River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1916-01-13
CHAPTER /.
Troyon's.

Jungle Oh SIDE streets, well withdrawn
from the hustle OF the adjacent boule
Yards OF st. German and st. Michel
and in It's day was a restaurant ia
nous with fame 1ealously guarded
By a select circle OF patrons. It's
cooking vas the best IN Paris, its Gel
Lar second to none, It's rates ridicu-
Eously reasonable; yet Baedeker knew
Il not. And In the wisdom of those
who did know this was well; 1t were
a pity to loose upon so excellent an
establishment those sWarms of tour
lists that profane every temple of gas
trOnomy on the right bank of the
Seine.
The building was OF three stories,
painted a dingy drab, and trimmed
with dull-green shutters. The restau-
rant occupied almost all OF the street
front Of the ground floor; blank, non
Commital double doorway at one ex-
treme Of the plate-glass windows was
SELDOM open and even more seldom
noticed
A medieval maze or corridors, long
and short, complicated by many unex-
pected steps and staircases and enig-
matic doors, running every which
Fay, and as rule landing one in the
wrong room, linked together some
lWoscore bedchambers. There were
80 salons or reception rooms, there
rsas never a bathroom, there wasn't
blen running water aside from two
a@llway taps, one to each story.
With such accommodations the
Raests Of Troyon's were well content
One did much as one pleased there,
tsOviding ones bill was paid with toll
egable regularity and the hand kept
s6pple that operated the Gordon in the
small hours of the night. Papa Troyon
RENE from a tribe OF innkeepers and
has liberal-minded; while as for
r2dame, his wife, she cared for moth
brg but pieces Of gold.
To Troyon's on vet winter night
Ia the year 1898 came the child who
rs a man, was to call himself Michael
Lanyard. He must have been four or
i've years old at that time; an age at
which consciousness is just begin
ming to recognize It's individuality and
memory registers with capricious r.
regularity. He arrived at the hotel
Ia a state Of excitement involving an
almost abnormal sensitiyeness to i'm
pressions but that was soon drowned
deep in dreamless sIumber Of healthy
exhaustion; and when he came to
look back through a haze Of days. OF
which each had made its separate and
imperative demand upon his budding
emotions, he found his store of mem
cries strangely duIled and disarticu-
late. And the child soon gave over
his instructive, but rather inconsecu-
tive, efforts to retrace his history
life at Troyon's furnished him with
compelling and obliterating interests
Madame saw to that.
1t was madame who took charge of
the child when the strange man
dragged him crying from the cab
through cold, damp place gloomy
with shadows and upstairs to a warm
bright bedroom; a formidable body,
this madame, with cold eyes and
many hairy moles, who made odd
noises in her throat while she I'M
dressed the little boy with the man
standing by, noises meant to sound
compassionate and maternal, but, to
the child at least, hopelessly other
wise
Then drowsiness stealing upon one
over a pillow wet with tears-ob-
liyion.
And madame It was who ruled with
iron hand the strange new world to
which the boy awakened.
The man was gone by morning. and
the child never saw him again; but
inasmuch as those about him under
stood no English and he no French,
It was some time before he compre-
hended the false assurances of
madame that his father had gone on
q journey, but would presently return
The child knew positively that the
man was not his father but when he
was able to make this correction the
matter had faded into insignifcance-
life had become too painful to leave
tine or inclination for the adjustment
Of such minor and incidental ques-
tions as that of ones parentage.
The little boy soon learned to know
himself as Marcel, which wasn't his
name, and before long was unaware
he had ever worn another As he
grew older he became known as Mar
0el Troyon; but by then he had for
fotten how to speak English.
1t was a few days after his arrival
that the warm, bright bedchamber
vas exchanged for a cold, dark closet
opening off madame's boudoir, a cup
board furnished with a rickety cot
nd a broken chair, lacking any pro-
vision for heat or light and ventilated
solely by transom over the door; and
inasmuch as madame shared the
Srench horror of drafts and so kept
her boudoir Theoretically sealed nine
months of the year, the transom didn't
help matters much. But that closet
formed the boys sole refuge, if a pre-
cari0us one fhr0Ioh ravaraI voarc.