【英文短篇小说】Babylon Revisited（1）

 I

 
  “And where’s Mr. Campbell?” Charlie asked.
“Gone to Switzerland. Mr. Campbell’s a pretty sick man, Mr. Wales.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And George Hardt?” Charlie inquired.
“Back in America, gone to work.”
“And where is the Snow Bird?”
“He was in here last week. Anyway, his friend, Mr. Schaeffer, is in Paris.”
Two familiar names from the long list of a year and a half ago. Charlie scribbled 1 an address in his notebook and tore out the page.
“If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this,” he said. “It’s my brother-in-law’s address. I haven’t settled on a hotel yet.”
He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous 2. It was not an American bar any more — he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France. He felt the stillness from the moment he got out of the taxi and saw the doorman, usually in a frenzy 3 of activity at this hour, gossiping with a chasseur by the servants’ entrance.
Passing through the corridor, he heard only a single, bored voice in the once-clamorous women’s room. When he turned into the bar he travelled the twenty feet of green carpet with his eyes fixed 4 straight ahead by old habit; and then, with his foot firmly on the rail, he turned and surveyed the room, encountering only a single pair of eyes that fluttered up from a newspaper in the corner. Charlie asked for the head barman, Paul, who in the latter days of the bull market had come to work in his own custom-built car — disembarking, however, with due nicety at the nearest corner. But Paul was at his country house today and Alix giving him information.
“No, no more,” Charlie said, “I’m going slow these days.”
Alix congratulated him: “You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago.”
“I’ll stick to it all right,” Charlie assured him. “I’ve stuck to it for over a year and a half now.”
“How do you find conditions in America?”
“I haven’t been to America for months. I’m in business in Prague, representing a couple of concerns there. They don’t know about me down there.”
Alix smiled.
“Remember the night of George Hardt’s bachelor dinner here?” said Charlie. “By the way, what’s become of Claude Fessenden?”
Alix lowered his voice confidentially 5: “He’s in Paris, but he doesn’t come here any more. Paul doesn’t allow it. He ran up a bill of thirty thousand francs, charging all his drinks and his lunches, and usually his dinner, for more than a year. And when Paul finally told him he had to pay, he gave him a bad check.”
Alix shook his head sadly.
“I don’t understand it, such a dandy fellow. Now he’s all bloated up — ” He made a plump apple of his hands.
Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves in a corner.
“Nothing affects them,” he thought. “Stocks rise and fall, people loaf or work, but they go on forever.” The place oppressed him. He called for the dice 6 and shook with Alix for the drink.
“Here for long, Mr. Wales?”
“I’m here for four or five days to see my little girl.”
“Oh-h! You have a little girl?”
Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil 7 rain. It was late afternoon and the streets were in movement; the bistros gleamed. At the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines he took a taxi. The Place de la Concorde moved by in pink majesty 8; they crossed the logical Seine, and Charlie felt the sudden provincial 9 quality of the Left Bank.
Charlie directed his taxi to the Avenue de l’Opera, which was out of his way. But he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the magnificent façade, and imagine that the cab horns, playing endlessly the first few bars of La Plus que Lent, were the trumpets 10 of the Second Empire. They were closing the iron grill 11 in front of Brentano’s Book-store, and people were already at dinner behind the trim little bourgeois 12 hedge of Duval’s. He had never eaten at a really cheap restaurant in Paris. Five-course dinner, four francs fifty, eighteen cents, wine included. For some odd reason he wished that he had.
As they rolled on to the Left Bank and he felt its sudden provincialism, he thought, “I spoiled this city for myself. I didn’t realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone.”
He was thirty-five, and good to look at. The Irish mobility 13 of his face was sobered by a deep wrinkle between his eyes. As he rang his brother-in-law’s bell in the Rue 14 Palatine, the wrinkle deepened till it pulled down his brows; he felt a cramping 15 sensation in his belly 16. From behind the maid who opened the door darted 17 a lovely little girl of nine who shrieked 18 “Daddy!” and flew up, struggling like a fish, into his arms. She pulled his head around by one ear and set her cheek against his.
“My old pie,” he said.
“Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, dads, dads, dads!”
She drew him into the salon 19, where the family waited, a boy and girl his daughter’s age, his sister-in-law and her husband. He greeted Marion with his voice pitched carefully to avoid either feigned 20 enthusiasm or dislike, but her response was more frankly 21 tepid 22, though she minimized her expression of unalterable distrust by directing her regard toward his child. The two men clasped hands in a friendly way and Lincoln Peters rested his for a moment on Charlie’s shoulder.
The room was warm and comfortably American. The three children moved intimately about, playing through the yellow oblongs that led to other rooms; the cheer of six o’clock spoke 23 in the eager smacks 24 of the fire and the sounds of French activity in the kitchen. But Charlie did not relax; his heart sat up rigidly 25 in his body and he drew confidence from his daughter, who from time to time came close to him, holding in her arms the doll he had brought.
“Really extremely well,” he declared in answer to Lincoln’s question. “There’s a lot of business there that isn’t moving at all, but we’re doing even better than ever. In fact, damn well. I’m bringing my sister over from America next month to keep house for me. My income last year was bigger than it was when I had money. You see, the Czechs — ”
His boasting was for a specific purpose; but after a moment, seeing a faint restiveness 26 in Lincoln’s eye, he changed the subject:
“Those are fine children of yours, well brought up, good manners.”
“We think Honoria’s a great little girl too.”
Marion Peters came back from the kitchen. She was a tall woman with worried eyes, who had once possessed 27 a fresh American loveliness. Charlie had never been sensitive to it and was always surprised when people spoke of how pretty she had been. From the first there had been an instinctive 28 antipathy 29 between them.
“Well, how do you find Honoria?” she asked.
“Wonderful. I was astonished how much she’s grown in ten months. All the children are looking well.”
“We haven’t had a doctor for a year. How do you like being back in Paris?”
“It seems very funny to see so few Americans around.”
“I’m delighted,” Marion said vehemently 30. “Now at least you can go into a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire. We’ve suffered like everybody, but on the whole it’s a good deal pleasanter.”
“But it was nice while it lasted,” Charlie said. “We were a sort of royalty 31, almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us. In the bar this afternoon” — he stumbled, seeing his mistake — “there wasn’t a man I knew.”
She looked at him keenly. “I should think you’d have had enough of bars.”
“I only stayed a minute. I take one drink every afternoon, and no more.”
“Don’t you want a cocktail 32 before dinner?” Lincoln asked.
“I take only one drink every afternoon, and I’ve had that.”
“I hope you keep to it,” said Marion.
Her dislike was evident in the coldness with which she spoke, but Charlie only smiled; he had larger plans. Her very aggressiveness gave him an advantage, and he knew enough to wait. He wanted them to initiate 33 the discussion of what they knew had brought him to Paris.
At dinner he couldn’t decide whether Honoria was most like him or her mother. Fortunate if she didn’t combine the traits of both that had brought them to disaster. A great wave of protectiveness went over him. He thought he knew what to do for her. He believed in character; he wanted to jump back a whole generation and trust in character again as the eternally valuable element. Everything wore out.
He left soon after dinner, but not to go home. He was curious to see Paris by night with clearer and more judicious 34 eyes than those of other days. He bought a strapontin for the Casino and watched Josephine Baker 35 go through her chocolate arabesques 36.
After an hour he left and strolled toward Montmartre, up the Rue Pigalle into the Place Blanche. The rain had stopped and there were a few people in evening clothes disembarking from taxis in front of cabarets, andcocottes prowling singly or in pairs, and many Negroes. He passed a lighted door from which issued music, and stopped with the sense of familiarity; it was Bricktop’s, where he had parted with so many hours and so much money. A few doors farther on he found another ancient rendezvous 37 and incautiously put his head inside. Immediately an eager orchestra burst into sound, a pair of professional dancers leaped to their feet and a maître d’hôtel swooped 38 toward him, crying, “Crowd just arriving, sir!” But he withdrew quickly.
“You have to be damn drunk,” he thought.
Zelli’s was closed, the bleak 39 and sinister 40 cheap hotels surrounding it were dark; up in the Rue Blanche there was more light and a local, colloquial 41 French crowd. The Poet’s Cave had disappeared, but the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell still yawned — even devoured 42, as he watched, the meager 43 contents of a tourist bus — a German, a Japanese, and an American couple who glanced at him with frightened eyes.
So much for the effort and ingenuity 44 of Montmartre. All the catering 45 to vice 46 and waste was on an utterly 47 childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word “dissipate” — to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion.
He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
But it hadn’t been given for nothing.
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered 48 sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember — his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont.
In the glare of a brasserie a woman spoke to him. He bought her some eggs and coffee, and then, eluding 49 her encouraging stare, gave her a twenty-franc note and took a taxi to his hotel.
II
 
He woke upon a fine fall day — football weather. The depression of yesterday was gone and he liked the people on the streets. At noon he sat opposite Honoria at Le Grand Vatel, the only restaurant he could think of not reminiscent of champagne 50 dinners and long luncheons 51 that began at two and ended in a blurred 52 and vague twilight 53.
“Now, how about vegetables? Oughtn’t you to have some vegetables?”
“Well, yes.”
“Here’s épinards and chou-fleur and carrots and haricots.”
“I’d like chou-fleur.”
“Wouldn’t you like to have two vegetables?”
“I usually only have one at lunch.”
The waiter was pretending to be inordinately 54 fond of children. “Qu’elle est mignonne la petite? Elle parle exactement comme une Française.”
“How about dessert? Shall we wait and see?”
The waiter disappeared. Honoria looked at her father expectantly.
“What are we going to do?”
“First, we’re going to that toy store in the Rue Saint-Honoré and buy you anything you like. And then we’re going to the vaudeville 55 at the Empire.”
She hesitated. “I like it about the vaudeville, but not the toy store.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you brought me this doll.” She had it with her. “And I’ve got lots of things. And we’re not rich any more, are we?”
“We never were. But today you are to have anything you want.”
“All right,” she agreed resignedly.
When there had been her mother and a French nurse he had been inclined to be strict; now he extended himself, reached out for a new tolerance 56; he must be both parents to her and not shut any of her out of communication.
“I want to get to know you,” he said gravely. “First let me introduce myself. My name is Charles J. Wales, of Prague.”
“Oh, daddy!” her voice cracked with laughter.
“And who are you, please?” he persisted, and she accepted a role immediately: “Honoria Wales, Rue Palatine, Paris.”
“Married or single?”
“No, not married. Single.”
He indicated the doll. “But I see you have a child, madame.”
Unwilling 57 to disinherit it, she took it to her heart and thought quickly: “Yes, I’ve been married, but I’m not married now. My husband is dead.”
He went on quickly, “And the child’s name?”
“Simone. That’s after my best friend at school.”
“I’m very pleased that you’re doing so well at school.”
“I’m third this month,” she boasted. “Elsie” — that was her cousin — “is only about eighteenth, and Richard is about at the bottom.”
“You like Richard and Elsie, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. I like Richard quite well and I like her all right.”
Cautiously and casually 58 he asked: “And Aunt Marion and Uncle Lincoln — which do you like best?”
“Oh, Uncle Lincoln, I guess.”
He was increasingly aware of her presence. As they came in, a murmur 59 of “ . . . adorable” followed them, and now the people at the next table bent 60 all their silences upon her, staring as if she were something no more conscious than a flower.
“Why don’t I live with you?” she asked suddenly. “Because mamma’s dead?”
“You must stay here and learn more French. It would have been hard for daddy to take care of you so well.”
“I don’t really need much taking care of any more. I do everything for myself.”
Going out of the restaurant, a man and a woman unexpectedly hailed him.
“Well, the old Wales!”
“Hello there, Lorraine. . . . Dunc.”
Sudden ghosts out of the past: Duncan Schaeffer, a friend from college. Lorraine Quarrles, a lovely, pale blonde of thirty; one of a crowd who had helped them make months into days in the lavish 61 times of three years ago.
“My husband couldn’t come this year,” she said, in answer to his question. “We’re poor as hell. So he gave me two hundred a month and told me I could do my worst on that. . . . This your little girl?”
“What about coming back and sitting down?” Duncan asked.
“Can’t do it.” He was glad for an excuse. As always, he felt Lorraine’s passionate 62, provocative 63 attraction, but his own rhythm was different now.
“Well, how about dinner?” she asked.
“I’m not free. Give me your address and let me call you.”
“Charlie, I believe you’re sober,” she said judicially 64. “I honestly believe he’s sober, Dunc. Pinch him and see if he’s sober.”
Charlie indicated Honoria with his head. They both laughed.
“What’s your address?” said Duncan sceptically.
He hesitated, unwilling to give the name of his hotel.
“I’m not settled yet. I’d better call you. We’re going to see the vaudeville at the Empire.”
“There! That’s what I want to do,” Lorraine said. “I want to see some clowns and acrobats 65 and jugglers. That’s just what we’ll do, Dunc.”
“We’ve got to do an errand first,” said Charlie. “Perhaps we’ll see you there.”
“All right, you snob 66. . . . Good-by, beautiful little girl.”
“Good-by.”
Honoria bobbed politely.
Somehow, an unwelcome encounter. They liked him because he was functioning, because he was serious; they wanted to see him, because he was stronger than they were now, because they wanted to draw a certain sustenance 67 from his strength.
At the Empire, Honoria proudly refused to sit upon her father’s folded coat. She was already an individual with a code of her own, and Charlie was more and more absorbed by the desire of putting a little of himself into her before she crystallized utterly. It was hopeless to try to know her in so short a time.
Between the acts they came upon Duncan and Lorraine in the lobby where the band was playing.
“Have a drink?”
“All right, but not up at the bar. We’ll take a table.”
“The perfect father.”
Listening abstractedly to Lorraine, Charlie watched Honoria’s eyes leave their table, and he followed them wistfully about the room, wondering what they saw. He met her glance and she smiled.
“I liked that lemonade,” she said.
What had she said? What had he expected? Going home in a taxi afterward 68, he pulled her over until her head rested against his chest.
“Darling, do you ever think about your mother?”
“Yes, sometimes,” she answered vaguely 69.
“I don’t want you to forget her. Have you got a picture of her?”
“Yes, I think so. Anyhow, Aunt Marion has. Why don’t you want me to forget her?”
“She loved you very much.”
“I loved her too.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Daddy, I want to come and live with you,” she said suddenly.
His heart leaped; he had wanted it to come like this.
“Aren’t you perfectly 70 happy?”
“Yes, but I love you better than anybody. And you love me better than anybody, don’t you, now that mummy’s dead?”
“Of course I do. But you won’t always like me best, honey. You’ll grow up and meet somebody your own age and go marry him and forget you ever had a daddy.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she agreed tranquilly 71.
He didn’t go in. He was coming back at nine o’clock and he wanted to keep himself fresh and new for the thing he must say then.
“When you’re safe inside, just show yourself in that window.”
“All right. Good-by, dads, dads, dads, dads.”
He waited in the dark street until she appeared, all warm and glowing, in the window above and kissed her fingers out into the night.
III
 
They were waiting. Marion sat behind the coffee service in a dignified 72 black dinner dress that just faintly suggested mourning. Lincoln was walking up and down with the animation 73 of one who had already been talking. They were as anxious as he was to get into the question. He opened it almost immediately:
“I suppose you know what I want to see you about — why I really came to Paris.”
Marion played with the black stars on her necklace and frowned.
“I’m awfully 74 anxious to have a home,” he continued. “And I’m awfully anxious to have Honoria in it. I appreciate your taking in Honoria for her mother’s sake, but things have changed now” — he hesitated and then continued more forcibly — “changed radically 75 with me, and I want to ask you to reconsider the matter. It would be silly for me to deny that about three years ago I was acting 76 badly — ”
Marion looked up at him with hard eyes.
“ — but all that’s over. As I told you, I haven’t had more than a drink a day for over a year, and I take that drink deliberately 77, so that the idea of alcohol won’t get too big in my imagination. You see the idea?”
“No,” said Marion succinctly 78.
“It’s a sort of stunt 79 I set myself. It keeps the matter in proportion.”
“I get you,” said Lincoln. “You don’t want to admit it’s got any attraction for you.”
“Something like that. Sometimes I forget and don’t take it. But I try to take it. Anyhow, I couldn’t afford to drink in my position. The people I represent are more than satisfied with what I’ve done, and I’m bringing my sister over from Burlington to keep house for me, and I want awfully to have Honoria too. You know that even when her mother and I weren’t getting along well we never let anything that happened touch Honoria. I know she’s fond of me and I know I’m able to take care of her and — well, there you are. How do you feel about it?”
He knew that now he would have to take a beating. It would last an hour or two hours, and it would be difficult, but if he modulated 80 his inevitable 81 resentment 82 to the chastened attitude of the reformed sinner, he might win his point in the end.
Keep your temper, he told himself. You don’t want to be justified 83. You want Honoria.