—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 itbut your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so sweet,that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and what was itwhich made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of youboth as they just passed by?
The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same timethey both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out atwelve-sous piece.
The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;—it wascontinued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give thetwelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to end the dispute, they both gave ittogether, and the man went away.
THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.PARIS.
I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in askingcharity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—andI found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twas flattery.
Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly areall its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thoumix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuouspassages to the heart!
The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, had given it here in alarger 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 hecontrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not myspirit with the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained two twelve-souspieces—and they can best tell the rest, who have gained much greatermatters by it.
PARIS.
WE get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receivingthem; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then youwater it, because you have planted it.
Monsieur le Count de B—, merely because he had done me one kindness inthe affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few days hewas at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they wereto present me to others, and so on.
I had got master of my _secret_ just in time to turn these honours tosome little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should havedined or supp’d a single time or two round, and then, by _translating_French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently haveseen, that I had hold of the _couvert_ {652} of some more entertainingguest; and in course should have resigned all my places one afteranother, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them.—As it was,things did not go much amiss.
I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B—: in days ofyore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the_Cour d’Amour_, and had dress’d himself out to the idea of tilts andtournaments ever since.—The Marquis de B— wish’d to have it thought theaffair was somewhere else than in his brain. “He could like to take atrip to England,” and asked much of the English ladies.—Stay where youare, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.—_Les Messieurs Anglois_can scarce get a kind look from them as it is.—The Marquis invited me tosupper.
Monsieur P—, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes.They were very considerable, he heard.—If we knew but how to collectthem, said I, making him a low bow.
I could never have been invited to Mons. P—’s concerts upon any otherterms.
I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q— as an _esprit_.—Madame de Q—was an _esprit_ herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear metalk. I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not care a souswhether I had any wit or no;—I was let in, to be convinced she had. Icall heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.
Madame de V— vow’d to every creature she met—“She had never had a moreimproving conversation with a man in her life.”
There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.—She iscoquette,—then deist,—then _dévote_: the empire during these is neverlost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more haveunpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it withslaves of infidelity,—and then with the slaves of the church.
Madame de V— was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the colourof the rose was fading fast away;—she ought to have been a deist fiveyears before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.
She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing thepoint of religion more closely.—In short Madame de V— told me shebelieved nothing.—I told Madame de V— it might be her principle, but Iwas sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, withoutwhich I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could bedefended;—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than fora beauty to be a deist;—that it was a debt I owed my creed not to concealit from her;—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa besideher, but I had begun to form designs;—and what is it, but the sentimentsof religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, whichcould have check’d them as they rose up?
We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;—and there is need ofall restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays them onus.—But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,—’tis too—too soon.
I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame deV—.—She affirmed to Monsieur D— and the Abbé M—, that in one half hour Ihad said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had saidagainst it.—I was listed directly into Madame de V—’s _coterie_;—and sheput off the epocha of deism for two years.
I remember it was in this _coterie_, in the middle of a discourse, inwhich I was showing the necessity of a _first_ cause, when the youngCount de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room,to tell me my _solitaire_ was pinn’d too straight about my neck.—Itshould be _plus badinant_, said the Count, looking down upon his own;—buta word, Monsieur Yorick, _to the wise_—
And _from the wise_, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,—_isenough_.
The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I wasembraced by mortal man.
For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion I met.—_Pardi_! _ceMonsieur Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous autres_.—_Il raisonne bien_,said another.—_C’est un bon enfant_, said a third.—And at this price Icould have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life atParis; but ’twas a dishonest _reckoning_;—I grew ashamed of it.—It wasthe gain of a slave;—every sentiment of honour revolted against it;—thehigher I got, the more was I forced upon my _beggarly system_;—the betterthe _coterie_,—the more children of Art;—I languish’d for those ofNature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half adozen different people, I grew sick,—went to bed;—order’d La Fleur to getme horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
MARIA.MOULINES.
I NEVER felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape tillnow,—to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part ofFrance,—in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring herabundance into every one’s lap, and every eye is lifted up,—a journey,through each step of which Music beats time to _Labour_, and all herchildren are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass throughthis with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group beforeme,—and every one of them was pregnant with adventures.—
Just heaven!—it would fill up twenty volumes;—and alas! I have but a fewsmall pages left of this to crowd it into,—and half of these must betaken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with nearMoulines.
The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little inthe reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, itreturned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulsewhich prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the villagewhere her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.
’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance
in quest ofmelancholy adventures. But I know not how it is, but I am never soperfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I amentangled in them.
The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before sheopen’d her mouth.—She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, ofanguish, for the loss of Maria’s senses, about a month before.—She hadfeared at first, she added, that it would have plunder’d her poor girl ofwhat little understanding was left;—but, on the contrary, it had broughther more to herself:—still, she could not rest.—Her poor daughter, shesaid, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.
Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur,whose heart seem’d only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his handtwice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it? I beckoned to thepostilion to turn back into the road.
When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening inthe road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under apoplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaningon one side within her hand:—a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.
I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines—and La Fleur tobespeak my supper;—and that I would walk after him.
She was dress’d in white, and much as my friend described her, exceptthat her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net.—Shehad superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fellacross her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.—Hergoat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog inlieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle: as Ilooked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string.—“Thou shaltnot leave me, Sylvio,” said she. I look’d in Maria’s eyes and saw shewas thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;for, as she utter’d them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell,with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it in my own,—and then in hers,—andthen in mine,—and then I wip’d hers again;—and as I did it, I felt suchundescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted forfrom any combinations of matter and motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with whichmaterialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary.
MARIA.
WHEN Maria had come a little to herself, I ask’d her if she remembered apale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goatabout two years before? She said she was unsettled much at that time,but remembered it upon two accounts:—that ill as she was, she saw theperson pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief,and she had beat him for the theft;—she had wash’d it, she said, in thebrook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in caseshe should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promisedher. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket tolet me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves,tied round with a tendril;—on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one ofthe corners.
She had since that, she told me, stray’d as far as Rome, and walk’d roundSt. Peter’s once,—and return’d back;—that she found her way alone acrossthe Apennines;—had travell’d over all Lombardy, without money,—andthrough the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes:—how she had borne it,and how she had got supported, she could not tell;—but _God tempers thewind_, said Maria, _to the shorn lamb_.
Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land,where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thoushouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup;—I would be kind tothy Sylvio;—in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after theeand bring thee back;—when the sun went down I would say my prayers: andwhen I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, norwould the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heavenalong with that of a broken heart!
Nature melted within me, as I utter’d this; and Maria observing, as Itook out my handkerchief, that it was steep’d too much already to be ofuse, would needs go wash it in the stream.—And where will you dry it,Maria? said I.—I’ll dry it in my bosom, said she:—’twill do me good.
And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.
I touch’d upon the string on which hung all her sorrows:—she look’d withwistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying anything, took her pipe and play’d her service to the Virgin.—The string Ihad touched ceased to vibrate;—in a moment or two Maria returned toherself,—let her pipe fall,—and rose up.
And where are you going, Maria? said I.—She said, to Moulines.—Let us go,said I, together.—Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening thestring, to let the dog follow,—in that order we enter’d Moulines.
MARIA.MOULINES.
THOUGH I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when wegot into the middle of this, I stopp’d to take my last look and lastfarewell of Maria.
Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fineforms:—affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarceearthly;—still she was feminine;—and so much was there about her of allthat the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could thetraces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, sheshould _not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup_, but Mariashould lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.
Adieu, poor luckless maiden!—Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassionof a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thywounds;—the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them up forever.
THE BOURBONNNOIS.
THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous ariot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through thispart of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, mysufferings have totally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity, I sawMaria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar;and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade acrossher.
—Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys,or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed ofstraw—and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of ourfeelings!—’tis here I trace thee—and this is thy “_divinity which stirswithin me_;”—not that, in some sad and sickening moments, “_my soulshrinks back upon herself_, _and startles at destruction_;”—mere pomp ofwords!—but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyondmyself;—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world! whichvibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in theremotest desert of thy creation.—Touch’d with thee, Eugenius draws mycurtain when I languish—hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weatherfor the disorder of his nerves. Thou giv’st a portion of it sometimes tothe roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains;—he finds thelacerated lamb of another’s flock.—This moment I behold him leaning withhis head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down uponit!—Oh! had I come one moment sooner! it bleeds to death!—his gentleheart bleeds with it.—
Peace to thee, generous swain!—I see thou walkest off with anguish,—butthy joys shall balance it;—for, happy is thy cottage,—and happy is thesharer of it,—and happy are the lambs which sport about you!
THE SUPPER.
A SHOE coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at thebeginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of fiveor six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point ofhaving the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilionhad thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of nogreat use without them, I submitted to go on.
He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece ofroad, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from o
ff his other forefoot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a houseabout a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do Iprevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. The look of the house,and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to thedisaster.—It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acresof vineyard, about as much corn;—and close to the house, on one side, wasa _potagerie_ of an acre and a half, full of everything which could makeplenty in a French peasant’s house;—and, on the other side, was a littlewood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in theevening when I got to the house—so I left the postilion to manage hispoint as he could;—and, for mine, I walked directly into the house.
The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five orsix sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogyout of them.
They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheatenloaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end ofit promised joy through the stages of the repast:—’twas a feast of love.
The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality wouldhave me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I enter’dthe room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family; and to investmyself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed theold man’s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon;and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honestwelcome, but of a welcome mix’d with thanks that I had not seem’d todoubt it.