SALE OF THE 'COIN MUSARD.' by PAUL FORT

Tobaccos, wines, liqueurs, grocery "fancy foods" in sooth, bookshop and
stationers, arbour and shooting booth, salon for Society, garage of the T.C.F.,
and "Mutuality of the Citizens of Mortcerf"; inn and restaurant to boot, my
luckless "Coin Musard," they rip thine entrails out, haphazard empty thee before
thine ample still 'neath the stout, green canopy which keeps the amateur who
o'er the stock would squint from in the noontide frying his precious brains
until, a bidder mad, delirious, prey to the dog-star Sirius, inopportunely
spying a shadowy clock, maybe, which makes a single lot with the handle of a pot
and the pot's dim vacancy, and with the mocking glint of a pint of syrup --
crying: "A million francs! Not more. The Devil take the rest! Sold." -- with his
laughter's roar he rips his satin vest. Here naught of this you'll see. All's
ranged in order due. Good cloth is the canopy and Phoebus can't bite through. It
is municipal, official, honest, laves with freshness magical the caps that crowd
in waves, the flood of bonnets white of men and maids who wait with squeaking
chalk to write, each on his little slate.

On Monsieur Albin Dumur the brunt of the sale doth weigh. He's brisk, but I am
sure he's sweating blood today. Stout he seems, but to lightly waltz the German
waltz his art is (I swear to it, Madame) at your evening dancing-parties, for
round a soup-tureen he lightly waltzes there, offered in single lot with nine
unshapely spoons, that he agitates as shakes his thunder, Jupiter. In truth his
ministry to humour he attunes. "You there, Blanche Lapine, this shines, eh,
what? Some class! . . . Of silver? Better still, of purest plate, my lass. --
Three spoons are gone, you say, Monsieur Petitcornet? In the soup-tureen as well
one lacks the @3soupe au lait@1. Three francs! three francs! three francs! three
francs ten! who bids twenty, eh? -- Three francs twenty . . ." Silence. "What?
Have you no more to say?" The mouths are tightly closed. One does not care to
think of the abyss of doubt whence their vexed spirits shrink. "Three francs
twenty? -- Naught. 'Tis still as death. -- Monsieur Albin, what characters are
these your journal's page that span? Hush! He is grave: his round visage becomes
oblong and -- toc -- to close the sale he strikes upon a gong.

Gay birds of Paradise, birds tinted like the sky, above this wave of caps for a
brief moment fly! Here are the post-girls twain, here's the instructress sweet,
in hats from Paris! Ah! How lovely! What a treat! To the hummingbirds they wear
the beadle bows his staff, but with a tone . . . To Paris, girls, Paris and a
half. The fireman's helmet there with more fastidious art is poised with mien
gallant o'er an observant heart. And they talk, since now the sale halts ere it
onward goes, of all, of Monsieur Albin, who calmly sniffs a rose. The crowd of
country-folk is seated and content (for it's Sunday), 'tis polite and ripe for
merriment. This is agreeable and sets the brain aglow. "It's late, and I must
say good-bye, Dame Perruchot. I fly. Good-bye." -- "So soon, sir Pegasus? Won't
you wait? Ah, what inconstancy . . . to thus forget your slate. . . ." --
Inconstant, I? -- "Indeed, you're always on the wing. Hmm! don't we know the
nest to which your fancies cling?" Monsieur Pegasus, the beadle, can go, on this
to muse, going with eagle eye he had transfixed a goose.

Through ten holes of the canopy the sunlight shining fair, presses between its
bars the assembly prisoned there. Red noses shine. You'd think they live. The
quiverings of all these nostrils make a noise of captive wings, noses like
owlet's beak, turkey's wattle, goose's bill, as
the dimensions grow becoming prouder still, bill of raven, vulture, bird of the
rhinoceros, all fenced in the gold coop of fairy Carabosse. -- But what aerial
nose of those the coop contains, free, soars in graceful
flight, winged with a pair of panes? Clerk of the beadle-poet, tell me, if 'tis
your nose, borne by its spectacles toward what fair dream it goes! . . . Then
all the sunny bars in one gold flood combine. Vague, trembling, and confused, a
gentle glow it yields, mixed with the charming rose, friend yonder of the
fields, which, circling earth, becomes the sunset's vermeil shine. "Blow your
nose there! make haste! speak! I have brooms, I say, from your thousand palaces
to brush the dirt away." A scarlet handkerchief to every nose is brought, and
long they trumpet there, immersed in pensive thought.

My God, I do not know just how the thing occurred. She must have simply set her
casement-window wide. But she is very pure and, all the din unheard, she reads
above the sale, like some white saint enskied. I do not know her: 'Tis a young
girl; by that curl of jet I know her now, it is @3the true young girl@1 . . . In
the house across the way, yonder, I see her turn the page where marching kings
in jewelled beauty burn. Her room, in darkened wood bright gildings underline,
with an aureole obscure surrounds her profile still. She's fair, entrancingly --
indeed, perhaps too fine -- propped on her elbow there o'er the red window-sill.
Lord! Is she double? Ah! her brow, naught may surpass, is mirrowed now nearby in
this oval looking-glass. . . . No, 'tis my eyes that twice the vision pure
present, so deeply am I moved, so much am I content! Dusky, caressing locks her
rosy cheeks enfold, and her white fingers, laid against her cheek. Alas! but
nothing human now disturbs her wisdom cold. The page turns. All in gold a
strutting prince doth pass. Ah me, how much I yearn to wave a handkerchief,
colour of dawn and gold, which from my hope I weave. Ah, let her but look down
from her window high above to meet these gazing eyes that overflow with love.
Aie! My foot is crushed. Ah, well, o'er my acts I have no power. I leave you
here, Margot! My heart "mounts to the tower."

Naught further, window closed. -- Apollo, for my pains, a fiery tongue protrudes
in the blank window-panes. My heart returns to me, dishevelled. Fatal blow!
"Margot . . . give me thy hand. Where art thou then, Margot?" I swoon on all the
goods that before me they expose. (In a huff Margot has gone, with cause enough,
God knows.) Fragility of man! and of the oval glass, which mirrored even now my
bright divinity. 'Tis smashed to atoms small. Destroyed for aye, alas! Ah! all
is dust. . . . Not so, upon a table, see, Monsieur Albin doth arise. "I'll pay!
You shall not lose." -- "Pay then." -- "The price will be, how much?" -- "A
hundred sous." -- "Only a hundred sous?" The bargain soon is sped. All its beaks
the poultry-house has raised above my head. "No more than a hundred sous?" --
"'Tis the price of the lot entire." -- "Eh, what did you say?" -- "I said, good
sir, the lot entire." Ophelia of the glass, pale saint unknown to me, thy Hamlet
turns again in his dark panoply. Sigh, my heart! What things one may from "the
lot entire" derive, an ornamental broom and egg-cups thirty-five. -- Stop there!
Margot being gone, I seem to hear you say, how did you manage then to take all
these away? -- Be seated, sceptic throng, readers and readeresses. Here we are
not concerned with clocks or oaken presses. Hark, with a flaxen thread, a tether
strong but slight, I strung the egg-cups all, that bevy chastely white. Necklace
on neck, and broom on shoulder, proud of soul, forth from the sale I went -- as
rigid as a pole.

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