'Desrobbons ici la place d'un conte.'--MONTAIGNE.
FULLER says, in his '_Holy State_,' that 'the good widow's
grief for her husband, though real is moderate;' and it is our object
to illustrate the old divine's text by two famous and most ancient
stories; but we would in the first place offer a few remarks upon the
species _widow_.
If widow be derived from the Latin _viduus_, void, then Mr. Weller
the elder's pronunciation, vidder, is the most etymological. We are,
however, far from sharing that gentleman's feelings toward those
ladies, cleverest of their class. We love widows. We gain by their
loss. And the _void_ to us and we fear to them is any thing but an
'aching void.'
In society a Miss is, not to make a pun, amiss. Your sixteens and
seventeens are always at sixes and sevens among the men. They are so
walled about by what is _proper_ and what is not _proper_, that they
can do nothing but sit bolt upright with their arms folded. Their
sitting, walking, riding, dancing, talking, are all carefully graduated
to the _proper_. They start when you speak to them, as a pigeon does
when it sees a hawk, and take hold of a man's arm as though he were
made of phosphorus; and are bound to look silly, and take refuge
under mamma's wings, if the air be tainted by the ghost of a possible
impropriety. In Spanish society young ladies are danced with, but never
spoken to; but no more of them:
'Non ragionam di lor; ma guarda e passa.'
But a widow, as soon as the becoming sorrow is over, which soon takes
place, is always gay, always charming:
'JEPPO. La princesse est reuve, Maffio.
MAF. On le voit bien à sa gaiete.'
In the first place, the widow _sait vivre_. She knows how to talk to
men and how to treat them. In the second, she does what she pleases,
and Miss Scandal has to shriek, 'How improper!' in a whisper. In
the third place, she never grows old. A spinster is on the wane at
five-and-twenty, and at forty, even Echo would be afraid to answer
her, for fear she should consider it an offer; but a widow at thirty
is on the 'wax,' and in her prime at forty; at least so says the song.
We wonder that all women do not wish they were born widows; and that
failing, and the occasion presenting itself, do not emulate the fifty
Misses Danaus, in the mythology, who in their haste to become widows,
stabbed their husbands on the wedding night.
The Rev. Dr. Sterne remarks, that 'the Lord tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb.' Bereaved married people must be shorn lambs. We have
heard widowers a fortnight after the sad event humming _Gai! Gai!
de profundis!_--and widows finding the breeze of a most comfortable
temperature, and keeping up a cheerful liveman-loving spirit behind
their impenetrable black veils, just as the sun shines as brightly as
ever behind the darkest thunder-cloud.
The first tale is that of the Matron of Ephesus, told with infinite
spirit by La Fontaine in his Contes. He took it from Boccaccio. It is
to be found in Petronius, who had it from the Greeks. They borrowed it
from the Arabians, who in their turn owe it to the Chinese. Du Halde
has it in his version. The origin of most of our every-day stories is
as completely hidden in the obscurity of by-gone ages as the name of
the inventor of the plough. Who in Heaven's name was the father of
jokes? Was Joseph Miller the Joseph who found favor in the eyes of the
facile Fatima? Did Pharaoh write facetiæ? Or did Job edit a jest-book?
Or was the husband of Eve the great first wag; and must we not consider
Joseph a misnomer for Adam?
Once upon a time there lived in Ephesus a lady renowned for her beauty
and for her wit, but most of all for her intense affection for her
husband. Mothers cited her as an example to their daughters, and
husbands were forever singing her praises to their wives. In short,
the town esteemed itself lucky in possessing within its walls such a
model of virtue. But alas! the husband died. Far from being consoled by
a will full of legacies in her favor, the widow abandoned herself to
the most distressing grief, and sobbed and groaned so bitterly and so
loudly, that all the neighborhood was in tears. Frantic with her loss,
she resolved to descend into the tomb with her husband, and to die upon
his body. A faithful maid-servant accompanied her, after trying in vain
to bring back her mistress to the love of life. She wished to feed her
eyes to the last upon the bier of the deceased, and this was the only
aliment she intended to allow herself. One day passed in sighing and
weeping, and her grief omitted nothing which is necessary in such cases.
Another dead body was lodged not far from this tomb, but very
differently. His monument was a gallows, and himself his only
epitaph--a warning to all thieves! A soldier watched him night and
day, and was threatened with instant death if the body were removed.
During the night, the sentinel perceived to his great surprise a light
flashing through the crevices of the tomb, and stealing toward it,
heard many soft _oh's_ and _alas's_. Entering, he was amazed to see
two pretty women in tears, and inquired politely what motive could
induce them to inhabit so melancholy an abode? The widow did not of
course deign to answer, but the servant explained to him that they
had resolved to starve themselves to death for love of the deceased.
The soldier explained as well as he was able what life was, and asked
leave to take his supper in their presence, if they would eat nothing
themselves. They gave him permission. Animated by the beauty of the
lady, and assisted by the maid, who began to tire of starvation, he
pleaded so warmly and so well, that the dame consented by degrees to
forget her _mort_, and to bestow herself upon him. Just as they had
ratified the compact by a kiss, under the very nose of the defunct, he
heard a noise without, and rushing to his post, found the body gone!
Overwhelmed with shame and fear, he returned to the tomb, acquainted
the ladies with the fate which awaited him, and bade adieu to his bride.
'What!' said the servant, 'shall we allow you to be hung for such
a trifle? No! No! One body is like another. Let us hang up our old
master. No one will know the difference.'
The mistress consented; the 'dear departed' was suspended in the place
of the thief; and the soldier left the guard-house for the palace of
the Matron of Ephesus.
The other story is from the Zadig of Voltaire, and illustrates the same
characteristic trait.
One day Zadig's wife Azora returned from a walk, swelling with rage.
'What is the matter, my dear?' said Zadig; 'what can have happened to
put you so beside yourself?'
'Alas!' said she, 'you would be as indignant as I am, if you had only
seen what I have witnessed. I went to console the young widow Cosron,
who not long since erected a tomb to her husband near the brook which
flows through yonder meadow, and vowed to the gods to remain at the
tomb so long as the waters of the stream should flow by it.'
'There is an estimable woman for you!' said Zadig; 'she sincerely loved
her husband.'
'Ah!' replied Azora, 'if you only knew what she was doing when I
visited her!'
'Well, what? sweet Azora!'
'She was laboring to turn the course of the stream!' Azora was so
vehement in her condemnation of the young widow's conduct, and
overwhelmed her with so many hard names, that Zadig was displeased with
so great a parade of virtue.
He had a friend named Cador, who was one of those young men whom his
wife thought better behaved and more moral than most others. He made
him his confidant, and promised him a large sum if his plan succeeded.
When Azora, who had been passing a day or two at the house of a
relation, returned to town, the servants in tears announced to her that
her husband had died suddenly the night before, and had been buried
that morning in the tomb of his ancestors at the bottom of the garden.
She raved, tore her hair, and called the gods to witness that she would
not survive him.
That evening Cador asked permission to see her, and they wept together.
The next day they shed fewer tears, and dined together. Cador informed
her that his friend had left him the greater part of his property, and
hinted that it would be his greatest happiness to share it with her.
The lady wept, grew angry, but allowed herself to be appeased. The
conversation became more confidential. Azora praised the defunct, but
confessed that he had many faults from which Cador was exempt.
In the midst of the supper, Cador complained of a violent pain in his
liver. The anxious lady rang for her essences, thinking that perhaps
one among them might be good for the liver-complaint. She regretted
deeply that the great Hermes was no longer at Babylon; she even deigned
to touch the side where Cador experienced such intense pain. 'Are
you subject to this cruel complaint?' said she, compassionately. 'It
sometimes nearly kills me,' replied Cador, 'and there is only one
remedy which soothes it, and that is to apply on my side the nose of a
man who died the day before.'
'That is a strange remedy!' said Azora.
'Not so strange,' he answered, 'as Dr. Arnoult's apoplexy-bags.'[A]
[Footnote A: Dr. ARNOULT was a Babylonian of those days, who
pretended to cure all diseases by means of a bag suspended about the
neck of the patient.]
This reason, and the great merit of the young man, decided Azora.
'After all,' said she, 'when my husband passes from the world of
yesterday into the world of to-morrow over the bridge Tchinavar, the
angel Asrael will not refuse to admit him because his nose is a little
shorter in the second life than in the first.'
So taking a razor in her hand, she went to the tomb of her husband,
bathed it with her tears, and approached to cut off his nose as he lay
extended in the coffin. Zadig sprang up, holding his nose with one
hand, and seizing the razor with the other. 'Madam!' he cried, 'say no
more against the widow Cosron! The idea of cutting off my nose is quite
equal to that of turning a water-course!'
And that is the end of our other story.
The most sincere of us, alas! are always hypocrites, but never so much
as when we bring our grief before the eyes of the world.
'De quelque désespoir qu'une âme soit atteinte
La douleur est toujours moins forte que la plainte
Toujours un peu de faste entre parmi les pleurs.'