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his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.

Monseigneur! cried the master of the hôtelbut recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it - If Monfieur, said he, has not a passport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one-Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then, certes, replied he, you'll be fent to the Bastile or the Chatelet, au moins. Poo! faid I, the king of France is a good-natur'd foul-he'll hurt no body. - Cela n'empêche pas, said he-you will certainly be sent to the Bastile tomorrow morning. - But I've taken your lodgings for a month, answer'd I, and I'll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.

Pardi! faid my host, ces Messieurs Anglois font des gens très-extraordinaires - and having both faid and fworn it he went out.

THE PASSPORT.

THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's

with a ferious look upon the subject of my embarraffment, which was the reason I had treated it fo cavalierly: and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilft he waited upon me at supper, talk'd to him with more than ufual gaiety about Paris, and of the opera comique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookfeller's shop; but feeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and that we walk'd down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem'd it unnecessary to follow me a step farther fo making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut and got to the hôtel in time to be inform'd of the affair of the Police against my arrival.

As foon as the honeft creature had taken away, and gone down to fup himself, I then began to think a little feriously about my situation.

And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt fmile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which pass'd betwixt us the moment I was going to set I must tell it here.

out

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburthen'd with money as thought, had

94

drawn me afide to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and faid it would not do; so pull'd out his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I've enough in confcience, Eugenius, faid I. Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius - I know France and Italy better than But you don't confider, Eugenius, faid I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do fomething or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expense. I beg pardon, faid Eugenius, drily: really I had forgot that resource.

you

Now the event I treated gaily came feriously to my door.

1

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philofophy, or pertinacity - or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, that I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?

- And as for the Bastile! the terror is in the word Make the most of it you can, said I to myself,

the Bastile is but another word for a tower and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year but with nine livres a

day, and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within at least for a month or fix weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wifer man than he went in.

I had fome occafion (I forgot what) to step into the court-yard, as I fettled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning - Beshrew the fombre pencil! faid I vauntingly - for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with fo hard and deadly a coloring. The mind fits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them 'Tis true, faid I, correcting the propofition - the Bastile is not an evil to be despised - but strip it of its towers fill up the fosse it fimply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper and not of a man which holds you in it

unbarricade the doors call

the evil vanishes, and you bear

the other half without complaint.

I

I was interrupted in the hey-day of this foliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out. look'd up and down the passage, and feeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without farther attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the fame words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. I can't get out, " faid the

" I can't get out

starling.

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I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the fame lamentation of its captivity - "I can't get out, faid the starling. God help thee ! faid I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; fo I turned about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the treillis, pressed his breast against it, as if impatient I fear, poor creature! faid I, I cannot set thee at liberty - "No, "faid the starling " I can't get out I can't get out, faid the starling.

دو

I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life, where the diffipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the

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