A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy Part 6

A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it;--I say UP INTO IT--for there is no descending perpendicular amongst 'em with a "Me voici! mes enfans"--here I am--whatever many may think.

I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black coat, and looking through the gla.s.s saw all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure.--The old with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their vizards;--the young in armour bright which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the east,--all,--all, tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore for fame and love. -

Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? On the very first onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an atom;--seek,--seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays;--there thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber's wife, and get into such coteries! -

- May I peris.h.!.+ if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had to present to Madame de R- --I'll wait upon this lady, the very first thing I do. So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly,--and come back and brush my coat.

THE WIG. PARIS.

When the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with my wig: 'twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.

- But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won't stand.--You may emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. -

What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I.--The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further than to have "dipped it into a pail of water."--What difference! 'tis like Time to Eternity!

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at least. All that can be said against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is this: --That the grandeur is MORE in the WORD, and LESS in the THING. No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment;--the Parisian barber meant nothing. -

The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly, but a sorry figure in speech;--but, 'twill be said,--it has one advantage--'tis in the next room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, without more ado, in a single moment.

In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, THE FRENCH EXPRESSION PROFESSES MORE THAN IT PERFORMS.

I think I can see the precise and distinguis.h.i.+ng marks of national characters more in these nonsensical minutiae than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.

I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, that it was too late to think of going with my letter to Madame R- that night: but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections turn to little account; so taking down the name of the Hotel de Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go;--I shall consider of that, said I, as I walk along.

THE PULSE. PARIS.

Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight: 'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.

- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn to go to the Opera Comique?--Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying aside her work. -

I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.

She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on the far side of the shop, facing the door.

- Tres volontiers, most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I should have said--"This woman is grateful."

You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take,--you must turn first to your left hand,--mais prenez garde--there are two turns; and be so good as to take the second--then go down a little way and you'll see a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross--and there any one will do himself the pleasure to show you. -

She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same goodnatur'd patience the third time as the first;--and if TONES AND MANNERS have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them out,--she seemed really interested that I should not lose myself.

I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes,--and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.

I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every t.i.ttle of what she had said;--so looking back, and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went right or not,--I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was to my right or left,--for that I had absolutely forgot.-- Is it possible! said she, half laughing. 'Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.

As this was the real truth--she took it, as every woman takes a matter of right, with a slight curtsey.

- Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel of gloves. I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.--So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.

- He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment.--And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.--Feel it, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery. -

- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst pa.s.sed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever.--How wouldst thou have laugh'd and moralized upon my new profession!--and thou shouldst have laugh'd and moralized on.-- Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, "There are worse occupations in this world THAN FEELING A WOMAN'S PULSE."--But a grisette's! thou wouldst have said,--and in an open shop! Yorick -

- So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.

THE HUSBAND. PARIS.

I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.--'Twas n.o.body but her husband, she said;--so I began a fresh score.--Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he pa.s.s'd by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse.--The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour--and having said that, he put on his hat and walk'd out.

Good G.o.d! said I to myself, as he went out,--and can this man be the husband of this woman!

Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.

In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there: --in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women,--by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant: -- Monsieur le Mari is little better than the stone under your foot.

- Surely,--surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: -- thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.

- And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.--With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected.-- She was going to say something civil in return--but the lad came into the shop with the gloves.--A propos, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.

THE GLOVES. PARIS.

The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reach'd down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her: they were all too large. The beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand.--It would not alter their dimensions.--She begg'd I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least.--She held it open;--my hand slipped into it at once.--It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little.--No, said she, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety,--where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;- -they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it--it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the counter--it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us.

The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to the window, then at the gloves,--and then at me. I was not disposed to break silence: --I followed her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her,--and so on alternately.

I found I lost considerably in every attack: --she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, that she look'd into my very heart and reins.--It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did. -

It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket.

I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single livre above the price.--I wish'd she had asked a livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about.--Do you think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarra.s.sment, that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger--and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy?--M'en croyez capable?--Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome. So counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper's wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed me.

THE TRANSLATION. PARIS.