Baedeker

“ I'm too tired; but you go. And get all the maps and guides you can; there's so very little in Baedeker, and almost nothing in that great hulking Bradshaw of yours; and I'm sure there must be the most interesting history of Wurzburg. Isn't it strange that we haven't the slightest association with the name?"
"I've been rummaging in my mind, and I've got hold of an association at last," said March. "It's beer; a sign in a Sixth Avenue saloon window Wurzburger Hof-Brau."
"No matter if it is beer. Find some sketch of the history, and we'll try to get away from the Stollers in it. ”

“ As a student of art?"
"Oh, dear me, no—oh, no!"
"Perhaps as a student of human nature," interposed Miss Lavish, "like myself?"
"Oh, no. I am here as a tourist."
"Oh, indeed," said Mr. Eager. "Are you indeed? If you will not think me rude, we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little—handed about like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Rome, living herded together in pensions or hotels, quite unconscious of anything that is outside Baedeker, their one anxiety to get 'done' or 'through' and go on somewhere else. ”

“ She hates me when I am trying to “marchander” and suddenly pretends that she is not with me and doesn’t know me, which is absurd when we are often the only two American girls in the town. Well, I bought the leopard—“Leo” on further acquaintance—for forty francs, and this time tears were in the very voice of his former mistress. We left Poitiers in a cloud of dust, not having seen one building, one church, or one view. Baedeker lay sulking in the back of the car, but Marje was correspondingly exultant. There is a certain antipathy between Marje and a statistic which may be noticed. ”

“ He’s not a pal of ours, and he’s human. Don’t do to take any fool chances.”
“Oh, well, don’t get rattled,” retorted Tony, smiling at Bodiker. “You don’t believe in the yarn anyway. Hullo, here he is!”
Through the trees came Plessons alone. He swung right up to them and without greeting Bodiker said—
“I’ve fahnd it, Mr. Westlaike!”
“Found what!” exclaimed Bodiker excitedly.
“Fahnd a elephant, Mr. Bodiker, drinkin’ whisky and soda,” asserted Plessons gravely.
“Now don’t get fresh, Plessons,” began Bodiker. ”

“ Owing to Bodiker’s persisting in taking a long rest in the shade of the bamboo, which appeared as impenetrable as the wall of China, and to the painfully slow process of wriggling through the dense canes, they emerged just in time to get a glimpse of a bare and rugged pile of rocks against the vermilion and orange glow of sunset.
While the boys were lighting a fire and pitching the tent in the dark, Bodiker grouched sourly that it was Plessons’ fault; he ought to have known this and known that. ”

“ You see, Plessons, I’ve been up against it all along because it was Bodiker who put up the money for this outfit. But there are limits. And I think I’m justified in—well, kicking and then some, now that I’m convinced that for some incomprehensible reason Bodiker had meant to get me—even before the diamonds came along.
“By the way,” he added with a sunny smile, “I haven’t got the diamonds. Hid ’em in the bamboo grove. There’s only grass in the belt. Too heavy to carry.”
“Why didn’t you tell ’em?”
“Because I —— well wouldn’t!” Tony grinned. ”

“ The two roues, the old and the young, rose. As Maxime got into his one-horse equipage, he thought to himself: "Madame d'Espard can't endure Beatrix; she will help me. Hotel de Grandlieu," he called out to the coachman, observing that Rastignac was just passing him.
Find a great man without some weakness! ”

“ So it was that when the captain came on the bridge at what should have been eight bells in the afternoon he found his woman officer calmly breaking all the rules of any ship by smoking on duty.
“Nothing to report, uncle. Had a good sleep?”
“Yes; very good nap,” replied the Old Man mendaciously. “But I'm very worried about Selwyn.”
“Yes; seems very queer,” Vi admitted, rather conscious of a sense of relief that he was not there to annoy her. “Perhaps he's shut himself up in some cabin with the champagne. You know what he is.” ”

“ Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard.
“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. ”

“ Don't I know why you brought Maxime here? You mean to make up with Madame de Rochefide, who wants you perhaps for some indiscreet brat. And I, whom you call so clever, I advised you to give back her fortune! Oh! I see your scheme. At the end of five years Monsieur is tired of me. I'm getting fat, Beatrix is all bones—it will be a change for you! You are not the first I've known to like skeletons. Your Beatrix knows how to dress herself, that's true; and you are man who likes figure-heads. ”

“ In this moment of comparative relief she saw the stranger. He was riding along the bank towards them—as fast as the insecure footing would allow, dashing the clods this way and that—and he was leading Bajazet. He was richly dressed, with a gorgeous pagri striped with gold, but his complexion was not dark—rather the brick-red of a European burnt by tropical suns. He shouted angrily as he came near, and the mob gave one glance of terror and dissolved helter-skelter. ”

“ He sighed heavily and then rapping out an oath, rose violently, overturning the chair, poured out a half-glass of neat cognac, and drank it at a gulp. As he neared the Court House the sentry, turning at the end of his short beat, was so startled at the proximity of the Kommandant, or incompletely disciplined, that he became flurried. Zu Pfeiffer clicked his heels together and haughtily watched the fumbled efforts to salute. The bolt caught in the man’s tunic. Gold flashed in the sun as the sjambok descended. ”

“ Beatrix turned round, saw her young lover, and gave him the most imperious look in her repertory. A smile, which the marquise detected on the eloquent lips of Mademoiselle des Touches, made her aware of the vulgarity of such conduct, worthy only of a bourgeoise. She then said to Calyste, smiling,—
"Are you not guilty of a slight impertinence in supposing that I should bore Camille, if left alone with her?"
"My dear, one man to two widows is none too much," said Mademoiselle des Touches, taking Calyste's arm, and leaving Beatrix to watch the vessel till it disappeared. ”

“ After a few moments he tries to evoke the image of the bewitching Bayadère and bid her display once more those charms which inflame, and at the same time refresh the senses, just as the sight of sparkling waters gives a pleasurable foretaste of freshness to the parched palate of the sore-footed traveller, increasing in him, withal, the keenness of his thirst. The artful virgin resists his lures, and turns a deaf ear to all his incantations. ”

“ The doctor waited for him, trying to catch a glimpse of the face. The man returned with great eager strides and to the doctor's amazement caught him by the shoulders and spun him around face to the moon.
"Good God Almighty!" he exclaimed. "That's good!" He dropped him as suddenly. "I say, I beg your pardon! You must forgive me, I—er—I'm a little off my chump, y'know. I—well, as a matter of fact, I haven't seen a white man for years. I don't know, I—but come and sit down." He strode forward to the hut, his swallow tails flirting in the moonlight, and emerged, dragging another camp-chair. ”

“ Slowly and gradually health and strength came back to Beatrix Harefield. The family life at the Vicarage was a new thing to her. It was a new thing to live in a house where everybody was cheerful, and where people seemed fond of her. The library was her favourite room, and Mr. Dulcimer her chosen companion. Whether he was silently absorbed in his book, or laid it down, as he did very often, to talk to her, Beatrix found his society all-sufficient. ”

“ He sat up abruptly at her "no good—oh damns." The moon was full and high. Around in the tree the little folk were clicking away as softly as a Spring shower upon a roof. Then his ear caught a peculiar sound—a distinct drumming as of native tom-toms.
A village must be near, he thought joyfully. But the girl kept whispering:
"No good, oh damn! No good, oh damn!"
She pushed a cartridge into his hand as she tugged at his shirt sleeve. He crawled to the edge of the nest platform noticing that her eyes registered extreme terror as she pointed downward. ”

“ Gautier pretends that the poet preserved his ideal under the form of "the adorable phantom of La Beatrix, the ideal ever desired, never attained, the divine and superior beauty incarnated in an ethereal woman, spiritualised, made of light and flame and perfume, a vapour, a dream, a reflection of the seraphical world"; but when Baudelaire has a vision of this same Beatrice he sees her as one of a crowd of "cruel and curious demons" who mock at his sorrow, and she, too, mocks him, and caresses the demons who are his spiritual foes. ”

“ Calyste, a prey to black despair, was casting glances at Beatrix in which anger and love struggled for the mastery. Not a word was said by any of them during the short passage from the jetty of Guerande to the extreme end of the port of Croisic, the point where the boats discharge the salt, which the peasant-women then bear away on their heads in huge earthen jars after the fashion of caryatides. These women go barefooted with very short petticoats. Many of them let the kerchiefs which cover their bosoms fly carelessly open. Some wear only shifts, and are the more dignified ”

“ Baudelot was everywhere, [Pg 1143] saluting old ladies like the King of France, and young ones with joy and admiration, talking to men in the mad language of youth and of nature mixed with wit.
The more he yielded to this frank and natural gaiety, the more he forgot that the night was advancing with frightful rapidity. And the later it grew the more the women trembled in their hearts at the thought that he must really die, for they were near the epoch of old French honor, which made Baudelot’s presence at the ball the sign that there was no hope for him. ”

“ IV "HALLUCINATION!" muttered the doctor and pawed at his damp face again. But the image remained. The head was sunk forward slightly; the brown beard straggled over the shirtfront; one black-sleeved arm hung listlessly outside the chair, the other upon the right knee. In the moonlight the eyes glinted blue as the man stared at the fire.
"But a white man in evening kit!" whispered the doctor incredulously. "Here! Good God! No, no," he added after peering at the outline of a square hut built beneath the enormous boughs of the giant tree. "It is. I'm not crazy. The feller's crazy. ”

“ Gradually, as the daylight fades, one after another of the singers becomes silent, the sounds of day are hushed, and a perfect silence reigns in the twilight amidst the trees. Without any warning we are conscious of the clean black-and-white face of an old badger over the earthwork outside his hole, and presently he is all in view, sitting with bowed fore-legs and his head turning on his lithe outstretched neck, scenting the night air. ”

“ When he heard this little jest, said in sweet, caressing tones which betrayed a change of heart in Beatrix, Calyste knelt down, took her moist hand which she yielded to him, and kissed it humbly.
“You have the right to reject my love forever,” he said, “and I, I have no right to say one word to you.”
“Ah!” cried Camille, seeing the expression on Beatrix’s face and comparing it with that obtained by her diplomacy, “love has a wit of its own, wiser than that of all the world! ”

“ He did not wish to go to Badur. He seated himself at the foot of the ketapan tree, and looked out over the levels. Nature smiled back at him and welcomed him. But his eyes kept turning toward the narrow path that led from Badur to the ketapan tree, along which Adinda would come. But there was no one to be seen upon the path. He waited a long time, and looked and looked, and still there was no one upon the path. She probably watched all night and then fell asleep at dawn, he thought to console himself. Should he get up and go to Badur? She might be ill— or dead. ”

“ For constant gossip a yacht easily rivals a suburb, an army post or a convent.
Franklin had carried a deck chair into the sun forward a little while after Beatrix had gone to the drawing-room, and he remained there reading Nicolls on "Big Game in Bechuanaland" for an hour. He concentrated grimly on that delightful Irishman's account of his hunting expeditions, but not one word of several chapters reached his brain. Beatrix, Beatrix, Beatrix,—all the words became her name, on every page he could see nothing but her face and her slim, graceful, alluring figure. ”

“ Beatrix had remained thoughtful for some time after Thayer's departure. Lorimer had called, that same night. His coming had been unexpected; it had taken Beatrix off her guard. She had been unfeignedly glad to see him, for his ten-days' absence from her life had been unprecedented in their acquaintance. The world is wide, yet, owing to some strange law of attraction, one invariably seems to meet the same people everywhere. Beatrix had greeted Lorimer more eagerly than she had been aware. She had tried in vain to keep the fact of the Forbes supper uppermost in her mind. ”