menu_book Chapter 4

Zut by Guy Wetmore Carroll for the 1903 collection. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Matt Perrard.

Zut by Guy Wetmore Carroll. On the right-hand side, on the Avenue de la Grande Armée, stand the Episcary of the Jean Baptiste Caille and the Salle de Quartier of Hippolyte Sérgeant. And between these two, there is a great gulf fixed,

the witch has come to be through the acerbity of Alexandrine Caille, according to Esperance Sérgeant, and duplicity of Esperance Sérgeant, according to Alexandre Caille. But the veritable root of all evil is Zut, and Zut sits smiling in Jean Baptiste's doorway

and cares not for anything in the world, say the sunlight and her midday meal. When Hippolyte found himself in a position to purchase the Salle de Quartier, he gave evidence of Mark Ackerman by uniting himself in the holy and civil bonds of matrimony

with the retiring patron's daughter, whose daughter ran into the coveted five figures, and whose heart, said Hippolyte, was as good as her face was pretty, which, even by the unprejudiced,

was acknowledged to be forcible commendation. The installation of the new establishment was a nine-days wonder in the Quartier. It is a busy thoroughfare at its western end, is the Avenue de la Grande Armée, crowded with bicyclists and with a multitude of creatures,

fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages. Also, there are big cafés in Plenty, whose waiters must be smoothly shaven, and, moreover, at the time when Hippolyte came into his own,

the Porte-Mayotte station of the Métro-Palais-Tain had already pushed its entrée and sortie up through the soil, not a hundred meters from his door, where they stood like atrocious yellow tulips, or, you know, breathing people out and in by thousands.

There was no lack of possible custom. The problem was to turn possible into probable and probable into permanent, and here the seven wits and the ten thousand francs of Esperance came prominently to the fore. She, it was, who sounded the progressive note,

which is half the secret of success. Pour atterrir les gens, she said, with her arms akimbo, il faut débord la secette. In her creed, all that was worth doing, at all, was worth doing gloriously.

So, on her guidance Hippolyte journeyed from shop to shop in the full bargue Saint-Antoine, and spent hours of impassioned argument with carpenters and decorators. In the end, the Salle de Coiffure was glorified by fresh painting, without and within,

and by the addition of a long mirror in a gilt frame and a complicated apparatus of gleaming nickel-plate, which went by the imposing title of Appareil à des Septiques, and the acquisition of which was duly proclaimed by a special placard that swung at right angles to the door.

The shop was rechristened too, and the black and white sign across its front, which formerly bore the simple inscription, Qu'il v'est, Qu'il v'est, now blazoned abroad the vastly more impressive legend,

Salon Malakoff. The window-shelves fairly groaned beneath their burden of soaps, toilet-waters, and perfumery. A string of bright yellow sponges occupied each corner of the window, and through the agency of white enamel letters on the paint itself,

public attention was drawn to the apparently contradictory facts that English was spoken and shampooing given within. Then Hippolyte engaged two assistants and clapped them in white duck jackets, and his wife fabricated a new blouse of blue silk and seated herself behind the desk with an engaging smile.

The enterprise was fairly launched, and experience was not slow in proving the theories of Esperance to be well founded. The quartier was a part from its start, and took with enthusiasm the bait held forth. The affairs of the Salon Malakoff prospered prodigiously.

But there is a serpent in every Eden, and in that of the Serjeant, this role was assumed by Alexandrine Quet. The worthy officier himself was of too torpid a temperament to fall a victim to the gnawing tooth of envy,

but in the soul of his wife, the launch, and, what was worse, the immediate prosperity of the Salon Malakoff, bred dire resentment. Her own establishment had grown grimy with the passage of time, and the annual profits displayed a constant and disturbing tendency

toward complete evaporation, since the coming of the big cafés and the resultant subversion of custom to the wholesale dealers. This persistent narrowing of the former appreciable gap between purchase and selling price rankled in Alexandrine's mind,

but her misguided efforts to maintain the percentage of profit by recourse to inferior qualities only made bad worse. And even as the Serjeants were steering the Salon Malakoff forth upon the waters of prosperity, there were nightly conferences in the household next door

at which impending ruin presided, and exasperation as sounded the keynote of every sentence. The resplendent façade of Hippolyte's establishment, the tide of custom which poured into and out of his door, the loudly expressed admiration of his ability and thrift

which greeted her ears on every side, and finally the sight of Esperance, fresh, smiling, and prosperous, behind her little counter. All these were as gall and wormwood to Alexandrine, brooding over her accumulating debts and her decreasing earnings

among her dusty stacks of jars and boxes. Once she had called upon her neighbour, somewhat for courtesy's sake, but more for curiosities, and since then the agreeable scent of violet and lilac, perfumery, dwelt always in her memory, and mirages of scrupulously polished nickel and glass hung always before her eyes.

The air of her own shop was heavy with the pungent odours of raw vegetables, cheeses, and dried fish, and no brilliance redeemed the sardine and biscuit boxes which surrounded her. Life became a bitter thing to Alexandrine Cayette, for if nothing is more gratifying than one's own success,

surely nothing is less so than that of one's neighbour. Moreover, her visit had never been returned, and this again was fuel for her rage. But the sharpest thorn in her flesh, and even in that of her phlegmatic husband,

was the base desertion to the enemy's camp of Abel Fleek. In the days when Madame Cayette was unmarried, and when her ninety kilos were fifty still, Abel had been youngest coming in the very shop over which she now held sway, and the most devoted suitor in all her terrain.

Even after his prowess in the black days of seventy-one had won him the attention of the civil authorities, and a grateful municipality had transformed the grosser soldier into a guardian of law and order, he still hung upon the favour of his heart's first love, and only gave up the struggle when Jean Baptiste bore off the prize

and enthroned her in state as presiding genius of his newly acquired épicéré. Later, an unwittingly kindly prefect had transferred Abel to the seventeenth arrondissement, and so the old friendship was picked up where it had been dropped, and the ruddy-faced agent found it both convenient and agreeable to drop in frequently at Madame Cayette's on his way home,

and exchange a few words of reminiscence or batter for a box of sardines or a minute package of tea. But with the deterioration of his old friends' wares and the almost simultaneous appearance of the salon Malakoff, his loyalty wavered. Flick sampled the advantages of Hippolyte's establishment,

and, being won over thereby, returned again and again. His hearty laugh came to be heard almost daily in the Salle de Quartier, and because he was a brave homme and a good customer, who did not stand upon a question of a few sous, but allowed Hippolyte to work his will and trim and curl and perfume him to his heart's content,

there was always a welcome for him and a smile from Madame Sejour, and, occasionally, a little present of brilliancy or perfumery, for friendship's sake, and because it is well to have the goodwill of the all-powerful police. From her window, Madame Cayette observed the comings and goings of Abel with a resentful eye. It was rarely now that he glanced into the epicerie as he passed,

and still more rarely that he greeted his former flame with a stiff nod. Once she had hailed him from the doorway, sardines in hand, but he had replied that he was pressed for time and had passed rapidly on. Then, indeed, did Blackness descend upon the soul of Alexandrine, and in her deepest consciousness she vowed to have her revenge.

Neither the occasion nor the method was at yet clear to her, but she pursed her lips ominously and bided her time. In the existence of Madame Cayette there was one empathetic consolation for all misfortunes. The witch was none other than Zote, a white and gore cat of surpassing beauty and prodigious size. She had come into Alexandrine's possession as a kitten,

and, what with much eating and an inherent distaste for exercise, had attained her present proportions and her superb air of unincern. It was from the latter that she derived her name, the witch in Parisian, Arcate, that once means everything and nothing, but is chiefly taken to signify complete and magnificent indifference to all things mundane and material, and in the matter of indifference Zote was past mischievous.

Even for Madame Cayette herself, who fed her with the choicest morsels from her own plate, brushed her fine fur with excessive care, and addressed caressing remarks to her at minute intervals throughout the day. Zote manifested a lack of interest that amounted to contempt. As she basked in the warm sun at the shop door, the round face of her mistress beamed upon her from the little desk, and the voice of her mistress sent fulsome flattery winging toward her on the heavy air.

Was she beautiful, mon dieu? In effect, all that one could dream of the most beautiful, and her eyes, of a blue like the heaven, were they not wise and calm? Mon dieu, yes! It was a cat among thousands, a Mimi almost divine. Jean Baptiste, appealed to for confirmation of these statements, replied that it was so. There was no denying that this was a magnificent beast, and of a chic, and caressing, which was exaggeration,

and of an affection, which was doubtful, and courageous, which was wholly untrue. Mazette, yes, a cat of cats. And was the boy to be the whole afternoon in delivering a cheese? he demanded of her, and Madame Cayelet would challenge him to ask her that. But it was a good, great beast all the same, and so buried herself again in her accounts,

until her attention was once more drawn to Zut, and fresh flattery poured forth. For all of this, Zut cared less than nothing. In the midst of her mistress's sweetest cajolery, she simply closed her sapphire eyes with an inexpressibly eloquent air of weariness, or turned to the intricacies of her toilet, as who should say, continue, I am listening, but it is unimportant.

But long familiarity with her disdain had deprived it of any stain, so far as Alexandrine was concerned. Passive indifference, she could suffer. It was only when Zut proceeded to an active manifestation of ingratitude that she inflicted an irremediable wound. Returning from her marketing one morning, Madame Cayelet discovered her greaseless favourite

seated complicitly in the doorway of the Salon Malakoff, and in a paroxysm of indignation, bore down upon her and snatched her to her breast. Unhappy one, she cried, planting herself in full viove, esperance, and while raining the letter of her reproach upon the truant, contriving to apply its spirit wholly to her neighbour.

What hast thou done? Is it that thou desertest me for strangers who may destroy thee? Name of a name hast thou no heart. They would steal thee from me, and above all, now. Well then, no, one shall see if such things are permitted. Vagabond! And with this porting shot, which passed harmlessly over the head of the offender, and launched itself full at Madame Sejour, the outraged épocérie flunced back into her own domain,

where, turning, she threatened the empty air with a passionate gesture. Vagabond! she repeated. Good for nothing! It is not enough to have robbed me of my friends that you must steal my child as well. We shall see. Then, suddenly softening, thou art beautiful, and good, and wise, mon Dieu, if I should lose thee, and above all, now.

Now there existed a market, if unvoiced, community of failing between Esperance and her resentful neighbour, for the farmer's passion for cats was more consuming even than the latter's. She had long cherished the dream of possessing a white angora, and when, that morning, of her own accord, Zot stepped into the salon malakoff, she was received with demonstrations even warmer than those to which she had long since become accustomed.

And whether it was the novelty of her surroundings, or merely some unwanted instinct, which made her unusually susceptible, her habitual indifference then and there gave place to animation, and her satisfaction was vented in her long appreciative purr, wherewith it was not once a year that she vouchsafed to gladden her owner's heart. Esperance hastened to prepare a saucer of milk, and when this was exhausted,

added a generous portion of fish, and Zot then made a tour of the shop, rubbing herself against the chair legs and receiving the homage of customers and duck-clad assistants alike. Flick, his ruddy face, screwed into a mere knot of features. A syphilit worked violet hair tonic, and to his brittle locks was moved to satire by the apparition. Tience, it is with the cat as with the clients. All the world for sakes the cat.

Strangely enough, the wrathful words of Alexandrian, as she snatched her darling from the doorway, awoke in the mind of Esperance her first suspicion of the smoldering resentment. Absorbed in the launching of her husband's affairs, and constantly employed in the making of change, and with the keeping of her simple accounts, she had had no time to bestow upon her neighbours, and even had her attention been free, she could hardly have been expected to deduce the rancour of Madame Kael from the evidence at hand.

But even if she had been able to ignore the significance of that furious outburst at her very door, its meaning had not been lost upon the others, and her own half-formed conviction was speedily confirmed. What has she? cried Hippolyte, pausing in the final stage of his operations upon the highly perfumed flic. Do I know? replied his wife with a shrug. She thinks I stole her cat. I! Quite simply, she hates you, puts in flic. And why not? She is old and fat, and her business is taking itself off, like that.

You are young and, with a bow, as he rose, beautiful, and your affairs march to a marvel. She is jealous, said tu. It is a bad character, that. But, mon Dieu! But what does that say to you? Let her go her way, she and her cat. Au revoir, sir, madame. Au revoir, sir, dame. And, raffling a couple of sous into the little urn reserved for tips, the policeman took his departure amid a chorus of Messi, messi. Au revoir, messi. from Hippolyte and his duck-clad aides.

But what he had said remained behind. All day, Madame Segelle pondered upon the incident of the morning and Abel Flic's comments thereupon, seeking out some more plausible reason for this hitherto unsuspected enmity than the mere contrast between her material conditions and those of Madame Kael seemed to her to afford. For to a natural placidity of temperament, which manifested itself in a reluctance to incur the displeasure of anyone, had been lately added in Esperance, a shrewd commercial instinct which told her that the fortunes of the Salon Malakoff might readily be imperiled by an unfriendly tongue. In the quartier, gossip spread quickly and took deep root. It was quite imaginably within the power of Madame Kaelet.

To circulate such rumors of Segelle dishonesty, Esche had drawn their lately won custom from them and leave but empty chairs and discontent, where now all was prosperity and satisfaction. Suddenly there came to her the memory of that visit which she had never returned. Mon Dieu! And was not that reason enough? She, the youngest patron in the quartier, to ignore deliberately the friendly call of a neighbour. At least it was not too late to make amends. So when business lagged a little in the late afternoon, Madame Segelle slipped from her desk and, after a further touch to her hair, went in next door to pour oil upon the troubled waters.

Madame Kaelet, throned at her counter, received her visitor with unexampled fragility. Ah, it is you, she said. You have come to make some purchases, no doubt. Aigus, Madame, answered her visitor, disconcerted, but tactfully accepting the hint. The best quality, or, demanded Alexandrian, with his suggestion, I was near. The best, evidently, Madame. Six, if you please. Spring weather, at last, it would seem.

To this generality the other made no reply. Descending from her stool, she blew sharply into a small paper bag, thereby distending it into a miniature balloon, and began selecting the eggs from a basket, holding each one to the light and then dusting it with exaggerated care before placing it in the bag. While she was thus employed, Zot advanced from a secluded corner and, stretching her forelegs slowly to their utmost length, greeted her acquaintance of the morning with a yawn.

Finding in the cad an outlet for her embarrassment, Esperance made another effort to give the interview a friendly turn. He is beautiful, Madame. Yon mato, she said. It is a female, replied Madame Calais, turning abruptly from the basket, and she does not care for strangers. The second snub was not calculated to encourage neighborly overtures, but Madame Sergeau had felt herself to be in the wrong, and was not to be so readily repulsed.

We do not see Monsieur Calais at the Salon Malakoff, she continued. We should be enchanted. My husband, Chaves, himself, retorted Alexandrine with renewed dignity. But his hair, ventured Esperance. I cut it, thundered her foe. Here Madame Sergeau made a false move. She laughed.

Then, in confusion, Anne striving too late to retrieve herself. Pardon, Madame, she added, but it seems throat to me. That, after all, tinsel is a sum so small. All the world, unfortunately, broken Madame Calais, has not the wherewithal to buy mirrors and pay itself frescoes and apparelles and to septiques. The eggs are twenty-four sous, but we do not pride ourselves upon our eggs.

Perhaps you had better seek them elsewhere, for the future. Per seul reply, Madame Sergeau had recourse to her expressive shrug, and then, laying two frunks upon the counter, and gathering up the sous, which Alexandrine rather hurled at, than handed her, she took her way toward the door with all the dignity at her command. But Madame Calais, failing her snub to have been insufficient, could not let her go without a final thrust.

Perhaps your husband will be so amiable as to shampoo my cat, she shouted. She seems to like your salon. But Esperance, well, for Concord's sake, inclined to tolerate all rudeness to herself, was not prepared to hear a hip leap, insulted. And so, a wheeling at the doorway flung all her resentment into two words. Mais elle est belle!

Yes! screamed Alexandrine from the desk, and so they parted. Now, even at this stage, an armed truce might still have been preserved, had Zot been content with the evil she had wrought, and not thought it incumbent upon her further to embitter a quarrel that was a very pretty quarrel as it stood. But whether it was that the milk and fish of the Salon Malakoft laid sweeter upon her memory than any of the familiar dainties in the Épicerie Calais, or that, by her unknowable feline instinct, she was irresistibly drawn toward the scent of violet and lilac brilliante.

Her first visit to the Serjeu was soon repeated, and from this visit other visits grew, until it was almost a daily occurrence for her to saunter slowly into the Salais de Cœuf-Fuir, and there received the food and homage which were rendered as her undisputed due. For, whatever was the bitterness of Esperance toward Madame Calais, no part thereof descended upon Zot. On the contrary, at each visit, her heart was more drawn toward the sleek angora at her desire, but strengthened to possess her pure. But white angoras are a luxury, and an expensive one at that, and, however prosperous the Salon Malakoft might be, its proprietors were not as yet in a position to squander eighty francs upon a whim.

So, until profits should mount higher, Madame Serjeu was forced to content herself with a voluntary visit of her neighbour's pet. Madame Calais did not yield her rights of sovereignty without a struggle. On the occasion of Zot's third visit, she descended upon the Salon Malakoft, robed in wrath, and found the adored one contentedly feeding on fish in the very bosom of the family Serjeu. That appalling scene ensued. If, she stormed, crimson of countenance and threatening Esperance with her fist, if you must entice my cat from her home, at least I will thank you not to give her food.

I provide all that is necessary, and, for the rest, how do I know what is in that saucer? And she surveyed the duck-clad assistants and the astounded customers with tremendous scorn. You, others, she added, I ask you, is it just? These people take my cat and feed her. Feed her? With I know not what. It is overwhelming, unheard of, and, above all, now! But here the peaceful Hippolyte played trumps.

It is the privilege of the vulgar, he cried, advancing razor in hand, when they are at home to insult their neighbors, but here, not. My wife has told me of you and your sayings. Beware, or I shall arrange your affair for you. Go, you and your cat. And by way of emphasis he fairly kicked Zot into her astonished owner's arms. He was magnificent, was Hippolyte. This anecdote, duly elaborated, was poured into the ears of Abel-Flick an hour later, and that evening he paid his first visit in many months to Madame Calais. She greeted him effusively, being willing to pardon all the past for the sake of regaining this powerful friend.

But the glitter in the agent's eye would have cowed a fiercer spirit than hers. You amuse yourself, he said sternly, looking straight at her over the handful of raisins which she tendered him. By wearing my friends, I counsel you to take care. One does not sell inferior eggs in Paris without hearing of it sooner or later. I know more than I have told, but not more than I can tell, if I choose. Ah, ancient friendship, faltered Alexandrine, touched in a vulnerable spot.

Preserves you thus far, added Flick, no less unmoved. Beware how you abuse it. And so the calls of Zot were no longer disturbed. But the rover spirit is progressive, and thus short visits became long visits. And finally the Angora spent whole nights in the salon Malakoff, where a box and a bed of carpet were provided for her. And one fateful morning the meaning of Madame Calais' significant words, and above all, now, was made clear.

The prosperity of Hippolyte's establishment had grown apace, so that, on the morning in question, the three chairs were occupied, and yet other customers awaited their turn. The air was laden with violet and lilac. A stealth chauffeur in a leather suit, thickly coated with dust, was undergoing a shampoo at the hands of one of the duck-clad. And under the skillfully plied razor of the other, the virgin down slid from the lips and chin of a slim and somewhat startled youth, while from a vaporizer Hippolyte played a fine spray of perfumed water upon the ruddy continents of Abel-Flick. It was an eloquent moment, imminently fitted for some dramatic incident, and that dramatic incident zut supplied.

She advanced slowly, and with an air of conscious dignity from the corner, where was her carpeted box? And in her mouth was a limp something, which, when deposited in the immediate center of the salon Malakoff, resolved itself into an anguera kitten, as white as snow. Epetain, said Flick, mopping his perfumed chin, and so it was. There was an immediate investigation of zut's quarters, which revealed four other kittens. But each of these was marked with black or tan. It was the flower of the flock with which the proud mother had won her public.

And they are all yours, cried Flick, when the question of ownership arose. Mon Dieu, yes, there was such a case not a month ago, in the 8th arrondissement, a concierge at the Avenue Hosh, who made a contrary claim. But the courts decided against her. They are all yours, Madame Sejour. My felicitations. Now, as we have said, Madame Sejour was of a placid temperament, which sought not strife. But the unprovoked insults of Madame Calais had struck deep, and, after all, she was but human.

So it was that, seated at her little desk, she composed the following masterpiece of satire. Cher Madame, we send you back your cat and the others, all but one. One kitten was of a pure white, more beautiful even than its mother. As we have long desired a white angora, we keep this one as a souvenir of you. We regret that we do not see the means of accepting the kind offer you were so amiable as to make us.

We fear that we shall not find time to shampoo your cat, as we shall be so busy taking care of our own. Monsieur Flick will explain the rest. We pray you to accept, Madame, the assurance of our distinguished consideration. Hippolyte and Esperance, Sergeant. It was Abel Flick who conveyed the above epistle and four of Zot's kittens to Alexandrine Calais. And when that wrathful person would have rent him with tooth and nail, it was Abel Flick who laid his finger on his lip and said,

Concern yourself with the superior kitten, Madame, and I concern myself with the inferior eggs. To which Alexandrine made no reply. After Flick had taken his departure, she remained speechless for five consecutive minutes for the first time in the whole of her waking existence. Gazing at the spot at her feet, worse for all, the white angora surrounded by her mottled offspring. Even when the first shock of her defeat had passed, she simply heaved a deep sigh and uttered two words.

Ah, Zot! The witch in Parisian argot at once means everything and nothing. End of Zot by Guy Wetmore Carroll