Potiphar

“ 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 ambassador, 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. ”

“ Potiphar’s is, in some ways, better than going shopping. You see more new and costly things in a shorter time. People say, “What a love of a chair!” “What a darling table!” “What a heavenly sofa!” and they all go and tease their husbands to get things precisely like them. When Kurz Pacha the Sennaar Minister, came to a dinner at my house, he said:
“Bless my soul! Mr. Potiphar, your house is just like your neighbor’s.”
I know it. I am perfectly aware that there is no more difference between my house and Croesus’s, than there is in two ten dollar bills of the same bank. ”

“ People are much better than you think, but they are also much worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I am only his ambassador. You might have been only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, ti, ti, ti,—what a pretty waltz! Here come Daisy and Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and De Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caroline is a philosopher. ”

“ Harold toiled on with grunts and contortions, and presently produced in triumph a small grey elephant and a large beetle with a red stomach.
"They're jammed in too tight," he complained. "Can't get any more out. But as I came up I'm sure I felt Potiphar!" And down he dived again.
Potiphar was a finely modelled bull with a suède skin, rough and comfortable and warm in bed. He was my own special joy and pride, and I thrilled with honest emotion when Potiphar emerged to light once more, stout-necked and stalwart as ever.
"That'll have to do," said Charlotte, getting up. ”

“ I must no longer check desire Nor hold my burning love in self-made bounds. Ho, Nefert! 'tis my urgent will That Joseph—he who came in humble guise, But now, by grace of Potiphar, is free And raised to high estate—await me here. Our household duties need his special care. Then, to the temple, where the people crowd. Haste thee! Away! No, no, forgetful! (Claps her hand and calls to a slave:) Attend me here and find the jasper bowl In which I placed a wreath this early morn And fetch it me. ”

“ Potiphar’s to refresh our faith in men and women. Generosity, amiability, a catholic charity, simplicity, taste, sense, high cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our parties. The statesman seeks their stimulating influence; the literary man, after the day’s labour, desires the repose of their elegant conversation; the professional man and the merchant hurry up from down town to shuffle off the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces presented by Mrs. Potiphar’s ball. ”

“ THE WIFE OF POTIPHAR.—Art thou granite then, A being limned upon the templed walls; Some graven image, squat of trunk, in wood? No, no, my love, entice! Am I not fair? No sleek attendant with her gauzy robe Can e'en compare with these revealed charms. Many the years ere yet my beauty fades, And dried as Ramses in the tombs, men pass Nor turn to see the parchment of these breasts, The stiffened limbs, the glassy stare of eyes. ”

“ Too much light, and eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many people. Good taste insists first upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given this ball? We inquired industriously, and learned it was because she did not give one last year. Is it then essential to do this thing biennially? inquired we with some trepidation. “Certainly,” was the bland reply, “or society will forget you.” Everybody was unhappy at Mrs. Potiphar’s, save a few girls and boys, who danced violently all the evening. ”

“ I am preaching to you in your baby-waist, here in a Newport ball-room at midnight. I humbly beg your pardon. There are more potent preachers here than I. Besides, I’m engaged to Mrs. Potiphar’s supper at 12. Take things more gently, dear Miss Minerva. Don’t make faces at Mrs. Vite, nor growl at your darling Polly. Women as smart as you are, will say precisely as smart thing of you as you say of them. We shall all laugh, first with you, and then at you. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of saying the smart things in hope that they will also refrain. ”

“ Priest of Heliopolis—
ASENATH. As such, I am quite accustomed to doing as I please.
She goes out.
MADAM POTIPHAR. (looking amusedly after her) Silly little thing! (She stands there thinking.) There's no doubt of it! Joseph did come from Heliopolis last year. But what have I to be afraid of? (She sees a pair of sandals on the floor by the table. She picks one of them up, and kisses it passionately, whispering) —Joseph!
Enter Potiphar. Madam Potiphar puts the sandal behind her back.
POTIPHAR. (a dull, dignified gentleman) Oh, here's where you are! I was looking everywhere for you. ”

“ He is not afraid of his parlor, and you feel instantly upon entering the house, the character of the master. Please, my dear Mr. Potiphar, survey your mansion, and tell me what kind of a man it indicates. If it does not proclaim (in your case) the President of the Patagonia Junction, a man shrewd, and hard, and solid, without taste or liberal cultivation, it is a painted deceiver. If it tries to insinuate by this chaotic profusion of rich and rare objects, that you are a cultivated, accomplished, tasteful, and generous man, it is a bad lie, because a transparent one. ”

“ Then Potiphar summoned Joseph. The youth prostrated himself before this chief of the eunuchs, for he was third in rank of the officers of Pharaoh. And he addressed Joseph, and said, "Art thou a slave or a free-born man?" and Joseph replied, "A slave." Potiphar continued to question him, "Whose slave art thou?" Joseph: "I belong to the Ishmaelites." Potiphar: "How wast thou made a slave?" Joseph: "They bought me in the land of Canaan." ”

“ Potiphar grew purple, and Mr. Cheese looked at Boosey in the most serious manner over the top of his champagne-glass. I am glad to say that Polly has properly rebuked Gauche Boosey for his irreligion, by not asking him to her Saturday evening matinees dansantes.
There was no escape from the house, however. It must be built. It was not only Mrs. Potiphar that persisted, but the spirit of the age and of the country. One can’t live among shops. When Pearl street comes to Park Place, Park Place must run for its life up to Thirtieth street. ”

“ You come home tired, and likely enough, surly, and gloom about like a thundercloud if dinner isn’t ready for you the instant you are ready for it, and then sit mum and eat it; and snap at the children, and show yourselves the selfish, ugly things you are. Am I to have no fun, never go to the opera, never go to a ball, never have a party at home? Men are tyrants, Mr. Potiphar. They are ogres who entice us poor girls into their castles, and then eat up our happiness and scold us while they eat.”
Well, I suppose it is so. I suppose I am an ogre and enticed Polly into my castle. ”

“ He has been quite taken up among us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was hope of his being settled as colleague to the Doctor, only Mr. Potiphar (who can be stubborn, you know) insisted that the Rev. Cream Cheese, though a very good young man, he didn’t doubt, was addicted to candlesticks. ”

“ Hal could come, eat Potiphar’s supper, drink his wines, spoil his carpets, laugh at his fashionable struggles, and affect the puppyism of a foreign Lord, because he disgraced the name of a man who had done some service somewhere, while Potiphar was only an honest man who made a fortune. ”

“ I would be thine, reveal my very self, Would risk mine all, to lift thee, captive, up To newer honors, yea, to great delights Thou hast not dreamed, ineffable. For race is naught, and rank falls with the belt; Encouched, thou rulest as the King.
(Joseph outraged in feeling throws up both hands as if in tragic command, and he was looking straight at his mistress, who for the moment recoils on the divan, but as if for a spring, says:)
JOSEPH.—Halt thee, woman; stay thy maddened words! O wife of Potiphar, what thoughts are thine! What boldness stirs thy mind! Thou art distraught. ”

“ God Almighty inclined Potiphar to show kindness to Joseph, and he advanced him: but a second, and greater misfortune was to happen to Jo [Pg 34] seph, to produce him still greater good. He is falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and thrown into prison, where was also the butler and baker of Pharaoh. God supplies him with wisdom to interpret their dreams; he is sent for by Pharaoh, and gives him counsel; the king promotes him, and makes him ruler over his house. But a yet more extraordinary work of Providence was to be performed ”

“ I should like, in excuse of my own flippancy, to assume the same detachment, and to regard this ballet-theme as having practically no relation whatever to Biblical history, but being just one of many themes out of Oriental lore, mostly secular, that lend themselves to the drama of disappointed passion. My only serious protest is against the hypocrisy which pretends, with regard to Potiphar's Wife, to see a spiritual significance in what is mere vulgar animalism. ”

“ The snake-charmers ply their trade, and the jugglers and traveling dancers divert the servants, and as the women rearrange the clothes-presses, jewel-caskets, chests for the garments of state, they indulge freely in idle gossip about their mistress, who is returning prematurely from the court, having feigned an illness. There is a soft light from latticed windows through which are heard the sounds of the outer world, while at the sound of the trumpets announcing the approach of the wife of Potiphar, the players and dancers retire hurriedly, being ordered out of the room by a servant. ”

“ Indeed, one young man (the episode escaped me at the dress rehearsal, but I have it in the guide-book) —one young man, "sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of fruit." As for Potiphar, it failed to sir the sombre depths of his abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance she sent for Joseph and supplemented his rather exiguous costume with a gross necklace of jewels, letting her hand linger awhile on his bare nexk. ”

“ When the Ishmaelites disposed of him in Egypt he was purchased by Potiphar, an officer in Pharaoh's guard. He was made a house servant. He showed himself diligent and faithful and was advanced until he was the overseer of Potiphar's whole establishment.
He was a handsome young Hebrew, his complexion being much fairer than that of the dark-skinned Egyptians. He attracted the attention and won the admiration of Potiphar's wife, who was an evil-minded, faithless creature. As Joseph went about the house in the discharge of his duties she approached him repeatedly with her solicitations to evil. ”

“ We have been here only a few weeks, and we already know all the fashionable shops, and a little more French, and we go to the confectioners, and eat savarins every morning at 12, and we drive in the Bois de Boulogne in the afternoon, and we dine splendidly, and in the evening we go to the opera or a theatre. To be sure, we don’t have much society beside our own party. But then the shop-girls point out the distinguished women to Mrs. Potiphar, so that she can point them out when we drive ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ ASENATH: (With her cheek against MRS. POTIPHAR'S.) — Joseph has told me over and over that when he first came to Egypt he'd have been dreadfully home sick if you hadn't mothered him so well.
MRS. POTIPHAR: — "Mothered"! Oh, yes, I did come out two seasons before you, darling.
TICKER: — Click, click, dickety-dick.
POTIPHAR: — Oh, I say, how's the market today, Joseph?
JOSEPH: — Stronger. ”

“ How it would sparkle upon the gentlemen’s black coats! (“Yes,” says Mr. P., “and how finely Gauche Boosey, and Timon Croesus, and young Downe will look in silk tights and small clothes!”) They say it’s genuine gold ground up. I have already sent for a white velvet and lace—the Empress’s bridal dress, you know. That foolish old P. asked me if I had sent for the Emperor and the Bank of France too.
“Men ask such absurd questions,” said I. — “Mrs. Potiphar, I never asked but one utterly absurd question in my life,” said he, and marched out of the house. ”