13.
"He gave me an audience, all the while fiddling with the phials and little boxes crowding his desk. Then he said, 'Your verses are very pretty, but they're not the type I publish. Take this' (he handed me a bottle) 'and write me something about this tonic. If it's usable I'll publish it in Spirit and Body, and I'll pay you generously: one sou per line.' I hesitated quite some time. To abase my talent with such subject matter! But the desire to be published drove me forward. The verses were written. They came out. What intoxication to buy the issue that contained them! When one has tasted that joy, one cannot give it up. I continued to write, always in Spirit and Body, which was, I ought to tell you, an advertising journal for patent medicines. In stirring verses I celebrated syrups, pills and tablets. 'You have the genius of this speciality!' my editor assured me."
"His pharmacist clients, delighted, sent me free samples of their products. The better to praise them, I decided I'd better try them out. The best medicines are dangerous when you don't need to take them. I didn't need any of them, but I took them all, pell-mell, in no particular order."
"Now it's a deeply-rooted habit. It has destroyed my health. Once so vigorous, I have become the wasted being that you see. That is why I sign my verses: Alcide D. Bile. Débile, do you get the joke? And that is my lugubrious tale. What an existence!"
I was moved to see the poor man so unhappy, but I took another look at the clock. I had only a quarter hour to make my train. So I asked Monsieur Bile once more to write me down. "Yes, yes," he said, "I don't want to abuse your time. He wrote a bunch of things in his register. Then he added, "You are number 3917. They haven't yet mobilized beyond number 721. You'll have to wait, but I'm putting a special mention on your file, on account of which I hope your turn will arrive before the end of the war." I thanked him, he thanked me back, he forced me to take some of his little boxes and phials, and we parted with a handshake like friends of ten years.
In the rue de la Gare I found Julie sharing her stories with the local gossips. I told her all that had passed in the office, and she said, "I've already spoken to that man. He's nice, but a little foolish. For all that, you won't have long before you're mobilized. I'll help you with that."
We were late, so once in Versailles we took a tram. "I wonder," said Julie suddenly, "whether you shouldn't go work for the tramway? Apparently they're looking for employees." I thought it was a good idea. For me, anything goes, so long as I don't remain too long a burden on my dear mistress.
14.
I'm going to interrupt the account of my adventures in pursuit of mobilization to tell you a little accident that happened to me. It's another story about my pen. I beg your pardon for talking so much about that satanic instrument, but it holds an important place in the life of one who is writing her Memoirs.
One morning, just as I was beginning to write, I realized I was out of ink. I went out to the stationer's store. "Madame, I need some ink for my pen." "Which colour?" "Whichever you think is most legible." "Take the black." I took a little bottle of black, returned home, filedl up my pen and began to write. It didn't work. I cleaned the nib, I shook the pen, but the ink stubbornly refused to come down. I returned to the stationer's.
"Madame, with your black ink, the pen doesn't write." "That's because it's old and the ink is thick. Take the light blue, it's freeflowing." I took a bottle of the light blue, returned home, emptied my pen of black ink and put in the light blue, and began to write. This time the ink flowed nicely, but it was so pale it was nearly impossible to read.
I returned once more to the stationer's. "Forgive me, madame, for interrupting you so often, but your light blue, it's so clear it's as if there's nothing there." "Mix the two inks, and you'll get one that flows and is legible."
"Good idea! I'll try it. Thank you, madame, and good morning." I returned home and emptied the pen of light blue. I put the two bottles in front of me, and said to myself: "Come on, Bécassine my girl, think this through and don't lose your head in the line of fire. It's a matter of putting half of the blue in the black, and half of the black in the blue. If you pour the black into the blue, it will overflow because the blue bottle is full. Same thing if you pour the blue into the black. So, there's only one way: pour the blue into the black at the same time as you pour the black into the blue. Do that, the two bottles tilted at the same angle, so that they empty and fill simultaneously." I thought that was geometrical and finely reasoned.
Well, it didn't work out as I planned. The inks mixed well, not in the bottles but in a large puddle on the table, which afterward I have a lot of trouble cleaning up.
15.
Fortunately, though, when I write, I always put down as a mat the quilted handkerchief I have from my great-aunt Corentine and which is maybe the only keepsake I've hung on to in my life. The ink didn't improve the handkerchief, but my heirloom protected the table which belongs to my mistress, and so my stupidity hurt nobody but myself. That's what I told Maria when she came into my room to grumble at me about it as I was finishing cleaning the table. I replied politely, but in a tone that suggested she didn't know who she was talking to, which caused her to turn around and leave without waiting to hear more. Lady! I'm not disposed to let myself get cornered by her, now that I am mobilized and practically a government functionary.
Because that's how it is, I'm hired on. You will remember that I decided to present myself to the tramway authority. I went with Julie and right away I impressed the employee who received us. He said I had an honest face and a bearing that bespoke energy and decisiveness. Only, when it came time to sign the papers everything nearly came to a halt when I read the part that says all employees must wear the company uniform. "Nothing doing," I said. "I'll never give up my national costume." "What a bore," replied the employee. "You impress me, I'd gladly take you on, but we have our rules. How am I going to arrange this? I'd better talk to my boss."
The boss came in. He was a little old gentleman, very soft very gentle, and as well-groomed as an elderly maiden. He had in his hand the kind of police cap they call a calot, that the tram employees wear. "Set that on your lace cap, my child," he said, "We'll see how that looks, and the effect it produces. Because there's nothing to be said, there must be a calot, one cannot conceive of a tram conductor without a calot."
I did as he asked. He looked at it and concluded, "It's a bit strange, but it'll do. In times of war it doesn't do to stand on formalities. You are hired. You can start work on Monday."
He allowed me to take the calot. Madame and Maria laughed when they saw my weird get-up. I found out that the little old gentleman was a friend of Madame, and that I had been recommended to him. That probably explains why he was so accommodating.
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