Narcisse sat placidly by, with his tongue out, eyeing his master ironically.
"You are the man," his glance implied, "who said that nothing happens here."
I have known many dogs in my life, but never so mocking and cynical a dog as Narcisse.
It was nearly midnight before my master and I sat down again outside the café. The intervening hours had been spent in journeying to and from the nearest village, and obtaining the necessary services of doctor and curé. My master was smoking his porcelain pipe, as usual, but strangely silent. A faint circle of light came from the open ground-floor window of the café. The white road gleamed dimly, and beyond the hushed valley the hills loomed vague against a black, starlit sky. In the lighted room a few peasants from neighbouring farms drank their sour white wine and discussed the death in low voices. In other circumstances my master would have joined them under pretext of getting nearer the Heart of Life, and would have told them amazing tales of Ekaterinoslav or Valladolid till they reeled home drunk with wine and wonder. And I should have been abed. But to-night Paragot seemed to prefer the silent company of Narcisse and myself.
"What do you think of it all, Asticot?" he asked at length.
"Of what, master?"
"Death."
"It frightens me," was all I could answer.
"What I resent about it," said my master reflectively, "is that one is not able to have any personal concern in the most interesting event in one's career. If you could even follow your own funeral and have a chance of weeping for yourself! You are never so important as when you are a corpse – and you miss it all. I have a good mind not to die. It is either the silliest or the wisest action of one's life; I wonder which."
Presently the girl came down the passage of the café, stood for a moment in the doorway, and seeing Paragot advanced to the table.
"You are very kind, Monsieur," she said, "and for what you have done I thank you from my heart."
"It was very little," said my master. "Asticot, why do you not give Mademoiselle your chair? Your manners are worse than those of Narcisse. Mademoiselle, do me the pleasure of being seated."
She sat down, her feet apart, peasant fashion, her hands in her lap.
"If I had not lost the twenty francs he would not have died," she said dejectedly.
"He would have died if you had brought him here in a carriage. He had aneurism of the heart, the doctor says. He might have died any moment the last ten years. How old was he?"
"Seventy, eighty, ninety – how should I know?"
"But he was your grandfather."
"Ah, no, indeed, Monsieur," she replied in a more animated manner. "He was not a relative. My mother was poor and she sold me to him three years ago."
"Why that is like me, Master!" I cried, vastly interested.
"My son," said he in English, "that is one of the things that must be forgotten. And then, Mademoiselle?" he asked in French.
"Then he taught me to play the zither and to dance. I am sorry he is dead. Dame, oui, par exemple! But I do not weep for him as for a grandfather. Oh, no!"
"And your mother?"
"She died last year. So I am all alone."
He asked her what she thought of doing for her livelihood. She shrugged her shoulders with the resignation of her class.
"I can always earn my living. There are brasseries, cafés-concerts in all the towns – I am fairly well known. They will give me an engagement. Il faut passer par là comme les autres."
"You must go through it like the others?" repeated my master. "But you are very young, my poor child."
"I am eighteen, Monsieur, I know I shall not make a fortune. I am not pretty enough even when I paint, and my figure is heavy. That is what Père Paragot used to complain of."
"What was his name?" asked my master, pricking up his ears.
"Berzélius Paragot – and he took the name of Nibbidard, which means 'no luck' – so he loved to call himself Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot."
"Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot," mouthed my master joyously. "I would give anything for a name like that!"
"It is yours if you like to take it," she said quite seriously. "No one will want it any more."
"Little Asticot of my heart," said he, "what do you think of it?"
It struck me as a most aristocratically romantic appellation. I was used to his aliases by this time. He had long ceased to call himself "Pradel," and what was our surname for the moment I am now unable to recollect.
"You look like 'Paragot,' Master," said I, and, in an inexplicable way, he did – as I have before remarked. He called me a psychometrical genius and enquired the name of the young lady.
"Amélie Duprat, Monsieur," she said. "But pour le métier– we must have professional names for the cafés – Père Paragot called me 'Blanquette de Veau.'"
"Delicious!" cried he.
"So everyone calls me Blanquette," she explained gravely. There was a silence. Paragot – he really assumed the name from this moment – refilled his pipe. The belated peasants, having finished their wine, clattered out of the café, and took off their hats as they passed us.
"Life is very hard, is it not, Messieurs?" remarked Blanquette. It seemed to be her favourite philosophic proposition. She sighed. "If Père Paragot had only lived to play at the wedding tomorrow!"
"What then?"
"I should have had ten francs."
"Ah!" said my master.
"First I lose my louis, and now I lose my ten francs! ah! Sainte Vierge de Miséricorde!"
It was heart-rending. Sometimes they received more than the stipulated fee at these village weddings. They passed the hat round. If the guests were mellow with good wine, which makes folks generous, they often earned double the amount. And they always had as much as they liked to eat, and could take away scraps in a handkerchief.
"And good wholesome nourishment, Monsieur. Once it was half a goose."
And now there was nothing, nothing. Blanquette did not believe in the bon Dieu any longer. She buried her face in her arms and wept. Paragot smoked helplessly for a few moments. I, unused to women's tears, felt the desolation of the race of Blanquette de Veau overspread me. But that I considered it to be beneath my dignity as a man, I should have wept too.
Suddenly Paragot brought his fist down on the table and started to his feet. Blanquette lifted a scared wet face, dimly seen in the half light.
"Tonnerre de Dieu!" cried he, "If you hold so much to your ten francs and half a goose, I myself will come with you to Chambéry tomorrow and fiddle at the wedding."
"You, Monsieur?" she gasped.
"Yes, I. Why not? Do you think I can't scrape catgut as well as Père Paragot?"
He walked to and fro declaring his musical powers in his boastful way. If he chose he could rip out the hearts of a dead Municipal Council with a violin, and could set a hospital for paralytics a-dancing. He would have fiddled the children of Hamelin away from the Pied Piper. Didn't Blanquette believe him?
"But yes, Monsieur," she said fervently.
"Ask Asticot."
My faith in him was absolute. To my mind he had even understated his abilities. The experience of the disillusioning years has since caused me to modify my opinions; but Paragot's boastfulness has not lessened him in my eyes. And this leads to a curious reflection. When a Gascon boasts, you love him for it; when a Prussian does it, your toes tingle to kick him to Berlin. His very whimsical braggadocio made Paragot adorable, and I am at a loss to think what he would have been without it.
"Of course," said he, "if you are proud, if you don't want to be