ladder, he reminded one
much more of an acrobat than of a painter. Like Dumas, he could work
amidst a very Babel of conversation, but the sound of music, however
good, disturbed him. In those days, itinerant Italian musicians and
pifferari, who have disappeared from the streets of Paris altogether
since the decree of expulsion of '81, were numerous, and grew more
numerous year by year. I, for one, feel sorry for their disappearance,
for I remember having spent half a dozen most delightful evenings
listening to them.

The thing happened in this way. Though my regular visits to the
Quartier-Latin had ceased long ago, I returned now and then to my old
haunts during the years '63 and '64, in company of a young Englishman
who was finishing his medical studies in Paris, who had taken up his
quarters on the left bank of the Seine, and who has since become a
physician in very good practice in the French capital. He had been
specially recommended to me, and I was not too old to enjoy an evening
once a week or a fortnight among my juniors. At a cafe, which has been
demolished since to make room for a much more gorgeous establishment at
the corners of the Boulevards Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain, we used to
notice an elderly gentleman, scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean,
though his clothes were very threadbare. He always sat at the same table
to the right of the counter. His cup of coffee was eked out by frequent
supplements of water, and meanwhile he was always busy copying music--at
least, so it seemed to us at first. We soon came to a different
conclusion, though, because every now and then he would put down his
pen, lean back against the cushioned seat, look up at the ceiling and
smile to himself--such a sweet smile; the smile of a poet or an artist,
seeking inspiration from the spirits supposed to be hovering now and
then about such.

That man was no copyist, but an obscure, unappreciated genius, perhaps,
biding his chance, hoping against hope, meanwhile living a life of
jealously concealed dreams and hardship. For he looked sad enough at the
best of times, with a kind of settled melancholy which apparently only
one thing could dispel--the advent of a couple or trio of pifferari.
Then his face would light up all of a sudden, he would gently push his
music away, speak to them in Italian, asking them to play certain
pieces, beating time with an air of contentment which was absolutely
touching to behold. On the other ha