Twentieth Century
Ritter, Margaret Tod
404 THE COMMONWEAL August 21, 1929 WEST OF MONTREAL By VINCENT ENGELS OURNIER'S stands at a crossroad a few miles out of Montreal. There was never anything remarkable about it on...
...Otherwise he'd have gone into the parlor...
...I guess I suit him about as well as any man could...
...But money was hard to make in those days, even in Paris, and tempting letters were coming from his friends overseas...
...Fournier was shocked...
...A man may not care whether a hip dog thinks well of him or not, but he cannot pretend to be indifferent to the judgment of the biggest dog in the world...
...I know something of dogs, yet this beast was a hand higher than any dog I have ever seen...
...But his face was unshaven...
...I guess you'll do...
...eventually he told me the story of his life...
...His name was Fournier...
...The ceiling was high, the bar was stained in oak instad of the traditional mahogany, and round-topped tables, also in oak, were set irregularly about the room, much as they might have been in a French car6...
...We've been together a long time, Napoleon and me...
...Each was remarkable, in his kind...
...ARGARET TOD l~ITTER...
...he owned this tavern and the house connected with it...
...Thus, when the time came that he was able to return, pride held him back...
...But he did not care...
...A grey-black stubble spread over his cheeks, almost to the eyes, accounting for the failure of the long moustaches, which, given a proper setting, would have exerted their proper fascination...
...The only occupants of the room were the proprietor and a dog...
...The thought seemed ludicrous that this had once been a puppy, as Fournier had been a romantic waiter in Paris...
...Oh, Napoleon ain't like other dogs...
...If not, he did not care to marry an old woman...
...the hair, both in texture and coloring, gave evidence of the same strain...
...The bartender brought a bottle to a table near the window and there we made ourselves comfortable...
...But I knew that he was taking stock of me, and that his judgment would be as sure as it would be final...
...Not Napoleon...
...Business was not good, even at night, although there was a fairly large farming population to draw from...
...I brought Napoleon his pint of beer, in a basin...
...His ambition, early fixed, had been to own a car& He had looked forward to the day when he could marry a certain milliner he had met in Paris, return with her triumphantly to his native Touraine, buy an establishment not too far from the Loire, and settle down to become, in time, the father of nine baptized children...
...Then he rolled on his side and went to sleep...
...That's his way...
...Play...
...Fournier stopped talking...
...He settled on the floor, with the basin between his paws, and slowly lapped up the beer...
...On my way to the city one cold autumn afternoon I stopped there to get a glass of ale...
...As I drove away, I reflected that it was no wonder that Fournier had thought my question in bad taste...
...I asked...
...In his youth he had been a waiter, first in his father's car6 and later in Paris...
...The proprietor, who wore no apron over his khaki shirt and blue corduroy trousers, dozed in an armchair by the stove, hands folded over his paunch...
...It was a sort of vocation...
...As the man arose, upon my entrance, to take his place behind the bar, the dog rose also, and advanced slowly toward me...
...But the ambition to be a caf~ keeper in his own right had not faded...
...No...
...For a long moment I was uneasy...
...And many years passed before he acquired a reasonable stake...
...Even in so large a room, he seemed out of proportion...
...There was an effect of spaciousness, or brightness, not connoted by crossroads taverns...
...Admit that he had needed all these years to make a few dollars...
...It was not because of the size of the dog that I felt as I did...
...And about as sad, until you entered...
...So I was uncomfortable, but I tried to hide this by turning to the bartender...
...Not Fournier...
...The sight of Napoleon playing with his master would be a solemn and awful thing, partaking of the nature of some hidden ritual-like the slow dancing of sacred elephants...
...It was getting dark...
...Of course it did not turn out to be so easy as he had hoped...
...He was a dog bred to roam the halls of Camelot...
...At last he sailed for America, comforting the lady with a promise to return in a year, pockets filled with gold...
...404 THE COMMONWEAL August 21, 1929 WEST OF MONTREAL By VINCENT ENGELS OURNIER'S stands at a crossroad a few miles out of Montreal...
...He had been born in France, at Tours, the youngest of nine children...
...The first year he almost starved...
...And the milliner--as for her, she had probably married long before...
...nor yet because of anything menacing in his attitude...
...Recently it has acquired a coat of paint, but when I first saw it, five years ago, it was as weatherstained and uninviting as an abandoned farm house...
...But if he thinks you're all right, he'll let you bring it to him...
...Does he ever play...
...But does he want it...
...We're not so friendly, but we get along together...
...I asked...
...The years added a hundred pounds to his weight--made him a middle-aged man...
...And at his feet lay this tremendous dog--the biggest dog in the world...
...So he bought this place, altering the interior to suit himself...
...There was never anything remarkable about it on the outside...
...You might buy him a pint of beer...
...but the legs and the trunk were Great Dane...
...Thus silence is betrayed on every hand, Stoned through the streets, put to ignoble death...
...Twentiet Centurff Stridor, cacophony, the searing breath Of discord, Babel and the burning brand...
...He drew lengthily on his pipe, stared out the window...
...Anyway, the tavern was inevitable...
...He spoke of many things...
...His head was unmistakably Saint Bernard...
...And then, because he was a bit lonely, he adopted Napoleon...
...Would you sell him...
...As I buttoned up my overcoat, I looked at the dog beside the stove...
...He was an easy talker, and as he talked, his eyes strayed from the dog to the scene outside the window and back again, never resting on mine...
...He had enough to live on, and as for the rest--well, this life had its own compensations: hunting, fishing...
...The shirt and trousers were neatly kept, as were the black gaiter boots he wore...
...He knows my ways and I know his...
...I don't know whether I'm his boss or he's mine...
...He won't come up to the bar and beg...
...That dog--" "Ah, that dog Napoleon," he said, and went on as though continuing a reverie which had just been interrupted...
...Then you saw that it was really a decent sort of place...
...Napoleon, who had been regarding me stiffly from a distance of six paces, now moved back to his place by the stove...
Vol. 10 • August 1929 • No. 16
