Charles James Lever

“ Perhaps I should not have been even conscious, as I was of this sentiment, if it were not for the indignation I felt at Cleremont's treatment of her. Over and over again my temper was pushed to its last limit by his brutality and coarseness. His tone was a perpetual sneer, and his wife seldom spoke before him without his directing towards her a sarcasm or an impertinence. This was especially remarkable if she uttered any sentiment at all elevated, when his banter would be ushered in with a burst of derisive laughter.
Nothing could be more perfect than the way she bore these trials. ”

“ No fellow of your age knows how to air his Bordeaux; hot flannels to the caraffe before decanting are all that is necessary, and let your glasses also be slightly warmed. To sip such claret as this, and then turn one's eyes to that champagne yonder in the ice-pail, is like the sensation of a man who in his honeymoon fancies how happy he will be one of these days, en secondes noces. Don't you feel a sense of triumphant enjoyment at this moment? Is there not something at your heart that says, 'Hodnig and Oppovich, I despise you! ”

“ I trembled to think what a nature I should soon be confronted with, and how terrible must be the temper of a man whose resentments asked for such aliment to maintain them! I stole away abashed at my own intrusiveness, and feeling that I was rightfully punished by the misery that overwhelmed me. How differently now did all the splendor appear to me as I retraced my steps! how defiantly I gazed on that magnificence which seemed to insult the poverty I had just quitted! ”

“ I drew nigh, and wrote in a fall, bold hand, Roger Norcott.
“Why not Sir Roger Norcott, boy? Why not give me my name and title too?”
“You said your name, sir, and I thought—”
“No matter what you thought. This literalism comes of home breeding,” muttered he to himself; “they are made truthful at the price of being vulgar. What do you know besides reading and writing?”
“A little Latin, sir, and some French, and some German, and three books of Euclid, and the Greek grammar—”
“There, there, that's more than enough. ”

“ I had determined not to present myself to the Herr Oppovich till morning, and to take that evening to see the town and its-neighborhood.
As I strolled about, gazing with a stranger's curiosity at all that was new and odd to me in this quiet spot, I felt coming over me that deep depression which almost invariably falls upon him who, alone and friendless, makes first acquaintance with the scene wherein he is to live. How hard it is for him to believe that the objects he sees can ever become of interest to him ”

“ Excited by this theme, and elated by his success, my father went on:—
“If you want a boy to ride, you don't limit him to the quiet hackney that neither pulls nor shies, neither bolts nor plunges; and so, if you wish your son to know his fellow-men, you don't keep him in a charmed circle of deans and archdeacons, but you throw him fearlessly into contact with old debauchees like Hotham, or abandoned scamps of the style of Cleremont,”—and here he had to wait till the laughter subsided to add, “and, last of all, you take care to provide him with a finishing tutor like Eccles.” ”

“ In the days of romance there were personal perils to confront, and appalling dangers to be surmounted; but now it was a game of life, to be played, not merely with a stout heart and a ready hand, but with a cool head and a steady eye. Young as I was, I had seen a great deal. In that strange comedy of which my father's guests were the performers, there was great insight into character to be gained, and a marvellous knowledge of that skill by which they who live by their wits cultivate these same wits to live. ”

“ If I give one day of my life, I give, with very nearly exactness, the unbroken course of my existence. I rose very early—hours ere the rest of the household was stirring—to work at my lessons, which Mr. Eccles apportioned for me with a liberality that showed he had the highest opinion of my abilities, or—as I discovered later on to be the truth—a profound indifference about them. Thus, a hundred lines of Virgil, thirty of Xenophon, three propositions of Euclid, with a sufficient amount of history, geography, and logic, would be an ordinary day's work. ”

“ I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result.
“Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?” cried he, at last, after a burst of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour.
“I seldom sit up so late,” was my cautious reply; “but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse.”
“You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. ”

“ I know well, ye gentlemen who hold a station fixed and unassailable will scarcely sympathize with me in all this; but the castle-builders of this world—and, happily, they are a large class—will lend me all their pity, well aware that so long as imagination honors the drafts upon her, the poor man is never bankrupt, and that it is only as illusions dissolve he sees his insolvency.
I reached Gross Wardein to dinner, and passed the night there, essaying, but with no remarkable success, to learn something of Count Hunyadi, his habits, age, temper, and general demeanor. ”

“ As I entered the drawing-room, I was struck by the silence. My father, Cleremont, and the two foreigners were playing whist at one end of the room, Hotham and Eccles were seated at chess at another. Not a word was uttered save some brief demand of the game, or a murmured “check,” by the chess-players. Taking my place noiselessly beside these latter, I watched the board eagerly, to try and acquire the moves.
“Do you understand the game?” whispered Hotham.
“No, sir,” said I, in the same cautious tone. ”

“ Herr Ulrich was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man, with his hair brushed rigidly back from the narrowest head I ever saw. His whole idea of life was the office, which he arrived at by daybreak, and never left, except to visit the Bourse, till late at night. He disliked, of all things, new faces about him; and it was a piece of malice on the cashier's part to bring me before him.
“I believed I had explained to Herr Ignaz already,” said he to the cashier, “that I am not a schoolmaster.”
“Well, well,” broke in the other, in a muffled voice, “try the lad. He may not be so incompetent. ”

“ I could not only learn a game quickly, but almost always attain considerable skill in it.
“So, sir,” said my father to me one day at dinner,—and nothing was more rare than for him to address a word to me, and I was startled as he did so,—“so, sir, you are going to turn out an Admirable Crichton on my hands, it seems. I hear of nothing but your billiard-playing, your horsemanship, and your cricketing, while Mr. Eccles tells me that your progress with him is equally remarkable.” ”

“ I love a bouquet A few camellias for color, and some violets for odor. They relieve the grossness of the material enjoyments; they poetize the meal; and if you have no women at table, mon cher, be sure to have flowers: not that I object to both together. There, now, is our little bill of fare,—a white soup, a devilled mackerel, some truffles, with butter, and a capon with stewed mushrooms. Oysters there are none, not even those native shrimps they call scampi; but the wine will compensate for much: the wine is Roediger; champagne, with a faint suspicion of dryness. ”

“ How did the fact of my wager come to influence you at all, sir? Why should you have had any thought but for the game you were playing, and how it behoved you to play it? How came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and your real object, if it were not that a craven dread of consequences had got the ascendancy in your mind? If men were to be beset by these calculations, if every fellow carried about him an armor of sophistry like this, he 'd have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world would see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. ”

“ In perfect silence the meal went on; a woman-servant entering to replace the soup by a dish of boiled meat, but not otherwise waiting on us, for Sara rose and removed our plates and served us with fresh ones,—an office I would gladly have taken from her, and indeed essayed to do, but at a gesture, and a look that there was no mistaking, I sat down again, and, unmindful of my presence, they soon began to talk of business matters, in which, to my astonishment, the young girl seemed thoroughly versed. ”

“ Nothing could be less like my father's guests than these people. It was not in dress and demeanor and general carriage that they differed,—in their gestures as they met, in their briefest greetings,—but the whole character of their habite, as expressed by their faces, seemed so unlike that I could not imagine any clew to their several ranks, and how this one was higher or greater than that. All the nationalities of Eastern Europe were there,—Hungarian, Styrian, Dalmatian, and Albanian. ”

“ If Herr Ignaz thinks you too highly gifted for his service, young man, come over to Carl Bettmeyer's counting-house to-morrow at noon.”
“I thank you, sir,” said I, “and am very grateful; but if Herr Oppovich will bear with me, I will not leave him.”
Sara's eyes met mine as I spoke, and I cannot tell what a flood of rapture her look sent into my heart.
“The boy will do well enough,” muttered Herr Ignaz. “Let us have a ramble through the grounds, and see how the skittle-players go on.” ”

“ Shall I own that I heard all these with something much more akin to pride than to shame? The mere fact that they recognized me as unlike one of themselves—that they saw in me what was not “Fiumano “—was in itself a flattery; and as to the depreciation, it was pure ignorance! I am afraid that I even showed how defiantly I took this criticism,—showed it in my look, and showed it in my gait; for as I ascended the steps to the terrace of the villa, I heard more than one comment on my pretentious demeanor. ”

“ I made many attempts, but all unsuccessfully, to find out what number of servants the household consisted of. Several wore livery, and many—especially such as waited on guests humble as myself—were dressed in blouse, with the crest of the house embroidered on the breast; while a little army of retainers in Jager costume, or in the picturesque dress of the peasantry, lounged about the courtyard, lending a hand to unharness or harness a team, to fetch a bucket of water, or “strap down” a beast, as some weary traveller would ride in, splashed and wayworn. ”

“ If I was madly jealous of her, I felt the most overwhelming delight in the praises bestowed upon her beauty and her gracefulness. Perhaps the consciousness that I was a mere boy, and that thus a freedom might be used towards me that would have been reprehensible with one older, led her to treat me with a degree of intimacy that was positively captivating; and before our third waltz was over, I was calling her Pauline, and she calling me Digby, like old friends.
“Isn't that boy of Norcott's going it to-night?” ”

“ It was not easy to imagine a woman like \ Madame Cleremont, a person of the most attractive manners, beautiful, gifted, and graceful, capable of a great crime; but she herself had shown me more than once in fiction the portraiture of an individual who, while shrinking with horror from the coarse contact of guilt, would willingly set the springs in motion which ultimately conduce to the most appalling disasters. ”

“ We soon afterwards rose to go into the drawing-room, and I saw as they laughed together that she had told her what she said.
“Do you know,” said the Countess Hunyadi, approaching me, “I am half of Madame Palfi's mind, and I shall never rest till you reveal your secret to us?”
I said something laughingly about my incognito being the best coat in my wardrobe, and the matter dropped. That night I sang several times, alone, and in duet with the Palfi, and was overwhelmed with flatteries of my “fresh tenor voice” and my “admirable method.” ”

“ Short as the distance was, it gave me time to bethink me that I must repress all anger or irritation if I desired to keep my secret; so that when I reached my place, my mind was made up.
“Silk-velvet as I live!” said one who passed his hand along my sleeve as I went.
“No one wishes to offend you, youngster,” said the cashier to me, as he placed me beside him; “nor when we talk freely to each other, as is our wont, are any of us offended.”
“But you forget, sir,” said I, “that I have no share in these freedoms, and that were I to attempt them, you'd resent the liberty pretty soon.” ”

“ Herb Heinfetter was a bachelor, and lived in a very modest fashion over his banking-house; and as he was employed from morning to night, I saw next to nothing of him. Eccles, he said, had been called away, and though I eagerly asked where, by whom, and for how long, I got no other answer than “He is called away,” in very German English, and with a stolidity of look fully as Teutonic.
The banker was not talkative: he smoked all the evening, and drank beer, and except an occasional monosyllabic comment on its excellence, said little. ”

“ Nixon, too, had placed the name of each guest on his napkin, and he, at least, had not heard of any apologies.
Given in my honor, as this dinner was, I felt a most intense interest in its success. I was standing, as it were, on the threshold of life, and regarded the mode in which I should be received as an augury of good or evil. My father's supremacy at home, the despotism he wielded, and the respect and deference he exacted, led me to infer that he exercised the same influence on the world at large ”

“ I told Pauline she should be the queen of the fête, and ordered a splendid wreath of flowers to be brought, which I placed upon her brow, and saluted her with her title, amidst the cheering shouts of willing toasters. Except to make a tour of a waltz or a polka with some one I knew, I would not permit her to dance with any but myself; and she, I must say, most graciously submitted to the tyranny, and seemed to delight in the extravagant expressions of my admiration for her. ”

“ I remember well how I longed for day-dawn, that I might get up and wander along the shore, and taste the fresh breeze, and hear the plash of the sea, and seek in that greater, wider, and more beautiful world of nature a peace that my own despairing thoughts would not suffer me to enjoy. ”