even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally invoked.
“Elvira,” said he to his wife, “mark my words: Castel-le-
“Let us ask for breakfast,” said she, with a woman’s tact.
Gachis is a tragic folly.”
The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gachis was a large
“Wait till we see what we take,” replied Elvira.
red Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutane-
“We shall take nothing,” returned Berthelini; “we shall ous transpiration. I have repeated the name of his office feed upon insults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of because he was so very much more a Commissary than a divination; and this place is accursed. The landlord has been man. The spirit of his dignity had entered into him. He discourteous, the Commissary will be brutal, the audience carried his corporation as if it were something official.
will be sordid and uproarious, and you will take a cold Whenever he insulted a common citizen it seemed to him upon your throat. We have been besotted enough to come; as if he were adroitly flattering the Government by a side the die is cast – it will be a second Sedan.” wind; in default of dignity he was brutal from an over-Sedan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only weening sense of duty. His office was a den, whence 237
Robert Louis Stevenson
passers-by could hear rude accents laying down, not the
“I have the honour,” he asked, “of meeting M. le law, but the good pleasure of the Commissary.
Commissaire?”
Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his ad-hurry thither in quest of the requisite permission for his dress. He excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy grace evening’s entertainment; six several times he found the offi-of his salutation.
cial was abroad. Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a famil-
“The honour,” said he, “is mine!”
iar figure in the streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local
“I am,” continued the strolling-player, “I am, sir, an art-celebrity, and was pointed out as “the man who was looking ist, and I have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affor the Commissary.” Idle children attached themselves to his fair of business. To-night I give a trifling musical entertain-footsteps, and trotted after him back and forward between ment at the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough – permit the hotel and the office. Leon might try as he liked; he might me to offer you this little programme – and I have come to roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat at a ask you for the necessary authorisation.” dozen different jaunty inclinations – the part of Almaviva was, At the word “artist,” the Commissary had replaced his under the circumstances, difficult to play.
hat with the air of a person who, having condescended too As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excur-far, should suddenly remember the duties of his rank.
sion the Commissary was pointed out to him, where he
“Go, go,” said he, “I am busy – I am measuring butter.” stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind
“Heathen Jew!” thought Leon. “Permit me, sir,” he re-his back, to superintend the sale and measurement of but-sumed aloud. “I have gone six times already – “ ter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market stalls
“Put up your bills if you choose,” interrupted the Com-and baskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which missary. “In an hour or so I will examine your papers at the was a triumph of the histrionic art.
office. But now go; I am busy.”
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“Measuring butter!” thought Berthelini. “Oh, France, and CHAPTER II
it is for this that we made ’93!”
The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, THE AUDIENCE WAS PRETTY LARGE; and the proprietor of the programmes laid on the dinner-table of every hotel in the cafe made a good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis town, and a stage erected at one end of the Cafe of the exerted themselves in vain.
Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon returned to the Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of office, the Commissary was once more abroad.
smoking a cigarette between his songs that was worth
“He is like Madame Benoiton,” thought Leon, “Fichu money in itself; he underlined his comic points, so that the Commissaire!”
dullest numskull in Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to And just then he met the man face to face.
laugh; and he handled his guitar in a manner worthy of
“Here, sir,” said he, “are my papers. Will you be pleased himself. Indeed his play with that instrument was as good to verify?”
as a whole romantic drama; it was so dashing, so florid, But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.
and so cavalier.
“No use,” he replied, “no use; I am busy; I am quite sat-Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and roman-isfied. Give your entertainment.”
tic songs with more than usual expression; her voice had And he hurried on.
charm and plangency; and as Leon looked at her, in her
“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Leon.
low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.
Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the 239
Robert Louis Stevenson
golden youth of Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly.
back and his mouth open, when the door was thrown vio-Here and there a single halfpenny was forthcoming; the net lently open, and a pair of new comers marched noisily result of a collection never exceeded half a franc; and the into the cafe. It was the Commissary, followed by the Maire himself, after seven different applications, had con-Garde Champetre.
tributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began to settle The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, “Y
upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were sing-a des honnetes gens partout!” But now the sentiment pro-ing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such duced an audible titter among the audience. Berthelini an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the impres-wondered why; he did not know the antecedents of the sion; they put their back into their work, they sang loud Garde Champetre; he had never heard of a little story about and louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at postage stamps. But the public knew all about the postage last Leon arose in his might, and burst with inimitable con-stamps and enjoyed the coincidence hugely.
viction into his great song, “Y a des honnetes gens partout!” The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair with Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery; it somewhat the air of Cromwell visiting the Rump, and spoke was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-in occasional whispers to the Garde Champetre, who remained Gachis formed an exception to the law he was now lyri-respectfully standing at his back. The eyes of both were di-cally proclaiming, and was peopled exclusively by thieves rected upon Berthelini, who persisted in his statement.
and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it down like a chal-
“Y a des honnetes gens partout,” he was just chanting lenge, he trolled it forth like an article of faith; and his face for the twentieth time; when up got the Commissary upon so beamed the while that you would have thought he must his feet and waved brutally to the singer with his cane.
make converts of the benches.
“Is it me you want?” inquired Leon, stopping in his song.
He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown
“It is you,” replied the potentate.
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“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Leon, and he descended farther back – majesty confronting fury. The audience had from the stage and made his way to the functionary.
transferred their attention to this new performance, and
“How does it happen, sir,” said the Commissary, swell-listened with that silent gravity common to all Frenchmen ing in person, “that I find you mountebanking in a public in the neighbourhood of the Police. Elvira had sat down, cafe without my permission?”
she was used to these distractions, and it was rather mel-
“Without?” cried the indignant Leon. “Permit me to re-ancholy than fear that now oppressed her.
mind you –”
“Another word,” cried the Commissary, “and I arrest
“Come, come, sir!” said the Commissary, “I desire no you.”
explanations.”
“Arrest me?” shouted Leon. “I defy you!”
“I care nothing about what you desire,” returned the
“I am the Commissary of Police,’ said the official.
singer. “I choose to give them, and I will not be gagged. I Leon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great am an artist, sir, a distinction that you cannot comprehend.
delicacy of innuendo -
I received your permission and stand here upon the strength
“So it would appear.”
of it; interfere with me who dare.” The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gachis; it did not
“You have not got my signature, I tell you,” cried the Com-raise a smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply bade missary. “Show me my signature! Where is my signature?” the singer follow him to his office, and directed his proud That was just the question; where was his signature? Leon footsteps towards the door. There was nothing for it but to recognised that he was in a hole; but his spirit rose with the obey. Leon did so with a proper pantomime of indiffer-occasion, and he blustered nobly, tossing back his curls.
ence, but it was a leek to eat, and there was no denying it.
The Commissary played up to him in the character of ty-The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting at rant; and as the one leaned farther forward, the other leaned the Commissary’s door. Now the Maire, in France, is the 241
Robert Louis Stevenson
refuge of the oppressed. He stands between his people and
“It is already growing late,” he added.
the boisterous rigours of the Police. He can sometimes Leon did not wait to be told twice. He returned to the understand what is said to him; he is not always puffed up Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough with all expedition.
beyond measure by his dignity. ’Tis a thing worth the knowl-Alas! the audience had melted away during his absence; edge of travellers. When all seems over, and a man has Elvira was sitting in a very disconsolate attitude on the made up his mind to injustice, he has still, like the heroes guitar-box; she had watched the company dispersing by of romance, a little bugle at his belt whereon to blow; and twos and threes, and the prolonged spectacle had some-the Maire, a comfortable Deus ex machina, may still de-what overwhelmed her spirits. Each man, she reflected, scend to deliver him from the minions of the law. The Maire retired with a certain proportion of her earnings in his of Castel-le-Gachis, although inaccessible to the charms pocket, and she saw to-night’s board and to-morrow’s rail-of music as retailed by the Berthelinis, had no hesitation way expenses, and finally even to-morrow’s dinner, walk whatever as to the rights of the matter. He instantly fell one after another out of the cafe door and disappear into foul of the Commissary in very high terms, and the Com-the night.
missary, pricked by this humiliation, accepted battle on the
“What was it?” she asked languidly. But Leon did not point of fact. The argument lasted some little while with answer. He was looking round him on the scene of defeat.
varying success, until at length victory inclined so plainly Scarce a score of listeners remained, and these of the least to the Commissary’s side that the Maire was fain to reas-promising sort. The minute hand of the clock was already sert himself by an exercise of authority. He had been out-climbing upward towards eleven.
argued, but he was still the Maire. And so, turning from his
“It’s a lost battle,” said he, and then taking up the money-interlocutor, he briefly but kindly recommended Leon to box he turned it out. “Three francs seventy-five!” he cried, get back instanter to his concert.
“as against four of board and six of railway fares; and no 242
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time for the tombola! Elvira, this is Waterloo.” And he sat in the streets.
down and passed both hands desperately among his curls.
“It is all very fine,” said Leon; “but I have a presenti-
“O Fichu Commissaire!” he cried, “Fichu Commissaire!” ment. The night is not yet done.”
“Let us get the things together and be off,” returned Elvira. “We might try another song, but there is not six halfpence in the room.”
“Six halfpence?” cried Leon, “six hundred thousand devils! There is not a human creature in the town – nothing but pigs and dogs and commissaires! Pray heaven, we get safe to bed.”
“Don’t imagine things!” exclaimed Elvira, with a shudder.
And with that they set to work on their preparations.
The tobacco-jar, the cigarette-holder, the three papers of shirt-studs, which were to have been the prices of the tombola had the tombola come off, were made into a bundle with the music; the guitar was stowed into the fat guitar-case; and Elvira having thrown a thin shawl about her neck and shoulders, the pair issued from the cafe and set off for the Black Head.
As they crossed the market-place the church bell rang out eleven. It was a dark, mild night, and there was no one 243
Robert Louis Stevenson
CHAPTER III
“What’s all this?” cried the tragic host through the spars of the gate. “Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring THE “BLACK HEAD” presented not a single chink of light like Prussians at the door of a respectable hotel? Oh!” he upon the street, and the carriage gate was closed.
cried, “I know you now! Common singers! People in trouble
“This is unprecedented,” observed Leon. “An inn closed with the police! And you present yourselves at midnight by five minutes after eleven! And there were several com-like lords and ladies? Be off with you!” mercial travellers in the cafe up to a late hour. Elvira, my
“You will permit me to remind you,” replied Leon, in heart misgives me. Let us ring the bell.” thrilling tones, “that I am a guest in your house, that I am The bell had a potent note; and being swung under the properly inscribed, and that I have deposited baggage to arch it filled the house from top to bottom with surly, clang-the value of four hundred francs.”
ing reverberations. The sound accentuated the conventual
“You cannot get in at this hour,” returned the man. “This appearance of the building; a wintry sentiment, a thought is no thieves’ tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and or-of prayer and mortification, took hold upon Elvira’s mind; gan-grinders.”
and, as for Leon, he seemed to be reading the stage direc-
“Brute!” cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her tions for a lugubrious fifth act.
home.
“This is your fault,” said Elvira: “this is what comes of
“Then I demand my baggage,” said Leon, with unabated fancying things!”
dignity.
Again Leon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin
“I know nothing of your baggage,” replied the landlord.
awoke the echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a
“You detain my baggage? You dare to detain my bag-light glimmered in the carriage entrance, and a powerful gage?” cried the singer.
voice was heard upraised and tremulous with wrath.
“Who are you?” returned the landlord. “It is dark – I 244
New Arabian Nights
cannot recognise you.”
The Gendarmerie was concealed beside the telegraph of-
“Very well, then – you detain my baggage,” concluded fice at the bottom of a vast court, which was partly laid out Leon. “You shall smart for this. I will weary out your life in gardens; and here all the shepherds of the public lay with persecutions; I will drag you from court to court; if locked in grateful sleep. It took a deal of knocking to waken there is justice to be had in France, it shall be rendered be-one; and he, when he came at last to the door, could find tween you and me. And I will make you a by-word – I will no other remark but that “it was none of his business.” put you in a song – a scurrilous song – an indecent song – a Leon reasoned with him, threatened him, besought him; popular song – which the boys shall sing to you in the street,
“here,” he said, “was Madame Berthelini in evening dress and come and howl through these spars at mid-night!”
– a delicate woman – in an interesting condition” – the last He had gone on raising his voice at every phrase, for all was thrown in, I fancy, for effect; and to all this the man-the while the landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, at-arms made the same answer:
when the last glimmer of light had vanished from the arch,
“It is none of my business,” said he.
and the last footstep died away in the interior, Leon turned
“Very well,” said Leon, “then we shall go to the Com-to his wife with a heroic countenance.
missary.” Thither they went; the office was closed and dark;
“Elvira,” said he, “I have now a duty in life. I shall de-but the house was close by, and Leon was soon swinging stroy that man as Eugene Sue destroyed the concierge. Let the bell like a madman. The Commissary’s wife appeared us come at once to the Gendarmerie and begin our ven-at a window. She was a thread-paper creature, and informed geance.”
them that the Commissary had not yet come home.
He picked up the guitar-case, which had been propped
“Is he at the Maire’s?” demanded Leon.
against the wall, and they set forth through the silent and She thought that was not unlikely.
ill-lighted town with burning hearts.
“Where is the Maire’s house?” he asked.
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And she gave him some rather vague information on that
“You will never make him hear,” responded the voice.
point.
“The garden is of great extent, the house is at the farther
“Stay you here, Elvira,” said Leon, “lest I should miss end, and both the Maire and his housekeeper are deaf.” him by the way. If, when I return, I find you here no longer,
“Aha!” said Leon, pausing. “The Maire is deaf, is he?
I shall follow at once to the Black Head.” That explains.” And he thought of the evening’s concert And he set out to find the Maire’s. It took him some ten with a momentary feeling of relief. “Ah!” he continued, minutes wandering among blind lanes, and when he ar-
“and so the Maire is deaf, and the garden vast, and the rived it was already half-an-hour past midnight. A long house at the far end?”
white garden wall overhung by some thick chestnuts, a
“And you might ring all night,” added the voice, “and be door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-pull, that was all none the better for it. You would only keep me awake.” that could be seen of the Maire’s domicile. Leon took the
“Thank you, neighbour,” replied the singer. “You shall bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon the side-sleep.”
walk. The bell itself was just upon the other side of the And he made off again at his best pace for the wall, it responded to his activity, and scattered an alarming Commissary’s. Elvira was still walking to and fro before clangour far and wide into the night.
the door.
A window was thrown open in a house across the street,
“He has not come?” asked Leon.
and a voice inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.
“Not he,” she replied.
“I wish the Maire,” said Leon.
“Good,” returned Leon. “I am sure our man’s inside. Let
“He has been in bed this hour,” returned the voice.
me see the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira;
“He must get up again,” retorted Leon, and he was for I am angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I tackling the bell-pull once more.
thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge 246
New Arabian Nights
shall be importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him up – and crisp and spirited delivery, hurled the appropriate burden set him up.”
at the Commissary’s window. All the echoes repeated the He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, functionary’s name. It was more like an entr’acte in a farce and fell into an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.
of Moliere’s than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gachis.
“Now,” he continued, “feel your voice. Are you ready?
The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last Follow me!”
of the neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in har-furiously throw open the window of his bedroom. He was mony and with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of beside himself with rage. He leaned far over the window-old Beranger’s:–
sill, raying and gesticulating; the tassel of his white nightcap danced like a thing of life: he opened his mouth to
“Commissaire! Commissaire! Colin bat sa menagere.” dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his voice, instead of escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and The stones of Castel-le-Gachis thrilled at this audacious choked and tottering. A little more serenading, and it was innovation. Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose clear he would be better acquainted with the apoplexy.
and nightcaps; and now what was this? Window after win-I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too dow was opened; matches scratched, and candles began to many serious topics by the way for a quiet story-teller.
flicker; swollen sleepy faces peered forth into the starlight.
Although he was known for a man who was prompt with There were the two figures before the Commissary’s house, his tongue, and had a power of strong expression at com-each bolt upright, with head thrown back and eyes interro-mand, he excelled himself so remarkably this night that one gating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed, shouted, and maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices, with a the serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the sec-247
Robert Louis Stevenson
ond clause. Even what she had heard disquieted her con-CHAPTER IV
science; and next day she said she scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.
TO THE WEST of Castel-le-Gachis four rows of venerable Leon tried to explain his predicament, but he received lime-trees formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with nothing but threats of arrest by way of answer.
two side aisles of pitch darkness. Here and there stone
“If I come down to you!” cried the Commissary.
benches were disposed between the trunks. There was not
“Aye,” said Leon, “do!”
a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume hung
“I will not!” cried the Commissary.
about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its
“You dare not!” answered Leon.
twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the At that the Commissary closed his window.
Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an ami-
“All is over,” said the singer. “The serenade was perhaps able contention, Leon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, ill-judged. These boors have no sense of humour.” and they sat down together on the first bench in silence.
“Let us get away from here,” said Elvira, with a shiver.
Leon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end, look-
“All these people looking – it is so rude and so brutal.” And ing up into the trees, and, beyond them, at the constella-then giving way once more to passion – “Brutes!” she cried tions, of which he tried vainly to recall the names. The aloud to the candle-lit spectators – “brutes! brutes! brutes!” silence was broken by the church bell; it rang the four quar-
“Sauve qui peut,” said Leon. “You have done it now!” ters on a light and tinkling measure; then followed a single And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the deep stroke that died slowly away with a thrill; and still-other, he led the way with something too precipitate to be ness resumed its empire.
merely called precipitation from the scene of this absurd
“One,” said Leon. “Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it adventure.
is starry; I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exag-248
New Arabian Nights
gerate, Elvira – the experience is positively charming. I And without waiting an answer he began to strum the feel a glow within me; I am born again. This is the poetry symphony. The first chords awoke a young man who was of life. Think of Cooper’s novels, my dear.” lying asleep upon a neighbouring bench.
“Leon,” she said fiercely, “how can you talk such wicked,
“Hullo!” cried the young man, “who are you?” infamous nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors – it is
“Under which king, Bezonian?” declaimed the artist.
like a nightmare! We shall die.”
“Speak or die!”
“You suffer yourself to be led away,” he replied sooth-Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much ingly. “It is not unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, the same purpose from a French tragedy.
let us repeat a scene. Shall we try Alceste and Celimene?
The young man drew near in the twilight. He was a tall, No? Or a passage from the ‘Two Orphans’? Come, now, it powerful, gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, will occupy your mind; I will play up to you as I never have dressed in a grey tweed suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the played before; I feel art moving in my bones.” same material; and as he now came forward he carried a
“Hold your tongue,” she cried, “or you will drive me knapsack slung upon one arm.
mad! Will nothing solemnise you – not even this hideous
“Are you camping out here too?” he asked, with a strong situation?”
English accent. “I’m not sorry for company.”
“Oh, hideous!” objected Leon. “Hideous is not the word.
Leon explained their misadventure; and the other told Why, where would you be? ‘Dites, la jeune belle, ou voulez-them that he was a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking vous aller?’” he carolled. “Well, now,” he went on, open-tour, that he had run short of money, could no longer pay ing the guitar-case, “there’s another idea for you – sing.
for his night’s lodging, had already been camping out for Sing ‘Dites, la jeune belle!’ It will compose your spirits, two nights, and feared he should require to continue the Elvira, I am sure.”
same manoeuvre for at least two nights more.
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“Luckily, it’s jolly weather,” he concluded.
“My name is Stubbs,” replied the Englishman.
“You hear that, Elvira,” said Leon. “Mada