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The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I
The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. Iполная версия

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The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

Язык: Английский
Год издания: 2017
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Your ever attached friend,

James Dodd.

P. S. Don't think of reading for the Fellowship, I beg and entreat of you. If you will take to "monkery," do it among our own fellows, who at least enjoy lives of ease and indolence. Besides, it is a downright absurdity to suppose that any man ever rallies after four years of hard study and application. As Tiverton says, "You train too fine, and there's no work in you afterwards."

LETTER XXV. KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF

Eisenach, "The Rue Garland."

Mr dear Tom, – You may see by the address that I am still here, although in somewhat different circumstances from those in which I last wrote to you. No longer "mi lor," the occupant of the "grand suite of apartments with the balcony," flattered by beauty, and waited on with devotion. I am now alone; the humble tenant of a small sanded parlor, and but too happy to take a very unpretending place at my host's table. I seek out solitary spots for my daily walks, – I select the very cheapest "Canastre" for my lonely pipe, – and, in a word, I am undergoing a course of "the silent system," accompanied by thoughts of the past, present, and the future, gloomy as ever were inflicted by any code of penitentiary discipline.

I know not if – seeing the bulk of this formidable despatch – you will have patience to read it: I have my doubts that you will employ somebody to "note the brief" for you, and only address yourself to the strong points of the case. Be this as it may, it is a relief to me to decant my sorrows even into my ink-bottle; and I come back at night with a sense of consolation that shows me that, no matter how lonely and desolate a man may be in the world, there is a great source of comfort in the sympathy he has for himself. This may sound like a bull, but it is not one, as I am quite ready to show. But my poor brains are not in order for metaphysics, and so, with your leave, I 'll just confine myself to narrative for the present, and keep all the philosophy of my argument for another occasion.

Lest, however, you should only throw your eyes carelessly over these lines and not adventure far into the detail of my sorrows, I take this early opportunity of saying that I am living here on credit, – that I have n't five shillings left to me, – that my shoemaker lies in wait for me in the Juden-Gasse, and my washerwoman watches for me near the church. Schnaps, snuff, and cigars have encompassed me round about with small duns, and I live in a charmed circle of petty persecutions, that would drive a less good-tempered man half-crazy. Not that I am ungrateful to Providence for many blessings; I acknowledge heartily the great advantage I possess in knowing nothing whatever of the language, so that I am enabled to preserve my equanimity under what very probably may be the foulest abuse that ever was poured out upon insolvent humanity.

My wardrobe is dwindled to the "shortest span." I have "taken out" my great-coat in Kirschwasser, and converted my spare small-clothes into cigars. My hat has gone to repair my shoes; and as my razors are pledged for pen, ink, and paper, I have grown a beard that would make the fortune of an Italian refugee, or of a missionary speaker at Exeter Hall!

My host of the "Rue Garland" hasn't seen a piece of my money for the last fortnight; and now, for the first time since I came abroad, am I able to say that I find the Continent cheap to live in. Ay, Tom, take my word for it, the whole secret lies in this, – "Do with little, and pay for less," and you 'll find a great economy in coming abroad to live. But if you cannot cheat yourself as well as your creditors, take my advice and stay at home. These, however, are only spare reflections; and I'll now resume my story, taking up the thread of it where I left off in my last.

It is really all like a dream to me, Tom; and many times I am unable to convince myself that it is not a dream, so strange and so novel are all the incidents that have of late befallen me, so unlike every former passage of my life, and so unsuited am I by nature, habit, and temperament for the curious series of adventures in which I have been involved.

After all, I suppose it is downright balderdash to say that a man is not adapted for this, or suited to that. I remember people telling me that public life would n't do for me; that I was n't the kind of man for Parliament, and so on; but I see the folly of it all now. The truth is, Tom, that there is a faculty of accommodation in human nature, and wherever you are placed, under whatever circumstances situated, you 'll discover that your spirit, like your stomach, learns to digest everything; though I won't deny that it may now and then be at the cost of a heartburn in the one case as well as the other.

When I wrote to you last, I was living a kind of pastoral life, – a species of Meliboeus, without sheep! If I remember aright, I left off when we were just setting out on an excursion into the forest, – one of those charming rides over the smooth sward, and under the trellised shadow of tall trees, now loitering pensively before some vista of the wood, now cantering along with merry laughter, as though with every bound we left some care behind never to overtake us. Ah, Tom, it's no use for me to argue and reason with myself; I always find that I come back to the same point, and that whatever touches my feelings, whatever makes my heart vibrate with pleasant emotion, whatever brings back to me the ardent, confiding, trustful tone of my young days, does me good, and that I'm a better man for it, even though "the situation," as you would call it, was rather equivocal. Don't mistake me, Tom Purcell, I don't want to go wrong; I have not the slightest inclination to break my neck. The height of my ambition is only to look over the precipice. Can't you understand that? Try and "realize" that to yourself, as the Yankees say, and you'll at once comprehend the whole charm and fascination of my late life here. I was always "looking over the precipice," always speculating upon the terrible perils of the drop, and always half hugging myself in my sense of security. Maybe this is metaphysics again; if it is, I'm sorry for it, but the German Diet must take the blame of it, – a course of sauerkraut would make any man flighty.

Well, I 'll spare you all description of these "Forest days," at whatever cost to my own feelings; and it is not every man that would put that much constraint upon himself, for something tells me that the theme would make me "come out strong." That, what with my descriptive powers as regards scenery, and my acute analysis on the score of emotions, I 'd astonish you, and you 'd be forced to exclaim, "Kenny is a very remarkable man. Faith! I never thought he had this in him." Nor did I know it myself, Tom Purcell; nor as much as suspect it. The fact is, my natural powers never had fair play. Mrs. D. kept me in a state of perpetual conflict. "Little wars," as the Duke used to say, "destroy a state;" and in the same way it's your small domesticities – to coin a word – that ruin a man's nature and fetter his genius. You think, perhaps, that I 'm employing an over-ambitious phrase, but I am not. Mrs. G. H. assured me that I actually did possess "genius," and I believe in my heart that she is the only one who ever really understood me.

No man understood human nature better than Byron, and he says, in one of his letters, "that none of us ever do anything till a woman takes us in hand;" by which, of course, he means the developing of our better instincts, – the illustrating our latent capabilities, and so on; and that, let me observe to you, is exactly what our wives never do. With them, it is everlastingly some small question of domestic economy. They "take the vote on the supplies" every morning at breakfast, and they go to bed at night with thoughts of the "budget." The woman, therefore, referred to by the poet cannot be what we should call in Ireland "the woman that owns you." And here, again, my dear friend, is another illustration of my old theory, – how hard it is for a man to be good and great at the same time. Indeed, I am disposed to say that Nature never intended we should, but in all probability meant to typify, by the separation, the great manufacturing axiom, – "the division of labor."

Be this as it may, Byron is right, and if there be an infinitesimal spark of the divine essence in your nature, your female friend will detect it with the same unerring accuracy that a French chemist hunts out the ten-thousandth part of a grain of arsenic in a case of poison. It would amaze you were I to tell you how markedly I perceived the changes going on in myself when under this influence. There was, so to say, a great revolution going on within me, that embraced all my previous thoughts and opinions on men, manners, and morals. I felt that hitherto I had been taking a kind of Dutch view of life from the mere level of surrounding objects, but that now I was elevated to a high and commanding position, from which I looked down with calm dignity. I must observe to you that Mrs. G. H. was not only in the highest fashionable circles of London, but that she was one who took a very active part in political life. This will doubtless surprise you, Tom, as it did myself, for we know really nothing in Ireland of the springs that set great events in motion. Little do we suspect the real influence women exercise, – the sway and control they practise over those who rule us. I wish you heard Mrs. G. H. talk, how she made Bustle do this, and persuaded Pumistone do the other. Foreign affairs are her forte, and, indeed, she owned to me that purely Home matters were too narrow and too local to interest her. What she likes is a great Russian question, with the Bosphorus and the Danubian Provinces, and the Hospodar of Wallachia to deal with; or Italy and the Austrians, with a skirmishing dash at the Pope and the King of Naples. She is a Whig, for she told me that the Tories were a set of rude barbarians, that never admitted female influence; and "the consequence is," says she, "they never know what is doing at foreign courts. Now we knew everything: there was the Princess Sleeboffsky, at St. Petersburg; and the Countess von Schwarmerey, at Berlin; and Madame de la Tour de Force, at Florence, all in our interest. There was not a single impertinent allusion made to England, in all the privacy of royal domestic life, that we hadn't it reported to us; and we knew, besides, all the little 'tendresses' of the different statesmen of the Continent, for, in our age, we bribe with Beauty, where formerly it was a matter of Bank-notes. The Tories, on the other hand, lived with their wives, which at once accounts for the narrowness of their views, and the limited range of their speculations."

All this may read to you like a digression, my dear Tom, but it is not; for it enables me to exhibit to you some of those traits by which this fascinating creature charmed and engaged me. She opened so many new views of life to me, – explained so much of what was mystery to me before, – recounted so many amusing stories of great people, – gave me such passing glimpses of that wonderful world made up of kings and kaisers and ministers, who are, so to say, the great pieces of the chess-board, whereon we are but pawns, – that I actually felt as if I had been a child till I knew her.

Another grand result of this kind of information is, that, as you extend your observation beyond the narrow sphere of home, – whether it be politically or domestically, – you learn at last to think so little of what you once regarded as your own immediate and material interests, that you have as many – maybe more – sympathies with the world at large than with those actually belonging to you. Such was the progress I made in this enlightenment, that I felt far more anxious about the Bosphorus than ever I did for Bruff, and would rather have seen the Austrians expelled from Lom-bardy than have turned out every "squatter" off my own estate at Dodsborough. And it is not only that one acquires grander notions this way, but there are a variety of consolations in the system. You grumble at the poor-rates, and I point to the population of Milan paying ten times as much to their tyrants. You exclaim against extermination, and I reply, "Look at Poland." You complain of the priests' exactions, and I say, "Be thankful that you haven't the Pope."

Now, Tom, come back from all these speculations, and bring your thoughts to bear upon her that originated them, and don't wonder at me if I did n't know how the days were slipping past; nor could only give a mere passing, fugitive reflection to the fact that I have a wife and three children somewhere, not very abundantly furnished with the "sinews of war." I suppose, if we could only understand it, that we 'd discover our minds were like our bodies, and that we sometimes succumb to influences we could resist at other moments. Put your head out of the window at certain periods, and you are certain to catch a cold. I conclude that there are seasons the heart is just as susceptible.

I cannot give you a stronger illustration of the strange delirium of my faculties than the fact that I actually forgot the Princess whom we came expressly to meet, and never once asked about her. It was some time in the sixth week of our sojourn that the thought shot through my brain, – "Was n't there a princess to be here? – did n't we expect to see her?" How Mrs. G. H. laughed when I asked her the question! She really could n't stop herself for ten minutes. "But I am right," cried I; "there really was a princess?"

"To be sure you are, my dear Mr. Dodd," said she, wiping her eyes; "but you must have been living in a state of trance, or you would have remembered that the poor dear Duchess was obliged to accompany the Empress to Sicily, and that she could n't possibly count upon being here before the middle of September."

"What month are we in now?" asked I, timidly.

"July, of course!" said she, laughing.

"June, July, August, September," said I, counting on my fingers; "that will be four months!"

"What do you mean?" asked she.

"I mean," said I, "it will be four months since I saw Mrs. D. and the family."

She pressed her handkerchief to her face, and I thought I heard her sob; indeed I am certain I did. Nothing was further from my thoughts than to say a rude thing, or even an unfeeling one, and so I assured her over and over. I protested that it was the very first time since I came away that I ever as much as remembered one belonging to me; that it was impossible for a man to feel less the ties of family; that I looked upon myself – and, indeed, I hoped she also looked upon me in a way – in fact, regarded me in a light – I'm not exactly clear, Tom, what light I said; of course, you can imagine what I intended to say, if I did n't say it.

"Is this really true?" said she, without uncovering her face, while she extended her other hand towards me.

"True!" repeated I. "If it were not true, why am I here? Why have I left – " I just caught myself in time, Tom. I was nearly "in it" again, with an allusion to Mrs. D.; but I changed it, and said, "Why am I your slave, – why am I at your feet – " Just as I said that, suiting the action to the words, the door of the room was jerked violently open, and a tall man, with a tremendous bushy pair of whiskers, poked his head in.

"Oh, heavens!" cried she; "mined and undone!" and fled before I could see her; while the stranger, fastening the door behind him with the key, advanced towards me with an air at once so menacing and warlike that I seized the poker, an instrument about four feet six long, and stood on the defensive.

"Mr. Kenny Dodd, I believe," said he, solemnly.

"The same!" said I.

"And not Lord Harvey Bruce, at least, on this occasion," said he, with a kind of sneer.

"No," said I, "and who are you?"

"I am Lord Harvey Bruce, sir," was the answer.

I don't think I said anything in reply; indeed, I am quite sure I did not say a syllable; but I must have made some expressive gesture, or suffered some exclamation to escape me, for he quickly rejoined, —

"Yes, sir, you have, indeed, reason to be thankful; for had it been my wretched, miserable, and injured friend instead, you would now be lying weltering in your blood."

"Might I make bold to ask the name of the wretched, miserable, and injured gentleman to whom I was about to be so much indebted?"

"The husband of your unhappy victim, sir," exclaimed he, and with such an energy of voice that I brandished the poker to show I was ready for him. "Yes, sir, Mr. Gore Hampton is now in this village, – to a mere accident you owe it that he is not in this hotel, – ay, in this very room."

And he gave a shudder at the words, as though the thoughts they suggested were enough to curdle a man's blood.

"I'll tell you what, my Lord," said I, getting the table between us, to prevent any sudden attack on his part, "all your anger and high-down indignation are clean thrown away. There is no victim here at all, – there is no villain; and, so far as I am concerned, your friend is not either miserable or injured. The circumstances under which I accompanied that lady to this place are all easy of explanation, and such as require a very different acknowledgment from what you seem disposed to make for them."

"If you think you are dealing with a schoolboy, sir, you are somewhat mistaken," broke he in. "I am a man of the world, and it will save us a deal of time, sir, if you will please to bear this plain fact in your memory."

"You may be that, or anything else you like, my Lord," said I; "but I 'd have you to know that I am a man well respected in the world, the father of a grown-up family. There is no occasion for that heavy groan at all, my Lord; the case is not what you suspect. I came here purely out of friendship – "

"Come, come, sir, this is sheer trifling; or, it is worse, – it is outrageous insult. The man who elopes with a woman, passes under a false name, retires with her into one of the most remote and unvisited towns of Germany, is discovered – as I lately discovered you, – only insults the understanding of him who listens to such excuses. We have tracked you, sir, – it is but fair to tell you, – from the Rhine to this village. We are prepared, when the proper time comes, to bring a host of evidence against you. In all probability, a more scandalous case has not come before the public these last twenty years. Rest assured, then, that denial, no matter how well sustained, will avail you little; and when you have arrived at this palpable conviction, it will greatly facilitate our progress towards the termination of this unhappy business."

"Well, my Lord, let us suppose, for argument's sake, – 'without prejudice,' however, as the attorneys say, – that I see everything with your eyes, what is the nature of the termination you allude to?"

"From a gentleman coming from your side of St George's Channel, the question is somewhat singular," observed he, with a sneer.

"Oh, I perceive," said I; "your Lordship means a duel." He bowed, and I went on: "Very well; I'm quite ready, whenever and wherever you please; and if your friend should n't make the arrangement inconvenient, it would be a great honor to me to exchange a shot with your Lordship afterwards. I have no friend by me, it is true; but maybe the landlord would oblige me so far, and I 'm sure you 'll not refuse me a pistol."

"As regards your polite attentions to myself, sir, I have but to say I accept them; at the same time, I fear you are paying me a French compliment. It is not a case for a formal exchange of shots; so long as Hampton lives, you can never leave the ground alive!"

"Then the best thing I can do is to shoot him," said I; and whether the speech was an unfeeling one, or the way I said it was bloodthirsty, but he certainly looked anything but easy in his mind.

"The sooner we settle the affair the better, sir," said he, haughtily.

"I think so, too, my Lord."

"With whom can I, then, communicate on your part?"

"I 'll ask the landlord, and if he declines, I 'll try the little barber on the Platz."

"I must say, sir, it is the first time in my life I find myself in such company. Have you no countryman of your acquaintance within a reasonable distance?"

"If Lord George Tiverton were here – "

"If he were, sir, he could not act for you, – he is the near relative of my friend."

I thought of everybody I could remember; but what was the use of it? I couldn't reach any of them, and so I was obliged to own. He seemed to ponder over this for some time, and then said, —

"The matter requires some consideration, sir. When the unhappy result gets abroad in the world, it is necessary that nothing should attach to us as men of honor and gentlemen. Your friends will have the right to ask if you were properly seconded."

"By the unhappy result, your Lordship delicately insinuates my death?"

He gave a little sigh, adjusted his cravat, and smoothed down his moustaches at the glass over the chimney.

"If it should occur as your Lordship surmises," said I, "it little matters who officiates on the occasion; indeed," added I, stroking my beard, "the barber mightn't be an inappropriate friend. But I 've been 'out' on matters of this kind a few times, and somehow I never got grazed yet; and that's more than the man opposite me was able to say."

"You 'll stand before a man to-morrow, sir, that can hit a Napoleon at twenty paces."

Faith, Tom, I was nigh saying I wish he could find one for a mark about me; but I caught myself in time, and only observed, —

"He must be an elegant shot."

"The best in the Blues, sir; but this is beside the question. The difficulty is, now, about your friend. There may be some retired officer here, – some one who has served; if you will institute inquiry, I'll wait upon you this evening, and conclude our arrangements."

I promised I 'd do all in my power, and bowed him out of the room and downstairs with every civility, which, I am bound to say, he also returned, and we parted on excellent terms.

Now, Tom, you 'll maybe think it strange of me, with a thing of the kind on hand, but so it was, the moment he was off, I went to look for Mrs. Gore Hampton.

"The lady?" cried the waiter; "she started with extra-post half an hour ago."

"Started!" exclaimed I, – "which way?"

"On the high-road to Munich."

"She left no letter, – no note for me?"

"No, sir."

"Poor thing, – overcome, I suppose. She was crying, wasn't she?"

"No, sir, she looked very much as usual, but hurried, perhaps; for she nearly forgot the ham sandwiches she had ordered to be got ready for her."

"The ham sandwiches!" exclaimed I, and they nearly choked me. "I 'm going to be shot for a woman that, in the very extremity of her ruin, has the heart to order ham sandwiches!" That was the reflection that arose to my mind, and can you fancy a more bitter one?

"Are you sure," asked I, "the sandwiches weren't for Madame Virginie, or the little dog?"

"They might, sir, but my Lady desired us to be sure and put plenty of mustard on them."

This was the damning circumstance, Tom. She was fond of mustard, – I had often remarked it; and just see, now, on what a trivial thing a man's happiness can hang. For I own to you, so long as I was strong in what I fancied to be her good graces, I could have fought the whole regiment of Blues; but when I thought to myself, "She doesn't care a brass farthing for you, Kenny Dodd; she may be laughing at you this minute over the ham sandwiches," – I felt like a drowning man that had nothing to grapple on. Talk of unhappy and injured men, indeed! Wasn't I in that category myself? Not even a husband's selfishness could dispute the palm of misery with me! In the matter of desertion we were both in the same boat, and for the life of me, I don't see what we could have to fight about. I never heard of two sailors rescued from shipwreck quarrelling as to who it was lost the vessel!

"The best thing for us to do," thought I, "would be to try and console each other; and if he be a sensible, good-hearted fellow, he 'll maybe take the same view of it. I 'll ask him and my Lord to dinner; I'll make the landlord give us some of that wonderful old Stein berger that was bottled three hundred years ago; I 'll treat them to a regular Saxon dish of venison with capers washed down with Marcobrunner, and if we 're not brothers before morning, my name is n't Kenny Dodd."

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