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One Woman's Life, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Part Three. Aspirations - Chapter 4. Being An Artist's Wife |
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_ PART THREE. ASPIRATIONS CHAPTER IV. BEING AN ARTIST'S WIFE But it wasn't so different after all! As Sam Reddon had predicted, the Bragdons went to live in the Etoile quarter,--in a very respectable hotel-pension on the Rue Galilee. It was so much healthier in that quarter, every one said, more comfortable for a wife, who must be left to herself for long hours each day. They had lost sight of the Reddons from the moment they entered the Paris train, for the Reddons, having second-class tickets, were forced to wait for a slower train, which they didn't seem to mind as it gave them a chance to see the little town and lunch in a _cabaret_ instead of paying for an expensive meal on the wagon-restaurant as the Bragdons did. Bragdon enrolled himself among the seventy or eighty students at Julian's and also shared a studio near the _Pont des Invalides_ with another American, where he worked afternoons by himself. He plunged into his painting very earnestly, realizing all that he had to accomplish. But he lived the life of the alien in France, as so many of his fellow-students did, preserving a stout Americanism in the midst of Paris. Thanks to an education in an American college, after eight years' study of foreign languages he could read easy French, but he could scarcely order a meal in the language. And he did not try to learn French, like most of the young Americans "studying" in Paris. What was the use? he said. He did not intend to live his life there. In truth, he disdained the French, like the others, and all things French, including most of their art. His marriage had emphasized this Americanism. Like most of his countrymen he regarded every Frenchman as a would-be seducer of his neighbor's wife, and every Frenchwoman as a possible wanton; all things French as either corrupt or frivolous or hopelessly behind the times. He inspired Milly to some extent with these ideas, though she was of a more curious and trusting nature. He did not like to have her go out in Paris even in the daytime unaccompanied, and as after the first weeks of settlement in their new environment he was very busy all day, Milly found herself more or less secluded and idle from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon. It was worse than in the flat in Chicago! For there she could go out when she pleased, and had some social distraction. Here they knew almost nobody. The hotel-pension on the Rue Galilee was frequented by the quieter sort of middle-aged English, and a few American mothers with their children, "doing Europe." Hardly a word of French was spoken within its doors, and as far as possible the English habitues of the place had anglicized its food. Milly found few congenial spirits there. She rather liked two invalidish maiden ladies from Boston and went shopping with them sometimes and to see the pictures in the Louvre. But the Misses Byron were quite delicate and took their Paris in dainty sips. Milly was far from sharing her husband's distrust of all things French, but she supposed being a man and having been there before he must know Paris. She would have liked to spend the lovely late autumn days on the streets, drinking in the sights and sounds. Instead she went with Jack to the picture galleries and did the other "monuments" starred in Baedeker, conscientiously. But these did not stir her soul. The Louvre was like some thronged wilderness and she had no clews. Life spoke to her almost exclusively through her senses, not through her mind, which was totally untrained. She was profoundly ignorant of all history, art, and politics; so the "monuments" meant nothing but their picturesqueness. She picked up the language with extraordinary avidity, and soon became her husband's interpreter, when the necessity reached beyond a commonplace phrase. Occasionally as a spree they dined in the city at some recommended restaurant and went to the theatre. But these were expensive pleasures--indeed the scale of living was more costly than in Chicago, if one wanted the same comforts; and by the end of the first winter Bragdon became worried over the rapid inroads they were making on their letter of credit. Every time he had to journey to the Rue Scribe he shook his head and warned Milly they must be more careful if their funds were to last them even two years. And he knew now that he needed every day of training he could possibly get. He was behind many of these other three thousand young Americans engaged in becoming great artists. Milly thought their sprees were modest and far between, but as the dark, chilly Paris winter drew on she was more and more confined to the stuffy salon or their one cheerless room. She became depressed and bored. This was not at all what she had expected of Europe. It seemed that Paris could be as small a place as Chicago, or even less! Sometimes, like a naughty child, Milly broke rules and sallied forth by herself on bright days, wandering down the Champs Elysees, gazing at the people, speculating upon the very pronounced ladies in the smart victorias, even getting as far as the crowded boulevards and the beguiling shops, which she did not dare to enter for fear she should yield to temptation. Once she had a venture that was exciting. She was followed all the way from the Rue Royale to the Rue Galilee by a man, who tried to speak to her as she neared the pension, so that she fairly ran to shelter. She decided not to tell Jack of her little adventure, for he would be severe with her and have his prejudices confirmed. She rather enjoyed the excitement of it all, and wouldn't have minded repeating it, if she could be sure of escaping in the end without trouble.... She read some books which her husband got for her,--those breakfast-food culture books provided for just such people, about cities and monuments and history. She was supposed to "read up" about Rome and Florence, where they hoped to go in the spring. But books tired Milly very soon: the unfamiliar names and places meant nothing at all to her. She decided that, as in most cases, one had to have money and plenty of it to enjoy Europe,--to travel and live at the gay hotels, to buy things and get experiences "first hand." Evidently it was not for her, at present. What she liked best in her life this first winter were the Sunday excursions they made to Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Versailles, and St. Cloud, and other smaller places where the people went. She liked the mixed crowds of chattering French on the river boats and the third-class trains,--loved to talk with the women and children in her careless French, and watch their foreign domesticities.... Best of all, perhaps, were the walks in the Bois with her husband, where she could see the animation of the richer world. On their way back they would often stop at Gage's for cakes and mild drinks. All the pastry-shops fascinated Milly, they were so bright and clean and _chic_. The efficiency of French civilization was summed up to her in the _patisserie_. She liked sweet things and almost made herself ill with the delectable concoctions at Gage's. That more than anything else this first year came to typify to her Paris,--the people, men as well as women, who came in for their cakes or syrop, the eagle-eyed _Madame_ perched high at the _comptoir_, holding the entire business in her competent hand, and all the deft girls in their black dresses, nimbly serving, _"Oui, Madame! Voici, Monsieur! Que desirez-vous?"_ etc. She admired the neat glass trays of tempting sweets, the round jars of bonbons, the colored _liqueurs_, the neat little marble-topped tables. Apparently the _patisserie_ was a popular institution, for people of all sorts and conditions flocked there like flies. "If you ever die and I have to earn my living," she would say jokingly to her husband, "I know what I should do. I'd run a cake-shop!" "You'd eat all the cakes yourself," Bragdon rejoined, tearing her away after the eighth or tenth. She went there by herself sometimes, and became good friends with the reigning _Madame_, from whom she learned the routine of the manufacture and the sales, as well as the trials and tribulations with _les desmoiselles_ that the manager of a popular pastry shop must have. This _Madame_ liked the pretty, sociable _Americaine_, always smiled when she entered the shop with her husband, counselled her as to the choicest dainties of the day, asked her opinion deferentially as that of a connoisseur, and made her little gifts. Through the cake-shop Milly came to realize the French, as her husband never did. * * * * * So the winter wore away somehow,--the period that Milly remembered as, on the whole, the dullest part of her married life. Her first season in Paris! They might read a little in one of the culture books in their room after dinner, then would take refuge from the damp chill in bed. Jack was less gay here in Paris than he had ever been in Chicago, preoccupied with his work, frequently gloomy, as if he foresaw the failure of his ambitions. Milly felt that he was ungrateful for his fate. Hadn't he the dearest wish of his heart--and her, too?... Something was wrong, she never knew quite what. The trouble was that she had no job whatever now, and no social distraction to take the place of work. She was the victim of ideas that were utterly beyond her knowledge, ideas that must impersonally carry the Milly Ridges along in their momentum, to their ultimate destruction. "I ought to be very happy," she said to herself piously. "We both ought to be." But they weren't. _ |
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