CHAPTER XXIX.
Here's a kind host, that makes the invitation,
To your own cost to his fort bon collation.
--Wycherly's Gent. Dancing Master.
Vous pouvez bien juger que je n'aurai pas grande peine a me
consoler d'une chose dont je me suis deja console tant de fois.
--Lettres de Boileau.
As I was walking home with Vincent from the Rue Mont-orgueil, I saw, on
entering the Rue St. Honore, two figures before us; the tall and noble
stature of the one I could not for a moment mistake. They stopped at the
door of an hotel, which opened in that noiseless manner so peculiar to
the Conciergerie of France. I was at the porte the moment they
disappeared, but not before I had caught a glance of the dark locks and
pale countenance of Warburton--my eye fell upon the number of the hotel.
"Surely," said I, "I have been in that house before."
"Likely enough," growled Vincent, who was gloriously drunk. "It is a
house of two-fold utility--you may play with cards, or coquet with women,
selon votre gout."
At these words I remembered the hotel and its inmates immediately. It
belonged to an old nobleman, who, though on the brink of the grave, was
still grasping at the good things on the margin. He lived with a pretty
and clever woman, who bore the name and honours of his wife. They kept up
two salons, one pour le petit souper, and the other pour le petit jeu.
You saw much ecarte and more love-making, and lost your heart and your
money with equal facility. In a word, the marquis and his jolie petite
femme were a wise and prosperous couple, who made the best of their
lives, and lived decently and honourably upon other people.
"Allons, Pelham," cried Vincent, as I was still standing at the door in
deliberation; "how much longer will you keep me to congeal in this 'eager
and nipping air'--'Quamdiu nostram patientiam abutere Catilina.'"
"Let us enter," said I. "I have the run of the house, and we may find--"
"'Some young vices--some fair iniquities'" interrupted Vincent, with a
hiccup--
"'Leade on good fellowe,' quoth Robin Hood,
Lead on, I do bid thee.'"
And with these words, the door opened in obedience to my rap, and we
mounted to the marquis's tenement au premiere.
The room was pretty full--the soi-disante marquise was flitting from
table to table--betting at each, and coquetting with all; and the marquis
himself, with a moist eye and a shaking hand, was affecting the Don Juan
with the various Elviras and Annas with which his salon was crowded.
Vincent was trying to follow me through the crowd, but his confused
vision and unsteady footing led him from one entanglement to another,
till he was quite unable to proceed. A tall, corpulent Frenchman, six
foot by five, was leaning, (a great and weighty objection,) just before
him, utterly occupied in the vicissitudes of an ecarte table, and
unconscious of Vincent's repeated efforts, first on one side, and then on
the other, to pass him.
At last, the perplexed wit, getting more irascible as he grew more
bewildered, suddenly seized the vast incumbrance by the arm, and said to
him in a sharp, querulous tone, "Pray, Monsieur, why are you like the
lote tree in Mahomet's Seventh Heaven?"
"Sir!" cried the astonished Frenchman.
"Because," (continued Vincent, answering his own enigma)--"because,
beyond you there is no passing!"
The Frenchman (one of that race who always forgive any thing for a bon
mot) smiled, bowed, and drew himself aside. Vincent steered by, and,
joining me, hiccuped out, "In rebus adversis opponite pectora fortia."
Meanwhile I had looked round the room for the objects of my pursuit: to
my great surprise I could not perceive them; they may be in the other
room, thought I, and to the other room I went; the supper was laid out,
and an old bonne was quietly helping herself to some sweetmeat. All other
human beings (if, indeed, an old woman can be called a human being) were,
however, invisible, and I remained perfectly bewildered as to the non-
appearance of Warburton and his companion. I entered the Salle a Jouer
once more--I looked round in every corner--I examined every face--but in
vain; and with a feeling of disappointment very disproportioned to my
loss, I took Vincent's arm, and we withdrew.
The next morning I spent with Madame D'Anville. A Frenchwoman easily
consoles herself for the loss of a lover--she converts him into a friend,
and thinks herself (nor is she much deceived) benefited by the exchange.
We talked of our grief in maxims, and bade each other adieu in
antitheses. Ah! it is a pleasant thing to drink with Alcidonis (in
Marmontel's Tale) of the rose-coloured phial--to sport with the fancy,
not to brood over the passion of youth. There is a time when the heart,
from very tenderness, runs over, and (so much do our virtues as well as
vices flow from our passions) there is, perhaps, rather hope than anxiety
for the future in that excess. Then, if Pleasure errs, it errs through
heedlessness, not design; and Love, wandering over flowers, "proffers
honey, but bears not a sting." Ah! happy time! in the lines of one who
can so well translate feeling into words--
"Fate has not darkened thee; Hope has not made
The blossoms expand it but opens to fade;
Nothing is known of those wearing fears
Which will shadow the light of our after years."
--The Improvisatrice.
Pardon this digression--not much, it must be confessed, in my ordinary
strain--but let me, dear reader, very seriously advise thee not to judge
of me yet. When thou hast got to the end of my book, if thou dost condemn
it or its hero--why "I will let thee alone (as honest Dogberry advises)
till thou art sober; and, if thou make me not, then, the better answer,
thou art not the man I took thee for."
