Mr dear Tom,--You may see by the address that I am still here, although
in somewhat different circumstances from those in which I last wrote to
you. No longer "mi lor," the occupant of the "grand suite of apartments
with the balcony," flattered by beauty, and waited on with devotion. I
am now alone; the humble tenant of a small sanded parlor, and but too
happy to take a very unpretending place at my host's table. I seek
out solitary spots for my daily walks,--I select the very cheapest
"Canastre" for my lonely pipe,--and, in a word, I am undergoing a course
of "the silent system," accompanied by thoughts of the past,
present, and the future, gloomy as ever were inflicted by any code of
penitentiary discipline.
I know not if--seeing the bulk of this formidable despatch--you will
have patience to read it: I have my doubts that you will employ somebody
to "note the brief" for you, and only address yourself to the strong
points of the case. Be this as it may, it is a relief to me to decant my
sorrows even into my ink-bottle; and I come back at night with a sense
of consolation that shows me that, no matter how lonely and desolate
a man may be in the world, there is a great source of comfort in the
sympathy he has for himself. This may sound like a bull, but it is not
one, as I am quite ready to show. But my poor brains are not in order
for metaphysics, and so, with your leave, I 'll just confine myself to
narrative for the present, and keep all the philosophy of my argument
for another occasion.
Lest, however, you should only throw your eyes carelessly over these
lines and not adventure far into the detail of my sorrows, I take this
early opportunity of saying that I am living here on credit,--that I
have n't five shillings left to me,--that my shoemaker lies in wait
for me in the Juden-Gasse, and my washerwoman watches for me near the
church. Schnaps, snuff, and cigars have encompassed me round about with
small duns, and I live in a charmed circle of petty persecutions,
that would drive a less good-tempered man half-crazy. Not that I am
ungrateful to Providence for many blessings; I acknowledge heartily the
great advantage I possess in knowing nothing whatever of the language,
so that I am enabled to preserve my equanimity under what very probably
may be the foulest abuse that ever was poured out upon insolvent
humanity.
My wardrobe is dwindled to the "shortest span." I have "taken out" my
great-coat in Kirschwasser, and converted my spare small-clothes into
cigars. My hat has gone to repair my shoes; and as my razors are pledged
for pen, ink, and paper, I have grown a beard that would make the
fortune of an Italian refugee, or of a missionary speaker at Exeter
Hall!
My host of the "Rue Garland" hasn't seen a piece of my money for the
last fortnight; and now, for the first time since I came abroad, am I
able to say that I find the Continent cheap to live in. Ay, Tom, take
my word for it, the whole secret lies in this,--"Do with little, and pay
for less," and you 'll find a great economy in coming abroad to live.
But if you cannot cheat yourself as well as your creditors, take my
advice and stay at home. These, however, are only spare reflections; and
I'll now resume my story, taking up the thread of it where I left off in
my last.
It is really all like a dream to me, Tom; and many times I am unable to
convince myself that it is not a dream, so strange and so novel are
all the incidents that have of late befallen me, so unlike every
former passage of my life, and so unsuited am I by nature, habit, and
temperament for the curious series of adventures in which I have been
involved.
After all, I suppose it is downright balderdash to say that a man is not
adapted for this, or suited to that. I remember people telling me that
public life would n't do for me; that I was n't the kind of man for
Parliament, and so on; but I see the folly of it all now. The truth
is, Tom, that there is a faculty of accommodation in human nature, and
wherever you are placed, under whatever circumstances situated, you
'll discover that your spirit, like your stomach, learns to digest
everything; though I won't deny that it may now and then be at the cost
of a heartburn in the one case as well as the other.
When I wrote to you last, I was living a kind of pastoral life,--a
species of Meliboeus, without sheep! If I remember aright, I left off
when we were just setting out on an excursion into the forest,--one
of those charming rides over the smooth sward, and under the trellised
shadow of tall trees, now loitering pensively before some vista of the
wood, now cantering along with merry laughter, as though with every
bound we left some care behind never to overtake us. Ah, Tom, it's no
use for me to argue and reason with myself; I always find that I come
back to the same point, and that whatever touches my feelings, whatever
makes my heart vibrate with pleasant emotion, whatever brings back to me
the ardent, confiding, trustful tone of my young days, does me good, and
that I'm a better man for it, even though "the situation," as you would
call it, was rather equivocal. Don't mistake me, Tom Purcell, I don't
want to go wrong; I have not the slightest inclination to break my neck.
The height of my ambition is only to look over the precipice. Can't you
understand that? Try and "realize" that to yourself, as the Yankees say,
and you'll at once comprehend the whole charm and fascination of my late
life here. I was always "looking over the precipice," always speculating
upon the terrible perils of the drop, and always half hugging myself
in my sense of security. Maybe this is metaphysics again; if it is, I'm
sorry for it, but the German Diet must take the blame of it,--a course
of sauerkraut would make any man flighty.
Well, I 'll spare you all description of these "Forest days," at
whatever cost to my own feelings; and it is not every man that would put
that much constraint upon himself, for something tells me that the theme
would make me "come out strong." That, what with my descriptive powers
as regards scenery, and my acute analysis on the score of emotions, I
'd astonish you, and you 'd be forced to exclaim, "Kenny is a very
remarkable man. Faith! I never thought he had this in him." Nor did I
know it myself, Tom Purcell; nor as much as suspect it. The fact is,
my natural powers never had fair play. Mrs. D. kept me in a state of
perpetual conflict. "Little wars," as the Duke used to say, "destroy
a state;" and in the same way it's your small domesticities--to coin
a word--that ruin a man's nature and fetter his genius. You think,
perhaps, that I 'm employing an over-ambitious phrase, but I am not.
Mrs. G. H. assured me that I actually did possess "genius," and I
believe in my heart that she is the only one who ever really understood
me.
No man understood human nature better than Byron, and he says, in one of
his letters, "that none of us ever do anything till a woman takes us
in hand;" by which, of course, he means the developing of our better
instincts,--the illustrating our latent capabilities, and so on; and
that, let me observe to you, is exactly what our wives never do. With
them, it is everlastingly some small question of domestic economy. They
"take the vote on the supplies" every morning at breakfast, and they
go to bed at night with thoughts of the "budget." The woman, therefore,
referred to by the poet cannot be what we should call in Ireland "the
woman that owns you." And here, again, my dear friend, is another
illustration of my old theory,--how hard it is for a man to be good and
great at the same time. Indeed, I am disposed to say that Nature never
intended we should, but in all probability meant to typify, by the
separation, the great manufacturing axiom,--"the division of labor."
Be this as it may, Byron is right, and if there be an infinitesimal
spark of the divine essence in your nature, your female friend will
detect it with the same unerring accuracy that a French chemist hunts
out the ten-thousandth part of a grain of arsenic in a case of poison.
It would amaze you were I to tell you how markedly I perceived the
changes going on in myself when under this influence. There was, so
to say, a great revolution going on within me, that embraced all my
previous thoughts and opinions on men, manners, and morals. I felt that
hitherto I had been taking a kind of Dutch view of life from the mere
level of surrounding objects, but that now I was elevated to a high and
commanding position, from which I looked down with calm dignity. I must
observe to you that Mrs. G. H. was not only in the highest fashionable
circles of London, but that she was one who took a very active part in
political life. This will doubtless surprise you, Tom, as it did myself,
for we know really nothing in Ireland of the springs that set great
events in motion. Little do we suspect the real influence women
exercise,--the sway and control they practise over those who rule us.
I wish you heard Mrs. G. H. talk, how she made Bustle do this, and
persuaded Pumistone do the other. Foreign affairs are her forte, and,
indeed, she owned to me that purely Home matters were too narrow and too
local to interest her. What she likes is a great Russian question, with
the Bosphorus and the Danubian Provinces, and the Hospodar of Wallachia
to deal with; or Italy and the Austrians, with a skirmishing dash at
the Pope and the King of Naples. She is a Whig, for she told me that
the Tories were a set of rude barbarians, that never admitted female
influence; and "the consequence is," says she, "they never know what
is doing at foreign courts. Now _we_ knew everything: there was
the Princess Sleeboffsky, at St. Petersburg; and the Countess von
Schwarmerey, at Berlin; and Madame de la Tour de Force, at Florence,
all in our interest. There was not a single impertinent allusion made
to England, in all the privacy of royal domestic life, that we hadn't it
reported to us; and we knew, besides, all the little 'tendresses' of
the different statesmen of the Continent, for, in our age, we bribe with
Beauty, where formerly it was a matter of Bank-notes. The Tories, on
the other hand, lived with their wives, which at once accounts for the
narrowness of their views, and the limited range of their speculations."
All this may read to you like a digression, my dear Tom, but it is not;
for it enables me to exhibit to you some of those traits by which this
fascinating creature charmed and engaged me. She opened so many new
views of life to me,--explained so much of what was mystery to me
before,--recounted so many amusing stories of great people,--gave me
such passing glimpses of that wonderful world made up of kings and
kaisers and ministers, who are, so to say, the great pieces of the
chess-board, whereon we are but pawns,--that I actually felt as if I had
been a child till I knew her.
Another grand result of this kind of information is, that, as you
extend your observation beyond the narrow sphere of home,--whether it
be politically or domestically,--you learn at last to think so little
of what you once regarded as your own immediate and material interests,
that you have as many--maybe more--sympathies with the world at large
than with those actually belonging to you. Such was the progress I made
in this enlightenment, that I felt far more anxious about the Bosphorus
than ever I did for Bruff, and would rather have seen the Austrians
expelled from Lom-bardy than have turned out every "squatter" off my
own estate at Dodsborough. And it is not only that one acquires grander
notions this way, but there are a variety of consolations in the system.
You grumble at the poor-rates, and I point to the population of
Milan paying ten times as much to their tyrants. You exclaim against
extermination, and I reply, "Look at Poland." You complain of the
priests' exactions, and I say, "Be thankful that you haven't the Pope."
Now, Tom, come back from all these speculations, and bring your thoughts
to bear upon her that originated them, and don't wonder at me if I did
n't know how the days were slipping past; nor could only give a mere
passing, fugitive reflection to the fact that I have a wife and three
children somewhere, not very abundantly furnished with the "sinews of
war." I suppose, if we could only understand it, that we 'd discover our
minds were like our bodies, and that we sometimes succumb to influences
we could resist at other moments. Put your head out of the window at
certain periods, and you are certain to catch a cold. I conclude that
there are seasons the heart is just as susceptible.
I cannot give you a stronger illustration of the strange delirium of my
faculties than the fact that I actually forgot the Princess whom we came
expressly to meet, and never once asked about her. It was some time
in the sixth week of our sojourn that the thought shot through my
brain,--"Was n't there a princess to be here?--did n't we expect to see
her?" How Mrs. G. H. laughed when I asked her the question! She really
could n't stop herself for ten minutes. "But I am right," cried I;
"there really _was_ a princess?"
"To be sure you are, my dear Mr. Dodd," said she, wiping her eyes;
"but you must have been living in a state of trance, or you would have
remembered that the poor dear Duchess was obliged to accompany the
Empress to Sicily, and that she could n't possibly count upon being here
before the middle of September."
"What month are we in now?" asked I, timidly.
"July, of course!" said she, laughing.
"June, July, August, September," said I, counting on my fingers; "that
will be four months!"
"What do you mean?" asked she.
"I mean," said I, "it will be four months since I saw Mrs. D. and the
family."
She pressed her handkerchief to her face, and I thought I heard her sob;
indeed I am certain I did. Nothing was further from my thoughts than to
say a rude thing, or even an unfeeling one, and so I assured her over
and over. I protested that it was the very first time since I came
away that I ever as much as remembered one belonging to me; that it was
impossible for a man to feel less the ties of family; that I looked upon
myself--and, indeed, I hoped she also looked upon me in a way--in fact,
regarded me in a light--I'm not exactly clear, Tom, what light I said;
of course, you can imagine what I intended to say, if I did n't say it.
"Is this really true?" said she, without uncovering her face, while she
extended her other hand towards me.
"True!" repeated I. "If it were not true, why am I here? Why have I
left--" I just caught myself in time, Tom. I was nearly "in it" again,
with an allusion to Mrs. D.; but I changed it, and said, "Why am I your
slave,--why am I at your feet--" Just as I said that, suiting the action
to the words, the door of the room was jerked violently open, and a tall
man, with a tremendous bushy pair of whiskers, poked his head in.
[Illustration: 340]
"Oh, heavens!" cried she; "mined and undone!" and fled before I could
see her; while the stranger, fastening the door behind him with the key,
advanced towards me with an air at once so menacing and warlike that I
seized the poker, an instrument about four feet six long, and stood on
the defensive.
"Mr. Kenny Dodd, I believe," said he, solemnly.
"The same!" said I.
"And not Lord Harvey Bruce, at least, on this occasion," said he, with a
kind of sneer.
"No," said I, "and who are you?"
"I am Lord Harvey Bruce, sir," was the answer.
I don't think I said anything in reply; indeed, I am quite sure I did
not say a syllable; but I must have made some expressive gesture, or
suffered some exclamation to escape me, for he quickly rejoined,--
"Yes, sir, you have, indeed, reason to be thankful; for had it been my
wretched, miserable, and injured friend instead, you would now be lying
weltering in your blood."
"Might I make bold to ask the name of the wretched, miserable, and
injured gentleman to whom I was about to be so much indebted?"
"The husband of your unhappy victim, sir," exclaimed he, and with such
an energy of voice that I brandished the poker to show I was ready for
him. "Yes, sir, Mr. Gore Hampton is now in this village,--to a mere
accident you owe it that he is not in this hotel,--ay, in this very
room."
[Illustration: 342]
And he gave a shudder at the words, as though the thoughts they
suggested were enough to curdle a man's blood.
"I'll tell you what, my Lord," said I, getting the table between us,
to prevent any sudden attack on his part, "all your anger and
high-down indignation are clean thrown away. There is no victim here at
all,--there is no villain; and, so far as I am concerned, your friend
is not either miserable or injured. The circumstances under which I
accompanied that lady to this place are all easy of explanation, and
such as require a very different acknowledgment from what you seem
disposed to make for them."
"If you think you are dealing with a schoolboy, sir, you are somewhat
mistaken," broke he in. "I am a man of the world, and it will save us
a deal of time, sir, if you will please to bear this plain fact in your
memory."
"You may be that, or anything else you like, my Lord," said I; "but I 'd
have you to know that I am a man well respected in the world, the father
of a grown-up family. There is no occasion for that heavy groan at all,
my Lord; the case is not what you suspect. I came here purely out of
friendship--"
"Come, come, sir, this is sheer trifling; or, it is worse,--it is
outrageous insult. The man who elopes with a woman, passes under a false
name, retires with her into one of the most remote and unvisited towns
of Germany, is discovered--as I lately discovered you,--only insults the
understanding of him who listens to such excuses. We have tracked you,
sir,--it is but fair to tell you,--from the Rhine to this village. We
are prepared, when the proper time comes, to bring a host of evidence
against you. In all probability, a more scandalous case has not come
before the public these last twenty years. Rest assured, then, that
denial, no matter how well sustained, will avail you little; and when
you have arrived at this palpable conviction, it will greatly facilitate
our progress towards the termination of this unhappy business."
"Well, my Lord, let us suppose, for argument's sake,--'without
prejudice,' however, as the attorneys say,--that I see everything with
your eyes, what is the nature of the termination you allude to?"
"From a gentleman coming from your side of St George's Channel, the
question is somewhat singular," observed he, with a sneer.
"Oh, I perceive," said I; "your Lordship means a duel." He bowed, and I
went on: "Very well; I'm quite ready, whenever and wherever you please;
and if your friend should n't make the arrangement inconvenient, it
would be a great honor to me to exchange a shot with your Lordship
afterwards. I have no friend by me, it is true; but maybe the landlord
would oblige me so far, and I 'm sure you 'll not refuse me a pistol."
"As regards your polite attentions to myself, sir, I have but to say
I accept them; at the same time, I fear you are paying me a French
compliment. It is not a case for a formal exchange of shots; so long as
Hampton lives, you can never leave the ground alive!"
"Then the best thing I can do is to shoot him," said I; and whether the
speech was an unfeeling one, or the way I said it was bloodthirsty, but
he certainly looked anything but easy in his mind.
"The sooner we settle the affair the better, sir," said he, haughtily.
"I think so, too, my Lord."
"With whom can I, then, communicate on your part?"
"I 'll ask the landlord, and if he declines, I 'll try the little barber
on the Platz."
"I must say, sir, it is the first time in my life I find myself in such
company. Have you no countryman of your acquaintance within a reasonable
distance?"
"If Lord George Tiverton were here--"
"If he were, sir, he could not act for you,--he is the near relative of
my friend."
I thought of everybody I could remember; but what was the use of it? I
couldn't reach any of them, and so I was obliged to own. He seemed to
ponder over this for some time, and then said,--
"The matter requires some consideration, sir. When the unhappy result
gets abroad in the world, it is necessary that nothing should attach to
us as men of honor and gentlemen. Your friends will have the right to
ask if you were properly seconded."
"By the unhappy result, your Lordship delicately insinuates my death?"
He gave a little sigh, adjusted his cravat, and smoothed down his
moustaches at the glass over the chimney.
"If it should occur as your Lordship surmises," said I, "it little
matters who officiates on the occasion; indeed," added I, stroking my
beard, "the barber mightn't be an inappropriate friend. But I 've been
'out' on matters of this kind a few times, and somehow I never got
grazed yet; and that's more than the man opposite me was able to say."
"You 'll stand before a man to-morrow, sir, that can hit a Napoleon at
twenty paces."
Faith, Tom, I was nigh saying I wish he could find one for a mark about
_me_; but I caught myself in time, and only observed,--
"He must be an elegant shot."
"The best in the Blues, sir; but this is beside the question. The
difficulty is, now, about your friend. There may be some retired officer
here,--some one who has served; if you will institute inquiry, I'll wait
upon you this evening, and conclude our arrangements."
I promised I 'd do all in my power, and bowed him out of the room
and downstairs with every civility, which, I am bound to say, he also
returned, and we parted on excellent terms.
Now, Tom, you 'll maybe think it strange of me, with a thing of the kind
on hand, but so it was, the moment he was off, I went to look for Mrs.
Gore Hampton.
"The lady?" cried the waiter; "she started with extra-post half an hour
ago."
"Started!" exclaimed I,--"which way?"
"On the high-road to Munich."
"She left no letter,--no note for me?"
"No, sir."
"Poor thing,--overcome, I suppose. She was crying, wasn't she?"
"No, sir, she looked very much as usual, but hurried, perhaps; for she
nearly forgot the ham sandwiches she had ordered to be got ready for
her."
"The ham sandwiches!" exclaimed I, and they nearly choked me. "I 'm
going to be shot for a woman that, in the very extremity of her ruin,
has the heart to order ham sandwiches!" That was the reflection that
arose to my mind, and can you fancy a more bitter one?
"Are you sure," asked I, "the sandwiches weren't for Madame Virginie, or
the little dog?"
"They might, sir, but my Lady desired us to be sure and put plenty of
mustard on them."
This was the damning circumstance, Tom. She was fond of mustard,--I had
often remarked it; and just see, now, on what a trivial thing a man's
happiness can hang. For I own to you, so long as I was strong in what I
fancied to be her good graces, I could have fought the whole regiment of
Blues; but when I thought to myself, "She doesn't care a brass farthing
for you, Kenny Dodd; she may be laughing at you this minute over the ham
sandwiches,"--I felt like a drowning man that had nothing to grapple
on. Talk of unhappy and injured men, indeed! Wasn't I in that category
myself? Not even a husband's selfishness could dispute the palm of
misery with _me!_ In the matter of desertion we were both in the same
boat, and for the life of me, I don't see what we could have to fight
about. I never heard of two sailors rescued from shipwreck quarrelling
as to who it was lost the vessel!
"The best thing for us to do," thought I, "would be to try and console
each other; and if he be a sensible, good-hearted fellow, he 'll maybe
take the same view of it. I 'll ask him and my Lord to dinner; I'll make
the landlord give us some of that wonderful old Stein berger that was
bottled three hundred years ago; I 'll treat them to a regular Saxon
dish of venison with capers washed down with Marcobrunner, and if we 're
not brothers before morning, my name is n't Kenny Dodd."
I was on "these hospitable thoughts intent," when Lord Harvey Bruce was
again announced. He had found out an old sergeant-major of artillery,
who for a consideration would undertake the duties of my second,--kindly
adding that he and his family, a very large one, would also attend my
obsequies.
I interrupted his Lordship to remark that an event bad just occurred to
modify the circumstances of the case, and mentioned Mrs. Gore Hampton's
departure.
"I really cannot perceive, sir," replied he, "that this in any way
affects the matter in hand. Is my friend less injured--is his honor less
tarnished because this unhappy woman has at last awoke to a sense of her
degraded and pitiable condition?"