The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
of my dear newly-found cousins, but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered over their heads,—the phantom of wealth and the still more empty phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was before I rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way. Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,—that is, if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage before I went to England.
"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face, ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the great Babel,—I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been used to better things,—and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a ghastly smile.
"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence, amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and paid it,—coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom alone was responsible.
"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance. They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you, I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's carriage.
"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins, emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure, unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats, and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.
"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners; I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost persuaded to be a Christian,—that is, to forswear thenceforth and forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral cowardice;—as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.
"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained. 'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents of the unsealed note,—'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually destined to procure me an invitation to ride out with Madam Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?
"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,—for to look after them, (I could speak French, you know,) and to assist in having them properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most splendid turn-out!—the same you just saw pass—waiting in the carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage to get in.
"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before I left the street—for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to linger a little—my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically; for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,—to talk French with, and to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,—looked through and beyond me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant, as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,—known as the rash youth who had just called at the Hôtel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very singular—how do you explain it?—that it should have seemed to me the circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of! I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.
"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet—but I am coming to that part of my story.
"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note which had been left for me by a liveried footman,—Madam Waldoborough's footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld, the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to locate myself.
"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy to terms. My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris, and—the Hôtel Waldoborough!
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