Pelham — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ who was convulsed with laughter, and yet endeavouring to speak gravely; “why, watch like L. Opimius, ‘ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet.’”

      “By Jove, Pelham, he will scratch out the lady’s beaux yeux,” cried the good-natured Dartmore, endeavouring to seize the monkey by the tail, for which he very narrowly escaped with an unmutilated visage. But the man who had before suffered by Jocko’s ferocity, and whose breast was still swelling with revenge, was glad of so favourable an opportunity and excuse for wreaking it. He seized the poker, made three strides to Jocko, who set up an ineffable cry of defiance, and with a single blow split the skull of the unhappy monkey in twain. It fell with one convulsion on the ground, and gave up the ghost.

      We then raised the unfortunate landlady, placed her on the sofa, and Dartmore administered a plentiful potation of the Curacoa punch. By slow degrees she revived, gave three most doleful suspirations, and then, starting up, gazed wildly around her. Half of us were still laughing—my unfortunate self among the number; this the enraged landlady no sooner perceived than she imagined herself the victim of some preconcerted villainy. Her lips trembled with passion—she uttered the most dreadful imprecations; and had I not retired into a corner, and armed myself with the dead body of Jocko, which I wielded with exceeding valour, she might, with the simple weapons with which nature had provided her hands, have for ever demolished the loves and graces that abide in the face of Henry Pelham.

      When at last she saw that nothing hostile was at present to be effected, she drew herself up, and giving Bedos a tremendous box on the ear, as he stood grinning beside her, marched out of the room.

      We then again rallied around the table, more than ever disposed to be brilliant, and kept up till day break a continued fire of jests upon the heroine of the passage. “Cum qua (as Vincent observed) clauditur adversis innoxia simia fatis!”

      CHAPTER XXIII

      Show me not thy painted beauties,

      These impostures I defy.

—George Withers.

      The cave of Falri smelt not more delicately—on every side appeared the marks of drunkenness and gluttony. At the upper end of the cave the sorcerer lay extended, etc.

—Mirglip the Persian, in the "Tales of the Genii."

      I woke the next morning with an aching head and feverish frame. Ah, those midnight carousals, how glorious they would be if there was no next morning! I took my sauterne and sodawater in my dressing-room; and, as indisposition always makes me meditative, I thought over all I had done since my arrival at Paris. I had become (that, God knows, I soon manage to do) rather a talked of and noted character. It is true that I was every where abused—one found fault with my neckcloth—another with my mind—the lank Mr. Aberton declared that I put my hair in papers, and the stuffed Sir Henry Millington said I was a thread-paper myself. One blamed my riding—a second my dancing—a third wondered how any woman could like me, and a fourth said that no woman ever could.

      On one point, however, all—friends and foes—were alike agreed; viz. that I was a consummate puppy, and excessively well satisfied with myself. A la verite, they were not much mistaken there. Why is it, by the by, that to be pleased with one’s-self is the surest way of offending every body else? If any one, male or female, an evident admirer of his or her own perfections, enter a room, how perturbed, restless, and unhappy every individual of the offender’s sex instantly becomes: for them not only enjoyment but tranquillity is over, and if they could annihilate the unconscious victim of their spleen, I fully believe no Christian toleration would come in the way of that last extreme of animosity. For a coxcomb there is no mercy—for a coquet no pardon. They are, as it were, the dissenters of society—no crime is too bad to be imputed to them; they do not believe the religion of others—they set up a deity of their own vanity—all the orthodox vanities of others are offended. Then comes the bigotry—the stake—the auto-da-fe of scandal. What, alas! is so implacable as the rage of vanity? What so restless as its persecution? Take from a man his fortune, his house, his reputation, but flatter his vanity in each, and he will forgive you. Heap upon him benefits, fill him with blessings: but irritate his self-love, and you have made the very best man an ingrat. He will sting you if he can: you cannot blame him; you yourself have instilled the venom. This is one reason why you must not always reckon upon gratitude in conferring an obligation. It is a very high mind to which gratitude is not a painful sensation. If you wish to please, you will find it wiser to receive—solicit even—favours, than accord them; for the vanity of the obliger is always flattered—that of the obligee rarely.

      Well, this is an unforeseen digression: let me return! I had mixed, of late, very little with the English. My mother’s introductions had procured me the entree of the best French houses; and to them, therefore, my evenings were usually devoted. Alas! that was a happy time, when my carriage used to await me at the door of the Rocher de Cancale, and then whirl me to a succession of visits, varying in their degree and nature as the whim prompted: now to the brilliant soirees of Madame De—, or to the appartemens au troisieme of some less celebrated daughter of dissipation and ecarte;—now to the literary conversaziones of the Duchesse de D—s, or the Vicomte d’A—, and then to the feverish excitement of the gambling house. Passing from each with the appetite for amusement kept alive by variety; finding in none a disappointment, and in every one a welcome; full of the health which supports, and the youth which colours all excess or excitation, I drained, with an unsparing lip, whatever that enchanting metropolis could afford.

      I have hitherto said but little of the Duchesse de Perpignan; I think it necessary now to give some account of that personage. Ever since the evening I had met her at the ambassador’s, I had paid her the most unceasing attentions. I soon discovered that she had a curious sort of liaison with one of the attaches—a short, ill-made gentleman, with high shoulders, and a pale face, who wore a blue coat and buff waistcoat, wrote bad verses, and thought himself handsome. All Paris said she was excessively enamoured of this youth. As for me, I had not known her four days before I discovered that she could not be excessively enamoured of any thing but an oyster pete and Lord Byron’s Corsair. Her mind was the most marvellous melange of sentiment and its opposite. In her amours she was Lucretia herself; in her epicurism, Apicius would have yielded to her. She was pleased with sighs, but she adored suppers. She would leave every thing for her lover, except her dinner. The attache soon quarrelled with her, and I was installed into the platonic honours of his office.

      At first, I own that I was flattered by her choice, and though she was terribly exigeante of my petits soins, I managed to keep up her affection, and, what is still more wonderful, my own, for the better part of a month. What then cooled me was the following occurrence:

      I was in her boudoir one evening, when her femme de chambre came to tell us that the duc was in the passage. Notwithstanding the innocence of our attachment, the duchesse was in a violent fright; a small door was at the left of the ottoman, on which we were sitting. “Oh, no, no, not there,” cried the lady; but I, who saw no other refuge, entered it forthwith, and before she could ferret me out, the duc was in the room.

      In the meanwhile, I amused myself by examining the wonders of the new world into which I had so abruptly immerged: on a small table before me, was deposited a remarkably constructed night-cap; I examined it as a curiosity: on each side was placed une petite cotelette de veau cru, sewed on with green-coloured silk (I remember even the smallest minutiae), a beautiful golden wig (the duchesse never liked me to play with her hair) was on a block close by, and on another table was a set of teeth, d’une blancheur eblouissante. In this manufactory of a beauty I remained for a quarter of an hour; at the end of that time, the abigail (the duchesse had the grace to disappear) released me, and I flew down stairs like a spirit from purgatory.

      From СКАЧАТЬ