Francis Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night

Chandelle : ( excitedly ) Here? He used to come here? To this room? Good Lord, the very house he lived in was torn down ten years ago. In two days’ search you are the first soul I’ve found who knew him. Tell me of him—everything—be frank.

Pitou : Many come and go in forty years ( shakes his head. ) There are many names and many faces—Jean Chandelle—ah, of course, Jean Chandelle. Yes, yes; the chief fact I can remember about your father was that he was a—a—

Chandelle : Yes.

Pitou : A terrible drunkard.

Chandelle : A drunkard—I expected as much. ( He looks a trifle downcast, but makes a half-hearted attempt not to show it. )

Pitou : ( Rambling on through a sea of reminiscence ) I remember one Sunday night in July—hot night—baking—your father-let’s see—your father tried to knife Pierre Courru for drinking his mug of sherry.

Chandelle : Ah!

Pitou : And then—ah, yes, ( excitedly standing up ) I see it again. Your father is playing vingt-et-un and they say he is cheating so he breaks Clavine’s shin with a chair and throws a bottle at someone and Lafouquet sticks a knife into his lung. He never got over that. That was—was two years before he died.

Chandelle : So he cheated and was murdered. My God, I’ve crossed the ocean to discover that.

Pitou : No—no—I never believed he cheated. They were laying for him—

Chandelle : ( burying his face in his hands ) Is that all ( he shrugs his shoulders; his voice is a trifle broken ) I scarcely expected a—saint but—well: so he was a rotler.

Pitou : ( Laying his hand on Chandelle’s shoulder ) There Monsieur, I have talked too much. Those were rough days. Knives were drawn at anything. Your father—but hold—do you want to meet three friends of his, his best friends. They can tell you much more than I.

Chandelle : ( gloomily ) His friends?

Pitou : ( reminiscent again ) There were four of them. Three come here yet—will be here this afternoon—your father was the fourth and they would sit at this table and talk and drink. They talked nonsense—everyone said; the wine room poked fun at them—called them les “Academicians Ridicules.” Night after night would they sit there. They would slouch in at eight and stagger out at twelve—

( The door swings open and three men enter. The first, La-marque, is a tall man, lean and with a thin straggly beard. The second, Destage, is short and fat, white bearded and bald. The third, Francois Meridien is slender, with black hair streaked with grey and a small moustache. His face is pitifully weak, his eyes small, his chin sloping. He is very nervous. They all glance with dumb curiosity at Chandelle. )

Pitou : ( including all three with a sweep of his arm ) Here they are, Monsieur, they can tell you more than I. ( Turning to the others ) Messieurs, this gentleman desires to know about—

Chandelle : ( rising hastily and interrupting Pitou ) About a friend of my father’s. Pitou tells me you knew him. I believe his name was—Chandelle.

( The three men start and Francois begins to laugh nervously. )

Lamarque : ( after a pause ) Chandelle?

Francois : Jean Chandelle? So he had another friend besides us?

Destage : You will pardon me, Monsieur: that name—no one but us had mentioned it for twenty-two years.

Lamarque : ( trying to be dignified, but looking a trifle ridiculous ) And with us it is mentioned with reverence and awe.

Destage : Lamarque exaggerates a little perhaps. ( Very seriously ) He was very dear to us. ( Again Francois laughs nervously. )

Lamarque : But what is it that Monsieur wishes to know? ( Chandelle motions them to sit down. They take places at the big table and Destage produces a pipe and begins to fill it. )

Francois : Why, we’re four again!

Lamarque : Idiot!

Chandelle : Here, Pitou! Wine for everyone. ( Pitou nods and shuffles out ) Now, Messieurs, tell me of Chandelle. Tell me of his personality.

( Lamarque looks blankly at Destage. )

Destage : Well, he was—was attractive—

Lamarque : Not to everyone.

Destage : But to us. Some thought him a sneak. ( Chandelle winces ) He was a wonderful talker—when he wished, he could amuse the whole wine room. But he preferred to talk to us. ( Pitou enters with a bottle and glasses. He pours and leaves the bottle on the table. Then he goes out. )

Lamarque : He was educated. God knows how.

Francois : ( draining his glass and pouring out more. ) He knew everything, he could tell anything—he used to tell me poetry. Oh, what poetry! And I would listen and dream—

Destage : And he could make verses and sing them with his guitar.

Lamarque : And he would tell us about men and women of history—about Charlotte Corday and Fouquet and Moliere and St. Louis and Mamine, the strangler, and Charlemagne and Mme. Dubarry and Machiavelli and John Law and Francois Villon—

Destage : Villon! ( enthusiastically ) He loved Villon. He would talk for hours of him.

Francois : ( Pouring more wine ) And then he would get very drunk and say “Let us fight” and he would stand on the table and say that everyone in the wine shop was a pig and a son of pigs. La! He would grab a chair or a table and Sacre Vie Dieu! but those were hard nights for us.

Lamarque : Then he would take his hat and guitar and go into the streets to sing. He would sing about the moon.

Francois : And the roses and the ivory towers of Babylon and about the ancient ladies of the court and about “the silent chords that flow from the ocean to the moon.”

Destage : That’s why he made no money. He was bright and clever—when we worked, he worked feverishly hard, but he was always drunk, night and day.

Lamarque : Often he lived on liquor alone for weeks at a time.

Destage : He was much in jail toward the end.

Chandelle : ( calling ) Pitou! More wine!

Francois : ( excitedly ) And me! He used to like me best. He used to say that I was a child and he would train me. He died before he began. ( Pitou enters with another bottle of wine; Francois siezes it eagerly and pours himself a glass. )

Destage : And then that cursed Lafouquet—stuck him with a knife.

Francois : But I fixed Lafouquet. He stood on the Seine bridge drunk and—

Lamarque : Shut up, you fool you—

Francois : I pushed him and he sank—down—down—and that night Chandelle came in a dream and thanked me.

Chandelle : ( shuddering ) How long—for how many years did you come here.

Destage : Six or seven. ( Gloomily ) Had to end—had to end.

Chandelle : And he’s forgotten. He left nothing. He’ll never be thought of again.

Destage : Remembered! Bah! Posterity is as much a charlatan as the most prejudiced tragic critic that ever boot-licked an actor. ( He turns his glass nervously round and round ) You don’t realize—I’m afraid—how we feel about Jean Chandelle, Francois and Lamarque and I—he was more than a genius to be admired—

Francois : ( hoarsely ) Don’t you see, he stood for us as well as for himself.