The Guest of Quesnay | Page 8

and to dine at Foyot's. So there came at last a fine
day when I, knowing that the horse-chestnuts were in bloom along the
Champs Elysees, threw my rope-soled shoes to a beggar, packed a rusty
trunk, and was off for the banks of the Seine.
My arrival--just the drive from the Gare de Lyon to my studio--was like
the shock of surf on a bather's breast.
The stir and life, the cheerful energy of the streets, put stir and life and
cheerful energy into me. I felt the itch to work again, to be at it, at it in
earnest--to lose no hour of daylight, and to paint better than I had
painted!
Paris having given me this impetus, I dared not tempt her further, nor
allow the edge of my eagerness time to blunt; therefore, at the end of a
fortnight, I went over into Normandy and deposited that rusty trunk of
mine in a corner of the summer pavilion in the courtyard of Madame
Brossard's inn, Les Trois Pigeons, in a woodland neighborhood that is
there. Here I had painted through a prolific summer of my youth, and I
was glad to find--as I had hoped--nothing changed; for the place was
dear to me. Madame Brossard (dark, thin, demure as of yore, a fine-
looking woman with a fine manner and much the flavour of old
Norman portraits) gave me a pleasant welcome, remembering me
readily but without surprise, while Amedee, the antique servitor,
cackled over me and was as proud of my advent as if I had been a new
egg and he had laid me. The simile is grotesque; but Amedee is the
most henlike waiter in France.
He is a white-haired, fat old fellow, always well-shaved; as neat as a
billiard-ball. In the daytime, when he is partly porter, he wears a black

tie, a gray waistcoat broadly striped with scarlet, and, from waist to feet,
a white apron like a skirt, and so competently encircling that his
trousers are of mere conventionality and no real necessity; but after six
o'clock (becoming altogether a maitre d'hotel) he is clad as any other
formal gentleman. At all times he wears a fresh table-cloth over his arm,
keeping an exaggerated pile of them ready at hand on a ledge in one of
the little bowers of the courtyard, so that he may never be shamed by
getting caught without one.
His conception of life is that all worthy persons were created as
receptacles for food and drink; and five minutes after my arrival he had
me seated (in spite of some meek protests) in a wicker chair with a
pitcher of the right Three Pigeons cider on the table before me, while
he subtly dictated what manner of dinner I should eat. For this interval
Amedee's exuburance was sobered and his bandinage dismissed as
being mere garniture, the questions now before us concerning grave
and inward matters. His suggestions were deferential but insistent; his
manner was that of a prime minister who goes through the form of
convincing the sovereign. He greeted each of his own decisions with a
very loud "Bien!" as if startled by the brilliancy of my selections, and,
the menu being concluded, exploded a whole volley of "Biens" and set
off violently to instruct old Gaston, the cook.
That is Amedee's way; he always starts violently for anywhere he
means to go. He is a little lame and his progress more or less sidelong,
but if you call him, or new guests arrive at the inn, or he receives an
order from Madame Brossard, he gives the effect of running by a
sudden movement of the whole body like that of a man ABOUT to run,
and moves off using the gestures of a man who IS running; after which
he proceeds to his destination at an exquisite leisure. Remembering this
old habit of his, it was with joy that I noted his headlong departure.
Some ten feet of his progress accomplished, he halted (for no purpose
but to scratch his head the more luxuriously); next, strayed from the
path to contemplate a rose-bush, and, selecting a leaf with careful
deliberation, placed it in his mouth and continued meditatively upon his
way to the kitchen.

I chuckled within me; it was good to be back at Madame Brossard's.
The courtyard was more a garden; bright with rows of flowers in
formal little beds and blossoming up from big green tubs, from red jars,
and also from two brightly painted wheel-barrows. A long arbour
offered a shelter of vines for those who might choose to dine, breakfast,
or lounge beneath, and, here and there among the shrubberies, you
might come upon a latticed bower, thatched with straw. My own
pavilion (half bedroom, half studio) was