Pasquinade

“ Angelo started as from a reverie, and proceeded, more leisurely, to make ready. A moment he stood, holding the rose to his lips, breathing the fragrance of it; he was loath to put it down; yet he needed both his hands, one for his sword, the other for his dagger; for Beltrame awaited him, doubly armed. At last he solved the difficulty, and set the stem of the flower between his teeth.
If God willed that he should die that evening, at least her first love token should be with him in his last moments, its perfume—fond emblem of her soul—should sweeten for him his last breath on earth. ”

“ The first acquaintance we make with Pasquin is as an abandoned, limbless fragment of an antique statue, which serves as a butt for boys to throw stones at, and for other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Near by him lives a tailor, named Pasquino, skilful in his trade, and still more skilful in his epigrams. At his shop many of the literati, prelates, courtiers, and wits of the town meet to order their robes and dresses, report scandal, to anatomise reputations, and kill their time. ”

“ Pasquin. I am alive and not dead, for my death was rather a wonderful ecstasy than anything else.
Marforio. But tell me, prithee, how is it possible that thou, who art a body of stone, as thou art, couldst first be animated, then die, and be revived again?
Pasquin. And canst thou that art born a Roman be such a noddy as to wonder at that—thou that seest daily so many greater wonders before thy eyes? With how much more reason mayst thou wonder to see so many tun-bellied friars (the good always excepted) that feed like pigs and drink like fishes ”

“ As the curtain rises, PASQUINOT is sitting on the bench to the left, reading a paper. BLAISE is at the back, busy with his rake.
BLAISE. So the notary comes to-night, Monsieur Pasquinot? It is pleasant, now that the wall is down, and you living together this past month. It was high time, I'm thinking. The little lovers must be happy!
PASQUINOT. [Raising his head and looking about] So you like it without the wall, Blaise?
BLAISE. The garden is superb!
PASQUINOT. Yes, my property has increased a hundred per cent! [Poking a tuft of grass with his foot] Have you watered the grass? ”

“ It kept his mind fixed not so much on the philosophical as on the sentimental and physical side of death: on the churchyard [233] with its cypresses, its driving showers and gleams of golden sunshine, its rainbow, its groups of merry children playing “Touch” round the great cross—but, also, with its dead lying through the long nights of rain and wind. Even here, however, where triteness would seem inevitable, Pascoli is individual. He never contemplates physical decay: worms and skulls are not so much as hinted at. ”

“ Reed-like we bow ourselves to the winds of the four horizons—reed-like we murmur repetitions of the music of forest and sea—reed-like we lift our heads among the dying stalks of those who came before us—reed-like we wither and droop when our own hour comes—but with it all, we think!
Pascal looking at the face of the world sees evidence on all sides of the presence of something blighting and poisonous, something diabolic and malign in the way things are now organised. ”

“ When you behold a Fool pleasantly exposed You are to laugh, if you please, not else;— When a Knave is Satyrized with Spirit & Wit, You are to Applaud;— and when Pasquin is dull you are to explode, which I Suppose will be the Chief of Your Part. ”

“ The hard and saturnine features of M. Pascal took on a strange and gloomy expression, where one could read violent anger mingled with jealousy, pain, and hatred. For some moments, his physiognomy, almost terrifying in its malevolence, betrayed the man, who, accustomed to see all bend before him, is capable of sentiments and actions of diabolical wickedness when an unforeseen obstacle contradicts his iron will.
"She! she! here in this garden near the Élysée!" exclaimed he, with concentrated rage. ”

“ Where the devil hadst thou this knowledge? Sure, thou hast not been in hell to fetch it? I am almost in an ague to think of it, and the more I look on thee the more I tremble.
Pasquin. Been’t such a fool to be afraid to look upon a friend, for true friendship should last even to the other world: but I am no ghost or goblin, but verily alive; or were I dead (as indeed I have been) , what reason hast thou to fear me? The dead are honest, quiet people: they neither kill nor steal; they ramble not about the streets in the night to murder poor tailors ”

“ Pasquin for breaking in upon You.
Pas. O no Offence, Sir, the Town has always a right to interrupt, and disturb a Performance. It is their Prerogative, and shews their Taste and their good Breeding
Hyd. You are right— go on, go on,— a good Sensible Fellow, and knows the Right and Privilege of the Town, go on, go on.
Pas. You are a Being, composed of all the Virtues 71 and Vices, Wisdom and Folly of Human Nature. All Men dread you; all Men Court you; All Men love You— and yet All Men strive to be independent of You. ”

“ Look with favor upon my body, not for itself, nor for all that it contains, for everything therein deserving of thy anger, but for the ills that it endures, which alone can be worthy of thy love. Love my sufferings. Lord, and let my ills invite thee to visit me. But to finish the preparation for thy abode, grant, O my Saviour, that if my body has this in common with thine—that it suffers for my offences, my soul may also have this in common with thine—that it may be plunged in sorrow for the same offences ”

“ And we concede that every one of us more or less is ailing thus, as another has told us that life itself is a disease of the spirit.
From Port-Royal also came, about the year 1670, a painful book, the "Life of Pascal," a portrait painted slowly from the life or living death, but with an almost exclusive preference for traits expressive of disease. The post-mortem examination of Pascal's brain revealed, we are now told, the secret, not merely of that long prostration, those sudden passing torments, but of something analogous to them in Pascal's genius and work. ”

“ The constant agitation of mind and exertions of body I had myself undergone for so long a time, never having in a single instance slept out of my clothes, weakened me exceedingly, and a fever came on not long before my master's death, which hung upon me for fifteen days, and ultimately brought me to the very verge of the grave. Finding myself unequal to pay that attention to my master's wants which his situation so particularly required, I solicited and obtained his consent to have old Pascoe once more to assist me. ”

“ M. Pascal did not care to talk; he shrugged his shoulders again, and continued his march toward the staircase without a word.
The porter, exasperated by this silence and this obstinacy, seized M. Pascal by the arm, and, speaking louder still, said:
"Must I tell you again, sir, that you cannot pass that way?"
"What do you mean, scoundrel?" cried M. Pascal, in a tone of contempt and anger, as if this outrage on the part of the porter was as insolent as inconceivable, "do you know to whom you are talking?" ”

“ From this day forth Pascal was as if possessed. The state of nervous exhaustion into which overwork and anxiety had thrown him left him an unresisting prey to this haunting fear of madness and death. All the morbid sensations which he felt, his excessive fatigue on rising, the buzzing in his ears, the flashes of light before his eyes, even his attacks of indigestion and his paroxysms of tears, were so many infallible symptoms of the near insanity with which he believed himself threatened. ”

“ I must give one or two other pictures of the Reign of Terror before I go on to another section of Pasquier's Memoirs. The very acidity and almost brutal terseness of the style help to increase one's sense of the horrors of the time. After the escape to which I have already alluded, Pasquier once more buried himself in the provinces. Here came the dreadful news that his father had been guillotined, and many others who had been friends and colleagues:
"I spent two months of mental suffering in the locality where I had received the awful news. ”

“ For hours after Pasquale left I paced the floor of my room possessed with a fever of unrest and a frenzy of excitement which tore through my soul as a cyclone sweeps unresistingly through a bed of reeds. By the morning every thought and aspiration of my life lay prostrate before the one consuming desire to bring the murderer to justice. ”

“ With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar talent. Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for rebuke. Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained. "Do you wonder," said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his changes of character, "do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a new figure? It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the falling back of men. He who would be pious must depart from Rome." ”

“ If these horrid consequences had come on this poor man, might there not really be something in the original idea of the crown having some curious power bound up with it, to guard the coast? At least, that was my feeling, and I think it was Long’s too. Our offer was very welcome to Paxton, anyhow. When could we do it? It was nearing half-past ten. Could we contrive to make a late walk plausible to the hotel people that very night? We looked out of the window: there was a brilliant full moon—the Paschal moon. Long undertook to tackle the boots and propitiate him. ”

“ He utterly rejects therefore that stoical virtue which is depicted with a severe mien, fierce glance, bristling locks, and wrinkled and moist brow, In a painful and distorted posture, far from men. In a gloomy silence, alone upon the summit of a rock: a phantom, he says, fit to frighten children, and which does nothing else with continual effort than to seek the repose which it never attains. ”

“ Pasquino is like Love, he is not Time’s fool. Never having been born, he can never die, and never to die is to be immortal. Accordingly, whenever a comic servant is wanted, whether as a messenger from a castle which is being stormed by Samson, or to assist a Grand Turk or a drunkard of no definite period, or to accompany a paladin on a journey, be put into prison with him and help him to escape, or merely on behalf of the proprietor of the show to invite the people to to-morrow’s performance, Pasquino is always there, with his dialect and his comic relief, to undertake the job. ”

“ Pascoe's patch, once more directing the tourists' gaze to the old woman's print dress and white apron, for she had come to the door of the cottage and was standing there.
There she stood, shading her eyes and looking out to sea.
For the millionth time, perhaps, she looked at the sea. A peacock butterfly now spread himself upon the teasle, fresh and newly emerged, as the blue and chocolate down on his wings testified. Mrs. Pascoe went indoors, fetched a cream pan, came out, and stood scouring it. ”

“ Hyd: This, Mr. Pasquin is Sir Eternal Grin. He is what is call’d a good natured Man & extremely well bred— So Polite he never frownd in his Life.
Grin. No, never in my Life I assure you Mr. Pasquin.
Hyd: He is an uncommon Favourite with the Ladies, And is never so happy as when they employ him.
Grin. No never Sir. ha, ha.
Hyd: His whole Life is spent in their Service, ev’ry Morning you may See him running from Play House to Play House, regulating the Box Book in Consequence of the Commissions he recieved over night for Places. ”

“ Pascoe. But are you an artist too?
Carve. (Recovering himself, calmly.) No, no.
Pascoe. (To Horning.) How's he going on?
Horning. (Shrugs his shoulders.) I'm sure the base of both lungs is practically solid.
[31] Pascoe. Well, we can't do more than we have done, my boy.
Horning. He'll never pull through.
Pascoe. (Calmly.) I should certainly be surprised if he did.
Carve. (Astounded.) But—but——
Pascoe. But what?
Carve. You don't mean to say—Why, he's a strong healthy man!
Pascoe. Precisely. Not very unusual for your strong healthy man to die of pneumonia in twenty-four hours. ”

“ The retort which we might have given to him was crushed under a silent fuming, for he was still the Pasha! We might have said, “Aye; but, Pasha, you know, you find more interest in insects than in men. You are interested in the anatomy of a man, we in the soul. You know something of his skull, but we can feel the pulse, and we are certain that your faith in these men is misplaced, and that in the excess of this faith lies folly.” ”

“ Pascal bade us imagine a number of men in chains and doomed to death; some of them each day butchered in sight of the others; those who remained watching their own lot in that of their fellows, and awaiting their turn in anguish and helplessness. ”

“ There is no more representative expression of this very Christian and very poetic attitude than in the lovely Paschal ode, "From the Night of Forebeing," with its inspiring burden:
Look up, O mortals, and the portent heed:
In very deed
Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth
Reintegrated are the heavens and earth!
From sky to sod,
The world's unfolded blossom smells of God. ”

“ Pascal considered this a sign of the misery and the baseness of our nature, and he describes as a deplorable spectacle a man who rose from his bed weighed down with anxiety and grave sorrow, and who could for a time forget it all in the passionate excitement of the chase. But, in truth, the possession of such a power—weak and transient though it be—is one of the great alleviations of the lot of man. ”