The first evening we dined at Marguerite's and spent the night talking and swapping news. The very next afternoon Ned would go into Paris and we dined in a swell restaurant on the Grand Boulevard. A few tables away a tall, splendid looking brunette of perhaps thirty was dining with two men: I saw soon that Ned and she were exchanging looks and making signs. He told me he intended to go home with her. I remonstrated, but he was as obstinate as Charlie, and when I told him of the risks, he said he'd never do it again, but this time he couldn't get out of it. «I'll pay the bill at once,» I said, «and let's go,» but he would not; desire was alight in him and a feeling of false shame hindered him from taking my advice. Half an hour later the lady made a sign and he went out with the party, and when she entered her Victoria he got in with her, the pair on the sidewalk, he said, bursting into laughter as he and the woman drove away together.
Next morning he was back with me early, only saying that he had enjoyed himself hugely and was not even afraid. Her rooms were lovely, he declared; he had to give her a hundred francs; the bath and toilette arrangements were those of a queen; there was no danger. And he treated me to as wild a theory as Charlie had cherished: told me that the great cocottes who make heaps of money took as much care of themselves as gentlemen. «Go with a common prostitute and you'll catch something; go with a real top-notcher and she's sure to be all right!»
And perfectly at ease he went to work with a will. Bancroft's way of learning French, even, was totally different from mine. He went at the grammar and syntax and mastered them; he could write excellent French at the end of four months, but spoke it very haltingly and with a ferocious American accent. When I told him I was going to hear Taine lecture on the philosophy of art and the ideal in art, he laughed at me; but I believe I got more from Taine than he got from his more exact knowledge of French. When I came to know Taine and was able to call on him and talk to him, Bancroft, too, wanted to know him. I brought them together, but clearly Taine was not impressed, for Ned out of false shame hardly opened his mouth. But I learned a good deal from Taine, and one illustration of his abides with me as giving a true and vivid conception of art and its ideal. In a lecture he pointed out to his students that a lion was not a running beast, but a great jaw set on four powerful springs of short, massive legs. The artist, he went on, seizing the idea of the animal, may exaggerate the size and strength of the jaw a little, emphasize, too, the springing power in his loins and legs and the tearing strength of his front paws and claws; but if he lengthened his legs or diminished his jaw, he would denaturalize the true idea of the beast and would produce an abortion. The ideal, however, should only be indicated. Taine's talks, too, on literature and the importance of the environment even on great men all made profound impression on me. After listening to him for some time I began to see my way up more clearly. I shall never forget, too, some of his thought inspiring words. Talking one day of the Convent of Monte Cassino, where a hundred generations of students, freed from all the sordid cares of existence, had given night and day to study and thought, and had preserved besides the priceless manuscripts of long past ages and so paved the way for a renascence of learning and thought, he added gravely: «I wonder whether science will ever do as much for her votaries as religion has done for hers: in other words, I wonder will there ever be a laic Monte Cassino!»
Taine was a great teacher and I owe him much kindly encouragement and even enlightenment. I add this last word, because his French freedom of speech came as pure spring water to my thirsty soul. A dozen of us were grouped about him one day talking, when one student with a remarkable gift for vague thought and highfalutin' rhetoric wanted to know what Taine thought of the idea that all the worlds and planets and solar systems were turning round one axis and moving to some divine fulfillment (accomplishment). Taine, who always disliked windy rhetoric, remarked quietly, «The only axis in my knowledge round which everything moves to some accomplishment is a woman's cunt (le con d'une jemme).» They laughed, but not as if the bold word had astonished them. He used it when it was needed, as I have often heard Anatole France use it since, and no one thought anything of it.
In spite of the gorgeous installation of his brunette, Ned at the end of a week found out how blessed are those described in Holy Writ, who fished all night and caught nothing. He had caught a dreadful gonorrhea and was forbidden spirits or wine or coffee till he got well. Exercise, too, was only to be taken in small doses, so it happened that when I went out he had to stay home, and the outlook on the rue St. Jacques was anything but exhilarating. This naturally increased his desire to get about and see things, and as soon as he began to understand spoken French and to speak a little, he chafed against the confinement and a room without a bath. He longed for the centre, for the opera and the boulevards, and nothing would do but we should take rooms in the heart of Paris. He would borrow money from his folks, he said. Like a fool I was willing, and so we took rooms one day in a quiet street just behind the Madeleine, at ten times the price we were paying Marguerite. I soon found that my money was melting, but the life was very pleasant. We often drove in the Bois, went frequently to the opera, the theatres and music-halls and appraised, too, the great restaurants, the Cafe Anglais and the Trois Freres, as if we had been millionaires. As luck would have it, Ned's venereal disease and the doctors became a heavy additional expense that I could ill afford. Suddenly one day I realized that I had only six hundred dollars in the bank: at once I made up my mind to stop and make a fresh start. I told my resolution to Bancroft: he asked me to wait. «He had written to his people for money,» he said,