CHAPTER LXIII

In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance

Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to have the

most favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and the very next

morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was

the pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their tour.

Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of comprehension,

and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when he

found, by the knowing air of the civilian and the offhand manner in

which the latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members of

the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning, consulting his

travelling Peerage. Yes, he had seen the Right Honourable the Earl of

Bagwig, his lordship's father; he was sure he had, he had met him

at--at the Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist called

on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received him with such a

salute and honours as were seldom accorded to the little Envoy. He

winked at Kirsch on his Excellency's arrival, and that emissary,

instructed before-hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of

cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and

of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest should

partake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring the

bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of complexion bore

daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any invitation

to stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions

to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that

beautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonished

little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the

house; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war and the

exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command of the

Hereditary Prince, now Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, and

it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himself

cast friendly eyes was in love with him. He left Emmy under the

persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home

to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her. She was not

fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering, his scented

cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots. She did not

understand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in

her small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet,

and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and

if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him. Jos, on the

contrary, was delighted. "How very affable his Lordship is," he said;

"How very kind of his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!

Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de Schlusselback

directly; the Major and I will have the greatest pleasure in paying our

respects at Court as soon as possible. Put out my uniform,

Kirsch--both our uniforms. It is a mark of politeness which every

English gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits to pay

his respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to the

representatives of his own."

When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body Physician to

H.S.H. the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel

mineral springs and the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly

restore the Bengalee to youth and slimness. "Dere came here last

year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so pic

as you, sir. I sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and he

danced vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two."

Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, and the

Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn in

these delightful quarters. And punctual to his word, on the next day

the Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor Aurelius

XVII, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign by the

Count de Schlusselback, Marshal of the Court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their intention

of staying in the town being announced, the politest ladies of the

whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these,

however poor they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's

delight was beyond expression. He wrote off to Chutney at the Club to

say that the Service was highly appreciated in Germany, that he was

going to show his friend, the Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a

pig in the Indian fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and

Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is not

admitted in Court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape dress

with a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by her

brother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and

Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had scarcely ever

seen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not look

five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a Court ball,

in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess

of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good

quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through which

sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have not the map at

hand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump.

In some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in

others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last Transparency

but three, the great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV built a

magnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded by

water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot

on the neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and ran a

Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski--but,

quite undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, who

writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles

blandly and points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius

Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would have been the

wonder of his age had the great-souled Prince but had funds to

complete it. But the completion of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest

German folks call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and

its park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and not more

than ten times big enough to accommodate the Court of the reigning

Sovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and amidst

the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworks

still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten

one with their enormous aquatic insurrections. There is the

Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden Tritons are

made not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful groans out

of their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract,

which the people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression, when

they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the Chamber, or to the

fetes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays

and marriage-days of its princely governors.

Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches for nearly ten

mile--from Bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding defiance

to Prussia, from Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and

where his dominions are separated by the Pump River from those of the

neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little villages, which

besides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality--from

the farms and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in red

petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered hats and

pipes in their mouths, who flock to the Residenz and share in the

pleasures of the fair and the festivities there. Then the theatre is

open for nothing, then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is

lucky that there is company to behold them, for one would be afraid to

see them alone)--then there come mountebanks and riding troops (the way

in which his Transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is

well known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was

called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people are

permitted to march through room after room of the Grand Ducal palace

and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at

the doors of all the innumerable chambers. There is one Pavilion at

Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had arranged--a great Prince but

too fond of pleasure--and which I am told is a perfect wonder of

licentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus and

Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a

windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of

domestics. But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow,

a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the

Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of her

husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of

Germany. It languished a little when the present Duke in his youth

insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one

day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a

rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who was

conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia

wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness.

But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess only

gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction who visit her

kind little Court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When there are

balls, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is a

servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one is

served on silver. There are festivals and entertainments going

continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and equerries, and

the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, just

like any other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a Chamber

that might or might not be elected. I never certainly could hear of

its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel. The Prime Minister had

lodgings in a second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the

comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey. The army consisted of

a magnificent band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite

pleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with

rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with ophicleides

and trombones--to see them again, I say, at night, after one had

listened to them all the morning in the Aurelius Platz, where they

performed opposite the cafe where we breakfasted. Besides the band,

there was a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a few

men. Besides the regular sentries, three or four men, habited as

hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I never saw them on

horseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time of

profound peace?--and whither the deuce should the hussars ride?

Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the bourgeois

we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM--visited his

neighbour. H. E. Madame de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame de

Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice a week, the Court

graciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be a

perfect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran very

high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. There was the

Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by our

envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.

Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff,

who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notes

in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for

our Minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted

by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions. The

Lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her voice

(what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt that the

Strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too

stout; when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, for

instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to go

out of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she

could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend and

creak again under her weight--but how she poured out the finale of the

opera! and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino's

arms--almost fit to smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but a

truce to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were the two

flags of the French and the English party at Pumpernickel, and the

society was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, the

Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the French

party were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had

served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was glad

enough to get the fashions from Paris, and always had them and her caps

by M. de Macabau's courier. The Secretary of his Chancery was little

Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who made

caricatures of Tapeworm in all the albums of the place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the Pariser

Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these gentlemen

were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each other with

epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of

wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and never

showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces. Neither Tapeworm nor

Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a most

savage series of attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side we

would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this place, and

throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled by the continuance in

office of the present French envoy; this man is of a character so

infamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime,

to attain his ends. He poisons the mind of the Court against the

English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in the most

odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister whose

ignorance and necessities are as notorious as his influence is fatal."

On their side they would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system of

stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest

nation in the world. Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her

Royal Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he

insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate that

H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne of

the lilies. His gold is prodigated in every direction which his stupid

menaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won over

creatures of the Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be

quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content until this

poisonous viper be crushed under heel": and so on. When one side or

the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was

sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that Emmy

took a night and received company with great propriety and modesty.

She had a French master, who complimented her upon the purity of her

accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had learned long

ago and grounded herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be able

to teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff came to give her lessons in

singing, which she performed so well and with such a true voice that

the Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the Prime

Minister, were always open to hear the lesson. Some of the German

ladies, who are very sentimental and simple in their tastes, fell in

love with her and began to call her du at once. These are trivial

details, but they relate to happy times. The Major made himself

George's tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and they had a

German master and rode out of evenings by the side of Emmy's

carriage--she was always too timid, and made a dreadful outcry at the

slightest disturbance on horse-back. So she drove about with one of

her dear German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the

barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a very

gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness and

Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her

fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was

the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might

have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on

his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grand

fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel

with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took

place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been

known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal Victor

XIV. All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were

invited to the feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night in

Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of honour

for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived from all

quarters. The Princess was married by proxy, at her father's

residence, by the Count de Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were given away

in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold and

afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of Saint

Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, while

hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of

Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French envoy got both.

"He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said,

who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take any

decorations: "Let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?"

The fact is, it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party

having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a

Princess of the House of Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter

of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and

triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride.

The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while

that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The great waters

played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happy

peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off

watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at

the top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole

to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of

a fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The boy gave

the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at

the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their

illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the

young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous

likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and

I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath

which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of course.

Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall and

the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room for

trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the

festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems or

Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the town were not

allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were

admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets

were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grand

festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his

uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at

Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was

not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment

and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were

at work. Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this

license was allowed in these wild times of carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had

been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes

twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a

card and a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the croupier

called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great

care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after

the red or black had come up a certain number of times. It was strange

to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the last

two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he cried

out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number. She gave

a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of

her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat

thrumming it for a while. Then she looked round her and saw Georgy's

honest face staring at the scene. The little scamp! What business had

he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining

eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent,

of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreign

tone. "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was at work for

his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."

And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the

only coin there, and she put it into George's hand. The boy laughed

and did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough. There is a power that arranges that,

they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you. What

is your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own pockets

for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major, in his

uniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made their

appearance. Other people, finding the entertainment stupid and

preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball

earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and found

the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him and, taking

him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of

temptation. Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we

have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. George

to such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play

and wine. "Il faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de

Monsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,

but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if he

would come away. He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who

was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much interested

at the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for the

same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved before

the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and

walked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their way

home.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very eloquent

and impressive manner, the Major showed him why he shouldn't, and would

have enforced his precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had

he liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's memory.

When he had housed him, he went to bed and saw his light, in the little

room outside of Amelia's, presently disappear. Amelia's followed half

an hour afterwards. I don't know what made the Major note it so

accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler,

but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then, and

he had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court

waistcoat. He put down one over the fair shoulder of the little

gambler before him, and they won. She made a little movement to make

room for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a

vacant chair there.

"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent,

quite different from that frank and perfectly English "Thank you," with

which she had saluted Georgy's coup in her favour. The portly

gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, sat

down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul. I'm very

fortunate; I'm sure to give you good fortune," and other words of

compliment and confusion. "Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.

"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air, flinging down a

gold piece.

"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. But Jos looking

frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, "You do not

play to win. No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot. I cannot

forget old times, monsieur. Your little nephew is the image of his

father; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are. Everybody

changes, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart."

"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.

"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little woman in a sad voice,

and undoing her mask, she looked at him. "You have forgotten me."

"Good heavens! Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.

"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed

the game still, all the time she was looking at him.

"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued. "Ask for Madame de

Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how

happy! So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."

And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance

movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a

pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "Come

away," she said. "Come with me a little--we are old friends, are we

not, dear Mr. Sedley?"

And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his

master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking out

and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.