A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

–Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn to go to the Opéra Comique?—Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying aside her work.—

I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.

She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on the far side of the shop, facing the door.

–Tres volontiers, most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d’ors with her, I should have said—“This woman is grateful.”

You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take,—you must turn first to your left hand,—mais prenez garde—there are two turns; and be so good as to take the second—then go down a little way and you’ll see a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross—and there any one will do himself the pleasure to show you.—

She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same goodnatur’d patience the third time as the first;—and if tones and manners have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them out,—she seemed really interested that I should not lose myself.

I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty, notwithstanding she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes,—and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.

I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every tittle of what she had said;—so looking back, and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went right or not,—I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was to my right or left,—for that I had absolutely forgot.—Is it possible! said she, half laughing.  ’Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.

As this was the real truth—she took it, as every woman takes a matter of right, with a slight curtsey.

–Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel of gloves.  I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk’d in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.

–He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment.—And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies.  Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.—Feel it, said she, holding out her arm.  So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.—

–Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever.—How wouldst thou have laugh’d and moralized upon my new profession!—and thou shouldst have laugh’d and moralized on.—Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, “There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.”—But a grisette’s! thou wouldst have said,—and in an open shop!  Yorick—

–So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.

THE HUSBAND

PARIS

I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.—’Twas nobody but her husband, she said;—so I began a fresh score.—Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he pass’d by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse.—The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour—and having said that, he put on his hat and walk’d out.

Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,—and can this man be the husband of this woman!

Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.

In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper’s wife seem to be one bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women,—by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant:—Monsieur le Mari is little better than the stone under your foot.

–Surely,—surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone:—thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.

–And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.—With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected.—She was going to say something civil in return—but the lad came into the shop with the gloves.—Á propos, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.

THE GLOVES

PARIS

The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reach’d down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her: they were all too large.  The beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand.—It would not alter their dimensions.—She begg’d I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least.—She held it open;—my hand slipped into it at once.—It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little.—No, said she, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety,—where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;—they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it—it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the counter—it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us.

The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to the window, then at the gloves,—and then at me.  I was not disposed to break silence:—I followed her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her,—and so on alternately.

I found I lost considerably in every attack:—she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, that she look’d into my very heart and reins.—It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did.—

It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket.

I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single livre above the price.—I wish’d she had asked a livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about.—Do you think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger—and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy?—M’en croyez capable?—Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed me.

THE TRANSLATION

PARIS

There was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man whose manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that I once knew one,—for he is no more,—and why should I not rescue one page from violation by writing his name in it, and telling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at this long distance from his death—but my eyes gush out with tears.  For his sake I have a predilection for the whole corps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of benches and placed myself beside him.

The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a shagreen case, return’d them and the book into his pocket together.  I half rose up, and made him a bow.

Translate this into any civilized language in the world—the sense is this:

“Here’s a poor stranger come into the box—he seems as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose:—’tis shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face—and using him worse than a German.”

The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, and told him, “I was sensible of his attention, and return’d him a thousand thanks for it.”

There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.

I was going one evening to Martini’s concert at Milan, and, was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F— was coming out in a sort of a hurry:—she was almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave a spring to once side to let her pass.—She had done the same, and on the same side too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been, for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again.—We both flew together to the other side, and then back,—and so on:—it was ridiculous: we both blush’d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should have done at first;—I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the passage.  She look’d back twice, and walk’d along it rather sideways, as if she would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her.—No, said I—that’s a vile translation: the Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in;—so I ran and begg’d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention to have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by the same intention towards me;—so we reciprocally thank’d each other.  She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no cicisbeo near her, I begg’d to hand her to her coach;—so we went down the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure.—Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six different efforts to let you go out.—And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter.—I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said I.—With all my heart, said she, making room.—Life is too short to be long about the forms of it,—so I instantly stepp’d in, and she carried me home with her.—And what became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I.

I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.

THE DWARF

PARIS

I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,—and that was, the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs.—No doubt she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements.—The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.

As I carried my idea out of the Opéra Comique with me, I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by it.—Melancholy application! especially where the size was extremely little,—the face extremely dark,—the eyes quick,—the nose long,—the teeth white,—the jaw prominent,—to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me pain to write down:—every third man a pigmy!—some by rickety heads and hump backs;—others by bandy legs;—a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth;—a fourth, in their perfect and natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.

A Medical Traveller might say, ’tis owing to undue bandages;—a Splenetic one, to want of air;—and an Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses,—the narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop’d up, that they had not actually room enough to get them.—I do not call it getting anything, said he;—’tis getting nothing.—Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, ’tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.  Now, Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.

As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris.  I was walking down that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and help’d him over.  Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I perceived he was about forty.—Never mind, said I, some good body will do as much for me when I am ninety.

I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size nor strength to get on in the world.—I cannot bear to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the box we sat in.

At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary.  Though you stand, as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra.  A poor defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other into this luckless place;—the night was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than himself.  The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either the stage or the actors.  The poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening betwixt the German’s arm and his body, trying first on one side, then the other; but the German stood square in the most unaccommodating posture that can be imagined:—the dwarf might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German’s sleeve, and told him his distress.—The German turn’d his head back, looked down upon him as Goliah did upon David,—and unfeelingly resumed his posture.

I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk’s little horn box.—And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk! so temper’d to bear and forbear!—how sweetly would it have lent an ear to this poor soul’s complaint!