 Part 2 of part 2 of Trilby. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Trilby by Georges de Montréal. Part 2. In a few minutes more, he asked the Laird if he knew German. Just enough to understand, said the Laird, who had spent a year in Dusseldorf, and Sven Gali said to him in German. See, she sleeps not, but she shall not open her eyes. Ask her. Are you asleep, Miss Trilby? Asked the Laird. No. Then open your eyes and look at me. She strained to open her eyes, but could not, and said so. Then Sven Gali said again in German, she shall not open her mouth. Ask her. Why couldn't you open your eyes, Miss Trilby? She strained to open her mouth, and speak, but in vain. She shall not rise from the divan. Ask her. But Trilby was spellbound, and could not move. I will now set her free, said Sven Gali. And lo! she got up, and waved her arms, and cried, Vive la Prusse, me voilà guérie! And in her gratitude she kissed Sven Gali's hand, and he leered, and showed his big brown teeth, and the yellow whites at the top of his big black eyes, and drew his breath with a hiss. Now I'll go to Durian's and sit. How can I thank you, Monsieur? You have taken all my pain away. Yes, mademoiselle, I have got it myself. It is in my elbows. But I love it, because it comes from you. Every time you have pain, you shall come to me. Twelve rue Thierlière, au sixe, au-dessus de Pontresol. And I will cure you, and take your pain myself. Oh, you are too good! And in her high spirits she turned round on her heel, and uttered her portentous war cry, Milk below! The very rafters rang with it, and the piano gave out a solemn response. What is that you say, mademoiselle? Oh, it's what the milkmen say in England. It is a wonderful cry, mademoiselle, Wunderschön. It comes straight through the heart. It has its roots in the stomach, and blossoms into music on the lips, like the voice of Madame Albani. It is good production, c'est un cri du coeur. It will be blushed with pride and pleasure. Yes, mademoiselle, I know only one person in the whole world who can produce the voice so well as you. I give you my word of honour. Who is it, monsieur, yourself? Ah no, mademoiselle, I have not that privilege. I have unfortunately no voice to produce. It is a waiter at the Café de la Rotonde in the Palais Royal. When you call for coffee, he says, BOOM! In basso profondo. Tiffe de ma effemolle below the line. It is phenomenal. It is like a cannon. A cannon also has very good production, mademoiselle. They pay him for it a thousand francs a year because he brings many customers to the Café de la Rotonde where the coffee isn't very good, although it costs three sous un caboudir, than at the Café Larçouille in the rue Flambeur-Jauvant. When he dies, they will search all France for another and then all Germany where the good waiters come from and the cannons, but they will not find him and the Café de la Rotonde will be bankrupt unless you are concerned to take his place. Will you permit that I shall look into your mouth, mademoiselle? She opened her mouth wide and he looked into it. Hemel, the roof of your mouth is like the dome of the pantheon. There is room in it for toutes les gloires de la France and a little to spare. The entrance to your throat is like the middle porch of Saint-Sulpice when the doors are open for the faithful on All Saints' Day and not one tooth is missing, thirty-two British teeth as white as milk and as big as knuckle bones and your little tongue is scooped out like the leaf of a pink peony and the bridge of your nose is like the belly of a Stradivarius. What a sounding board! And inside your beautiful big chest, the lungs are made of leather and your breath, it embalms like the breath of a beautiful white heifer fit on the buttercups and daisies of the phatolite. And you have a quick, soft, susceptible heart and a heart of gold, mademoiselle, all that sees itself in your face. Votre cœur est un lut suspendu aussitôt qu'on le touche et raisonne. What a pity you have not also the musical organisation. Oh, but I have, monsieur, you heard me sing Ben Bolt, didn't you? What makes you say that? Sven Gali was confused for a moment. Then he said, When I play the rosemonde of Schubert, mademoiselle, you look the other way and smoke a cigarette. You look at the big taffy, at the little billy, at the pictures on the walls, or out of window, at the sky, the chimney-pots of Notre-Dame de Paris, you do not look at Sven Gali, Sven Gali, who looks at you with all his eyes and plays you the rosemonde of Schubert. Oh, my eye! exclaimed Trilby, you do use lovely language. But never mind mademoiselle, when your pain arrives, then shall you come once more to Sven Gali, and he shall take it away from you and keep it himself for a souvenir of you when you are gone, and when you have it no more, the rosemonde of Schubert, all alone for you. And then, messieurs les étudiants, montez à la chaumière, because it is gayer, and you shall see nothing, hear nothing, think of nothing but Sven Gali, Sven Gali, Sven Gali. Here he felt his peroration to be so happy and effective that he thought it well to go at once and make a good exit. So he bent over Trilby's shapely freckled hand and kissed it, and bowed himself out of the room without even borrowing his five franc piece. He's a raman, ain't he? said Trilby. He reminds me of a big hungry spider and makes me feel like a fly. But he's cured my pain. He's cured my pain. Ah, you don't know what my pain is when it comes. I wouldn't have much to do with him all the same, said the Laird. I'd sooner have any pain than have it cured in that unnatural way, and by such a man as that. He's a bad fellow, Sven Gali, I'm sure of it. He mesmerised you. That's what it is. Mesmerism. I've often heard of it, but never seen it done before. They get you into their power and just make you do any blessed thing they please. Lie, murder, steal, anything, and kill yourself into the bargain when they're done with you. It's just too terrible to think of. So spake the Laird earnestly, solemnly, surprised out of his usual self and most painfully impressed. And his own impressiveness grew upon him and impressed him still more. He loomed, quite prophetic. Cold shivers went down Trilby's back as she listened. She had a singularly impressionable nature, as was shown by her quick and ready susceptibility to Sven Gali's hypnotic influence. And all that day as she posed for Durian, to whom she did not mention her adventure, she was haunted by the memory of Sven Gali's big eyes with a touch of his soft, dirty fingertips on her face. And her fear and her repulsion grew together. And Sven Gali, Sven Gali, Sven Gali, went ringing in her head and ears till it became an obsession, a dirge, a knell, an unendurable burden, almost as hard to bear as the pain in her eyes. Sven Gali, Sven Gali, Sven Gali. At last she asked Durian if he knew him. What do you think? When she says she will die, she will make a famous tombstone of her own. At Karell's. Karell's atelier or painting school was in the rue Notre-Dame des Portirons Saint-Michel, at the end of a large courtyard, where there were many large dirty windows facing north, and each window lit the light of heaven into a large dirty studio. The largest of these studios and the dirtiest was Karell's, where some 30 or 40 art students drew and painted from the nude model every day but Sunday, from 8 till 12, and for two hours in the afternoon, except on Saturdays, when the afternoon was devoted to much-needed audience sweepings and cleanings. One week the model was male, the next female, and so on, alternating through the year. A stove, a model throne, stools, boxes, some 50 strongly built low chairs with backs, a couple of score easels, and many drawing boards completed the mobilière. The bare walls were adorned with endless caricatures, des chages, in charcoal and white chalk, and also the scrapings of many pallets, polychromous decoration, not unpleasing. For the freedom of the studio and the use of the model, each student paid 10 francs a month to the macier, or senior student, the responsible bell-weather of the flock. Besides this, it was expected of you, on your entrance or initiation, that you should pay for your footing, your bienvenue, some 30, 40 or 50 francs, to be spent on cakes and rum punch all round. Every Friday, M. Karell, a great artist and also a stately, well-dressed and most courteous gentleman, duly decorated with the red rosette of the Legion of Honor, came for two or three hours and went around spending a few minutes at each drawing board or easel, 10 or even 12 when the pupil was an industrious and promising one. He did this for love, not money, and deserved all the reverence with which he inspired this somewhat irreverent and most unruly company, which was made up of all sorts. Greybeards, who had been drawing and painting there for 30 years or more, and remembered other masters than Karell, and who could draw and paint a torso almost as well as Taishan or Velaske, almost but not quite, and who could never do anything else and were fixtures at Karell's for life. Younger men, who in a year or two, or three or five, or ten or twenty, were bound to make their mark and perhaps follow in the footsteps of the master. Others as conspicuously singled out for failure and future mischance. For the hospital, the girth, the river, the morgue, or worse, the traveller's bag, the road, or even the paternal counter. Irresponsible boys, all laugh and chuff and mischief, blague, baguille, Parisian, little lords misrule, wits, buts, bullies, the idle and industrious apprentice, the good and the bad, the clean and the dirty, especially the latter, all more or less animated by certain esprit de corps, and working very happily and genially together on the whole and always willing to help each other with sincere artistic counsel if it was asked for seriously, though it was not always couched in terms very flattering to one's self-love. Before Little Billy became one of this band of brothers, he had been working for three or four years in a London art school, drawing and painting from the life. He had also worked from the antique in the British Museum, so that he was no novice. As he made his debut at Carrell's one Monday morning, he felt somewhat shy and ill at ease. He had studied French most earnestly at home in England and could read it pretty well and even write it and speak it after a fashion, but he spoke it with much difficulty and found studio French at different language altogether from the formal and polite language he had been at such pains to acquire. Allendorf does not cater for the Cartier-Latin. Acting on Taffy's advice, for Taffy had worked under Carrell, Little Billy handed sixty francs to the macier for his bienvenue, a lordly sum, and this liberality made a most favourable impression and went far to destroy any little prejudice that might have been caused by the daintiness of his dress, the cleanliness of his person and the politeness of his manners. A place was assigned to him and an easel and a board, for he elected to stand at his work and begin with a chalk drawing. The model, a male, was posed and work began in silence. Monday mornings is always rather sulky everywhere, except perhaps in duty. During the ten minutes rest, three or four students came and looked at Little Billy's beginnings and saw at a glance that he thoroughly well knew what he was about and respected him for it. Nature had given him a singularly light hand or rather two, for he was ambidextrous and could use both with equal skill and a few months' practice at a London life school had quite cured him of that purposeless indecision of touch which often characterises the apprentice hand for years of apprenticeship and remains with the amateur for life. The lightest and most careless of his pencil strokes had a precision that was inimitable and a charm that especially belonged to him and was easy to recognise at a glance. His touch on either canvas or paper was like Spengalis on the keyboard, unique. As the morning ripened, little attempts at conversation were made, little breakings of the eyes of silence. It was Lambert, a youth with a singularly facetious face who first worked the stillness with the following uncalled-for remarks in English very badly pronounced. Have you seen my father's old shoes? I have not seen your father's old shoes. Then, after a pause, have you seen my father's old hat? I have not seen your father's old hat. Presently another said, je trouve qu'il a une jolie tête l'anglais. But I will put it all into English. I find that he has a pretty head, the Englishman. What say you, Pariselle? Yes, but why has he got eyes like brandy balls to a penny? Because he's an Englishman. Yes, but why has he got a mouth like a guinea pig with two big teeth in front, like the double-blank at Domino's? Because he's an Englishman. Yes, but why has he got a back without any bend in it, as if he'd swallowed the colon vendum as far up as the battle of Ausilitz? Because he's an Englishman. And so on till all the supposed characteristics of little Billy's outer man were exhausted. Then, papalard, what? I should like to know if the Englishman says his prayers before going to bed. Ask him. Ask him yourself. I should like to know if the Englishman has sisters. And if so, how old and how many and what sex? Ask him. Ask him yourself. I should like to know the detailed and circumstantial history of the Englishman's first love and how he lost his innocence. Ask him, etc., etc., etc. Little Billy conscious that he was the subject of conversation, grew somewhat nervous. Soon he was addressed directly. Didoncle, Anglais. Roi, said little Billy, Avez-vous une sœur? Oui. Est-ce qu'elle vous ressemble? Non. C'est bien dommage. Est-ce qu'elle dit ses prières le soir en se couchant? A fierce look came into little Billy's eyes and a redness to his cheeks and this particular form of overture to friendship was abandoned. Presently Lambert said, Si nous mettions l'onglet à l'échelle little Billy, who had been warned, knew what this ordeal meant. They tied you to a ladder and carried you in procession up and down the courtyard and if you were nasty about it they put you under the pump. During the next race it was explained to him that he must submit to this indignity and the ladder which was used for reaching the highest shelves around the studio was got ready. Little Billy smiled a singularly winning smile and suffered himself to be bound with such good humour that they voted it wasn't amusing and unbound him and he escaped the ordeal by ladder. Taffy had also escaped but in another way. When they tried to seize him he took up the first rappin that came to hand and using him as a kind of club he swung him about so freely and knocked down so many students and easels and drawing boards with him and made such a terrific rumpus that no one had to cry for pacts. Then he performed feats of strength of such a surprising kind that the memory of him remained in Carras Studio for years and he became a legend, a tradition, a myth. It is now said in what still remains of the Cartier-Latin that he was seven feet high and used to juggle with the massier and model as with a pair of billiard balls using only his left hand. To return to Little Billy he struck twelve, the cakes and rum punch arrived a very goodly sight that put everyone in a good temper. The cakes were of three kinds Babas, Madeleines and Savarin. Three sous apice, four pence, half penny, the set of three. No nicer cakes are made in France and they are as good in the Cartier-Latin as anywhere else. No nicer cakes are made in the whole world that I know of. You must begin with the Madeleine which is rich and rather heavy then the Baba and finish up with the Savarin which is shaped like a ring very light and flavoured with rum and then you must really leave off. The rum punch was tepid, very sweet and not a bit too strong. They dragged the model thrown into the middle and a chair was put on for Little Billy who dispensed his hospitality in a very polite and attractive manner helping the massier first and then the other greybeards in the order of their greyness and so on down to the model. Presently, just as he was about to help himself he was asked to sing them an English song. After a little praising he sang them a song about a gay cavalier who went to serenade his mistress and a ladder of ropes and a pair of masculine gloves that didn't belong to the gay cavalier but which he found in his lady's bower. A poor sort of song but it was the nearest approach to a comic song he knew. There are four verses to it and each verse is rather long. It does not sound at all funny to a French audience and even with an English one Little Billy was not good at comic songs. He was however much applauded at the end of each verse. When he had finished he was asked if he were quite sure there wasn't any more of it and they expressed a deep regret and then each student straddling on his little thick-set chair as on a horse and clasping the back of it in both hands galloped round Little Billy's throne quite seriously the strangest procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh till he cried so that he could not eat or drink. End of Part 2 Part 2 Recording by Estelle Jobson, Rome, Italy Part 3 of Part 2 of Trilby This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Estelle Jobson Trilby by George du Maurier Part 2, Part 3 Then he served more Panich and cake all round and just as he was going to begin himself Papelaire said Say you others I find that the Englishman has something of truly distinguished in the voice something of sympathetic of touching something of je ne sais quoi. Bouchardy Yes, yes, something of je ne sais quoi. That's the very phrase, n'est-ce pas vous autres? That is a good phrase that Papelaire has just invented to describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very intelligent, Papelaire. Chorus, perfect, perfect he has the genius of characterization, Papelaire. Didonk, l'anglais. Once more that beautiful song. Nous vous en prions tous. Little Billy willingly sang it again with even greater applause and again they galloped but the other way round and faster so that little Billy became quite hysterical and laughed till his sides ached. Then Dubose I find there is something of very capitous and exciting in English music of very stimulating and you, Bouchardy? Bouchardy. Oh, me! It is above all the words that I admire. They have something of passionate, of romantic. These glaives, these glaives et d'une hâte belongs to me. I don't know what that means but I love that sort of je ne sais quoi in short. Just once more, l'anglais only once the bar couplets. So he sang it a third time all four verses while they leisurely ate and drank and smoked and looked at each other nodding the solemn commendation of certain phrases in the song. Très bien, très bien Ah, voilà qui est bien réussi Et pas tant ça Très fin Etc. Etc. For stimulated by success and rising to the occasion he did his very utmost to surpass himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and histrionic drollery heedless of the fact that not one of his listeners had the slightest notion what his song was about. It was a sorry performance and it was not till he had sung it four times that he discovered the whole thing was an elaborate impromptu farce of which he was the butt and that all of his royal's bread not a crumb or a drop was left for himself. It was the old fable of the fox and the crow and to do him justice he laughed as heartily as anyone as if he thoroughly enjoyed the joke and when you take jokes in that way people soon leave off poking fun at you it is almost as good as being very big like taffy and having a collaring blue eye. Such was little Billy's first experience of Carrell's studio where he spent many happy mornings and made many good friends. No more popular student had ever worked there within the memory of the gravest greybeards none more amiable, more genial, more cheerful, self-respecting, considerate and polite and only none with greater gifts for art. Carrell would devote at least 15 minutes to him and invited him often to his own private studio and often on the fourth or fifth day of the week a group of admiring students would be gathered by his easel watching him as he worked. Such was the verdict on little Billy at Carrell's studio and I can conceive no much loftier praise. Young as she was, 17 or 18 or thereabouts and also tender, like little Billy Trillby had singularly clear and quick perceptions in all matters that concerned her tastes, fancies or affections and thoroughly knew her own mind and never lost much time in making it up. On the occasion of her first visit to the studio in the Place d'Anatole des Arts Young her just five minutes to decide that it was quite the nicest, homeliest, genialist, jolliest studio in the whole Cartier-latin or out of it and its three inhabitants individually and collectively were more to her taste than anyone else she had ever met. In the first place there were English and she loved to hear her mother tongue and speak it. It awoke all manner of tender recollections, sweet reminiscences of her childhood, her parents, her old home such a home as it was or rather such homes for there had been many flittings from one poor nest to another the O'Farrills had been as birds on the bow. She had loved her parents very dearly and indeed with all their faults there had many endearing qualities the qualities that so often go with those particular faults charm, geniality, kindness, warmth of heart the constant wish to please the generosity that comes before justice and lends its last sixpence and forgets to pay its debts. She knew other English and American artists and had sat to them frequently for the head and hands but none of these for general agreeableness of aspect or manner could compare in her mind with the stout and magnificent taffy, the jolly fat lair of Cockpen the refined, sympathetic and elegant little billy and she resolved that she would see as much of them as she could that she would make herself at home in that particular studio and necessary to its locotare and without being the least but vain or self-conscious she had no doubts whatever of her power to please to make herself both useful and ornamental if it suited her purpose to do so. Her first step in this direction was to borrow Père Martin's basket and lantern and pick he had more than one set of these trade properties for the use of taffy whom she feared she might have offended by the freedom of her comments on his picture. Then as often as she felt it to be discreet she sounded her war cry at the studio door and went in and made kind inquiries and sitting cross-legged on the model throne ate her bread and cheese and smoked her cigarette and passed the time of day as she chose to call it telling them all such news of the quartier as had come within her own immediate ken. She was always full of little stories of other studios which justice were always good-natured and probably true quite so as far as she was concerned she was the most literal person alive and she told all these rago, cancan and portin d'atelier in a quaint and amusing manner. The slightest look of gravity or boredom on one of those three faces and she made herself scarce at once. She soon found opportunities for usefulness also. If a costume were wanted for instance she knew where to borrow it or hire it or buy it cheaper than anyone anywhere else. She procured stuffs for them at cost price as it seemed and made them into draperies and female garments of any kind that was wanted and sat in them for the toreador's sweet heart. She made the mantilla herself for Taffy's starving dressmaker about to throw herself into the sen for little Billy's studies of the beautiful French peasant girl called The Picture Goes to the Well. Then she darned their socks and mended their clothes and got all their washing done properly and cheaply at her friend Madame Boises in the rue des gloîtes de Saint-Pétronie. And then again, when they were hard up and wanted a good round sum of money for some little pleasure excursion such as a tube of fontaine bleu or Barbizon for two or three days it was she who took their watches and scarvespins and things to the amount of piety in the street of love where dwelled ma tante which is French for my uncle in this connection in order to raise the necessary funds. She was of course most liberally paid for all these little services, rendered with such pleasure and goodwill. Far too liberally she thought. She would have been really happier doing them for love. Thus in a very short time she became a persona gratissima. Thus in a very short time she became a persona gratissima. A my and ever welcome vision of health and grace and liveliness an unalterable good humour always ready to take any trouble to please her beloved English as they were called by Madame Vinar the handsome shrewl-voiced concierge who was almost jealous for she was devoted to the English too and so was Monsieur Vinar and so were the little Vinar. She knew when to talk and when to laugh and when to hold her tongue and the sight of her sitting cross-legged on the model-iron darning the lead socks or sewing buttons on his shirts or repairing the smoke holes in his trousers were so pleasant that it was painted by all three. One of these sketches in watercolour little Billy sold the other day at Christie's for a sum so large that I hardly dare to mention it. It was done in an afternoon. Sometimes on a rainy day when it was decided they should come in at home she would fetch the food and cook it and lay the cloth and even make the salad. She was a better saladist than Taffy a better cook than the layered better caterer than little Billy and she would be invited to take her chair in the banquet and on these occasions her tremulous happiness was so immense that it would be quite pathetic to see almost painful and their three British hearts were touched by thoughts of all the loneliness and homelessness the expatriation and the half-conscious loss of taste that all this eager childish clinging revealed and that is why no doubt that with all this familiar intimacy there was never any hint of gallantry or flirtation in any shape or form whatever had she been little Billy's sister she could not have been treated with more real respect and her deep gratitude for this unwanted compliment transcended any passion she had ever felt the good Lafontaine so prettily says ses animaux vivaient entre eux comme cousins cette union si douce et presque fraternelle édifié tous les voisins and then their talk it was to her as the talk of the guards in Olympus saved that it was easier to understand and she could always understand it for she was a very intelligent person in spite of her woefully neglected education and most ambitious to learn a new ambition for her so they lent her books English books Dickens, Thackeray, Walter Scott which she devoured in the silence of the night the solitude of her little attic in the rue des Bouscailles and new worlds were revealed to her she grew more English every day and that was a good thing Trulbee speaking English and Trulbee speaking French were two different beings Trulbee's English was more or less that of her father the educated man her mother, who was a Scotch woman although an uneducated one had none of the ungainliness that mars the speech of so many English women in that humble rank no droppings of the age no broadening of the O's and A's Trulbee's French was that of the Cartier-Latin, Droll, Slangy Pecan, Quaint, Victurisk quite the reverse of ungainly but in which there was scarcely a turn of race that would not stamp Trulbee as being hopelessly empathically no lady though it was funny without being vulgar it was perhaps a little too funny and she handled her knife and fork in the dainty English way as no doubt her father had done and his and indeed when alone with them she was so absolutely like a lady that it seemed quite odd though very seductive to see her in a Cresets cap and dress an apron but enter a Frenchman or two and a transformation affected itself immediately a new incarnation of Trulbeness so droll and amusing that it was difficult to decide which of her two incarnations was the more attractive it must be admitted that she had her faults like little Billy for instance she would be miserably jealous of any other woman who came to the studio to sit or scrub or sweep or do anything else even of the dirty tipsy old hag who sat for taffes found drowned as if she couldn't have sat for it herself and then she would be cross and sulky but not for long an injured martyr soon ready to forgive and be forgiven she would give up any sitting to come and sit to her three English friends even Durian had serious cause for complaint then her affection was exacting she always wanted to be told and was fond of her and she dearly loved her own way even in the sewing on of buttons and the darning of socks which was innocent enough but when it came to the cutting and fashioning of garments for a toreador's bride it was a nuisance not to be born what could she know of toreador's brides and their wedding dresses the lad would indignantly ask as if he were a toreador himself and this was the aggravating side of her irrepressible Trulbeness of tenderness of her friendship she made the soft eyes at all three indiscriminately but sometimes little Billy would look up from his work as she was sitting to taffy or the lad and find her grey eyes fixed on him with an all unfolded gaze so piercingly penetratingly and utterably sweet and kind and tender such a brooding dove-like look of soft and warm solicitude that he would feel a flutter at his heart and his hand would shake so that he would not paint and in a waking dream he would remember that his mother had often looked at him like that when he was a small boy and she a beautiful young woman untouched by care or sorrow and the tear that always lay in readiness so close to the corner of little Billy's eye would find it very difficult to keep itself in its proper place unshared and at such moments the thought that Trulbe sat for the figure would go through him like a knife she did not sit promiscuously to anybody who asked it is true but she still sat to Durian to the great Jerome to Monsieur Carrelle who scarcely used any other model it was poor Trulbe's sad distinction that she surpassed all other models as Calypso surpassed her nymphs and whether by long habit or through some obtuseness in her nature or lack of imagination she was equally unconscious of self with her clothes on all without truly she could be naked and unashamed and absolute savage she would have ridden through coventry like Lady Godiva but without giving it a thought beyond wondering why the streets were empty and the shops closed and the blinds pulled down would even have looked up to peeping Tom's shutter with a friendly nod had she known he was behind it in fact she was absolutely without that kind of shame as she was without any kind of fear but she was destined soon to know both fear and need to stay to fact well known to all painters and sculptors who have used the nude model except a few shady pretenders whose purity not being of the right sort has gone rank from too much watching namely that nothing is so chaste as nudity Venus herself as she drops her garments and steps onto the model throne leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her armory by which she can pierce the world beauty the more keenly it appeals to his higher instincts and where her beauty fails as it almost always does somewhere in the venuses who sit for hire the failure is so lamentably conspicuous in the studio light the fierce light that beats on this particular throne that Don Juan himself who has not got to paint were feigned to hide his eyes in sorrow and disenchantment and fly to other climbs all beauty is sexless in the eyes of the artist at his work beauty of man the beauty of woman the heavenly beauty of the child which is the sweetest and best of all indeed it is woman, lovely woman whose beauty falls the shortest for sheer lack of proper physical training as for Trilby gee to whom she sat for his friny once told me that the sight of her thus was a thing to melt her gala had yet sober Silenus and chase and drove himself a thing to quicksotize a modern French masher I can well believe him for myself I only speak of Trilby as I have seen her, clothed and in her right mind she never sat to me any friny never bared herself to me nor did I ever dream of asking her I would as soon have asked the Queen of Spain to let me paint her legs but I have worked for many female models in many countries some of them the best of their kind who likes Bengali seen taffy trying to get himself clean either at home or in the swimming bars of the Seine and never a sitting woman among them all who could match for grace or finish or splendor of outward form that mighty Yorkshiremen sitting in his tub or sunning himself like Islesis at the Bain Henri IV or taking his running header at the Bain de Ligny with a group of wandering Frenchmen gathered round up he shot himself into midair double down with kick, parabolically then turning a splendid semi-demy somersault against the sky down he came headlong his body straight and stiff as an arrow and made his clean hole in the water without splash or sound to reappear a hundred yards farther on Saka, papier, quel guieur que c'est anglais, hein a ton jamais vu un torse pareille et les bras donc et les jambes non d'un tonnerre matin j'aimerais mieux être en colère contre lui qui ne sort en colère contre moi et cetera, et cetera, et cetera omne ignorantum pro magnifico end of part 3, part 2 recording by Estelle Jobson Rome, Italy part 4 of part 2 of Trilby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jersey City Frankie Trilby by George de Morier part 2nd part 4 if our climate were such that we could go about without any clothes on we probably should in which case although we should still murder and lie and steal and bear false witness against their neighbor and break the Sabbath day and take the Lord's name in vain much deplorable wickedness of another kind would cease to exist for sheer lack of mystery and in Christianity would be relieved of its hardest task in this sinful world and Venus Aphrodite alias Asylgia would have to go a begging along with the tailors and the dressmakers and bootmakers and perhaps our bodies and limbs would be as those of thethesias and Venus of Milo who was no Venus except in good looks at all events there would be no cunning cruel deceptions no artful taking in of artless inexperience duly hurried waking up from love's young dream no handing down to posterity of hidden ugliness and weakness and worse and also many a flower now born to blush on scene would be reclaimed from its desert and suffered to hold its own and flaunt away with the best in the inner garden of roses and poor Miss Gale the figure model would be permitted to eke out her slender earnings by teaching calisthenics and deportment to the daughters of the British upper middle class at Miss Pinkerton's and a few young ladies the mall, Chiswick and here let me humbly apologize to the casual reader for the length and possible irrelevancy of this digression and for its subject to those who may find matter for sincere disapprobation or even grave offence in a thing that has always seemed to me so simple so commonplace as to be hardly worth talking or writing about I can only plead sincerity equal to theirs and as deep a love and reverence for the gracious, goodly shape that is God said to have made after his own image for inscrutable purposes of his own. Nor indeed am I pleading for such a subversive and revolutionary measure as the wholesale abolition of clothes being the chilliest of mortals and quite unlike Mr. Theseus or Mr. Ilses either. Sometimes Chilby would bring her little brother to the studio and the Plas St. Entholde's arts in his bow, habits de pelix his hair well curled and palm attumed, his hands and face well washed. He was a very engaging little mortal. The Laird would fill his pockets full of scotch goodies and paint him as a little Spaniard. In the Phil's Deutoriador, a sweet little Spaniard with blue eyes and curly locks his lightest toe, and a complexion of milk and roses in singular and frequent contrast to his swarthy progenitors. Taffy would use him as an Indian club or dumbbell to the child's infinite delight trapeze and teach him la box. And the sweetness and fun of his shrill happy infantile laughter which was like an echo of Trilby's only an octave higher. Some moved and touched and tickled one that Taffy had to look quite fierce so he might hide the strange delight of tenderness that somehow filled his manly bosom at the mere sound of it. Less little Billy and the Laird should think him goody goody. In the fiercer Taffy looked, the less the small mite was afraid of him. Billy made a beautiful watercolour sketch of him just as he was and gave it to Trilby who gave it to LePierre Martin who gave it to his wife with strict instructions not to sell it as an old master. Alas it is an old master now and heaven only knows who has got it. Those were happy days for Trilby's little brother, happy days for Trilby who was immensely fond of him and very proud and the happiest day of all was when the Trois Angliques took Trilby and Gino or so the mite was called to spend the Sunday in the woods at Moudon and breakfast and dine at the Gard Champ Trés swings, peep shows, donkey rides, shooting at a mark with crossbows and little pellets of clay and smashing little plaster figures in winning macaroons, losing oneself in the beautiful forest catching notes and tadpoles and young frogs, making music on merlotons. Trilby singing Ben Bolt into a merlotron was a thing to be remembered, whether one would or no. Trilby on this occasion came out in a new character in demacel with a little black bonnet and a gray jacket of her own making. To look at, but for her loose square toe, the healless silk boots laced up to the inner side she might have been the daughter of an English dean until she undertook to teach the Laird some favorite can-can steps and then the Laird himself it must be admitted no longer like the son of a worthy god-fearing Sabbath-keeping scotch solicitor. This was after dinner in the garden at L'Eloge de Graire-Chemptres. Taffy and Gino and little Billy made the necessary music on their merlotons and the dancing soon became general with plenty also to look on for the guard had many customers who dined there on summer Sundays. It is no exaggeration to say that Trilby was far and away the bell of that particular ball and there have been most finer company and far plainer women. Trilby lightly dancing the can-can there are can-cans and can-cans was a singularly gainly and seductive person at Vera Insis Petite here again she was funny without being vulgar and from mere grace even in a can-can she was the forerunner of Miss Kate Vaughn and for sheer fun the precursor of Miss Nelly Farron and the Laird trying to dance after her song Le Can-Can as he called it was too funny for words and of genuine popular success as a true test of humor no greater humorous ever danced apaceol what Englishmen could do in France during the 50s and yet managed to preserve their self-respect and even the respect of their respectable French friends. Voila les spies de Horn-Care-Gères-Suit said the Laird. Every time he bowed in acknowledgement of the applause that greeted his performance of his own scotch reels and sword dancing that came in admirably then one fine day as a judgment on him no doubt the Laird fell ill and the doctor had to be sent for and he ordered a nurse but she would hear of no nurses not even a sister of charity she did all the nursing herself and never slept a wink for three successive days and nights on the day the Laird was out of all danger the delirium was passed and the doctor found poor Trilby fast asleep on the bedside. Madame Venaired at the bedroom door put her fingers to her lips and whispered Quelle bonne hier Il est suave m'émilèvre docteur excoutse il dit ses prières in anglice s'est breuve graton The good old doctor who didn't understand a word of English listened and heard the Laird's voice weak and low but quite clear and full of heartfelt fervour intoning solemnly green herbs red peppers, mussels, saffron peels, onions, garlic roach and dace all these you eat at terraced heaven in that one dish of bouillabaisse Ah mes quesques trades bien de ses parcs et braves jean homes Render gratous et quel Quelle grande l'église est pass Très bien, très bien Septic and Voltaire as he was and not the friend of prayer the good doctor was touched for he was old and therefore kind and made allowances and afterwards he said such sweet things to Trilby about it all and about her admirable care of his patient that she positively wept with delight like sweet Alice with hair so brown whenever Ben Bolt gave her a smile All this sounds very goody goody but it is true so we'll be easily understood now that Très and Glitches came in time to feel for Trilby quite a peculiar regard and look forward with sourful forebodings to the day when this singular would have to be broken up each of them to spread his wings and fly away on his own account and poor Trilby to be left behind all by herself they would even frame little plans whereby she might better herself in life and avoid the many snares and pitfalls that would be set her lonely path in the Quartier Latin when they were gone Trilby never thought of such things as these she took short views of life and troubled herself about no morrows one jarring figure in her little fool's paradise a baleful and most ominous figure that constantly crossed her path and came between her and the sun and threw its shadow over her and that was Sven Galli he also was a frequent visitor at the studio in the Place Saint-Antoine where much was forgiven him for the sake of his music especially when he came with Gekko and they made music together but it soon became apparent that they did not come there to play to the three anglichés it was to see Trilby whom they both had taken it into their heads to adore each in a different fashion Gekko with a humble dog-like worship that expressed itself in mute pathetic deference and looks of lowly self-deprecation of apology for his own unworthy existence and as though the only requital that he would ever dare to dream of were a word of decent politeness a glance of tolerance or goodwill a mere bone to a dog Sven Galli was a bolder wooer when he cringed it was with a mock humility full of sardonic threats when he was playful it was with a terrible playfulness like that of a cat with a mouse a weird ungainly cat and most unclean a sticky haunted long lean uncanny black spider cat if there is such an animal outside of a bad dream it was a great grievance to him she had suffered from no more pains in her eyes she had but preferred to endure them rather than seek relief from him so he would playfully try to mesmerize her with his glance and sidle up nearer and nearer to her making passes and counter passes with stern command in his eyes till she would shake and shiver and almost second with fear and all but feel the spell come over her as in a nightmare and rouse herself with a great effort and escape if taffy were there he would interfere with a friendly now then old fellow none of that and a jolly slap on the back which would make Svengali cough for an hour and paralyze his mesmeric powers for a week Svengali had a stroke of good fortune he played at three grand concerts with gecko and had a well deserved success he even gave a concert of his own which made a furor and blossomed out into a beautiful and costly clothes of quite original color and shape and pattern so that people would turn around and stare at him in the street a thing he loved he felt his fortune was secure and ran into debt with tailors hatters, shoemakers, jewelers but paid none of his old debts to his friends his pockets were always full of printed slips things that had been written about him in the papers and he would read them aloud to everybody he knew especially to trilby as she sat darning socks on the model throne while the fencing and boxing were in train and he would lay his fame and his fortune at her feet so that she should share her life with him ah, Kimmel, trilby he would say, you don't know what it is to be a great pianist like me, bien what is your little Billy with his stinking oil-bladder sitting mum in his corner his moth-stick in his palate in one hand and his twiddled little footer-pig's hair-brush in the other what noise does he make when his little fool of a picture is finished he will send it to London and they will hang it out a wall with a lot of others they will go out for inspection and the yawning public will walk by in procession and inspect and say, damn Sven Galli will go to London himself ha ha, he will be all alone on a platform and play as nobody else can play and hundreds of beautiful English-Sharonin will see and hear and go mad with love for him Princeson, Comteson, Serene English-Alteson they will soon lose their serenity and their highness when they hear Sven Galli they will invite him to their palaces and pay him a thousand francs to play for them and after he will lull in the best armchair and they will sit all round him on footstools and bring him tea and gin and kitchen and Marvin's glaces and lean over him and fan him for he is tired after playing them for a thousand francs of shoppin ha ha ha now all about it, heen and he will not look at them even he will look inward at his own dream and his dream will be about Drillby to lay his talent, his glory his thousand francs at her beautiful white feet their stupid big fat toe-headed, putty-nose husbands will be mad with jealousy and long debox him but they will be afraid those beautiful Anclesis they will think in honor to mend his shirts to sew buttons on his pantaloons to darn his socks as you are doing now for that sacred imbecile of a Scotsman who is always trying to paint toreadors or that sweating, pig-headed bullock of an Englander who is always trying to get himself dirty and then to get himself clean again eh de capo himo what big socks are those, what potato sacks look at your taffy what is he good for but to bang great musicians on the back with his big bare paws he finds that droll the bollock look at your Frenchman there your damn conceited verflouche pig-dogs of Frenchman durin, birzil, butchardy what can a Frenchman talk of heen only himself and run down everybody else his vanity makes me sick he always thinks the world is talking about him, the fool he forgets that there is a fellow called Sven Gali for the world to talk about I tell you, droppy, it is about me the world is talking, me and no one else me, me, me listen what they say in La Figuero reads it what do you think of that, heen what would your durian say if people wrote of him like that but you are not listening except for meant great big she-fool that you are sheepshead, doomcoff you are looking at the chimney-pots when Sven Gali talks look a little lower down between the houses on the other side of the river there is a little ugly grey building there and inside are eight slanting slabs of brass all in a row like beds in a school dormitory and one fine day you shall lie asleep on one of those slabs you, droppy, who would not listen to Sven Gali and therefore lost him and over the middle of you will be a little leather apron and over your head a little brass tap and all day long and all night the cold water shall trickle, trickle, trickle all the way down your beautiful white body to your beautiful white feet till they turn green and your poor, damp, draggily muddy rags will hang above you from the ceiling for your friends to know you by drip, drip, drip you will have no friends and people of all sorts strangers will stare at you through the big plate glass window englanders, chiffonières painters and sculptors, workmen pui pui, old hags of washer women and say ah, what a beautiful woman was that, look at her she ought to be rolling in her carriage and pair and just then who should come by rolling in his carriage and pair smothered in furs and smoking a big cigar of Havana but Sven Gali who will jump out and push the canali aside and say ha ha that is the grand, droppy who would not listen to Sven Gali but looked at the chimney pots of his manly love and hey, damn it Sven Gali, what the devil are you talking about to Trilby about? you're making her sick can't you see, leave off and go to the piano man or I'll come and slap you on the back again thus would that sweating, pig-headed bullock of an englander stop Sven Gali's love-making and release Trilby from bad quarters of an hour then Sven Gali, who had a wholesome dread of the pig-headed bullock would go to the piano and make impossible discords and say dear Trilby, come and sing penpal, I'm thirsting for those so beautiful chest notes, come poor Trilby needed little pressing when she was asked to sing and would go through her lamentable performance to the great discomfort of little Billy it lost nothing of its grotesqueness from Sven Gali's accompaniment which was a triumph of cacophony and he would encourage her trispin, trispin, siest when it was over Sven Gali would test her ear as he called it and strike the C in the middle and then F just above and ask which was the highest and she would declare they were both exactly the same it was only when he struck a note in the base and another in the treble that she could perceive any difference and said that the first sounded like Perry Martin blowing up his wife and the second like her little godson trying to make the peace between them she was quite tone deaf and didn't know it and he would pay her extravagant compliments on her musical talent till Tathie would say look here Sven Gali let's hear you sing a song and he would tickle him so masterfully with his ribs that the creature howled and became quite hysterical then Sven Gali would vent his love of teasing on little Billy and pin his arms behind his back and swinging him round saying Imel, what's this for an arm? it's like a girl's it's strong enough to paint said little Billy and what's this for a leg? it's like a matchstick it's strong enough to kick if you don't leave off said little Billy the young and tender would let out his little heel and kick the German shins and just as the German was going to retaliate Big Tathie would pin his arms and make him sing another song much more discordant than Trilby's for he didn't dream of kicking Tathie of that you may be sure such was Sven Gali only to be endured for the sake of his music always ready to vex, frighten, bully or torment anyone or anything smaller and weaker than himself from a woman or a child to a mouse or fly End of part 2 Recording by Jersey City Frankie Part 1 of Part 3 of Trilby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Eric V Trilby by Georges Dumourier Part 3 Part 1 One lovely morning in late September at about 11 or so Tathie and the Lea sat in the studio each opposite his picture smoking, nosing his knee and saying nothing The heaviness of Monday weighed on their spirits more than he thought than he thought he thought he thought he thought he thought the Sweden lives of Monday weighed on their spirits more than usual for the three friends had returned late on the previous night from a week spent at Barbizon and in the forests of Fontainebleu a heavenly week amongst the painters usau, millets, coraux bobigny let us suppose and others less know and to fame to this day little Billy especially had been fascinated by all this artistic life in blouses and sabote Panama's, and had sworn to himself and to his friends that he would some day live and be there, painting the forest as it is, and peopling it with beautiful people out of his own fancy, leading a healthy outdoor life of simple wants and lofty aspirations. At length, Taffy said, For the work this morning, I feel much more like a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens and launch at the Café de Lodion, where the omelettes are good and the wine isn't blue. The very thing I was thinking of myself, said the lad. So, Taffy slipped on his old shooting jacket and his old Harrow cricket cap, with a peak turned the wrong way, and the lad put on an old great coat of Taffy's that reached up to his heels, and a battered straw hat that they had found in the studio when they took it, and both sell it forth into the mellow sunshine on the way to Carol's. For they meant to seduce little Billy from his work, that he might share their laziness, greediness, and general demoralisation. And whom should they meet, coming down the narrow, turreted Rue Vie des Trois mauvais Ladres, but little Billy himself, with an air of general demoralisation so tragic they were quite alarmed. He had his paint box and field easel in one hand, and his little valise in the other. He was pale, his hat on the back of his head, his hair starting at all sixes and sevens, like a six-scotch terriers. Good Lord, what's the matter? said Taffy. All alas, she's sitting at Carol's. Who's sitting at Carol's? Trilby, sitting to all those ruffians, there she was, just as I opened the door. I saw her, I tell you. The sight of her was like a blow between the eyes, and I bolted. I shall never go back to that beastly hole again. I'm off to Barbizon to paint the forest. I was coming round to tell you. Goodbye. Stop a minute, are you mad? Said Taffy, colouring him. Let me go, Taffy, let me go, damn it. I'll come back in a week, but I'm going now. Let me go to you here. But look here, I'll go with you. No, I want to be alone, quite alone. Let me go, I tell you. I shan't let you go unless you swear to me, on your honour, that you're right till you get there, and every day you get back, swear. All right, I swear, on a bright, now there. Goodbye, goodbye, back on Sunday, goodbye. And he was off. Now what the devil does that mean? Asked Taffy, much perturbed. I suppose he's shocked at seeing Trilby in that geyser, this geyser, un-geys, sitting at Carol's. He's such an old little chap, and I must say I'm surprised at Trilby. That's a bad thing for heroin, we're away. What could have enthused her? She's never sat in a studio of that kind before. I thought she only sat to dirty in an old carol. They walked for a while in silence. Do you know I've got a horrid idea, the little fool said love with her. I've long had a horrid idea that she's in love with him. That would be a very stupid business, said Taffy. They walked on brooding over those two horrid ideas, and the more they brooded, considered, and remembered, the more convinced they became that both were right. I hear some pretty cattle are fish, said the lad, and talking of fish, let's go and lunch. And so demoralized were they that Taffy ate three omelettes without thinking, and the lad drank two half-bottles of wine and Taffy three. And they walked about the whole of that afternoon for fear Trilby should come to the studio, and were very unhappy. This is how Trilby came to sit at Carol's studio. Carol had suddenly taken it into his head that he would spend a week there and paint a figure among his pupils that they might see and paint with, and if possible, like him. And he had asked Trilby as a great favor to be the model. And Trilby was so devoted to the great Carol that she readily consented. So that Monday morning found her there, and Carol posed her as Ingress' famous figure in his picture called La Source, holding an earthenware picture on her shoulder. And the work began in religious silence. Then, in five minutes or so, little Billy came bursting in, and as soon as he caught sight of her, he stopped and stood as one petrified, his shoulders up, his eyes staring. Then, lifting his arms, he turned and fled. "'Qu'est-ce qu'il a donc?' so little Billy exclaimed one or two students, for they had turned his nickname into French. "'Perhaps he's forgotten something,' said another. "'Perhaps he's forgotten the brush his teeth and part his hair. "'Perhaps he has forgotten to say his prayers,' said Parizelle. "'He'll come back, I hope,' exclaimed the master. And the incident gave rise to no further comment. But Trilby was much disquieted and fell to wondering what on earth was the matter. At first she wandered in French, French of the Cartier-Latin. She had not seen little Billy for a week and wondered if he were ill. She had looked forward so much to his painting her, painting her beautifully, and hoped he would soon come back and lose no time. And then she began to wander in English, nice clean English of the studio in the Place de Saint-Anato-des-Arts, her father's English, and suddenly a quick thought pierced her through and through and made the flesh tingle on her insteps in the backs of her hands and bathed her brow in temples with sweat. She had good eyes and little Billy had a singularly expressive face. Could it possibly be that he was shocked at seeing her sitting there? She knew that he was peculiar in many ways. She remembered that neither he nor Taffy nor the lead had ever asked her to sit for the figure, though she would have been only too delighted to do so for them. She also remembered how little Billy had always been silent whenever she alluded to her posing for the Autogadère, as she called it, and had sometimes looked pained and always very grave. She turned alternately pale and red, pale and red, all over again and again, as the thought grew up in her and soon the growing thought became a torment. This newborn feeling of shame was unendurable. It's birth a travail that racked and rent every fiber of her moral being, and she suffered agonies beyond anything she had ever felt in her life. What is the matter with you, my child? Are you ill? asked Carol, who, like everyone else, was very fond of her and to whom she had sat as a child. L'enfance de Ciche, now in Luxembourg Gallery, was painted from her. She shook her head and the work went on. Presently, she dropped her picture. That broke into bits. And putting two hands to her face, she burst into tears and sobs. And there, to the amazement of everybody, she stood crying like a big baby. La source au larme? What is the matter, my poor dear child? said Carol, jumping up and helping her off the throne. Oh, I don't know, I don't know. I'm ill, very ill, let me go home. And with the kind solicitude and dispatch, they helped her on with her clothes and Carol sent for a cab and took her home. And on the way, she dropped her head on his shoulder and wept and told him all about it as well as she could, and was sure Carol had tears in his eyes too and wished to heaven, he had never induced her to sit for the figure either then or at any other time. And pondering deeply and sorrowfully on such terrible responsibility, he had grown up, thought as of his own. He went back to the studio and in an hour's time, they'd got another model and another picture and went to work again. So the picture went to the well once more. And Trillby, as she laid his concerted on her bed all that day in the next and all the next again, thought of her past life with agonies of shame and remorse that made the pain in her eyes seem as a light and welcome relief, for it came and tortured worse and lasted longer than it had ever done before. But she soon found to her miserable bewilderment that mind aches are the worst of all. Then she decided she must rise to one of the Trois Anglices and chose the Laird. She was more familiar with him than with the other two. It was impossible not to be familiar with the Laird if he liked one as he was so easy-going and demonstrative for all that he was such a canny Scott. Then she had nursed him through his illness. She'd often hugged and kissed him before the whole studio full of people. And even when quite alone with him, it always seemed natural for her to do so. It was like a child caressing a favourite young uncle or elder brother. And though the good Laird was the least susceptible of mortals, he would often find these innocent blandishments to somewhat trying ordeal. She had never taken such a liberty with taffy and as her little Billy, she would sooner have died. And so she wrote to the Laird. I give her letter without the spelling which was often faulty, that her nightly readings had much to improve that. My dear friend, I am very unhappy. I was sitting at Carol's in the rue de Pote Tyron and little Billy came in and was so shocked and disgusted, he ran away and never came back. I saw it all in his face. I sat there because Monsieur Carol asked me to. He has always been very kind to me, Monsieur Carol, ever since I was a child and I would do anything to please him but never that again. He was there too. I never thought anything about sitting before. I sat first as a child to Monsieur Carol. Mama made me and made me promise not to tell Papa and so I didn't. It soon seemed as natural to sit for people as to run errands for them or wash and mend their clothes. Papa wouldn't have liked my doing that either though he wanted the money badly and so he never knew. I have sat for the altogether to several other people besides Monsieur Jerome, Durien, the two Enquins and Ernille Baratier and for heads and ends to lots of people and for feet only to Charles Ford, André Besson, Mathieu Dumoulin and Colinet, nobody else. It seemed as natural for me to sit as for a man. Now I see the awful difference. I have done dreadful things besides as you must know as all the Cartier knows Baratier and Besson, but not Durien. Though people think so, nobody else I swear except almost your punk at the beginning who was Mama's friend. It makes me almost of the shame and misery to think of it. For that's not like sitting. I knew our own it was all along and there is no excuse for me none. Though lots of people do as bad and nobody in the Cartier seem to think any the worse of them. If you and Taffy and little Billy cut me, I really think I shall go mad and die. Without your friendship, I shouldn't care to live a bit. Oh dear Sandy, I love your little finger better than any man or woman I ever met. And little Taffy's and little Billy's little fingers too. What shall I do? I dare not go out for fear of meeting one of you. Will you come and see me? I am never going to sit again, not even for the face and hands. I am going to go back to being a blanchisseuse de faim with my old friend Angel Bois who is getting on very well indeed in a rue de cloître Saint-Pétronie. You will come and see me, won't you? I shall be in all day till you do. Or else I will meet you somewhere if you will tell me where and when. Or else I will go and see you in the studio if you are sure to be alone. You don't keep me waiting long for an answer. You don't know what I am suffering. You're ever-loving, faithful friend, Trilby of Farrell. She sent this letter by hand and the lad came in less than 10 minutes after she had sent it. And she hugged and kissed and cried over him so that he was almost ready to cry himself. But he burst out laughing instead, which was better and more in his line and very much more comforting. And talked to her so nicely and kindly and naturally that by the time he left her humble attic in the rue de Pousquet, her very aspect, which had quite shocked him when he first saw her, had almost become what it usually was. The little room under the leds with its sloping roof and mansard window was a scrupulously neat and clean as if its tenant had been a holy sister who taught the noble daughters of France at some convent of the Sacred Heart. There were nasturtiums and mignonnettes on the outer window sill and convolvulus was trained to climb around the window. As she sat by his side on a narrow white bed, clasping and stroking his painty turpentine hand and kissing it every five minutes, he talked to her like a father, as he told Taffy afterwards, and scolded her for having been so silly as not to send for him directly or come to the studio. He said how glad he was, how glad they would all be that she was going to give up sitting for the figure. Not of course that there was any real harm in it, but it was better not. And especially how happy it would make them feel she intended to live straight for the future. Little Billy was to remain at Barbizon for a little while, but she must promise to come and dine with Taffy and himself that very day and cook the dinner. And when he went back to his picture, Lenostetriador, saying to her as he left, a ce soir donc, mis satonaire de non de Dieu, he left the happiest woman and the whole litan courtier behind him, she had confessed and had been forgiven. And with shame and repentance and confession and forgiveness had come a strange new feeling that of a dawning self-respect. Here the two for trilby, self-respect had meant little more than the mere cleanliness of her body, in which she had always reveled. Alas, it was one of the conditions of a humble calling. It now meant another kind of cleanliness and she would luxuriate in it forevermore. And the dreadful past, never to be forgotten by her, should be so lived down as in time perhaps to be forgotten by others. The dinner that evening was a memorable one for trilby. After she had washed up the knives and forks and plates and dishes, she put them by, she sat and sewed. She wouldn't even smoke her cigarettes, it reminded her so of things and scenes she now hated. No more cigarettes for trilby, oh feral. They all talked of little Billy. She heard about the way he had been brought up, about his mother and sister, the people he had always lived among. She also heard and her heart alternately rose and sank as she listened, what his future was likely to be and how rare his genius was and how great if his friends were to be trusted. Fame and fortune would soon be his. Such fame and fortune has fallen to the lot of very few unless anything should happen to spoil his promise and mar his prospects in life and ruin a splendid career. And the rising of the heart was all for him the sinking for herself. How could she ever hope to be even the friend of such a man? Might she ever hope to be his servant, his faithful, humble servant? Little Billy spent a month at Barbizon and when he came back it was with such a brown face that his friends hardly knew him and he brought with him such studies as made his friends sit up. The crushing sense of their own hopeless inferiority was lost in wonder at his work in love and enthusiasm for the workman. There little Billy, so young and tender, so weak of body, so strong of purpose, so warm of heart, so light of hand, so keen and quick and piercing of brain and eye was their master to be stuck on a pedestal and looked up to and bowed down to to be watched and warden worshipped forevermore. When Trilby came in from her work at sex and he shook hands with her and said, hello Trilby. Her face turned pale to the lips. Her underlip quivered and she gazed down at him for she was among the tallest of her sex with such a moist, hungry, wide-eyed look of humble, craving adoration that the lad felt his worst fears were realized and the look little Billy sent up in return filled the manly bosom of taffy with an equal apprehension. Then they all four went and dined together at Le Pertrain and Trilby went back to her Blanchiserie de Fin. Next day little Billy took his work to show Carol and Carol invited him to come and finish his picture. The picture goes to the well at his own private studio an unheard-of favor which the boy accepted with a thrill of proud gratitude and affectionate reverence. So little was seen for some time of little Billy at the studio at the Place de Saint-Denis-Désir and little of Trilby. The Blanchiserie de Fin has not many minutes to spare from her irons but they often met at dinner and on Sunday mornings Trilby came to repair the lad's linen and darn his socks and looked after his little comforts as usual and spend a happy day. And on Sunday afternoons the studio would be as lively as ever with the fencing and the boxing, the piano playing and fiddling all as it used to be. And week by week the friends noticed a gradual and subtle change in Trilby. She was no longer slangy in French unless it were now and then by a slip of the tongue. No longer so facetious and growl and yet she seemed even happier than she'd ever seemed before. Also she grew thinner, especially in the face where the bones of her cheeks and jaws began to show themselves and these bones were constructed on such right principles as were those of her brow and chin and the bridge of her nose that the improvement was astonishing, almost inexplicable. Also, she lost her freckles as the summer waned and she herself went less into the open air and she let her hair grow and made of it a small knot at the back of her head and showed her little flat ears which were very charming and just in the right place, very far back and rather high, little Billy could not have placed them better himself. Also, her mouth, always too large, took on a firmer and sweeter outline and her big British teeth were so white and regular that even the Frenchmen forgave them with their British bigness and a new soft brightness came into her eyes that no one had ever seen there before. They were stars, just twin grey stars or rather planets, just thrown off by some new sun for the steady mellow light they gave her was not entirely their own. Favourite types of beauty chained with each succeeding generation. These were the days of Buckner's aristocratic album beauties with lofty foreheads, oval faces, little aquiline noses, heart-shaped little mouths, soft dimpled chins, drooping shoulders and long side ringlets that fell over them. The Lady Arabella's and the Lady Clementina's, Mozidora's and Medora's, a type that will perhaps come back to us someday may the present scribe be dead. Trilby's type would be indefinitely more admired now than in the 50s. Her photograph would be in the shop windows, so Edward Byrne-Jones, if I may make so bold as to say so, would perhaps have marked her for his own in spite of her almost too exuberant joyousness and irrepressible vitality. Rosetti might have evolved another new formula from her. So John Millet, another old one of the kind that is always new and never sate snor-pawls, like Clyde, let us say, ever old and ever new as love itself. Trilby's type was in singular contrast to the type Gavarni had made so popular in the Latin Quarter at the period we are writing of so that those who fell so readily under her charm were rather apt to wonder why. Moreover, she was thought much too tall for her sex and in her day and in her station in life and especially for the country she lived in, she hardly looked up to a bold gendarm and a bold gendarm was nearly as tall as Dragon de la Garde, who was nearly as tall as an average English policeman. It's not that she was a giant test by any means, she was about as tall as Miss Ellen Terry and that is a charming height, I think. End of part one, part third, recording by Eric V, Johannesburg, South Africa. Part two of part third of Trilby. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jersey City Frankie. Trilby by George DeMaurier. Part third, part two. One day Taffy remarked to the Laird, hang it, I'm blessed if Trilby isn't the handsomest woman I know. She looks like a grande dame masquerading as a grissette, almost like a joyful saint at times. She's lovely by Jove. I couldn't stand her hugging me as she does you. There'd be a tragedy, say the slaughter of little Billy. Ah, Taffy, my boy, rejoined the Laird. When those long sisterly arms around my neck it isn't me she's hugging. And then, said Taffy, what a trump she is. Why, she's as upright and straight and honourable as a man. And what she says to one about oneself is always so pleasant to hear. That's Irish, I suppose. And what's more, it's always true. Ah, that scotch, said the Laird, and tried to wink at little Billy, but little Billy wasn't there. Even Sven Galli perceived the strange metamorphosis. Ah, Trilby, he would say on a Sunday afternoon. How beautiful you are. It drives me mad, I adore you. I like you thinner. You have such beautiful bones. Why do you not answer my letters? What, you did not read them? You burned them? And yet I, done or whether I forgot, the Grissettes of the Quarter Latin have not learned how to read or write. They have only learned how to dance the can-can with the dirty little pig-dog monkeys they call men. Sacrament, we will teach the little pig-dog monkeys to dance something else some day, we Germans. We will make music for them to dance to. Born, born. Better than the waiter at the cafe de la Routaine. And the Grissettes of the Quarter Latin shall pour us out your little white wine, fa-tre-petite-fine-plain, as your pig-dog monkey of a poet says. Your rotten, verfluch-de-moussette. Who has got such a spender future behind him? Ba. What do you know of Monsieur Alfred de Moussette? We've got a poet too, my druby. His name is Heinrich Heen. If he's still alive, he lives in Paris in a little street off the Champs-de-Lisée. He lies in bed all day long and only sees out of one eye like the Contes Hanhan. He adores French Gazette. He married one. Her name is Matilda, and she has gotten suppin' fussin' like you. He would adore you too for your beautiful bones. He would like to count them one by one, for he is very playful, like me, Ack. And Ack, what a beautiful skeleton you will make. And very soon too, because you don't smile on your madly-loving Svangali. You burn his letters without reading them. You shall have a nice little mahogany glass case all to yourself in the museum of the occult medicine, and Svangali shall come in his new fur-lined coat, smoking his big cigar of the Havana, and push the dirty carabines out of the way, and look through the holes of your eyes into your stupid, empty skull, and up the nostrils of your high, bony-sounding board of a nose without either a tip or a lip to it, and into the roof of your big mouth with your 32 big English teeth, and between your big ribs into your big chest with a big letter lungs used to be, and say, Ack, what a pity she had no more music on her than a big Tomcat. And then he will look all down your bones to your poor, crumbling feet, and say, Ack, what a fool she was not to answer Svangali's letter, and the dirty carabiner shall shut up, use sacred fool, or I'll pressure soon spoil your skeleton for you. Thus the short-tempered taffy who had been listening. Then Svangali, scowling, would play Chopin's funeral march more divinely than ever, and where the pretty soft part comes in he would whisper to Trilby, that is Svangali coming to look at you in your little mahogany glass case. And here let me say that these vicious imaginations of Svangali's, which look so tame in English print, sounded much more ghastly and French, pronounced with a Hebrew-German accent, and uttered in his horse rasping nasal, throaty Rookscaw, his big yellow teeth barring themselves in a mongrel canine snarl, his heavy upper eyelids drooping over his insolent black eyes. Besides which, as he played the lovely melody, he would go through a ghoulish pantomime as though he were taking stock of the different bones in her skeleton, with greedy but discriminating approval. And when he came down to the feet, he was almost droll in the intensity of his terrible realism. But Trilby did not appreciate his exquisite fooling and felt cold all over. He seemed to her a dread powerful demon, who but for taffy, who alone could hold him in check, oppressed and weighed on her like an incubus, and she dreamed of him oftener than she dreamed of taffy, the Laird, or even little Billy. Thus, pleasantly and smoothly, and without much change or adventure, things went on till Christmastime. Little Billy seldom spoke of Trilby or Trilby of him. Work went on every morning at the studio in a place sent entwalled to arts, and pictures were begun and finished, little pictures that didn't take long to paint, the Laird Spanish bullfighting scenes in which the bull never appeared, and which he sent to his native Dundee and sold there. Taffy's tragic little dramas of life in the slums of Paris, starvings, drownings, suicides by charcoal and poison, which he sent everywhere, but did not sell. Little Billy was painting all this time at Carrell's studio, his private one, and seemed preoccupied and happy when they all met at mealtime, and less talkative even than usual. He'd always been the least talkative of the three, more prone to listen and no doubt to think the more. In the afternoon, people came and went as usual and boxed and fenced and did gymnastic feats, and felt Taffy's biceps, which by this time equaled Mr. Sandow's. Some of these people were very pleasant and remarkable and have become famous since then in England, France, America, or have died or married and come to grief or glory in other ways. It is the ballad of the Bouillabaisse all over again. It might be worthwhile my trying to sketch some of the more noteworthy now that my story is slowing for a while, like a French train when the engine driver sees a long curved tunnel in front of him, as I do, and no light at the other end. My humble attempts at characterization might be useful as memoirs to pour severe to future biographers. Besides, there are other reasons as the reader will soon discover. There was Derein, for instance, Trilby's a special French adorer. Poor Le Bon motif as son of the people, a splendid sculptor, a very fine character in every way, so perfect indeed that there is less to say about him than any of the others. Modest, earnest, simple, frugal, chased in a untiring industry, living for his art and perhaps also a little for Trilby, whom he would have been only too glad to marry. He was Pygmalion, she was his Galatia, a Galatia whose marble heart would never beat for him. Derein's house is now the finest in the Parc Bonceau. His wife and daughters are the best dressed women in Paris, and he one of the happiest of men, but he will never quite forget poor Galatia. Nebel aux petits obter aux docks talons de rose. Then there was Vincent, a Yankee medical student who could both work and play. He is now one of the greatest occulists in the world, and Europeans cross the Atlantic to consult him. He can still play, and when he crosses the Atlantic himself for that purpose, he has to travel incognito like a royalty, lest his play should be marred by work. And his daughters are so beautiful and accomplished that British dukes have sighed after them in vain. Indeed, these fair young ladies spend their autumn holiday in refusing the British aristocracy. We are told so in the society papers, and I can quite believe it. Love is not always blind, and if he is, Vincent is the man to cure him. In those days, he prescribed for us all round and punched and stethoscope'd us and looked at our tongues for love and told us what to eat, drink, and avoid, and even where to go for it. For instance, late one night, little Billy woke up in a cold sweat and thought himself a dying man. He had felt seedy all day and taken no food, so he dressed and dragged himself to Vincent's hotel and woke him up and said, oh, Vincent, Vincent, I'm a dying man, and all but fainted in his bed. Vincent felt him all over with the greatest care and asked him many questions. Then, looking at his watch, he delivered himself thus. Three-thirty, rather late, but still, look here, little Billy. Do you know the howl? On the other side of the water were they sell vegetables? Oh, yes, yes, what vegetables shall I? Listen, on the north side are two restaurants, Bordier and Barrette. They remain open all night. Now, go straight off to one of those tuck shops and tuck in as big of supper as you possibly can. Some people prefer Barrette. I prefer Bordierte myself. Perhaps you'd better try Bordierte first and Barrette after. At all events, lose no time, so off you go. Thus, he saved little Billy from an early grave. Then there was the Greek. A boy of only sixteen, but six feet high and looking ten years older than he was and able to smoke even stronger tobacco than Taffy himself and color pipes divinely. He was a great favorite in the plus sentent hall for his banami, his niceness, his warm genealogy. He was the capitalist of the select circle and nobly lavish of his capital. He went by the name of Pahyuflois Boyce Pelopologos, Petri Lepetro Lycoconos. For so he was Christian by the Laird, because his real name was thought much too long and much too lovely for the quarter Latin and reminded one too much of the Isles of Greece where Burning Sappho loved and sang. What was he learning in the Latin quarter? French? He spoke French like a native. Nobody knows, but when his Paris friends transferred their Bohemia to London, where were they ever made happier and more at home than in his lordly parental abode or fed with nicer things? That abode is now his and lordlier than ever as becomes the dwelling of a millionaire in city magnate and its gray bearded owner is as genial and as jolly and as hospitable as in the old Paris days but he no longer colors pipes. Then there was Carnegie, fresh from Balliol, Redolent of the Varsity. He introduced himself then for the diplomatic service and came to Paris to learn French as it is spoke and spent most of his time with his fashionable English friends on the right side of the river and the rest with Taffy, the Laird and Little Billy on the left. He is now only a rural dean and speaks the worst French I know and speaks it wherever and whenever he can. It serves him right I think. He was fond of lords and knew some, at least he gave one that impression and often talked to them and dressed so beautifully that even Little Billy was abashed in his presence. Only Taffy and his thread bear out at elbow shooting jacket and cricket cap and the Laird in his tattered straw hat and Taffy's old overcoat down to his heels dared to walk arm in arm with him. They insisted on doing so as they'd listened to the band in the Luxembourg Gardens and his whiskers were even longer and thicker and more golden than Taffy's own but the mere sight of a boxing glove made him sick. Then there was the yellow haired Anthony, a Swiss, the idol apprentice, Leroy de Strasse as we call them, to whom everything was forgiven as de France Wauvilleon, castes cest gentilices. Surely for all his reprehensible pranks the gentlest and most lovable creature that ever lived in Bohemia or out of it. Always in debt, like Sven Galli, for he had no more notion of the value of money than a hummingbird and gave away in reckless generosity to his friends what in strictness belonged to his endless creditors like Sven Galli. Humorous, witty and the most exquisite and original artist and also somewhat eccentric in his attire, though scrupulously clean, so that people would stare at him as he walked along, a thing that always gave him dire offence. But unlike Sven Galli, full of delicacy, refinement and distinction of mind and manner, void of any self-conceit and in spite of the irregularities of his life the very soul of truth and honor as gentle as he was chivalrous and brave, the warmest, staunchest, sincerest, most unselfish friend in the world and as long as his purse was full the best and drullest boon companion in the world. But that was not forever. When the money was gone, then would Antony hide him to some beggarly attic and some lost Parisian slum and write his own epithet, the lovely French or German verse or even English for he was an astounding linguist and telling himself that he was forsaken by family, friends and mistresses alike, look out of his casement over the Paris chimney pots for the last time and listen once more to the harmonies of nature as he called it and aspire towards the infinite and bewail the cruel deceptions of his life and finally lay himself down to the sheer starvation. And as he lay and waited for his release that was so long and coming he would beguile the weary hours by mumbling a crust watered with his own salt tears and decorating his epithet with fanciful designs of the most exquisite humor, pathos and beauty. These early illustrated epithets of the young Anthony of which there still exists a goodly number are now priceless as all collectors know all over the world. Fainter and fainter would he grow and finally on the third day or thereabouts a remittance would reach him from some long suffering sister or aunt in far Lusane or else the fickle mistress or a faithless friend who had been looking for him all over Paris would discover his hiding place, the beautiful epithet would be walked off in triumph to Le Père Mercasse and the Rue de Gette and sold for 20, 50, 100 francs and then Vogue Le Gallaire and back again to Bohemia, dear Bohemia and all its joys as long as the money lasted, he poid a couple. And now that his name is a household word in two hemispheres and he himself an honor and a glory to the land he has adopted as his own he loves to remember all this and look back from the lofty pinnacle on which he sits perched up a loft to the impecunious days of his idle apprenticeship the bomb temps oil von Ititzu Menorocke and with all that quixotic dignity of his so famous as he as a wit that when he jokes and he is always joking people laugh first and then ask what he was joking about and you can make your own mild funiments raise a roar by merely prefacing them as Anthony once said the present scribe has often done so and if by a happy fluke you should someday hit upon a really good thing of your own good enough to be quoted be sure it will come back to you after many days prefaced as Anthony once said and these jokes are so good nature that you almost resent their being made at anybody's expense but your own never from Anthony the aimless jest that striking has caused pain the idle word that he'd wished back again indeed in spite of his success I don't suppose he ever made an enemy in his life and here let me add lest there be any doubt as to his identity that he is now tall and stout and strikingly handsome though rather bald and such an aristocrat in bearing aspect and manner that you would take him for a blue-blooded descendant of the crusaders instead of the son of a respectable burger in lecene then there was Lorimer the industrious apprentice who is now also well pinnacled on high himself a pillar of the royal academy probably if he lives long enough it's future president the duly knighted and baroneted lord mayor of all the plastic arts except one or two perhaps here and there that are not altogether without some importance maybe this not be for many many years lorimer himself would be the first to say so tall thin red haired and well-favored he was a most eager earnest and pains taking on enthusiast of precocious culture who read improving books and did not share in the amusements of the quarter at ten but spent his evenings at home with handel michael angelo and dante on the respectable side of the river also he went into good society sometimes with dress coat on and a white tie in his hair parted in the middle but in spite of these blemishes on his otherwise exemplary record as an art student he was the most delightful companion the most affectionate helpful and sympathetic of friends may he live long and prosper enthusiast as he was he could only worship one god at a time it was either michael angelo phidias paul veronese tinterette refiel artician never a modern modern's didn't exist and so thoroughgoing was he in his worship and so persistent in voicing it that he made those immortals quite unpopular in the place the saint and told arts we grew to dread their very names each of them would last him a couple of months or so and then he would give us a month's holiday and then take up another anthony did not think much of lorimer on those days nor lorimer of him for all they were such good friends and neither of them thought much of little billy who's pinnacle of pure unadulterated fame is now the highest of all the highest probably that can be for a mere painter of pictures and what is so nice about lorimer now that he is a gray beard and ecometition an accomplished man of the world and society is that he admire as anthony's genius more than he can say and reads mr. reddard kippling's delightful stories as well as don pays inferno and can listen with the light of the lovely songs of signal toasty who is not precisely founded himself on handle can even scream with laughter at a comic song even a nigger melody so at least that it be but sung in well-bred and distinguished company for lorimer is no bohemian shoe fly don't you bother me for i belong to the company g both these famous men are happily and and most beautifully married grandfathers for all i know and move in the very best society lorimer always i'm told anthony now and then the haught as it used to be called in french behemia meaning dukes and lords and even royalties i suppose and those who love them and whom they love that is the best society isn't it at all events we are assured it used to be but that must have been before the present scribe a meek and somewhat innocent outsider had been privileged to see it with his own little eye and when they happen to meet their anthony and lorimer i mean i don't expect they rush very wildly into each other's arms or talk very fluidly about old times nor do i suppose their wives are very intimate none of our wives are not even taffy's in the lairts oh orestas oh pilotis oh ye impecunious unpunichalled young inseparables of eighteen nineteen twenty or even twenty-five who share each other's thoughts and purses and wear each other's clothes and swear each other's oaths and smoke each other's pipes and respect each other's lights of love and keep each other's secrets and tell each other's jokes and pawn each other's watches and marry mech together on the proceeds and sit all night by each other's bedsides and sickness and comfort each other in sorrow and disappointment with silent manly sympathy wait till you get to forty-year wait even till each or either of you gets himself a little pinnacle of his own be it ever so humble nay wait till either or each of you gets himself a wife history goes on repeating itself in so-do novels and this is a platitude and there's nothing new under the sun nay to cc as the idiomatic lair would say in the language he adores may to cc any easy nila then there was dolder the handsome young dragon de la garde the full private if you please with a beardless face and a mask rosy cheeks in a small waist and narrow feet like a lady's and who strange to say spoke english just like an englishman and his friend Gontra and Elise Ouzous a corporal in the Lozwaves both of these were these had met taffy in the Crimea and frequented the studio in the quarter latin where they adored and were adored by the Grissets and models especially Trilby both of them were distinguished for being the worst subjects le plus mauvaises garnements of their respective regiments yet both were special favorites not only with their fellow rankers but with those in command from their colonels downward both were in the habit of being promoted to the rank of corporal or brigadier and degraded to the rank of private next day for general misconduct the result of a too exuberant delight in their promotion neither of them knew fear and the malice temper or low spirits ever said or did an ill natured thing ever even thought one ever had an enemy but himself both had the best or the worst manners going according to their company whose manners they reflected they were true chameleons both were always ready to share their last ten soup piece not that they ever seem to have one with each other or anybody else or anybody else's last ten soup piece with you to offer you a friend's cigar to invite you to dine with any friend they had to fight with you or for you at a moment's notice and they made up for all the anxiety tribulation and sorrow they caused at home by the endless fun and amusement they gave to all outside it was a pretty dance they led but our three friends of the place Sant Antoine who hadn't got to pay the pipers love them both especially Dodor end of part two part third recording by Jersey City Frankie