I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I walk’d
upstairs to my chamber.
THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.
PARIS.
I WAS immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came into
my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere.—How so, friend?
said I.—He answered, I had had a young woman lock’d up with me two hours
that evening in my bedchamber, and ’twas against the rules of his
house.—Very well, said I, we’ll all part friends then,—for the girl is no
worse,—and I am no worse,—and you will be just as I found you.—It was
enough, he said, to overthrow the credit of his hotel.—_Voyez vous_,
Monsieur, said he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting
upon.—I own it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my
pride not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted
him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that
night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.
I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
girls—’Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever
reckon’d upon—Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning.—And does
the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference in the
sin?—It made a difference, he said, in the scandal.—I like a good
distinction in my heart; and cannot say I was intolerably out of temper
with the man.—I own it is necessary, resumed the master of the hotel,
that a stranger at Paris should have the opportunities presented to him
of buying lace and silk stockings and ruffles, _et tout cela_;—and ’tis
nothing if a woman comes with a band-box.—O, my conscience! said I, she
had one but I never look’d into it.—Then Monsieur, said he, has bought
nothing?—Not one earthly thing, replied I.—Because, said he, I could
recommend one to you who would use you _en conscience_.—But I must see
her this night, said I.—He made me a low bow, and walk’d down.
Now shall I triumph over this _maître d’hôtel_, cried I,—and what then?
Then I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.—And what then?
What then?—I was too near myself to say it was for the sake of others.—I
had no good answer left;—there was more of spleen than principle in my
project, and I was sick of it before the execution.
In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace.—I’ll buy
nothing, however, said I, within myself.
The grisette would show me everything.—I was hard to please: she would
not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all her
laces one after another before me;—unfolded and folded them up again one
by one with the most patient sweetness.—I might buy,—or not;—she would
let me have everything at my own price:—the poor creature seem’d anxious
to get a penny; and laid herself out to win me, and not so much in a
manner which seem’d artful, as in one I felt simple and caressing.
If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
worse;—my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as quietly
as the first.—Why should I chastise one for the trespass of another? If
thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking up in
her face, so much harder is thy bread.
If I had not had more than four louis d’ors in my purse, there was no
such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had first laid
three of them out in a pair of ruffles.
—The master of the hotel will share the profit with her;—no matter,—then
I have only paid as many a poor soul has _paid_ before me, for an act he
_could_ not do, or think of.
THE RIDDLE.
PARIS.
WHEN La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how sorry the
master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change my
lodgings.
A man who values a good night’s rest will not lie down with enmity in his
heart, if he can help it.—So I bid La Fleur tell the master of the hotel,
that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I had given him;—and you may
tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should
call again, I shall not see her.
This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after so
narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it was
possible, with all the virtue I enter’d it.
_C’est déroger à noblesse_, _Monsieur_, said La Fleur, making me a bow
down to the ground as he said it.—_Et encore_, _Monsieur_, said he, may
change his sentiments;—and if (_par hazard_) he should like to amuse
himself,—I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting him.—
_Mon Dieu_! said La Fleur,—and took away.
In an hour’s time he came to put me to bed, and was more than commonly
officious:—something hung upon his lips to say to me, or ask me, which he
could not get off: I could not conceive what it was, and indeed gave
myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle so much
more interesting upon my mind, which was that of the man’s asking charity
before the door of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have got to
the bottom of it; and that, not out of curiosity,—’tis so low a principle
of enquiry, in general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with
a two-sous piece;—but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainly
soften’d the heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at least
equal to the philosopher’s stone; had I both the Indies, I would have
given up one to have been master of it.
I toss’d and turn’d it almost all night long in my brains to no manner of
purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my spirits as much
troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of Babylon had been with his;
and I will not hesitate to affirm, it would have puzzled all the wise men
of Paris as much as those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
LE DIMANCHE.
PARIS.
IT was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my coffee
and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array’d, I scarce
knew him.
I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver button
and loop, and four louis d’ors, _pour s’adoniser_, when we got to Paris;
and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders with it.
He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breeches
of the same.—They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing.—I
wish’d him hang’d for telling me.—They look’d so fresh, that though I
knew the thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon my
fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, than that they
had come out of the Rue de Friperie.
This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully
enough embroidered:—this was indeed something the worse for the service
it had done, but ’twas clean scour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, and
upon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the blue was not
violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well: he had squeez’d
out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted
with the _fripier_ upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.—He
had purchased muslin ruffles, _bien brodées_, with four livres of his own
money;—and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;—and to top all,
nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.
He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the first
style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.—In a word, there was
that look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put me in
mind it was Sunday;—and, by combining both together, it instantly struck
me, that the favour he wish’d to ask of me the night before, was to spend
the day as every body in Paris spent it besides. I had scarce made the
conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a look of
trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg’d I would grant him the day,
_pour faire le galant vis-à-vis de sa maîtresse_.
Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-à-vis Madame de
R—.—I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would not have
mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress’d as La Fleur
was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse spared him.
But we must _feel_, not argue in these embarrassments.—The sons and
daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in their
contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little vanities and
wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as their
task-masters;—no doubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,—and
their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would often disappoint
them, but that their condition puts it so much in my power to do it.
_Behold_,—_Behold_, _I am thy servant_—disarms me at once of the powers
of a master.—
Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
—And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in so
little a time at Paris? La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast, and said
’twas a _petite demoiselle_, at Monsieur le Count de B—’s.—La Fleur had a
heart made for society; and, to speak the truth of him, let as few
occasions slip him as his master;—so that somehow or other,—but
how,—heaven knows,—he had connected himself with the demoiselle upon the
landing of the staircase, during the time I was taken up with my
passport; and as there was time enough for me to win the Count to my
interest, La Fleur had contrived to make it do to win the maid to his.
The family, it seems, was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a
party with her, and two or three more of the Count’s household, upon the
boulevards.
Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all your
cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of
grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.
THE FRAGMENT.
PARIS.
LA FLEUR had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more than
I had bargain’d for, or could have enter’d either into his head or mine.
He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and as the
morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had begg’d a
sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and his hand.—As
that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon the table as it was;
and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered him to call upon the
_traîteur_, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to breakfast by myself.
When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper;—but stopping to
read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third,—I
thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up to
it, I sat down to read it.
It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and for aught I know might
have been wrote by him:—it was moreover in a Gothic letter, and that so
faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost me infinite
trouble to make anything of it.—I threw it down; and then wrote a letter
to Eugenius;—then I took it up again, and embroiled my patience with it
afresh;—and then to cure that, I wrote a letter to Eliza.—Still it kept
hold of me; and the difficulty of understanding it increased but the
desire.
I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle of
Burgundy; I at it again,—and, after two or three hours poring upon it,
with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a
nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make sure
of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how
it would look then;—so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,
sometimes writing a sentence,—then taking a turn or two,—and then looking
how the world went, out of the window; so that it was nine o’clock at
night before I had done it.—I then began and read it as follows.
THE FRAGMENT.
PARIS.
—NOW, as the notary’s wife disputed the point with the notary with too
much heat,—I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the parchment) that
there was another notary here only to set down and attest all this.—
—And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily up.—The
notary’s wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary thought it
well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply.—I would go, answered he, to
bed.—You may go to the devil, answer’d the notary’s wife.
Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two rooms
being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not caring
to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pell
mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, the
night being very windy, and walk’d out, ill at ease, towards the Pont
Neuf.
Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have pass’d
over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest,—the finest,—the
grandest,—the lightest,—the longest,—the broadest, that ever conjoin’d
land and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe.
[_By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a
Frenchman_.]
The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can allege
against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about Paris,
’tis more blasphemously _sacre Dieu’d_ there than in any other aperture
of the whole city,—and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for it
comes against you without crying _garde d’eau_, and with such
unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on,
not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full
worth.
The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively
clapp’d his cane to the side of it, but in raising it up, the point of
his cane catching hold of the loop of the sentinel’s hat, hoisted it over
the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.—
—’_Tis an ill wind_, said a boatman, who catched it, _which blows nobody
any good_.
The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and
levell’d his arquebuss.
Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman’s paper
lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she had
borrow’d the sentry’s match to light it:—it gave a moment’s time for the
Gascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his
advantage.—’_Tis an ill wind_, said he, catching off the notary’s castor,
and legitimating the capture with the boatman’s adage.
The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de Dauphine
into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked along
in this manner:—
Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes
all my days:—to be born to have the storm of ill language levell’d
against me and my profession wherever I go; to be forced into marriage by
the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman;—to be driven forth out
of my house by domestic winds, and despoil’d of my castor by pontific
ones!—to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs
and flows of accidents!—Where am I to lay my head?—Miserable man! what
wind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto
thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort,
a voice call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary.—Now the
notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d up
the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was
usher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but a long
military pike,—a breastplate,—a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up,
equidistant, in four different places against the wall.
An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless decay of
fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay
supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little table with a taper
burning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed a
chair:—the notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a
sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before
him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the
table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’s last will and
testament.
Alas! _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, raising himself up a
little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits arising out
of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me.—It is a story
so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;—it will make the fortunes of
your house.—The notary dipp’d his pen into his inkhorn.—Almighty Director
of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly,
and raising his hands towards heaven,—Thou, whose hand has led me on
through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of
desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and
broken-hearted man;—direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth,
that this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be
condemn’d or acquitted!—the notary held up the point of his pen betwixt
the taper and his eye.—
It is a story, _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, which will
rouse up every affection in nature;—it will kill the humane, and touch
the heart of Cruelty herself with pity.—
—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third
time into his ink-horn—and the old gentleman, turning a little more
towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words:—
—And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then enter’d
the room.
THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {648}
PARIS.
WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what
I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had
wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had
presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.—Then prithee, La Fleur,
said I, step back to her to the Count de B—’s hotel, and see if thou
canst get it.—There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur;—and away he flew.
In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with
deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the
simple irreparability of the fragment. _Juste Ciel_! in less than two
minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of
her—his faithless mistress had given his _gage d’amour_ to one of the
Count’s footmen,—the footman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress to
a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortunes were
involved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleur echoed it back again to my
ear.
—How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! said I.
—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had
lost it.—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
THE ACT OF CHARITY.
PARIS.
THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an
excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to
make a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things I
see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, and
hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you
sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a
dozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutely
fine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than
common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make
my sermon out of ’em;—and for the text,—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia,”—is as good as any one in the Bible.
There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a
narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a _fiacre_, {649}
or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done. At the end of
it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light of
which is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door—’tis
more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the least
magnitude; it burns,—but does little good to the world, that we know of.
In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five
or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their backs
against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a _fiacre_;—as they were
next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up
within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—I was in
black, and scarce seen.
The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six;
the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark of
wife or widow in any one part of either of them;—they seem’d to be two
upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender
salutations.—I could have wish’d to have made them happy:—their happiness
was destin’d that night, to come from another quarter.
A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the end
of it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love of
heaven. I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an
alms—and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually
given in the dark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much as
myself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece! said the other,—and
made no reply.
The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank;
and bow’d down his head to the ground.
Poo! said they,—we have no money.
The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew’d his
supplication.
—Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against
me.—Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.—Then
God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which you can
give to others without change!—I observed the elder sister put her hand
into her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have a sous. A sous! give
twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be
bountiful to a poor man.
—I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.
My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder,—what is it
but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so sweet,
that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and what was it
which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you
both as they just passed by?
The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same time
they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out a
twelve-sous piece.
The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;—it was
continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the
twelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to end the dispute, they both gave it
together, and the man went away.
THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.
PARIS.
I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in asking
charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—and
I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twas flattery.
Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly are
all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou
mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous
passages to the heart!
The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, had given it here in a
larger dose: ’tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a less form,
for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the streets: but how he
contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not my
spirit with the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained two twelve-sous
pieces—and they can best tell the rest, who have gained much greater
matters by it.