When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J. was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris.
The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me, still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of Americans, South Americans, English, and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant successful is to keep it small, so that it has an air of overflow and activity. Here, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, the piano, and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle, and champagne was all that was served. It was necessary here, as at all the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things are offered in order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them.
The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent, unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant companionship.
This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting.