“It has been found hard to describe man by an adequate definition. Some philosophers have called him a reasonable animal; but others have considered reason as a quality of which many creatures partake. He has been termed likewise a laughing animal; but it is said that some men have never laughed. Perhaps man may be more properly distinguished as an idle animal.”—Dr. Johnson.
My father was a major in the army who, at the time this story begins, had lived in Longueville-sur-mer for fifteen years, to which place he had come, after my mother’s death, bringing me with him. I was then seven years old. He put me to a good school in the neighbourhood, at which I remained until I was sixteen; and was then let free. Considering myself a man, I worked hard to grow a mustache, in which I very ignominiously failed; for it was not until I was one-and-twenty that nature condescended to favour me with that very elegant and martial decoration. I also took to colouring meerschaum pipes, in which art, before I was nineteen, I was considered by my companions to excel, though I did not succeed in establishing my reputation in that line until I had dealt such an injury to my nervous system as I fear I shall never recover. I also became, before long, an expert hand at billiards, though up to the last Bob Le Marchmont could always give me twenty points and beat me comfortably. But I was his better at whist, and was indeed a match for several grave old gentlemen who were members of our English Club in the Rue des Chiens.
My father was a remarkably handsome man, with a nose like Lord Chatham’s and with whiskers which I would liken to two solid bastions of hair, richly dyed and inexorably curled. A whiter hand than his never embellished a cuff. He stood six feet in his stockings, and well do I remember Sub-lieutenant Delplanque saying to me “Mon cher, one may stitch pokers instead of whalebone into one’s stays, and still fail to achieve the air magnificent and CÆsaresque that distinguishes le major Argrrrarve.” I was once walking on the port, as they call the quay, with my father, when Louis Napoleon drove past us; His Majesty was in mufti, and my father would not have known him had not the Emperor deigned to raise his hat. The compliment was an imperial one, and my father would relate the incident with exquisite satisfaction. Jack Sturt said “it was foreign majesty paying homage to British arms—and legs.” To which I added, “God save the Queen.”
There can be no doubt that after I left school my father ought to have put me to one of the professions, or entered me in a house of business. He had two brothers, one of whom owned a private bank, the other was a retired stock-broker; and either of them, as they afterwards told me, would have been very glad to take me by the hand, had my father applied to them. But he was by nature a reckless man: by reckless I mean that he never troubled himself about the future (though he lived strictly within his half-pay). He hated trouble of any kind or description. If ever he reflected upon the future, he could scarcely, I am sure, understand that it should mean more than a perpetual succession of morning strolls, and afternoon siestas, and evening whist parties. He pursued day after day, with automatic regularity, a small round of trifling and monotonous distractions, which by degrees girdled his existence with the narrowest possible horizon, and prevented him from sympathising with any needs which, like mine, lay outside the sphere of his daily routine.
I do not say I was not as much or more to blame. Had I teazed him, he would no doubt have made an effort to get me out of Longueville into some calling in England. To speak the truth, I liked my life so well that I had no wish to change. Monotony has its fascination. We cling to dulness after many years of habitude. Don’t you know people who have, to your certain knowledge, made up their minds for the last ten years to leave the place they live in? Year after year the same story is told—how they hate the society; how inhospitable the neighbours are; how low the town has become since their day: how every stone in every street is as familiar to them as their faces; how unspeakably nauseating the people who live opposite, and who overlook all their internal doings, make life by the sickening regularity of their habits. But your grumbling friends still go on living in the same place; and all they do, and all they probably ever will do, is to amuse their resolution to quit with fictitious inspections of houses they don’t mean to take, and occasional applications for lists to distant house-agents, with whom they have not the slightest intention of transacting any business. Over and over again I would say, “I’d give anything to get out of this hole;” and no man’s voice more loudly swelled the residential chorus of abuse against Longueville than mine. But I never meant what I said. In the depths of my soul dwelt a very pathetic love for our apartments, with the faded velvet furniture and ghastly skeleton clock and antique mirrors, over Auguste Soulier’s the bootmaker’s shop in the Rue d’Enghien; for the pastry-cook’s opposite, where, when a boy, I would spend my pocket-money in pistaches and tarts, and where, when grown too nice for raw sweetmeats and jam, I would dawdle over Vanilla ices; for the billiard table in the CafÉ Grenouille over whose worn cloth I have stooped with an enthusiasm that, directed into a money-making channel, would have earned me a good income; for the whist tables in the club-room, where, amid volumes of smoke from cigars, at fifty centimes apiece, I would make or lose during a long evening as much as ten sous. And shall I ever forget—oh, fond and foolish heart, be still!—shall I ever forget thee, sweet Pauline Gautier—remind me, was thy father a dancing-master, or did he keep a school? Thee, I say, whom on summer evenings I would row in a boat on the amber-coloured river, filling the intervals of the measured music of my oars with tender breathings, surely not the less delightful for thee to hear because I whispered them in French, not always strictly grammatical?
But, as my father would often say, aprÔpos of nothing, “Facts, my boy, are stronger than prejudices;” and a very undeniable fact was that, though billiards, and smoking, and boating, and spooning by moonlight are highly agreeable pursuits, they could not in any fashion whatever contribute to my existence when it pleased heaven to call my father away. I wonder I never thought of this. However, when I was hard upon three-and-twenty, a change came. This is the story of it.
One morning I saw a letter addressed to my father lying upon the breakfast-table. It bore the English post-mark, and without taking further thought of it I went to the window and amused myself with staring out until my father should enter. Somehow, I have the clearest recollection of that morning, and of a trivial incident that made up the life of the street whilst I looked down upon it. It was early morning—nine o’clock. The gay sunshine streamed brightly upon the shop-windows and the white pavement, and threw a coquettish intelligence upon the brown and comely features of a smart femme de chambre, who had thrown up a window opposite to shake a duster, which, I took it, she meant to continue shaking whilst I remained visible. In the middle of the road were two soldiers, little red-trowsered men, so neat and small, you would have said that they had just been unpacked at the toyman’s at the corner. A priest passed, reading a book, with his eyes in the corners of their sockets; the little soldiers whipped up their hands, gave him a salute, and fell to talking again. Ciel! how they gesticulated, shrugged, brandished their fists, smote their breasts, and struck attitudes! In London a crowd would have surrounded them in two minutes, and a hundred pocket-handkerchiefs would have been lost for ever. Now what were they grimacing, grinning, grunting, and growling over? Probably a description. Alphonse was telling Jules how Auguste had beaten AmedÉe last night at dominoes; the stakes, sugar-and-water all round, a matter of cinquante centimes. AmedÉe was abimÉ. Va pour un croquant! You saw his face this morning, Jules? Tenez! ’twas green as grass. This AmedÉe bears misfortune like a Russian. (To-day it would be a Prussian). Bah! ... here a shrug expressed the rest: in which the ears stood out along the shoulders, in which the back became a hump, in which the tension of the corporeal frame lifted the trousers up the calves, and exhibited everything but socks—in which the whole person was transformed into a rounded twist of silent eloquence, so convincing that I saw Monsieur Galette in the pastry-cook’s shop, nod his head with a gesture of acute appreciation of the significance of the martial convulsion. Thus universally intelligible in France is the language of contortion.
As the soldiers walked off, gesticulating as if at any moment they would throw their caps down and fight it out, in came my father, took up the letter, pulled out his glasses, and having read a little, called out—
“Charlie, here’s news for you.”
“Grove End, Updown,
“May —, 18—.
“My dear Brother,
“I was very glad to get your letter, for, guessing roughly, I should say it is not a day less than four years since I last heard from you. You hate the sea; yet you managed to cross the Channel once; can’t you cross it again and spend a few weeks with us?”
(My father shook his head.)
“I can give you some capital Burgundy, my cook knows her work, and though society here is rather drab-coloured, I can pick you out enough people to keep you well stocked with rubbers.”
(“He would have to entertain a corpse,” said my father. “The crossing would kill me—especially if it were calm—for then all the filth of the engine-room is tasted.”)
“And now to business,” continued the letter. “You want to place your son. Would he like to be a banker’s clerk?”
(“No,” said I; but my father took no notice.)
“One of my clerks is leaving me. His salary is £100. I will make it £150 for your son, if he will come. He can either live in lodgings or with us. He may prefer the former; but I think he will find our house more comfortable than any apartments he can get at Updown. The place will be vacant next week, and he can join when he likes.
“Richard was with me last month.”
(“Poor Dick!” said my father; “we haven’t met for twenty years!”)
“Do you know that he has changed his quarters, and purchased an estate at Shandon?”
(“Tom told me that Dick had retired on £40,000,” said my father, looking at me over his glasses.)
“He has grown very corpulent, and hankers after his old trade. A gain of £10 makes him giddy with joy; and he will forget, amid his transports, that he lost a hundred or more last account. His daughter Theresa has grown a fine woman. I shall be curious to see your son, who scarcely reached to my knee when I last saw him.
“My wife and Constance send all manner of kind messages.
“Believe me, dear Charles,
“Your affectionate brother,
“Thomas Hargrave.”
“What is all this about?” said I.
“About?” cried my father: “why, about you.”
“What made you write? You didn’t tell me you had done so.”
“Because I wasn’t sure that anything would come of it. Why, this is from your uncle Tom. Didn’t you know you had such an uncle?”
“Of course I knew—but what made you write?”
“I’ll tell you,” answered my father, pulling off his glasses. “Last Monday evening I had a talk with Harris at the Club. Harris is a man I respect. I consider Harris,” said my father with emphasis, “an honest man. He spoke of you. ‘Major,’ said he, ‘I think Charlie is too fine a fellow to be allowed to run to seed in a place like this?’ ‘I’ll own, Harris,’ said I, ‘that it has sometimes struck me my son might be doing better.’ He then asked me, why I didn’t get you into some house of business in London. This sort of questions are very easily put. There’s no difficulty in asking a subaltern why he isn’t a field-marshal, or a poor man why he don’t invent something wonderful, and make a fortune. ‘The fact is,’ said I, ‘I have no interest in the City. I don’t think,’ I said, quite forgetting my brother Tom for the moment, ‘that I have a single friend in business.’ ‘Well, major,’ said Harris, ‘your boy and I are old friends: he’s a thorough Englishman and a gentleman, and has done nothing that I can see to deserve expatriation. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I have a brother——’ ‘Faith Harris,’ said I, ‘I am truly obliged to you, but I can’t permit you to do for me what it is my duty, at all events, to try to do for myself. You’ve reminded me that I, too, have a brother who owns a private bank. By George!’”—(my father always swore like a gentleman)—“‘I’ll write to him! I have never asked either of my brothers a favour in my life; and I don’t suppose Tom will refuse me a first and last request.’ So, without saying a word to you, I sent a letter to Tom, asking his interest for you. I don’t know how it strikes you—but I never could have expected so handsome a reply after so long a silence. Why, he has answered me by return of post,” said my father, peering at the date.
“Oh, no doubt he is very kind,” I answered, wishing both him and old Harris at Jericho. “But I haven’t any particular wish to leave here.”
“True, but this is no place for a young man. What’s your age? Three-and-twenty. My dear boy, at three-and-twenty William Pitt was First Lord of the Treasury. What you have to consider is, I am fifty years old” (50 + 12), “and at fifty a man is no longer young.”
“That is true,” said I, somewhat impressed, for these were considerations that, so far as I could remember, had never before disturbed either of us.
“When I die,” continued my father, “my pay dies with me. I have saved nothing—what have I to save? This is not so cheap a place to live in as people think. There was, indeed, a time when ten francs would purchase poultry enough to stock a hotel for a week, but now I can scarcely put a pair of fowls on my table for that money. When I die, what is to become of you? If you don’t think of that now, you will find yourself in a muddle some of these days. Tom can be the making of you if he likes. A hundred and fifty a year, let me tell you, is a very handsome beginning.”
“Yes; but a banker’s clerk!”
“You needn’t call yourself that. You’ll be known as your uncle’s nephew, and I should always speak of you as a banker. And after all, what does it signify what you’re called, so long as you have prospects?”
“I know I can’t do any good by remaining here,” said I, gloomily; “but that doesn’t make me want to leave.”
“Man,” answered my father with the solemnity of a Rasselas, “is not a vegetable. Legs were given him to walk with, and the world was made for him to look at. As we advance in life our wants dwindle to a point. No man could ever have started with more copious aspirations than I did, and now whist is the one solitary pleasure that satisfies me. I don’t know,” he continued, stroking his fine whiskers, “how it came about that I never thought of sending a line to Tom about you before. Answer his letter after breakfast, and take care to thank him for his kindness. I consider his offer a very handsome one.”
“It’s awfully sudden,” said I.
Indeed it was: and I thought it hard that I should be called upon to act and decide for myself without having received one word of warning that a change was to take place. It was not to be expected that I could let fall at once those prejudices in favour of an idle life which had been the accumulation of six years of steady inactivity.
“All good fortune is sudden,” said my father.“Do you mean to accept the invitation?”
“No; apart from my horror of the sea, I should prefer that you entered life alone. There is a dignity in solitude—a suggestion of self-dependence, my boy, that all men of the world admire. Of course on your arrival you will assure everybody of my affectionate and brotherly sentiments.”
“I shouldn’t mind anything else but a banker’s clerk!” I grumbled. “Roget’s a banker’s clerk, and what a snob he is!”
“Roget’s a Frenchman. Don’t confound monkeys with men. Always be lordly in your estimates of what you are about. I always was. Nothing gave me greater delight than to be magnificent in trifles. I have read of a composer who invariably sat down to write in full court dress, with fine lace ruffles on, and diamond rings. That was a great man. Let your personal characteristics, if you have any, overtop and overwhelm every consideration that seems in anywise mercenary or humble. Sink the Thing in the Man! Beau Brummel behind a counter showing scarves to gentlemen or silks to ladies, would make haberdasherising a gorgeous calling, fit for monarchs to pursue. If I were a banker’s clerk, the whole profession should feel themselves dignified by the accession of a man in whose rich and sumptuous individuality all paltry conditions of his employment should be merged, sunk, and annihilated!”
Saying which, he gave me a magnificent nod, and looked at himself in the glass.“Happen what will,” said I, “I’ll live in lodgings. I suppose I shall be fearfully hardworked: but what time I have to myself, I mean to be free in. For anything I can tell, my aunt may hate the smell of tobacco. Perhaps uncle Tom is a one-pipe man, who blows his cloud up the kitchen-chimney. A pleasant look-out for a fellow like me, to find himself in a house, where, after tea, the wife pulls out ‘Emma,’ or ‘Cecilia,’ and reads aloud, whilst the husband snorts in an arm-chair, and the daughter works at an altar cloth! Bed at half-past nine—a knock at your door at a quarter to ten, with a shrill request to put your light out, as master’s afraid of fire. No boiled mutton and near relations for me! I’d rather be a missionary than endure that sort of thing.”“By all means live in lodgings,” said my father, who, I could see, reflected with horror upon the picture I had drawn. “A hundred and fifty a year ought to get you some good wine and cigars, and I don’t see what the deuce is to upset you.”
“Well, I can but try banking, and see how I like it,” said I, dolefully, accommodating my prejudices after the established fashion.
“Oh, you’ll like it,” answered my father. “You’re not going among strangers: and Tom is too much my brother, I hope, not to know what is due to relations and gentlemen.”
Here Celestine brought in the coffee and omelettes, and we sat down to breakfast.
Of course you guess that I did as my father bade me, and accepted my uncle’s offer with an abundance of artificial gratitude. Really grateful I could not be. I was content to remain as I was, as I have told you, and heartily wished my uncle hanged for his kindness. Nor was I at all well-pleased to be reminded of my prospective necessities. What business had Harris to remind my father to tell me that, when he died, I should be a beggar? This was a most objectionable truth: a bold, naked, confounded fact, which, when I was made to look at it, I could not blink; which rendered work necessary; and which enforced my acceptance of uncle Tom’s offer. “Ah, my Pauline!” I remember thinking that evening as I wandered companionless around the stand on which the band of the Hundred Guards were playing, as only it can play, “Ah, my Pauline, would that I had but thy papa’s income, which, as he once assured me in a moment of supreme confidence, amounted to two thousand francs! Small are my wants and thine! What luxuries and bliss unspeakable were ours on two thousand francs of rent! Is not thine a smile that would make soupe maigre—accursed beverage!—more exquisite to the palate than turtle-soup? Hast thou not eyes whose sweet fires would give to the thinnest ordinaire the ruby radiance and the Paradisaical aroma of Burgundy’s vintage?” Was love a reason for my reluctance to leave Longueville? I almost forget. Seldom is the memory tenacious of early indiscretions, or, as a Scotchman said to me once, with intense gravity, “Sir, we forget what we canna remember.” I contrast those sighs I have just recorded with the emotions with which I surveyed Pauline last summer. Que voulez vous? She keeps a hotel. Fat? was she fat? Mr. Banting might have been cut out of her, and still left her a stout woman. I did not know her. Fat annihilates idealism, and I might as well have hunted for a vision of loveliness in the lump of marble which the sculptor has not yet struck, as have sought for the Pauline of my youth, the Pauline of my moonlight boating trips, the Pauline of the black eyes and little waist, in the Dutch and shaking rotundity that filled me, as I gazed, with mingled emotions of alarm and amazement. She knew me, and gasped out her name and—pouff! let me blow these recollections away. I have a story to tell of which Pauline is not the heroine.So figure to yourself that I have bidden my father and a group of friends, in deer-stalking hats and tight pantaloons, good-bye, and that I am standing near the man at the wheel, who is steering the “King of the French” out through the piers, and that I continue waving my handkerchief to everybody who will look, until the town sinks behind the cliffs, and the piers melt into thin lines. Then I gaze ahead, and see nothing but a broad expanse of blue leaping water, through which the steamer cuts her way, straight for a cloud, a vague white cloud upon the horizon, which a Frenchman near me tells Madame, his wife, is “Le cliffs to Shak-ess-pear, comedian Angleesh.”
