"She took our hands as if she'd been our long lost mother for years"
Edna and I felt dreadfully sorry for her; but there did not seem to be anything to do except look sad, and we did that as heartily as we knew how until in a minute or two Mr. Merrilegs hove in sight with a funny little Frenchman dancing round and round him. Mr. Merrilegs looked almost as exhausted as his wife, and called Edna by my name and me by hers. His wife asked himif he had ordered the pictures, and he said: "No; I haven't any more time to waste here. I've given Claretie the paper with the sizes of the spaces marked on it, and he's to go through and measure till he finds a famous picture to match each space." Mrs. Merrilegs sort of nodded faintly and said: "But we don't want any martyrs in the dining-room, you know," and her husband said, "Yes, yes, he understands; and he says he'll find a Susanna to fit your bath, too." Mrs. Merrilegs stood up then with a very audible groan, and they both shook hands with us in a way that quite wrung our hearts. Then they limped away with the little Frenchman spinning gaily about them, and we wenton alone.
In the very next room we met Mr. Chopstone. He was awfully glad to see us, and said, with our permission, he'd join us; but as he seemed joined anyway, we didn't even dream of refusing. He asked if we'd told Uncle about the Châtelet, and then we remembered that we had forgotten. He said he was so glad, because he couldn't get any seats exceptbaignoirs, and they looked queer, because no one can see you. He asked if we would like to go to the opera instead, and we were just discussing it when we turned a corner and ran right on to Betty Burleigh and the red-haired man. His name is Potter, and, did you ever! They looked so upset that it can'thave been an accident, their being together. But how could they have arranged it? If they didn't arrange it, why did they look upset? Betty had on a bright green cloth dress and a violet hat, and the red-haired man heightened the general effect so much that we moved on as quickly as possible. Mr. Chopstone said very roundly: "You'd better fight shy of her, I think," and Edna said dryly: "Of him, too, don't you think?" I waited a minute, and then I said it seemed droll to think that if we were all English we'd be pleased to call poor Betty a typical American.
We came home when the Louvre closed and found Uncle back with his feet on the center-table. He had had abig fire built, for he said it gave him chills to look at the nymph over his bed. He had put in a true Merrilegian afternoon, having been to the Palais de Justice, Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame, and driven by the Hôtel de Ville and around the Opera House—"completely around." He says there won't be a thing left for him to look at by Monday. He says if he was pressed for time he'd hire a cab for one whole day and lump the business; but that, seeing that we have the time, it really doesn't seem necessary.
The mail came while we were talking, and the most unfortunate thing happened. To keep up the Russian idea, Lee wrote two postals and sent them to St. Petersburg to be mailed. Uncle sawthe Russian stamps and knew Lee's writing, and he asked me to kindly tell him how Mrs. Braytree came to see a man who was in Russia in Havre. Edna said weakly that it must have been a joke, and Uncle shook his watch and held it to his ear that way he always does when he's dangerous, and said he was in no mood for any of Lee's jokes. He looked very severely at me and said that Lee was a scalawag, and that I ought to be ashamed of myself for having him around.
Mrs. Clary will be back to-morrow, and we're very glad, for Uncle is awful peppery and tartary, and says "Hum!" when we least expect it. Edna sent Mr. Chopstone apetit-bleu, asking him please not to ask us to goanywhere to-night. Mr. Edgar sent me some violets, but I had time to give them to the chambermaid before Uncle came in. If I only get a chance, I shall ask Mrs. Clary to declare that M. Sibilet's motherishis wife, even if she knows it's a lie. It doesn't seem possible that Uncle could really care for Mrs. Clary; but he's so cross if she talks to any one else that I almost wonder if he doesn't. Edna is all tired out, and says she will cry if Uncle tells her again that any man isn't the man to make any girl happy. She says she likes men, and she thinks that they all make her happy. She wanted to go to the Châtelet in abaignoir, and she was wild to go to the opera in anything.
We talk Italy and mark Brittany everychance we get, but Uncle says "Hum!" to Italy the same as he does to everything else these days. I'm sure I don't see what we'll do if he takes the rest of Europe as hard as he does this much. But of course I don't mean that we're not having a lovely time, and we never forget for a minute how kind he was to bring us.
Next day.
Oh, it has been awful! How can I write it all!
You see, Uncle has a little balcony, and the sun came out, so he did, too, this morning, on his little balcony. And he saw Mrs. Clary being brought back in an automobile by M. Sibilet and two French officers. Of course Harry was there, too, but that didn't mendmatters any. In looking over, Uncle's glasses fell to the ground, and they were his comfortable ones with the rubber round the nose, and that part broke, too. Edna was taking a bath, and I had to stand the brunt of the whole. Uncle told me not to dare to fancy for a minute that he cared who Mrs. Clary went about with; but he did wish for the credit of America that she would steer clear of men like Sibilet. He was much put out over the French officers, too, and said that if he was a French officer he'd go and walk around Alsace until he came to his senses. While he was talking he knocked the water-pitcher over, and then Edna was ready to dress; so he went away while I sopped up the floor.
Mrs. Clary came in right afterward.She has had a splendid time, and she says she doesn't care what relation the old lady is so long as she can have them for friends. She has had no end of fun since she came from Havre, and she says it's a shame about Uncle. She went to a beautiful lawn-fête at a countess's, and she says I mustn't worry over Lee and Uncle. She rode horseback, too, and drove with a coach, and she says Edna must remember that Uncle is always peculiar and doesn't mean half he says. She went to two dinner-parties, and no one would believe that she was Harry's mother. She says I ought not to be exasperated over anything, because nothing in the world can be so exasperating as having a son with a moustache when you don't look thirty-five, and that shedoesn't letthatworryher. M. Sibilet is going to give a dinner for her at the Ritz, and she's going to get a lace dress all in one piece, and she says it was she who told Mr. Edgar that we were coming from Rouen, and that Betty Burleigh is considered very fast, and that it won't take long for her to settle Uncle. I'm sure I hope so with all my heart; but I don't believe he'll like the idea of the dinner-party much. Mrs. Clary says Mme. Sibilet's château is a perfect castle, and that one of the French officers in the automobile was a duke. She says we must be patient, and Uncle will get used to the Continent, just as all American men do. She says they never take to it like women, though. The other French officer was in the ministryonce, and counts more than any duke. Mrs. Clary is always so sweet and comforting, and she is such a nice chaperon, because she always has men enough herself never to be spiteful.
Mr. Chopstone sent Edna back apetit-bleuthat he had the box at the opera, and what should he do about it. Mrs. Clary says for us to go. She says she'll take care of Uncle, for she wants to straighten out her accounts, and she can just as well straighten him out at the same time. She gave me a long letter from Lee that he left with her, and she told Edna to go and have a nice walk with Harry, and she'd tell Uncle they were both asleep in their rooms. I declare, it's good to have her back. I feel as if a mountain was lifted off me,and on to her. She says you never dreamed of such fun as she's had out there at Neuilly, and that it's quite absurd—my worrying over little things like Lee and Uncle.
She talked so much that I grew quite light-hearted, and had early dinner and went off to the—
I'll have to write the rest to-morrow. A boy says Uncle wants to speak to me.
Next day.
I do believe Lee knows better how to manage Uncle than all of us put together!
When Uncle sent for me, I saw right off that Mrs. Clary hadn't gotten him anywhere near all smoothed out. Helooked awfully vexed, and he told me he was done with Paris and he was going to clear out at once. He said he knew that Edna and I wanted to go to Italy, but, unfortunately, he couldn't see it himself in that light. Then he paused and said "Hum!" and I waited. After a little he said that he'd happened to run across two or three things lately that had rather interested him in Brittany, and how would I like to go there. I was almost stunned at the success of Lee's scheme, and I was so happy that I suddenly felt as if I wanted Mrs. Clary and Edna to be happy, too, and I threw my arms right around his neck and said: "Oh,Uncle, let's go off together—just you and me—and have a real good time together, all by ourselves.Will you?"
I must have done itverywell, for Uncle's face smoothed out at once, and he told me that he'd been meaning to give me Aunt Jane's watch ever since she died, only that it needed a new spring, and he never could remember to take it to the jeweler's. His face clouded some later, and he shook his head and said he wished he felt more security as to Mrs. Clary and Edna; but then he crossed his legs the other way, and said we only had one life to live, and could I be ready to start by day after to-morrow. I said that I was sure I could, and he said "Hum!" very pleasantly, and I went to my own room and told Mrs. Clary. She was so pleased; she says I am a saint, and that it's toobad for me to miss the dinner. She is going to wear her pink pearls, and she says that she will try to telegraph Lee.
I will confess that my heart sinks a little bit from time to time when I think of trying to bear Uncle all alone for I don't know how long; but I have great faith in Lee, and I know that he'll be somewhere along the coast, and that will be a comfort.
Uncle has been out and bought a Gaelic grammar and the history of the Siege of La Rochelle, for he says he wants to have some intelligent conception of what he sees. He wants me to learn the grammar, and he says, where he sees to everything, he should think I could do a little trifle like that for him once in a while. When he put itthat way, I thought I must try; but, oh, heavens! you ought to see that grammar!
I will write again as soon as I can. Harry is going to take us all to the Café aux Fleurs for tea.
Lovingly,
Yvonne.
My Dearest Mama: We areen route! We left Paris at the cheerful hour of 7a.m.yesterday morning. No one was up, and there was another train at half-past nine, but Uncle said that, considering the work that lay before us, we had better not begin by dawdling. I do think there is a happy medium between rising at five and "dawdling," but of course I didn't tell him so.
Edna sat up in bed and kissed me good-by. She and Mrs. Clary looked upon me as a cross between the saver of the situation, and a burnt offering onUncle's altar; but they were all happy, and I didn't care—much.
Uncle mapped out the route, and, as a result, we got down at Chartres about half-past nine. He put the baggage inconsigne, and then looked about with the air of a charger who sniffs the battle afar. I stood beside him, feeling like Mazeppa just before they let the horse loose.
The outlook from the station is not very attractive, and the first thing that Uncle said was that he didn't believe it was worth while stopping at all, and that he had a good mind to go on with the train; but just at that instant the train went on by itself, so we did not need to discuss the subject.
You see there is a high ridge thatruns in front of the station, and Chartres is on the other side. Nearly all the towns here seem to be quite a little ways from the railway stations. Mr. Edgar says it's because the railroads run after their passengers in Europe instead of running over them, as they do in America. Uncle says it's very inconvenient, anyhow, and he pulled his hat down hard and said, "Well, let's have a look at the cathedral, anyway."
So we stormed the ridge forthwith, and spread down into the flat country beyond. As we descended the slope, Uncle began to be glad he had come. Chartres is very modest and mainly one story high, so the Cathedral towers aloft in a most soul-satisfying manner.Uncle said it was "Something like." I was ever so glad that he felt so because he said in Beauvais that something he had read had led him to expect that the cathedral there would be big enough to hold the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in one of its niches, and of course he was horribly disappointed, as a consequence.
We walked straight to the cathedral, and it was so big that Uncle thought we had better each take one side and meet behind, "so as to save time and not miss anything." I acquiesced, because I mean to keep him good-tempered, if keeping good-tempered myself and acquiescing will do so.
We started "fair" in front of the middle front door, and I could hardlykeep a straight face as we walked promptly and solemnly off in opposite directions. The cathedral is enormous and just covered with carving, and I was only part way down the side when I saw Uncle coming around the corner, swinging his umbrella in the briskest sort of manner. He looked absolutely disgusted when he saw me, and said in the most injured tone imaginable, "You must have been stopping to look!"
He wouldn't hear to my continuing my tour of circumnavigation, so we went inside at once, and there I held the guide-book and read the explanation while he kept up a running contradiction of everything I read. I don't see the good of Uncle's carrying a guide-book,for he says they needn't suppose he doesn't know better than most of it.
There is a wonderful carved marble screen around the altar, and a sacred statue with a yellow satin dress on; but being inside made Uncle want to be outside right away, so we left very quickly, and then he studied the Baedeker just long enough to let me notice how all the Roman noses on the kings and saints outside had been turned into Eskimo noses by the rains of centuries; and then he suddenly shut it, and said we would go right straight off then and there and see the famous enamels that Diane de Poitiers gave Henry II. He explained to me that this wasn't the English Henry II, but the French Henry II, and then he asked me whichof us had the luggage-checks, and if I had noticed whether the train went at eleven or half-past. I must say it is like doing multiplications in your head to travel with Uncle, but of course I enjoy it, and the walk to St. Peter's Church was very pleasant, through quaint streets and along by little canals like those at Gisors.
The church was open, and open in more ways than one, for they were tearing up the whole floor to put in a furnace and grave-stones and pick-axes were leaning up against the columns everywhere. There wasn't a soul to be seen, and Uncle was so happy to be able to poke about unconcierged for a while that I sat down and let him desecrate around with his cane until hecame to with a start and asked me what I supposed we came to Chartres for, anyway. I got up at that, and we went to look at the enamels, which are in behind a locked balustrade and have curtains hung in front of them besides. We had to get a woman to unlock the gate and draw the curtains aside and explain which enamel was which Apostle; and uncle was very much put out over their being apostles at all. I don't know what he expected in a church, but he said he never thought about the church; he only thought about Diane de Poitiers. He says he doesn't think it was in good taste her having anything to do with the apostles, and then he read in the book again and found he'd made a mistake, and it wasthe king who gave them to her, and not she who gave them to the king, and that used him all up, and he said he wished that he had never come.
I saw that we should have to have something to eat right off, so I said I was hungry and Uncle said that was just like a woman, but to come on. We found a small restaurant and had a very good lunch, and then Uncle said if I felt satisfied he would take it as a personal favor if we could go on to Dreux. I do wish he wouldn't put everything just that way when I really haven't done anything; but he looked at his watch and found that the time before when he had looked at it he had looked at it wrong and that we had barely ten minutes to make the train. As a matterof fact, the train was going then, but they don't go until ten minutes after in France, so when you miss a train you always have ten minutes left to make it. We took a cab, and Uncle made the man understand that if he hurried it would pay; so we galloped madly over the ridge and just got aboard in time to learn that Uncle had left his cane in the cab and that we'd forgotten our luggage inconsigne.
Of course the ride was rather gloomy, because there was almost no way to lay the blame on me; but after a while Uncle asked me if I really ever did see such a rank idiot as M. Sibilet, and he felt better after that. We reached Dreux about two o'clock, and I telegraphed back about the luggage while Uncle looked up a train for Argentan and set his watch by the railway time. Hetold me that the train that he had decided on left at 3:04 and that we could make it and see the mausoleum "easy." I never contradict Uncle, because it doesn't do any good and does upset him awfully, so I went with him to get the cab, and wondered how long a mausoleum usually took to examine.
DreuxDreux
It seems that there are no cabs in Dreux!
I thought that that would end the mausoleum, but Uncle merely swept his eyes over the prospect and said we'd have to walk, and walk pretty prompt. It was 2:10, and we walked fast. The mausoleum is on top of a hill, and Uncle said we could catch our breath after we got to the top. We never spoke a word going up. I knew that I was too youngto die of heart-disease, so I didn't care, if he didn't.
It was a terrible climb, but we reached there at 2:32. It's the mausoleum of the Orléans family, and is modern. There is a concierge who takes you around, and we followed him, Uncle with his watch in his hand and going on like this: "2:40—tomb of the king's mother, eh? Fine old lady! 2:41—tomb of the Duc d'Aumale; good face, handsome decorations on his bosom, stained-glass windows—all made at Sévres, eh? 2:43—" etc. You can imagine!
But what you can't imagine is the sublime and peaceful beauty of all those exquisite marble people sleeping there under the slanting rainbow sun-rays of the magnificent windows. They affectedme so deeply that, in spite of Uncle, I could hardly keep back the tears. They didn't seem living and they didn't seem dead; I don't know what they were like—spirits made visible, perhaps. The Duchesse d'Orléans has her arm stretched across, so that it touches her husband, who was the eldest son of Louis Philippe. The king himself stands upright in the midst of them all, and Queen Marie Amélie kneels at his side in a beautiful pose. Two precious little babies are sculptured together on one tomb, and all the while we were going about, the place resounded with the echoes of the chisels that were preparing a place for the Prince Henry who was killed in Africa.
I could have stayed there hours,wrapped up in the mystery and wonder of it all, but Uncle fell down some steps while he was looking at his watch, and we departed forthwith. He said we must walk fast, and so again we walked fast. Of course it was easier, though, going down-hill, and I said, when we were near enough not to be anxious any more, "It was worth seeing, wasn't it?" To which Uncle replied: "Yes, if you enjoy that kind of thing; but all I could think of was the idea of spending such a lot of money on statues and then not having any cabs at the depot."
There was no time to get anything more to eat at the moment, so I just held my tongue until we were safely on the train again.
We reached Argentan at 6:15p.m.,and I felt as if I'd been running Uncle, or, rather, running with Uncle, for a month.
The next morning we were called at seven, and I really thought that I could not get up at first; but, I made it at the third try, and Uncle and I were out "seeing Argentan" at eight. At half-past he declared that there was really nothing to see, so we went to thegare, and he bought a Paris "Herald." As we were sitting there waiting for the 8:04 train to Coulibœuf, in came Elfrida Sanders and her sister with bicycles. I wassoastonished, and Uncle was rather pleased, too. They are doing Normandy on wheels, and they have their tools and a kodak and a small set of toilet-things and four clean collars all tied on to them.Elfrida says they've had a lovely time—only broken glass once, and rain two days. The sister is going to write a book and call it "Two on a Trot." I think that's a funny name for a bicycle story. Uncle said to call it "Two on a Tire"; but you know how stupid Elfrida is, and so she said, "Oh, but it's not a tandem." They were going to Coulibœuf, too, but we couldn't go together because they were traveling third-class. Elfrida says they are seeing Europe nicely on less than a dollar a day, and Uncle said "Great Scott!"
"Elfrida says they are seeing Europe nicely on less than a dollar a day, and Uncle said 'Great Scott!'"
While we were on the train it began to rain and then it poured. Uncle became very gloomy and said that is just what we might have expected. Ididn't expect rain, and I didn't see why I should have expected it, so I only nodded. Uncle didn't like my nodding, and said I shouldn't take such a pessimistic view of life at my age. While he was talking I suddenly remembered the umbrella and asked him where it was, and he had left it in Argentan! Then there was no more conversation.
Falaise
We had to change cars at Coulibœuf, and we reached Falaise about noon. Elfrida and her sister got right on to their wheels and bumped gaily away over the cobblestones at once. The rain was over and the sun was shining, but Uncle said he had lost all faith in France and wanted to buy another umbrella the very first thing. Wewent to a store, and he said to buy a cheap one, as I would be sure to lose it. I asked for a cheap one, but the woman was quite indignant and said that she did not keep any cheap umbrellas—that the lowest she had was two francs—forty cents. I had totranslate it to Uncle, and he was so amused that he bought one for three francs and gave a franc to her baby that was tied in a high chair by the window.
Then we took a cab to the castle and paid the man at the entrance and let him go. There is a lovely sloping road that follows the curve of the outer wall up to the summit of the hill, and we forgot how tired we were in thinking how pretty it was. These old castle enclosures are all so big. This one contains a college at one end, and then there is quite a wood which you must walk through before you come to the castle itself at the other end.
The castle is wonderful. It is splendid and big and old and strong andNorman. It is built out of the red rock, and it has oubliettes and wells and pits and towers and everything of the kind that heart could wish to see. We saw the room where Prince Arthur was imprisoned for seven years and the room where William the Conqueror was born. It's a very little room in which to have had such a wonderful thing happen.
"Paid the man at the entrance and let him go."
Uncle enjoyed the castle immensely; he took the deepest interest in every inch of it, and when the concierge showed us the window from which Robert the Devil first saw Arlette, he planted himself firmly inside it and I almost thought that he was going to stay there forever. My feet ached so that I was glad enough to lean up anywherefor a minute, and I honestly believe that it was ten before he moved. Then he gave himself a little shake and said: "Well to think of owning this place, and being able to stand in a window as high up as that one, and then to look down as far as that well is, and then only to need to say, 'Bring her up!' and to know she'd got to come! Great Scott! No wonder their son conquered England. I'm only surprised that he didn't wipe Europe off the face of the continent!" Then he shook his head for quite a little while, and we got under way again and went to Talbot's Tower.
"The coming down was awful"
It's high, and Uncle wanted to climb it. I didn't mind his climbing it, but he wanted me to climb it, too, andsome one was ringing the bell, so the concierge had to leave us and go back before anything was settled. Uncle said it was rather hard when he was doing so much to try and finish me up (he meant "finish me off," I think), for me to be so lukewarm about being finished so I started in to climb, although my knees felt like crumpled tissue-paper.[1]The steps were so worn that it was awful work and Uncle would go up as far as anyone could. He had the umbrella and I had the candle and often we had to step two and even three steps at once. When we came to the place where the stepsended, he stood and peeked out of a window (imagining himself Lord Talbot, I reckon—) and then we started back. The coming down was awful,—I was honestly frightened. Uncle went first and I stepped on his coat twice and spilt candle-grease on his hat. Uncle found it easier coming down than going up, and it wasn't until we reached the bottom that we discovered that the reason why was because he had left the umbrella behind and so had two hands to hold on by. I said, "Never mind, it only cost sixty cents"; but he was not to be comforted, and said bitterly, "You forget the franc that I gave her baby." I would have gone back for it, but I felt so hot and tired.
We came to Caen this noon, andwent to bed, and I don't believe we shall ever get up again. Uncle said that with my kind permission he would suggest that I should not disturb him, and heaven knows that I have no desire to. I telegraphed Mrs. Clary about mail, and then I went to sleep and I slept until just now.
I never was so near dead in all my life; but you mustn't think for a minute that I'm not having a lovely time, for I am, and it was so kind of Uncle to bring me. Now good-by, and with much love,
Yours,
Yvonne.
[1]The author begs the reader's lenient consideration as to this description of Talbot's Tower. The story was written from notes taken five years ago, since which time the tower has undergone a thorough restoration.
[1]The author begs the reader's lenient consideration as to this description of Talbot's Tower. The story was written from notes taken five years ago, since which time the tower has undergone a thorough restoration.
UNCLE JOHN PARALYZED
"Come in! Come on! Well, don't you hear? Can't you understand any—Oh, it's you, child. I thought it was one of those darned waiters.
"Sit down; pull up a chair by the bed. It's so long since I sent for you that I just about thought that you were not coming. I suppose you were surprised at my sending for you; but it was the only way to do. It's a hard thing to break to you, Yvonne; but you'd have to know in the course of the day, and Ialways do everything right off that I've not decided to wait and see about. Now don't look frightened, my dear; nobody'sdead—it's only that I'm paralyzed!
"There, what do you think of that? Yes, it's true for a fact. My legs! I had some premonitory symptoms yesterday going up that cursed old tower, and I had some very advanced ones coming down from it; and this morning, when I started to shave, the truth just burst in my face. Now, don't try to say anything, for I've read too many patent-medicine advertisements not to recognize paralysis when I feel it up and down the back of my own legs. I'm not the man not to know my own feelings, and I want to tell you that when I got upthis morning I couldn't stand up, and then, after I stood up, I couldn't sit down; and if that isn't a clear case of having completely given out, I don't know what you would call it.
"Now, my dear, the question is, what's to be done? Of course our travels have come to a full stop, for I shall probably never walk again. The curious thing is that I don't feel any particular inclination ever to walk again. You've no conception of the sentiments that I feel in my legs; but if you roll the fatigue of a lifetime into either the left or the right, you can get some faint inkling of the first freshness of paralysis. I tell you, Yvonne, it is awful. Every cobblestone I've gone over seems to be singing in my calves; but that's neitherhere nor there. What I want you to do is to go to the pocket of my valise get out the cable-code book and look out a word that means 'Both legs paralyzed. What shall I do with the girls?' You'll find a word that means it, if you look long enough. They've got forty pages of words that mean every fool thing on earth from 'It's a boy' to 'Impossible to lend you ten dollars.' I was reading it over in Paris the other day while I waited for my money at the bank.
"Well, ain't you going to get the code-book? I don't want to be impatient, but I want some one to be doing something. You don't know how restless it makes me to think of lying still for the rest of my life. While I was waiting for you, I was thinking thatprobably I shall live right here in Caen till I die. I'm very glad we got here too late to see anything, because now I can take it bit by bit and drag it out through my remaining days. I shall have a wheeling-chair and a man to push me around, and—well, maybe it's in the little outside pocket. I know I had it in Paris, anyhow; I remember I was just reading that 'salsify' means 'Your mother-in-law left by the ten o'clock train,' and that 'salsifry' means that she didn't, when they brought me my money, and I was free to go.
"'I'm happy that it will be out of the question for me ever to travel again.'"
"Well, now you've got it. I thought maybe it would be in the little valise all the time. Seems to me the sicknesses begin with 'Salt.' I remember 'Saltfish' means 'have got smallpox; keepaway,' and 'Saltpetre' means 'have got a cold; come at once.' You look along there and find 'paralysis.' I'll just keep quiet while you're looking. I'd better be learning to keep quiet. Keeping quiet must be the long suit of the paralyzed, I should fancy. But you see what it is now to be an optimist. Here's my life practically over all of a sudden, and, instead of being blue, I'm as cheerful as a cricket. No need of fussing over the candle-grease on my hat now, for I shall never wear a hat again, I shall wear a soft felt tied over my ears with a plaid shawl as they always do in rolling-chairs; as for the umbrella, I'm actually glad I left it. It would only have been an aggravation to have seen it lying around. But allthe same I can't see why you didn't notice it lying down there. It must have been in plain sight,—I remember pointing over at Mont Mirat with it, and saying the rock looked as if it had been dropped there from above. Yvonne, I tell you when I think of all we did these last two days I feel perfectly content to be paralyzed. I'm glad to think that I've got such a good excuse to stay right in bed; I'm happy that it will be out of the question for me ever to travel again. I feel as if I've traveled enough to last me forever; I actually don't want to see anything more. No more catching trains and climbing castles for your Uncle John—not in his life. You can put the Baedeker in the fire right now—I never want to see a red cover or agreen string or an index again as long as I live. What's that? No, I sha'n't want it to look over and recall things by; I can recall more than I want to just by the way I feel. I don't need any guide-book to remember what I've been through since I left Paris. I remember too much. I remember so much that I am rejoiced to think that muscles over which I have no control will prevent my having to go out to-day and see anything else. It seems a little hard to think of having sight-seen so hard that you never want to see another sight, but I'm perfectly content. And I don't want a doctor, either; I've no faith in French doctors. It would be just like one to hypnotize me and set me going again, and I don't want to go. I wantto lie right here, and I thank the Lord that I have money enough to allow me to lie here forever, if I feel like it. I was thinking this morning what a horrible existence a tramp must lead—always going on to new places. Thank Heaven, I can just settle down in this old one and stay on indefinitely. I want you to go down to the office and ask what rate they'll make for this room by the year. I want this same room right along. It's the first restful spot I've struck since my trunk went smash into that ship. Yvonne, did you notice the way they handled those trunks when we landed—as if they were eggs? I tell you, the baggage system at home is a burning disgrace. That's one reason I like Europe so—it's quiet and peaceful.I heard some goats go by this morning; I'd like to know a hotel in America where you can listen to a goat. And then that wallpaper, what a tranquil pattern—a basket of sunflowers upside down alternately with a single palm upside up! What a contrast to the paper on that room I sailed from! It looked more like snakes doing physical culture than anything else.
"Yvonne, I was thinking it all over as I lay here this morning waiting for you, and the truth is, we've been traveling too fast. I wanted you to see all there was to see, and I overlooked myself completely. Don't feel badly, child, because I know you never meant it; but itisthe truth, and, as a consequence, here I lie paralyzed. Yes,we've been traveling too fast. It's the vice of the American abroad; it's the terrible secret drain upon the strength of our better classes. We come over to rest, and if we don't do two countries a week we feel we've wasted our money. The idea of leaving Paris in the morning and doing Chartres and Dreux and getting to Argentan that night! Why, Hercules himself would have been used up. And then that castle at Falaise. But I'm not sorry that I went to Falaise. No, I'm not sorry. Yvonne, there was something about that castle that I'll never get over. I tell you those were the days to live in! I was thinking about it while I was waiting for you this morning. Will you consider what it musthave been to put on a suit that you couldn't be punched through, and then get out with an ax that faced two ways and have full freedom to hack at people you hated. I tell you, child, I should have been one of those who barricaded themselves behind the dead bodies they had killed and kept right on firing over the top. And to-day my armor would be hanging up somewhere all full of dents and rusty blood-stains, and I'd be a sight in some cathedral with your Aunt Jane wearing a funnel and an accordion beside me. We'd both be in marble, of course, some worn by time and some chipped by tourists—ah, well!
"Can't you find anything suitable in that code-book? Here, I've beenwaiting a quarter of an hour for you to hunt—hand me the book. I remember 'Shell' is 'have broken my left leg,' and 'Shell-fish' is 'have broken my right leg,' and 'Shawl' is—wait a bit—keep still, Yvonne; no one in the wide world can study a code and listen at the—
"Oh, well, I'll leave it till to-night. Not that I'm irritated at your interruption, for I never let anything ruffle me, and when you write home the first thing I want you to tell your mother is that being paralyzed has not changed me one particle. Same even disposition, same calm outlook on life, same disinclination to ever bother anyone. I want you to make them understand in particular how cheerful I am.Some men would turn cynical at waking up paralyzed, but not me. I feel as if I might get about quite a little in Caen, maybe even get to Falaise again some time; but you can bank on one thing, and that is that if I ever go back to Falaise I won't go up that tower again. I was wondering this morning as I lay here waiting for you how in thunder you were holding that candle to spill so much grease on my hat. You can't say that you didn't know I was there, for every second step you took your foot hit me in the small of the back. You ought to have gone first, anyhow. I know the rule is for a man to go first going down a staircase, but I don't call that business we were on any staircase; it was morelike a series of cascades with us forming the merry, leaping, part. I tell you what, Yvonne, the next time it's up to your Uncle John to play the chamois that springs from crag to crag over an old middle-aged staircase while his niece pours candle-grease on his hat, you can excuse me.
"What I like is clean, open-to-the-day-light ruins like that old one at Jumièges! No peril, no anxiety—all on a level, and time to look up at what wasn't. I tell you, I wouldn't have missed seeing Jumièges for anything. I was thinking this morning as I lay here waiting for you that I have a good mind to write a book about my travels, and that when I do I shall have the frontispiece, me in front of Jumièges.I could take an artist down there on purpose, and while he wasn't doing me, I could look it all over again. Maybe I could go there alone with a kodak and get a satisfactory frontispiece, only those rocks were so thick that most people would think it was a defective plate. I shouldn't like to have them think that, for if I was going to have a book at all, I should have it in good style—gold edges, bevel-plate, and so forth, don't you know. I'd like to write a book about Europe, I vow. I haven't been here very long, but I'll swear I know ten times more than any book ever tells. It never said a word in Baedeker about there not being any cabs at Dreux, or about the condition of those steps in Talbot's Tower, andsuch things ought to be known. It's all right to make light of perils past, but those steps were too dark for me to ever make light of in this world. Up toward the top where we had to sit down and stretch for the next one—you remember?—I must own that I was honestly sorry I came.
"Well, my child, it must be nearing noon, and I feel like taking a nap before dinner. Suppose you go in and write to your mother and Mrs. Clary. After your mother gets the cable, she'll naturally be anxious for details, and she won't want to wait longer than ten days to know all. I wish you'd ring and tell them to bring me some hot water before you go; tell them I want it in a pitcher. Make them understanda pitcher. They brought it last night in a sort of brass cylinder, and I couldn't get the thing open anyway—had to use it for a hot-water-bag in bed in the end. It worked fine for that. Never cooled off all night, in fact, I couldn't put my feet against it till morning.
"There, now, you go on and leave me to sleep. You haven't the faintest idea of how used-up I feel. Don't forget to write your mother how cheerful I am; don't forget the hot water. I'll send for you when I want you. There—there—I'm all right, child, don't you worry. Just pull the curtains and let me sleep."