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Nevertheless, Choulette had heard people say this in cafes. Madame Marmet was astonished that Choulette, a Catholic and a socialist, should speak so disrespectfully of a pope friendly to the republic. But he did not like Leo XIII.
Choulette wished to express in it human misery, not simple and touching, such as men of other times may have felt it in a world of mingled harshness and kindness; but hideous, and reflecting the state of ugliness created by the free-thinking bourgeois and the military patriots of the French Revolution. According to him the present regime embodied only hypocrisy and brutality.
Here is a closed garden, which on the side of the lilies and white roses has, I imagine, a small gate opening on the road to the Academie." Choulette relished these phrases, mingled in his mouth with the perfume of whiskey, and replaced carefully the letter in its book. Madame Martin congratulated the poet on being Madame Raymond's candidate.
She did not say that she had not seen Choulette since autumn, and that he neglected her with the capriciousness of a man not in society. "He has wit," she said, "fantasy, and an original temperament. He pleases me." And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied: "I haven't a taste, I have tastes. You do not disapprove of them all, I suppose."
He replied that he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome in respectable houses. She exclaimed: "Not welcome in respectable houses Choulette? Don't you know that he goes every year for a month to the Marquise de Rieu? Yes, to the Marquise de Rieu, the Catholic, the royalist.
Prince Albertinelli strummed on the piano the Sicilian 'O Lola'! His soft fingers hardly touched the keys. Choulette, even harsher than was his habit, asked for thread and needles that he might mend his clothes.
Choulette had his aim: to plant on the ruins of an unjust and cruel civilization the Cross of Calvary, not dead and bare, but vivid, and with its flowery arms embracing the world. He was founding with that design an order and a newspaper. Madame Martin knew the order. The newspaper was to be sold for one cent, and to be written in rhythmic phrases. It was a newspaper to be sung.
Deprived of sympathy, the artistic impulse withers and dies or supports itself through the hope of eventually finding it. The heroism of the poet consists in working on in loneliness; but his crown of glory is won only when all men are singing his songs. "Moi, dit Choulette, je pense si peu a l'avenir terrestre que j'ai ecrit mes plus beaux poemes sur les feuilles de papier a cigarettes.
His unkempt beard moved up and down with the rhythm of the song. In the harshness of light and shade that worked in his face, he had an air that suggested a solitary monk capable of accomplishing a century of penance. "How amusing he is!" said Therese. "He is making a spectacle of himself for himself. He is a great artist." "Darling, why will you insist that Monsieur Choulette is not a pious man?
Miss Bell was already listening, and her face wore the fervent expression of an angel sculptured by Mino. Choulette told them it was a rustic and artless work. The verses were not trying to be beautiful. They were simple, although uneven, for the sake of lightness. Then, in a slow and monotonous voice, he recited the canticle.
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