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. fran?ois 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."
