XXI“FROM THE FRENCH”
W
When a Frenchman sets out to write a tale that shall be wholly innocuous, he succeeds—and thereby drives his readers to seek in De Maupassant and Zola the antidote for his poisoning puerility.
He generally lays the scene in London, that he may air his ignorance of things foreign; and when the tale is done it contains absolutely nothing that would bring the blush of shame to any cheek in Christendom, seek said cheek where you might.
The following is a fair sample of the unharmful French story. I trust that if it had been printed without preamble or credit, the discerning reader would haveexclaimed, upon reading it, “From the French!” I have called it—
IT IS GOOD TO BE GOOD
In the great city of London, which, as you may know, is in England, there is a bridge, famous throughout the whole town as London Bridge. One dark night, many years ago, two men started to cross it in opposite directions, and running into each other, their heads crashed together in the fog which day and night envelops the city.
“Parbleu!” cried one, a fellow of infinite wealth; “but have you, then, no better use for your head than to make of it a battering-ram?”
“Sapristi!” replied the other, speaking in the coarse tones of an English mechanic out of work. “What matters it what I do with it? A moment more and I shall be in the Thames” (a large river corresponding to our Seine, and in equal demand by suicides). “To-night, for the first time in my life, I commit suicide!”
“Why, then,” said the other, “we willjump together, for it is for that purpose that I have come to this great bridge.”
“But,” said the mechanic, “why should you commit suicide? I can tell by the feeling of your garments that you are rich, and by the softness of your head that you are noble.”
“True, I am both of those things, but, also, I have exhausted every pleasure in life but the pleasure of suicide, and would now try that. But you, you are a mechanic out of work, as I can tell by your speech. Why should you seek pleasure instead of employment?”
“Alas, sir! I have at home one wife and seventeen children, all flaxen-haired, and all as poor as I. I cannot bear to go home to them without even the price of abiftekor arosbif.”
“Come,” said the nobleman; “I will defer my sport for the night. I have never seen a starving family. It will furnish me with a new sensation.”
“Ah! but you have a kind heart, and I will not refuse you. The river will keep. Follow me.”
They followed each other through the region of the Seven Clocks, and through Blanc Chapel, afterward the scene of the murders of “Jean theRapper,” until they came to the wretched apartment of the poor artisan. There, huddled in the corner of the room, were sixteen of the starving but still flaxen-haired children. The mother sat near the fireplace, so that she might be near the warmth when it came. In the other corner of the room—for they were so poor, these people, that they could not afford four corners—sat a vision of beauty, aged seventeen and a girl,ma foi! At sight of her the count’s eyes filled with tears of compassion, and hehanded his purse to the wretched father and said: “My good man, do not stir from here. I will return in an hour with furniture!”
Tears of gratitude coursed down the thirty-eight cheeks of the poor family, and they no longer felt hungry, for they knew that in a short time they would be sitting upon real sofas and rocking in chairs like those they had seen through the windows of the rich on Holy Innocents’ Day.
The count, whose full title was Sir LordErnoldCicil Judas GeorgeSHeroldWallington, grandson of the great Lord ofWallington, was as good as his word, and in an hour he returned with six of his servants, bearing sofas and cushions and tables andtête-à-têtes, and what not.
The family seated themselves on the furniture, and, clasping his knees, overwhelmed him with thanks.
“Dame! Sacré!” cried he. “It is nothing, this thing I have done. What is it that it is? Know, then, that for the first time in my life I have the happiness.” Then, turning to the father: “Give me thepurse. I left it as a collateral. Now that you have the furniture, you will not need it. But that angelic being there, she shall never weep again. I will take her with me.”
“Ah!” said the mother; “but that is like you, CountWallington. You mean that she is to be a maid in your father’s house? Ah! what prosperity!”
“Ah! do not insult the most beautiful being who ever went about in a London fog. She a servant? Never! I will make her my wife. She shall be Miledi ComptesseErnoldCicil Judas GeorgeSHeroldWallington!”
In Southwark-on-Trent, a suburb of London, is the hospital for those about to commit suicide. Ring the bell at the gate, and you will be admitted by sixteen flaxen-haired ones who will conduct you to the governor and matron. Need I say who they are, or whose money built the institution?
And when you read in LondonPonch, among the court news, that a great beauty has been presented to the Queen of England, London, and Ireland, you will know that it is the ComptesseWallington. She is presented at all the levees, and, with her husband, the handsome and philanthropic LordWallington, is the cynosure of all English eyes.
It is good to be good.