The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh; and the Irish Sketch Book. William Makepeace Thackeray

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СКАЧАТЬ not hope for a continued acquaintance and intimacy with Attwood. He grew overbearing and cool, I thought; at any rate I did not admire my situation as his follower and dependant, and left his grand dinner for a certain ordinary where I could partake of five capital dishes for ninepence. Occasionally, however, Attwood favoured me with a visit, or gave me a drive behind his great cab-horse. He had formed a whole host of friends besides. There was Fips, the barrister, Heaven knows what he was doing at Paris; and Gortz, the West Indian, who was there on the same business; and Flapper, a medical student—all these three I met one night at Flapper’s rooms, where Jack was invited, and a great ‘spread’ was laid in honour of him.

      Jack arrived rather late—he looked pale and agitated; and, though he ate no supper, he drank raw brandy in such a manner as made Flapper’s eyes wink: the poor fellow had but three bottles, and Jack bid fair to swallow them all. However, the West Indian generously remedied the evil, and, producing a napoleon, we speedily got the change for it in the shape of four bottles of champagne.

      Our supper was uproariously harmonious; Fips sang the ‘Good Old English Gentleman;’ Jack, the ‘British Grenadiers;’ and your humble servant, when called upon, sang that beautiful ditty, ‘When the Bloom is on the Rye,’ in a manner that drew tears from every eye, except Flapper’s, who was asleep, and Jack’s, who was singing the ‘Bay of Biscay, O,’ at the same time. Gortz and Fips were all the time lunging at each other with a pair of single-sticks, the barrister having a very strong notion that he was Richard the Third.

      At last Fips hit the West Indian such a blow across his sconce, that the other grew furious; he seized a champagne-bottle, which was, providentially, empty, and hurled it across the room at Fips; had that celebrated barrister not bowed his head at the moment, the Queen’s Bench would have lost one of its most eloquent practitioners.

      Fips stood as straight as he could; his cheek was pale with wrath. ‘M-m-ister Go-gortz,’ he said, ‘I always heard you were a blackguard; now I can pr-pr-peperove it. Flapper, your pistols! every ge-ge-genlmn knows what I mean.’

      Young Mr. Flapper had a small pair of pocket-pistols, which the tipsy barrister had suddenly remembered, and with which he proposed to sacrifice the West Indian. Gortz was nothing loth, but was quite as valorous as the lawyer.

      Attwood, who, in spite of his potations, seemed the soberest man of the party, had much enjoyed the scene, until this sudden demand for the weapons. ‘Pshaw!’ said he eagerly, ‘don’t give these men the means of murdering each other; sit down and let us have another song.’ But they would not be still; and Flapper forthwith produced his pistol-case, and opened it, in order that the duel might take place on the spot. There were no pistols there! ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Attwood, looking much confused; ‘I—I took the pistols home with me to clean them!’

      I don’t know what there was in his tone, or in the words, but we were sobered all of a sudden. Attwood was conscious of the singular effect produced by him, for he blushed, and endeavoured to speak of other things, but we could not bring our spirits back to the mark again, and soon separated for the night. As we issued into the street, Jack took me aside and whispered, ‘Have you a napoleon, Titmarsh, in your purse?’ Alas! I was not so rich. My reply was, that I was coming to Jack, only in the morning, to borrow a similar sum.

      He did not make any reply, but turned away homeward: I never heard him speak another word.

      . … .

      Two mornings after (for none of our party met on the day succeeding the supper), I was awakened by my porter, who brought a pressing letter from Mr. Gortz:—

      ‘Dear T.—I wish you would come over here to breakfast. There’s a row about Attwood.—Yours truly, Solomon Gortz.’

      I immediately set forward to Gortz’s; he lived in the Rue du Heldes, a few doors from Attwood’s new lodging. If the reader is curious to know the house in which the catastrophe of this history took place, he has but to march some twenty doors down from the Boulevard des Italiens, when he will see a fine door, with a naked Cupid shooting at him from the hall, and a Venus beckoning him up the stairs. On arriving at the West Indian’s, at about midday (it was a Sunday morning), I found that gentleman in his dressing-gown, discussing, in the company of Mr. Fips, a large plate of bifteck aux pommes.

      ‘Here’s a pretty row!’ said Gortz, quoting from his letter;—‘Attwood’s off—have a bit of beefsteak?’

      ‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed I, adopting the familiar phraseology of my acquaintances:—‘Attwood off?—has he cut his stick?’

      ‘Not bad,’ said the feeling and elegant Fips—‘not such a bad guess, my boy; but he has not exactly cut his stick.’

      ‘What then?’

      ‘Why, his throat.’ The man’s mouth was full of bleeding beef as he uttered this gentlemanly witticism.

      I wish I could say that I was myself in the least affected by the news. I did not joke about it like my friend Fips; this was more for propriety’s sake than for feeling’s: but for my old school acquaintance, the friend of my early days, the merry associate of the last few months, I own, with shame, that I had not a tear or a pang. In some German tale there is an account of a creature, most beautiful and bewitching, whom all men admire and follow; but this charming and fantastic spirit only leads them, one by one, into ruin, and then leaves them. The novelist, who describes her beauty, says that his heroine is a fairy, and has no heart. I think the intimacy which is begotten over the wine-bottle is a spirit of this nature; I never knew a good feeling come from it, or an honest friendship made by it: it only entices men, and ruins them; it is only a phantom of friendship and feeling, called up by the delirious blood, and the wicked spells of the wine.

      But to drop this strain of moralising (in which the writer is not too anxious to proceed, for he cuts in it a most pitiful figure), we passed sundry criticisms upon poor Attwood’s character, expressed our horror at his death, which sentiment was fully proved by Mr. Fips, who declared that the notion of it made him feel quite faint, and was obliged to drink a large glass of brandy; and, finally, we agreed that we would go and see the poor fellow’s corpse, and witness, if necessary, his burial.

      Flapper, who had joined us, was the first to propose this visit: he said he did not mind the fifteen francs which Jack owed him for billiards, but that he was anxious to get back his pistol. Accordingly, we sallied forth, and speedily arrived at the hotel which Attwood inhabited still. He had occupied, for a time, very fine apartments in this house; and it was only on arriving there that day, that we found he had been gradually driven from his magnificent suite of rooms au premier, to a little chamber in the fifth story:—we mounted, and found him. It was a little shabby room, with a few articles of rickety furniture, and a bed in an alcove; the light from the one window was falling full upon the bed and the body. Jack was dressed in a fine lawn shirt: he had kept it, poor fellow, to die in; for in all his drawers and cupboards, there was not a single article of clothing: he had pawned everything by which he could raise a penny—desk, books, dressing-case, and clothes; and not a single halfpenny was found in his possession.[2]

      He was lying as I have drawn him, one hand on his breast, the other falling towards the ground. There was an expression of perfect calm on the face, and no mark of blood to stain the side towards the light. On the other side, however, there was a great pool of black blood, and in it the pistol; it looked more like a toy than a weapon to take away the life of this vigorous young man. In his forehead, at the side, was a small black wound; Jack’s life had passed through it; it was little bigger than a mole.

      . … .

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