Part 2 (1/2)
”No man shall insult me or my guests, by getting drunk in my house,”
said he; and he has since asked me not to invite Boosey nor ”any of his kind,” as he calls them, to our house. However, I think it will pa.s.s over. I tell him that all young men of spirit get a little excited with wine sometimes, and he mustn't be too hard upon them.
”Madame,” said he to me, the first time I ventured to say that, ”no man with genuine self-respect ever gets drunk twice; and, if you had the faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant intoxication has produced in scores of families that you know, you would never insinuate again that a little excitement from wine is an agreeable thing. There's your friend Mrs. Croesus (he thinks she's my friend, because we call each other 'dear'!); she is delighted to be a fas.h.i.+onable woman, and to be described as the 'peerless and accomplished Mrs. Croesus' in letters from the Watering-places to the Herald; but I tell you, if anything of the woman or the mother is left in the fas.h.i.+onable Mrs. Croesus, I could wring her heart as it never was wrung--and never shall be by me--by showing her the places that young Timon Croesus haunts, the people with whom he a.s.sociates and the drunkenness, gambling, and worse dissipations of which he is guilty.
”Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty years old; and Polly, I tell you, he is actually _blase_, worn out with dissipation, the companion of blacklegs, the chevalier of Cyprians, tipsy every night, and haggard every morning. Timon Croesus is the puny caricature of a man, mentally, morally, and physically. He gets 'elegantly intoxicated' at your parties; he goes off to sup with Gauche Boosey; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young men of spirit,--it is an exhilarating case of sowing wildcats, you fancy,--and, when, at twenty-five, Timon Croesus stands ruined in the world, without aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single man or his own self-respect--youth, health, hope, and energy, all gone forever--then you and your dear Mrs. Croesus will probably wonder at the horrible harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream Cheese to omit his sermon upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife, and preach from this text: 'They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heavens!
Polly, fancy our Fred growing up to such a life! I'd rather bury him to-morrow!”
I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly put his handkerchief to his eyes, and I really believe he cried! But I think he exaggerates these things: and as he had a very dear friend that went worse and worse, until he died frightfully, a drunkard, it is not strange he should speak so warmly about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says:
”What can you do? You can't curb these boys, you don't want to break their spirits, you don't want to make them milk-sops.”
When I repeated this speech to Mr. P., he said to me with a kind of solemnity:
”Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge nor dictate: but she may be well a.s.sured, that every parent is responsible for every child of his to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether he chooses to consider himself so or not; and if not now, in this world, yet somewhere and somehow, he must hear and heed the voice that called to Cain in the garden, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'”
I can't bear to hear Mr.P. talk in that way; it sounds so like preaching. Not precisely like what I hear at church but like what we mean when we say ”preaching,” without referring to any particular sermon. However, he grants that young Timon is an extreme case: but, he says, it is the result that proves the principle, and a state of feeling which not only allows, but indirectly fosters, that result, is frightful to think of.
”Don't think of it then, Mr. P.,” said I. He looked at me for a moment with the sternest scowl I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly ran up to me, and kissed me on the forehead (although my hair was all dressed for Mrs. Gnu's dinner), and went out of the house. He hasn't said much to me since, but he speaks very gently when he does speak, and sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a singular way, so half mournful, that Mr. Cheese's eyes don't seem so very sad after all.
However, to return to the party, I believe nothing else was injured except the curtains in the front drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice-cream and oyster gravy, that we must get new ones; and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken by the servant, though the man said he didn't really mean to do it, and I could say nothing; and a party of young men, after the German Cotillion, did let fall that superb cut-gla.s.s Claret, and s.h.i.+vered it, with a dozen of the delicately engraved straw-stems that stood upon the waiter. That was all, I believe--oh! except that fine ”Dresden Gallery,” the most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of the great pictures in Dresden, Vienna, and the other Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an old friend, an artist, whom he had helped along when he was very poor. Somebody unfortunately tipped over a bottle of claret that stood upon the table, (I am sure I don't know how it got there, though Mr. P. says Gauche Boosey knows,) and it lay soaking into the book, so that almost every picture has a claret stain, which looks so funny. I am very sorry, I am sure, but as I tell Mr. P., it's no use crying for spilt milk. I was telling Mr. Boosey of it at the Gnus'
dinner. He laughed very much, and when I said that a good many of the faces were sadly stained, he said in his droll way, ”You ought to call it _L'Opera di Bordeaux; Le Domino rouge._” I supposed it was something funny, so I laughed a good deal. He said to me later: ”Shall I pour a little claret into your book--I mean into your gla.s.s?”
Wasn't it a pretty _bon-mot?_
Don't you think we are getting very _spirituel_ in this country?
I believe there was nothing else injured except the bed-hangings in the back room, which were somehow badly burnt and very much torn in pulling down, and a few of our handsomest shades that were cracked by the heat, and a few plates, which it was hardly fair to expect wouldn't be broken, and the colored gla.s.s door in my _escritoire_, against which Flattie Podge fell as she was dancing with Gauche Boosey; but he may have been a little excited, you know, and she, poor girl, couldn't help tumbling, and as her head hit the gla.s.s, of course, it broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran down and naturally spoiled her dress; and what little _escritoire_ could stand against Flattie Podge? So that went, and was a good deal smashed in falling.
That's all, I think, except that the next day Mrs. Croesus sent a note, saying that she had lost her largest diamond from her necklace, and she was sure that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house, nor upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked everywhere, _and she would be very glad if I would return it by the bearer._
Think of that.
Well, we hunted everywhere, and found no diamond. I took particular pains to ask the servants if they had found it, for if they had, they might as well give it up at once, without expecting any reward from Mrs. Croesus, who wasn't very generous. But they all said they hadn't found any diamond: and our man John, who you know is so guileless,--although it _was_ a little mysterious about that emerald pin of mine,--brought me a bit of gla.s.s that had been nicked out of my large custard dish, and asked me if that was not Mrs. Croesus's diamond. I told him no, and gave him a gold dollar for his honesty. John is an invaluable servant; he is so guileless.
_Do you know I am not so sure about Mrs. Croesus's diamond!_
Mr. P. made a great howling about the ball. But it was very foolish, for he got safely to bed by six o'clock, and he need have no trouble about replacing the curtains, and gla.s.s, etc. I shall do all that, and the sum total will be sent to him in a lump, so that he can pay it.
Men are so unreasonable. Fancy us at seven o'clock that morning, when I retired. He wasn't asleep. But whose fault was that?
”Polly,” said he, ”that's the last.”
”Last what?” said I. -- ”Last ball at my house,” said he.
”Fiddle-dee-dee,” said I. -- ”I tell you, Mrs. Potiphar, I am not going to open my house for a crowd of people who don't go away till daylight; who spoil my books and furniture; involve me in a foolish expense; for a gang of rowdy boys, who drink my Margaux, and Lafitte, and Marcobrunner, (what kind of drinks are those, dear Caroline?) and who don't know Chambertin from liquorice-water,--for a swarm of persons few of whom we know fewer, still care for me, and to whom I am only 'Old Potiphar,' the husband of you, a fas.h.i.+onable woman. I am simply resolved to have no more such tomfoolery in my house.”
”Dear Mr. P.,” said I, ”you'll feel much better when you have slept. Besides, why do you say such things? Mustn't we see our friends, I should like to know; and if we do, are you going to let your wife receive them in a manner inferior to old Mrs. Podge or Mrs. Croesus? People will accuse you of meanness, and of treating me ill; and if some persons hear that you have reduced your style of living, they will begin to suspect the state of your affairs. Don't make any rash vows, Mr. P.,” said I, ”but go to sleep.”
(Do you know that speech was just what Mrs. Croesus told me she had said to her husband under similar circ.u.mstances?)
Mr. P. fairly groaned, and I heard that short, strong little word that sometimes inadvertently drops out of the best regulated mouths, as young Gooseberry Downe says when he swears before his mother. Do you know Mrs. Settum Downe? Charming woman, but satirical.