English Pharisees and French Crocodiles Part 8

You go down to the cabin. Alas! that is the finis.h.i.+ng touch. The stuffy, heavy, unwholesome atmosphere, charged with a mixed odor of tar, mysterious cookery, and troubled stomachs, brings your digestive apparatus up to your throat. You feel stifled. All the vital forces crowd to your head, and your legs are powerless to support you. You throw yourself on your berth like a log, and instinctively close your eyes, so as not to see that man over there, who is just about to open the ball, or that other who is looking at you with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and pity, as he calmly eats his chop. This creature is the most annoying of all your fellow-pa.s.sengers. His compa.s.sion for you is insulting. You hate his healthy-looking face, his calm, his good appet.i.te even; and your indignation reaches its climax when you see him coolly filling his pipe and preparing to go on deck and smoke. Unable to endure the atmosphere of the saloon any longer, you make a grand effort and return to the upper regions. The first sight that meets your eyes is that man again, now lavis.h.i.+ng the most careful attentions upon your wife; he has been to fetch her some brandy and water, or a cup of tea. You would thank him, but you do not care for your wife to see you in your pitiful condition. That fellow is unbearable, overpowering. This is the only reflection suggested by his kindness to your wife; and away you steer, making a semicircle, or rather two or three, on your way to an empty bench, where you once more a.s.sume the horizontal.

A friend comes to tell you that your wife is giving up the ghost somewhere in the stern of the s.h.i.+p, but you make believe not to hear, and only murmur through your teeth: "So am I; what can I do for her?"

You ask the steward to send you some tea, and it comes up in an earthenware basin an inch thick. You put it to your lips. Horrible!

What can it possibly be made of, this nauseating decoction? The smell of the flat, unpalatable stuff makes you feel more qualmish than ever; the remedy is worse than the evil.

Just as, at Monaco, you never fail to come across a gambler who has his system, you rarely take a sea journey without meeting with the good soul who has an infallible preventive for seasickness. "This succeeds with nine persons out of ten," she tells you. Next time you cross, you try it, but only to find that you are evidently _the tenth_. However, it is not a failure or two that can shake the blind confidence she has in her remedy, I must say it to her credit.

Though there exists no cure for this strange evil, I think, notwithstanding, that by the exercise of a little self-control, one can r.e.t.a.r.d the catastrophe. At least such is my experience.

We were one day between Guernsey and Southampton, just near the Casquettes, where the Channel makes things very uncomfortable for you, if there is the least wind blowing. I had curled myself up in a corner in the stern of the boat and was preparing to feel very sadly. Up came two French ladies, appearing, like myself, to have strayed that way in search of solitude.

"_Saperlotte_," thought I, "here are women looking at you, my boy; be a man."

I fixed my eyes on a point of the horizon, and no doubt appeared to my neighbors to be plunged in profound contemplation.

The ladies took up their position not very far from me, and began to heave very heavy sighs. I looked at them. They were green.

"Ah, Monsieur!" said one of them to me, "how fortunate you are, not to be ill!"

I was saved, for the moment at all events. It put fresh strength into me. Forcing a smile, and gathering up my courage, I had the impudence to affirm that I felt pretty well. The effort of the will had the power to keep the evil in check.

At that moment I understood how you can make a hero of a frightened soldier by telling him that bravery is written in his eyes.

A man who crosses the Channel several times a year is pretty sure to have one or two little anecdotes of the _mal de mer_, and its consequences, in a corner of his memory.

Here is one chosen at random:

It was between Boulogne and Folkestone, on a _mare contrarium_.

Seated quietly on deck, I was just dozing over a book, the author of which I will not name, since his volume had less power over my senses than the rolling of the boat. I was presently brought back to consciousness by the weight of a head, laid on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, looked out of the corners of them; the head was a very pretty one, upon my word.

What was I to do?

To stay would be compromising; to get away suddenly would be ungallant and perhaps not without danger, for the poor little head might fall against the bulwarks of the boat. I reclosed my eyes, and made believe not to have noticed anything. All at once I heard a sweet voice in my ear:

"O Arthur! What shall I do? If you only knew how sick I feel. Oh! I must lean my head on your shoulder; you don't mind, do you?"

The situation was getting alarming. I kept my eyes closed, so as not to scare away the poor creature, who was evidently at sea, in more senses than one. I kept quiet, buried in my wraps and traveling cap, and, without moving my head, just murmured, "I am really awfully sorry, madam, but I am not Arthur."

This was startling enough in all conscience. I quite expected a small explosion; apologies, little screams, a fainting fit, perhaps. Happily, however, on board s.h.i.+p, dignity is laid aside. Certainly, on dry land, this lady could not have done less than faint, if it were only for the sake of appearances. But _a la mer, comme a la mer_.

So there was no fuss or fainting; for that matter my poor fellow-traveler had not the strength to move. I rose, helped her to a.s.sume a more comfortable position, placed a cus.h.i.+on under her head, and covered her with my rug. Then, having called the steward and recommended Mme. Arthur to his care, there remained nothing but to decamp, and quit the thankless _role_ of caretaker of somebody else's wife.

When we got into harbor at Folkestone, Arthur suddenly made his appearance from somewhere in the lower regions. He was my very double--the same size, the same dress.... I saw through the misadventure.

On joining the London train, I found myself in the same compartment as the young couple. Arthur _knew all_, as they say in sensational novels, and we had a hearty laugh together over the affair. Arthur was as gay as a lark. I attributed his mirth to the fact of his having left the sea behind, and to his finding himself once more on _terra firma_ with his beloved one. I found in the course of conversation that he had only been married the day before, and the happy pair had come over to hide their bliss in the fogs. They intended pa.s.sing their honeymoon in London. It would have been sacrilege. I dissuaded them from their project, and induced them to go to Scotland, to see its lakes and mountains, and the bracken lit up with autumnal gold.

CHAPTER XIII.

BRITISH PHILOSOPHY AND FRENCH SENSITIVENESS.

British philosophy!

Why not _English Philosophy_?

The difference is enormous. If I were to publish a treatise on the English philosophers, Bacon, Locke, Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Frederic Harrison, etc., I should call my work: "A Study of English Philosophy." But if I said to you that the English, not having succeeded in regaining Khartoum, contented themselves with regaining the road to England, I should add, that is British philosophy.

You would not say, "History of British Literature," you say, "History of English Literature."

There is something serio-comic about the word "British," or something chauvinistic. You would be right in saying "British army, British soldiers." The lady who fills the newspapers with her outcries against the few nudities exhibited in the Academy every season, is known only by the name of "British Matron."

An Englishman only calls his fellow-countrymen "Britons" when he is half laughing at them. When he says, "We Britons," he is not quite serious; on the contrary, when he says, "We Englishmen," his face reflects the feeling of respect with which the sound of his name inspires him.

The "English public," is good society; the "British" public means the common run of mortals in the United Kingdom.

British philosophy! that philosophy that makes us like what we have when we cannot have what we like; that philosophy taught by that good mother, and incomparable teacher, whose name is Necessity.

Alas, we French people do not possess this kind of philosophy. I wish we did. As a matter of fact, we are the most absurdly sensitive, thin-skinned people on the face of the earth. We do not know how to take a kick, much less, make use of it. I mean a kick in the figurative sense; the one that leaves no trace, and does not prevent us from sitting at our ease.

But, if the Englishman knows how to take it, do you believe he feels it the less for that? Be not deceived on the point. He exercises control over himself. He does not give it back on the spot, but stores it up, rubs the injured part, applies a little cold cream, if necessary, and awaits the moment when he will be able to return it with interest. Such is the difference between the two men. To my mind, the Englishman is the more intelligent of the two.

Success turns our heads in France, reverses discourage and demoralize us; we know neither how to profit by victory, nor put up with defeat. In victory, we see only glory; in defeat, only disgrace.

Thus we are led to make war to serve dynastic interests; we go to the Crimea for the English, who do not go to Germany for us; we set the Italian nation on its feet, and to-day, see it, in its profound grat.i.tude, preferring Germany to ourselves.

Criticism exasperates instead of benefiting us, and even occasionally amusing us. We hate our enemies, instead of being grateful to them for the good they do us; for if we owe part of our success to our friends, we owe a still greater part to our enemies.

There are two ways of causing an animal to advance--whether that animal be an artist, a writer, or a prime minister--first, by kind encouragements ... in front; secondly, by something less pleasant ... on the other side.

I firmly believe the second process to be the more efficient of the two.

It is only indifference that kills; in religion, in love, in politics, in literature, in everything.

Christianity came out of the Roman arenas, English Protestantism out of the Smithfield fires; and many a demagogue owed his success, under the Second Empire, to the few months' imprisonment at Ste. Pelagie that the Imperialist judges were silly enough to condemn him to.

Enemies? Why, they are our fortune. When I hear a man spoken of after his death as never having had any enemies, as a Christian I admire him, but I also come to the conclusion that the dear fellow must have been a very insignificant member of the community.