Studio: international art (27.1903)

Student Life in Paris

And then came a burst of laughter as Johnson
" blagues " back.

The atelier is not garni, and so by direction of
the concierge they sally forth in search of the
marvellously cheap but excellent bed and bedstead,
which can be purchased close at hand in the Rue
Vaugirard, and the few odds and ends of furniture
which are required. Johnson has a model coming
at half-past one, and so he departs when the
purchases are completed, and promising to look
in during the evening leaves the nouveau to " fix
up" the place and get settled in.

The studio is not large, that is, as studios go,
but it seems a vast place to the owner, in which
his bag, cabin trunk, box, and odds and ends tied
together with a rug strap seem lost. There is just
a twinge of home-sickness too, which the song of
an artist at work over the way and the laughter of
the two girls who are returning up the passage
from their dejeuner at a little restaurant hard by
do not dispel. So this is the Quarter, he muses
somewhat sadly,—the far-famed Quarter in which
every one is gai, according to those who write
books and have never lived there.

A rumble up the passage, a knock at the studio
door. The bed and bedding have arrived. They
are placed on the floor amidst a flow of compli-
ments and good wishes for "M'sieu's" success and
future happiness, which, unfortunately, " M'sieu "
only partially—very partially—understands.

Then the door is closed, and the nouveau left
again to his own devices. In a neighbouring
studio someone is singing " Down by the old
Swanee River," and away up above someone else
is whistling an accompaniment. The nouveau
regards his property fixedly for a few moments
longer, and then sets to work.

A couple of hours hard at it, and things begin
to look more shipshape. He doesn't put out any
of the sketches he has brought with him, and few
of the photographs. The former (compared with
Johnson's) are too academic, the latter too sacred.
Towards half-past three he suddenly discovers he
is hungry. There is nothing for it but to sally
forth and seek some quiet restaurant, where for a
franc and a half—which Johnson has told him
ought to purchase a dejeuner good enough for any
one—he ma)' appease it. There is a little cafe,
pretty clean, and with the enticing legend upon the
plate-glass door, "Dejeuners depuis, 75c. Diners
depuis, 1'50, vin compris," just about 200 yards
from his studio. He enters, and aganvn, smiling
because Mr. Nouveau is a fresh customer, and
such are rare in this particular corner ot the
36

Quarter, comes forward, and pulling out a chair at
one of the little white-topped tables, which latter
he dusts with a long sweep of his serviette, prays
" M'sieu " to be seated. At another table is a girl
in " bloomers," with a straw hat perched well over
her nose, whose bicycle is outside against the kerb.
She eyes the nouveau more closely than he has
been accustomed to; but then he is not yet used
to the Quarter. He recognises her as a " type"
familiarised by an occasional perusal of Le Petit
Journal Pour Hire, and other papers of a similar
kind. And even this sense of familiarity is some-
thing to be grateful for on a nouveau's first day in
Paris.

The half-bottle of " vin ordinaire rouge," for
which he somewhat recklessly pays 50 centimes, in
addition to a franc for a three-course lunch, is
quite as good as that sold in a London restaurant
for three times the money. He rejoices because
he is not a teetotaler, and has been told that it is
suicide to drink water in Paris.

The girl has soon finished her plat, emptied the
last drain of her 20-centime carafon of wine, and
adjusted the acute angle of her straw headgear in
front of the dingy mirror. Then she goes out,
bestrides her bicycle by means of the kerb, and
away. And the nouveau somehow feels lonely;

" A MASSIER " FROM A PHOTOGRAPH

BY CI.IVE HOLLAND