If there be anything in our English habits upon which no difference of
opinion can exist, it is our proneness to extend to a foreigner a degree
of sympathy and an amount of interest that'we obstinately deny to our
own people. The English artist struggling all but hopelessly against the
town's indifference has but to displace the consonants or multiply the
vowels of his name to be a fashion with it and a success. Strange and
incomprehensible tendency in a nation so overwhelmingly impressed with
a sense of its own vast superiority! But so it is. Mr. Brady may sing
to empty benches, while il Signor Bradini would “bring down the house.”
What set me thinking over this was, that though Silvio Pellico was a
stock theme for English pity and compassion, I very much doubted if a
single tear would fall for the misfortunes of Potts. And yet there was
a marvellous similarity in our suffering. In each case was the Austrian
the jailer; in each case was the victim a creature of tender mould and
gentle nature.
I travelled in a sort of covered cart, with a mounted gendarme at either
side of me. Indeed, the one faintly alleviating circumstance of my
captivity was the sight of those two heavily equipped giants, armed to
the teeth, who were supposed to be essential to my safe conduct. It was
such an acknowledgment of what they had to apprehend from my well-known
prowess and daring, so palpable a confession that every precaution was
necessary against the bold intrepidity of a man of my stamp! At times,
I almost wished they had put chains upon me. I thought how well it
would read in my Memoirs; how I was heavily “manacled,”--a great word
that,--“orders being given to the escort to shoot me if I showed the
slightest intention to escape.” It was an intense pleasure to me to
imagine myself a sort of Nana Sahib, and whenever we halted at some
wayside public, and the idle loungers would draw aside the canvas
covering and stare in at me, I did my utmost to call up an expression of
ogre-like ferocity and wildness, and it was with a thrill of ecstasy I
saw a little child clasp its mother by the neck, and scream out to come
away as it beheld me.
On the second night of our Journey we halted at a little village at
the foot of the Arlberg, called Steuben, where, in default of a regular
prison, they lodged me in an old tower, the lower part of which was
used for a stable. It stood in the very centre of the town, and from
its narrow and barred windows I could catch glimpses of the little
world that moved about in happy freedom beneath me. I could see the
Marktplatz, from which the booths were now being taken down, and could
mark that preparations for some approaching ceremony were going on, but
of what nature I could not guess. A large place was neatly swept out,
and at last strewn with sawdust,--signs unerring of some exhibition of
legerdemain or conjuring, of which the Tyrolese are warm admirers. The
arrangements were somewhat more portentous than are usually observed in
open-air representations, for I saw seats prepared for the dignitaries
of the village, and an evident design to mark the entertainment as under
the most distinguished protection. The crowd--now considerable--observed
all the decorous bearing of citizens in presence of their authorities.
I nestled myself snugly in the deep recess of the window to watch the
proceedings, nor had I long to wait; some half-dozen gayly dressed
individuals having now pierced their way through the throng, and
commenced those peculiar gambols which bespeak backbones of gristle and
legs of pasteboard. It is a class of performance I enjoy vastly. The
two fellows who lap over each other like the links of a chain, and the
creature who rolls himself about like a ball, and the licensed freedoms
of that man of the world--the clown--never weary me, and I believe I
laugh at them with all the more zest that I have so often laughed at
them before. It was plain, after a while, that a more brilliant part
of the spectacle was yet to come, for a large bluff-looking man, in
cocked-hat and jack-boots, now entered the ring and indignantly ejected
the clowns by sundry admonitions with a lash-whip, which I perceived
were not merely make-believes.
“Ah, here he comes! here he is!” was now uttered in accents of eager
interest, and an avenue was quickly made through the crowd for the new
performer. There was delay after this; and though doubtless the crowd
below could satisfy their curiosity, I was so highly perched and so
straitened in my embrasure that I had to wait, with what patience I
might, the new arrival. I was deep in my guesses what sort of “artist”
he might prove, when I saw the head of a horse peering over the
shoulders of the audience, and then the entire figure of the quadruped
as he emerged into the circle, all sheeted and shrouded from gaze. With
one dexterous sweep the groom removed all the clothing, and there stood
before me my own lost treasure,--Blondel himself! I would have known him
among ten thousand. He was thinner, perhaps, certainly thinner, but in
all other respects the same; his silky mane and his long tassel of a
tail hung just as gracefully as of yore, and, as he ambled round, he
moved his head with a courteous inclination, as though to acknowledge
the plaudits he met with.
There was in his air the dignity that said, “I am one who has seen
better days. It was not always thus with me. Applaud if you must, and if
you will; but remember that I accept your plaudits with reserve, perhaps
even with reluctance.” Poor fellow, my heart bled for him! I felt as
though I saw a cathedral canon cutting somersaults, and all this while,
by some strange inconsistency, I had not a sympathy to bestow on the
human actors in the scene. “As for them,” thought I, “they have accepted
this degradation of their own free will. If they had not shirked
honest labor, they need never have been clowns or pantaloons; but
Blondel--Blondel, whom fate had stamped as the palfrey of some high-born
maiden, or, at least, the favorite steed of one who would know how to
lavish care on an object of such perfection--Blondel, who had borne
himself so proudly in high places, and who, even in his declining
fortunes, had been the friend and fellow-traveller of--yes, why should
I shame to say it? Posterity will speak of Potts without the detracting
malice and envious rancor of contemporaries; and when, in some future
age, a great philanthropist or statesman should claim the credit of
some marvellous discovery, some wondrous secret by which humanity may be
bettered, a learned critic will tell the world how this great invention
was evidently known to Potts, how at such a line or such a page we shall
find that Potts knew it all.”
The wild cheering of the crowd beneath cut short these speculations, and
now I saw Blondel cantering gayly round the circle, with a handkerchief
in his mouth. If in sportive levity it chanced to fall, he would
instantly wheel about and seize it, and then, whisking his tail and
shaking his long forelock, resume his course again. It was fine, too, to
mark the haughty indifference he manifested towards that whip-cracking
monster who stood in the centre, and affected to direct his motions. Not
alone did he reject his suggestions, but in a spirit of round defiance
did he canter up behind him, and alight with his forelegs on the
fellow's-shoulders. I am not sure whether the spectators regarded the
tableau as I did, but to _me_ it seemed an allegorical representation of
man and his master.
The hard breathing of a person close behind me now made me turn my head,
and I saw the jailer, who had come with my supper. A thought flashed
suddenly across me. “Go down to those mountebanks, and ask if they will
sell that cream-colored pony,” said I. “Bargain as though you wanted
him for yourself; he is old and of little value, and you may, perhaps,
secure him for eighty or ninety florins; and if so, you shall have ten
more for your pains. It is a caprice of mine, nothing more, but help me
to gratify it.”
He heard me with evident astonishment, and then gravely asked if I had
forgotten the circumstance that I was a prisoner, and likely to remain
so for some time.
“Do as I bade you,” said I, “and leave the result to me. There, lose no
more time about it, for I see the performance is drawing to a close.”
“Nay, nay,” said he; “the best of all is yet to come. The pretty Moorish
girl has not yet appeared. Ha! here she is.”
As he spoke, he crept up into the window beside me, not less eager for
the spectacle than myself. A vigorous cheer, and a loud clapping of
hands below announced that the favorite was in sight long before she was
visible to our eyes.
“What can she do?” asked I, peevishly, perhaps, for I was provoked how
completely she had eclipsed poor Blondel in public favor. “What can she
do? Is she a rope-dancer, or does she ride in the games of the ring?”
“There, there! Look at her; yonder she goes! and there's the young
Prince--they call him a Prince, at least--who follows her everywhere.”
I could not but smile at the poor jailer's simplicity, and would
willingly have explained to him that we have outlived the age of
Cinderella. Indeed, I had half turned towards him with this object, when
a perfect roar of the crowd beneath me drew off my attention from him
to what was going on below. I soon saw what it was that entranced the
public: it was the young girl, who now, standing on Blondel's back, was
careering round the circle at full speed. It is an exercise in which
neither the horse nor the rider is seen to advantage; the heavy
monotonous tramp of the beast, cramped by the narrow limits, becomes a
stilty, wooden gallop. The rider, too, more careful of her balance than
intent upon graceful action, restricts herself to a few, and by no means
picturesque attitudes. With all this, the girl now before me seemed
herself so intensely to enter into the enjoyment of the scene, that all
her gestures sprang out of a sort of irrepressible delight. Far from
unsteadying her foot, or limiting her action, the speed of the horse
appeared to assist the changeful bendings of her graceful figure, as
now, dropping on one knee, she would lean over to caress him, or now,
standing erect, with folded arms and leg advanced, appeared to dare him
to displace her. Faultlessly graceful as she was, there was that in her
own evident enjoyment that imparted a strange delight to the beholder,
and gave to the spectacle the sort of magnetism by which pleasure finds
its way from heart to heart throughout a multitude. At least, I suppose
this must have been so, for in the joyous cheering of that crowd there
was a ring of wild delight far different from mere applause.
At last, poor Blondel, blown and wearied, turned abruptly into the
middle of the ring, and with panting sides and shaking tail came to a
dead halt. The girl, with a graceful slide seated herself on his back
and patted him playfully. And to me this was by far the most graceful
movement of the whole.
It was really a picture! and so natural and so easy withal, that one
forgot all about her spangles and tinsel, the golden fillet of her hair,
and the tawdry fringe of her sandals; and, what was even harder still,
heard not the hoarse-mouthed enthusiasm that greeted her. At length, a
tall man, well-dressed and of striking appearance, pushed his way into
the ring, and politely presented her with a bouquet, at which piece of
courtesy the audience, noways jealous, again redoubled their applause.
She now looked round her with an air of triumphant pleasure, and while,
with a playful gesture, she flung back the ringlets on her neck, she
lifted her face full to my view, and it was Tinte-fleck! With all my
might I cried out, “Catinka! Catinka!” I know not why, but the impulse
never waited to argue the question. Though I screamed my loudest, the
great height at which I was placed, and the humming din of the crowd,
totally drowned my words. Again and again I tried it, but to no purpose.
There she sat, slowly making the round of the circus, while the stranger
walked at her side, to all seeming conversing as though no busy and
prying multitude stood watching and observing them. Wearied with my
failure to attract notice, I turned to address the jailer; but he had
already gone, and I was alone. I next endeavored by a signal to call
attention to me, and, at last, saw how two or three of the crowd had
observed my waving a handkerchief, and were pointing it out to others.
Doubtless they wondered how a poor captive could care for the pleasant
follies of a life of whose commonest joys he was to be no sharer,
and still greater was their astonishment as I flung forth a piece of
money,--a gold Napoleon, it was,--which they speedily caught up and
gave to Catinka. How I watched her as she took it and showed it to the
stranger! He, by his gesture, seemed angry, and made a motion as though
asking her to throw it away; and then there seemed some discussion
between them, and his petulance increased; and she, too, grew
passionate, and, leaping from the horse, strode haughtily across the
circus and disappeared. And then arose a tumult and confusion, the mob
shouting madly for the Moorish girl to come back, and many much disposed
to avenge her absence on the stranger. As for him, he pushed the mob
haughtily aside and went his way; and though for a while the crowd
continued to vent its expressions of displeasure and disappointment, the
performance soon concluded, and all went their several roads homeward;
and when I looked out upon the empty Platz, over which the dusky shadows
of the old houses were now stealing to mingle together, and instead of
the scene of bustle and excitement saw a few lingering townsfolk moody
and purposeless, T asked myself if the whole incidents were not a vision
mind-drawn and invented. There was not one single clew by which I could
trace it to reality.
More than once in my life had my dreamy temperament played me such
pranks; and, strangely too, even when I had assured myself of the
deception, there would yet linger in my mind thoughts and impressions
strong enough to influence my actions, just as we often see that our
disbelief in a scandalous story is not sufficient to disabuse us of a
certain power it wields over us.
Oh, what a long and dreary night was that, harassed with doubts, and
worn out with speculations! My mind had been much weakened by my fever,
and whenever I followed a train of thought too long, confusion was sure
to ensue. The terror of this chaotic condition, where all people and
lands and ideas and incidents jostle against each other in mad turmoil,
can only be estimated by one who has felt it. Like the awful rush of
sensations of him who is sliding down some steep descent to a tremendous
precipice, one feels the gradual approach of that dreamy condition where
reason is lost, and the mind a mere waif upon the waters.
“Here 's your breakfast,” said the jailer, as he stopped the course of
my revery. “And the Brigadier hopes you 'll be speedy with it, for you
must reach Maltz by nightfall.”
“Tell me,” said I, eagerly, “was there a circus company here yesterday
evening? Did they exhibit on the Platz there?”
“You are a deep one, you are!” muttered he, sulkily to himself, and left
the cell.