Nothing could have been more painful to my sensitiveness than to occupy
myself, confused with blushes, at the center of the whole world as a
living advertisement of the least amusing ballet in Paris.
To be the day's sensation of the boulevards one must possess an
eccentricity of appearance conceived by nothing short of genius; and my
misfortunes had reduced me to present such to all eyes seeking mirth. It
was not that I was one of those people in uniform who carry placards and
strange figures upon their backs, nor that my coat was of rags; on the
contrary, my whole costume was delicately rich and well chosen, of soft
grey and fine linen (such as you see worn by a marquis in the pe'sage
at Auteuil) according well with my usual air and countenance, sometimes
esteemed to resemble my father's, which were not wanting in distinction.
To add to this my duties were not exhausting to the body. I was required
only to sit without a hat from ten of the morning to midday, and from
four until seven in the afternoon, at one of the small tables under
the awning of the Cafe' de la Paix at the corner of the Place de
l'Opera--that is to say, the centre of the inhabited world. In the
morning I drank my coffee, hot in the cup; in the afternoon I sipped it
cold in the glass. I spoke to no one; not a glance or a gesture of mine
passed to attract notice.
Yet I was the centre of that centre of the world. All day the crowds
surrounded me, laughing loudly; all the voyous making those jokes for
which I found no repartee. The pavement was sometimes blocked; the
passing coachmen stood up in their boxes to look over at me, small
infants were elevated on shoulders to behold me; not the gravest or
most sorrowful came by without stopping to gaze at me and go away
with rejoicing faces. The boulevards rang to their laughter--all Paris
laughed!
For seven days I sat there at the appointed times, meeting the eye
of nobody, and lifting my coffee with fingers which trembled with
embarrassment at this too great conspicuosity! Those mournful hours
passed, one by the year, while the idling bourgeois and the travellers
made ridicule; and the rabble exhausted all effort to draw plays of wit
from me.
I have told you that I carried no placard, that my costume was elegant,
my demeanour modest in all degree.
"How, then, this excitement?" would be your disposition to inquire. "Why
this sensation?"
It is very simple. My hair had been shaved off, all over my ears,
leaving only a little above the back of the neck, to give an appearance
of far-reaching baldness, and on my head was painted, in ah! so
brilliant letters of distinctness: