Part 6 (2/2)
”'I don't understand you, sir,' replied the chambermaid, somewhat mollified.
”'Why, my dear girl, if I paid Sambo a dollar for my dinner, I expect to pay Dolly something for my chamber, of course.'
”'Well, sir, you are certainly very kind,--I--with pleasure, I'm sure,' replied she, entirely appeased, taking the money and vanis.h.i.+ng.
”I,” said Kurz Pacha, ”entered my room and locked the door. But I believe I was a little hasty about giving her the money. The perfection of civilization has not yet mounted the stairs. It is confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the _Favorita_, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee,” and the delightful Sennaar amba.s.sador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away.
There are few pleasanter men in society. I should think with his experience he would be hard upon us, but he is not. The air of courts does not seem to have spoiled him.
”My dear madam,” he said one evening to Mrs. Potiphar, ”if you laugh at anything, your laughing is laughed at next day. Life is short. If you can't see the jewel in the toad's head, still believe in it. Take it for granted. The _Parisienne_ says that the English woman has no _je ne sais quoi_, The English woman says the _Parisienne_ has no _aplomb_. Amen! When you are in Turkey--why gobble. Why should I decline to have a good time at the Queen's drawing-room, because English women have no _je ne sais quoi_, or at the grand opera, because French women lack _aplomb_? Take things smoothly. Life is a merry-go-round. Look at your own grandfather, dear Mrs.
Potiphar,--fine old gentleman, I am told,--rather kept in what the artists call the middle-distance, at present,--a capital shoemaker, who did his work well--Alexander and John Howard did no more:--well here you are, you see, with liveries and a pew in the right church, and altogether a front seat in the universe--merry-go-round, you know; here we go up, up, up; here we go down, down, down, etc. By the bye, pretty strain that from Linda; tum tum, ti, tum tum,” and away hopped the Sennaar minister.
Mrs. Potiphar was angry. Who wouldn't have been? To have the old family shoes thrown in one's teeth! But our amba.s.sador is an amba.s.sador. One must have the best society, and she swallowed it as she has swallowed it a hundred times before. She quietly remarked--
”Pity Kurz Pacha drinks so abominably. He quite forgets what he's saying!”
I suppose he does, if Mrs. P. says so; but he seems to know well enough all the time: as he did that evening in the library at Mrs. Potiphar's, when he drew Cerulea Ba.s.s to the book-shelves, and began to dispute about a line in Milton, and then suddenly looking up at the books, said--
”Ah! there's Milton; now we'll see.” But when he opened the case, which was foolishly left unlocked, he took down only a bit of wood, bound in blue morocco, which he turned slowly over, so that everybody saw it, and then quietly returned it to the shelf saying only--
”I beg pardon.”
Old Pot, as Mrs. P. calls him, happened to be pa.s.sing at the moment, and cried out in his brusque way--
”Oh! I haven't laid in my books yet. Those are only samples--pattern-cards, you know. I don't believe you'll find there a single book that a gentleman's library shouldn't be without. I got old Vellum to do the thing up right, you know. I guess he knows about the books to buy. But I've just laid in some claret that you'll like, and I've got a sample of the Steinberg. Old Corque understands that kind of thing, if anybody does.” And the two gentlemen went off to try the wine.
I am astonished that a man of Kurz Pacha's tact should have opened the book-case. People have no right to suppose that the pretty bindings on one's shelves are books. Why, they might as well insist upon trying if the bloom on one's cheek, or the lace on one's dress, or, in fact, one's figure, were real. Such things are addressed to the eye. No gentleman uses his hands in good society. I've no doubt they were originally put into gloves to keep them out of mischief.
I am as bad as dear Mrs. Potiphar about coming to the point of my story. But the truth is, that in such engrossing places as Saratoga and Newport, it is hardly possible to determine which is the pleasantest and most important thing among so many. I am so fond of that old, droll Kurz Pacha, that if I begin to talk about him I forget everything else. He says such nice things about people that n.o.body else would dare to say, and that everybody is so glad to hear. He is invaluable in society. And yet one is never safe. People say he isn't gentlemanly; but when I see the style of man that is called gentlemanly, I am very glad he is not. All the solemn, pompous men who stand about like owls, and never speak, nor laugh, nor move, as if they really had any life or feeling are called ”gentlemanly.” Whenever Tabby says of a new man--”But then he is so gentlemanly!” I understand at once. It is another case of the well-dressed wooden image. Good heavens! do you suppose Sir Philip Sidney, or the Chevalier Bayard or Charles Fox, were ”gentlemanly” in this way?
Confectioners who undertake parties might furnish scores of such gentlemen, with hands and feet of any required size, and warranted to do nothing ”ungentlemanly.” For my part, I am inclined to think that a gentleman is something positive, not merely negative. And if sometimes my friend the Pacha says a rousing and wholesome truth, it is none the less gentlemanly because it cuts a little. He says it's very amusing to observe how coolly we play this little farce of life,--how placidly people get entangled in a mesh at which they all rail, and how fiercely they frown upon anybody who steps out of the ring. ”You tickle me and I'll tickle you; but at all events, you tickle me,” is the motto of the crowd.
”_Allons!_” says he, ”who cares? lead off to the right and left--down the middle and up again. Smile all round, and bow gracefully to your partner; then carry your heavy heart up chamber, and drown in your own tears. Cheerfully, cheerfully, my dear Miss Minerva.--Saratoga until August, then Newport till the frost, the city afterwards; and so an endless round of happiness.”
And he steps off humming _Il segreto per esser felice!_
Well, we were all sitting in the great drawing-room at the ”United States.” We had been bowling in our morning dresses, and had rushed in to ascertain if the distinguished English party had arrived. They had not. They were in New York, and would not come. That was bad, but we thought of Newport and probable scions of n.o.bility there, and were consoled. But while we were in the midst of the talk, and I was whispering very intimately with that superb and aristocratic Nancy Fungus, who should come in but father, walking towards us with a wearied air, dragging his feet along, but looking very well dressed for him. I smiled sweetly when I saw that he was quite presentable, and had had the good sense to leave that odious white hat in his room, and had b.u.t.toned his waistcoat. The party stopped talking as he approached; and he came up to me.
”Minna, my dear,” said he, ”I hear everybody is going to Newport.
”Oh! yes, dear father,” I replied, and Nancy Fungus smiled. Father looked pleased to see me so intimate with a girl he always calls ”so aristocratic and high-bred looking,” and he said to her--
”I believe your mother is going, Miss Fungus?”
”Oh! yes, we always go,” replied she, ”one must have a few weeks at Newport.”
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