The Meetings At The Post-Houses
Were Pleasant To Me, Who Usually Heard Nothing But Strange Tongues
Around Me.
Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when
they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of
thoughts had nothing in common.
Marguerite, it is true, was much
amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier
which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee
recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when
once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with
that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they
exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance
she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys
by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and
stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true
Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless
vanity, which thus produced a gaite du coeur worth all my
philosophy!
The man I had hired at Copenhagen advised me to go round about
twenty miles to avoid passing the Little Belt excepting by a ferry,
as the wind was contrary. But the gentlemen overruled his
arguments, which we were all very sorry for afterwards, when we
found ourselves becalmed on the Little Belt ten hours, tacking about
without ceasing, to gain the shore.
An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious,
nay, almost insupportable. When I went on board at the Great Belt,
I had provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining
untouched I thought not then any such precaution necessary for the
second passage, misled by the epithet of "little," though I have
since been informed that it is frequently the longest. This mistake
occasioned much vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so
bitterly for bread, that fancy conjured up before me the wretched
Ugolino, with his famished children; and I, literally speaking,
enveloped myself in sympathetic horrors, augmented by every fear my
babe shed, from which I could not escape till we landed, and a
luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed the spectres of fancy.
I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part
for ever - always a most melancholy death-like idea - a sort of
separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom
fate separates us seems to be something torn from ourselves. These
were strangers I remember; yet when there is any originality in a
countenance, it takes its place in our memory, and we are sorry to
lose an acquaintance the moment he begins to interest us, through
picked up on the highway. There was, in fact, a degree of
intelligence, and still more sensibility, in the features and
conversation of one of the gentlemen, that made me regret the loss
of his society during the rest of the journey; for he was compelled
to travel post, by his desire to reach his estate before the arrival
of the French.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 88 of 98
Words from 45165 to 45682
of 50703
