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There is nothing sweeter than a regular job and good music to play, music into which one can put some soul, some expression, and which one must study to understand. Dance music, of the frivolous, frothy kind deemed essential to soirees, is trivial, easy, uninteresting. So M'sieu Fortier, Ma'am Jeanne, and the white cat lived a peaceful, uneventful existence out on Bayou Road.
He was described as a most talented, progressive, energetic young man. M'sieu Fortier's heart sank at the word "progressive." He was anything but that. The New Orleans Creole blood flowed too sluggishly in his old veins. November came; the opera reopened. M'sieu Fortier was not re-engaged.
Hastily doing a toilet, he descended the stairs to find M'sieu Fortier nervously pacing the hall floor. "I come fo' bring back you' money, yaas. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I only cry, and t'ink, and weesh fo' mon violon; and Minesse, an' de ol' woman too, dey mope an' look bad too, all for mon violon. I try fo' to use dat money, but eet burn an' sting lak blood money.
The glimmer of gas makes a halo about the bowed white head of a little old man putting his violin carefully away in its case with aged, trembling, nervous fingers. Old M'sieu Fortier was the last one out every night. Outside the air was murky, foggy. Gas and electricity were but faint splotches of light on the thick curtain of fog and mist.
M'sieu quickened his pace down Bourbon Street as he sang the chorus to himself in a thin old voice, and then, before he could see in the thick fog, he had run into two young men. "I I beg your pardon, messieurs," he stammered. "Most certainly," was the careless response; then the speaker, taking a second glance at the object of the rencontre, cried joyfully: "Oh, M'sieu Fortier, is it you?
When is it to be mine, M'sieu Fortier?" "Nevare, nevare!" exclaimed M'sieu, gripping on as tightly to the case as if he feared it might be wrenched from him. "Me a lovere, and to sell mon violon! Ah, so ver' foolish!" "Martel," said the first speaker to his companion as they moved on up town, "I wish you knew that little Frenchman. He's a unique specimen.
At nine o'clock in the morning, Nov. 13, 1775, the American troops marched in through the same gate by which Amherst had entered sixteen years before. Just inside the walls was the most sumptuous private dwelling in the city, called the Château Fortier. Its walls were hung with beautiful tapestries wrought in historical scenes, and its rooms were elegantly furnished and elaborately wainscotted.
He was home but little, for on nearly every day there were rehearsals; then on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights, and twice Sundays there were performances, so Ma'am Jeanne and the white cat kept house almost always alone. Then, when M'sieu Fortier was at home, why, it was practice, practice all the day, and smoke, snore, sleep at night. Altogether it was not very exhilarating.
But worse than all this, the new manager, who was now in France, would not only procure the artists, but a new orchestra, a new leader. M'sieu Fortier grew apprehensive at this, for he knew what the loss of his place would mean to him. September and October came, and the papers were filled with accounts of the new artists from France and of the new orchestra leader too.
All the time portemento, oh, so ver' bad! Ah, mon chere violon, we can play." And he would play and sing a romance, and smile tenderly to himself. At first it used to be into the deuxiemes that M'sieu Fortier went, into the front seats. But soon they were too expensive, and after all, one could hear just as well in the fourth row as in the first.
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