VERSAILLES.
There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set
about telling any one who I am, - for there is scarce any body I
cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often
wished I could do it in a single word, - and have an end of it. It
was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this
to any purpose; - for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my
finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
finger all the way over the name, - Me voici! said I.
Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
this account; - 'tis certain the French conceive better than they
combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into
the same mistake in the very same case: - "He could not bear," he
said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's
jester." Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks. The
Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight
hundred years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus's court; - the
other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.-
-He shook his head. Good God! said I, you might as well confound
Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord! -
"'Twas all one," he replied. -
- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your
Lordship, said I, I'm sure your Lordship would not have said so.
The poor Count de B- fell but into the same ERROR.
- Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick? cried the Count. - Je le suis, said
I. - Vous? - Moi, - moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le
Comte. - Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me, - Vous etes Yorick!
The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left
me alone in his room.
THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.
I could not conceive why the Count de B- had gone so abruptly out
of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the
Shakespeare into his pocket. -
Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of
time which a conjecture about them takes up: 'twas better to read
Shakespeare; so taking up "Much Ado About Nothing," I transported
myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and
got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I
thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.
