Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one
of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the
latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without; -
when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank, - you draw purely from
yourselves. A silence of a single moment upon Mons. Dessein's
leaving us, had been fatal to the situation - she had infallibly
turned about; - so I begun the conversation instantly. -
- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for
the weaknesses of my heart in this tour, - but to give an account of
them) - shall be described with the same simplicity with which I
felt them.
THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.
When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with a
lady just arrived at the inn - I told him the truth, - but I did not
tell him the whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by
the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Suspicion
crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had passed:
something jarred upon it within me, - I wished him at his convent.
When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the
judgment a world of pains. - I was certain she was of a better order
of beings; - however, I thought no more of her, but went on and
wrote my preface.
The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I
thought, her good education and her good sense; and as I led her
on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a
calmness over all my spirits -
- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
world with him! -
I had not yet seen her face - 'twas not material: for the drawing
was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of
the Remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the
Tiber for it; - but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and
albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and
images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest
out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a
shame to break with thee.
When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
from across her forehead, and let me see the original: - it was a
face of about six-and-twenty, - of a clear transparent brown, simply
set off without rouge or powder; - it was not critically handsome,
but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in,
attached me much more to it, - it was interesting: I fancied it
wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its
declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and
was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss; - but a
thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I
wish'd to know what they had been - and was ready to inquire, (had
the same bon ton of conversation permitted, as in the days of
Esdras) - "What ailelh thee? and why art thou disquieted? and why is
thy understanding troubled?" - In a word, I felt benevolence for
her; and resolv'd some way or other to throw in my mite of
courtesy, - if not of service.
Such were my temptations; - and in this disposition to give way to
them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and
with our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remise than
what was absolutely necessary.
THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.
This certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little
lightly as I began, must be one of Fortune's whimsical doings; to
take two utter strangers by their hands, - of different sexes, and
perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in one moment
place them together in such a cordial situation as Friendship
herself could scarce have achieved for them, had she projected it
for a month.
- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
embarrassed you by the adventure -
When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed
as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank
Fortune, continued she - you had reason - the heart knew it, and was
satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent
notice of it to the brain to reverse the judgment?
In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
a sufficient commentary upon the text.
It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness
of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier
occasions could not have inflicted. - I was mortified with the loss
of her hand, and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither
oil nor wine to the wound: I never felt the pain of a sheepish
inferiority so miserably in my life.
The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these
discomfitures. In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the
cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some way or
other, God knows how, I regained my situation.
