As you wind up a hundred-guinea chronometer with a twopenny watch-key--as by means of a dirty wooden plug you set all the waters ofVersailles a-raging, and splashing, and storming--in like manner, and by like humble agents, were Mrs. Catherine's tumultuous passions set going. The Count, we have said, slipped up to his son, and merely saying, "How do, Tom?" cut the young gentleman altogether, and passing round to the lady's side, said, "Madam, 'tis a charming evening--egad it is!" She almost fainted: it was the old voice. There he was, after seventeen years, once more at her side!
Now I know what I could have done. I can turn out a quotation from Sophocles (by looking to the index) as well as another: I can throw off a bit of fine writing too, with passion, similes, and a moral at the end. What, pray, is the last sentence but one but the very finest writing? Suppose, for example, I had made Maximilian, as he stood by the side of Catherine, look up towards the clouds, and exclaim, in the words of the voluptuous Cornelius Nepos,'Aenaoi nephelai 'Arthoomen phanerai Droseran phusin euageetoi,k.t.l.
Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.
Or suppose, again, I had said, in a style still more popular:--The Count advanced towards the maiden. They both were mute for a while; and only the beating of her heart interrupted that thrilling and passionate silence. Ah, what years of buried joys and fears, hopes and disappointments, arose from their graves in the far past, and in those brief moments flitted before the united ones! How sad was that delicious retrospect, and oh, how sweet! The tears that rolled down the cheek of each were bubbles from the choked and moss-grown wells of youth; the sigh that heaved each bosom had some lurking odours in it--memories of the fragrance of boyhood, echoes of the hymns of the young heart! Thus is it ever--for these blessed recollections the soul always has a place; and while crime perishes, and sorrow is forgotten, the beautiful alone is eternal.
"O golden legends, written in the skies!" mused De Galgenstein, "ye shine as ye did in the olden days! WE change, but YE speak ever the same language. Gazing in your abysmal depths, the feeble ratioci--"There, now, are six columns of the best writing to be found in this or any other book. Galgenstein has quoted Euripides thrice, Plato once, Lycophron nine times, besides extracts from the Latin syntax and the minor Greek poets. Catherine's passionate embreathings are of the most fashionable order; and I call upon the ingenious critic of the X---- newspaper to say whether they do not possess the real impress of the giants of the olden time--the real Platonic smack, in a word? Not that I want in the least to show off; but it is as well, every now and then, to show the public what one CAN do.
( There WERE six columns, as mentioned by the accurate Mr. Solomons; but we have withdrawn two pages and three-quarters, because, although our correspondent has been excessively eloquent, according to custom, we were anxious to come to the facts of the story.
Mr. Solomons, by sending to our office, may have the cancelled passages.--O.Y.)Instead, however, of all this rant and nonsense, how much finer is the speech that the Count really did make! "It is a very fine evening,--egad it is!" The "egad" did the whole business: Mrs. Cat was as much in love with him now as ever she had been; and, gathering up all her energies, she said, "It is dreadful hot too, I think;" and with this she made a curtsey.
"Stifling, split me!" added his Excellency. "What do you say, madam, to a rest in an arbour, and a drink of something cool?""Sir!" said the lady, drawing back.
"Oh, a drink--a drink by all means," exclaimed Mr. Billings, who was troubled with a perpetual thirst. "Come, mo--, Mrs. Jones, I mean. you're fond of a glass of cold punch, you know; and the rum here is prime, I can tell you."The lady in the mask consented with some difficulty to the proposal of Mr. Billings, and was led by the two gentlemen into an arbour, where she was seated between them; and some wax-candles being lighted, punch was brought.
She drank one or two glasses very eagerly, and so did her two companions; although it was evident to see, from the flushed looks of both of them, that they had little need of any such stimulus. The Count, in themidst of his champagne, it must be said, had been amazingly stricken and scandalised by the appearance of such a youth as Billings in a public place with a lady under his arm. He was, the reader will therefore understand, in the moral stage of liquor; and when he issued out, it was not merely with the intention of examining Mr. Billings's female companion, but of administering to him some sound correction for venturing, at his early period of life, to form any such acquaintances. On joining Billings, his Excellency's first step was naturally to examine the lady. After they had been sitting for a while over their punch, he bethought him of his original purpose, and began to address a number of moral remarks to his son.
We have already given some specimens of Monsieur de Galgenstein's sober conversation; and it is hardly necessary to trouble the reader with any further reports of his speeches. They were intolerably stupid and dull; as egotistical as his morning lecture had been, and a hundred times more rambling and prosy. If Cat had been in the possession of her sober senses, she would have seen in five minutes that her ancient lover was a ninny, and have left him with scorn; but she was under the charm of old recollections, and the sound of that silly voice was to her magical. As for Mr. Billings, he allowed his Excellency to continue his prattle; only frowning, yawning, cursing occasionally, but drinking continually.