and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and she
gave it one little kiss, and wished it was quarter-day. And immediately
it _was_ quarter-day; and the king’s quarter’s salary came
rattling down the chimney, and bounced into the middle of the floor.
But this was not half of what happened--no, not a quarter; for
immediately afterward the good Fairy Grandmarina came riding in, with
a carriage and four (peacocks), with Mr. Pickles’s boy up behind,
dressed in silver and gold, with a cocked hat, powdered hair, pink silk
stockings, a jewelled cane, and a nosegay. Down jumped Mr. Pickles’s
boy, with his cocked hat in his hand, and wonderfully polite (being
entirely changed by enchantment), and handed Grandmarina out; and there
she stood, in her rich shot silk smelling of dried lavender, fanning
herself with a sparkling fan.
“Alicia, my dear,” said this charming old fairy, “how do you do? I hope
I see you pretty well? Give me a kiss.”
The Princess Alicia embraced her; and then Grandmarina turned to the
king, and said rather sharply, “Are you good?”
The king said he hoped so.
“I suppose you know the reason _now_ why my goddaughter here,”
kissing the princess again, “did not apply to the fish-bone sooner?”
said the fairy.
The king made a shy bow.
“Ah! but you didn’t _then_?” said the fairy.
The king made a shyer bow.
“Any more reasons to ask for?” said the fairy.
The king said, “No, and he was very sorry.”
“Be good, then,” said the fairy, “and live happy ever afterward.”
Then Grandmarina waved her fan, and the queen came in most splendidly
dressed; and the seventeen young princes and princesses, no longer
grown out of their clothes, came in, newly fitted out from top to toe,
with tucks in everything to admit of its being let out. After that,
the fairy tapped the Princess Alicia with her fan; and the smothering
coarse apron flew away, and she appeared exquisitely dressed, like a
little bride, with a wreath of orange flowers and a silver veil. After
that, the kitchen dresser changed of itself into a wardrobe, made of
beautiful woods and gold and looking-glass, which was full of dresses
of all sorts, all for her and all exactly fitting her. After that,
the angelic baby came in, running alone, with his face and eye not
a bit the worse, but much the better. Then Grandmarina begged to be
introduced to the duchess; and, when the duchess was brought down,
many compliments passed between them.
A little whispering took place between the fairy and the duchess; and
then the fairy said out loud, “Yes, I thought she would have told you.”
Grandmarina then turned to the king and queen, and said: “We are going
in search of Prince Certainpersonio. The pleasure of your company is
requested at the church in half an hour precisely.” So she and the
Princess Alicia got into the carriage; and Mr. Pickles’s boy handed
in the duchess, who sat by herself on the opposite seat; and then Mr.
Pickles’s boy put up the steps and got up behind, and the peacocks flew
away with their tails behind.
Prince Certainpersonio was sitting by himself, eating barley-sugar,
and waiting to be ninety. When he saw the peacocks, followed by the
carriage, coming in at the window, it immediately occurred to him that
something uncommon was going to happen.
“Prince,” said Grandmarina, “I bring you your bride.”
The moment the fairy said those words, Prince Certainpersonio’s
face left off being sticky, and his jacket and corduroys changed to
peach-bloom velvet, and his hair curled, and a cap and feather flew
in like a bird and settled on his head. He got into the carriage by
the fairy’s invitation; and there he renewed his acquaintance with the
duchess, whom he had seen before.
In the church were the prince’s relations and friends, and the
Princess Alicia’s relations and friends, and the seventeen princes and
princesses, and the baby, and a crowd of the neighbors. The marriage
was beautiful beyond expression. The duchess was bridesmaid, and beheld
the ceremony from the pulpit, where she was supported by the cushion of
the desk.
Grandmarina gave a magnificent wedding-feast afterward, in which there
was everything and more to eat, and everything and more to drink.
The wedding-cake was delicately ornamented with white satin ribbons,
frosted silver, and white lilies, and was forty-two yards round.
When Grandmarina had drunk her love to the young couple, and Prince
Certainpersonio had made a speech, and everybody had cried, hip, hip,
hip, hurrah! Grandmarina announced to the king and queen that in future
there would be eight quarter-days in every year, except leap-year, when
there would be ten. She then turned to Certainpersonio and Alicia,
and said, “My dears, you will have thirty-five children, and they
will be good and beautiful. Seventeen of your children will be boys,
and eighteen girls. The hair of the whole of your children will curl
naturally. They will never have the measles, and will have recovered
from the whooping-cough before being born.”
On hearing such good news everybody cried out, “Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”
again.
“It only remains,” said Grandmarina in conclusion, “to make an end of
the fish-bone.”
THE INFANT PHENOMENON
XXIII
THE INFANT PHENOMENON
IN our day the moving picture and the radio have made it possible for
the people who live in the city and the people who live in the country
to see and hear the same things. Our amusements are very much alike.
But it was not so in Dickens’s day. The great actors were in the
theatres of the large cities; but companies of strolling players were
on the roads. They carried their stage scenery with them and did their
own advertising. They did not have to compete with those who could act
better.
Dickens enjoyed these cheerful wanderers who went about giving
entertainments to people who were easily pleased. When Nicholas
Nickleby and his friend Smike were trudging along on the road from
London to Portsmouth they fell in with Mr. Vincent Crummles and his
dramatic company. Nicholas had almost come to the end of the little
money with which he started, and he was very glad when Mr. Crummles
invited him to share his supper at the inn. When Nicholas had told Mr.
Crummles his story he was invited to join the company, at a salary
which while not large was sufficient to keep him from starving. In
this way he became acquainted with the Infant Phenomenon. She was the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Crummles and was the pride of the family.
Nicholas was introduced to her when they came to the theatre in the
next town. It was a very dingy little theatre on a back street. Mrs.
Crummles led the way to the stage.
There bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl
in a dirty white frock with tucks up to the knees, short trousers,
sandled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil, and
curl-papers; who turned a pirouette, cut twice in the air, turned
another pirouette, then, looking off at the opposite wing, shrieked,
bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a
beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of
buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering his teeth,
fiercely brandished a walking-stick.
“They are going through the Indian Savage and the Maiden,” said Mrs.
Crummles.
“Oh!” said the manager, “the little ballet interlude. Very good, go on.
A little this way, if you please, Mr. Johnson. That’ll do. Now!”
The manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed, and the savage,
becoming ferocious, made a slide toward the maiden; but the maiden
avoided him in six twirls, and came down at the end of the last one
upon the very points of her toes. This seemed to make some impression
upon the savage; for, after a little more ferocity and chasing of the
maiden into corners, he began to relent, and stroked his face several
times with his right thumb and forefinger, thereby intimating that
he was struck with admiration of the maiden’s beauty. Acting upon
the impulse of this passion, he (the savage) began to hit himself
severe thumps in the chest, and to exhibit other indications of being
desperately in love, which being rather a prosy proceeding, was very
likely the cause of the maiden’s falling asleep; whether it was or no,
asleep she did fall, sound as a church, on a sloping bank, and the
savage perceiving it, leaned his left ear on his left hand, and nodded
sideways, to intimate to all whom it might concern that she _was_
asleep, and no shamming. Being left to himself, the savage had a dance,
all alone. Just as he left off, the maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes,
got off the bank, and had a dance all alone too--such a dance that
the savage looked on in ecstasy all the while, and when it was done,
plucked from a neighboring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling
a small pickled cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first
wouldn’t have it, but on the savage shedding tears relented. Then the
savage jumped for joy; then the maiden jumped for rapture at the sweet
smell of the pickled cabbage. Then the savage and the maiden danced
violently together, and, finally, the savage dropped down on one knee,
and the maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus concluding
the ballet, and leaving the spectators in a state of pleasing
uncertainty, whether she would ultimately marry the savage, or return
to her friends.
“Very well indeed,” said Mr. Crummles; “bravo!”
“Bravo!” cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything.
“Beautiful!”
“This, sir,” said Mr. Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward,
“this is the Infant Phenomenon--Miss Ninetta Crummles.”
“Your daughter?” inquired Nicholas.
“My daughter--my daughter,” replied Mr. Vincent Crummles; “the idol
of every place we go into, sir. We have complimentary letters about
this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in
England.”
“I am not surprised at that,” said Nicholas; “she must be quite a
natural genius.”
“Quite a--!” Mr. Crummles stopped; language was not powerful enough to
describe the Infant Phenomenon. “I’ll tell you what, sir,” he said;
“the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen,
sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother,
my dear.”
“May I ask how old she is?” inquired Nicholas.
“You may, sir,” replied Mr. Crummles, looking steadily in his
questioner’s face, as some men do when they have doubts about being
implicitly believed in what they are going to say. “She is ten years of
age, sir.”
“Not more?”
“Not a day.”
“Dear me!” said Nicholas, “it’s extraordinary.”
It was; for the Infant Phenomenon, though of short stature, had a
comparatively aged countenance, and had moreover been precisely the
same age--not perhaps to the full extent of the memory of the oldest
inhabitant, but certainly for five good years. But she had been kept up
late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin and water
from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system
of training had produced in the Infant Phenomenon these additional
phenomena.
Nicholas was invited to dinner with the Crummles family at their
lodgings. Mrs. Crummles, who always talked as if she were on the stage,
received him in a most dignified way.
“You are welcome,” said Mrs. Crummles, turning round to Nicholas when
they reached the bow-windowed front room on the first floor.
Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was unfeignedly glad to see the
cloth laid.
“We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,” said Mrs.
Crummles, in the same charnel-house voice; “but such as our dinner is,
we beg you to partake of it.”
“You are very good,” replied Nicholas, “I shall do it ample justice.”
“Vincent,” said Mrs. Crummles, “what is the hour?”
“Five minutes past dinner-time,” said Mr. Crummles.
Mrs. Crummles rang the bell. “Let the mutton and onion sauce appear.”
The slave who attended upon Mr. Bulph’s lodgers disappeared, and after
a short interval reappeared with the festive banquet. Nicholas and the
Infant Phenomenon opposed each other at the pembroke-table, and Smike
and the Master Crummleses dined on the sofa-bedstead.
“Are they very theatrical people here?” asked Nicholas.
“No,” replied Mr. Crummles, shaking his head, “far from it--far from
it.”
“I pity them,” observed Mrs. Crummles.
“So do I,” said Nicholas; “if they have no relish for theatrical
entertainments, properly conducted.”
“Then they have none, sir,” rejoined Mr. Crummles. “To the Infant’s
benefit, last year, on which occasion she repeated three of her
most popular characters, and also appeared in the Fairy Porcupine,
as originally performed by her, there was a house of no more than
four-pound-twelve.”
“Is it possible?” cried Nicholas.
“And two pound of that was trust, pa,” said the Phenomenon.
“And two pound of that was trust,” repeated Mr. Crummles.
The public did not always appreciate the genius of the Infant
Phenomenon, but that made no difference to the admiring father. When
Nicholas suggested that perhaps a boy phenomenon might be added to the
company, Mr. Crummles answered solemnly: “There is only one Phenomenon,
sir, and that is a girl.”
A CHRISTMAS TREE
XXIV
A CHRISTMAS TREE
MOST people love Christmas trees, but the first Christmas trees one
sees are the most wonderful of all. Dickens tells about the tree he
saw when he was just the right age to appreciate its wonderfulness. He
never afterward saw anything that was equal to it in magnificence. All
sorts of objects clustered on the branches like magic fruit. And the
best thing about it all was that many of these things were for him.
* * * * *
All toys at first, I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red
berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn’t
lie down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling
his fat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those
lobster eyes of his to bear upon me--when I affected to laugh very
much, but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close
beside him is that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a
demoniacal Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair,
and a red cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any
terms, but could not be put away either; for he used suddenly, in a
highly magnified state, to fly out of mammoth snuff-boxes in dreams,
when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler’s wax on his tail,
far off; for there was no knowing where he wouldn’t jump; and when
he flew over the candle, and came upon one’s hand with that spotted
back--red on a green ground--he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a
blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance,
and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful;
but I can’t say as much for the larger cardboard man, who used to be
hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a sinister
expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck
(which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be
alone with.
When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why
was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is
not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll; why then
were its stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the
wearer’s face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should
have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely
insupportable, like the mask. Was it the immovability of the mask?
The doll’s face was immovable, but I was not afraid of _her_.
Perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face infused into
my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal
change that is to come on every face and make it still? Nothing
reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy
chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a
mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff
and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old woman, made of wires and
a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children,
could give me a permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any
satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper,
or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere
recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence
anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and
horror, with, “Oh, I know its coming! Oh, the mask!”
I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers--there he
is! was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And
the great black horse with the round red spots all over him--the horse
that I could even get upon--I never wondered what had brought him to
that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly
seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no color, next to him, that went
into the wagon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the
piano, appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other
bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs; but it was
not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They were
all right, then; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into
their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of the
music-cart, I _did_ find out, to be made of quill toothpicks and
wire; and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt-sleeves,
perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down,
head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person--though
good-natured; but the Jacob’s Ladder, next him, made of little squares
of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each
developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells,
was a mighty marvel and a great delight.
Ah! The Doll’s house!--of which I was not proprietor, but where I
visited. I don’t admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that
stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows and doorsteps, and a
real balcony--greener than I ever see now, except at watering-places;
and even they afford but a poor imitation. And though it _did_
open all at once, the entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit,
as cancelling the fiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up
again, and I could believe. Even open, there were three distinct rooms
in it: a sitting-room and bedroom, elegantly furnished, and best of
all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plentiful assortment
of diminutive utensils--oh, the warming-pan!--and a tin man-cook in
profile, who was always going to fry two fish! What Barmecide justice
have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters
figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued
tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect
as moss! Could all the Temperance societies of these later days,
united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of
yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it
ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches),
and which made tea, nectar. And if the two legs of the ineffectual
little sugar-tongs did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like
Punch’s hands, what does it matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a
poisoned child, and strike the fashionable company with consternation,
by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in
too hot tea, I was never the worse for it, except by a powder!
Upon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green
roller and miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to
hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with
deliciously smooth covers of bright red or green. What fat black
letters to begin with! “A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.” Of course
he was. He was an Apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a good many
things in his time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except
X, who had so little versatility that I never knew him to get beyond
Xerxes or Xantippe--like Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a
Yew Tree; and Z condemned forever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now,
the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk--the marvellous
bean-stalk up which Jack climbed to the Giant’s house! And now, those
dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over
their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng,
dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads.
And Jack--how noble, with his sword of sharpness, and his shoes of
swiftness! Again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at
him; and I debate within myself whether there was more than one Jack
(which I am loath to believe possible), or only one genuine original
admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded exploits.
Good for Christmas time is the ruddy color of the cloak, in which--the
tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her
basket--Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give
me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf
who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite,
and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth.
She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red
Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But it was not to be;
and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah’s
Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a
monster who was to be degraded. Oh, the wonderful Noah’s Ark! It was
not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub, and the animals were
crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down
before they could be got in, even there--and then, ten to one but they
began to tumble out at the door, which was but imperfectly fastened
with a wire latch--but what was _that_ against it! Consider the
noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant: the lady-bird, the
butterfly--all triumphs of art! Consider the goose, whose feet were so
small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually tumbled
forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider Noah and
his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck
to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used
gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string!
Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree--not Robin Hood,
not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all
Mother Bunch’s wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a
glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see
another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree’s
foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep,
with his head in a lady’s lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened
with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner
when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes
signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It is the
setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights.
Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me. All
lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots are
full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are
for Ali Baba to hide in; beefsteaks are to throw down into the Valley
of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried
by the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will
scare them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier’s
son of Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his
drawers at the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the
habit of sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken
blindfold.