your husband." - -In the second act, the young woman said to the young doctor: - -"I offer myself up for my husband. I want to become dropsical in his -stead." - -"Let us love each other, Madame. And if you are not unfaithful to the -principle of maternity your wish will be granted. And what sweet glory I -shall have thereof!" - -"Alas!" murmured the lady, "I no longer have any ovaries." - -"Love," cried the doctor at this, "Love, madame, is capable of working -the greatest miracles." - -In the third act, the husband, thin as an I, and the lady, eight months -gone, felicitated each other on the exchange they had made. The doctor -communicated to the Academy of Medicine the results of his experiments -in the fecundation of women become sterile as a result of surgical -operations. - - -* * * - - -Toward the end of the third act, someone shouted "Fire!" in the hall. -The frightened spectators rushed from the hall howling. In fleeing, -Macarée possessed herself of the arm of the first man she encountered. -He was well dressed and fair of feature, and as Macarée was charming, -he seemed flattered that she had chosen him as her protector. They made -each other's acquaintance at a café and from there went to sup in the -Montmartre. But it appeared that François des Ygrées had negligently -forgotten to take his purse with him. Macarée gladly paid the bill. And -François des Ygrées pushed gallantry so far as not to allow Macarée -to spend the night alone, the incident at the theatre having rendered -her nervous. - - -* * * - - -François, baron des Ygrées (a doubtful baronetcy belonging to whoever -claimed it) called himself the last offshoot of a noble house of -Provence and pursued a career in heraldry on the sixth floor of an -apartment in the rue Charles V. - -"But," he said, "the revolutions and the demagogues have changed things -so that arms are no longer studied except by ill-born archaeologists, -and the nobility is no longer tutored in this art." - -The baron des Ygrées, whose coat of arms was of _azur à trois pairies -d'argent posés en pal_, was able to inspire enough sympathy in Macarée -for her to want to take lessons in heraldry out of gratitude for that -night at the Théâtre Français. - -Macarée showed herself, it is true, little given to learning the -terminology of heraldry, and one might even say that she did not -interest herself seriously in anything but the arms of the Pignatelli -who had furnished popes for the Church and whose coat-of-arms was -adorned with kettles. - -However, these lessons were wasted time to neither Macarée nor -François des Ygrées, for they ended by marrying. Macarée brought as -her dot, her money, her beauty and her fatness. François des Ygrées -offered to Macarée a great name and his noble bearing. - -Neither complained of the bargain and they found themselves very -happy. - -"Macarée, my dear wife," said François des Ygrées a few days after -their marriage, "Why have you ordered so many robes? It seems to me that -hardly a day passes without some modiste brings new costumes. They do, -true enough, honor to your taste and to their skill." - -Macarée hesitated for a moment and then replied: - -"It is to our honeymoon that you refer, François!" - -"Our honeymoon, yes, I have thought of it. But where do you want to -go?" - -"To Rome," said Macarée. - -"To Rome, like the bells of Easter?" - -"I want to see the Pope," said Macarée. - -"Very fine, but what for?" - -"That he may bless the child who lies under my heart," said Macarée. - -"Phew-ew-ew!" - -"It will be your son," said Macarée. - -"You are quite right, Macarée. We shall go to Rome like the bells of -Easter. You will order a new robe of black velvet; and the dressmaker -must not neglect to embroider our arms at the bottom of the skirt: of -_azur à trois pairies d'argent posés en pal._" - - - - -V. PAPACY - - -_Per carita_, baroness, (I had almost called you Mademoiselle!) Ah! Ah! -Ah! But the _baron_, your husband, he would protest. Ah! ah! quite true, -you have a little belly which commences to become arrogant. They do -their work well, I see, in France. Ah! if that fine country would only -become religious again, the population decimated by anti-clericalism -would at once, (yes, _baroness_) the population would increase -considerably. Ah! dear Christ! how well she listens, the _arrogantine_, -when one talks seriously, yes, _baroness_, you have the air of an -_arrogantine._ Ah! ah! ah! so, you want to see the Pope. Ah! ah! ah! the -benediction of a mere cardinal like me will not do. Ah! ah! tut-tut, I -understand quite well. Ah! ah! I shall try to obtain an audience for -you. Oh! no need to thank me, you can let my hand go. How well she -kisses, the _arrogantine_, oh! Come here, again, I want you to carry -away with you a little souvenir of me. - -"There! a chain, with the medal of the holy house of Lorette. Let me put -it about your neck... Now that you have the medal you must promise me -never to part with it. There, there, there! Come here so that I can kiss -you on the forehead. Come, come, can she be afraid of me, the little -_arrogantine?_ Done! Now tell me why you laugh?... Nothing! Well! Now, -one bit of advice! When you go to the Vatican, I warn you not to use so -much odour, I mean so much perfume. Goodbye, _arrogantine._ Come and see -me again. My compliments to _the baron._" - - -* * * - - -It was thus, that, thanks to Cardinal Ricottino, who had been to Paris -as _nuncio_, Macarée obtained an audience with the Pope. - -She went to the Vatican dressed in her beautiful armorial robe. The -baron des Ygrées, in full dress, accompanied her. He admired much the -bearing of the royal guards, and the Swiss mercenaries, inclined to -drunkenness and brawling, seemed fine devils to him. He found occasion -to whisper into his wife's ear something about one of his ancestors who -was a cardinal under Louis XIII... - - -* * * - - -The couple returned to the hotel deeply moved and almost prostrated by -the benediction of the Pope. They undressed chastely, and in bed, they -spoke for a long time about the pontiff, the whitened head of the old -church, a pressed lily, the snow which Catholics think eternal. - -"My dear wife," said François des Ygrées finally, "I esteem you to -adoration, and I love the child whom the Pope has blessed with all my -heart. May he come, the blessed infant, but I want him to be born in -France." - -"François," said Macarée, "I have never yet been to Monte-Carlo. Let -us go there! I needn't lose our whole pile. We are not millionaires, but -I am sure that we shall be lucky in Monte-Carlo." - -"Damn! damn! damn!" swore François, "Macarée, you make me see red." - -"Ho, there," cried Macarée, "you gave me a kick, you----" - -"I note with pleasure, Macarée," said François des Ygrées waggishly, -recovering his good humor, "that you do not forget that I am your -husband." - -"Come, then, li'l nobs, let's go to Monaco." - -"Yes, but you must have your confinement in France, for Monaco is an -independent state." - -"Agreed," said Macarée. - -On the morrow the baron des Ygrées and the baroness, all swollen by -mosquito bites, took tickets at the station for Monaco. In the coach -they laid charming plans. - - - - -VI. GAMBRINUS - - -The baron and the baroness des Ygrées in taking tickets for Monaco had -thought to arrive at the station which is the fifth on the way from -Italy to France and the second in the little principality of Monaco. - -The name of Monaco is properly the Italian name of this principality, -although it is widely used nowadays in French, the French terms -_Mourgues_ and _Monéghe_ having fallen into desuetude. - -However the Italians call Monaco, not only the principality which bears -that name but also the capital of Bavaria which the French call Munich. -The messenger accordingly gave the baron tickets for Monaco-Munich -instead of Monaco-principality. Before the baron and the baroness had -noticed their error they were already at the Swiss frontier, and after -having recovered from their astonishment, they decided to finish the -voyage to Munich in order to see at close hand all that the -anti-artistic spirit of modern Germany could conceive of ugliness in -architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts... - - -* * * - - -The cold winds of March made the couple shiver in this stone-box -Athens. - -"Beer," the baron des Ygrées had said, "is excellent for women who are -enceinte." - -And so he led his wife to the royal brewery of Pschorr, to the -Augustinerbräu, to the Münchnerkindl and other great breweries. They -penetrated to the Nockerberg where there is a great garden. They drank -there, as long as it held out, the famous March beer, _Salvator_, and it -didn't last very long, for the Munich people are great drunkards. - - -* * * - - -When the baron and his wife entered the garden they found it thronged -with a mob of drinkers, who were already under-the-weather and sang head -to head and danced dizzily, breaking all the empty steins. - -Peddlers sold roast fowl, grilled herrings, pretzels, rolls, sausages, -sweets, souvenirs, post-cards. And there was also Hans Irlbeck, the King -of Drinkers. Since Perkeo, the midget drunkard of the great cask of -Heidelberg, no such boozer had ever been seen. At the time of the March -beer, and in May, Bock-time, Hans Irlbeck drank his forty quarts of beer -a day. Ordinarily he did not have occasion to drink more than -twenty-five. - -Just as the gracious Ygrées pair passed by, Hans placed his colossal -buttocks on a bench which, bearing already the weight of some twenty -huge men and women, cracked disconsolately. The drinkers fell, their -legs in the air. Some bare thighs could be seen because Munich ladies -never wear their stockings above their knees. Bursts of laughter -everywhere. Hans Irlbeck who had also been floored, but had not let go -of his stein, spilled its contents over the belly of a girl who had -rolled near him, and the beer bubbling under her resembled that which -she did when she got to her feet after swallowing a quart at one gulp in -order to recover her composure. - -But the proprietor of the garden cried: - -"_Donnerkeil!_ damned swine ... a bench broken." - -And he started off with his towel under his arm, calling loudly for the -waiters: - -"Franz! Jacob! Ludwig! Martin!" while the patrons called for the -proprietor: - -"_Ober! Ober!_" - -However the Oberkellner and the waiters did not come back. The drinkers -crowded about the counters and took their steins themselves, but the -kegs were no longer emptied, and no more were heard the sonorous blows -of another cask being put under the hammer. The singing ceased, the -drinkers, angered, proffered oaths at the brewers and at the March beer -itself. Some profited by the lull to vomit with violent efforts, their -eyes almost popping out of their heads; their neighbors encouraged them -with imperturbable seriousness. Hans Irlbeck who had picked himself up, -not without difficulty, grumbled with a great snort: - -"There is no more beer in Munich!" - -And he repeated, with the accent of his native city: - -"Minchen! Minchen! Minchen!" - -After raising his eyes toward heaven, he fell upon a vendor of fowls, -and having ordered him to roast a goose for him, began to formulate his -desires: - -"No more beer in Munich... if there were only some white radishes!" - -And he repeated many times the Munich expression: - -"Raadi, raadi, raadi..." - -Suddenly he stopped. The crowd of drinkers, beside themselves, gave a -cry of exultation. The four waiters had just appeared at the door of the -brewery. With dignity they were carrying a sort of canopy under which -the Oberkellner marched proud and erect, like a negro king dethroned. -Behind him came fresh kegs of beer which were put under the hammer at -the sound of the bell, while shouts of laughter rang out, and cries and -songs rose above this teeming butte, hard and agitated as the Adam's -apple of Gambrinus himself, when, burlesqued in the costume of a monk, a -white radish in one hand, he tossed off with the other the jug which -rejoiced his gullet. - -And the unborn child found himself right shaken by the laughter of -Macarée who, greatly amused by the spectacle of this colossal gluttony, -drank and drank in company with her spouse. - -But then, the vivacity of the mother exerted a happy influence on the -character of the offspring who acquired therefrom much common sense, -before his birth, and some of the real common sense, of course, which -great poets are made of. - - - - -VII. CONFINEMENT - - -Baron François des Ygrées left Munich when the baroness knew that the -hour of delivery was approaching. Monsieur des Ygrées did not want to -have a child born in Bavaria; he was sure that that country was overrun -with syphilis. - -They arrived in the springtime, in the little port of Napoule, which in -an excellently turned verse the baron baptised for eternity: - - -_Napoule of the golden skies._ - - -It was there that the delivery of Macarée's child took place. - - -* * * - - -"Ah! Ah! Aie! Aie! Aie! Ouh! Ouh! Whee-ee-ee!" - -The three local midwives took to improvising pleasantly: - - -FIRST MIDWIFE - -I dream of war. - -O my friends, the stars, the bright stars, have you ever counted them? - -O my friends, do you even remember the titles of all the books you have -read and the names of their authors? - -O my friends, have you ever thought of the poor men who tread the broad -highways? - -The herdsmen of the golden age led their herds to pasture without fear -that the cattle would flee, they feared only the jungle beasts. - -O my friends, what do you think of all these cannons? - - -SECOND MIDWIFE - -What do I think of these cannons? They are vigorous phalli. - -O my beautiful nights! I am happy because of a sinister horn which -enchanted me last night, 'tis a good augury. My hair is perfumed with -abelmosch. - -O! the beautiful and rigid phalli that these cannons are! If women had -to do military service they would all go into the artillery. The sight -of the cannons in battle would be strange for them. - -Lights are born on the sea far off. - -Reply, o Zelotide, reply with thy sweet voice. - - -THIRD MIDWIFE - -I love his eyes at night, he knows my hair well and its odour. In the -streets of Marseilles an officer pursued me for a long time. He was well -dressed and of fair colour, there was gold on his costume and his mouth -tempted me, but I fled his kisses and took refuge in my "bedroom" of the -"family-house" where I was stopping.[2] - - -FIRST MIDWIFE - -O Zelotide, spare the sad men as thou sparest this beau. Zelotide what -thinkest thou of the cannons. - - -SECOND MIDWIFE - -Alas! Alas! I want to be loved. - - -THIRD MIDWIFE - -They are the tools of the ignoble love of the people. O Sodom! Sodom. O -sterile love! - - -FIRST MIDWIFE - -But we are women, why dost thou speak of Sodom? - - -THIRD MIDWIFE - -The fire of heaven devoured her. - - -THE CONFINED - -When you have finished your monkey-tricks, if it please you, will you -not forget to give a little attention to the baroness des Ygrées. - - -* * * - - -The baron slept in a corner of the room on several travelling blankets. -He made a fart which caused his better half to laugh until the tears -came. Macarée wept, cried, laughed and a few moments later brought into -the world a sturdy child of the male sex. Then, exhausted by these -efforts, she rendered up her soul, with a scream that was like the -ululation of the eternal first wife of Adam, when she crossed the Red -Sea. - -In reporting the above, I believe that I have elucidated the important -question of the birthplace of Croniamantal. Let the 123 towns in 7 -countries dispute the honor of his birth.[3] - -We know now, and the state records bear testimony that he was born of -the paternal fart at _Napoule of the golden skies_, on the 25th of -August, 1889, but not announced at the mayoralty until the following -morning.[4] - -It was the year of the Universal Exposition, and the Eiffel Tower, which -was just born, saluted the heroic birth of Croniamantal with a beautiful -erection. - -The baron des Ygrées made another fart which woke him by the macabre -bed where the corpse of Macarée reclined. The child cried, the midwives -croaked, the father sobbed, and declaimed: - -"Ah, Napoule with the golden skies, I have killed my hen with the golden -eyes!" - -Then he bathed the new-born calling him by a name which he invented -forthwith and which did not belong to any saint in Paradise: -CRONIAMANTAL. He left on the following day, having arranged for the -funeral of his spouse, written the necessary letters assuring his -inheritance, and announced the child under the names of -Gaëtan—Francis—Etienne—Jack—Amélie—Alonso des Ygrées. And -with this nursling whose putative father he was, he took the train for -the Principality of Monaco.[5] - - - - -VIII. MAMMON - - -A widower, François des Ygrées established himself near the -principality; on the grounds of Roquebrune; he took pension with a -family, which included a pretty brunette called Mia. There he reared the -bearer of his own name with the baby-bottle. - -Often he would go out at dawn for a walk at the sea shore. The road was -fringed with amaryllis which he would always compare involuntarily with -packages of dried cod. Sometimes, because of the contrary winds, he -would turn to light an Egyptian cigarette whose smoke rose in spirals -like the bluish mountains emerging far off in Italy. - - -* * * - - -The family in whose bosom he had installed himself was composed of the -father, the mother and Mia. M. Cecchi, a Corsican, was a croupier at the -casino. He had previously been croupier at Baden-Baden and had married a -German woman there. Of this union Mia was born; her carnation tint and -black hair bespoke her Corsican blood. She was always dressed in buoyant -colors. Her walk was balanced, her figure arched; she was smaller at the -breast than at the buttocks, and a touch of strabism lent her dark eyes -a somewhat distraught look, which only rendered her more tempting. - -Her speech was lazy, soft, guttural, but pleasant nevertheless. It was -the accent of the Monegascans whose syntax Mia followed. After having -seen the young girl gather roses, François des Ygrées began to take -notice of her and was much amused by her syntax for whose rules he -enjoyed making research... First of all, he noticed the italianisms in -her vocabulary, and especially the habit of conjugating the verb "to be" -with the wrong auxiliary. For example, Mia would say: "_Je suis -étée_," instead of "_J'ai été._" He also noted her bizarre way of -repeating the verb in her principal clause: "I was at the Moulins, while -you went to Menton, I was;" or better: "This year I am going to the -gingerbread fair at Nice, I am." - -One time before sunrise, François des Ygrées went down to the garden. -He abandoned himself to sweet reveries, during which he caught cold. All -of a sudden he began to sneeze about twenty times in succession. - -Sneezing aroused him. He saw that the sky had whitened and the horizon -cleared with the first light of dawn. Then the first shafts of sunlight -enflamed the sky along the Italian coast. Before him spread the still -sorrowful sea, and on the horizon, like little clouds above the film of -sea, could be seen the curving peaks of Corsica, which always -disappeared after the rising of the sun. The baron des Ygrées shivered, -then he yawned and stretched himself. He kept on regarding the sea to -the east where one might have said there glittered a royal navy in sight -of a seaport with white houses, Bodighère, which furnished palms for -the festivities of the Vatican. He turned toward the immobile guardian -of the garden, a great cypress, begirt with a full-blown rose bush which -clambered up almost to its top. François des Ygrées breathed of the -sumptuous roses of nonpareil fragrance whose petals, as yet closed, were -of flesh. - -And just then Mia called him to have his breakfast. - -With her braid hanging down her back, she had just come to pick some -figs and she was letting a few creamy drops flow into a pitcher of milk. -She smiled at François des Ygrées, saying: - -"Have you slept well?" - -"No, there are too many mosquitoes." - -"Don't you know that when you are stung you should rub the place with -lemon and in order not to be stung by them you should put vaseline on -your face before going to sleep. They never bite me." - -"That would be too bad. For you are very pretty, and ought to be told so -oftener." - -"There are those who tell me so and others who think so without telling. -Those who tell it to me make me neither hot nor cold, as for the others, -so much the worse for them..." - -And François des Ygrées conceived at once a little fable for the -timid: - - -FABLE OF THE OYSTER AND THE HERRING - -An oyster dwelt, beautiful and wise, on a rock. She never dreamed of -love but during fine weather simply bayed beatifically at the sun. A -herring saw her and it was as a spark of powder. He tumbled hopelessly -in love with her without daring to avow it. - -One summer day, happy and coy, the oyster yawned. Smuggled behind a rock -the herring looked on, but all at once the desire to imprint a kiss upon -his beloved became so overpowering that he could no longer restrain -himself. - -And so he threw himself between the open shells of the oyster who in her -surprise shut them with a snap, decapitating the wretched herring, whose -headless body floats aimlessly upon the ocean. - - -"'Twas so much the worse for the herring," said Mia laughing, "He was -much too foolish. I too want people to tell me that I am pretty, not for -fun, but so as we can marry..." - -And François des Ygrées noted for future consideration her curious -peculiarities of syntax: "so as we can marry." ...And he thought -further: "She doesn't love me. Macarée dead. Mia indifferent. Alas I am -unhappy in love." - - -* * * - - -One day he found himself in the valley of Gaumates on a little knoll -covered with skinny little pines. The shore trimmed by the white-blue of -the waves stretched far out before him. The Casino emerged from the bank -of splendid trees in its gardens. This palace looked like a man -squatting and lifting his arms toward heaven. Near it, François des -Ygrées hearkened to an invisible Mammon: - -"Regard this palace, François, it is made in the image of man. It is -sociable like him. It loves those who come to it and especially, those -who are unhappy in love. Go there and thou wilt win, for thou canst not -lose in play, since thou hast lost all in love." - -Since it was six o'clock, the angelus tinkled from the different -churches in the neighborhood. The voice of the bells prevailed against -the voice of the invisible Mammon, who became silent, while François -des Ygrées searched for him. - - -* * * - - -On the next day, François took the road to the temple of Mammon. It was -Palm Sunday. The streets were littered with children, young girls and -women carrying palms and olive-branches. The palms were either very -simple or woven in a peculiar fashion. At each corner of the street, the -weavers of palms were sitting against the wall, working. Under their -deft hands the palm fibers bent, circled bizarrely and charmingly. The -children were playing about already with hard eggs. On a square a troop -of urchins were pummelling a red-headed kid whom they had found trying -to consume a marble egg. Very small girls were going to mass, well -dressed and carrying like candles the woven palms in which their mothers -had hung sweet-meats. - -François des Ygrées thought: - -"The sight of these palms brings good luck and today, which is gay -Easter, I shall break the bank." - - -* * * - - -In the game hall, he regarded at first the diverse throng which pressed -about the tables... - -François des Ygrées approached a table and played. He lost. The -invisible Mammon had come back and spoke sharply each time they erased a -deal: - -"Thou hast lost!" - -And François saw the crowd no more, his head was turning, he placed -louis, packages of bills, on one square, diagonally, transversally. He -played a long time losing as much as he wanted to. - -He turned away at last and saw the whole brilliant hall where the -players still pressed about the tables as before. Noticing a young man -whose chagrined face revealed that he had had no luck, François smiled -at him and asked whether he had lost. - -The young man replied angrily: - -"You too? A Russian just won more than two hundred thousand francs by my -side. Ah! if I only had a hundred francs more, I would make up what I -have lost twenty or thirty times over. But Oh, I have beastly luck, I am -hoodooed, done for. Imagine..." - -And taking François by the arm, he led him toward a divan on which they -sat down. - -"Imagine," he continued, "I have lost everything. I am almost a thief. -The money I have lost did not belong to me. I am not rich, I had a -position of trust. My employer sent me to recover claims in Marseilles. -I got them. I took the train to come here and try my luck. I lost. What -is there left? They will arrest me. They will say that I am a dishonest -man, even though I haven't ever profited of the money I took. I have -lost all. If I had won, no one would have reproached me. What luck I -have! There is nothing for me to do but to kill myself." - -And suddenly rising the young man put a revolver to his mouth and fired. -The corpse was carried away. Several players turned their heads a -moment, but none of them bothered at all, and most of them took no -notice of the incident which, however, made a profound impression on the -mind of the baron des Ygrées. He had lost all that Macarée had left -him and the child. As he went out François felt the whole universe -contract about him like a tiny cell, and then like a coffin. He got back -to the villa where he lived. At the door he passed Mia who was chatting -with a stranger who carried a valise. - -"I am a Hollander," said the man, "but I live in Provence and I would -like to hire a room for several days; I have come here to make some -mathematical observations." - -At this moment the baron des Ygrées sent a kiss with his left hand to -Mia, while with a revolver in his right he blew his brains out and -rolled in the dust. - -"We have only one room to rent," said Mia, "but it has just become -free." - -And she quickly closed the eyelids of the baron des Ygrées, gave cries -of grief, and aroused the neighborhood. - - -* * * - - -As to the young child, whom his father had in such a characteristic -burst of lyricism named for aye Croniamantal, he was gathered up by the -Dutch traveller who soon carried him off to bring him up as his own son. - -On the day they left, Mia sold her virginity to a millionaire -trap-shooting-champion, and it was the thirty-fifth time that she had -lent herself to this little commercial transaction. - - - - -[Illustration 03] - - - - -IX. PEDAGOGY - - -The Dutchman, named Janssen, led Croniamantal to the region of Aix, -where there was a house which the people of the neighborhood called le -Chateau. Le Chateau had nothing lordly about it other than its name and -was nothing but a vast domicile having a dairy and a stable. - -Mr. Janssen possessed a modest income and lived alone in this dwelling -which he had bought in order to live in solitude, a suddenly broken off -betrothal having rendered him rather hypochondriac. He devoted all his -energies now to the education of the son of Macarée and Vierselin -Tigoboth: Croniamantal, heir of the old name of des Ygrées. - -The Dutchman, Janssen, had travelled much. He spoke all the languages of -Europe, Arabian, and Turkish, not to mention Hebrew and other dead -languages. His speech was as clear as his blue eyes. He soon made the -friendship of several scholars of Aix whom he would visit from time to -time and he corresponded with many foreign scientists. - -When Croniamantal was six years of age, Mr. Janssen would often take him -to the country. Croniamantal came to love these lessons along the paths -of wooded hills. Mr. Janssen would often stop and show Croniamantal the -birds hopping about or butterflies pursuing each other and fluttering -together among the wild rose-bushes. He would say that love reigned over -all of Nature. They would also go out on moonlit nights and the master -would explain to his pupil the hidden destinies of the heavenly bodies, -their regular course, and their effects upon the life of man. - -Croniamantal never forgot how one moonlit night his master led him to a -field at the edge of a forest; the grass bubbled with milky light. -Fireflies fluttered around them; their phosphorescent and jagged lights -gave the site a strange aspect. The master called the attention of his -disciple to the sweetness of this May night. - -"Learn," he said, "learn to know all of Nature and to love her. Let her -be your veritable nurse, whose salutary mammals are the moon and the -hills." - -Croniamantal was thirteen years of age at this time and his mind was -quite ripe. He listened attentively to Mr. Janssen's words. - -"I have always lived in her, but I must say, lived badly, for one should -not live without human love as companion. Do not forget that all is a -sign of love in Nature. I, alas! am damned for not having observed this -law whose demands nothing can withstand." - -"What," said Croniamantal, "you, my teacher, who know so many sciences -did not recognize this law which every country lout and even the -animals, the vegetables, and inert matter observe?" - -"Happy child who at your age can put such questions!" said Mr. Janssen. -"I have always known that law, from which no human being should rebel. -But there are some luckless men destined never to know the joys of love. -That often happens to poets and scientists. Their souls are vagabond; I -am always conscious of existences preceding my own. This knowledge has -never stirred any but the sterile bodies of scientists. (You should not -be astonished in the least at what I say.) Whole races respect animals -and proclaim the principle of metempsychosis, a most worthy belief, -self-evident but fantastical, since it takes no account of lost forms -and of their inevitable dispersion. Their worship should have extended -to the vegetable kingdom and to minerals. For what is the dust of roads -but the ashes of the dead? It is true that the Ancients did not concede -life to inert matter. But rabbis believed that the same soul inhabited -the body of Adam, Moses and David. In fact, the name, Adam, is composed -in Hebrew of the letters Aleph, Daleth and Mem, the first letters of the -three names. Your soul like mine, inhabited other human forms, other -animals, or was dispersed and will continue so after your death, since -all things must serve again. For perhaps there is nothing new any more, -and creation has ceased, perhaps... I affirm that I have not desired -love, but I swear that I would not begin such a life over again. I have -mortified my flesh and suffered severe punishment. I should like your -life to be happy." - -Croniamantal's master made him devote most of his time to the sciences, -keeping him au courant with all recent inventions. He also instructed -the boy in Latin and Greek. They often read the Eclogues of Virgil or -translated Theocritus in an olive grove. Croniamantal had learned a very -pure French, but his master taught him in Latin. He also taught him -Italian, and at an early age Croniamantal received the poems of -Petrarch, who became one of his favorite poets. Mr. Janssen also taught -Croniamantal English, and made him familiar with Shakespeare. Above all -he gave the boy a taste for old French authors. Among the French poets -he admired chiefly Villon, Ronsard and his pléiade, Racine and La -Fontaine. He also made him read translations of Cervantes and of Goethe. -On his advice, Croniamantal read the romances of chivalry which might -have made part of the library of Don Quixote. They developed in -Croniamantal an unquenchable thirst for experiment and perilous love -adventures; he devoted himself to fencing and to horseback riding; at -the age of fifteen he declared to anyone who came to visit them that he -had decided to become a celebrated and peerless cavalier, and already he -dreamed of a mistress. - -Croniamantal was, at this time, a handsome youth, thin and straight. The -girls at the village fêtes, when he touched them lightly, would stifle -little bursts of laughter and redden, lowering their eyes under his -regard. Habituated to poetic forms, his mind thought of love as a -conquest. Thoughts of Boccacio, his natural daring, his education, -everything disposed him to take the final step. - -One May day, he went out for a long ride. It was morning, everything was -still fresh. The dew hung from the flowers of the hedges, and on either -side of the road stretched the fields of olive trees whose gray leaves -trembled gently in the sea breeze and compared agreeably with the blue -sky. He arrived at a place where the road was being mended. The road -menders, handsome boys in bright colored caps, worked lazily, singing -the while, and stopping occasionally to drink from their flasks. -Croniamantal thought that these handsome fellows had sweethearts. It is -thus that they call a lover in that country. The boys say "my -sweetheart," the girls, "my sweetheart," and in fact they are both sweet -in that lovely country. Croniamantal's heart leaped and his whole being, -exalted by the springtime and the riding, cried for love. - -At a turn in the road, an apparition increased his trouble. He arrived -close to a little bridge thrown across a river which cut the road. The -place was isolated, and across the hedges and the trunks of poplars, he -saw two beautiful girls bathing, quite naked. One was in the water and -held herself up by a branch. He admired her brown arms and abundant -beauties, hardly concealed by the water. The other, standing on the -bank, dried herself after her bath and exposed ravishing lines and -graces which inflamed the heart of Croniamantal; he decided to join them -and mingle in their pleasures. Unluckily, he perceived in the branches -of a neighboring tree two youths spying on this prey. Holding their -breath and watching the least movements of the bathers, they did not see -the equestrian, who, laughing uproariously, threw his horse into a -gallop and cried aloud as he crossed the little bridge. - -The sun had risen almost to its zenith and was now darting its dreadful -rays. An ardent thirst added itself to the amorous inquietudes of -Croniamantal. The sight of a farm along the road brought him unspeakable -joy. He arrived at a little orchard whose blossoming trees made a lovely -sight. It was a little wood, rose and white with the cherry and peach -blossoms. On the fence linen was drying and he had the pleasure of -seeing a charming peasant girl of about sixteen, at work washing clothes -in a vat in the shadow of a fig-tree that had just begun to bloom. Not -having noticed his arrival, she continued to accomplish her domestic -function which he found noble; for, his imagination full of memories of -antiquity, he compared her to Nausica. Descending from his horse he -approached and contemplated the young girl with ravishment. He looked at -her back. Her folded up skirt discovered a well made leg in a very white -stocking. Her body moved in a manner that was pleasantly exciting -because of the efforts occasioned by the soaping. Her sleeves were -rolled up and he observed her pretty brown plump arms, which enchanted -him. - - -I have always loved beautiful arms particularly. There are people who -attach great importance to the perfection of the foot. I admit that they -touch me too, but the arm is to my mind that which should be most -perfect in woman. It is always in motion, one always has one's eye upon -it. One might say that it is the veritable organ of the graces, and that -by its deft movements, it is the veritable arm of Love, since when -curved, this delicate arm resembles a bow, and when extended, the arrow -thereof. - - -This was also Croniamantal's point of view. He was thinking of this, -when his horse, who suddenly remembered that it was the habitual hour -for being fed, began to whinny. At once the young girl turned and showed -surprise at seeing a stranger regarding her from above the fence. She -blushed and only seemed the more charming. Her dusky skin attested to -the Moorish blood that flowed in her veins. Croniamantal asked her for -food and drink. With much good grace this sweet girl did have him enter -the house and served him a rude repast. With some milk, eggs, and black -bread, his thirst and his hunger were soon sated. In the meantime, he -questioned his young hostess, in the hope of finding an opportunity for -paying her gallant compliments. He learned that her name was Mariette, -and that her parents had gone to the neighboring town to sell -vegetables; her brother was working on the road. This family lived -happily on the products of the orchard and the barnyard. - -At this moment, her parents, fine looking peasants, returned, and there -was Croniamantal already in love with Mariette, quite disappointed. He -paid the mother for the meal, and went off, after having given Mariette -a long look which she did not return, but he had the satisfaction of -seeing her blush as she turned away. - -He mounted his horse and took the road to his house. Being for the first -time in his life, sad for love, he found extreme melancholy in this same -countryside which he had previously traversed. The sun had dropped low -over the horizon. The grey leaves of the olive trees seemed as sad as -himself. The shadows stretched out like waves. The river where he had -seen the bathers was abandoned. The lapping of the water became -unbearable for him, like a mockery. He threw his horse into a gallop. -Then there was the dusk, lights appearing in the distance. Then night -came; he slowed up his horse and abandoned himself to a disordered -revelry. The sloping road was bordered with cypresses, and it was thus, -somnolent with the night and with love, that Croniamantal pursued his -melancholy way. - - -* * * - - -His master soon noticed in the days that followed that he gave no more -attention to the studies to which he had been wont to apply himself with -such diligence. He divined that this disgust came of love. - -His respect was mingled with a little scorn because Mariette was nothing -but a simple peasant girl. - -The end of September had been reached, and one day Mr. Janssen led -Croniamantal out under the laden olive trees in the orchard and censured -his disciple for his passion, the latter hearkening to his reproaches -with ruddy embarrassment. The first winds of autumn complained in the -fields and Croniamantal, very sad and much ashamed, lost forever his -desire to see again the pretty Mariette and kept nothing but the memory -of her. - - -* * * - - -And so Croniamantal attained his majority. - -A disease of the heart which was discovered in him led to his dismissal -by the military authorities. Soon after, his guardian died suddenly, -leaving him by will the little which he possessed. And after having sold -the house called _le Chateau_, Croniamantal went to Paris to give -himself freely to his taste for literature; he had been for some time -past composing poems secretly and accumulating them in an old cigar-box. - - - - -X. POETRY - - -In the early days of the year 1911, a young man who was very badly -dressed went running up the rue Houdon. His extremely mobile countenance -seemed to be filled with joy and anxiety by turns. His eyes devoured all -that they saw and when his eyelids snapped shut quickly like jaws, they -gulped in the universe, which renewed itself incessantly by the mere -operation of him who ran. He imagined to the tiniest details the -enormous worlds pastured in himself. The clamour and the thunder of -Paris burst from afar and about the young man, who stopped, and panted -like some criminal who has been too long pursued and is ready to -surrender himself. This clamour, this noise indicated clearly that his -enemies were about to track him like a thief. His mouth and his gaze -expressed the ruse he was employing, and walking slowly now, he took -refuge in his memory, and went forward, while all the forces of his -destiny and of his consciousness retarded the time when the truth should -appear of that which is, that which was, and of that which is to be. - -The young man entered a one story house. On the open door was a -placard: - - -_Entrance to the Studios_ - - -He followed a corridor where it was so dark and so cold that he had the -feeling of having died, and with all his will, clenching his fists and -gritting his teeth he began to take eternity to bits. Then suddenly he -was conscious again of the motion of time whose seconds, hammered by a -clock, fell like pieces of broken glass, while life flowed in him again -with the renewed passage of time. But as he stopped to rap at a door, -his heart beat more strongly again, for fear of finding no one home. - -He rapped at the door and cried: - -"It is I, Croniamantal!" - -And behind the door the heavy steps of a man who seemed tired, or -carried too weighty a burden, came slowly, and as the door opened there -took place in the sudden light the creation of two beings and their -instant marriage. - -In the studio, which looked like a barn, an innumerable herd flowed in -dispersion: they were the sleeping pictures, and the herdsman who tended -them smiled at his friend. Upon a carpenter's table piles of yellow -books could be likened to mounds of butter. And pushing back the -ill-joined door, the wind brought in unknown beings who complained with -little cries in the name of all the sorrows. All the wolves of distress -howled behind the door ready to devour the flock, the herdsman and his -friend, in order to prepare in their place the foundations for the NEW -CITY. But in the studio there were joys of all colours. A great window -opened the whole north side and nothing could be seen but the whole blue -sky, the song of a woman. Croniamantal took off his coat which fell to -the floor like the corpse of a drowned man, and sitting on the divan he -gazed for a long time at the new canvas placed on the support. Dressed -in a blue wrap, barefooted, the painter also regarded the picture in -which two women remembered themselves in a glacial mist. - -The studio contained another fatal object, a large piece of broken -mirror hooked to the wall. It was a dead and soundless sea, standing on -end, and at the bottom of which a false life animated what did not -exist. Thus, confronting Art, there is the appearance of Art, against -which men are not sufficiently on their guard, and which pulls them to -earth when Art has raised them to the heights. Croniamantal bent over in -a sitting posture, leaned his fore-arms on his knees, and turned his -eyes from the painting to a placard thrown on the floor on which was -painted the following announcement: - - -I AM AT THE BAR--_The Bird of Benin_ - - -He read and re-read this sentence while the Bird of Benin contemplated -his picture, approaching it and withdrawing from it, his head at all -angles. Finally he turned towards Croniamantal and said: - -"I saw the woman for you last night." - -"Who is she?" asked Croniamantal. - -"I do not know, I saw her but I do not know her. She is a really young -girl, as you like them. She has the sombre and child-like face of those -who are destined to cause suffering. And despite all the grace of her -hands that straighten in order to repel, she lacks that nobility which -poets could not love because it would prevent their being miserable. I -have seen the woman for you, I tell you. She is both beauty and -ugliness; she is like everything that we love nowadays. And she must -have the taste of the laurel leaf." - -But Croniamantal, who was not listening to him, interrupted at this -point to say: - -"Yesterday I wrote my last poem in regular verses: - - -_Well, -Hell!_[6] - - -and my last poem in irregular verses (take care that in the second -stanza the word wench is taken in its less reputable meaning): - - -PROSPECTUS FOR A NEW MEDICINE - -_Why did Hjalmar return -The tankard of beaten silver lay void, -The stars of the evening -Became the stars of the morning -Reciprocally -The sorceress of the forest of Hruloë -Prepared her repast -She was an eater of horse-flesh -But he was not -Mai Mai ramaho nia nia._ - -_Then the stars of the morning -Became again the stars of the evening -And reciprocally -They cried--In the name of Maröe -Wench of Arnamoer -And of his favorite zoöphyte -Prepare the drink of the gods ---Certainly noble warrior -Mai Mai ramaho nia nia._ - -_She took the sun -And plunged him into the sea -As housewives -Dip a ham in gravy -But alas! the salmons voracious -Have devoured the drowned sun -And have made themselves wigs -With his beams -Mai Mai ramaho nia nia._ - -_She took the moon and did her all with bands -As they do with the illustrious dead -And with little children -And then in the light of the only stars -The eternal ones -She made a concoction of sea-brine -The euphorbiaceans of Norwegian resin -And the mucous of Alfes -To make a drink for the gods -Mai Mai ramaho nia nia._ - -_He died like the sun -And the sorceress perched at the top of a fir pine -Heard until evening -The rumours of the great winds engulfed in the phial -And the lying scaldas swear to this -Mai Mai ramaho nia nia._ - - -Croniamantal was silent for an instant and then added: - -"I shall from now on write only poetry free from all restrictions even -that of language.[7] - -"Listen, old man!" - - -MAHEVIDANOMI -RENANOCALIPNODITOC -EXTARTINAP # v.s. -A. Z. -Telephone: 33-122 Pan : Pan -OeaoiiiioKTin -iiiiiiiiiii - - -"Your last line, my poor Croniamantal," said the Bird of Benin, "is a -simple plagiarism from Fr.nc.s J.mm.s." - -"That is not true," said Croniamantal. "But I shall compose no more pure -poetry. That is what I have come to, through your fault. I want to write -plays." - -"You had better go to see the young woman of whom I spoke to you. She -knows you and seems to be crazy about you. You will find her in the -Meudon woods next Thursday at a place that I shall designate. You will -recognize her by the skipping rope that she will hold in her hand. Her -name is Tristouse Ballerinette." - -"Very well," said Croniamantal, "I shall go to see Ballerinette and -shall sleep with her, but above all I want to go to the theatres to -offer my play, Ieximal Jelimite, which I wrote in your studio last year -while eating lemons." - -"Do what you want, my friend," said the Bird of Benin, "but do not -forget Tristouse Ballerinette, the woman of your future." - -"Well said," said Croniamantal. "But I want to roar to you once more the -plot of Ieximal Jelimite. Listen: - -"A man buys a newspaper on the seashore. From the garden of a house at -one side emerges a soldier whose hands are electric bulbs. A giant 10 -feet tall descends from a tree. He shakes the newspaper vendor, who is -of plaster and who in falling breaks to bits. At this moment a judge -arrives. With strokes of a razor he kills everybody, while a leg which -passes hopping crushes the judge with a kick in the nose, and sings a -pretty little song." - -"How wonderful!" said the Bird of Benin. "I shall paint the decoration, -you have promised me that." - -"That goes without saying," answered Croniamantal.[8] - - - - -XI. DRAMATURGY - - -On the following day Croniamantal went to The Theatre, which was meeting -at Monsieur Pingu's, the financier. Croniamantal succeeded in gaining -entry by bribing the doorman and the butler. He entered boldly the hall -where The Theatre, its satellites, its stool-pigeons and its hired thugs -were gathered. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Ladies and Gentlemen of THE THEATRE, I have come to read you my play -entitled _Ieximal Jelimite._ - - -THE THEATRE - -Good gracious, wait a minute, young man, until you have been informed -about our methods of procedure. You are here in the midst of our actors, -our authors, our critics and our spectators. Listen attentively and -don't even speak. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Gentlemen, I thank you for the cordial reception that you give me and I -shall profit, I am sure, of all that I hear. - - -THE ACTOR - -_My rôles have slowly withered like the roses -But mother, I love my metempsychoses -O seats of proteus and their metamorphoses_ - - -AN OLD STAGE MANAGER - -Do you remember, Madame! One snowy night of 1832, a lost stranger -knocked at the door of a villa situated on the road leading from -Chanteboun to Sorrento... - - -THE CRITIC - -Nowadays, for a play to be successful it is important that it should not -be signed by its author. - - -THE TRAINER TO HIS BEAR - -_Roll about in the sweet peas -Play dead... suckle... -Dance the polka... now the mazurka..._ - - -CHORUS OF DRINKERS - -_Juice o' the grape -Ruddy liquor -Let us drink drink -If we may_ - - -CHORUS OF EATERS - -_Horde of gluttons -There's no more -A crumb left -In the plate_ - - -DRINKERS - -_Bloated heads -Drink o drink -The juice o' the grape_ - - -R.D.RD K.PL.NG, THE ACTOR, THE ACTRESS, -THE AUTHORS -(To the spectators) -Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! - - -THE PROMPTER - -The theatre, my dear brothers, is a school for scandal, it is a place of -perdition for the soul and the body. According to the testimony of the -stage carpenters everything is faked in the theatre. Witches older than -Morgane come there to pose as little girls of fifteen years. - -How much blood is spilt in a melodrama! I say truthfully, though it be -false, this blood will be upon the heads of the children of the authors, -the actors, the directors, and the spectators, unto the seventh -generation. _Ne mater suam_, the little girls used to say to their -mothers. Nowadays they ask: "Are we going to the theatre tonight?" - -I tell you frankly my friends. There are few shows which do not endanger -the soul. Outside of the spectacle of nature I know of nothing that one -may witness without fear. This last spectacle is Gallic and healthy, my -dear friends. The sound dilates the glands, chases Satan from the -stinking shades where he lies and thus the Fathers come in from the -desert to exorcise themselves. - - -THE MOTHER OF AN ACTRESS - -Are you p..., Charlotte? - - -THE ACTRESS - -No, mama, I am roasting. - - -M. MAURICE BOISSARD - -We have with us today the entrails of a mother! - - -AN AUTHOR WHO HAS A PLAY ACCEPTED -BY THE COMEDIE-FRANÇAISE - -My friend, you do not look very confident today. I am going to explain -the meaning of several words from the theatrical vocabulary. Listen -attentively and remember them if you can. - -_Acheron_ (ch hard)--A river of Hades, not of hell. - -_Artists_ (two types)--Is never used except in speaking of a comedian or -a comedienne. - -_Brother_--Avoid using this substantive together with "little." The -adjective "young" is more proper. - -NOTA BENE--This phrase does not apply to operettas. - -"_High Life_"--This very French expression is translated in English as -"_fashionable people._" - -_Liaisons_--They are always dangerous in the theatre. - -_Papa_--Two negatives are equal to an affirmative. - -_Cooked Potatoes_--(never used in the singular)--A crudity that is -deleterious to the stomach. - -_Tut-tut_--This worn expression... - -Would you like to have some titles for plays also? They are very -important in order to succeed. Here are some sure ones: - -THE CONTOUR; _The Circumference_; THE CONDOR; _Hurry up Harry_; THE -TOWER; _Louise, your shirt is coming out_; STEP ALONG; _The Mysterious -Bar_; HUNDREDTH TO THE RIGHT; _The Magician_; THE GUELF; _I am going to -kill you_; MY PRINCE; _The Artichoke_; THE SCHOOL FOR LAWYERS; _The -Torch-bearer!_ - -Good-bye, sir, don't thank me. - - -A GREAT CRITIC - -Gentlemen, I have come to give you a report of the triumph, last night. -Are you ready? I begin: - - -GRIT AND GRIP - -A play in three acts by Messrs. Julien Tandis, Jean de la Fente, Prosper -Mordus and Mmes Nathalie de l'Angoumois, Jane Fontaine and the countess -M. Des Etangs, etc. Sets by Messrs. Alfred Mone, Leon Minie, Al. de -Lemere. Costumes by Jeanette, hats by Wilhelmine, properties by the -MacTead Company, phonographs by Hernstein and Company, sanitary napkins -by Van Feuler Brothers. - -I recall the captive who dared to p... before Sesostris. I never saw a -more poignant scene than this from the play of Messrs, and Mmes etc. I -must speak of the scene which made such a great hit at the opening night -and in which the financier Prominoff bursts into a fit of rage against -the coroner. - -The play, which was very good, otherwise, did not accomplish all that -was expected of it. The courtesan wife who feathers her nest out of the -green old age of a vulgar brewer, remains, however, an unforgettable and -touching figure which leaves in the shadow that of Cleopatra and Mme de -Pompadour. M. Layol is an excellent comedian. He acted the father of a -family in every sense of the expression. Mlle Jeannine Letrou, a young -star of tomorrow, has very pretty legs. But the real revelation was Mme -Perdreau whose sensitive nature we know so well. She acted the scene of -the reconciliation with the most perfect naturalism. In short a great -evening and prospects for a hundred night run.[10] - - -THE THEATRE - -Young man we are going to give some subjects for plays. If they were -signed by famous names we would play them, but they are masterpieces by -unknowns which were given to us and which we are generously turning over -to you because of your nice face. - - -PLAY WITH A THESIS--The prince of San Meco finds a louse on his wife's -head and makes a scene. The princess has not slept with the viscount of -Dendelope for the past six months. The couple make a scene before the -viscount, who, not having slept with anyone but the princess and Mme -Lafoulue, wife of a Secretary of State, causes the ministry to fall and -overwhelms Mme Lafoulue with his scorn. - -Mme Lafoulue makes a scene with her husband. Everything becomes clear, -however, when Monsieur Bibier, the Deputy, arrives. He scratches his -head. He is stripped. He accuses his electors of being lousy. Finally -everything is in order once more. Title: _Parliamentarism._ - - -COMEDY OF MANNERS--Isabelle Lefaucheux promises her husband that she -will be faithful to him. Then she remembers that she has promised the -same thing to Jules, the boy who works in their store. She suffers from -not being able to grant her faith and her love. - -However, Lefaucheux fires Jules. This event precipitates a dramatic -triumph of love, and we soon find Isabelle cashier in a department store -where Jules is salesman. Title: _Isabelle Lefaucheux._ - - -HISTORICAL PLAY--The famous novelist Stendhal is the ringleader of a -Bonapartist plot which ends in the heroic death of a young singer during -a presentation of _Don Juan_ at the Scala Theatre in Milan. Since -Stendhal had hidden his identity under a pseudonym, he withdraws from -the affair admirably. Grand marches, procession of historical -personages. - - -OPERA--Buridan's ass hesitates to satisfy his hunger and his thirst. The -she-ass of Balaam prophesies that the ass will die. The golden ass -comes, eats and drinks. The Wild-Ass's-Skin comes and displays his -nudity to this asinine herd. Passing by, Sancho's ass thinks that he can -prove his robustness by carrying off the child, but the traitor, Melo, -warns the Genius of la Fontaine. He proclaims his jealousy and beats the -golden ass. Metamorphoses. The Prince and the Infant make their entrance -on horseback. The King abdicates in their favor. - - -PATRIOTIC PLAY--The Swedish government lays suit against the French -Government for manufacturing an imitation of "Swedish matches." In the -last act they exhume the remains of an alchemist of the XIVth Century -who invented these matches, at La Ferté-Gaucher, a village in France, -not far from Paris. - - -COMEDY---- - -_The handsome chauffeur -Cried to his neighbor -If you will show me your salon -I wilt show you my kitchen._ - -Here is enough to nourish a whole career of playwriting, sir. - - -M. LACOUFF, SCHOLAR - -Young man, it is also important to know theatrical anecdotes; they help -to fill out the conversation of a young dramatic author; here are a few: - -Frederick the Great was accustomed to having his court actresses whipped -before each presentation. He believed that flagellation communicated a -rosy tint to their skin which was not without its charm. - -At the court of the Grand Turk, the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ was being -played, but in order to adapt it to the taste of the environment the -_mamamouchi_ became a Knight of the Garter.[9] - -Cecile Vestris, while returning to Mayence, one day, had her carriage -held up by the famous Rhenish bandit Schinderhans. She rallied her -spirits against this ill-fortune and danced for Schinderhans in the hall -of a roadside tavern. - -Ibsen was sleeping one time with a young Spanish lady who cried out at -the proper moment: - -"Now!... now!... Mr. Dramatist!" - -An erudite actor admitted to me that he had liked only one statue in all -his life: _The Squatting Scribe_, sculptured by an Egyptian, long before -Jesus-Christ, and which he saw in the Louvre. But they are beginning to -talk much less of Scribe, and yet he still reigns over the theatre. - - -THE THEATRE - -Do not forget the final scene, nor the words at the end, nor the fact -that the more crust you have the more you shine, nor that a number that -is cited must end in 7 or 3 in order to seem accurate; nor not to lend -money to anybody who says: "I have five acts at the Odéon," or "I have -three acts at the Comédie-Française," nor to say carelessly: "If you -want some free passes, I have so many of them, that I am obliged to give -them to my concierge;" that doesn't lead to anything. - - -A young man at this point made good the occasion to come and sing with -equivocal gestures and a lascivious air, some childish and entrancing -songs. - - -M. PINGU - -What juice, sir! - - -M. LACOUFF - -Juice of the hat? - - -M. PINGU - -No-no! I am mistaken. What a fluid! - -He trembles like the paunch of an archbishop. - - -M. LACOUFF - -Use the proper word, not your paunch. - - -M. PINGU - -What a joy, sir, what a joy! It would soften a crocodile to tears and -would please a scholar as well as a financier. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Good-bye, gentlemen, I am your devoted servant. With your permission I -will return in a few days. I feel that my play is not in proper shape -yet. - - - - -[Illustration 04] - - - - -XII. LOVE - - -On a spring morning, Croniamantal, following the instructions of the -Bird of Benin, reached the Meudon woods and stretched himself out in the -shade of a tree whose branches hung very low. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -God I am tired, not of walking but of being alone. I am thirsty--not for -wine, hydromel or beer, but for water, fresh water from that lovely wood -where the grass and the trees are rose at every dawn, but where no -spring arrests the progress of the parched traveller. The walk has -sharpened my appetite; I am hungry, though not for the flesh nor for -fruit, but for bread, good solid bread, swollen like mammals, bread, -round as the moon and gilded as she. - - -He arose then. He went deep into the woods and came to the clearing, -where he was to meet Tristouse Ballerinette. The damsel had not yet -arrived. Croniamantal longed for a fountain and his imagination, or -perhaps some sorcerer's talent in himself which he had never suspected, -caused a limpid water suddenly to flow among the grass. - -Croniamantal flung himself down and drank avidly, when he heard the -voice of a woman singing far off: - - -_Dondidondaine -'Tis the shepherdess beloved of the king -Who has gone to the fountain -Dondidondaine -In the dewy fields, all blossoming -To the fountain -But here comes Croquemitaine -To the fountain -And Hickorydock! advance no further._ - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Dost thou think already of her who sings? Thou laughest dully in this -clearing. Dost thou believe that she has been rounded like a round table -for the equality of men and weeks? Thou knowest well, the days do not -resemble each other. - -About the round table, the good are no longer equal; one has the sun in -his face, it dazzles him and soon quits him for his neighbor. Another -has his shadow before him. All are good, and good thou art thyself, but -they are no more equal than the day and the night. - - -THE VOICE - -_Croquemitaine -Wears the rose and the lilac -The king rides off--Hello Germaine ---Croquemitaine -Thou wilt come back again_ - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -The voices of women are always ironical. Is the weather always fair? -Someone is already damned instead of me. It is nice in the deep woods. -Hearken no longer to the voice of woman! Ask! Ask! - - -THE VOICE - ---_Hello Germaine -I come to love between thine arms ---Ah! Sire, our cow is full ---Really Germaine ---Your servant also, I believe._ - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -She who sings in order to lure me will be ignorant as I, and dancing -with lassitudes. - - -THE VOICE - -_The cow is full -When autumn comes she'll calve -Farewell my king Dondidondaine -The cow is full -And my heart empty without thee_ - - -Croniamantal stands on the tip of his toes to see if he can perceive -through the branches the so-beloved who comes. - - -THE VOICE - -_Dondidondaine -But when will come my Croquemitaine -At the fountain it is very cold -Dondidondaine -After the winter I shall be less cold._ - -In the clearing there appeared a young girl, svelte and brunette. Her -countenance was sombre and starred with roving eyes like birds of bright -plumage. Her sparse but short hair left her neck bare; her hair was -tousled and dark, and by the skipping rope which she carried, -Croniamantal recognized her to be Tristouse Ballerinette. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -No further, child with bare arms! I shall come to you myself. Someone -has just hushed under the pines and will be able to overhear us. - - -TRISTOUSE - -This one is surely the issue of an egg, like Castor and Pollax. I recall -how my mother, who was very foolish, used to talk to me about them of -long evenings. The hunter of serpent's eggs, son of the serpent -himself,--I am afraid of those old memories. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Have no fear, woman of the naked arms. Stay with me. My lips are filled -with kisses. Here, here. I lay them on thy brow, on thy hair. I caress -thy hair with its ancient perfume. I caress thy hairs which intertwine -like the worms on the bodies of the dead. O death, o death, hairy with -worms. I have kisses on my lips. Here, here they are, on thy hands, on -thy neck, on thine eyes, thine eyes. I have lips full of kisses, here, -here, burning like a fever, sustained to enchant thee, kisses, mad -kisses, on the ear, the temple, the cheek. Feel my embraces, bend under -the effort of my arm, be languid, be languid. I have kisses upon my -lips, here, here, mad ones, upon thine eyes, upon thy neck, upon thy -brow, upon thy youth, I longed so to love thee, this spring day when -there are no more blossoms on the branches which prepare themselves to -bear fruit. - - -TRISTOUSE - -Leave me, go away. Those who move each other are happy, but I do not -love you. You frighten me. However, do not despair, o poet. Listen, this -is my best advice: Go away! - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Alas! Alas! To leave again, to wander unto the oceanic limits, through -the brush, the evergreen, in the scum, in the mud, the dust, across the -forests, the prairies, the plantations, and the very happy gardens. - - -TRISTOUSE - -Go away. Go away, far from the antique perfume of my hair, o thou who -belongest to me. - -And Croniamantal went off without turning his head once; he could be -seen for a long time through the branches, and then his voice could be -heard growing fainter and fainter as he disappeared from view. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Traveller without a stick, pilgrim without staff and poet without a -writing pad, I am more powerless than all other men, I own nothing more -and I know nothing... - -And his voice no longer reached Tristouse Ballerinette who was admiring -her image in the pool. - -In another age monks cultivated the forest of Malverne. - - -MONKS - -The sun declines slowly, and blessing thee, O Lord; we are going to -sleep in the monastery so that the dawn may find us in the forest. - - -THE FOREST OF MALVERNE - -Every day, every day, flights of anguished birds see their nests crushed -and their eggs broken when the trees sway with shaking branches. - - -THE BIRDS - -It is the happy hour of twilight when the girls and boys come to roll on -the grass. And all of them have kisses that want to fall like over-ripe -fruit or like the egg when it is about to be laid. Do you see them -there, do you see them dance, muse, haunt, chant from dusk to the dawn, -his pale sister? - - -A RED-HAIRED MONK - -(_In the middle of the Cortège_) - -I am afraid to live and I should like to die. Convulsions of earth. -Labor! O lost time... - - -THE BIRDS - -_Gay! Gay! the broken eggs -The ready-made omelette cooked on a downy fire -Here! Here! -Take to the right_ - -_Turn to the left -Straight ahead -Behind the fallen oak -There and everywhere._ - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -(_In another age, near the Forest of Malverne and a little before the -passage of the monks._) - -The winds disperse before me, the forests fall away and become a wide -track with corpses here and there. The travellers meet with too many -corpses for some time, with garrulous corpses. - - -THE RED-HAIRED MONK - -I don't want to work any more, I want to dream and pray. - - -He sleeps, his face turned to the sky, on the road bordered with willows -of the color of mist. - -The night had come with the moonlight. Croniamantal saw the monks bent -over the nonchalant bodies of their brothers. Then he heard a little -plaint, a feeble cry that died in a last sigh. And slowly they passed in -Indian file before Croniamantal, who was hidden behind a clump of -willows. - - -THE GLORIDE FOREST - -I should love to send this man astray amid the spectres that float among -the bubbles. But he flees toward the times that come, and whither he is -already arrived. - - -The banging of distant doors changes into the sound of trains in motion. -A large, grassy track, barred by trunks and fenced with enormous joined -stones. Life commits suicide. A path that people follow. They never -tire. Subways where the air is poisoned. Corpses. Voices call -Croniamantal. He runs, he runs, he descends. - - -* * * - - -In the lovely woods, Tristouse promenaded meditating. - - -TRISTOUSE - -My heart is sad without thee, Croniamantal. I loved thee without knowing -it. All is green. All is green above my head and beneath my feet. I have -lost him whom I loved. I must search this way and that way, here and -yonder. And among them all I shall surely find someone who will please -me. - -Returned from other times, Croniamantal cried out at sight of Tristouse -and the fountain again: - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Goddess! who art thou? Where is thine eternal form? - - -TRISTOUSE - -Oh, there he is again, handsomer than ever... Listen, o poet. I belong -to thee, henceforth. - -Without looking at Tristouse, Croniamantal bent over the pool. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -I love fountains, they are beautiful symbols of immortality when they -never run dry. This one has never run dry. And I seek a divinity, but I -desire her to appear eternal to me. And my fountain has never run dry. - -He knelt and prayed to the fountain, while Tristouse, all in tears, -lamented. - -O poet, adorest thou the fountain? O Lord, return my lover to me! Come -to me! I know such lovely songs. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -The fountain hath its murmur. - - -TRISTOUSE - -Very well, then! Sleep with thy cold lover, let her drown thee! But if -thou livest, thou belongest to me and thou shalt obey me. - -She was gone, and throughout the forest of twittering birds, the -fountain flowed and murmured, while there arose the voice of -Croniamantal who wept and whose tears mingled with the worshipped flood. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -O fountain! Thou who springest like a staunchless blood. Thou who art -cold as marble, but living, transparent and fluid. Thou, ever renewed -and ever the same. Thou who makest living thy verdant banks, I love -thee. Thou art my unrivalled goddess. Thou quenchest my thirst. Thou -purifiest me. Thou murmurest to me thine eternal song which rocks me to -sleep in the evenings. - - -THE FOUNTAIN - -At the bottom of my little bed full of an Orient of gems, I hear thee -with contentment, o poet whom I have enchanted. I recall Avallon where -we might have lived, thou as the King Fisher and I awaiting thee under -the apple trees. O islands of apple trees. But I am happy in my precious -little bed. These amethysts are sweet to my gaze. This lapis-lazuli is -more blue than a fair sky. This malachite represents to me a prairie. -Sardonyx, onyx, agate, rock-crystal, you shall scintillate tonight, for -I will give a feast in honor of my lover. I shall come alone as befits a -virgin. The power of my lover has already been manifested and his gifts -are sweet to my soul. He has given me his eyes all in tears, two -adorable fountains, sweet tributaries of my stream. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -O fecund fountain, thy waters resemble thy hair. Thy flowers are born -about thee and we shall love each other always. - -Nothing could be heard but the song of birds and the rustling of leaves, -and at times the plashing of a bird playing in the water. - -A dandy appeared in the little wood: It was Paponat the Algerian. He -approached the fountain dancing. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -I know you. You are Paponat who studied in the Orient. - - -PAPONAT - -Himself. O poet of the Occident, I come to visit you. I have learned of -your enchantment, but I hear that it is not yet too late to converse -with you. How humid it is here! It is not at all surprising that your -voice is harsh, and you will certainly need a medicament to clear it. I -approached you dancing. Is there no way of saving you from the situation -in which you have placed yourself. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Bah! But tell me who taught you to dance. - - -PAPONAT - -The angels themselves were my dancing masters. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -The good or the bad angels? But no matter. I have had enough of all the -dances, save one which the Greeks call _kordax._ - - -PAPONAT - -You are gay, Croniamantal, we shall be able to amuse ourselves. I am -glad I came here. I love gaiety. I am happy! - -And Paponat, his bright eyes profoundly whirling, rubbed his hands -gleefully. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -You look like me! - - -PAPONAT - -Not much. I am happy to live, while you die beside the fountain. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -But the happiness which you proclaim, do you not forget it? and forget -mine? You resemble me! The happy man rubs his hands. Smell them. What do -they smell like? - - -PAPONAT - -The odour of death. - - -CRONIAMANTAL - -Ha! ha! ha! The happy man has the same odour as death! Rub your hands. -What difference between the happy man and the corpse! I am also happy, -although I don't want to rub my hands. Be happy, rub your hands. Be -happy! again! Now do you know it, the odour of happiness? - - -PAPONAT - -Farewell. If you make no case for the living, there is no way of talking -to you. - - -And as Paponat disappeared into the night where glittered the -innumerable eyes of the celestial animals of impalpable flesh, -Croniamantal rose suddenly thinking to himself: "Well--enough of the -beauties of Nature and of the thoughts she evokes. I know enough about -that for a long time; we had better return to Paris and try to find that -exquisite little Tristouse who loves me madly." - - - - -XIII. MODES - - -Paponat who came back that night from the Meudon woods where he had gone -in search of adventure arrived just in time to take the last boat. He -had the good luck to run into Tristouse Ballerinette there. - -"How are you, young lady?" he asked. "I just saw your lover, -Croniamantal, in the woods. He is on the verge of going mad." - -"My lover?" said Tristouse. "He is not my lover." - -"He is said to be. At least they have been saying he is, in our literary -and artistic circles, ever since yesterday." - -"They can say whatever they want," said Tristouse firmly. "Anyway I -shall have nothing to be ashamed about in such a lover. Is he not -handsome and has he not a great talent?" - -"You are right. But my, what a pretty hat you have, and what a pretty -dress! I am very much interested in the fashions." - -"You are always very elegant, Mr. Paponat. Give me the address of your -tailor and I shall tell Croniamantal about it." - -"Quite useless, he would not use it," said Paponat laughing. "But tell -me now, what are the women wearing this year? I have just come from -Italy and I am not in touch with things. Please tell me all about it." - -"This year," began Tristouse, "the modes are very bizarre and familiar, -simple and yet full of fantasy. All material belonging to the different -processes of Nature may now enter into the composition of a woman's -costume. I have seen a robe made of cork. It was certainly as good as -the charming evening gowns of towel which created such a rage at -premieres. A great couturier is thinking of launching tailor-made -costumes of the backs of old books, bound in calf. Charming! All -literary women will want to wear it, and one can approach them and -whisper into their ears under the guise of reading the titles of the -books. Fish-skeletons are also worn much with hats. You may see -delightful young girls, very often, wearing cloaks à la Saint-Jacques -de Compostelle; their costume, so it is said, is starred with Saint -Jacques shells. Porcelain, stone work and china have suddenly taken an -important place in the sartorial art. These materials are worn in belts, -on hat-pins, etc.; I have had the good luck to see an adorable reticule -all made of the glass eyes that oculists use. Feathers are used not only -to decorate hats with, but shoes, gloves, and next year they will even -be used with umbrellas. Shoes are being made of Venetian glass and hats -out of Bohemian crystal. Not to mention oil-painted gowns, highly -colored woolens, and robes bizarrely spotted with ink. In the Spring -many will wear dresses made of puffed gold leaf, with pleasant shapes, -giving lightness and distinction. Our aviatrices will wear nothing else. -For the races there will be the hat made of toy balloons, about twenty -at a time being used, giving a luxuriant effect, and very diverting -explosions from time to time. The mussel-shell will be worn on slippers. -And note that they are beginning to dress with living animals. I met a -woman who wore on her hat at least twenty birds; canaries, goldfinches, -robins, held by a string tied to their feet, all singing at the top of -their voices and flapping their wings. The head-dress of an -ambassadress, ever since the last Neuilly fair is made up of a coil of -about thirty snakes. 'For whom are those snakes that hiss overhead?' -asked the little Romanian attaché with his Dacian accent, who was -supposed to be quite a ladies' man. I forgot to tell you that last -Wednesday I saw a lady on the boulevards with a ruff having little -mirrors laid together and pasted to the material. In the sunlight the -effect was sumptuous. One might have thought it a gold mine on a -promenade. Later it began to rain and the lady resembled a silver mine. -Nutshells make pretty buttons, especially if they are interspersed with -filberts. A robe embroidered with coffee grains, cloves, cloves of -garlic, onions, and bunches of raisins, is proper to wear when visiting. -Fashion is becoming practical and no longer spurns any object, but -ennobles all. It does for these things what romanticists do with words." - -"Thank you," said Paponat, "you have given me a great deal of -information and told it charmingly." - -"You are too kind," replied Tristouse. - - - - -XIV. ENCOUNTERS - - -Six months passed. For the last five Tristouse Ballerinette had been the -mistress of Croniamantal, whom she loved passionately for eight days. In -exchange for this love, the lyrical youth had rendered her glorious and -immortal forever by celebrating her in marvellous poems. - -"I was unknown," she mused, "and now he has made me illustrious among -all the living. - -"I was thought ugly because of my thinness, my large mouth, my bad -teeth, my irregular features, my crooked nose. Now I am beautiful and -all men tell me so. They mocked at my clumsy and jerky gait, at my sharp -elbows which, when I walked, moved like the feet of geese. - -"What miracles are born of the love of a poet! But how heavily a poet's -love weighs! What sorrows accompany it, what silences to endure! Now -that the miracle has been accomplished, I am beautiful and renowned. -Croniamantal is ugly, he has wasted his property in a short time; he is -poor, lacking in elegance, no longer gay; the slightest of his gestures -make him a hundred enemies. - -"I love him no longer. I need him no longer, my admirers are enough for -me. I shall rid me of him gradually. But that is going to be very -annoying. Either I must go away, or he must disappear, so that he -doesn't bother me, and so that he isn't able to reproach me." - -And after eight days, Tristouse became the mistress of Paponat, although -still seeing Croniamantal, whom she treated more and more coldly. The -less she came to see him, the more desperately he cared for her. When -she did not come at all, he spent hours in front of the house she lived -in in the hope of seeing her come out, and if by chance she did, he -would escape like a thief, fearing that she might accuse him of spying -on her. - - -* * * - - -It was by running around after Tristouse Bailerinette that Croniamantal -continued his literary education. - -One day as he was wandering about Paris, he suddenly found himself at -the Seine. He crossed a bridge and walked for some time, when suddenly -perceiving before him M. François Coppée, Croniamantal regretted that -this passerby was dead. But there is nothing against talking with the -dead, and the encounter passed off very pleasantly. - -"Come," thought Croniamantal, "to a passerby he would appear to be -nothing but a passerby, and the very author of the _Passerby._[11] He is -a clever and spiritual rhymester, with some feeling for reality. Let us -speak to him about rhyme." - -The poet of the _Passerby_ was smoking a dark cigarette. He was dressed -in black, his visage black; he stood bizarrely on a high stone, and -Croniamantal saw quite easily by his pensive air that he was composing -verses. He came alongside of him and after having greeted him, said -brusquely: - -"Dear master, how sombre you seem." - -He replied courteously. - -"It is because my statue is of bronze. That exposes me constantly to -scorn. Thus the other day." - - -_Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea -Seeing I was the blacker, sat down and muttered: -'Yea.'_ - - -"See how adroit those lines are. Did you notice how well the couplet I -just recited for you rhymes for the eye." - -"Indeed," said Croniamantal, "for it is pronounced _Sam MacVee_, like -_Shakespeer._" - -"Well here is something that comes off better," continued the statue: - - -_Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea -Christened this tablet with a flask of eau-de-vie._ - - -"There is a bit of refinement that ought to appeal to you. It is the -_rime riche_, the perfect rhyme to delight the ear." - -"You certainly enlighten me on the rhyme," said Croniamantal. "I am very -happy, dear master, to have met you in passing by." - -"It is my first success," replied the metallic poet. "But I have just -composed a little poem bearing the same title: it is about a gentleman -who passes by. _The Passerby_, across the corridor of a railroad coach; -he perceives a charming lady with whom, instead of going only to -Brussels, he stops at the Dutch frontier: - - -_They passed at least eight days at Rosendael -He tasted the ideal, she the real -In all things, it chanced, their ways differed, -It was from veritable Love they suffered._ - - -"I call your attention to the last two lines, which through rhyming -somewhat imperfectly contain a subtle dissonance, which is further -emphasized by the fact of their being morbidly feminine rhymes." - -"Dear master," exclaimed Croniamantal, "speak to me of vers libre." - -"Long live liberty!" cried the bronze statue. - -And having saluted him, Croniamantal went his way looking for -Tristouse. - - -* * * - - -On another day Croniamantal was walking along the boulevards. Tristouse -had missed an appointment with him, and he hoped to find her in a tea -room where she sometimes went with her friends. He turned the corner of -the rue Le Peletier, when a gentleman, dressed in a pearl-grey cape, -accosted him, saying: - -"Sir, I am going to reform literature. I have found a superb subject: it -is about the sensations of a well bred young bachelor who permits an -improper sound to escape in an assemblage of ladies and young people of -good family." - -Croniamantal was properly amazed at the novelty of the subject, but -understood at once how much it would take to test the sensibilities of -the author. - -Croniamantal fled... A lady stepped on his feet. She was also an -authoress, and did not neglect to inform him that this incident would -furnish him with a subject of fresh and delicate character. - -Croniamantal took to his heels and reached the Pont des Saint Pères -where three people were disputing over the subject of a novel and begged -him to decide who was right; it was about the case of an officer. - -"Fine subject," cried Croniamantal. - -"Listen," said his neighbor, a bearded man, "I claim that the subject is -too new and too unusual for the present day public." - -And the third man explained that it was about an officer of a restaurant -company, the man who held office, who presided over the soiled dishes... - -Croniamantal did not reply to them but made off to visit an old cook who -wrote verse, and at whose place he hoped to find Tristouse at tea time. -Tristouse was not there, but Croniamantal was hugely entertained by the -mistress of the house who declaimed some poems to him. - -It was a poetry that was full of profundity, and in which words had a -new meaning entirely. Thus _archipel_ was only used in the sense of -_papier buvard._[12] - - -* * * - - -Some time later, the rich Paponat, proud of being the lover of the -renowned Tristouse, and desirous of not losing her, for she did him -honor, decided to take his mistress for a trip through Central Europe. - -"Fine," said Tristouse, "but we will not travel as lovers, for even -though you are nice to me, I don't love you enough, or at least I force -myself to the point of not loving you. We shall travel as two friends, -and I shall dress up as a young man; my hair is rather short, and I have -often been told that I have the air of a handsome young man." - -"Very well," said Paponat, "and since we both are in need of repose we -shall make our retreat in Moravia in a convent of Brünn where my uncle, -the prior of Crepontois, retired after the expulsion of the monks. It is -one of the richest and finest convents in the world. I shall present you -as one of my friends, and have no fear, we shall be taken for lovers -just the same." - -"That suits me," said Tristouse, "for I love to pass for that which I am -not. We leave tomorrow." - - - - -XV. VOYAGE - - -Croniamantal went perfectly mad upon hearing of the departure of -Tristouse. But at this time he began to become famous, and as his -poetical repute waxed so did his vogue as a dramatist. - -The theatres played his plays and the crowd applauded his name, but at -the same moment the enemies of poets and poetry were increasing in -number and growing in audacious hatred. - -He only became more and more sorrowful, his soul shrinking within his -enfeebled body. - -When he learned of the departure of Tristouse he did not protest, but -simply asked the concierge if she knew the destination of the voyage. - -"All that I know," said the woman, "is that she has gone to Central -Europe." - -"Very well," said Croniamantal, and returning to his quarters he -gathered up the several thousand francs he still possessed and took the -train for Germany at the Gare du Nord. - - -On the following day, Christmas eve, the train was engulfed in the -enormous terminal of Cologne. Croniamantal, carrying a little valise, -descended last from his third-class coach. - -On the platform of the opposite track the red cap of the station master, -the spiked helmets of policemen, and the silk hats of high functionaries -indicated that an important person was awaited by the next train. And to -be sure Croniamantal heard a little old man, with quick gestures, -explaining to his fat wife who gaped with astonishment at the spiked -helmets, the red cap, and the silk hats: - -"Krupp... Essen... No orders... Italy." - -Croniamantal followed the crowd of passengers who had come in on his -train. He walked behind two girls, who must have been pigeon-toed, so -much did their gait resemble that of the goose. They kept their hands -concealed under short cloaks; the head of the first one was covered with -a small black hat, from which there dangled a bouquet of blue roses, as -well as some straight, black feathers, with the stem trimmed except at -the tip, which trembled as if with cold. The hat of the other girl was -of a soft, almost brilliant felt, an enormous knot of satinette -shrouding her with ridicule. They were probably two servant maids out of -a job, for they were pounced upon at the exit by a group of strait-laced -and ugly ladies wearing the ribbon of the Catholic Society for the -Protection of Young Girls. The ladies of the Protestant Society for the -same purpose stood a little further off. Croniamantal following behind a -stout man with a short, hard and russet beard, dressed in green, -descended the stairway that led to the vestibule of the station. - -Outside he saluted the Dome, solitary in the midst of the irregular -square which it filled with its bulk. The station heaped its modern mass -close to the huge cathedral. Hotels spread their signs in hybrid -languages and appeared to hold their respectful distance from the gothic -colossus. Croniamantal sniffed the odour of the town for a long time. He -seemed to be disappointed. - -"She is not here," he said to himself, "my nose would smell her, my -nerves would vibrate, my eyes would see her." - -He crossed the town, passed the fortifications on foot as if driven by -un unknown force along the main road, downstream, on the right bank of -the Rhine. And in truth, Tristouse and Paponat had arrived the night -before in Cologne, taken an automobile and continued their journey; they -had taken the right bank of the Rhine in the direction of Coblenz, and -Croniamantal was following their trail. - -Christmas eve came. An old prophet of a rabbi from Dollendorf, just as -he was venturing upon the bridge which links Bonn with Buel, was -repulsed by a violent gust of wind. The snow fell in a great rage. The -sound of the gale drowned all the Christmas songs, but the thousand -lights of the trees glittered in each house. - -The old Jew swore: - -"_Kreuzdonnerwetter..._ I shall never get to _Haenchen..._ Winter, my -old friend, thou canst avail nothing against my old and joyous carcass, -let me cross without hindrance this old Rhine which is as drunken as -thirty-six drunkards. As to myself, I bend my steps toward the noble -tavern frequented by the Borussians only to tipple in company with those -white bonnets and at their cost, like a good Christian, although I am a -Jew." - -The sound of the gale doubled in fury, strange voices made themselves -heard. The old rabbi shivered and raised his head crying: - -"Donnerkeil! Ui jeh, ch, ch, ch. Eh! Say, up there, you ought to go -about your business instead of making life miserable for poor happy -devils whose fate sends them abroad on such nights... Eh! mothers, are -you no longer under the domination of Solomon? ...Ohey! Ohey! Tseilom -Kop! Meicabl! Farwaschen Ponim! Beheime! You want to prevent me from -drinking the excellent Moselle wines with the students of Borussia who -are only too happy to toast with me because of my science and my -inimitable lyricism, not to mention all my talents for sorcery and -prophecy. - -"Accursed spirits! know ye that I might have drunk also Rhine wines, not -to mention the wines of France. Nor should I have neglected to polish -off some champagne in your honor, my old friends!... At midnight, the -hour when the _Christkindchen_ is made, I should have rolled under the -table and have slept at least during the brawling... But you unchain the -winds, you make an infernal uproar during this saintly night which -should have been peaceful... as to being calm, you seem to be twisting -his pigtail up there, sweet ladies... To amuse Solomon, no doubt... -Lilith! Naama! Aguereth! Mahala! Ah! Solomon, for thy pleasure they are -going to kill all the poets on this earth. - -"Ah Solomon! Solomon! jovial king whose entertainers are the four -nocturnal spectres moving from the Orient to the North, thou desirest my -death, for I am also a poet like all the Jewish prophets and a prophet -like all the poets. - -"Farewell drunkenness for tonight... Old Rhine, I must turn my back to -thee. I am going back to prepare me for death and dictate my last and -most lyrical prophecies..." - -A horrible crash, like a stroke of thunder, burst just then. The old -prophet pressed his lips together, lowering his head and looking down; -then he bent down and held his ear quite close to the ground. When he -straightened up he murmured: - -"The earth herself can no longer suffer the unbearable contact with -poets." - -Then he took his way across the streets of Buel, turning his back on the -Rhine. When the rabbi had traversed the railroad track he found himself -before a crossing and as he hesitated not knowing which to take, he -lifted his head again by chance. He saw before him a young man with a -valise coming from Bonn; the old rabbi did not recognize the person and -cried to him: - -"Are you mad to go out in such weather, sir?" - -"I am hurrying to rejoin someone whom I have lost and whose track I am -following," replied the stranger. - -"What is your profession," cried the Jew. - -"I am a poet." - -The prophet stamped with his foot and as the young man disappeared he -cursed him horribly because of the pity he felt, then lowering his head -he went to look at the signposts along the road. Wheezing, he took the -road straight ahead of him. - -"Happily the wind is fallen... at least one can walk... I had thought at -first that he was coming to kill me. But, no, he will probably die even -before me, this poet who is not even a Jew. Well, let us go quick and -merrily to prepare us a glorious death." - -The old rabbi walked faster; with his long cloak he gave the effect of a -returned spirit, and some children who were returning from Putzchen -after the Christmas Tree party passed him crying with terror, and for a -long time they threw stones in the direction in which he had -disappeared. - - -* * * - - -Croniamantal covered in this way part of Germany and the Austrian -Empire; the force that propelled him drew him across Thuringia, Saxony, -Bohemia, Moravia, up to Brünn, where he decided to stop. - -On the very night of his arrival, he scoured the town. Along the streets -surrounding the old palace enormous Swiss guards in breeches and cocked -hats, were standing before the doors. They leaned on long canes with -crystal heads. Their gold buttons gleamed like the eyes of cats. -Croniamantal lost his way; he wandered about for some time in poor -streets where shadows passed vividly across drawn blinds. Officers in -long blue coats passed by. Croniamantal turned to glance at them, then -he walked outside of the town with night coming on, to look at the -sombre mass of the Spielberg. While he was looking at the old state -prison, he heard the sound of feet dose by and then saw three monks pass -gesticulating and talking loudly. Croniamantal ran after them and asked -them directions. - -"You are French," they said; "come with us." - -Croniamantal examined them and noticed that they wore above their frocks -little beige cloaks that were very elegant. Each one carried a light -cane and wore a melon-shaped hat. On the way one of the monks said to -Croniamantal: - -"You have wandered far from your hotel, we will show you the way if you -wish. But if you care to, you may certainly come to the convent with us: -you will be well received because you are a foreigner and you can pass -the night there." - -Croniamantal accepted joyfully, saying: - -"I shall be very glad to come, for aren't you brothers to me, who am a -poet." - -They began to laugh. The oldest, who wore a gold-framed lorgnon and -whose belly puffed out of his fashionable waistcoat, raised his arms and -cried: - -"A poet! Is it possible!" - -And the two others, who were thinner, choked with laughter, bending down -and holding their bellies as if they had the colic. - -"Let us be serious," said the monk with the lorgnon, "we are going to -pass through a street inhabited by the Jews." - -In the streets, at every step, old women standing like pines in a -forest, called them, making signals. - -"Let us flee from this stench," said the fat monk, who was a Czech and -who was called Father Karel by his companions. - -Croniamantal and the monks stopped at last before a great convent door. -At the sound of the bell the porter came to let them in. The two thin -monks said good-bye to Croniamantal, who remained alone with Father -Karel in a parlor that was richly furnished. - -"My child," said Father Karel, "you are in a unique convent. The monks -who inhabit it are all very proper people. We have old archdukes, and -even former architects, soldiers, scientists, poets, inventors, a few -monks expelled from France, and some lay guests of good breeding. All of -them are saints. I, myself, such as you see me, with my lorgnon and my -pot-belly, am a saint. I shall show you your room, where you may stay -until nine o'clock; then you will hear the bell ring and I shall come to -look for you." - -Father Karel guided Croniamantal through long corridors. Then they went -up a stairway of white marble and on the second floor, Father Karel -opened a door and said: - -"Your room." - -He showed him the electric button and left. - -The room was round, the bed and the chairs were round; on the chimney -piece a skull looked like an old cheese. - -Croniamantal stood by the window, under which spread the teeming -darkness of a large monastery garden, from which there seemed to rise -laughter, sighs, cries of joy, as if a thousand couples were embracing -each other. Then a woman's voice in the garden sang a song which -Croniamantal had heard before: - - -_...Croquemitaine -Wears the rose and the lilac -The King is a-coming ---Hello Germaine ---Croquemitaine -Wilt thou come back again?_ - - -And Croniamantal began to sing the rest: - - ---_Hello Germaine -I come to love among thine arms._ - - -Then he heard the voice of Tristouse continuing the couplet. - -And voices of men here and there, sang airs that were strange or grave, -while the cracked voice of an old man stuttered: - - -_Vexilla regis prodeunt..._ - - -At this moment Father Karel entered the room, as a bell rang full -force. - -"Well, my boy! Listening to the sounds of our fine garden? It is full of -memories, this earthly paradise. Tychobrahé made love there with a -pretty Jewess who said to him all the time: Chazer,--which means pig in -the jargon.[13] I myself, have seen such and such an archduke play with -a pretty boy whose behind was shaped like a heart. Let us come to -dinner." - -They arrived in a vast refectory still empty, and the poet examined at -his leisure the frescoes which covered the wall. - -One was of Noah, dead-drunk on a couch. His son Cham was uncovering his -nakedness, that is to say the root of a vine naively and prettily -painted whose branches served as a genealogical tree, or something of -the sort, for they had painted the names of all the abbés in red -letters on all the leaves. - -The marriage of Cana showed a Mannekenpis pissing wine into the casks -while the spouse, at least eight months with child, offered her belly to -someone who was writing on it in charcoal: TOKAI. - -And then again there was a fresco of the soldiers of Gideon relieving -themselves of the awful colic caused by the water they had drunk. - -The long table that covered the middle of the hall was spread with a -rare sumptuousness. The glasses and decanters were of Bohemian -cut-glass, and of the finest red crystal. The superb silver pieces -glittered on the whiteness of the cloth strewn with violets. - -The monks arrived one by one, their hoods on their heads, arms folded on -their breasts. On entering they greeted Croniamantal and took their -accustomed places. As they came in, Father Karel informed Croniamantal -of their name and what country they came from. The table was soon filled -and Croniamantal counted fifty-six of them. The Abbé, an Italian with -narrow eyes, said grace and the repast began, but Croniamantal anxiously -awaited the arrival of Tristouse. - -A bouillon was served in which there swam little brains of birds and -sweet peas... - - -* * * - - -"Our two French guests have just left," said a French monk who had been -the prior of Crepentois. "I could not hold them here: the companion of -my nephew was just singing in the garden in his pretty soprano voice. He -almost fainted at hearing some one in the convent sing the close of the -song. They left just now and took the train, for their automobile was -not ready. We shall send it on to them by rail. They did not impart to -me the destination of their journey, but I think that the pious children -are bound for Marseilles. At least, I think I heard them talk of that -town." - -Croniamantal, pale as a sheet, rose, then: - -"Excuse me, good fathers," he said, "but it was wrong of me to accept -your hospitality. I must go away, do not ask me the reason. But I shall -keep a fond memory of the simplicity, the gaiety, the liberty that reign -here. All that is dear to me to the highest degree, why, why, alas, can -I not profit of it?" - - - - -XVI. PERSECUTION - - -At this time prizes for poetry were being awarded every day. Thousands -of societies had been founded for this purpose and their members lived -on the fat of the land, while making upon fixed dates large benefices to -poets. But the 26th of January was the day upon which the largest -associations, companies, boards of directors, academies, committees, -juries, etc., of the whole world bestowed their awards. Upon this day -8,019 prizes for poetry were distributed, the total of which aggregated -50,005,225 francs.[14] On the other hand, since the taste for poetry had -never spread among any class of the population of any country, public -opinion had risen powerfully against the poets who were called -parasites, lazy, useless, and so forth. The 26th of January of this year -passed without incident, but on the following day the great newspaper, -La Voix, published at Adelaide (Australia) in the French language, -contained an article by the distinguished agricultural chemist Horace -Tograth (a German born at Leipzig), whose discoveries and inventions had -frequently seemed to border on the miraculous. The article, entitled -_The Laurel_, contained a sort of chronology of the culture of the -laurel in Judea, in Greece, in Italy, in Africa and in Provence. The -author gave counsel to those who had laurel trees in their gardens, -indicating the multiple usage of the laurel, as a food, in art, in -poetry, and its rôle as a symbol of poetic glory. He then began to talk -of mythology, making allusions to Apollo and the fable of Daphné. -Finally, Horace Tograth changed his tone brusquely and concluded his -article as follows: - -"And furthermore, I say candidly, this useless tree is still too common, -and we have less glorious symbolisms to which people attribute the -famous savour of the laurel. The laurel holds too large a place upon our -overpopulated earth, the laurels are unworthy of living. Each one of -them takes the place of two in the sun. Let them be chopped down, and -let their leaves be feared as a poison. Hitherto symbols of poetry and -literary science, they are nothing more today than that death-glory -which is to glory as death is to life, and as the hand of glory is to -the key. - -"True glory has abandoned poetry for science, philosophy, acrobatics, -philanthropy, sociology, etc. ...Poets are good for nothing more -nowadays than to receive money which they do not earn, since they -scarcely ever work and most of them (except for the minstrels) have no -talent and no excuse whatsoever. As to those who have some gifts, they -are even more obnoxious, for if they receive nothing they make more -noise than a regiment and din our ears with their being persecuted. None -of these people have any _raison d'être._ The prizes which are awarded -them are stolen from workers, inventors, scientists, philosophers, -acrobats, philanthropists, sociologists, and so forth. The poets must -disappear. Lycurgus would have banished them from the Republic, we too -must banish them. Otherwise, the poets, lazy fiefs, will become our -princes and while doing nothing, live off our work, oppressing us, and -mocking us. In short, we must rid ourselves immediately of the poets' -tyranny. - -"If the republics and the kings, if the nations do not take care, the -race of poets, too privileged, will increase in such proportions and so -rapidly that in a short time no one will want to work, invent, teach, do -dangerous feats, heal the sick and improve the lot of unfortunate men." - -An enormous stir greeted this article. It was telegraphed or telephoned -everywhere, all the newspapers reproduced it. A few literary journals -followed their quotations from Tograth's article with mocking -reflections as to the scientist; there were doubts as to his mental -state. They laughed at the terror which he manifested over the lyric -laurel. However, the journals of commerce and information made great ado -about his warnings. They even said that the article in _La Voix_ was a -work of genius. - -The article by Horace Tograth had been a singular pretext, admirably -fitted to fan the blaze of hatred for poetry. It made its appeal through -the traditional sense of the supernatural, whose memory lies in all well -born men, and to the instinct for preservation which all beings feel. -That was why nearly all Tograth's readers were thunderstruck, aghast, -and wanted to lose no occasion to obliterate poets, who, because of the -great numbers of prizes they received, were the subjects of the jealousy -of all classes of the population. The majority of the newspapers -advocated that the government take measures leading to the prohibition -of all poetry prizes. - -In the evening, in a later edition of _La Voix_, the agricultural -chemist, Horace Tograth, published a new article, which, like the other, -telephoned or telegraphed everywhere, carried popular emotion to a -climax in the press, among the public and the governments. The scientist -concluded as follows: - -"World, choose between thy life and poetry; if serious measures are not -taken, civilization is done for. Thou must not hesitate. From tomorrow -on begins the new era. Poetry will exist no longer, the lyres too heavy -for old inspirations will be broken. The poets will be massacred." - - -* * * - - -During the night, life went on just as usual in all the cities of the -globe. The article, telegraphed everywhere, had been published in the -special editions of the local newspapers and snatched up by the hungry -public. The people all sided with Tograth. Ring-leaders descended into -the streets and, mingling with the aroused mobs, excited them further. -But most governments held sittings that very night and passed -legislation which provoked an indescribable enthusiasm. France, Italy, -Spain and Portugal decreed that all poets established on their territory -should be imprisoned at once pending the determination of their lot. - -Foreign poets who were absent and sought to re-enter the country risked -being condemned to death. It was cabled that the United States of -America had decided to electrocute any man who avowed his profession to -be that of poetry. - -It was telegraphed that in Germany also a decree had been passed -ordering all poets in verse or prose found on the imperial territory to -be incarcerated until further orders. In fact, all of the States on -earth, even those who possessed nothing but meager little bards lacking -in all lyricism took measures against the very name of poetry. Only -England and Russia were exceptions. The laws went into effect at once. -All poets who were found on French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese -territory were arrested on the following day, while the literary -magazines appeared all garbed in black, lamenting the new terror. -Dispatches toward noon told how Aristenetius Southwest, the great Negro -poet of Haiti, had been cut into pieces and devoured by an infuriated -populace of negroes and mulattoes. At Cologne, the Kaiserglocke had -sounded all night and in the morning Herr Professor Doktor Stimmung, -author of a medieval epic in forty-eight cantos, having gone out to take -the train for Hanover, was set upon by a troop of fanatics who beat him -with sticks, crying: "Death to the poet!" - -He took refuge in the cathedral and remained locked in there with a few -beadles, by the excited population of Drikkes, Hanses, and Marizibills. -These last particularly, were beside themselves with rage, invoking the -Virgin, Saint Ursula and the Three Royal Magi in _platdeutsch._ Their -paternosters and pious oaths were interspersed with admirably vile -insults to the professor-poet, who owed his reputation chiefly to the -unisexuality of his morals. His head to the ground, he was nearly dying -of fear under the big wooden statue of Saint Christopher. He heard the -sounds of masons walling up all the gates of the cathedral and resigned -himself to die of hunger. - -Toward two o'clock it was telegraphed that a sexton poet of Naples had -seen the blood of Saint January boil up in the holy phial. The sacristan -had gone out to proclaim the miracle and had hastened to the harbor -front to play buck-buck. He won all that he desired at this game and a -knife thrust in the breast to the bargain. - -Telegrams everywhere announced the arrests of poets, one after another, -and the electrocution of the American poets was made known early in the -afternoon. - -In Paris, several young poets of the left bank, who had been spared on -account of their lack of notoriety, organized a demonstration extending -from the _Closerie des Lilas_ to the _Conciergerie_, where the "prince -of poets" was imprisoned.[15] - -Troops arrived to disperse the demonstrators. The cavalry charged. The -poets drew their firearms and defended themselves but the people rushed -in and took a hand in the mêlée. The poets were strangled and so was -everyone else who came to their defense. - -Thus began the great persecution which swept rapidly throughout the -entire world. In America, after the electrocution of the famous poets, -they lynched all the negro minstrels and even many persons who had never -in their lives written a rhyme; then they fell upon the whites of -literary Bohemia. It was learned that Tograth, after having personally -directed the persecution in Australia, had embarked at Melbourne. - - - - -[Illustration 05] - - - - -XVII. ASSASSINATION - - -Like Orpheus, all the poets felt violent death staring them in the face. -Everywhere, publishers had been pillaged and collections of verse burnt. -The admiration of all went out to Horace Tograth who, from far off -Adelaide (Australia), had succeeded in unloosing this storm which seemed -destined to destroy poetry forever. This man's knowledge, they said, -bordered on the miraculous. He could drive away clouds or bring on rain -anywhere he pleased. Women, once they had seen him, were ready to do his -bidding. For the rest, he did not disdain either feminine or masculine -virginities. As soon as Tograth had seen what enthusiasms he had evoked -in the whole world, he announced that he would visit the principal -cities of the globe, after Australia had been rid of its erotic and -elegiac poets. And indeed some time later uprisings of the population -were heard of in Tokyo, Pekin, Yakutsk, Calcutta, Buenos Ayres, San -Francisco, Chicago, upon the appearance of the terrible German, Tograth. -Wherever he went, he left an unearthly impression on account of his -"miracles" (which he called scientific), and his extraordinary healings, -all of which lifted his repute as a scientist and a thaumaturgist to -sublime heights. - - -On May 30, Tograth debarked at Marseilles. The people were massed along -the quays; Tograth landed from the steamer in a launch. No sooner was he -recognized than cries, shouts, toasts, from innumerable gullets mingled -with the sound of the wind, the waves and the sirens of the vessels. -Tograth, tall and thin, was standing up in the launch. As it approached -the land, the features of the hero could be distinguished more and more -clearly. His face was smooth-shaven and blue, his mouth almost lipless, -disfigured by an ugly cut; he had a receding chin which gave him the -appearance, one might have said, of a shark. His brow rose straight up, -very high and very large. Tograth was dressed in a pasty white costume, -his shoes also being white and high-heeled. He wore no hat. As soon as -he placed his foot upon the soil of Marseilles the furor of the crowd -rose to such heights that when the quays were cleared three hundred -people were found dead, strangled, trampled, crushed. Several men seized -the hero and raised him upon their shoulders while they sang and -shouted, and women threw flowers at him all the way to the hotel where a -suite had been prepared for him and managers, interpreters and bell-boys -were waiting to greet him. - - -* * * - - -On the same morning, Croniamantal coming from Brünn had arrived at -Marseilles to look for Tristouse who had been there since the evening -before with Paponat. All three mingled in the crowd which acclaimed -Tograth before the hotel where he was to stop. - -"Happy tumult," said Tristouse, "You are not a poet, Paponat, you have -learned things which are worth infinitely more than poetry. Is it not -true, Paponat, that you are in no way a poet?" - -"Indeed, my dear," replied Paponat, "I have rhymed at times in order to -amuse myself, but I am not a poet, I am an excellent business man and no -one knows better than I how to manage an estate." - -"Tonight you must mail a letter to _La Voix_ of Adelaide; you must tell -them all that, and so you will be safe." - -"I shall not fail to do that," said Paponat. "Did you ever hear of such -a thing, a poet! That goes for Croniamantal." - -"I hope to God," said Tristouse, "that they will massacre him in Brünn -where he expects to find us." - -"But there he is right now," whispered Paponat. "He is in the crowd. He -is hiding himself and hasn't seen us." - -"I wish they would hurry up and massacre him," sighed Tristouse. "I have -an idea that that will happen soon." - -"Look," exclaimed Paponat, "here comes the hero." - - -* * * - - -The cortège which accompanied Tograth arrived at the hotel, and he was -permitted to descend from their shoulders. Tograth turned to the crowd -and addressed them: - -"Citizens of Marseilles, in thanking you I could employ, if I wished, -compliments that are fatter than your world-renowned sardines. I could, -if I wished, make a long speech. But words will never quite encompass -the magnificence of the reception which you have accorded me. I know -that there are maladies in your midst that I might heal not only with my -knowledge but with that which scientists have accumulated for myriads of -years. Bring forth the sick, and I shall heal them." - -A man whose cranium was as bald as that of an inhabitant of Mycona -cried: - -"Tograth! god-like mortal, all puissant _savantissimo!_ Give me a -luxuriant mane of hair." - -Tograth smiled and asked that the man approach him: then he touched the -denuded head, saying: - -"Thy sterile pate shall be covered with an abundant vegetation, but -remember always this favor by hating the laurel." - -At the same time as the bald man, a little girl approached. She implored -Tograth: - -"Sweet man, sweet man, look at my mouth, my lover with a blow of his -fist has broken several teeth. Return them to me." - -The scientist smiled and put his finger into her mouth, saying: "Now -thou canst chew, thou hast excellent teeth. But in return, show us what -thou hast in thy bag." - -The girl laughed, opening her mouth in which the new teeth gleamed; then -she opened her bag, excusing herself: - -"What a funny idea, before everybody! Here are my keys, here an -enamelled photograph of my lover; he really looks better than that." - -But the eyes of Tograth were greedy; he had perceived all folded up in -her bag several Parisian songs, rhymed and set to Viennese airs. He took -these papers and after having scrutinized them, asked: - -"These are nothing but songs, hast thou no poems?" - -"I have a very lovely one," said the girl. "It was the bell-boy of the -Hotel Victoria wrote it for me before he left for Switzerland. But I -never showed it to Sossi." - -And she proffered Tograth a little rose sheet of paper on which was -written a pathetic acrostic. - - - _My dear beloved, ere I go away, - And thy love, Maria, I betray, -MARIA Rail and sob, my sweet, once more--again, - If you'd come with me to the woods, we twain,(!) - All would be sweeter; our parting would not pain._ - - -"It is not only poetry," exclaimed Tograth, "it is idiotic." - -And he tore up the paper and threw it into the ditch, while the girl -knocked her teeth in fright and cried: - -"Sweet man, good man, I did not know that it was bad." - - -Just then Croniamantal advanced close to Tograth and apostrophized the -crowd: - -"Carrion, assassins!" - -They burst into laughter. They yelled: - -"Into the water with him, the rat." - -And Tograth, looking Croniamantal in the face, said: - -"My good brother, let not my affluence disturb you. As for me, I love -the people, even though I stop at hotels which they do not frequent." - -The poet let Tograth talk, then he continued to address the crowd: - -"Carrion, laugh at me, your joys are numbered, each one of them will be -torn from you one by one. And do you know, o people, what your hero is?" - -Tograth smiled and the crowd became all attention. The poet continued: - -"Your hero, o populace, is Boredom bringing Misery." - - -A cry of astonishment issued from all the throats. Women crossed -themselves. Tograth wanted to speak, but Croniamantal seized him -suddenly by the neck, threw him to the ground and held him there with -his foot on the man's chest, while he spoke: - -"He is Boredom and Misery, the monstrous enemy of man, the Behemoth -glutted with debauchery and rape, dripping the blood of marvellous -poets. He is the vomit of the Antipodes, and his miracles deceive the -clairvoyant no more than the miracles of Simon the Magi did the -Apostles. Marseillais, Marseillais, woe that you whose ancestors come -from the most purely lyrical land, should unite with the enemies of -poetry, with the barbarians of all the nations. What a strange miracle, -this, of the German returned from Australia! To have imposed it upon the -world and to have been for a moment stronger than creation itself, -stronger than immortal poetry." - -But Tograth who was able to extricate himself at last, arose, soiled -with dust and drunk with rage. He asked: - -"Who are you?" - -"Who are you, who are you?" cried the crowd. - - -The poet turned toward the east and in exalted tones said: - -"I am Croniamantal, the greatest of living poets. I have often seen God -face to face, I have borne the divine rapture which my human eyes -tempered. I was born in eternity. But the day has come, and I am here -before you." - - -Tograth greeted these last words with a terrible burst of laughter, and -the first ranks of the crowd seeing Tograth laugh, took up his laughter, -which, in bursts, in rolls, in trills, was soon communicated throughout -the entire populace, even to Paponat and Tristouse Ballerinette. All of -the open mouths yawned at Croniamantal, who became ill at ease. -Interspersed with the laughter were shouts of: - -"Into the water with the poet!... Burn him, Croniamantal!... To the dogs -with him, lover of the laurel!" - -A man who was in the first ranks and carried a heavy club gave -Croniamantal a blow, causing him to make a painful grimace which doubled -the merriment of the crowd. A stone, accurately thrown, struck the nose -of the poet and drew blood. A fish merchant forced his way through the -mob and, confronting Croniamantal, said: - -"Hou! the raven. I remember you, all right, you're a policeman who -wanted to pass for a poet; there, cow; take that, story teller." - -And he gave him a terrific slap, spitting in his face. The man whom -Tograth had cured of _alopecia_ came to him and said: - -"Look at my hair, is it a false miracle or not?" - -And lifting his cane, he thrust it so adroitly that he gouged out -Croniamantal's right eye. Croniamantal fell over backward, women threw -themselves upon him and beat him. Tristouse jumped up and down with joy, -while Paponat tried to calm her. But she went over and with the end of -her umbrella stuck out Croniamantal's other eye, while he, seeing her in -this last moment of sight, cried: - -"I confess my love for Tristouse Ballerinette, the divine poesy that -consoles my soul." - -"Shut up, vermin!" cried the crowd of men, "there are ladies here." - -The women went away soon, and a man who was balancing a large knife on -his open hand threw it in such a way that it landed right in the open -mouth of Croniamantal. Other men did the same thing. The knives stuck in -his belly, his chest, and soon there was nothing more on the ground than -a corpse bristling with points like the husk of a chestnut. - - - - -XVIII. APOTHEOSIS - - -Croniamantal dead, Paponat brought Tristouse Ballerinette back to the -hotel, where she relapsed into nervous fainting-spells. They were in a -very old building and by chance Paponat discovered, wrapped up in -cardboard, a bottle of water of the Queen of Hungary which dated from -the 17th Century. This remedy worked rapidly. Tristouse recovered her -senses and immediately went to the hospital to claim the body of -Croniamantal which was turned over to her without delay. - -She arranged a decent burial for him and placed over his tomb a stone on -which there was engraved the following epitaph: - - -_Walk lightly and your silence keep, -To leave untroubled his good sleep._ - - -Then she went back to Paris with Paponat who soon left her for a -mannikin of the Champs-Élysées. - -Tristouse did not regret him very long. She went into mourning for -Croniamantal and climbed up to the Montmartre, to the Bird of Benin's -who began to pay court to her, and after he had what he desired they -began to talk of Croniamantal. - -"I ought to make a statue to him," said the Bird of Benin, "For I am not -only a painter but also a sculptor." - -"That's right," said Tristouse, "we must raise a statue to him." - -"Where?" asked the Bird of Benin; "The government will not grant us any -ground. Times are bad for poets." - -"So they say," replied Tristouse, "but perhaps it -isn't true. What do you think of the Meudon woods?" - -"I thought of that, but I dared not say it. Let's go to the Meudon -woods." - -"A statue of what?" asked Tristouse, "Marble? Bronze?" - -"No, that's old fashioned. I must model a profound statue out of -nothing, like poetry and glory." - -"Bravo! Bravo!" cried Tristouse clapping her hands, "A statue out of -nothing, empty, that's lovely, and when will you make it?" - -"Tomorrow, if you wish; we shall go and dine, pass the night together, -and in the morning we shall go to the Meudon woods where I shall make -this profound statue." - - -* * * - - -No sooner said, than done. They went and dined with the élite of the -Montmartre, returned to sleep at midnight and on the next morning at -nine o'clock, after having armed himself with a pick-axe, a spade, a -shovel and some boasting-chisels, they took the road for the pretty -Meudon woods, where they met the Prince of Poets, accompanied by his -little friend, quite happy over the pleasant days he had spent in the -City-prison. - -In the clearing, the Bird of Benin set to work. In a few hours he had -dug a trench of about a meter and a half in breadth and two in depth. - -Then they had lunch on the grass. - -The afternoon was devoted by the Bird of Benin to sculpturing the -interior of the monument to Croniamantal. - -On the following day, the sculptor came back with workingmen who fixed -up an armed cement wall, six inches broad on top, and eighteen inches -broad at the base, so that the empty space had the form of Croniamantal, -and the hole was full of his spectre. - - -* * * - - -On the next day, the Bird of Benin, Tristouse, the Prince of Poets and -his little friend came back to the statue which was heaped up with earth -which they had gathered here and there, and at nightfall they planted a -fine laurel tree, while Tristouse Ballerinette danced and sang: - - -_No one loves thee thou art lying -Palantila Mila Mima -When he was lover to the queen -He was king while she was queen_ - -_'Tis true, 'tis true that I love him -Croniamantal way down in the pit -Can that be right -Let us gather the sweet marjoram -At night._ - - - - -THE END - - - - -NOTES - - -[Footnote 1: The French language at the end of the nineteenth century -had reached a certain fixation, chiefly through the influence of -Mallarmé, whose literary artifice was consternating. Apollinaire, a -bizarre scholar, and yet a "lord of language," was more of a freebooter. -Many of his exoticisms came from the market-place or from other tongues. -Their sources were fair and false. But at bottom, there is the sincere -desire to free modern literature from romantic sentiment, and artifice, -to use words as directly and freely as in conversation.] - - -[Footnote 2: Here Apollinaire's frivolous playing with the language can -scarcely be rendered. The original runs: "...en me réfugiant dans _mon_ -ou _ma_ 'bedroom' _du_ ou _de la_ 'family house' ou j'étais -descendue."] - -[Footnote 3: Among these towns we may cite, Naples, Adrianople, -Constantinople, Neauphle le-Chateau, Grenoble, Pultawa, -Pouilly-en-Auxois, Pouilly-les-Fours, Nauplie, Seoul, Melbourne, Oran, -Nazareth, Ermenonville, Nogent-sur-Marne, etc.] - -[Footnote 4: Wilhelm de Kostrowitzki was baptized in Rome, September 29, -1880, at the _Sacrosancta Patriarcalis Basilica Santa Mariae Maioris._ -His father is said to have been a high prelate of the Catholic Church.] - -[Footnote 5: "Let the seven countries and four continents dispute the -honor of his birthplace"--Mme de Kostrowitzka (who had never opened but -one of his books, and found that "idiotic") exclaimed one day: - -"O Poland, thou wilt remember thy great son!"] - -[Footnote 6: Apollinaire wrote to his friend André Billy: "Was I not -too a master of rhymed verse?" This brief couplet, paraphrased from: - -Luth! -Zut! - -marked a point of departure toward _Calligrammes._] - -[Footnote 7: This "absolute" poem, "freed from the restrictions of even -language" may be profitably studied for its positive suggestions. The -Dadaists, whose godfather Apollinaire was, took up this form with a -passionate conviction that terrified the populace after the war. "Is not -every art-theory, every school, only the triumph of an individual's -taste, the imposition of a stronger mind upon the weaker ones?" -Nonsense-poems, were the reductio ad absurdum of all literary artifice. -The final word, the ultimate bankruptcy. Apollinaire's intense desire to -negate literary precedent and to innovate, led through the stimulus of -the Cubist painters to _Calligrammes_, which contains his calligraphic -poetry. The typography is arranged most intricately, with regard to its -pictural or abstract effect. Apollinaire hoped ultimately to unite -poetry and painting, in fact his last critical writings in the Mercure -de France are filled with amazing conjectures as to the future of art. - -The "poèmes conversations" of Calligrammes, as André Billy relates, -may well have originated in the following manner: - -"He, Dupuy, and I are sitting at Crucifixe with three glasses of -vermouth. Suddenly Guillaume bursts out laughing--he has completely -forgotten to write the preface to Robert Delaunay's catalogue, which he -promised to mail that evening. 'Quick waiter, pen and ink. Three of us -will get through with this in a jiffy.' Guillaume's pen is off already: - -'Of red and green all the yellow dies.' -His pen stops. -But Dupuy dictates: -'When the arras sing in our natal forests.' -The pen starts off again transcribing faithfully. -It is my turn: - -'There is a poem to be written about the bird with but one wing.' - -A reminiscence from _Alcools_--the pen writes without a stop. - -'A good thing to do if there is any hurry,' I said, 'would be to send -your preface over the telephone.' - -And so the next line became: - -'And we shall send this by the telephone.' - -I no longer remember all the details of this singular collaboration, but -I can state that the preface to the catalogue of Robert Delaunay came -out entire."] - -[Footnote 8: This chapter is obviously written in an entirely different -period. The Poet Assassinated, composes, if we choose to believe so, -Apollinaire's vision of his own life. The book was collated from many -fragments, many beginnings, and published in 1916, by "_l'Édition_," -for the so-called "_Librairie des Curieux._" In the opening passage of -this chapter part of the influences of the Cubist painters, and their -inventions are particularly apparent.] - -[Footnote 9: The theatre in France of the period immediately preceding -the war is a sorry thing to relate. We will pass over Brieux, Hervieu, -Battaille, Bernstein, to consider Donnay, Porto-Riche and their ilk. -These worthies and their imitators achieved unparalleled financial and -social triumphs by incorporating a certain intimate lewdness into their -trivial drama. Their obvious theatrical machinery, which Apollinaire -ridicules, has been as successfully adopted in this country and -elsewhere in Europe, under the label of "modern drama."] - -[Footnote 10: _Mamamouchi_ is a character in Molière's play, _le -Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, a dignitary whose sense of office is so strongly -imbedded in him that he always enters shouting, "_Je suis Mamamouchi!_"] - -[Footnote 11: François Coppée, this sentimental nineteenth century -poet was amazingly popular, and truly French in his weaknesses, like the -music of Massenet. Apollinaire takes grave liberties with him, out of -sheer mischief.] - -[Footnote 12: _Archipel_, archipelago, used in the sense of _papier -buvard_ (!) _blotting paper!_ The disciples of Mallarmé went even -farther than this.] - -[Footnote 13: _Tychobrahé_, Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer -(1546-1601). Although lord of a province in Scania, he took refuge in a -monastery where he pursued his scientific researches. - -He settled in Prague, at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II, and died -there. Whether he ever really visited the monastery at Brünn is hard to -judge.] - -[Footnote 14: The number of prizes given for poetry and for other forms -of literature has reached an even more disquieting figure since the war. -Great publicity attends each award, and the publishers vie with each -other in establishing such prizes. However, the lot of the true poet is -as hard as ever, since it has become distinctly unfashionable to be the -recipient of a prize.] - -[Footnote 15: Paul Fort, Prince of Poets, he, of the broad-brimmed black -hat, and the flowing scarf, frequented the _Closérie des Lilas_, with -his band, whereas his avowed enemy, Apollinaire, and his far more -disreputable cronies quartered themselves in the Café Rotonde, a short -distance east along the Boulevard Montparnasse.] - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Poet Assassinated, by Guillaume Apollinaire - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POET ASSASSINATED *** - -***** This file should be named 60771-0.txt or 60771-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/7/7/60771/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Poet Assassinated - -Author: Guillaume Apollinaire - -Translator: Matthew Josephson - -Release Date: November 23, 2019 [EBook #60771] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POET ASSASSINATED *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - - - -<h2>THE POET ASSASSINATED</h2> - -<h4>BY</h4> - -<h3>GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE</h3> - -<h4>TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE</h4> - -<h4>AND NOTES BY</h4> - -<h4>MATTHEW JOSEPHSON</h4> - -<h5>NEW YORK</h5> - -<h5>THE BROOM PUBLISHING CO.</h5> - -<h5>1923</h5> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<p style="margin-left: 20%; font-size: 0.8em;"> -<a id="CONTENTS"></a><a>CONTENTS</a> -<br /> -<a href="#BIOGRAPHICAL_NOTICE">BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE</a><br /> -<a href="#I._RENOWN">I. RENOWN</a><br /> -<a href="#II._PROCREATION">II. PROCREATION</a><br /> -<a href="#III._GESTATION">III. GESTATION</a><br /> -<a href="#IV._NOBILITY">IV. NOBILITY</a><br /> -<a href="#V._PAPACY">V. PAPACY</a><br /> -<a href="#VI._GAMBRINUS">VI. GAMBRINUS</a><br /> -<a href="#VII._CONFINEMENT">VII. CONFINEMENT</a><br /> -<a href="#VIII._MAMMON">VIII. MAMMON</a><br /> -<a href="#IX._PEDAGOGY">IX. PEDAGOGY</a><br /> -<a href="#X._POETRY">X. POETRY</a><br /> -<a href="#XI._DRAMATURGY">XI. DRAMATURGY</a><br /> -<a href="#XII._LOVE">XII. LOVE</a><br /> -<a href="#XIII._MODES">XIII. MODES</a><br /> -<a href="#XIV._ENCOUNTERS">XIV. ENCOUNTERS</a><br /> -<a href="#XV._VOYAGE">XV. VOYAGE</a><br /> -<a href="#XVI._PERSECUTION">XVI. PERSECUTION</a><br /> -<a href="#XVII._ASSASSINATION">XVII. ASSASSINATION</a><br /> -<a href="#XVIII._APOTHEOSIS">XVIII. APOTHEOSIS</a><br /> -<a href="#NOTES">NOTES</a></p> - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire01.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="center">André Rouveyre (May 1916)</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="BIOGRAPHICAL_NOTICE">BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE</a></h4> - - -<p>There are men who cannot bring themselves to conform with the rest of -human society, who cannot conceive of a secure and honorable career even -at the hands of a tolerant age. They flee, they are eternally escaping -from the fold by some particularly outrageous or suicidal action. -Rimbaud having mastered the art of poetry in his twenties, deserted -literature to lead caravans through the African desert. Apollinaire at -almost as early an age had also mastered the traditional forms of his -art, but with Rimbaud's example before him could not become "an -explorer, a trapper, a robber, a hunter, a miner."</p> - -<p>Possessed of great energy, curiosity, and disrespect, he was from the -start thrown upon the side of those who flout authority, court disorder -and embrace the glitter and profusion of an intensely mundane existence.</p> - -<p>To regard the spectacle of modern life and to sense the cleavage with -the past and with the art or humanities of the previous day, is to be -"modern". For many the word is hateful; and yet Apollinaire set out -deliberately to be modern: to revalue the contributions of the past in -terms of the phenomenal changes which the twentieth century and the -Great War had brought in.</p> - -<p>The barbarous new age he courted, adopting much of its method, the -character of its institutions and its cruel philosophy. Perhaps he has -interpreted his age best in his own personality, that is to say his -life, a large and daring conception in itself.</p> - -<p>"Vain to be astonished at his continual feast-making," says his friend -the painter, Rouveyre, "at the rash exploits he undertook, at the crown -of thorns he inflicted upon himself... He was a prodigious creator and -all of his literary and social games, were of the most brilliant and -lavish character, far more so than their objects. Like God, who could -make man out of nothing, Apollinaire made many, with the same poverty of -material." (<i>Souvenirs de mon Commerce</i>—A. Rouveyre, Paris, -1919, Mercure de France.)</p> - - -<p>Apollinaire was born in Monte Carlo in 1880. It is still a delicate -matter to approach the facts of his life, to some extent, because of his -confusing boasts and pretensions. We do know that his mother was Mme de -Kostrovitzka, a lady of Polish descent who lived in France, and that -Apollinaire (i. e., Wilhelm de Kostrovitzki) was baptized in Rome on -September 29, 1880.</p> - -<p>He received an extensive and preciose education. He lived with his -mother in a chateau outside of Paris, a huge mansion that had a billiard -room, music parlors, salons, and animals of all kinds: monkeys, dogs, -snakes, parrots, canaries. Apollinaire travelled much when he was quite -young, chiefly in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe; he lived and -studied in the Rhineland. Then he came back to Paris, with "all the -poems he had been collecting in a cigar-box."</p> - -<p>A literary career in Paris, is perfectly conventional by now. You run -after the editors of newspapers, and finally you are allowed to -contribute "feuilletons" to them. Then the magazines, the publishers, -and you have "arrived." Apollinaire became a journalist and lived for a -time by the veriest pot-boiling, some of which included translations of -Aretino, an edition of the Marquis de Sade, introductions to -pornographical classics, and even a great bibliographical work, called, -"The Inferno of the National Library." But he soon became notorious in -Paris. He gathered a motley horde of writers, painters and <i>types</i> (i. -e., idiots, or freaks), and paraded from the right bank to the left, -from the Montmartre to Montparnasse. His associates are now the most -distinguished names of France, Henri-Matisse, Picasso, Dérain, Braque, -Rousseau (the old man whom he "discovered" near the fortifications of -Paris), and André Salmon, Marie Laurencin, Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, -"baron" Mollet, his secretary.</p> - -<p>He was intensely conscious of the time-spirit. An original and rugged -intellect, he disquieted those who were repelled by his lavish and -heedless manner. For him the French literature of the Symbolist era, -which de Gourmont still presided over, was dead, and he became, during -that whole period from 1905 to the end of the Great War, the only living -force in France. He predicted the sterile close of the literature of de -Regnier and Paul Fort, "Prince of Poets" (!), heralding an age of -boundless expansion and experiment, with new zones of experience, new -forms, and a yet more complex and rich civilization.</p> - -<p>Such ideas were in the air of Europe: there was Marinetti, in Italy: -Cézanne had nearly brought his stupendous work to a close; and a group -of painters, Picasso, Duchamps, Picabia, Braque, Dérain (the Cubists), -launched their work upon a frightened world. The abstract investigations -of the Cubists appealed to him powerfully. Apollinaire became their -ringleader. His book, "The Cubist Painters," is an authoritative apology -for this movement. But not content with this, he conceived little -movements of his own, invented names for them, wrote up programs, and -precipitated bad painters into careers. It was not all buffoonery. He -may have placed silly, vacuous individuals at the head of the reviews he -organized, "<i>Les Soirées de Paris</i>", <i>Nord Sud</i> (named after the -new subway); but some of the best modern writing of the time, by Max Jacob, -Pierre Reverdy, André Salmon, Paul Valéry, Apollinaire himself, and -some extremely youthful poets who are now Dadaists, were included in -them. His great charm in conversation, his uproarious wit, his complete -shamelessness, made him idol of all who were drawn to him.</p> - -<p><i>Alcools</i>, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1913. It was -the escape of a personality from the "eternal recurrence." The Symbolists -had sought a kind of exalted, objective state; this false mysticism was -accompanied by an attitude of fatigue, and preciose resignation. Even -the language, in their hands had become crystallized, or static. -Apollinaire's attitude was the complete reverse. A wonderfully happy -man, his verse was lustier and sturdier. He had learned much from the -reawakened interest in the "primitive" Italian painters. There was no -false shading in his work. Every line was as direct as in a child's -drawing. No one could use clichés or write of the most common diurnal -experiences as freshly as he. His verse had also a certain heroic -character, an air of prophecy.</p> - -<p>It has always been the good fortune of France that Paris draws gifted -strangers from other lands, who bring real gold to her. Apollinaire, a -weird mixture of what Slavic and Latin strains, laid rough hands on the -language. His aberrations are superb. He could never resist the -foreigner's impulse toward <i>jeux des mots</i>; and none are quicker than -the French themselves to accept and enjoy the new puns and -double-entendres. For the French have gone farther, their language has -been more pawed over and revivified through foreign usage than ours. -Apollinaire's exoticisms were not bizarre; they had the air of being -conceived in conversation.</p> - -<p>In the summer of 1914, Apollinaire was in Deauville, surrounded by a -cosmopolitan horde of Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Russians -when the Great War began. He embraced the superb irony of these events -with the utmost ardour; his attitude was precisely that which Pascal -epitomizes:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Why do you wish to kill brother?"</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Do I not live on the other side of the river?</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>He went into the artillery, and was stationed at Nîmes. He became -Second Lieutenant Guillaume Apollinaire. There were dull months upon -months in the barracks. There was also active fighting. He was three -times wounded in the head, and trepanned. In the Fall of 1915, he lay in -a hospital in Paris, recovering from a successful operation. It was at -this time that he assembled the fragments of a novel over which he had -been working for a period of years, <i>The Poet Assassinated.</i></p> - -<p>The poet, Croniamantal, is one of the few frankly epic figures of modern -literature. Apollinaire had never really outlived the poet's age of -twenty-five, and the preposterous life of his hero is drawn against the -artistic and social foibles of his age. By no means mere satire in the -18th century sense. Apollinaire grows positively hilarious and -intoxicated over his characters so that at times he is beside himself -with sheer fun. Results: humor of extraordinary eloquence and sonority, -and a form that is complete unrepresentative, with perpetual digressions -and asides.</p> - -<p>There have been so many tired men in France who wrote like flagellants. -Flaubert made his waking hours a nightmare; Gautier was much too -corseted; to Stendhal writing was a torturesome but resistless destiny; -Villiers was a devout artisan; Mallarmé goaded himself into obscuracy -and speechlessness.</p> - -<p>We must go back to Stendhal to find such extreme opposition to -naturalism. It is enemy of all that was Ibsen. Distortion or -under-emphasis are employed to fantastic ends; when a puppet is -uninteresting or wrung dry he is dismissed or killed. Here is the -destructive side of it: Apollinaire runs all the risks, obeys no rules, -and writes for fun.</p> - -<p>In the following year he was dismissed from the army and pronounced -unfit for anything but censorship service.</p> - -<p>Discharged from the hospital, he bought himself the most immaculate -officer's uniform, somewhat constricting for his already corpulent form -and his double chin, and in a victoria rode up to the editorial offices -of the <i>Mercure de France.</i> His manner was perfectly that of "a -Marseillaise tenor in an opera comique." His friends were in an uproar -over him. The art life of Paris, flared up again, under the guns. He -broke loose again upon his maddest tours de forces. A great welcoming -ball was given him, an orgy attended by a howling, cursing, fighting -throng, in which men and women tore about like Chaplin in the films. -There had never been such an outlandish and heterogeneous bazaar. -Apollinaire was ravished at being the orchestra-leader of such disorders -and follies. To stupefy them he gave a production of his preposterous -play, <i>Les Mammelles de Tiresias.</i> From the point of view of "action," -of living, these were his greatest moments. Even before the war, these -carryings on had passed all boundaries and were a source of scandal all -over the world. Apollinaire was the man of the day, for this desperate -crowd. He <i>made</i> poets and painters. "He made men and women seem much -madder than they really were." While they understood little his interior -laughter, his rebellious imagination.</p> - -<p>I have stressed Apollinaire's social adventures, regarding them as an -aspect of his creative expression. Wholly absorbed in art, he was -completely wanting in the false reverence and dignity which some affect. -Believing in the new painting of Picasso, Braque, Dérain, he could as -well hold a street demonstration, parading his friends as sandwich-men -bearing cubist paintings.</p> - -<p>In the last days of 1918 he was stricken with influenza and was taken -off very quickly. All the fools and freaks stopped pirouetting.</p> - -<p><i>Calligrammes</i>, his book of war poems had just appeared, and it is -agreed that his strongest and most singular expressions lie in these -reactions to the war. All other artists were involuntarily baffled by -their moral sentiments. Only Apollinaire, with his completely negative -philosophy, his un-morality, his shame in all of the common virtues, -could retort to this war with his gorgeous buffoonery and his ringing -apostrophes. He seized the new meanings of the modern era, from the -phallic zeppelins in the sky, the labels on his tobacco tins, the pages -of newspapers, or the walls of old cities. If these things are unworthy, -if the age is damnable, then Apollinaire is damned.</p> - -<p>"Is there nothing new under the sun?" he asks. "Nothing—for the -sun, perhaps. But for man, everything." He calls upon artists to be at -least as forward as the mechanical genius of the time. The artist is to -stop at nothing in his quest for novelty of form and material; to seize -upon all the infinite possibilities afforded by the new instruments and -opportunities, creating thereby the myths and fables of the future.</p> - - -<p style="margin-left: 60%;">MATTHEW JOSEPHSON</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<p class="right"><i>À René Dalize</i></p> - - - - -<h4><a id="I._RENOWN">I. RENOWN</a></h4> - - -<p>The glory of Croniamantal is now universal. One hundred and twenty-three -towns in seven countries on four continents dispute the honor of this -notable hero's birth. I shall attempt, further on, to elucidate this -important question.</p> - -<p>All of these people have more or less modified the sonorous name of -Croniamantal. The Arabs, the Turks and other races who read from right -to left have never failed to pronounce it Latnamainorc, but the Turks -call him, bizarrely enough, Pata, which signifies goose or genital -organ. The Russians surname him Viperdoc, that is, born of a fart, the -reason for this soubriquet will be seen later on. The Scandinavians, or -at least, the Dalecarlians, call him at will, <i>quoniam</i>, in Latin, -which means, <i>because</i>, but often serves to indicate the noble -passages in popular accounts of the middle ages. It is to be noted that -the Saxons and the Turks manifest with regard to Croniamantal, a similar -sentiment, since they refer to him by an identical surname, whose origin, -however, is still scarcely explained. It is believed that this is an -euphemistic allusion to the fact stressed in the medical report of the -Marseilles doctor, Ratiboul, on the death of Croniamantal. According to -this official document, all the organs of Croniamantal were sound, and the -lawyer-physician added in Latin, as did Napoleon's aide Major Henry: -<i>partes viriles exiguitatis insignis, sicut pueri.</i></p> - -<p>For the rest, there are countries where the notion of the -Croniamantalian virility has entirely disappeared. Thus, the negroes in -Moriana call him Tsatsa or Dzadza or Rsoussour, all feminine names, for -they have feminized Croniamantal as the Byzantines feminized Holy -Friday in making it Saint Parascevia.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="II._PROCREATION">II. PROCREATION</a></h4> - - -<p>Two leagues from Spa, on the road bordered by gnarled trees and bushes, -Vierselin Tigoboth, an ambulant musician who was coming on foot from -Liège, struck his flint to light his pipe. A woman's voice cried:</p> - -<p>He lifted his head, and a wild laugh burst out: "Hahaba! Hohoho! Hihihi! -thine eyelids are the color of Egyptian lentils! My name is Macarée. I -want a tom-cat."</p> - -<p>Vierselin Tigoboth perceived by the roadside a young woman, brunette and -formed of nice curves. How charming she seemed in her short bicyclist's -skirt! And holding her bicycle with one hand, while gathering sloes with -the other, she ardently fixed her great golden eyes on the Flemish -musician.</p> - -<p>"<i>Vs'estez one belle bâcelle</i>," said Vierselin Tigoboth, smacking -his tongue. "But, my God, if you eat all those sloes, you will have the -colic tonight, I'm sure."</p> - -<p>"I want a tom-cat," repeated Macarée and unclasping her bodice she -showed Vierselin Tigoboth her breasts, sweet as the buttocks of the -angels, and whose aureole was the tender color of the rose clouds of -sunset.</p> - -<p>"Oh! oh!" cried Vierselin Tigoboth, "As pretty as the pearls of -Amblevia, give them to me. I shall gather a big bouquet of ferns for you -and of irises, color of the moon."</p> - -<p>Vierselin Tigoboth approached to seize this miraculous flesh which was -being offered to him for nothing, like the holy bread at Mass; but then -he restrained himself.</p> - -<p>"You're a sweet lass, by God, you're nicer than the fair of Liège. -You're a nicer little girl than Donnaye, than Tatenne, than Victoire, -whose gallant I have been, and nicer than Rénier's daughters, whom old -Rénier always has for sale. Mind you, if you want to be my love, 'ware -o' the crablouse, by God."</p> - - -<p class="actor">MACARÉE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>They are the color of the moon</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>And round as the wheel of Fortune.</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">VIERSELIN TIGOBOTH</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>If you fear not to catch the louse</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Then I should love to be your spouse.</i></span></p> - - -<p>And Vierselin Tigoboth approached, his lips full of kisses: "I love you! -It is pooh! O beloved!"</p> - -<p>Soon there were nothing but sighs, the songs of birds and of russet and -horned little hares, like elves, fleet as the seven-league boots, -passing by Vierselin Tigoboth and Macarée, prone under the power of -love behind the plumtrees.</p> - -<p>Then Macarée was off on the old contraption.</p> - -<p>And sad unto death, Vierselin Tigoboth cursed the instrument of velocity -which rolled away and vanished behind the terraced rotunda, at the same -moment that the musician began to make water while humming a jingle...</p> - - - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire02.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="center">André Dérain</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="III._GESTATION">III. GESTATION</a></h4> - - -<p>Macarée soon became aware that she had conceived by Vierselin -Tigoboth.</p> - -<p>"How annoying!" she thought at first, "But medicine has made much -progress lately. I shall get rid of it when I want. Ah! that Walloon! He -will have toiled in vain. Can Macarée bring up the son of a vagabond? -No, no, I condemn this embryo to death. I should never even preserve -this foetus in alcohol. And thou, my belly, if thou knewest how much I -love thee since knowing thy goodness. What, wouldst stoop to carry such -baggage as thou findest along the road? O too innocent belly, thou art -unworthy of my selfish soul.</p> - -<p>"What shall I say, o belly? thou'rt cruel, thou partest children from -their parents. No! I love thee no longer. Thou'rt naught but a full bag, -at this moment, o my belly, smiling at the nombril, o elastic belly, -downy, polished, convex, sorrowful, round, silky, which ennobles me. For -thou makest noble, o my belly, more beautiful than the sunlight. Thou -shalt ennoble also the child of the Flemish vagabond and thou art worthy -of the loins of Jupiter. What a misfortune! a moment ago I was about to -destroy a child of noble race, my child who already lives in my beloved -belly."</p> - -<p>She opened the door suddenly and cried:</p> - -<p>"Madame Dehan! Mademoiselle Baba!"</p> - -<p>There was a rattling of doors and bolts and then the proprietors of -Macarée's lodging came running out.</p> - -<p>"I am pregnant," cried Macarée, "I am pregnant!"</p> - -<p>She was sitting up in bed, her legs spread apart. Her skin looked very -delicate. Macarée was narrow at the waist and broad-hipped.</p> - -<p>"Poor little one," said Madame Dehan, who had but one eye, no waistline, -a moustache, and limped. "After confinement women are just like crushed -snail-shells. After confinement women are simply prey to disease (look -at me!) an egg-shell full of all sorts of rubbish, incantations and -other witch-spells. Ah! Ah! You have done very well."</p> - -<p>"All foolishness," said Macarée. "The duty of women is to have -children, and I am sure that their health is generally improved thereby, -both physically and morally."</p> - -<p>"Where are you sick?" asked Mademoiselle Baba.</p> - -<p>"Shut up! I say," exclaimed Madame Dehan. "Better go and look for my -flask of Spa elixir and bring some little glasses."</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle Baba brought the elixir. They drank of it.</p> - -<p>"I feel better now," said Madame Dehan, "After so much emotion, I need -to refresh myself."</p> - -<p>She poured out another little glass of the elixir for herself, drank it -and licked the last few drops up with her tongue.</p> - -<p>"Think of it," she said finally, "think of it, Madame Macarée ... I -swear by all that I hold sacred, Mademoiselle Baba can be my witness, -this is the first time that such a thing has happened to one of my -tenants. And how many I have had! My Lord! Louise Bernier, whom they -nicknamed Wrinkle, because she was so skinny; Marcelle la Carabinière -(the freshest thing you ever saw!); Josuette, who died of a sunstroke in -Christiania, the sun wishing thus to have his revenge of Joshua; Lili de -Mercœur, a grand name, mind you, (not hers of course) and then vile -enough for a chic woman, as Mercœur put it: 'You must pronounce it -Mercure,' screwing up her mouth like a chicken's hole. Well she got -hers, all right, they filled her as full of mercury as a thermometer. -She would ask me in the morning; What sort of weather do you think we'll -have today?' But I would always answer: 'You ought to know better than -I...' Never, never in the world would any of those have become enceinte -in my house."</p> - -<p>"Oh well, it isn't as bad as that," said Macarée, "I also never had it -happen to me before. Give me some advice, but make it short."</p> - -<p>At this moment she arose.</p> - -<p>"Oh!" cried Madame Dehan, "what a well-shaped behind you have! how -sweet! how white! what embonpoint! Baba, Madame Macarée is going to put -on her dressing-gown. Serve coffee and bring the bilberry tart."</p> - -<p>Macarée put on a chemise and then a dressing gown whose belt was made -of a Scotch shawl.</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle Baba came back; she brought a big platter with cups, a -coffee pot, milk-pitcher, jar of honey, butter cakes and the bilberry -tart.</p> - -<p>"If you want some good advice," said Madame Dehan, wiping away with the -back of her hand the coffee that dribbled down her chin, "You had better -go and baptize your child."</p> - -<p>"I shall make sure and do that," said Macarée.</p> - -<p>"And I even think," said Mademoiselle Baba, "that it would be best to -do it on the day he is born."</p> - -<p>"In fact," Madam Dehan mumbled, her mouth full of food, "you can never -tell what may happen. Then you will nurse him yourself, and if I were -you, if I had money like you, I should try to go to Rome before the -confinement and get the Pope to bless me. Your child will never know -either the paternal caress or blow, he will never utter the sweet name -of papa. May the blessing of the Holy Papa at least follow him all his -life."</p> - -<p>And Madame Dehan began to sob like a kettle boiling over, while Macarée -burst into tears as abundant as a spouting whale. But what of -Mademoiselle Baba? Her lips blue with berries, she wept so hard that -from her throat the sobs flooded down to her hymen and nearly choked -her.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="IV._NOBILITY">IV. NOBILITY</a></h4> - - -<p>After having won a great deal of money at baccarat, and already rich, -thanks to Love, Macarée, whose corpulency nothing could conceal, came -to Paris, where above all, she ran after the most fashionable modistes.</p> - -<p>How chic she was, how chic she was!</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>One night when she went to the Théâtre Français a play with a moral -was presented. In the first act, a young woman whom surgery had rendered -sterile lamented the fatness of her husband who had the dropsy and was -very jealous. The doctor went out saying:</p> - -<p>"Only a great miracle and great devotion can save your husband."</p> - -<p>In the second act, the young woman said to the young doctor:</p> - -<p>"I offer myself up for my husband. I want to become dropsical in his -stead."</p> - -<p>"Let us love each other, Madame. And if you are not unfaithful to the -principle of maternity your wish will be granted. And what sweet glory I -shall have thereof!"</p> - -<p>"Alas!" murmured the lady, "I no longer have any ovaries."</p> - -<p>"Love," cried the doctor at this, "Love, madame, is capable of working -the greatest miracles."</p> - -<p>In the third act, the husband, thin as an I, and the lady, eight months -gone, felicitated each other on the exchange they had made. The doctor -communicated to the Academy of Medicine the results of his experiments -in the fecundation of women become sterile as a result of surgical -operations.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>Toward the end of the third act, someone shouted "Fire!" in the hall. -The frightened spectators rushed from the hall howling. In fleeing, -Macarée possessed herself of the arm of the first man she encountered. -He was well dressed and fair of feature, and as Macarée was charming, -he seemed flattered that she had chosen him as her protector. They made -each other's acquaintance at a café and from there went to sup in the -Montmartre. But it appeared that François des Ygrées had negligently -forgotten to take his purse with him. Macarée gladly paid the bill. And -François des Ygrées pushed gallantry so far as not to allow Macarée -to spend the night alone, the incident at the theatre having rendered -her nervous.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>François, baron des Ygrées (a doubtful baronetcy belonging to whoever -claimed it) called himself the last offshoot of a noble house of -Provence and pursued a career in heraldry on the sixth floor of an -apartment in the rue Charles V.</p> - -<p>"But," he said, "the revolutions and the demagogues have changed things -so that arms are no longer studied except by ill-born archaeologists, -and the nobility is no longer tutored in this art."</p> - -<p>The baron des Ygrées, whose coat of arms was of <i>azur à trois pairies -d'argent posés en pal</i>, was able to inspire enough sympathy in Macarée -for her to want to take lessons in heraldry out of gratitude for that -night at the Théâtre Français.</p> - -<p>Macarée showed herself, it is true, little given to learning the -terminology of heraldry, and one might even say that she did not -interest herself seriously in anything but the arms of the Pignatelli -who had furnished popes for the Church and whose coat-of-arms was -adorned with kettles.</p> - -<p>However, these lessons were wasted time to neither Macarée nor -François des Ygrées, for they ended by marrying. Macarée brought as -her dot, her money, her beauty and her fatness. François des Ygrées -offered to Macarée a great name and his noble bearing.</p> - -<p>Neither complained of the bargain and they found themselves very -happy.</p> - -<p>"Macarée, my dear wife," said François des Ygrées a few days after -their marriage, "Why have you ordered so many robes? It seems to me that -hardly a day passes without some modiste brings new costumes. They do, -true enough, honor to your taste and to their skill."</p> - -<p>Macarée hesitated for a moment and then replied:</p> - -<p>"It is to our honeymoon that you refer, François!"</p> - -<p>"Our honeymoon, yes, I have thought of it. But where do you want to -go?"</p> - -<p>"To Rome," said Macarée.</p> - -<p>"To Rome, like the bells of Easter?"</p> - -<p>"I want to see the Pope," said Macarée.</p> - -<p>"Very fine, but what for?"</p> - -<p>"That he may bless the child who lies under my heart," said -Macarée.</p> - -<p>"Phew-ew-ew!"</p> - -<p>"It will be your son," said Macarée.</p> - -<p>"You are quite right, Macarée. We shall go to Rome like the bells of -Easter. You will order a new robe of black velvet; and the dressmaker -must not neglect to embroider our arms at the bottom of the skirt: of -<i>azur à trois pairies d'argent posés en pal.</i>"</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="V._PAPACY">V. PAPACY</a></h4> - - -<p><i>Per carita</i>, baroness, (I had almost called you Mademoiselle!) -Ah! Ah! Ah! But the <i>baron</i>, your husband, he would protest. Ah! ah! -quite true, you have a little belly which commences to become arrogant. -They do their work well, I see, in France. Ah! if that fine country would -only become religious again, the population decimated by anti-clericalism -would at once, (yes, <i>baroness</i>) the population would increase -considerably. Ah! dear Christ! how well she listens, the <i>arrogantine</i>, -when one talks seriously, yes, <i>baroness</i>, you have the air of an -<i>arrogantine.</i> Ah! ah! ah! so, you want to see the Pope. Ah! ah! ah! -the benediction of a mere cardinal like me will not do. Ah! ah! tut-tut, I -understand quite well. Ah! ah! I shall try to obtain an audience for -you. Oh! no need to thank me, you can let my hand go. How well she -kisses, the <i>arrogantine</i>, oh! Come here, again, I want you to carry -away with you a little souvenir of me.</p> - -<p>"There! a chain, with the medal of the holy house of Lorette. Let me put -it about your neck... Now that you have the medal you must promise me -never to part with it. There, there, there! Come here so that I can kiss -you on the forehead. Come, come, can she be afraid of me, the little -<i>arrogantine?</i> Done! Now tell me why you laugh?... Nothing! Well! Now, -one bit of advice! When you go to the Vatican, I warn you not to use so -much odour, I mean so much perfume. Goodbye, <i>arrogantine.</i> Come and -see me again. My compliments to <i>the baron.</i>"</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>It was thus, that, thanks to Cardinal Ricottino, who had been to Paris -as <i>nuncio</i>, Macarée obtained an audience with the Pope.</p> - -<p>She went to the Vatican dressed in her beautiful armorial robe. The -baron des Ygrées, in full dress, accompanied her. He admired much the -bearing of the royal guards, and the Swiss mercenaries, inclined to -drunkenness and brawling, seemed fine devils to him. He found occasion -to whisper into his wife's ear something about one of his ancestors who -was a cardinal under Louis XIII...</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>The couple returned to the hotel deeply moved and almost prostrated by -the benediction of the Pope. They undressed chastely, and in bed, they -spoke for a long time about the pontiff, the whitened head of the old -church, a pressed lily, the snow which Catholics think eternal.</p> - -<p>"My dear wife," said François des Ygrées finally, "I esteem you to -adoration, and I love the child whom the Pope has blessed with all my -heart. May he come, the blessed infant, but I want him to be born in -France."</p> - -<p>"François," said Macarée, "I have never yet been to Monte-Carlo. Let -us go there! I needn't lose our whole pile. We are not millionaires, but -I am sure that we shall be lucky in Monte-Carlo."</p> - -<p>"Damn! damn! damn!" swore François, "Macarée, you make me see red."</p> - -<p>"Ho, there," cried Macarée, "you gave me a kick, you——"</p> - -<p>"I note with pleasure, Macarée," said François des Ygrées waggishly, -recovering his good humor, "that you do not forget that I am your -husband."</p> - -<p>"Come, then, li'l nobs, let's go to Monaco."</p> - -<p>"Yes, but you must have your confinement in France, for Monaco is an -independent state."</p> - -<p>"Agreed," said Macarée.</p> - -<p>On the morrow the baron des Ygrées and the baroness, all swollen by -mosquito bites, took tickets at the station for Monaco. In the coach -they laid charming plans.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="VI._GAMBRINUS">VI. GAMBRINUS</a></h4> - - -<p>The baron and the baroness des Ygrées in taking tickets for Monaco had -thought to arrive at the station which is the fifth on the way from -Italy to France and the second in the little principality of Monaco.</p> - -<p>The name of Monaco is properly the Italian name of this principality, -although it is widely used nowadays in French, the French terms -<i>Mourgues</i> and <i>Monéghe</i> having fallen into desuetude.</p> - -<p>However the Italians call Monaco, not only the principality which bears -that name but also the capital of Bavaria which the French call Munich. -The messenger accordingly gave the baron tickets for Monaco-Munich -instead of Monaco-principality. Before the baron and the baroness had -noticed their error they were already at the Swiss frontier, and after -having recovered from their astonishment, they decided to finish the -voyage to Munich in order to see at close hand all that the -anti-artistic spirit of modern Germany could conceive of ugliness in -architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts...</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>The cold winds of March made the couple shiver in this stone-box -Athens.</p> - -<p>"Beer," the baron des Ygrées had said, "is excellent for women who are -enceinte."</p> - -<p>And so he led his wife to the royal brewery of Pschorr, to the -Augustinerbräu, to the Münchnerkindl and other great breweries. They -penetrated to the Nockerberg where there is a great garden. They drank -there, as long as it held out, the famous March beer, <i>Salvator</i>, and -it didn't last very long, for the Munich people are great drunkards.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>When the baron and his wife entered the garden they found it thronged -with a mob of drinkers, who were already under-the-weather and sang head -to head and danced dizzily, breaking all the empty steins.</p> - -<p>Peddlers sold roast fowl, grilled herrings, pretzels, rolls, sausages, -sweets, souvenirs, post-cards. And there was also Hans Irlbeck, the King -of Drinkers. Since Perkeo, the midget drunkard of the great cask of -Heidelberg, no such boozer had ever been seen. At the time of the March -beer, and in May, Bock-time, Hans Irlbeck drank his forty quarts of beer -a day. Ordinarily he did not have occasion to drink more than -twenty-five.</p> - -<p>Just as the gracious Ygrées pair passed by, Hans placed his colossal -buttocks on a bench which, bearing already the weight of some twenty -huge men and women, cracked disconsolately. The drinkers fell, their -legs in the air. Some bare thighs could be seen because Munich ladies -never wear their stockings above their knees. Bursts of laughter -everywhere. Hans Irlbeck who had also been floored, but had not let go -of his stein, spilled its contents over the belly of a girl who had -rolled near him, and the beer bubbling under her resembled that which -she did when she got to her feet after swallowing a quart at one gulp in -order to recover her composure.</p> - -<p>But the proprietor of the garden cried:</p> - -<p>"<i>Donnerkeil!</i> damned swine ... a bench broken."</p> - -<p>And he started off with his towel under his arm, calling loudly for the -waiters:</p> - -<p>"Franz! Jacob! Ludwig! Martin!" while the patrons called for the -proprietor:</p> - -<p>"<i>Ober! Ober!</i>"</p> - -<p>However the Oberkellner and the waiters did not come back. The drinkers -crowded about the counters and took their steins themselves, but the -kegs were no longer emptied, and no more were heard the sonorous blows -of another cask being put under the hammer. The singing ceased, the -drinkers, angered, proffered oaths at the brewers and at the March beer -itself. Some profited by the lull to vomit with violent efforts, their -eyes almost popping out of their heads; their neighbors encouraged them -with imperturbable seriousness. Hans Irlbeck who had picked himself up, -not without difficulty, grumbled with a great snort:</p> - -<p>"There is no more beer in Munich!"</p> - -<p>And he repeated, with the accent of his native city:</p> - -<p>"Minchen! Minchen! Minchen!"</p> - -<p>After raising his eyes toward heaven, he fell upon a vendor of fowls, -and having ordered him to roast a goose for him, began to formulate his -desires:</p> - -<p>"No more beer in Munich... if there were only some white radishes!"</p> - -<p>And he repeated many times the Munich expression:</p> - -<p>"Raadi, raadi, raadi..."</p> - -<p>Suddenly he stopped. The crowd of drinkers, beside themselves, gave a -cry of exultation. The four waiters had just appeared at the door of the -brewery. With dignity they were carrying a sort of canopy under which -the Oberkellner marched proud and erect, like a negro king dethroned. -Behind him came fresh kegs of beer which were put under the hammer at -the sound of the bell, while shouts of laughter rang out, and cries and -songs rose above this teeming butte, hard and agitated as the Adam's -apple of Gambrinus himself, when, burlesqued in the costume of a monk, a -white radish in one hand, he tossed off with the other the jug which -rejoiced his gullet.</p> - -<p>And the unborn child found himself right shaken by the laughter of -Macarée who, greatly amused by the spectacle of this colossal gluttony, -drank and drank in company with her spouse.</p> - -<p>But then, the vivacity of the mother exerted a happy influence on the -character of the offspring who acquired therefrom much common sense, -before his birth, and some of the real common sense, of course, which -great poets are made of.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="VII._CONFINEMENT">VII. CONFINEMENT</a></h4> - - -<p>Baron François des Ygrées left Munich when the baroness knew that the -hour of delivery was approaching. Monsieur des Ygrées did not want to -have a child born in Bavaria; he was sure that that country was overrun -with syphilis.</p> - -<p>They arrived in the springtime, in the little port of Napoule, which in -an excellently turned verse the baron baptised for eternity:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Napoule of the golden skies.</i></span></p> - - -<p>It was there that the delivery of Macarée's child took place.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>"Ah! Ah! Aie! Aie! Aie! Ouh! Ouh! Whee-ee-ee!"</p> - -<p>The three local midwives took to improvising pleasantly:</p> - - -<p class="actor">FIRST MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>I dream of war.</p> - -<p>O my friends, the stars, the bright stars, have you ever counted -them?</p> - -<p>O my friends, do you even remember the titles of all the books you have -read and the names of their authors?</p> - -<p>O my friends, have you ever thought of the poor men who tread the broad -highways?</p> - -<p>The herdsmen of the golden age led their herds to pasture without fear -that the cattle would flee, they feared only the jungle beasts.</p> - -<p>O my friends, what do you think of all these cannons?</p> - - -<p class="actor">SECOND MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>What do I think of these cannons? They are vigorous phalli.</p> - -<p>O my beautiful nights! I am happy because of a sinister horn which -enchanted me last night, 'tis a good augury. My hair is perfumed with -abelmosch.</p> - -<p>O! the beautiful and rigid phalli that these cannons are! If women had -to do military service they would all go into the artillery. The sight -of the cannons in battle would be strange for them.</p> - -<p>Lights are born on the sea far off.</p> - -<p>Reply, o Zelotide, reply with thy sweet voice.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THIRD MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>I love his eyes at night, he knows my hair well and its odour. In the -streets of Marseilles an officer pursued me for a long time. He was well -dressed and of fair colour, there was gold on his costume and his mouth -tempted me, but I fled his kisses and took refuge in my "bedroom" of the -"family-house" where I was stopping.<a name="FNanchor_2_1" id="FNanchor_2_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_1" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - - -<p class="actor">FIRST MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>O Zelotide, spare the sad men as thou sparest this beau. Zelotide what -thinkest thou of the cannons.</p> - - -<p class="actor">SECOND MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>Alas! Alas! I want to be loved.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THIRD MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>They are the tools of the ignoble love of the people. O Sodom! Sodom. O -sterile love!</p> - - -<p class="actor">FIRST MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>But we are women, why dost thou speak of Sodom?</p> - - -<p class="actor">THIRD MIDWIFE</p> - -<p>The fire of heaven devoured her.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE CONFINED</p> - -<p>When you have finished your monkey-tricks, if it please you, will you -not forget to give a little attention to the baroness des Ygrées.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>The baron slept in a corner of the room on several travelling blankets. -He made a fart which caused his better half to laugh until the tears -came. Macarée wept, cried, laughed and a few moments later brought into -the world a sturdy child of the male sex. Then, exhausted by these -efforts, she rendered up her soul, with a scream that was like the -ululation of the eternal first wife of Adam, when she crossed the Red -Sea.</p> - -<p>In reporting the above, I believe that I have elucidated the important -question of the birthplace of Croniamantal. Let the 123 towns in 7 -countries dispute the honor of his birth.<a name="FNanchor_3_1" id="FNanchor_3_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_1" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>We know now, and the state records bear testimony that he was born of -the paternal fart at <i>Napoule of the golden skies</i>, on the 25th of -August, 1889, but not announced at the mayoralty until the following -morning.<a name="FNanchor_4_1" id="FNanchor_4_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_1" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> - -<p>It was the year of the Universal Exposition, and the Eiffel Tower, -which was just born, saluted the heroic birth of Croniamantal with a -beautiful erection.</p> - -<p>The baron des Ygrées made another fart which woke him by the macabre -bed where the corpse of Macarée reclined. The child cried, the midwives -croaked, the father sobbed, and declaimed:</p> - -<p>"Ah, Napoule with the golden skies, I have killed my hen with the -golden eyes!"</p> - -<p>Then he bathed the new-born calling him by a name which he invented -forthwith and which did not belong to any saint in Paradise: -CRONIAMANTAL. He left on the following day, having arranged for the -funeral of his spouse, written the necessary letters assuring his -inheritance, and announced the child under the names of -Gaëtan—Francis—Etienne—Jack—Amélie—Alonso des Ygrées. And -with this nursling whose putative father he was, he took the train for -the Principality of Monaco.<a name="FNanchor_5_1" id="FNanchor_5_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_1" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="VIII._MAMMON">VIII. MAMMON</a></h4> - - -<p>A widower, François des Ygrées established himself near the -principality; on the grounds of Roquebrune; he took pension with a -family, which included a pretty brunette called Mia. There he reared the -bearer of his own name with the baby-bottle.</p> - -<p>Often he would go out at dawn for a walk at the sea shore. The road was -fringed with amaryllis which he would always compare involuntarily with -packages of dried cod. Sometimes, because of the contrary winds, he -would turn to light an Egyptian cigarette whose smoke rose in spirals -like the bluish mountains emerging far off in Italy.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>The family in whose bosom he had installed himself was composed of the -father, the mother and Mia. M. Cecchi, a Corsican, was a croupier at the -casino. He had previously been croupier at Baden-Baden and had married a -German woman there. Of this union Mia was born; her carnation tint and -black hair bespoke her Corsican blood. She was always dressed in buoyant -colors. Her walk was balanced, her figure arched; she was smaller at the -breast than at the buttocks, and a touch of strabism lent her dark eyes -a somewhat distraught look, which only rendered her more tempting.</p> - -<p>Her speech was lazy, soft, guttural, but pleasant nevertheless. It was -the accent of the Monegascans whose syntax Mia followed. After having -seen the young girl gather roses, François des Ygrées began to take -notice of her and was much amused by her syntax for whose rules he -enjoyed making research... First of all, he noticed the italianisms in -her vocabulary, and especially the habit of conjugating the verb "to be" -with the wrong auxiliary. For example, Mia would say: "<i>Je suis -étée</i>," instead of "<i>J'ai été.</i>" He also noted her bizarre way of -repeating the verb in her principal clause: "I was at the Moulins, while -you went to Menton, I was;" or better: "This year I am going to the -gingerbread fair at Nice, I am."</p> - -<p>One time before sunrise, François des Ygrées went down to the garden. -He abandoned himself to sweet reveries, during which he caught cold. All -of a sudden he began to sneeze about twenty times in succession.</p> - -<p>Sneezing aroused him. He saw that the sky had whitened and the horizon -cleared with the first light of dawn. Then the first shafts of sunlight -enflamed the sky along the Italian coast. Before him spread the still -sorrowful sea, and on the horizon, like little clouds above the film of -sea, could be seen the curving peaks of Corsica, which always -disappeared after the rising of the sun. The baron des Ygrées shivered, -then he yawned and stretched himself. He kept on regarding the sea to -the east where one might have said there glittered a royal navy in sight -of a seaport with white houses, Bodighère, which furnished palms for -the festivities of the Vatican. He turned toward the immobile guardian -of the garden, a great cypress, begirt with a full-blown rose bush which -clambered up almost to its top. François des Ygrées breathed of the -sumptuous roses of nonpareil fragrance whose petals, as yet closed, were -of flesh.</p> - -<p>And just then Mia called him to have his breakfast.</p> - -<p>With her braid hanging down her back, she had just come to pick some -figs and she was letting a few creamy drops flow into a pitcher of milk. -She smiled at François des Ygrées, saying:</p> - -<p>"Have you slept well?"</p> - -<p>"No, there are too many mosquitoes."</p> - -<p>"Don't you know that when you are stung you should rub the place with -lemon and in order not to be stung by them you should put vaseline on -your face before going to sleep. They never bite me."</p> - -<p>"That would be too bad. For you are very pretty, and ought to be told -so oftener."</p> - -<p>"There are those who tell me so and others who think so without -telling. Those who tell it to me make me neither hot nor cold, as for the -others, so much the worse for them..."</p> - -<p>And François des Ygrées conceived at once a little fable for the -timid:</p> - - -<p class="center">FABLE OF THE OYSTER AND THE HERRING</p> - -<p>An oyster dwelt, beautiful and wise, on a rock. She never dreamed of -love but during fine weather simply bayed beatifically at the sun. A -herring saw her and it was as a spark of powder. He tumbled hopelessly -in love with her without daring to avow it.</p> - -<p>One summer day, happy and coy, the oyster yawned. Smuggled behind a -rock the herring looked on, but all at once the desire to imprint a kiss -upon his beloved became so overpowering that he could no longer restrain -himself.</p> - -<p>And so he threw himself between the open shells of the oyster who in -her surprise shut them with a snap, decapitating the wretched herring, -whose headless body floats aimlessly upon the ocean.</p> - - -<p>"'Twas so much the worse for the herring," said Mia laughing, "He was -much too foolish. I too want people to tell me that I am pretty, not for -fun, but so as we can marry..."</p> - -<p>And François des Ygrées noted for future consideration her curious -peculiarities of syntax: "so as we can marry." ...And he thought -further: "She doesn't love me. Macarée dead. Mia indifferent. Alas I am -unhappy in love."</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>One day he found himself in the valley of Gaumates on a little knoll -covered with skinny little pines. The shore trimmed by the white-blue of -the waves stretched far out before him. The Casino emerged from the bank -of splendid trees in its gardens. This palace looked like a man -squatting and lifting his arms toward heaven. Near it, François des -Ygrées hearkened to an invisible Mammon:</p> - -<p>"Regard this palace, François, it is made in the image of man. It is -sociable like him. It loves those who come to it and especially, those -who are unhappy in love. Go there and thou wilt win, for thou canst not -lose in play, since thou hast lost all in love."</p> - -<p>Since it was six o'clock, the angelus tinkled from the different -churches in the neighborhood. The voice of the bells prevailed against -the voice of the invisible Mammon, who became silent, while François -des Ygrées searched for him.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>On the next day, François took the road to the temple of Mammon. It was -Palm Sunday. The streets were littered with children, young girls and -women carrying palms and olive-branches. The palms were either very -simple or woven in a peculiar fashion. At each corner of the street, the -weavers of palms were sitting against the wall, working. Under their -deft hands the palm fibers bent, circled bizarrely and charmingly. The -children were playing about already with hard eggs. On a square a troop -of urchins were pummelling a red-headed kid whom they had found trying -to consume a marble egg. Very small girls were going to mass, well -dressed and carrying like candles the woven palms in which their mothers -had hung sweet-meats.</p> - -<p>François des Ygrées thought:</p> - -<p>"The sight of these palms brings good luck and today, which is gay -Easter, I shall break the bank."</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>In the game hall, he regarded at first the diverse throng which pressed -about the tables...</p> - -<p>François des Ygrées approached a table and played. He lost. The -invisible Mammon had come back and spoke sharply each time they erased a -deal:</p> - -<p>"Thou hast lost!"</p> - -<p>And François saw the crowd no more, his head was turning, he placed -louis, packages of bills, on one square, diagonally, transversally. He -played a long time losing as much as he wanted to.</p> - -<p>He turned away at last and saw the whole brilliant hall where the -players still pressed about the tables as before. Noticing a young man -whose chagrined face revealed that he had had no luck, François smiled -at him and asked whether he had lost.</p> - -<p>The young man replied angrily:</p> - -<p>"You too? A Russian just won more than two hundred thousand francs by -my side. Ah! if I only had a hundred francs more, I would make up what I -have lost twenty or thirty times over. But Oh, I have beastly luck, I am -hoodooed, done for. Imagine..."</p> - -<p>And taking François by the arm, he led him toward a divan on which they -sat down.</p> - -<p>"Imagine," he continued, "I have lost everything. I am almost a thief. -The money I have lost did not belong to me. I am not rich, I had a -position of trust. My employer sent me to recover claims in Marseilles. -I got them. I took the train to come here and try my luck. I lost. What -is there left? They will arrest me. They will say that I am a dishonest -man, even though I haven't ever profited of the money I took. I have -lost all. If I had won, no one would have reproached me. What luck I -have! There is nothing for me to do but to kill myself."</p> - -<p>And suddenly rising the young man put a revolver to his mouth and fired. -The corpse was carried away. Several players turned their heads a -moment, but none of them bothered at all, and most of them took no -notice of the incident which, however, made a profound impression on the -mind of the baron des Ygrées. He had lost all that Macarée had left -him and the child. As he went out François felt the whole universe -contract about him like a tiny cell, and then like a coffin. He got back -to the villa where he lived. At the door he passed Mia who was chatting -with a stranger who carried a valise.</p> - -<p>"I am a Hollander," said the man, "but I live in Provence and I would -like to hire a room for several days; I have come here to make some -mathematical observations."</p> - -<p>At this moment the baron des Ygrées sent a kiss with his left hand to -Mia, while with a revolver in his right he blew his brains out and -rolled in the dust.</p> - -<p>"We have only one room to rent," said Mia, "but it has just become -free."</p> - -<p>And she quickly closed the eyelids of the baron des Ygrées, gave cries -of grief, and aroused the neighborhood.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>As to the young child, whom his father had in such a characteristic -burst of lyricism named for aye Croniamantal, he was gathered up by the -Dutch traveller who soon carried him off to bring him up as his own -son.</p> - -<p>On the day they left, Mia sold her virginity to a millionaire -trap-shooting-champion, and it was the thirty-fifth time that she had -lent herself to this little commercial transaction.</p> - - - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire03.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="center">André Dérain</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="IX._PEDAGOGY">IX. PEDAGOGY</a></h4> - - -<p>The Dutchman, named Janssen, led Croniamantal to the region of Aix, -where there was a house which the people of the neighborhood called le -Chateau. Le Chateau had nothing lordly about it other than its name and -was nothing but a vast domicile having a dairy and a stable.</p> - -<p>Mr. Janssen possessed a modest income and lived alone in this dwelling -which he had bought in order to live in solitude, a suddenly broken off -betrothal having rendered him rather hypochondriac. He devoted all his -energies now to the education of the son of Macarée and Vierselin -Tigoboth: Croniamantal, heir of the old name of des Ygrées.</p> - -<p>The Dutchman, Janssen, had travelled much. He spoke all the languages -of Europe, Arabian, and Turkish, not to mention Hebrew and other dead -languages. His speech was as clear as his blue eyes. He soon made the -friendship of several scholars of Aix whom he would visit from time to -time and he corresponded with many foreign scientists.</p> - -<p>When Croniamantal was six years of age, Mr. Janssen would often take -him to the country. Croniamantal came to love these lessons along the -paths of wooded hills. Mr. Janssen would often stop and show Croniamantal -the birds hopping about or butterflies pursuing each other and fluttering -together among the wild rose-bushes. He would say that love reigned over -all of Nature. They would also go out on moonlit nights and the master -would explain to his pupil the hidden destinies of the heavenly bodies, -their regular course, and their effects upon the life of man.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal never forgot how one moonlit night his master led him to a -field at the edge of a forest; the grass bubbled with milky light. -Fireflies fluttered around them; their phosphorescent and jagged lights -gave the site a strange aspect. The master called the attention of his -disciple to the sweetness of this May night.</p> - -<p>"Learn," he said, "learn to know all of Nature and to love her. Let her -be your veritable nurse, whose salutary mammals are the moon and the -hills."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal was thirteen years of age at this time and his mind was -quite ripe. He listened attentively to Mr. Janssen's words.</p> - -<p>"I have always lived in her, but I must say, lived badly, for one -should not live without human love as companion. Do not forget that all is -a sign of love in Nature. I, alas! am damned for not having observed this -law whose demands nothing can withstand."</p> - -<p>"What," said Croniamantal, "you, my teacher, who know so many sciences -did not recognize this law which every country lout and even the -animals, the vegetables, and inert matter observe?"</p> - -<p>"Happy child who at your age can put such questions!" said Mr. Janssen. -"I have always known that law, from which no human being should rebel. -But there are some luckless men destined never to know the joys of love. -That often happens to poets and scientists. Their souls are vagabond; I -am always conscious of existences preceding my own. This knowledge has -never stirred any but the sterile bodies of scientists. (You should not -be astonished in the least at what I say.) Whole races respect animals -and proclaim the principle of metempsychosis, a most worthy belief, -self-evident but fantastical, since it takes no account of lost forms -and of their inevitable dispersion. Their worship should have extended -to the vegetable kingdom and to minerals. For what is the dust of roads -but the ashes of the dead? It is true that the Ancients did not concede -life to inert matter. But rabbis believed that the same soul inhabited -the body of Adam, Moses and David. In fact, the name, Adam, is composed -in Hebrew of the letters Aleph, Daleth and Mem, the first letters of the -three names. Your soul like mine, inhabited other human forms, other -animals, or was dispersed and will continue so after your death, since -all things must serve again. For perhaps there is nothing new any more, -and creation has ceased, perhaps... I affirm that I have not desired -love, but I swear that I would not begin such a life over again. I have -mortified my flesh and suffered severe punishment. I should like your -life to be happy."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal's master made him devote most of his time to the sciences, -keeping him au courant with all recent inventions. He also instructed -the boy in Latin and Greek. They often read the Eclogues of Virgil or -translated Theocritus in an olive grove. Croniamantal had learned a very -pure French, but his master taught him in Latin. He also taught him -Italian, and at an early age Croniamantal received the poems of -Petrarch, who became one of his favorite poets. Mr. Janssen also taught -Croniamantal English, and made him familiar with Shakespeare. Above all -he gave the boy a taste for old French authors. Among the French poets -he admired chiefly Villon, Ronsard and his pléiade, Racine and La -Fontaine. He also made him read translations of Cervantes and of Goethe. -On his advice, Croniamantal read the romances of chivalry which might -have made part of the library of Don Quixote. They developed in -Croniamantal an unquenchable thirst for experiment and perilous love -adventures; he devoted himself to fencing and to horseback riding; at -the age of fifteen he declared to anyone who came to visit them that he -had decided to become a celebrated and peerless cavalier, and already he -dreamed of a mistress.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal was, at this time, a handsome youth, thin and straight. -The girls at the village fêtes, when he touched them lightly, would stifle -little bursts of laughter and redden, lowering their eyes under his -regard. Habituated to poetic forms, his mind thought of love as a -conquest. Thoughts of Boccacio, his natural daring, his education, -everything disposed him to take the final step.</p> - -<p>One May day, he went out for a long ride. It was morning, everything -was still fresh. The dew hung from the flowers of the hedges, and on -either side of the road stretched the fields of olive trees whose gray -leaves trembled gently in the sea breeze and compared agreeably with the -blue sky. He arrived at a place where the road was being mended. The road -menders, handsome boys in bright colored caps, worked lazily, singing -the while, and stopping occasionally to drink from their flasks. -Croniamantal thought that these handsome fellows had sweethearts. It is -thus that they call a lover in that country. The boys say "my -sweetheart," the girls, "my sweetheart," and in fact they are both sweet -in that lovely country. Croniamantal's heart leaped and his whole being, -exalted by the springtime and the riding, cried for love.</p> - -<p>At a turn in the road, an apparition increased his trouble. He arrived -close to a little bridge thrown across a river which cut the road. The -place was isolated, and across the hedges and the trunks of poplars, he -saw two beautiful girls bathing, quite naked. One was in the water and -held herself up by a branch. He admired her brown arms and abundant -beauties, hardly concealed by the water. The other, standing on the -bank, dried herself after her bath and exposed ravishing lines and -graces which inflamed the heart of Croniamantal; he decided to join them -and mingle in their pleasures. Unluckily, he perceived in the branches -of a neighboring tree two youths spying on this prey. Holding their -breath and watching the least movements of the bathers, they did not see -the equestrian, who, laughing uproariously, threw his horse into a -gallop and cried aloud as he crossed the little bridge.</p> - -<p>The sun had risen almost to its zenith and was now darting its dreadful -rays. An ardent thirst added itself to the amorous inquietudes of -Croniamantal. The sight of a farm along the road brought him unspeakable -joy. He arrived at a little orchard whose blossoming trees made a lovely -sight. It was a little wood, rose and white with the cherry and peach -blossoms. On the fence linen was drying and he had the pleasure of -seeing a charming peasant girl of about sixteen, at work washing clothes -in a vat in the shadow of a fig-tree that had just begun to bloom. Not -having noticed his arrival, she continued to accomplish her domestic -function which he found noble; for, his imagination full of memories of -antiquity, he compared her to Nausica. Descending from his horse he -approached and contemplated the young girl with ravishment. He looked at -her back. Her folded up skirt discovered a well made leg in a very white -stocking. Her body moved in a manner that was pleasantly exciting -because of the efforts occasioned by the soaping. Her sleeves were -rolled up and he observed her pretty brown plump arms, which enchanted -him.</p> - - -<p>I have always loved beautiful arms particularly. There are people who -attach great importance to the perfection of the foot. I admit that they -touch me too, but the arm is to my mind that which should be most -perfect in woman. It is always in motion, one always has one's eye upon -it. One might say that it is the veritable organ of the graces, and that -by its deft movements, it is the veritable arm of Love, since when -curved, this delicate arm resembles a bow, and when extended, the arrow -thereof.</p> - - -<p>This was also Croniamantal's point of view. He was thinking of this, -when his horse, who suddenly remembered that it was the habitual hour -for being fed, began to whinny. At once the young girl turned and showed -surprise at seeing a stranger regarding her from above the fence. She -blushed and only seemed the more charming. Her dusky skin attested to -the Moorish blood that flowed in her veins. Croniamantal asked her for -food and drink. With much good grace this sweet girl did have him enter -the house and served him a rude repast. With some milk, eggs, and black -bread, his thirst and his hunger were soon sated. In the meantime, he -questioned his young hostess, in the hope of finding an opportunity for -paying her gallant compliments. He learned that her name was Mariette, -and that her parents had gone to the neighboring town to sell -vegetables; her brother was working on the road. This family lived -happily on the products of the orchard and the barnyard.</p> - -<p>At this moment, her parents, fine looking peasants, returned, and there -was Croniamantal already in love with Mariette, quite disappointed. He -paid the mother for the meal, and went off, after having given Mariette -a long look which she did not return, but he had the satisfaction of -seeing her blush as she turned away.</p> - -<p>He mounted his horse and took the road to his house. Being for the -first time in his life, sad for love, he found extreme melancholy in this -same countryside which he had previously traversed. The sun had dropped -low over the horizon. The grey leaves of the olive trees seemed as sad as -himself. The shadows stretched out like waves. The river where he had -seen the bathers was abandoned. The lapping of the water became -unbearable for him, like a mockery. He threw his horse into a gallop. -Then there was the dusk, lights appearing in the distance. Then night -came; he slowed up his horse and abandoned himself to a disordered -revelry. The sloping road was bordered with cypresses, and it was thus, -somnolent with the night and with love, that Croniamantal pursued his -melancholy way.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>His master soon noticed in the days that followed that he gave no more -attention to the studies to which he had been wont to apply himself with -such diligence. He divined that this disgust came of love.</p> - -<p>His respect was mingled with a little scorn because Mariette was -nothing but a simple peasant girl.</p> - -<p>The end of September had been reached, and one day Mr. Janssen led -Croniamantal out under the laden olive trees in the orchard and censured -his disciple for his passion, the latter hearkening to his reproaches -with ruddy embarrassment. The first winds of autumn complained in the -fields and Croniamantal, very sad and much ashamed, lost forever his -desire to see again the pretty Mariette and kept nothing but the memory -of her.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>And so Croniamantal attained his majority.</p> - -<p>A disease of the heart which was discovered in him led to his dismissal -by the military authorities. Soon after, his guardian died suddenly, -leaving him by will the little which he possessed. And after having sold -the house called <i>le Chateau</i>, Croniamantal went to Paris to give -himself freely to his taste for literature; he had been for some time -past composing poems secretly and accumulating them in an old -cigar-box.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="X._POETRY">X. POETRY</a></h4> - - -<p>In the early days of the year 1911, a young man who was very badly -dressed went running up the rue Houdon. His extremely mobile countenance -seemed to be filled with joy and anxiety by turns. His eyes devoured all -that they saw and when his eyelids snapped shut quickly like jaws, they -gulped in the universe, which renewed itself incessantly by the mere -operation of him who ran. He imagined to the tiniest details the -enormous worlds pastured in himself. The clamour and the thunder of -Paris burst from afar and about the young man, who stopped, and panted -like some criminal who has been too long pursued and is ready to -surrender himself. This clamour, this noise indicated clearly that his -enemies were about to track him like a thief. His mouth and his gaze -expressed the ruse he was employing, and walking slowly now, he took -refuge in his memory, and went forward, while all the forces of his -destiny and of his consciousness retarded the time when the truth should -appear of that which is, that which was, and of that which is to be.</p> - -<p>The young man entered a one story house. On the open door was a -placard:</p> - - -<p class="center"><i>Entrance to the Studios</i></p> - - -<p>He followed a corridor where it was so dark and so cold that he had the -feeling of having died, and with all his will, clenching his fists and -gritting his teeth he began to take eternity to bits. Then suddenly he -was conscious again of the motion of time whose seconds, hammered by a -clock, fell like pieces of broken glass, while life flowed in him again -with the renewed passage of time. But as he stopped to rap at a door, -his heart beat more strongly again, for fear of finding no one home.</p> - -<p>He rapped at the door and cried:</p> - -<p>"It is I, Croniamantal!"</p> - -<p>And behind the door the heavy steps of a man who seemed tired, or -carried too weighty a burden, came slowly, and as the door opened there -took place in the sudden light the creation of two beings and their -instant marriage.</p> - -<p>In the studio, which looked like a barn, an innumerable herd flowed in -dispersion: they were the sleeping pictures, and the herdsman who tended -them smiled at his friend. Upon a carpenter's table piles of yellow -books could be likened to mounds of butter. And pushing back the -ill-joined door, the wind brought in unknown beings who complained with -little cries in the name of all the sorrows. All the wolves of distress -howled behind the door ready to devour the flock, the herdsman and his -friend, in order to prepare in their place the foundations for the NEW -CITY. But in the studio there were joys of all colours. A great window -opened the whole north side and nothing could be seen but the whole blue -sky, the song of a woman. Croniamantal took off his coat which fell to -the floor like the corpse of a drowned man, and sitting on the divan he -gazed for a long time at the new canvas placed on the support. Dressed -in a blue wrap, barefooted, the painter also regarded the picture in -which two women remembered themselves in a glacial mist.</p> - -<p>The studio contained another fatal object, a large piece of broken -mirror hooked to the wall. It was a dead and soundless sea, standing on -end, and at the bottom of which a false life animated what did not -exist. Thus, confronting Art, there is the appearance of Art, against -which men are not sufficiently on their guard, and which pulls them to -earth when Art has raised them to the heights. Croniamantal bent over in -a sitting posture, leaned his fore-arms on his knees, and turned his -eyes from the painting to a placard thrown on the floor on which was -painted the following announcement:</p> - - -<p class="center">I AM AT THE BAR—<i>The Bird of Benin</i></p> - - -<p>He read and re-read this sentence while the Bird of Benin contemplated -his picture, approaching it and withdrawing from it, his head at all -angles. Finally he turned towards Croniamantal and said:</p> - -<p>"I saw the woman for you last night."</p> - -<p>"Who is she?" asked Croniamantal.</p> - -<p>"I do not know, I saw her but I do not know her. She is a really young -girl, as you like them. She has the sombre and child-like face of those -who are destined to cause suffering. And despite all the grace of her -hands that straighten in order to repel, she lacks that nobility which -poets could not love because it would prevent their being miserable. I -have seen the woman for you, I tell you. She is both beauty and -ugliness; she is like everything that we love nowadays. And she must -have the taste of the laurel leaf."</p> - -<p>But Croniamantal, who was not listening to him, interrupted at this -point to say:</p> - -<p>"Yesterday I wrote my last poem in regular verses:</p> - - -<p class="center"><i>Well,</i><br /></p> -<p class="center"><i>Hell!</i><a name="FNanchor_6_1" id="FNanchor_6_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_1" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> - - -<p>and my last poem in irregular verses (take care that in the second -stanza the word wench is taken in its less reputable meaning):</p> - - -<p class="center">PROSPECTUS FOR A NEW MEDICINE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Why did Hjalmar return</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The tankard of beaten silver lay void,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The stars of the evening</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Became the stars of the morning</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Reciprocally</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The sorceress of the forest of Hruloë</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Prepared her repast</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>She was an eater of horse-flesh</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>But he was not</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mai Mai ramaho nia nia.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Then the stars of the morning</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Became again the stars of the evening</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And reciprocally</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>They cried—In the name of Maröe</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Wench of Arnamoer</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And of his favorite zoöphyte</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Prepare the drink of the gods</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>—Certainly noble warrior</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mai Mai ramaho nia nia.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>She took the sun</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And plunged him into the sea</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>As housewives</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Dip a ham in gravy</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>But alas! the salmons voracious</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Have devoured the drowned sun</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And have made themselves wigs</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>With his beams</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mai Mai ramaho nia nia.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>She took the moon and did her all with bands</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>As they do with the illustrious dead</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And with little children</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And then in the light of the only stars</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The eternal ones</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>She made a concoction of sea-brine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The euphorbiaceans of Norwegian resin</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And the mucous of Alfes</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>To make a drink for the gods</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mai Mai ramaho nia nia.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>He died like the sun</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And the sorceress perched at the top of a fir pine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Heard until evening</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The rumours of the great winds engulfed in the phial</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>And the lying scaldas swear to this</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mai Mai ramaho nia nia.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Croniamantal was silent for an instant and then added:</p> - -<p>"I shall from now on write only poetry free from all restrictions even -that of language.<a name="FNanchor_7_1" id="FNanchor_7_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_1" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> - -<p>"Listen, old man!"</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><b>MAHEVIDANOMI</b></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><b>RENANOCALIPNODITOC</b></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><b>EXTARTINAP # v.s.</b></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><b>A. Z.</b></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Telephone: 33-122 Pan : Pan</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 19em;">OeaoiiiioKTin</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;">iiiiiiiiiiii</span></p> - - -<p>"Your last line, my poor Croniamantal," said the Bird of Benin, "is a -simple plagiarism from Fr.nc.s J.mm.s."</p> - -<p>"That is not true," said Croniamantal. "But I shall compose no more -pure poetry. That is what I have come to, through your fault. I want to -write plays."</p> - -<p>"You had better go to see the young woman of whom I spoke to you. She -knows you and seems to be crazy about you. You will find her in the -Meudon woods next Thursday at a place that I shall designate. You will -recognize her by the skipping rope that she will hold in her hand. Her -name is Tristouse Ballerinette."</p> - -<p>"Very well," said Croniamantal, "I shall go to see Ballerinette and -shall sleep with her, but above all I want to go to the theatres to -offer my play, Ieximal Jelimite, which I wrote in your studio last year -while eating lemons."</p> - -<p>"Do what you want, my friend," said the Bird of Benin, "but do not -forget Tristouse Ballerinette, the woman of your future."</p> - -<p>"Well said," said Croniamantal. "But I want to roar to you once more -the plot of Ieximal Jelimite. Listen:</p> - -<p>"A man buys a newspaper on the seashore. From the garden of a house at -one side emerges a soldier whose hands are electric bulbs. A giant 10 -feet tall descends from a tree. He shakes the newspaper vendor, who is -of plaster and who in falling breaks to bits. At this moment a judge -arrives. With strokes of a razor he kills everybody, while a leg which -passes hopping crushes the judge with a kick in the nose, and sings a -pretty little song."</p> - -<p>"How wonderful!" said the Bird of Benin. "I shall paint the decoration, -you have promised me that."</p> - -<p>"That goes without saying," answered Croniamantal.<a name="FNanchor_8_1" id="FNanchor_8_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_1" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XI._DRAMATURGY">XI. DRAMATURGY</a></h4> - - -<p>On the following day Croniamantal went to The Theatre, which was -meeting at Monsieur Pingu's, the financier. Croniamantal succeeded in -gaining entry by bribing the doorman and the butler. He entered boldly the -hall where The Theatre, its satellites, its stool-pigeons and its hired -thugs were gathered.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Ladies and Gentlemen of THE THEATRE, I have come to read you my play -entitled <i>Ieximal Jelimite.</i></p> - - -<p class="actor">THE THEATRE</p> - -<p>Good gracious, wait a minute, young man, until you have been informed -about our methods of procedure. You are here in the midst of our actors, -our authors, our critics and our spectators. Listen attentively and -don't even speak.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Gentlemen, I thank you for the cordial reception that you give me and I -shall profit, I am sure, of all that I hear.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE ACTOR</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>My rôles have slowly withered like the roses</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>But mother, I love my metempsychoses</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>O seats of proteus and their metamorphoses</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">AN OLD STAGE MANAGER</p> - -<p>Do you remember, Madame! One snowy night of 1832, a lost stranger -knocked at the door of a villa situated on the road leading from -Chanteboun to Sorrento...</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE CRITIC</p> - -<p>Nowadays, for a play to be successful it is important that it should -not be signed by its author.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE TRAINER TO HIS BEAR</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Roll about in the sweet peas</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Play dead... suckle...</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Dance the polka... now the mazurka...</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CHORUS OF DRINKERS</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Juice o' the grape</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Ruddy liquor</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Let us drink drink</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>If we may</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CHORUS OF EATERS</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Horde of gluttons</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>There's no more</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>A crumb left</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>In the plate</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">DRINKERS</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Bloated heads</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>Drink o drink</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21em;"><i>The juice o' the grape</i></span></p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">R.D.RD K.PL.NG, THE ACTOR, THE ACTRESS,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21.5em;">THE AUTHORS</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 21.5em;">(To the spectators)</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;">Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay!</span></p> - - -<p class="actor">THE PROMPTER</p> - -<p>The theatre, my dear brothers, is a school for scandal, it is a place -of perdition for the soul and the body. According to the testimony of the -stage carpenters everything is faked in the theatre. Witches older than -Morgane come there to pose as little girls of fifteen years.</p> - -<p>How much blood is spilt in a melodrama! I say truthfully, though it be -false, this blood will be upon the heads of the children of the authors, -the actors, the directors, and the spectators, unto the seventh -generation. <i>Ne mater suam</i>, the little girls used to say to their -mothers. Nowadays they ask: "Are we going to the theatre tonight?"</p> - -<p>I tell you frankly my friends. There are few shows which do not -endanger the soul. Outside of the spectacle of nature I know of nothing -that one may witness without fear. This last spectacle is Gallic and -healthy, my dear friends. The sound dilates the glands, chases Satan from -the stinking shades where he lies and thus the Fathers come in from the -desert to exorcise themselves.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE MOTHER OF AN ACTRESS</p> - -<p>Are you p..., Charlotte?</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE ACTRESS</p> - -<p>No, mama, I am roasting.</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. MAURICE BOISSARD</p> - -<p>We have with us today the entrails of a mother!</p> - - -<p class="actor">AN AUTHOR WHO HAS A PLAY ACCEPTED -BY THE COMEDIE-FRANÇAISE</p> - -<p>My friend, you do not look very confident today. I am going to explain -the meaning of several words from the theatrical vocabulary. Listen -attentively and remember them if you can.</p> - -<p><i>Acheron</i> (ch hard)—A river of Hades, not of hell.</p> - -<p><i>Artists</i> (two types)—Is never used except in speaking of a -comedian or a comedienne.</p> - -<p><i>Brother</i>—Avoid using this substantive together with -"little." The adjective "young" is more proper.</p> - -<p>NOTA BENE—This phrase does not apply to operettas.</p> - -<p>"<i>High Life</i>"—This very French expression is translated in -English as "<i>fashionable people.</i>"</p> - -<p><i>Liaisons</i>—They are always dangerous in the theatre.</p> - -<p><i>Papa</i>—Two negatives are equal to an affirmative.</p> - -<p><i>Cooked Potatoes</i>—(never used in the singular)—A crudity -that is deleterious to the stomach.</p> - -<p><i>Tut-tut</i>—This worn expression...</p> - -<p>Would you like to have some titles for plays also? They are very -important in order to succeed. Here are some sure ones:</p> - -<p>THE CONTOUR; <i>The Circumference</i>; THE CONDOR; <i>Hurry up Harry</i>; -THE TOWER; <i>Louise, your shirt is coming out</i>; STEP ALONG; <i>The -Mysterious Bar</i>; HUNDREDTH TO THE RIGHT; <i>The Magician</i>; THE GUELF; -<i>I am going to kill you</i>; MY PRINCE; <i>The Artichoke</i>; THE SCHOOL -FOR LAWYERS; <i>The Torch-bearer!</i></p> - -<p>Good-bye, sir, don't thank me.</p> - - -<p class="actor">A GREAT CRITIC</p> - -<p>Gentlemen, I have come to give you a report of the triumph, last night. -Are you ready? I begin:</p> - - -<p class="actor">GRIT AND GRIP</p> - -<p>A play in three acts by Messrs. Julien Tandis, Jean de la Fente, -Prosper Mordus and Mmes Nathalie de l'Angoumois, Jane Fontaine and the -countess M. Des Etangs, etc. Sets by Messrs. Alfred Mone, Leon Minie, Al. -de Lemere. Costumes by Jeanette, hats by Wilhelmine, properties by the -MacTead Company, phonographs by Hernstein and Company, sanitary napkins -by Van Feuler Brothers.</p> - -<p>I recall the captive who dared to p... before Sesostris. I never saw a -more poignant scene than this from the play of Messrs, and Mmes etc. I -must speak of the scene which made such a great hit at the opening night -and in which the financier Prominoff bursts into a fit of rage against -the coroner.</p> - -<p>The play, which was very good, otherwise, did not accomplish all that -was expected of it. The courtesan wife who feathers her nest out of the -green old age of a vulgar brewer, remains, however, an unforgettable and -touching figure which leaves in the shadow that of Cleopatra and Mme de -Pompadour. M. Layol is an excellent comedian. He acted the father of a -family in every sense of the expression. Mlle Jeannine Letrou, a young -star of tomorrow, has very pretty legs. But the real revelation was Mme -Perdreau whose sensitive nature we know so well. She acted the scene of -the reconciliation with the most perfect naturalism. In short a great -evening and prospects for a hundred night run.<a name="FNanchor_9_1" id="FNanchor_9_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_1" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> - - -<p class="actor">THE THEATRE</p> - -<p>Young man we are going to give some subjects for plays. If they were -signed by famous names we would play them, but they are masterpieces by -unknowns which were given to us and which we are generously turning over -to you because of your nice face.</p> - - -<p>PLAY WITH A THESIS—The prince of San Meco finds a louse on his -wife's head and makes a scene. The princess has not slept with the -viscount of Dendelope for the past six months. The couple make a scene -before the viscount, who, not having slept with anyone but the princess -and Mme Lafoulue, wife of a Secretary of State, causes the ministry to -fall and overwhelms Mme Lafoulue with his scorn.</p> - -<p>Mme Lafoulue makes a scene with her husband. Everything becomes clear, -however, when Monsieur Bibier, the Deputy, arrives. He scratches his -head. He is stripped. He accuses his electors of being lousy. Finally -everything is in order once more. Title: <i>Parliamentarism.</i></p> - - -<p>COMEDY OF MANNERS—Isabelle Lefaucheux promises her husband that -she will be faithful to him. Then she remembers that she has promised the -same thing to Jules, the boy who works in their store. She suffers from -not being able to grant her faith and her love.</p> - -<p>However, Lefaucheux fires Jules. This event precipitates a dramatic -triumph of love, and we soon find Isabelle cashier in a department store -where Jules is salesman. Title: <i>Isabelle Lefaucheux.</i></p> - - -<p>HISTORICAL PLAY—The famous novelist Stendhal is the ringleader of -a Bonapartist plot which ends in the heroic death of a young singer during -a presentation of <i>Don Juan</i> at the Scala Theatre in Milan. Since -Stendhal had hidden his identity under a pseudonym, he withdraws from -the affair admirably. Grand marches, procession of historical -personages.</p> - - -<p>OPERA—Buridan's ass hesitates to satisfy his hunger and his -thirst. The she-ass of Balaam prophesies that the ass will die. The golden -ass comes, eats and drinks. The Wild-Ass's-Skin comes and displays his -nudity to this asinine herd. Passing by, Sancho's ass thinks that he can -prove his robustness by carrying off the child, but the traitor, Melo, -warns the Genius of la Fontaine. He proclaims his jealousy and beats the -golden ass. Metamorphoses. The Prince and the Infant make their entrance -on horseback. The King abdicates in their favor.</p> - - -<p>PATRIOTIC PLAY—The Swedish government lays suit against the French -Government for manufacturing an imitation of "Swedish matches." In the -last act they exhume the remains of an alchemist of the XIVth Century -who invented these matches, at La Ferté-Gaucher, a village in France, -not far from Paris.</p> - - -<p>COMEDY——</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>The handsome chauffeur</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Cried to his neighbor</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>If you will show me your salon</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>I wilt show you my kitchen.</i></span></p> - -<p>Here is enough to nourish a whole career of playwriting, sir.</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. LACOUFF, SCHOLAR</p> - -<p>Young man, it is also important to know theatrical anecdotes; they help -to fill out the conversation of a young dramatic author; here are a -few:</p> - -<p>Frederick the Great was accustomed to having his court actresses -whipped before each presentation. He believed that flagellation -communicated a rosy tint to their skin which was not without its charm.</p> - -<p>At the court of the Grand Turk, the <i>Bourgeois Gentilhomme</i> was -being played, but in order to adapt it to the taste of the environment the -<i>mamamouchi</i> became a Knight of the Garter.<a name="FNanchor_10_1" id="FNanchor_10_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_1" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - -<p>Cecile Vestris, while returning to Mayence, one day, had her carriage -held up by the famous Rhenish bandit Schinderhans. She rallied her -spirits against this ill-fortune and danced for Schinderhans in the hall -of a roadside tavern.</p> - -<p>Ibsen was sleeping one time with a young Spanish lady who cried out at -the proper moment:</p> - -<p>"Now!... now!... Mr. Dramatist!"</p> - -<p>An erudite actor admitted to me that he had liked only one statue in -all his life: <i>The Squatting Scribe</i>, sculptured by an Egyptian, long -before Jesus-Christ, and which he saw in the Louvre. But they are -beginning to talk much less of Scribe, and yet he still reigns over the -theatre.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE THEATRE</p> - -<p>Do not forget the final scene, nor the words at the end, nor the fact -that the more crust you have the more you shine, nor that a number that -is cited must end in 7 or 3 in order to seem accurate; nor not to lend -money to anybody who says: "I have five acts at the Odéon," or "I have -three acts at the Comédie-Française," nor to say carelessly: "If you -want some free passes, I have so many of them, that I am obliged to give -them to my concierge;" that doesn't lead to anything.</p> - - -<p>A young man at this point made good the occasion to come and sing with -equivocal gestures and a lascivious air, some childish and entrancing -songs.</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. PINGU</p> - -<p>What juice, sir!</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. LACOUFF</p> - -<p>Juice of the hat?</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. PINGU</p> - -<p>No-no! I am mistaken. What a fluid!</p> - -<p>He trembles like the paunch of an archbishop.</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. LACOUFF</p> - -<p>Use the proper word, not your paunch.</p> - - -<p class="actor">M. PINGU</p> - -<p>What a joy, sir, what a joy! It would soften a crocodile to tears and -would please a scholar as well as a financier.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Good-bye, gentlemen, I am your devoted servant. With your permission I -will return in a few days. I feel that my play is not in proper shape -yet.</p> - - - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire04.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="center">André Dérain</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XII._LOVE">XII. LOVE</a></h4> - - -<p>On a spring morning, Croniamantal, following the instructions of the -Bird of Benin, reached the Meudon woods and stretched himself out in the -shade of a tree whose branches hung very low.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>God I am tired, not of walking but of being alone. I am thirsty—not -for wine, hydromel or beer, but for water, fresh water from that lovely -wood where the grass and the trees are rose at every dawn, but where no -spring arrests the progress of the parched traveller. The walk has -sharpened my appetite; I am hungry, though not for the flesh nor for -fruit, but for bread, good solid bread, swollen like mammals, bread, -round as the moon and gilded as she.</p> - - -<p>He arose then. He went deep into the woods and came to the clearing, -where he was to meet Tristouse Ballerinette. The damsel had not yet -arrived. Croniamantal longed for a fountain and his imagination, or -perhaps some sorcerer's talent in himself which he had never suspected, -caused a limpid water suddenly to flow among the grass.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal flung himself down and drank avidly, when he heard the -voice of a woman singing far off:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Dondidondaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>'Tis the shepherdess beloved of the king</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Who has gone to the fountain</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Dondidondaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>In the dewy fields, all blossoming</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>To the fountain</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>But here comes Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>To the fountain</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>And Hickorydock! advance no further.</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Dost thou think already of her who sings? Thou laughest dully in this -clearing. Dost thou believe that she has been rounded like a round table -for the equality of men and weeks? Thou knowest well, the days do not -resemble each other.</p> - -<p>About the round table, the good are no longer equal; one has the sun in -his face, it dazzles him and soon quits him for his neighbor. Another -has his shadow before him. All are good, and good thou art thyself, but -they are no more equal than the day and the night.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE VOICE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Wears the rose and the lilac</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>The king rides off—Hello Germaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>—Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Thou wilt come back again</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>The voices of women are always ironical. Is the weather always fair? -Someone is already damned instead of me. It is nice in the deep woods. -Hearken no longer to the voice of woman! Ask! Ask!</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE VOICE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;">—<i>Hello Germaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>I come to love between thine arms</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;">—<i>Ah! Sire, our cow is full</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;">—<i>Really Germaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;">—<i>Your servant also, I believe.</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>She who sings in order to lure me will be ignorant as I, and dancing -with lassitudes.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE VOICE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>The cow is full</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>When autumn comes she'll calve</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Farewell my king Dondidondaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>The cow is full</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>And my heart empty without thee</i></span></p> - - -<p>Croniamantal stands on the tip of his toes to see if he can perceive -through the branches the so-beloved who comes.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE VOICE</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Dondidondaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>But when will come my Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>At the fountain it is very cold</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Dondidondaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>After the winter I shall be less cold.</i></span></p> - -<p>In the clearing there appeared a young girl, svelte and brunette. Her -countenance was sombre and starred with roving eyes like birds of bright -plumage. Her sparse but short hair left her neck bare; her hair was -tousled and dark, and by the skipping rope which she carried, -Croniamantal recognized her to be Tristouse Ballerinette.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>No further, child with bare arms! I shall come to you myself. Someone -has just hushed under the pines and will be able to overhear us.</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>This one is surely the issue of an egg, like Castor and Pollax. I -recall how my mother, who was very foolish, used to talk to me about them -of long evenings. The hunter of serpent's eggs, son of the serpent -himself,—I am afraid of those old memories.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Have no fear, woman of the naked arms. Stay with me. My lips are filled -with kisses. Here, here. I lay them on thy brow, on thy hair. I caress -thy hair with its ancient perfume. I caress thy hairs which intertwine -like the worms on the bodies of the dead. O death, o death, hairy with -worms. I have kisses on my lips. Here, here they are, on thy hands, on -thy neck, on thine eyes, thine eyes. I have lips full of kisses, here, -here, burning like a fever, sustained to enchant thee, kisses, mad -kisses, on the ear, the temple, the cheek. Feel my embraces, bend under -the effort of my arm, be languid, be languid. I have kisses upon my -lips, here, here, mad ones, upon thine eyes, upon thy neck, upon thy -brow, upon thy youth, I longed so to love thee, this spring day when -there are no more blossoms on the branches which prepare themselves to -bear fruit.</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>Leave me, go away. Those who move each other are happy, but I do not -love you. You frighten me. However, do not despair, o poet. Listen, this -is my best advice: Go away!</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Alas! Alas! To leave again, to wander unto the oceanic limits, through -the brush, the evergreen, in the scum, in the mud, the dust, across the -forests, the prairies, the plantations, and the very happy gardens.</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>Go away. Go away, far from the antique perfume of my hair, o thou who -belongest to me.</p> - -<p>And Croniamantal went off without turning his head once; he could be -seen for a long time through the branches, and then his voice could be -heard growing fainter and fainter as he disappeared from view.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Traveller without a stick, pilgrim without staff and poet without a -writing pad, I am more powerless than all other men, I own nothing more -and I know nothing...</p> - -<p>And his voice no longer reached Tristouse Ballerinette who was admiring -her image in the pool.</p> - -<p>In another age monks cultivated the forest of Malverne.</p> - - -<p class="actor">MONKS</p> - -<p>The sun declines slowly, and blessing thee, O Lord; we are going to -sleep in the monastery so that the dawn may find us in the forest.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE FOREST OF MALVERNE</p> - -<p>Every day, every day, flights of anguished birds see their nests -crushed and their eggs broken when the trees sway with shaking branches.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE BIRDS</p> - -<p>It is the happy hour of twilight when the girls and boys come to roll -on the grass. And all of them have kisses that want to fall like over-ripe -fruit or like the egg when it is about to be laid. Do you see them -there, do you see them dance, muse, haunt, chant from dusk to the dawn, -his pale sister?</p> - - -<p class="actor">A RED-HAIRED MONK</p> - -<p class="center">(<i>In the middle of the Cortège</i>)</p> - -<p>I am afraid to live and I should like to die. Convulsions of earth. -Labor! O lost time...</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE BIRDS</p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>Gay! Gay! the broken eggs</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>The ready-made omelette cooked on a downy fire</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 24em;"><i>Here! Here!</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 22em;"><i>Take to the right</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 22em;"><i>Turn to the left</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 24em;"><i>Straight ahead</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 22em;"><i>Behind the fallen oak</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 24em;"><i>There and everywhere.</i></span></p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p class="center">(<i>In another age, near the Forest of Malverne and a little before the -passage of the monks.</i>)</p> - -<p>The winds disperse before me, the forests fall away and become a wide -track with corpses here and there. The travellers meet with too many -corpses for some time, with garrulous corpses.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE RED-HAIRED MONK</p> - -<p>I don't want to work any more, I want to dream and pray.</p> - - -<p>He sleeps, his face turned to the sky, on the road bordered with -willows of the color of mist.</p> - -<p>The night had come with the moonlight. Croniamantal saw the monks bent -over the nonchalant bodies of their brothers. Then he heard a little -plaint, a feeble cry that died in a last sigh. And slowly they passed in -Indian file before Croniamantal, who was hidden behind a clump of -willows.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE GLORIDE FOREST</p> - -<p>I should love to send this man astray amid the spectres that float -among the bubbles. But he flees toward the times that come, and whither he -is already arrived.</p> - - -<p>The banging of distant doors changes into the sound of trains in -motion. A large, grassy track, barred by trunks and fenced with enormous -joined stones. Life commits suicide. A path that people follow. They never -tire. Subways where the air is poisoned. Corpses. Voices call -Croniamantal. He runs, he runs, he descends.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>In the lovely woods, Tristouse promenaded meditating.</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>My heart is sad without thee, Croniamantal. I loved thee without -knowing it. All is green. All is green above my head and beneath my feet. -I have lost him whom I loved. I must search this way and that way, here -and yonder. And among them all I shall surely find someone who will please -me.</p> - -<p>Returned from other times, Croniamantal cried out at sight of Tristouse -and the fountain again:</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Goddess! who art thou? Where is thine eternal form?</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>Oh, there he is again, handsomer than ever... Listen, o poet. I belong -to thee, henceforth.</p> - -<p>Without looking at Tristouse, Croniamantal bent over the pool.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>I love fountains, they are beautiful symbols of immortality when they -never run dry. This one has never run dry. And I seek a divinity, but I -desire her to appear eternal to me. And my fountain has never run dry.</p> - -<p>He knelt and prayed to the fountain, while Tristouse, all in tears, -lamented.</p> - -<p>O poet, adorest thou the fountain? O Lord, return my lover to me! Come -to me! I know such lovely songs.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>The fountain hath its murmur.</p> - - -<p class="actor">TRISTOUSE</p> - -<p>Very well, then! Sleep with thy cold lover, let her drown thee! But if -thou livest, thou belongest to me and thou shalt obey me.</p> - -<p>She was gone, and throughout the forest of twittering birds, the -fountain flowed and murmured, while there arose the voice of -Croniamantal who wept and whose tears mingled with the worshipped -flood.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>O fountain! Thou who springest like a staunchless blood. Thou who art -cold as marble, but living, transparent and fluid. Thou, ever renewed -and ever the same. Thou who makest living thy verdant banks, I love -thee. Thou art my unrivalled goddess. Thou quenchest my thirst. Thou -purifiest me. Thou murmurest to me thine eternal song which rocks me to -sleep in the evenings.</p> - - -<p class="actor">THE FOUNTAIN</p> - -<p>At the bottom of my little bed full of an Orient of gems, I hear thee -with contentment, o poet whom I have enchanted. I recall Avallon where -we might have lived, thou as the King Fisher and I awaiting thee under -the apple trees. O islands of apple trees. But I am happy in my precious -little bed. These amethysts are sweet to my gaze. This lapis-lazuli is -more blue than a fair sky. This malachite represents to me a prairie. -Sardonyx, onyx, agate, rock-crystal, you shall scintillate tonight, for -I will give a feast in honor of my lover. I shall come alone as befits a -virgin. The power of my lover has already been manifested and his gifts -are sweet to my soul. He has given me his eyes all in tears, two -adorable fountains, sweet tributaries of my stream.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>O fecund fountain, thy waters resemble thy hair. Thy flowers are born -about thee and we shall love each other always.</p> - -<p>Nothing could be heard but the song of birds and the rustling of -leaves, and at times the plashing of a bird playing in the water.</p> - -<p>A dandy appeared in the little wood: It was Paponat the Algerian. He -approached the fountain dancing.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>I know you. You are Paponat who studied in the Orient.</p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>Himself. O poet of the Occident, I come to visit you. I have learned of -your enchantment, but I hear that it is not yet too late to converse -with you. How humid it is here! It is not at all surprising that your -voice is harsh, and you will certainly need a medicament to clear it. I -approached you dancing. Is there no way of saving you from the situation -in which you have placed yourself.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Bah! But tell me who taught you to dance.</p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>The angels themselves were my dancing masters.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>The good or the bad angels? But no matter. I have had enough of all the -dances, save one which the Greeks call <i>kordax.</i></p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>You are gay, Croniamantal, we shall be able to amuse ourselves. I am -glad I came here. I love gaiety. I am happy!</p> - -<p>And Paponat, his bright eyes profoundly whirling, rubbed his hands -gleefully.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>You look like me!</p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>Not much. I am happy to live, while you die beside the fountain.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>But the happiness which you proclaim, do you not forget it? and forget -mine? You resemble me! The happy man rubs his hands. Smell them. What do -they smell like?</p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>The odour of death.</p> - - -<p class="actor">CRONIAMANTAL</p> - -<p>Ha! ha! ha! The happy man has the same odour as death! Rub your hands. -What difference between the happy man and the corpse! I am also happy, -although I don't want to rub my hands. Be happy, rub your hands. Be -happy! again! Now do you know it, the odour of happiness?</p> - - -<p class="actor">PAPONAT</p> - -<p>Farewell. If you make no case for the living, there is no way of -talking to you.</p> - - -<p>And as Paponat disappeared into the night where glittered the -innumerable eyes of the celestial animals of impalpable flesh, -Croniamantal rose suddenly thinking to himself: "Well—enough of the -beauties of Nature and of the thoughts she evokes. I know enough about -that for a long time; we had better return to Paris and try to find that -exquisite little Tristouse who loves me madly."</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XIII._MODES">XIII. MODES</a></h4> - - -<p>Paponat who came back that night from the Meudon woods where he had -gone in search of adventure arrived just in time to take the last boat. He -had the good luck to run into Tristouse Ballerinette there.</p> - -<p>"How are you, young lady?" he asked. "I just saw your lover, -Croniamantal, in the woods. He is on the verge of going mad."</p> - -<p>"My lover?" said Tristouse. "He is not my lover."</p> - -<p>"He is said to be. At least they have been saying he is, in our -literary and artistic circles, ever since yesterday."</p> - -<p>"They can say whatever they want," said Tristouse firmly. "Anyway I -shall have nothing to be ashamed about in such a lover. Is he not -handsome and has he not a great talent?"</p> - -<p>"You are right. But my, what a pretty hat you have, and what a pretty -dress! I am very much interested in the fashions."</p> - -<p>"You are always very elegant, Mr. Paponat. Give me the address of your -tailor and I shall tell Croniamantal about it."</p> - -<p>"Quite useless, he would not use it," said Paponat laughing. "But tell -me now, what are the women wearing this year? I have just come from -Italy and I am not in touch with things. Please tell me all about it."</p> - -<p>"This year," began Tristouse, "the modes are very bizarre and familiar, -simple and yet full of fantasy. All material belonging to the different -processes of Nature may now enter into the composition of a woman's -costume. I have seen a robe made of cork. It was certainly as good as -the charming evening gowns of towel which created such a rage at -premieres. A great couturier is thinking of launching tailor-made -costumes of the backs of old books, bound in calf. Charming! All -literary women will want to wear it, and one can approach them and -whisper into their ears under the guise of reading the titles of the -books. Fish-skeletons are also worn much with hats. You may see -delightful young girls, very often, wearing cloaks à la Saint-Jacques -de Compostelle; their costume, so it is said, is starred with Saint -Jacques shells. Porcelain, stone work and china have suddenly taken an -important place in the sartorial art. These materials are worn in belts, -on hat-pins, etc.; I have had the good luck to see an adorable reticule -all made of the glass eyes that oculists use. Feathers are used not only -to decorate hats with, but shoes, gloves, and next year they will even -be used with umbrellas. Shoes are being made of Venetian glass and hats -out of Bohemian crystal. Not to mention oil-painted gowns, highly -colored woolens, and robes bizarrely spotted with ink. In the Spring -many will wear dresses made of puffed gold leaf, with pleasant shapes, -giving lightness and distinction. Our aviatrices will wear nothing else. -For the races there will be the hat made of toy balloons, about twenty -at a time being used, giving a luxuriant effect, and very diverting -explosions from time to time. The mussel-shell will be worn on slippers. -And note that they are beginning to dress with living animals. I met a -woman who wore on her hat at least twenty birds; canaries, goldfinches, -robins, held by a string tied to their feet, all singing at the top of -their voices and flapping their wings. The head-dress of an -ambassadress, ever since the last Neuilly fair is made up of a coil of -about thirty snakes. 'For whom are those snakes that hiss overhead?' -asked the little Romanian attaché with his Dacian accent, who was -supposed to be quite a ladies' man. I forgot to tell you that last -Wednesday I saw a lady on the boulevards with a ruff having little -mirrors laid together and pasted to the material. In the sunlight the -effect was sumptuous. One might have thought it a gold mine on a -promenade. Later it began to rain and the lady resembled a silver mine. -Nutshells make pretty buttons, especially if they are interspersed with -filberts. A robe embroidered with coffee grains, cloves, cloves of -garlic, onions, and bunches of raisins, is proper to wear when visiting. -Fashion is becoming practical and no longer spurns any object, but -ennobles all. It does for these things what romanticists do with -words."</p> - -<p>"Thank you," said Paponat, "you have given me a great deal of -information and told it charmingly."</p> - -<p>"You are too kind," replied Tristouse.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XIV._ENCOUNTERS">XIV. ENCOUNTERS</a></h4> - - -<p>Six months passed. For the last five Tristouse Ballerinette had been -the mistress of Croniamantal, whom she loved passionately for eight days. -In exchange for this love, the lyrical youth had rendered her glorious and -immortal forever by celebrating her in marvellous poems.</p> - -<p>"I was unknown," she mused, "and now he has made me illustrious among -all the living.</p> - -<p>"I was thought ugly because of my thinness, my large mouth, my bad -teeth, my irregular features, my crooked nose. Now I am beautiful and -all men tell me so. They mocked at my clumsy and jerky gait, at my sharp -elbows which, when I walked, moved like the feet of geese.</p> - -<p>"What miracles are born of the love of a poet! But how heavily a poet's -love weighs! What sorrows accompany it, what silences to endure! Now -that the miracle has been accomplished, I am beautiful and renowned. -Croniamantal is ugly, he has wasted his property in a short time; he is -poor, lacking in elegance, no longer gay; the slightest of his gestures -make him a hundred enemies.</p> - -<p>"I love him no longer. I need him no longer, my admirers are enough for -me. I shall rid me of him gradually. But that is going to be very -annoying. Either I must go away, or he must disappear, so that he -doesn't bother me, and so that he isn't able to reproach me."</p> - -<p>And after eight days, Tristouse became the mistress of Paponat, -although still seeing Croniamantal, whom she treated more and more coldly. -The less she came to see him, the more desperately he cared for her. When -she did not come at all, he spent hours in front of the house she lived -in in the hope of seeing her come out, and if by chance she did, he -would escape like a thief, fearing that she might accuse him of spying -on her.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>It was by running around after Tristouse Bailerinette that Croniamantal -continued his literary education.</p> - -<p>One day as he was wandering about Paris, he suddenly found himself at -the Seine. He crossed a bridge and walked for some time, when suddenly -perceiving before him M. François Coppée, Croniamantal regretted that -this passerby was dead. But there is nothing against talking with the -dead, and the encounter passed off very pleasantly.</p> - -<p>"Come," thought Croniamantal, "to a passerby he would appear to be -nothing but a passerby, and the very author of the <i>Passerby.</i><a name="FNanchor_11_1" id="FNanchor_11_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_1" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He is -a clever and spiritual rhymester, with some feeling for reality. Let us -speak to him about rhyme."</p> - -<p>The poet of the <i>Passerby</i> was smoking a dark cigarette. He was -dressed in black, his visage black; he stood bizarrely on a high stone, -and Croniamantal saw quite easily by his pensive air that he was composing -verses. He came alongside of him and after having greeted him, said -brusquely:</p> - -<p>"Dear master, how sombre you seem."</p> - -<p>He replied courteously.</p> - -<p>"It is because my statue is of bronze. That exposes me constantly to -scorn. Thus the other day."</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Seeing I was the blacker, sat down and muttered:</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>'Yea.'</i></span></p> - - -<p>"See how adroit those lines are. Did you notice how well the couplet I -just recited for you rhymes for the eye."</p> - -<p>"Indeed," said Croniamantal, "for it is pronounced <i>Sam MacVee</i>, -like <i>Shakespeer.</i>"</p> - -<p>"Well here is something that comes off better," continued the -statue:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Christened this tablet with a flask of eau-de-vie.</i></span></p> - - -<p>"There is a bit of refinement that ought to appeal to you. It is the -<i>rime riche</i>, the perfect rhyme to delight the ear."</p> - -<p>"You certainly enlighten me on the rhyme," said Croniamantal. "I am -very happy, dear master, to have met you in passing by."</p> - -<p>"It is my first success," replied the metallic poet. "But I have just -composed a little poem bearing the same title: it is about a gentleman -who passes by. <i>The Passerby</i>, across the corridor of a railroad -coach; he perceives a charming lady with whom, instead of going only to -Brussels, he stops at the Dutch frontier:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>They passed at least eight days at Rosendael</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>He tasted the ideal, she the real</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>In all things, it chanced, their ways differed,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>It was from veritable Love they suffered.</i></span></p> - - -<p>"I call your attention to the last two lines, which through rhyming -somewhat imperfectly contain a subtle dissonance, which is further -emphasized by the fact of their being morbidly feminine rhymes."</p> - -<p>"Dear master," exclaimed Croniamantal, "speak to me of vers libre."</p> - -<p>"Long live liberty!" cried the bronze statue.</p> - -<p>And having saluted him, Croniamantal went his way looking for -Tristouse.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>On another day Croniamantal was walking along the boulevards. Tristouse -had missed an appointment with him, and he hoped to find her in a tea -room where she sometimes went with her friends. He turned the corner of -the rue Le Peletier, when a gentleman, dressed in a pearl-grey cape, -accosted him, saying:</p> - -<p>"Sir, I am going to reform literature. I have found a superb subject: -it is about the sensations of a well bred young bachelor who permits an -improper sound to escape in an assemblage of ladies and young people of -good family."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal was properly amazed at the novelty of the subject, but -understood at once how much it would take to test the sensibilities of -the author.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal fled... A lady stepped on his feet. She was also an -authoress, and did not neglect to inform him that this incident would -furnish him with a subject of fresh and delicate character.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal took to his heels and reached the Pont des Saint Pères -where three people were disputing over the subject of a novel and begged -him to decide who was right; it was about the case of an officer.</p> - -<p>"Fine subject," cried Croniamantal.</p> - -<p>"Listen," said his neighbor, a bearded man, "I claim that the subject -is too new and too unusual for the present day public."</p> - -<p>And the third man explained that it was about an officer of a -restaurant company, the man who held office, who presided over the soiled -dishes...</p> - -<p>Croniamantal did not reply to them but made off to visit an old cook -who wrote verse, and at whose place he hoped to find Tristouse at tea -time. Tristouse was not there, but Croniamantal was hugely entertained by -the mistress of the house who declaimed some poems to him.</p> - -<p>It was a poetry that was full of profundity, and in which words had a -new meaning entirely. Thus <i>archipel</i> was only used in the sense of -<i>papier buvard.</i><a name="FNanchor_12_1" id="FNanchor_12_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_1" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>Some time later, the rich Paponat, proud of being the lover of the -renowned Tristouse, and desirous of not losing her, for she did him -honor, decided to take his mistress for a trip through Central Europe.</p> - -<p>"Fine," said Tristouse, "but we will not travel as lovers, for even -though you are nice to me, I don't love you enough, or at least I force -myself to the point of not loving you. We shall travel as two friends, -and I shall dress up as a young man; my hair is rather short, and I have -often been told that I have the air of a handsome young man."</p> - -<p>"Very well," said Paponat, "and since we both are in need of repose we -shall make our retreat in Moravia in a convent of Brünn where my uncle, -the prior of Crepontois, retired after the expulsion of the monks. It is -one of the richest and finest convents in the world. I shall present you -as one of my friends, and have no fear, we shall be taken for lovers -just the same."</p> - -<p>"That suits me," said Tristouse, "for I love to pass for that which I -am not. We leave tomorrow."</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XV._VOYAGE">XV. VOYAGE</a></h4> - - -<p>Croniamantal went perfectly mad upon hearing of the departure of -Tristouse. But at this time he began to become famous, and as his -poetical repute waxed so did his vogue as a dramatist.</p> - -<p>The theatres played his plays and the crowd applauded his name, but at -the same moment the enemies of poets and poetry were increasing in -number and growing in audacious hatred.</p> - -<p>He only became more and more sorrowful, his soul shrinking within his -enfeebled body.</p> - -<p>When he learned of the departure of Tristouse he did not protest, but -simply asked the concierge if she knew the destination of the voyage.</p> - -<p>"All that I know," said the woman, "is that she has gone to Central -Europe."</p> - -<p>"Very well," said Croniamantal, and returning to his quarters he -gathered up the several thousand francs he still possessed and took the -train for Germany at the Gare du Nord.</p> - - -<p>On the following day, Christmas eve, the train was engulfed in the -enormous terminal of Cologne. Croniamantal, carrying a little valise, -descended last from his third-class coach.</p> - -<p>On the platform of the opposite track the red cap of the station -master, the spiked helmets of policemen, and the silk hats of high -functionaries indicated that an important person was awaited by the next -train. And to be sure Croniamantal heard a little old man, with quick -gestures, explaining to his fat wife who gaped with astonishment at the -spiked helmets, the red cap, and the silk hats:</p> - -<p>"Krupp... Essen... No orders... Italy."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal followed the crowd of passengers who had come in on his -train. He walked behind two girls, who must have been pigeon-toed, so -much did their gait resemble that of the goose. They kept their hands -concealed under short cloaks; the head of the first one was covered with -a small black hat, from which there dangled a bouquet of blue roses, as -well as some straight, black feathers, with the stem trimmed except at -the tip, which trembled as if with cold. The hat of the other girl was -of a soft, almost brilliant felt, an enormous knot of satinette -shrouding her with ridicule. They were probably two servant maids out of -a job, for they were pounced upon at the exit by a group of strait-laced -and ugly ladies wearing the ribbon of the Catholic Society for the -Protection of Young Girls. The ladies of the Protestant Society for the -same purpose stood a little further off. Croniamantal following behind a -stout man with a short, hard and russet beard, dressed in green, -descended the stairway that led to the vestibule of the station.</p> - -<p>Outside he saluted the Dome, solitary in the midst of the irregular -square which it filled with its bulk. The station heaped its modern mass -close to the huge cathedral. Hotels spread their signs in hybrid -languages and appeared to hold their respectful distance from the gothic -colossus. Croniamantal sniffed the odour of the town for a long time. He -seemed to be disappointed.</p> - -<p>"She is not here," he said to himself, "my nose would smell her, my -nerves would vibrate, my eyes would see her."</p> - -<p>He crossed the town, passed the fortifications on foot as if driven by -un unknown force along the main road, downstream, on the right bank of -the Rhine. And in truth, Tristouse and Paponat had arrived the night -before in Cologne, taken an automobile and continued their journey; they -had taken the right bank of the Rhine in the direction of Coblenz, and -Croniamantal was following their trail.</p> - -<p>Christmas eve came. An old prophet of a rabbi from Dollendorf, just as -he was venturing upon the bridge which links Bonn with Buel, was -repulsed by a violent gust of wind. The snow fell in a great rage. The -sound of the gale drowned all the Christmas songs, but the thousand -lights of the trees glittered in each house.</p> - -<p>The old Jew swore:</p> - -<p>"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter...</i> I shall never get to <i>Haenchen...</i> Winter, -my old friend, thou canst avail nothing against my old and joyous carcass, -let me cross without hindrance this old Rhine which is as drunken as -thirty-six drunkards. As to myself, I bend my steps toward the noble -tavern frequented by the Borussians only to tipple in company with those -white bonnets and at their cost, like a good Christian, although I am a -Jew."</p> - -<p>The sound of the gale doubled in fury, strange voices made themselves -heard. The old rabbi shivered and raised his head crying:</p> - -<p>"Donnerkeil! Ui jeh, ch, ch, ch. Eh! Say, up there, you ought to go -about your business instead of making life miserable for poor happy -devils whose fate sends them abroad on such nights... Eh! mothers, are -you no longer under the domination of Solomon? ...Ohey! Ohey! Tseilom -Kop! Meicabl! Farwaschen Ponim! Beheime! You want to prevent me from -drinking the excellent Moselle wines with the students of Borussia who -are only too happy to toast with me because of my science and my -inimitable lyricism, not to mention all my talents for sorcery and -prophecy.</p> - -<p>"Accursed spirits! know ye that I might have drunk also Rhine wines, -not to mention the wines of France. Nor should I have neglected to polish -off some champagne in your honor, my old friends!... At midnight, the -hour when the <i>Christkindchen</i> is made, I should have rolled under -the table and have slept at least during the brawling... But you unchain -the winds, you make an infernal uproar during this saintly night which -should have been peaceful... as to being calm, you seem to be twisting -his pigtail up there, sweet ladies... To amuse Solomon, no doubt... -Lilith! Naama! Aguereth! Mahala! Ah! Solomon, for thy pleasure they are -going to kill all the poets on this earth.</p> - -<p>"Ah Solomon! Solomon! jovial king whose entertainers are the four -nocturnal spectres moving from the Orient to the North, thou desirest my -death, for I am also a poet like all the Jewish prophets and a prophet -like all the poets.</p> - -<p>"Farewell drunkenness for tonight... Old Rhine, I must turn my back to -thee. I am going back to prepare me for death and dictate my last and -most lyrical prophecies..."</p> - -<p>A horrible crash, like a stroke of thunder, burst just then. The old -prophet pressed his lips together, lowering his head and looking down; -then he bent down and held his ear quite close to the ground. When he -straightened up he murmured:</p> - -<p>"The earth herself can no longer suffer the unbearable contact with -poets."</p> - -<p>Then he took his way across the streets of Buel, turning his back on -the Rhine. When the rabbi had traversed the railroad track he found -himself before a crossing and as he hesitated not knowing which to take, -he lifted his head again by chance. He saw before him a young man with a -valise coming from Bonn; the old rabbi did not recognize the person and -cried to him:</p> - -<p>"Are you mad to go out in such weather, sir?"</p> - -<p>"I am hurrying to rejoin someone whom I have lost and whose track I am -following," replied the stranger.</p> - -<p>"What is your profession," cried the Jew.</p> - -<p>"I am a poet."</p> - -<p>The prophet stamped with his foot and as the young man disappeared he -cursed him horribly because of the pity he felt, then lowering his head -he went to look at the signposts along the road. Wheezing, he took the -road straight ahead of him.</p> - -<p>"Happily the wind is fallen... at least one can walk... I had thought -at first that he was coming to kill me. But, no, he will probably die even -before me, this poet who is not even a Jew. Well, let us go quick and -merrily to prepare us a glorious death."</p> - -<p>The old rabbi walked faster; with his long cloak he gave the effect of -a returned spirit, and some children who were returning from Putzchen -after the Christmas Tree party passed him crying with terror, and for a -long time they threw stones in the direction in which he had -disappeared.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>Croniamantal covered in this way part of Germany and the Austrian -Empire; the force that propelled him drew him across Thuringia, Saxony, -Bohemia, Moravia, up to Brünn, where he decided to stop.</p> - -<p>On the very night of his arrival, he scoured the town. Along the -streets surrounding the old palace enormous Swiss guards in breeches and -cocked hats, were standing before the doors. They leaned on long canes -with crystal heads. Their gold buttons gleamed like the eyes of cats. -Croniamantal lost his way; he wandered about for some time in poor -streets where shadows passed vividly across drawn blinds. Officers in -long blue coats passed by. Croniamantal turned to glance at them, then -he walked outside of the town with night coming on, to look at the -sombre mass of the Spielberg. While he was looking at the old state -prison, he heard the sound of feet dose by and then saw three monks pass -gesticulating and talking loudly. Croniamantal ran after them and asked -them directions.</p> - -<p>"You are French," they said; "come with us."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal examined them and noticed that they wore above their -frocks little beige cloaks that were very elegant. Each one carried a -light cane and wore a melon-shaped hat. On the way one of the monks said -to Croniamantal:</p> - -<p>"You have wandered far from your hotel, we will show you the way if you -wish. But if you care to, you may certainly come to the convent with us: -you will be well received because you are a foreigner and you can pass -the night there."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal accepted joyfully, saying:</p> - -<p>"I shall be very glad to come, for aren't you brothers to me, who am a -poet."</p> - -<p>They began to laugh. The oldest, who wore a gold-framed lorgnon and -whose belly puffed out of his fashionable waistcoat, raised his arms and -cried:</p> - -<p>"A poet! Is it possible!"</p> - -<p>And the two others, who were thinner, choked with laughter, bending -down and holding their bellies as if they had the colic.</p> - -<p>"Let us be serious," said the monk with the lorgnon, "we are going to -pass through a street inhabited by the Jews."</p> - -<p>In the streets, at every step, old women standing like pines in a -forest, called them, making signals.</p> - -<p>"Let us flee from this stench," said the fat monk, who was a Czech and -who was called Father Karel by his companions.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal and the monks stopped at last before a great convent door. -At the sound of the bell the porter came to let them in. The two thin -monks said good-bye to Croniamantal, who remained alone with Father -Karel in a parlor that was richly furnished.</p> - -<p>"My child," said Father Karel, "you are in a unique convent. The monks -who inhabit it are all very proper people. We have old archdukes, and -even former architects, soldiers, scientists, poets, inventors, a few -monks expelled from France, and some lay guests of good breeding. All of -them are saints. I, myself, such as you see me, with my lorgnon and my -pot-belly, am a saint. I shall show you your room, where you may stay -until nine o'clock; then you will hear the bell ring and I shall come to -look for you."</p> - -<p>Father Karel guided Croniamantal through long corridors. Then they went -up a stairway of white marble and on the second floor, Father Karel -opened a door and said:</p> - -<p>"Your room."</p> - -<p>He showed him the electric button and left.</p> - -<p>The room was round, the bed and the chairs were round; on the chimney -piece a skull looked like an old cheese.</p> - -<p>Croniamantal stood by the window, under which spread the teeming -darkness of a large monastery garden, from which there seemed to rise -laughter, sighs, cries of joy, as if a thousand couples were embracing -each other. Then a woman's voice in the garden sang a song which -Croniamantal had heard before:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>...Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Wears the rose and the lilac</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>The King is a-coming</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>—Hello Germaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><i>—Croquemitaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Wilt thou come back again?</i></span></p> - - -<p>And Croniamantal began to sing the rest:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 20em;">—<i>Hello Germaine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>I come to love among thine arms.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Then he heard the voice of Tristouse continuing the couplet.</p> - -<p>And voices of men here and there, sang airs that were strange or grave, -while the cracked voice of an old man stuttered:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;"><i>Vexilla regis prodeunt...</i></span></p> - - -<p>At this moment Father Karel entered the room, as a bell rang full -force.</p> - -<p>"Well, my boy! Listening to the sounds of our fine garden? It is full -of memories, this earthly paradise. Tychobrahé made love there with a -pretty Jewess who said to him all the time: Chazer,—which means pig -in the jargon.<a name="FNanchor_13_1" id="FNanchor_13_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_1" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> I myself, have seen such and such an archduke play with -a pretty boy whose behind was shaped like a heart. Let us come to -dinner."</p> - -<p>They arrived in a vast refectory still empty, and the poet examined at -his leisure the frescoes which covered the wall.</p> - -<p>One was of Noah, dead-drunk on a couch. His son Cham was uncovering his -nakedness, that is to say the root of a vine naively and prettily -painted whose branches served as a genealogical tree, or something of -the sort, for they had painted the names of all the abbés in red -letters on all the leaves.</p> - -<p>The marriage of Cana showed a Mannekenpis pissing wine into the casks -while the spouse, at least eight months with child, offered her belly to -someone who was writing on it in charcoal: TOKAI.</p> - -<p>And then again there was a fresco of the soldiers of Gideon relieving -themselves of the awful colic caused by the water they had drunk.</p> - -<p>The long table that covered the middle of the hall was spread with a -rare sumptuousness. The glasses and decanters were of Bohemian -cut-glass, and of the finest red crystal. The superb silver pieces -glittered on the whiteness of the cloth strewn with violets.</p> - -<p>The monks arrived one by one, their hoods on their heads, arms folded -on their breasts. On entering they greeted Croniamantal and took their -accustomed places. As they came in, Father Karel informed Croniamantal -of their name and what country they came from. The table was soon filled -and Croniamantal counted fifty-six of them. The Abbé, an Italian with -narrow eyes, said grace and the repast began, but Croniamantal anxiously -awaited the arrival of Tristouse.</p> - -<p>A bouillon was served in which there swam little brains of birds and -sweet peas...</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>"Our two French guests have just left," said a French monk who had been -the prior of Crepentois. "I could not hold them here: the companion of -my nephew was just singing in the garden in his pretty soprano voice. He -almost fainted at hearing some one in the convent sing the close of the -song. They left just now and took the train, for their automobile was -not ready. We shall send it on to them by rail. They did not impart to -me the destination of their journey, but I think that the pious children -are bound for Marseilles. At least, I think I heard them talk of that -town."</p> - -<p>Croniamantal, pale as a sheet, rose, then:</p> - -<p>"Excuse me, good fathers," he said, "but it was wrong of me to accept -your hospitality. I must go away, do not ask me the reason. But I shall -keep a fond memory of the simplicity, the gaiety, the liberty that reign -here. All that is dear to me to the highest degree, why, why, alas, can -I not profit of it?"</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XVI._PERSECUTION">XVI. PERSECUTION</a></h4> - - -<p>At this time prizes for poetry were being awarded every day. Thousands -of societies had been founded for this purpose and their members lived -on the fat of the land, while making upon fixed dates large benefices to -poets. But the 26th of January was the day upon which the largest -associations, companies, boards of directors, academies, committees, -juries, etc., of the whole world bestowed their awards. Upon this day -8,019 prizes for poetry were distributed, the total of which aggregated -50,005,225 francs.<a name="FNanchor_14_1" id="FNanchor_14_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_1" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> On the other hand, since the taste for poetry had -never spread among any class of the population of any country, public -opinion had risen powerfully against the poets who were called -parasites, lazy, useless, and so forth. The 26th of January of this year -passed without incident, but on the following day the great newspaper, -La Voix, published at Adelaide (Australia) in the French language, -contained an article by the distinguished agricultural chemist Horace -Tograth (a German born at Leipzig), whose discoveries and inventions had -frequently seemed to border on the miraculous. The article, entitled -<i>The Laurel</i>, contained a sort of chronology of the culture of the -laurel in Judea, in Greece, in Italy, in Africa and in Provence. The -author gave counsel to those who had laurel trees in their gardens, -indicating the multiple usage of the laurel, as a food, in art, in -poetry, and its rôle as a symbol of poetic glory. He then began to talk -of mythology, making allusions to Apollo and the fable of Daphné. -Finally, Horace Tograth changed his tone brusquely and concluded his -article as follows:</p> - -<p>"And furthermore, I say candidly, this useless tree is still too -common, and we have less glorious symbolisms to which people attribute the -famous savour of the laurel. The laurel holds too large a place upon our -overpopulated earth, the laurels are unworthy of living. Each one of -them takes the place of two in the sun. Let them be chopped down, and -let their leaves be feared as a poison. Hitherto symbols of poetry and -literary science, they are nothing more today than that death-glory -which is to glory as death is to life, and as the hand of glory is to -the key.</p> - -<p>"True glory has abandoned poetry for science, philosophy, acrobatics, -philanthropy, sociology, etc. ...Poets are good for nothing more -nowadays than to receive money which they do not earn, since they -scarcely ever work and most of them (except for the minstrels) have no -talent and no excuse whatsoever. As to those who have some gifts, they -are even more obnoxious, for if they receive nothing they make more -noise than a regiment and din our ears with their being persecuted. None -of these people have any <i>raison d'être.</i> The prizes which are -awarded them are stolen from workers, inventors, scientists, philosophers, -acrobats, philanthropists, sociologists, and so forth. The poets must -disappear. Lycurgus would have banished them from the Republic, we too -must banish them. Otherwise, the poets, lazy fiefs, will become our -princes and while doing nothing, live off our work, oppressing us, and -mocking us. In short, we must rid ourselves immediately of the poets' -tyranny.</p> - -<p>"If the republics and the kings, if the nations do not take care, the -race of poets, too privileged, will increase in such proportions and so -rapidly that in a short time no one will want to work, invent, teach, do -dangerous feats, heal the sick and improve the lot of unfortunate -men."</p> - -<p>An enormous stir greeted this article. It was telegraphed or telephoned -everywhere, all the newspapers reproduced it. A few literary journals -followed their quotations from Tograth's article with mocking -reflections as to the scientist; there were doubts as to his mental -state. They laughed at the terror which he manifested over the lyric -laurel. However, the journals of commerce and information made great ado -about his warnings. They even said that the article in <i>La Voix</i> was -a work of genius.</p> - -<p>The article by Horace Tograth had been a singular pretext, admirably -fitted to fan the blaze of hatred for poetry. It made its appeal through -the traditional sense of the supernatural, whose memory lies in all well -born men, and to the instinct for preservation which all beings feel. -That was why nearly all Tograth's readers were thunderstruck, aghast, -and wanted to lose no occasion to obliterate poets, who, because of the -great numbers of prizes they received, were the subjects of the jealousy -of all classes of the population. The majority of the newspapers -advocated that the government take measures leading to the prohibition -of all poetry prizes.</p> - -<p>In the evening, in a later edition of <i>La Voix</i>, the agricultural -chemist, Horace Tograth, published a new article, which, like the other, -telephoned or telegraphed everywhere, carried popular emotion to a -climax in the press, among the public and the governments. The scientist -concluded as follows:</p> - -<p>"World, choose between thy life and poetry; if serious measures are not -taken, civilization is done for. Thou must not hesitate. From tomorrow -on begins the new era. Poetry will exist no longer, the lyres too heavy -for old inspirations will be broken. The poets will be massacred."</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>During the night, life went on just as usual in all the cities of the -globe. The article, telegraphed everywhere, had been published in the -special editions of the local newspapers and snatched up by the hungry -public. The people all sided with Tograth. Ring-leaders descended into -the streets and, mingling with the aroused mobs, excited them further. -But most governments held sittings that very night and passed -legislation which provoked an indescribable enthusiasm. France, Italy, -Spain and Portugal decreed that all poets established on their territory -should be imprisoned at once pending the determination of their lot.</p> - -<p>Foreign poets who were absent and sought to re-enter the country risked -being condemned to death. It was cabled that the United States of -America had decided to electrocute any man who avowed his profession to -be that of poetry.</p> - -<p>It was telegraphed that in Germany also a decree had been passed -ordering all poets in verse or prose found on the imperial territory to -be incarcerated until further orders. In fact, all of the States on -earth, even those who possessed nothing but meager little bards lacking -in all lyricism took measures against the very name of poetry. Only -England and Russia were exceptions. The laws went into effect at once. -All poets who were found on French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese -territory were arrested on the following day, while the literary -magazines appeared all garbed in black, lamenting the new terror. -Dispatches toward noon told how Aristenetius Southwest, the great Negro -poet of Haiti, had been cut into pieces and devoured by an infuriated -populace of negroes and mulattoes. At Cologne, the Kaiserglocke had -sounded all night and in the morning Herr Professor Doktor Stimmung, -author of a medieval epic in forty-eight cantos, having gone out to take -the train for Hanover, was set upon by a troop of fanatics who beat him -with sticks, crying: "Death to the poet!"</p> - -<p>He took refuge in the cathedral and remained locked in there with a few -beadles, by the excited population of Drikkes, Hanses, and Marizibills. -These last particularly, were beside themselves with rage, invoking the -Virgin, Saint Ursula and the Three Royal Magi in <i>platdeutsch.</i> Their -paternosters and pious oaths were interspersed with admirably vile -insults to the professor-poet, who owed his reputation chiefly to the -unisexuality of his morals. His head to the ground, he was nearly dying -of fear under the big wooden statue of Saint Christopher. He heard the -sounds of masons walling up all the gates of the cathedral and resigned -himself to die of hunger.</p> - -<p>Toward two o'clock it was telegraphed that a sexton poet of Naples had -seen the blood of Saint January boil up in the holy phial. The sacristan -had gone out to proclaim the miracle and had hastened to the harbor -front to play buck-buck. He won all that he desired at this game and a -knife thrust in the breast to the bargain.</p> - -<p>Telegrams everywhere announced the arrests of poets, one after another, -and the electrocution of the American poets was made known early in the -afternoon.</p> - -<p>In Paris, several young poets of the left bank, who had been spared on -account of their lack of notoriety, organized a demonstration extending -from the <i>Closerie des Lilas</i> to the <i>Conciergerie</i>, where the -"prince of poets" was imprisoned.<a name="FNanchor_15_1" id="FNanchor_15_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_1" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> - -<p>Troops arrived to disperse the demonstrators. The cavalry charged. The -poets drew their firearms and defended themselves but the people rushed -in and took a hand in the mêlée. The poets were strangled and so was -everyone else who came to their defense.</p> - -<p>Thus began the great persecution which swept rapidly throughout the -entire world. In America, after the electrocution of the famous poets, -they lynched all the negro minstrels and even many persons who had never -in their lives written a rhyme; then they fell upon the whites of -literary Bohemia. It was learned that Tograth, after having personally -directed the persecution in Australia, had embarked at Melbourne.</p> - - - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/apollinaire05.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="center">André Dérain</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XVII._ASSASSINATION">XVII. ASSASSINATION</a></h4> - - -<p>Like Orpheus, all the poets felt violent death staring them in the -face. Everywhere, publishers had been pillaged and collections of verse -burnt. The admiration of all went out to Horace Tograth who, from far off -Adelaide (Australia), had succeeded in unloosing this storm which seemed -destined to destroy poetry forever. This man's knowledge, they said, -bordered on the miraculous. He could drive away clouds or bring on rain -anywhere he pleased. Women, once they had seen him, were ready to do his -bidding. For the rest, he did not disdain either feminine or masculine -virginities. As soon as Tograth had seen what enthusiasms he had evoked -in the whole world, he announced that he would visit the principal -cities of the globe, after Australia had been rid of its erotic and -elegiac poets. And indeed some time later uprisings of the population -were heard of in Tokyo, Pekin, Yakutsk, Calcutta, Buenos Ayres, San -Francisco, Chicago, upon the appearance of the terrible German, Tograth. -Wherever he went, he left an unearthly impression on account of his -"miracles" (which he called scientific), and his extraordinary healings, -all of which lifted his repute as a scientist and a thaumaturgist to -sublime heights.</p> - - -<p>On May 30, Tograth debarked at Marseilles. The people were massed along -the quays; Tograth landed from the steamer in a launch. No sooner was he -recognized than cries, shouts, toasts, from innumerable gullets mingled -with the sound of the wind, the waves and the sirens of the vessels. -Tograth, tall and thin, was standing up in the launch. As it approached -the land, the features of the hero could be distinguished more and more -clearly. His face was smooth-shaven and blue, his mouth almost lipless, -disfigured by an ugly cut; he had a receding chin which gave him the -appearance, one might have said, of a shark. His brow rose straight up, -very high and very large. Tograth was dressed in a pasty white costume, -his shoes also being white and high-heeled. He wore no hat. As soon as -he placed his foot upon the soil of Marseilles the furor of the crowd -rose to such heights that when the quays were cleared three hundred -people were found dead, strangled, trampled, crushed. Several men seized -the hero and raised him upon their shoulders while they sang and -shouted, and women threw flowers at him all the way to the hotel where a -suite had been prepared for him and managers, interpreters and bell-boys -were waiting to greet him.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>On the same morning, Croniamantal coming from Brünn had arrived at -Marseilles to look for Tristouse who had been there since the evening -before with Paponat. All three mingled in the crowd which acclaimed -Tograth before the hotel where he was to stop.</p> - -<p>"Happy tumult," said Tristouse, "You are not a poet, Paponat, you have -learned things which are worth infinitely more than poetry. Is it not -true, Paponat, that you are in no way a poet?"</p> - -<p>"Indeed, my dear," replied Paponat, "I have rhymed at times in order to -amuse myself, but I am not a poet, I am an excellent business man and no -one knows better than I how to manage an estate."</p> - -<p>"Tonight you must mail a letter to <i>La Voix</i> of Adelaide; you must -tell them all that, and so you will be safe."</p> - -<p>"I shall not fail to do that," said Paponat. "Did you ever hear of such -a thing, a poet! That goes for Croniamantal."</p> - -<p>"I hope to God," said Tristouse, "that they will massacre him in Brünn -where he expects to find us."</p> - -<p>"But there he is right now," whispered Paponat. "He is in the crowd. He -is hiding himself and hasn't seen us."</p> - -<p>"I wish they would hurry up and massacre him," sighed Tristouse. "I -have an idea that that will happen soon."</p> - -<p>"Look," exclaimed Paponat, "here comes the hero."</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>The cortège which accompanied Tograth arrived at the hotel, and he was -permitted to descend from their shoulders. Tograth turned to the crowd -and addressed them:</p> - -<p>"Citizens of Marseilles, in thanking you I could employ, if I wished, -compliments that are fatter than your world-renowned sardines. I could, -if I wished, make a long speech. But words will never quite encompass -the magnificence of the reception which you have accorded me. I know -that there are maladies in your midst that I might heal not only with my -knowledge but with that which scientists have accumulated for myriads of -years. Bring forth the sick, and I shall heal them."</p> - -<p>A man whose cranium was as bald as that of an inhabitant of Mycona -cried:</p> - -<p>"Tograth! god-like mortal, all puissant <i>savantissimo!</i> Give me a -luxuriant mane of hair."</p> - -<p>Tograth smiled and asked that the man approach him: then he touched the -denuded head, saying:</p> - -<p>"Thy sterile pate shall be covered with an abundant vegetation, but -remember always this favor by hating the laurel."</p> - -<p>At the same time as the bald man, a little girl approached. She -implored Tograth:</p> - -<p>"Sweet man, sweet man, look at my mouth, my lover with a blow of his -fist has broken several teeth. Return them to me."</p> - -<p>The scientist smiled and put his finger into her mouth, saying: "Now -thou canst chew, thou hast excellent teeth. But in return, show us what -thou hast in thy bag."</p> - -<p>The girl laughed, opening her mouth in which the new teeth gleamed; -then she opened her bag, excusing herself:</p> - -<p>"What a funny idea, before everybody! Here are my keys, here an -enamelled photograph of my lover; he really looks better than that."</p> - -<p>But the eyes of Tograth were greedy; he had perceived all folded up in -her bag several Parisian songs, rhymed and set to Viennese airs. He took -these papers and after having scrutinized them, asked:</p> - -<p>"These are nothing but songs, hast thou no poems?"</p> - -<p>"I have a very lovely one," said the girl. "It was the bell-boy of the -Hotel Victoria wrote it for me before he left for Switzerland. But I -never showed it to Sossi."</p> - -<p>And she proffered Tograth a little rose sheet of paper on which was -written a pathetic acrostic.</p> - - -<div class="center"> -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><i>My dear beloved, ere I go away,</i></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><i>And thy love, Maria, I betray,</i></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left">MARIA </td><td align="left"><i>Rail and sob, my sweet, once more—again,</i></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><i>If you'd come with me to the woods, we twain,(!)</i></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><i>All would be sweeter; our parting would not pain.</i></td></tr> -</table></div> - - -<p>"It is not only poetry," exclaimed Tograth, "it is idiotic."</p> - -<p>And he tore up the paper and threw it into the ditch, while the girl -knocked her teeth in fright and cried:</p> - -<p>"Sweet man, good man, I did not know that it was bad."</p> - - -<p>Just then Croniamantal advanced close to Tograth and apostrophized the -crowd:</p> - -<p>"Carrion, assassins!"</p> - -<p>They burst into laughter. They yelled:</p> - -<p>"Into the water with him, the rat."</p> - -<p>And Tograth, looking Croniamantal in the face, said:</p> - -<p>"My good brother, let not my affluence disturb you. As for me, I love -the people, even though I stop at hotels which they do not frequent."</p> - -<p>The poet let Tograth talk, then he continued to address the crowd:</p> - -<p>"Carrion, laugh at me, your joys are numbered, each one of them will be -torn from you one by one. And do you know, o people, what your hero -is?"</p> - -<p>Tograth smiled and the crowd became all attention. The poet -continued:</p> - -<p>"Your hero, o populace, is Boredom bringing Misery."</p> - - -<p>A cry of astonishment issued from all the throats. Women crossed -themselves. Tograth wanted to speak, but Croniamantal seized him -suddenly by the neck, threw him to the ground and held him there with -his foot on the man's chest, while he spoke:</p> - -<p>"He is Boredom and Misery, the monstrous enemy of man, the Behemoth -glutted with debauchery and rape, dripping the blood of marvellous -poets. He is the vomit of the Antipodes, and his miracles deceive the -clairvoyant no more than the miracles of Simon the Magi did the -Apostles. Marseillais, Marseillais, woe that you whose ancestors come -from the most purely lyrical land, should unite with the enemies of -poetry, with the barbarians of all the nations. What a strange miracle, -this, of the German returned from Australia! To have imposed it upon the -world and to have been for a moment stronger than creation itself, -stronger than immortal poetry."</p> - -<p>But Tograth who was able to extricate himself at last, arose, soiled -with dust and drunk with rage. He asked:</p> - -<p>"Who are you?"</p> - -<p>"Who are you, who are you?" cried the crowd.</p> - - -<p>The poet turned toward the east and in exalted tones said:</p> - -<p>"I am Croniamantal, the greatest of living poets. I have often seen God -face to face, I have borne the divine rapture which my human eyes -tempered. I was born in eternity. But the day has come, and I am here -before you."</p> - - -<p>Tograth greeted these last words with a terrible burst of laughter, and -the first ranks of the crowd seeing Tograth laugh, took up his laughter, -which, in bursts, in rolls, in trills, was soon communicated throughout -the entire populace, even to Paponat and Tristouse Ballerinette. All of -the open mouths yawned at Croniamantal, who became ill at ease. -Interspersed with the laughter were shouts of:</p> - -<p>"Into the water with the poet!... Burn him, Croniamantal!... To the -dogs with him, lover of the laurel!"</p> - -<p>A man who was in the first ranks and carried a heavy club gave -Croniamantal a blow, causing him to make a painful grimace which doubled -the merriment of the crowd. A stone, accurately thrown, struck the nose -of the poet and drew blood. A fish merchant forced his way through the -mob and, confronting Croniamantal, said:</p> - -<p>"Hou! the raven. I remember you, all right, you're a policeman who -wanted to pass for a poet; there, cow; take that, story teller."</p> - -<p>And he gave him a terrific slap, spitting in his face. The man whom -Tograth had cured of <i>alopecia</i> came to him and said:</p> - -<p>"Look at my hair, is it a false miracle or not?"</p> - -<p>And lifting his cane, he thrust it so adroitly that he gouged out -Croniamantal's right eye. Croniamantal fell over backward, women threw -themselves upon him and beat him. Tristouse jumped up and down with joy, -while Paponat tried to calm her. But she went over and with the end of -her umbrella stuck out Croniamantal's other eye, while he, seeing her in -this last moment of sight, cried:</p> - -<p>"I confess my love for Tristouse Ballerinette, the divine poesy that -consoles my soul."</p> - -<p>"Shut up, vermin!" cried the crowd of men, "there are ladies here."</p> - -<p>The women went away soon, and a man who was balancing a large knife on -his open hand threw it in such a way that it landed right in the open -mouth of Croniamantal. Other men did the same thing. The knives stuck in -his belly, his chest, and soon there was nothing more on the ground than -a corpse bristling with points like the husk of a chestnut.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="XVIII._APOTHEOSIS">XVIII. APOTHEOSIS</a></h4> - - -<p>Croniamantal dead, Paponat brought Tristouse Ballerinette back to the -hotel, where she relapsed into nervous fainting-spells. They were in a -very old building and by chance Paponat discovered, wrapped up in -cardboard, a bottle of water of the Queen of Hungary which dated from -the 17th Century. This remedy worked rapidly. Tristouse recovered her -senses and immediately went to the hospital to claim the body of -Croniamantal which was turned over to her without delay.</p> - -<p>She arranged a decent burial for him and placed over his tomb a stone -on which there was engraved the following epitaph:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Walk lightly and your silence keep,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>To leave untroubled his good sleep.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Then she went back to Paris with Paponat who soon left her for a -mannikin of the Champs-Élysées.</p> - -<p>Tristouse did not regret him very long. She went into mourning for -Croniamantal and climbed up to the Montmartre, to the Bird of Benin's -who began to pay court to her, and after he had what he desired they -began to talk of Croniamantal.</p> - -<p>"I ought to make a statue to him," said the Bird of Benin, "For I am -not only a painter but also a sculptor."</p> - -<p>"That's right," said Tristouse, "we must raise a statue to him."</p> - -<p>"Where?" asked the Bird of Benin; "The government will not grant us any -ground. Times are bad for poets."</p> - -<p>"So they say," replied Tristouse, "but perhaps it -isn't true. What do you think of the Meudon woods?"</p> - -<p>"I thought of that, but I dared not say it. Let's go to the Meudon -woods."</p> - -<p>"A statue of what?" asked Tristouse, "Marble? Bronze?"</p> - -<p>"No, that's old fashioned. I must model a profound statue out of -nothing, like poetry and glory."</p> - -<p>"Bravo! Bravo!" cried Tristouse clapping her hands, "A statue out of -nothing, empty, that's lovely, and when will you make it?"</p> - -<p>"Tomorrow, if you wish; we shall go and dine, pass the night together, -and in the morning we shall go to the Meudon woods where I shall make -this profound statue."</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>No sooner said, than done. They went and dined with the élite of the -Montmartre, returned to sleep at midnight and on the next morning at -nine o'clock, after having armed himself with a pick-axe, a spade, a -shovel and some boasting-chisels, they took the road for the pretty -Meudon woods, where they met the Prince of Poets, accompanied by his -little friend, quite happy over the pleasant days he had spent in the -City-prison.</p> - -<p>In the clearing, the Bird of Benin set to work. In a few hours he had -dug a trench of about a meter and a half in breadth and two in depth.</p> - -<p>Then they had lunch on the grass.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was devoted by the Bird of Benin to sculpturing the -interior of the monument to Croniamantal.</p> - -<p>On the following day, the sculptor came back with workingmen who fixed -up an armed cement wall, six inches broad on top, and eighteen inches -broad at the base, so that the empty space had the form of Croniamantal, -and the hole was full of his spectre.</p> - - -<p class="center">* * *</p> - - -<p>On the next day, the Bird of Benin, Tristouse, the Prince of Poets and -his little friend came back to the statue which was heaped up with earth -which they had gathered here and there, and at nightfall they planted a -fine laurel tree, while Tristouse Ballerinette danced and sang:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>No one loves thee thou art lying</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>Palantila Mila Mima</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>When he was lover to the queen</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>He was king while she was queen</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>'Tis true, 'tis true that I love him</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Croniamantal way down in the pit</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>Can that be right</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Let us gather the sweet marjoram</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>At night.</i></span></p> - - - - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<h4><a id="NOTES">NOTES</a></h4> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>The French language at the end of the nineteenth century -had reached a certain fixation, chiefly through the influence of -Mallarmé, whose literary artifice was consternating. Apollinaire, a -bizarre scholar, and yet a "lord of language," was more of a freebooter. -Many of his exoticisms came from the market-place or from other tongues. -Their sources were fair and false. But at bottom, there is the sincere -desire to free modern literature from romantic sentiment, and artifice, -to use words as directly and freely as in conversation.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_1" id="Footnote_2_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_1"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>Here Apollinaire's frivolous playing with the language can -scarcely be rendered. The original runs: "...en me réfugiant dans <i>mon</i> -ou <i>ma</i> 'bedroom' <i>du</i> ou <i>de la</i> 'family house' ou j'étais -descendue."</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_1" id="Footnote_3_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_1"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>Among these towns we may cite, Naples, Adrianople, -Constantinople, Neauphle le-Chateau, Grenoble, Pultawa, -Pouilly-en-Auxois, Pouilly-les-Fours, Nauplie, Seoul, Melbourne, Oran, -Nazareth, Ermenonville, Nogent-sur-Marne, etc.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_1" id="Footnote_4_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_1"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>Wilhelm de Kostrowitzki was baptized in Rome, September 29, -1880, at the <i>Sacrosancta Patriarcalis Basilica Santa Mariae Maioris.</i> -His father is said to have been a high prelate of the Catholic Church.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_1" id="Footnote_5_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_1"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>"Let the seven countries and four continents dispute the -honor of his birthplace"—Mme de Kostrowitzka (who had never opened -but one of his books, and found that "idiotic") exclaimed one day: - -"O Poland, thou wilt remember thy great son!"</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_1" id="Footnote_6_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_1"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>Apollinaire wrote to his friend André Billy: "Was I not -too a master of rhymed verse?" This brief couplet, paraphrased from: - -Luth! -Zut! - -marked a point of departure toward <i>Calligrammes.</i></p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_1" id="Footnote_7_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_1"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>This "absolute" poem, "freed from the restrictions of even -language" may be profitably studied for its positive suggestions. The -Dadaists, whose godfather Apollinaire was, took up this form with a -passionate conviction that terrified the populace after the war. "Is not -every art-theory, every school, only the triumph of an individual's -taste, the imposition of a stronger mind upon the weaker ones?" -Nonsense-poems, were the reductio ad absurdum of all literary artifice. -The final word, the ultimate bankruptcy. Apollinaire's intense desire to -negate literary precedent and to innovate, led through the stimulus of -the Cubist painters to <i>Calligrammes</i>, which contains his calligraphic -poetry. The typography is arranged most intricately, with regard to its -pictural or abstract effect. Apollinaire hoped ultimately to unite -poetry and painting, in fact his last critical writings in the Mercure -de France are filled with amazing conjectures as to the future of art. - -The "poèmes conversations" of Calligrammes, as André Billy relates, -may well have originated in the following manner: - -"He, Dupuy, and I are sitting at Crucifixe with three glasses of -vermouth. Suddenly Guillaume bursts out laughing—he has completely -forgotten to write the preface to Robert Delaunay's catalogue, which he -promised to mail that evening. 'Quick waiter, pen and ink. Three of us -will get through with this in a jiffy.' Guillaume's pen is off already: - -'Of red and green all the yellow dies.' -His pen stops. -But Dupuy dictates: -'When the arras sing in our natal forests.' -The pen starts off again transcribing faithfully. -It is my turn: - -'There is a poem to be written about the bird with but one wing.' - -A reminiscence from <i>Alcools</i>—the pen writes without a stop. - -'A good thing to do if there is any hurry,' I said, 'would be to send -your preface over the telephone.' - -And so the next line became: - -'And we shall send this by the telephone.' - -I no longer remember all the details of this singular collaboration, but -I can state that the preface to the catalogue of Robert Delaunay came -out entire."</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_1" id="Footnote_8_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_1"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>This chapter is obviously written in an entirely different -period. The Poet Assassinated, composes, if we choose to believe so, -Apollinaire's vision of his own life. The book was collated from many -fragments, many beginnings, and published in 1916, by "<i>l'Édition</i>," -for the so-called "<i>Librairie des Curieux.</i>" In the opening passage of -this chapter part of the influences of the Cubist painters, and their -inventions are particularly apparent.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_1" id="Footnote_9_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_1"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>The theatre in France of the period immediately preceding -the war is a sorry thing to relate. We will pass over Brieux, Hervieu, -Battaille, Bernstein, to consider Donnay, Porto-Riche and their ilk. -These worthies and their imitators achieved unparalleled financial and -social triumphs by incorporating a certain intimate lewdness into their -trivial drama. Their obvious theatrical machinery, which Apollinaire -ridicules, has been as successfully adopted in this country and -elsewhere in Europe, under the label of "modern drama."</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_1" id="Footnote_10_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_1"><span class="label">[10]</span></a><i>Mamamouchi</i> is a character in Molière's play, <i>le -Bourgeois Gentilhomme</i>, a dignitary whose sense of office is so strongly -imbedded in him that he always enters shouting, "<i>Je suis Mamamouchi!</i>"</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_1" id="Footnote_11_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_1"><span class="label">[11]</span></a>François Coppée, this sentimental nineteenth century -poet was amazingly popular, and truly French in his weaknesses, like the -music of Massenet. Apollinaire takes grave liberties with him, out of -sheer mischief.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12_1" id="Footnote_12_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_1"><span class="label">[12]</span></a><i>Archipel</i>, archipelago, used in the sense of <i>papier -buvard</i> (!) <i>blotting paper!</i> The disciples of Mallarmé went even -farther than this.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13_1" id="Footnote_13_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_1"><span class="label">[13]</span></a><i>Tychobrahé</i>, Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer -(1546-1601). Although lord of a province in Scania, he took refuge in a -monastery where he pursued his scientific researches. - -He settled in Prague, at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II, and died -there. Whether he ever really visited the monastery at Brünn is hard to -judge.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14_1" id="Footnote_14_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_1"><span class="label">[14]</span></a>The number of prizes given for poetry and for other forms -of literature has reached an even more disquieting figure since the war. -Great publicity attends each award, and the publishers vie with each -other in establishing such prizes. However, the lot of the true poet is -as hard as ever, since it has become distinctly unfashionable to be the -recipient of a prize.</p></div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15_1" id="Footnote_15_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_1"><span class="label">[15]</span></a>Paul Fort, Prince of Poets, he, of the broad-brimmed black -hat, and the flowing scarf, frequented the <i>Closérie des Lilas</i>, with -his band, whereas his avowed enemy, Apollinaire, and his far more -disreputable cronies quartered themselves in the Café Rotonde, a short -distance east along the Boulevard Montparnasse.</p></div> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Poet Assassinated, by Guillaume Apollinaire - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POET ASSASSINATED *** - -***** This file should be named 60771-h.htm or 60771-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/7/7/60771/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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