Chatteris

“ While the servant was gone to the cellar, Dame Catherina went up to the fiddler, and, laying her hand on his shoulder, said to him in a whisper—
“Coucou Peter, this gentleman is your friend?”
“My intimate friend, Dame Catherina.”
“A handsome man,” she said, looking him full in the face.
“Aha!” said Coucou Peter, looking at her in the same way and with a strange smile; “do you think so, Dame Catherina?”
“Yes, I think him quite a gentleman.”
“Ha! ha!” said Coucou Peter, “I should rather think so; a man with land of his own, a savant, a first-rate physician.” ”

“ The immense boarded roof overspread the wood-store, press-house, and yard, in which a troop of pretty fowls were clucking and pecking. On the perch of a dovecot were [44] a pair of magnificent blue pigeons, cooing and swelling out their chests. Everything, indeed, gave to Mother Windling’s house a truly hospitable physiognomy.
“Hallo! hallo! hallo! You, there! Hans! Karl! Ludwig!—will you come out, you idlers?” cried the fiddler as he approached. “What! aren’t you ashamed of yourselves to leave the learned Doctor Mathéus at the door?” ”

“ Coucou Peter, on his side, slackened Bruno’s pace, and felt his own ribs to make sure they were still intact. When he had thoroughly convinced himself that all was in its place, he turned towards the village, which was still to be seen through the trees, and extending his hands with an imploring air, cried—
“Peasants of Oberbronn, the prophet Coucou Peter curses you!”
“No, no—do not curse them,” murmured the good doctor, in a tone of supplication; “do not curse them. Alas! the unfortunates know not what they do.”
“So much the worse for them,” replied the fiddler, out of temper. ”

“ To the tumult insensibly succeeded a vast silence; all these worthy people, overcome with fatigue, chatted amongst each in low tones as in the bosom of their family. It was so with Coucou Peter, Hans Aden, Dame Thérèse, and Mathéus: it might have been imagined that they had known one another for long [95] years, when they were seated about the fire, and the bottle passed from hand to hand; they felt quite at home.
“After you, Dame Thérèse,” said Coucou Peter. “Jolly, this small wine of Alsace!—Where was it grown, Maître Hans Aden?” ”

“ Upstairs, Lady Mary Wimsey was packing her suit-case and writing a farewell letter to her people. At length Cathcart signs his name; he takes up the revolver and hurries out into the shrubbery. Still he paces up and down, with what thoughts God alone knows—reviewing the past, no doubt, racked with vain remorse, most of all, bitter against the woman who has ruined him. He bethinks him of the little love-token, the platinum-and-diamond cat which his mistress gave him for good luck! At any rate, he will not die with that pressing upon his heart. ”

“ The shouts and tumult then redoubled outside the house. Dame Catherina herself was terrified.
“Good heavens!” she cried, “what have you done, Doctor?”
“Nothing, dear madame, nothing,” gasped the good man; “it’s the miller, it’s——”
“Tapihans?—ah, the wretch! the wretch! He wants to separate us; he’s raised the village against us! But fly!” she cried, thrusting a large black-pudding into his pocket. “Fly! we shall see each other again; you will come some other time!”
The illustrious philosopher did not need this advice ”

“ You have heard how Denis Cathcart was born of mixed parentage—from the union of a young and lovely southern girl with an Englishman twenty years older than herself: imperious, passionate, and cynical. Till the age of 18 he lives on the Continent with his parents, traveling from place to place, seeing more of the world even than the average young Frenchman of his age, learning the code of love in a country where the crime passionel is understood and forgiven as it never can be over here. ”

“ He taxes Cathcart with the vile truth—that this man, who has eaten his bread and sheltered under his roof, and who is about to marry his sister, is nothing more nor less than a card-sharper. And when Cathcart refuses to deny the charge—when he, most insolently, as it seems, declares that he is no longer willing to wed the noble lady to whom he is affianced—is it surprising that the Duke should turn upon the impostor and forbid him ever to touch or speak to Lady Mary Wimsey again? I say, my lords, that no man with a spark of honorable feeling would have done otherwise. ”

“ We no longer indignantly sympathise with Chatterton, "the man who has been created to descry in the stars the way pointed out by the finger of the Lord," when he chooses rather to poison himself than accept an unpoetical appointment which would bring him in a hundred a year. ”

“ But Coucou Peter, seeing that he was about to lose his place of Chief Rabbi, struck his fist and cried—
“But I say, we are sure to conquer the universe! The best moment isn’t the time to choose for throwing up the game. And the place of Chief Rabbi I was promised—for you did promise it to me, Maître Frantz, you can’t deny that!”
Mathéus made no reply; he had neither strength nor courage to do so; but Kasper Müller, laying his hand on the worthy fellow’s shoulder, said to him—
“I have a place for you, comrade—a place that will suit you much better than that of Chief Rabbi. ”

“ Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic movement was revealing itself in the work of Chatterton. With the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley poems we are not here concerned, but the language of both the “original” work and of the “discovered” poems contains plenty of material relevant to our special topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a predilection for compound formations, though he has but few instances of compound substantives (e.g. “coppice-valley” (“Elegy”) , and instances of Type II (noun plus adjective) are also rare. ”

“ Thus we have traced the course of Thomas Chatterton to that eventful crisis of his fate, when he found himself rejected, as it were, by the literary senate of his nation, and thrust down the few steps of the temple of fame which he had dared to ascend, as a forger and impostor. He was thrust away, in a manner, from the heart, and, what was more, from the intellect of his country; yet his proud spirit spurned the ignominious treatment, and he dared to make one grand effort, one great and final appeal against the fiat, in the face of the whole world, and in the heart of the British metropolis. ”

“ Take everybody. I know it isn't Jerry's fist, and he wouldn't use those expressions. Colonel or Mrs. Marchbanks? Not Pygmalion likely! Freddy? Couldn't write passionate letters in French to save his life."
"No, of course not. It would have to be either Cathcart or—Lady Mary."
"Rot! It couldn't be Mary."
"Why not?"
"Not unless she changed her sex, you know."
"Of course not. It would have to be 'je suis folle.' Then Cathcart—"
"Of course. He lived in France all his life. Consider his bank-book. Consider—"
"Lord! Wimsey, we've been blind." ”

“ Then I remembered those poor women of Phalsbourg, praying in the church when we heard of the retreat from Russia, and I understood how their hearts were torn. I thought that Catharine would soon go there, and year after year she would pray—thinking of me. Yes—for I knew we had loved each other from childhood, and that she could never forget me, and tear after tear coursed down my cheeks. This confidence soothed me in my grief—the certainty that she would preserve her love for me until age whitened her hair; that I should be ever before her eyes, and that she would never marry another. ”

“ Much stress is laid upon Chatterton’s having been seen frequently writing, with old crumpled parchments before him. No doubt of the fact. How else could he have imitated old hands in any manner, or have been able to form even the few pretended originals that he did produce? But to whom did he ever show these old Mss. when he was transcribing them? To whom did he ever say—“Such and such characters denote such letters, and the verse that I now show you in this old parchment is of this import?” ”

“ They have neither father, mother, church nor country. They are incapable of fulfilling the first duty of man—to love and sustain their country, even though she be in the wrong."
He said no more at the moment, but sat gravely down.
"Let us eat," he exclaimed, after some minutes of silence. "It is striking twelve o'clock. Mother Grédel and Catharine, seat yourselves there."
They sat down, and we began dinner. I thought of the words of Monsieur Goulden, which seemed right to me. Aunt Grédel compressed her lips, and from time to time gazed at me as if to read my thoughts. ”

“ The brevity and pathos of Chatterton’s career have invested it with a fame peculiar in our literature. He is held up as the martyr of genius, sacrificed by the callousness of the public. His fate, however, was largely due to his own vanity and recklessness, and his genius has perhaps been overrated. In 1768, while still at Bristol, he issued a collection of poems which seemed archaic in style and spelling. ”

“ Most likely it came by way of Asia Minor, the Black Sea and the Danube. Then it crossed the Alps and soon enjoyed immense popularity in Germany and France. There the followers of the new creed called themselves by the Oriental name of the Cathari, or “the people who lead a pure life,” and so widespread was the affliction that all over western Europe the word “Ketzer” or “Ketter” came to mean the same as “heretic.”
But please don’t think of the Cathari as members of a definite religious denomination. No effort was made to establish a new sect. ”

“ And high my bosom beats with love of Praise!
But, Chatterton! methinks I hear thy name,
For cold my Fancy grows, and dead each Hope of Fame.
When Want and cold Neglect had chill'd thy soul,
Athirst for Death I see thee drench the bowl! ”

“ Besides, Pinacle wanted to dance with Catharine at a festival at Quatre-Vents, and she refused because she knew the story of the watch, and was, besides, unwilling to leave me.
The sight, then, of this rogue with his iron-shod stick in the middle of the road did not tend to rejoice my heart. Happily a little path which wound around the cemetery was at my left, and, without replying, I dashed through it although the snow reached my waist.
Then he, guessing who I was, cried furiously:
"Aha! it is the little lame fellow! Halt! halt! I want to bid you good-evening. ”

“ If the child told her mother, she must have thought it was Cathcart."
"No, no, Wimsey, that won't do," put in Parker; "she must have known Cathcart was dead by that time."
"Oh, damn it! Yes, I suppose she must. Unless that surly old devil kept the news from her. By Jove! that's just what he would do if he'd killed Cathcart himself. He'd never say a word to her—and I don't suppose he would let her look at a paper, even if they take one in. It's a primitive sort of place."
"But didn't you say Grimethorpe had an alibi?" ”

“ Saverne’s a town full of lawyers and gendarmes!”
The good apostle said that because he had left his wife at Saverne, to say nothing of numerous debts to the brewers and publicans in general throughout the town; but the illustrious Doctor listened to none of these objections.
“Gendarmes are made for thieves,” he said, “and not for philosophers; let us go forward, Coucou Peter, let us go forward; every moment of our existence belongs to human kind.” ”

“ The caste of the girl is not known. She is a foundling. Thirteen or fourteen years ago when the great Varuni Festival was held at Triveni, there was an immense assemblage of people. Having gone there with his family to bathe in the Ganges, Chatterji picked up this little girl. She was then about two years old. Being himself childless, Chatterji brought up the girl as his daughter. Many times arrangements were made to marry her; but lest some good Kulin should incur loss of caste by taking her to wife, we have each time warned the party of the intending groom. ”

“ She stood there like the sculptured Madonna in Hugh's Tower,—fragile, calm, impassive.
The eyes of the Count glowed with feverish brightness. I endeavored to prevail upon the Countess, as best I could by signs, to give him a grain of hope, that his growing agitation might be calmed; but she did not appear to see me.
"So," he cried in a voice choked with emotion, "you will see your father perish! A single word would save his life,—a word from your lips,—and you will not pronounce it."
"Life is not within the gift of man, but of God alone," she murmured ”

“ As the philosopher drew nearer to the time when it would be necessary to speak of us, I threw a look of triumph at Lord Chatterino, which, however, failed of its intended effect—the young peer continuing to whisper to his noble companions with just is much self-importance and coolness as if he had not been one of the rescued captives. ”

“ She was thrilled to come to Wragby; thrilled to talk to Lady Chatterley, my word, different from the common colliers' wives! She said so in so many words. Yet one could see a grudge against the Chatterleys peep out in her; the grudge against the masters.
"Why, yes, of course, it would wear Lady Chatterley out! It's a mercy she had a sister to come and help her. Men don't think, high and low alike, they take what a woman does for them for granted. Oh, I've told the colliers off about it many a time. But it's very hard for Sir Clifford, you know, crippled like that. ”

“ It was for some time a matter of bewilderment how Chatterton could have contrived to make the names of the chiefs correspond so exactly with the ‘Roll of Battle Abbey,’ the fact being that he had only to turn for them to Holinshed’s ‘Chronicles.’ The ‘Battle of Hastings’ is surpassed by the tragical interlude of ‘Ælla,’ which may be accepted as his masterpiece. ‘Ælla,’ in the poet’s handwriting, was in 1768 handed to Catcott in manuscript. ”