Six months passed. For the last five Tristouse Ballerinette had been the mistress of Croniamantal, whom she loved passionately for eight days. In exchange for this love, the lyrical youth had rendered her glorious and immortal forever by celebrating her in marvellous poems. "I was unknown," she mused, "and now he has made me illustrious among all the living.
"I was thought ugly because of my thinness, my large mouth, my bad teeth, my irregular features, my crooked nose. Now I am beautiful and all men tell me so. They mocked at my clumsy and jerky gait, at my sharp elbows which, when I walked, moved like the feet of geese.
"What miracles are born of the love of a poet! But how heavily a poet's love weighs! What sorrows accompany it, what silences to endure! Now that the miracle has been accomplished, I am beautiful and renowned. Croniamantal is ugly, he has wasted his property in a short time; he is poor, lacking in elegance, no longer gay; the slightest of his gestures make him a hundred enemies.
"I love him no longer. I need him no longer, my admirers are enough for me. I shall rid me of him gradually. But that is going to be very annoying. Either I must go away, or he must disappear, so that he doesn't bother me, and so that he isn't able to reproach me."
And after eight days, Tristouse became the mistress of Paponat, although still seeing Croniamantal, whom she treated more and more coldly. The less she came to see him, the more desperately he cared for her. When she did not come at all, he spent hours in front of the house she lived in in the hope of seeing her come out, and if by chance she did, he would escape like a thief, fearing that she might accuse him of spying on her.
* * *
It was by running around after Tristouse Bailerinette that Croniamantal continued his literary education.
One day as he was wandering about Paris, he suddenly found himself at the Seine. He crossed a bridge and walked for some time, when suddenly perceiving before him M. Fran?ois Coppée, Croniamantal regretted that this passerby was dead. But there is nothing against talking with the dead, and the encounter passed off very pleasantly.
"Come," thought Croniamantal, "to a passerby he would appear to be nothing but a passerby, and the very author of the Passerby.[11] He is a clever and spiritual rhymester, with some feeling for reality. Let us speak to him about rhyme."
The poet of the Passerby was smoking a dark cigarette. He was dressed in black, his visage black; he stood bizarrely on a high stone, and Croniamantal saw quite easily by his pensive air that he was composing verses. He came alongside of him and after having greeted him, said brusquely:
"Dear master, how sombre you seem."
He replied courteously.
"It is because my statue is of bronze. That exposes me constantly to scorn. Thus the other day."
Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea
Seeing I was the blacker, sat down and muttered:
'Yea.'
"See how adroit those lines are. Did you notice how well the couplet I just recited for you rhymes for the eye."
"Indeed," said Croniamantal, "for it is pronounced Sam MacVee, like Shakespeer."
"Well here is something that comes off better," continued the statue:
Passing by one day the negro Sam MacVea
Christened this tablet with a flask of eau-de-vie.
"There is a bit of refinement that ought to appeal to you. It is the rime riche, the perfect rhyme to delight the ear."
"You certainly enlighten me on the rhyme," said Croniamantal. "I am very happy, dear master, to have met you in passing by."
"It is my first success," replied the metallic poet. "But I have just composed a little poem bea............