Crowded Out! and Other Sketches | Page 4

I am not wanted. I am
crowded out. My hands tremble and I cannot write. My eyes fail and I
cannot see. To the window!
* * * * *
The lights of Oxford St. once more; the glare and the rattle without, the
fever and the ruin, the nerves and the heart within. Poor nerves, poor
heart; it is food you want and wine and rest, and I cannot give them to
you.
* * * * *
Sing, Hortense, will you? Sit by my side, by our dear river St. Maurice,
the clear, the sparkling. See how the floating cribs sail by, each with its
gleaming lights! It is like Venice I suppose. Shall we see Venice ever,
Hortense, you and I? Sing now for me,
Descendez à l'ombre, Ma Jolie blonde.
Only you are petite brune, there is nothing blonde about you, mignonne,
my dear mademoiselle, I should say if I were with you of course as I
used to do. But surely I am with you and those lights are the floating
cribs I see, and your voice it is that sings, and presently the boatmen
hear and they turn and move their hands and join in--Now all together,
Descendez à l'ombre,
* * * * *
It was like you, Hortense, to come all this way. How did you manage it,
manage to cross that great water all alone? My poor girl did you grow
tired of _Le bon Père_ at last and of the Martyrs and the Saints and the
Jesuit Fathers? But you have got your amulet on still I hope. That is
right, for there is a chance--there is a chance of these things proving
blessings after all to good girls, and you were a good girl Hortense.
You will not mind my calling you Hortense, will you? When we are in

Le Bas Canada again, in your own seignieury, it will be
"Madamoiselle," I promise you. You say it is a strange pillow,
Hortense? Books, my girl, and manuscripts; hard but not so hard as
London stones and London hearts. Do you know I think I am dying, or
else going mad? And no one will listen even if I cry out. There is too
much to listen to already in England. Think of all the growing green,
Hortense, if you can, where you are, so far away from it all. Where you
are it is cold and the snow is still on the ground and only the little
bloodroot is up in the woods. Here where I am Hortense, where I am
going to die, it is warm and green full of color--oh! Such color! Before
I came here, to London you know London that is going to do so much
for me, for us both, I had one day--one day in the country. There I
saw--No! They will not let me tell you, I knew they would try to
prevent me, those long gray fingers stealing in, stealing in! But I will
tell you. Listen, Hortense, please. I saw the hawthorne, pink and white,
the laburnum-- yellow--not fire-color, I shall correct the Laureate there,
Hortense, when I am better, when I--publish!--It is dreadful to be alone
in London. Don't come, Hortense. Stay where you are, even if it is cold
and gray and there is no color. Keep your amulet round your neck,
dear!--I count my pulse beats. It is a bad thing to do. It is broad
daylight now and the fingers have gone. I can write again perhaps.--The
pen--The paper--The ink--God. Hortense! There is no ink left! And my
heart--My heart--Hortense!!!
Descendez à l'ombre, Ma Jolie blonde.

Monsieur, Madame and the Pea-Green Parrot



CHAPTER I.
I am an Englishman by birth. Having however lived for fourteen years
out in America or rather in Canada, I am only half an Englishman. All
the love for the dear old land which I am now revisiting is still there,
deep in my heart, but from so long a residence in another country

certain differences arise of character, habit and thought, not to be easily
shaken off. I was in the Civil Service in Canada and did very well until
I meddled with literature. Discovering that I had a faculty for verse and
story-telling, I was ambitious and at the same time foolish enough to
work so hard at my new pursuit that I was compelled to "cut" the
service, in other words to resign. Some other Englishman got my post
and I found myself, rather unexpectedly, it is true, free to write to my
heart's content.
I got off a number of things, poems, sketches, etc., but my great work
turned out to be a comedy. I slaved at this all day and amused myself
by rehearsing it