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Updated: June 6, 2025
On one side I read the name "Cornelius Vanderbilt" on the other, in bold handwriting "to my very dear friend Count F.A. de Bragard" and a date. "He hated to have me go." I was walking in a dream. "Have you your sketch-books and paints with you? What a pity. I am always intending to send to England for mine, but you know one can't paint in a place like this.
And I wonder to this day that the only letter of mine which ever reached America and my doting family should have been posted by this highly entertaining personage en ville, whither he went as a trusted inhabitant of La Ferte to do a few necessary errands for himself; whither he returned with a good deal of colour in his cheeks and a good deal of vin rouge in his guts; going and returning with Tommy, the planton who brought him The Daily Mail every day until Bragard couldn't afford it, after which either B. and I or Jean le Negre took it off Tommy's hands Tommy, for whom we had a delightful name which I sincerely regret being unable to tell, Tommy, who was an Englishman for all his French planton's uniform and worshipped the ground on which the Count stood; Tommy, who looked like a boiled lobster and had tears in his eyes when he escorted his idol back to captivity.... Mirabile dictu, so it was.
Every day had he sat on a little stool beside the rolypoly millionaire, and written from dictation letter after letter in French with which language the rolypoly was sadly unfamiliar.... And when next day Count Bragard took back his treasure of treasures, his personal water glass, remarking briefly that he needed it once again, I was not surprised.
The green moustache, particularly fine. School of Cezanne." "Really?" I said in surprise. "Yes, indeed," Count Bragard said, extracting his tired-looking hands from his tired-looking trousers with a cultured gesture. "Fine young fellow painted that. I knew him. Disciple of the master. Very creditable piece of work." "Did you ever see Cezanne?" I ventured.
When the planton announced la soupe, a fiercely weary face strode by me en route to his mattress and his spoon. I knew that B. had been careful. A minute later he joined me, and told me as much.... On the way downstairs we ran into the Surveillant. Bragard stepped from the ranks and poured upon the Surveillant a torrent of French, of which the substance was: you told them not to give me anything.
There was a tiny gap on one bench where a place had been saved for me by B., with the assistance of Monsieur Auguste, Count Bragard, Harree and several other fellow-convicts. In a moment I had straddled the bench and was occupying the gap, spoon and cup in hand, and ready for anything. The din was perfectly terrific. It had a minutely large quality.
Nor was I surprised to see, some weeks later, the poor Spanish Whoremaster rending his scarce hair as he lay in bed of a morning. And Mexique said with a smile: "Dat feller give dat English feller one hundred francs. Now he sorry." All of which meant merely that Count Bragard should have spelt his name, not Bra-, but with an l.
To me, I may say, he was even extraordinarily kind. We talked painting, for example: Count Bragard folded a piece of paper, tore it in the centre of the folded edge, unfolded it carefully, exhibiting a good round hole, and remarking: "Do you know this trick? It's an English trick, Mr.
Monsieur Auguste said tactfully, "I'll see you soon, friends," and left us with an affectionate shake of the hand and a sidelong glance of jealousy and mistrust at B.'s respectable friend. "You're looking pretty well today, Count Bragard," B. said amiably. "I do well enough," the Count answered.
B. said "He's a Belgian, a friend of Count Bragard, his name is Monsieur Pet-airs." From time to time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a gentle and weak voice. His adam's-apple, at such moments, jumped about in a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey. To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread.
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