"
"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his
music, I suppose?"
"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la
Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five
francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of
art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you
should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain,
and he broke off the head of the Venus de Milo, saying that now she no
longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could
henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid
recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness,
his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his
music accompanies his own verses."
"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?"
"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the
last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is
the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam."
And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all
I knew about Villiers.
"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a
rate," I said.
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