Chap. VIII A Frenchman’s Notions
DR. KEIF AT DINNER WITH A FRENCHMAN.—MONS. GUERONNAY.—GRAND INTER-NATIONAL CONTEST.—AN ARMISTICE.—SIR JOHN SERMONISES.—THE GLORY OF FRANCE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ENGLAND.—SUNDRY REMARKS ON THE OPERA AND THE BRITISH FEMALE; ON ENGLISH MUSIC AND FRENCH POLITICS.—SIR JOHN A TRUE JOHN BULL.
—A CONTROVERSY ON THE STAIRS.
“Dr. Keif has got nothing to eat,” said Sir John. “I say, Dr. Keif has nothing whatever to eat. Bella, how inattentive you are to your neighbour.”
“But, Sir John,” said his wife, “Dr. Keif is no infant. He will speak if he wants anything.”
“Nonsense, he forgets it. Dr. Keif, your plate, if you please.”
But the learned Doctor is deaf to Sir John’s warning voice. He is engaged in an interesting conversation with his neighbour, M. Gueronnay, from Paris.
M. Gueronnay is an elderly gentleman, with a youthful head of hair, red cheeks, and preposterously black whiskers. He is grave of aspect; but there is in his small black eyes an inexhaustible fund of good nature and conceit. For the last twenty years he has every season paid a visit of a week or two to Sir John, and each time he finds London gloomier and more unbearable. In fact, nothing but his affection for his old friends could induce him to leave the paradise of Paris for a week’s punishment in the fog and smoke of the Thames. But, however great his disgust may be, he is amiable enough to conquer it; he eats and drinks as an Englishman, laughs and jokes with the ladies all day long, and sheds a few tears at leave-taking. To complete the picture, we ought to add, that M. Gueronnay makes a vow every year to return as a married man, and to bring his wife with him.
Heaven knows what can have happened between him and Dr. Keif, while the rest of the family were eating their roast beef; but everybody is struck with the fact that they talk violently, and both at the same time, too.
“Dr. Keif, your plate!” says Sir John.
“He does not hear you,” responded Bella. “I dare say he is again talking politics.”
“Order!” cries Sir John, now for the third time. “Dr. Keif, M. Gueronnay, another piece of pudding.”
But the two arch-foreigners murmur an excuse, and turn again to one another.
“Yes, surely,” says Dr. Keif, “the sun rises in the West.”
“You allude to the sun of the mind?”
“Certainly! and the West is Paris.”
“A la bonne heure. Thus do we understand one another.”
“Just so, M. Gueronnay; an opinion after your own heart, isn’t it? What I cant understand is, that the world does not settle down to sleep quietly, since Paris thinks and acts for it. What more can be required for the general regeneration of humanity than the Journal des Débats, that is to say, the diffusion of useful knowledge—Madame Rachel, that is to say, the art-education of mankind—and a few Chasseurs d’Afrique, that is to say, liberty?”
“Not bad; you have French esprit. Well, you flatter us.”
“Indeed,” says Dr. Keif, very gravely. “Even the Paris Cancan, immoral though it may appear, has, after all, decency and grace enough to civilise half the world. Am I not right? And if la France has been put into the stocks, it is merely because she has been dancing all night for the benefit of distressed humanity; her present misfortune is, after all, nothing but a fresh proof of creative genius, which conceals the profoundest of all modern ideas of emancipation; for, if you please, whatever la France will do that she can do. She takes the resolution, in the face of all Europe, and in plain daylight, to lie in the dirtiest gutter that can be found, and lo! she performs the feat. Alas, for the blindness of the other nations, who do not also lie down in the same gutter, and who will not understand that there must be salvation in the pool in which it pleases la France to wallow!”
“Stop! stop!” replies M. Gueronnay. “What does all this mean?”
“It means simply that the French are the most conceited, insane people on the face of the earth.”
“Mais, Monsieur, I am a Frenchman!”
“Of course you are,” continues the Doctor, with a low impressive voice. “You cannot deny that the French go on sinning on the strength of their constitution! Pray let me go on. That they are a nation of spirited fools, genial ragamuffins, overgrown gamins, and revolutionary lacqueys, who can neither govern themselves, nor will they allow any despot ’by the grace of God’ to govern them for any length of time.”
“Now pray let me have my say.”
“And that, after their fourth revolution, and their third republic, they will surely fall down at the feet of some Orleanist or Legitimist prince; and after that, by means of universal suffrage, they will sell themselves to some romantic hairdresser, dancing-master, or cook. I, for one, vote for Soyer. He at least has learned something at the Reform Club.”
The most outrageous blasphemy, uttered in the presence of the grandmother of an Anglican bishop, cannot have that dreadful effect which Dr. Keif’s words produced on the nerves of his neighbour. He is first paralysed, then astonished, and in the next instance, angry. He would speak, but he cannot utter a word, for Dr. Keif has seized the wretched man by the topmost button of his coat, and in this position he pours broadside after broadside into his ears, saying continually—“Pray let me go on!” “Now do hear me,” “I know exactly what you wish to say.” Poor M. Gueronnay! All his endeavours to escape are vain, for the Doctor knows no pity for a Frenchman. His hand holds the button with an iron grasp, until, at length, he concludes with the following coup de grace:—“Pray understand me. All I wish to say is, that the French—surely I have not the least intention of offending you—the French are on their last legs, because the last particle of marrow has oozed out of their bones by dint of lying; but that does not prevent their being even in a state of profound degradation, exactly like the Spaniards, Italians, and Irish—spiritual, amusing, and rather an interesting nation.”
“In-fi-ni-ment obligé,” cries M. Gueronnay, jumping up and making low bows. “How did you say a-mu-sing? Infiniment obligé, Doctor, your German modesty is extremely complimentary.”
“No compliment whatever, M. Gueronnay,” replies Dr. Keif, rather embarrassed; “nothing whatever but my candid opinion.”
The Frenchman casts an epigrammatical glance at the Doctor, buttons his coat, as if preparing for some grand resolution, and says with a loud voice—“Sir, you are”—a long pause. Everybody rises from the table. “Monsieur,” continues the Frenchman, “you have never been in Paris.”
“Certainly not,” says Dr. Keif.
“That is enough. That is all I desire to know. Enfin!” and M. Gueronnay, shrugging his shoulders in a crushing manner, turns his back upon the Doctor.
This scene created a general confusion at the dining-table. Everybody was silent. The lady of the house, whose profound knowledge of the “Dictionnaire de l’Academie” commands M. Gueronnay’s special respect, has taken him to the window, and tries to soothe his feelings, by assuring him that Dr. Keif is certainly wrong-headed in the true Germanic style; but that he is, after all, a good-natured eccentric person, and nobody’s enemy but his own. Dr. Keif, meanwhile, with a forced smile on his lips, and green and yellow with rage, promenades the room. He is evidently not satisfied with himself. Sir John alone has kept this seat at the table; and, enforcing his views by several thumps of his dessert-knife, makes a very instructive speech on that Parliamentary order which is observed at all public dinners in England. Who could even think, while dinner is on the table, of conversing on any other subject but the domestic virtues of the turtle, the sole, and the salmon, the tenderness of roast lamb and venison, the bees-wing of port wine, and all the other good things which are especially fit to establish a delightful harmony between Whigs and Tories, High Churchmen and Dissenters, Cotton Lords and old aristocrats? There’s the rub. That’s what the foreigners will never learn; they cannot do a thing at the right time, and poison their very meat with politics!
I dare say Sir John is right; but his speech is interrupted by the coffee, which has greater effect upon the company than his practical philosophy. Dr. Keif and Sir John take their coffee by the fire.
“Are you aware,” says the latter, “that your remarks have been very offensive to our French friend? We Englishmen can never approve of a wholesale condemnation of any nation. If you had said those words in the House of Commons, you would have been called to order; and I really think there is an Act of Parliament—”
“Well never mind your Act of Parliament! the less you say about it the better. There are examples of examples. You are always preaching manners to people, and—. Never mind, just provoke me, if you please. I’m exactly in a temper.”
“But my dear Doctor, I really can’t understand what is the matter with you.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. People believe that a German’s skin ought to be as thick as that of a rhinoceros. I was not in the least angry, but merely gave that fellow change for his five-franc piece. Just as we sat down to dinner he said a few words which I don’t care to repeat. In short, he said that we Germans were not very likely to set the Thames on fire.”
“Very wrong indeed,” replies Sir John, turning to M. Gueronnay. “I’ll tell him so; he must make an apology.”
“For God’s sake be quiet! An apology, ridiculous! I’m ashamed of my childishness, that his vapid phrase could ruffle my temper; but that is what a man comes to. In Germany I used to laugh at our patriots; and here I’m covered with patriotism as with a cutaneous eruption, and irritated by the slightest touch.”
“Nonsense, sir! Consider it is only the word of a Frenchman!” said Sir John, almost instinctively attacking the weakest side of the sapient and wrathful Doctor. “And I say a Frenchman is no one. But now be reasonable, and shake hands with Mons. Gueronnay. I say—Mons. Gueronnay! You, Sir! Confound the Frenchman!” muttered Sir John, with earnest devotion, “Confound him, he won’t hear!”
The attempts at mediation between the two foreign powers are here interrupted by George, the tiger, bringing in a letter.
“Dr. Keif, if you please, a letter from Mr. Bonypart.”
A flagrant absurdity flung into the midst of a quarrel is, after all, the readiest means to restore good will and smooth the ruffled tempers. George’s blunder makes everybody laugh. Dr. Keif is at once assailed with many questions as to the “Emperor’s” intentions. “Is it an invitation to Paris? Is it a challenge? or the offer of a pension?”
“Yes, it’s in his own hand,” said the Doctor, and pocketed the mysterious document.
“Is it, indeed!” cried the Frenchman, in a state of delightful amazement. “Is it a letter from Louis Napoleon—pardon! I would say, from his Majesty the Emperor himself?”
“Suppose it is, I can see nothing in it to justify your opening your eyes to that extent!” said Mrs. Bella, with the prettiest imaginable little sneer. “I’m sure Dr. Keif is by far more respectable than one half of his majesty’s old friends and companions. But perhaps you will say Dr. Keif holds very strange opinions on the subject of the French nation. Just so, Mons. Gueronnay. Your emperor, I’m sure, thinks even worse of your countrymen than Dr. Keif does, and that’s why he is your Emperor!”
“Order!” shouts Sir John, “I’ll fine you a shilling if you say another word about politics.”
“Hear! hear!” said the Doctor. “But I will explain the matter to Mons. Gueronnay before I go. My friend Baxter has come to town and promises me no end of adventures, if I—”
“Mr. Baxter!” quoth the lady of the house, looking up from the supplement of the Times, which for the last few minutes had engaged her attention. “Mr. Baxter! Really George is getting duller every day; he mispronounces even English names. The fact is, Mons. Gueronnay, that boy George cannot on any account repeat or remember a foreign name. Whenever any German comes to the house and sends up his name, George will make the most shocking mistakes. He will not learn, and gives to every foreigner the very first name he happens to think of.”
“He takes them from the newspapers,” said Mrs. Bella. “The Doctor is continually teaching him politics. It’s true, Doctor, you spoil all our servants. That boy George is too fond of reading, and reading is almost a vice in a young—”
“Aristocrat,” adds Dr. Keif. “But I beg your pardon: lackey is the proper word.”
“In short,” continues the lady of the house, “there is no getting on with him. He turns Schulze into Shelly, and converts Fritze into Sir Fitzroy. The honest name of Müller becomes in his mouth Macaulay, and a Prussian gentleman of the name of Lehman is always announced as Lord Palmerston. He is so fond of great names.”
“Delicious!” cried Mons. Gueronnay. “What a subject for Scribe!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot wait for the tea-hour; for at nine o’clock, I am expected at the cigar-divan in the Strand;” saying which, Dr. Keif prepared to leave the room.
“Stop!” said Sir John, consulting his watch. “You’ve plenty of time; exactly sixty-one minutes.”
“How exact you English people are—punctilious!” We need scarcely inform our readers that the speaker is Mons. Gueronnay. “Sixty minutes and one! What Frenchman would say sixty minutes and one! Tell us, Mons. le Docteur, are your adventures so very important that they depend on the minute?”
“By no means! Nothing but an appointment of many weeks standing with Mr. Baxter. We propose making an expedition into the theatrical quarters, and I dare say we shall drop in here and there at half-price.”
But the Frenchman cannot understand how any one can go to the theatre at this unseasonable time of the year. He has always understood that in London there are but two entertainments worthy of the notice of un homme comme il faut: the Italian opera and the French theatre at St. James’s. But they are closed now that the season is over. It is true that the Queen does now and then pay a visit to some of the obscure English theatres; but surely she does that for no other reason but to humour the national prejudices of the English.
The ladies cry out against these shocking opinions; but all their protests cannot shake the smiling and gallant and withal obstinate Frenchman.
“Enfin mes dames!” cried he, “you have not an idea of all you must forego in London. You are very fortunate that you have never been at Paris. Par Dieu! Paris! It is there, mesdames, where the common life is a delicious farce; every salon is a stage; every apartment has its coulisses, and every one, from the duke down to the portier, knows his part. Your honest Englishmen can neither act, nor can they judge the action of the stage. An English actor is an unnatural creature, exactly like a Paris Quaker. Where can you find more passion for art than with us! Paris has not half so many inhabitants as London; but it has more theatres, and they are always more crowded than your churches. The poorest ouvrier cannot live without basking in the splendour of the stage; he drinks milk and eats bread for toute la semaine, that he may have some sous to go to the Variétés or the Funambules on Sunday night. Show me the Englishman who would sacrifice a beefsteak for the sake of a theatrical representation. Allez! allez! You weave, and you spin, you steam and you hammer, you eat and you drink, at the rate of so many horse-power, but to enjoy your life, that is what you do not understand. Am I right, madam?” The girls look at one another, and do not exactly know what to say.
Sir John, in his easy chair, shakes his head and mutters, “There are good reasons for the difference.”
“Ah ça,” continues the Frenchman triumphantly, “there are reasons; but, let me tell you, the reasons are atrocious! First, a theatrical piece would desecrate the Sunday evening, and the Sabbath must end in the same wearisome manner in which it commenced. If you mention this to an Englishman, he will make a long face, and say something about the morals of the lower classes. Ah, surely the lower classes in England are extremely moral! You can see that on Monday morning, when the drunkards of the night before are accused before the fat Lord Mayor. One has bitten off the constable’s nose; another has knocked down his wife, and kicked her when she was on the ground; and a third has been knocked down by his wife through the instrumentality of a poker. It is nothing but morals and gin; but, Dieu merci, they have not been at the theatre. Do not tell me, because you have more churches and chapels than there are days in the year, that your lower classes go to church. For the poor there are no benches in your churches; your religion is only for respectable people, and while they pray they rattle the money in their pockets. And then there are thousands of Quakers, and Methodists, and Latter-day Saints, who even on week days shun the theatre as a place of abomination. How is it possible for a theatre to prosper? And lastly, you are so fond of your fire-places and parlours, that it is almost impossible to induce you to go out; and you have such a strange passion for green grass, that you live far away in the suburbs, and want a carriage to come back from the theatre in the dawn of the morning. These dreadful distances are ruinous to the purse, and prevent all civilisation. Let me tell you, Monsieur le Docteur, that your admirable Englishmen do not monopolise all the wisdom of the world; but let them go. I do not pity them; but I am sorry for the poor daughters of Albion. Parole d’honneur, Mesdames, you would not regret it if the beautiful dream of Napoleon were accomplished. Ha, what a merry life! Fancy our great army landing on your shores one fine morning. Before the sun is risen our gallant soldiers are in the city; they say, ‘Bon jour,’ they conquer, and are conquered by the charms of the fair-haired Anglo-Saxon ladies. Our soldiers demand nothing but a due recognition of their transcendant merits. You may keep your Bank, your religion, and your Lord Mayor. France covets nothing but the glory of killing the dragon of English ennui. Hand in hand with the fair sex, our invincible army will perform the work of restoration. On the first night there is a grand ball of fraternisation at Vauxhall. On the following morning the liberators publish a manifesto, which decrees that there shall be at least one French vaudeville theatre in every parish.”
The girls on the sofa listen with awe-struck curiosity, and the Frenchman continues his harangue.
“And after a few years, when these new institutions shall have taken root in the hearts of Englishmen, the heroic army returns to sunny France, saying, ‘Now we understand one another, and now there will be eternal peace between us.’ The regeneration of merry England, by means of Norman blood, will outlive many centuries. But if you relapse again into your puritanical spleen, then we shall come again. And the daughters of Albion stand on the chalky cliffs wailing, and stretch their white arms after their liberators. How do you like the sketch? Is it not chivalrous? Is it not full of the most touching disinterestedness? How do you like it, Sir John? Do not be frightened, it is merely une idée.”
But Sir John is far too angry to reply, and M. Gueronnay turns again to the Doctor.
“Parole d’honneur,” says he, “it is a perfect disgrace, the education of the women in England! N’est ce pas, even your German philosophers must admit, that the Grand Opera is the cynosure, the academy, the flower of high life—of elegance, enfin, of civilisation. Eh bien! go to the opera, take a good glass, and you will despair. Beautiful women, you will find in plenty in the boxes, in the stalls, and in the gallery. But please to take your glass, and you will see they are all mere raw material. A splendid breed, certainly—a little heavy in the bones—large feet, but that makes no difference—but a complexion—hair—flesh—tell me, am I impartial, or am I not? Mais, mon cher, they are all rough diamonds. It makes one’s heart bleed, to think how this race of women might be brought out, and what a treasure these brutal Englishmen are neglecting! I will say nothing whatever of the toilet. Take a Paris grisette, give her three-quarters of a yard of tulle and two yards and a half of ribbon, and she conquers the world; but an English woman—say Lady A.—with her California of shawls and diamonds on her person, has the appearance of a clothes’ stand. But, as I said before, I will not go the length of asking for a genius for toilet. I will suppose that the light-haired marchioness, with those superb curls, has the good sense to get her fashions from Paris, and that, as a constitutional lady, she is governed by the advice of her responsible French maid. She does not insist on having a scarlet shawl and a light green dress with orange flounces, and a cavalry hat with ostrich feathers. No; she is bonne enfante—she listens to reason.”
“Bon.”
“But my dear Doctor, all this is of very little use. Listen to me, and let us confine our remarks to the light-haired marchioness. She leaves her box. Her carriage stops the way. She enters it. Now tell me, what is her behaviour? Throws she backwards one of those dilating, radiating, dangerous glances, which one might justly expect of her—without which, public life, even in the largest town, lacks all public interest; which the fair sex actually owe to those around them; for after all, what were women created for but to beautify the earth? But our light-haired marchioness walks straight on, as if she had blinkers to her eyes; she walks in a business-like manner—in the way of a student who enters his college, or a clergyman on his way to church; and though she makes but a few steps, I should know her as an English woman among the thousands of the women of all nations. Not a trace of hovering, of gliding, of jumping, or a little coquetry; nothing of the kind. If you meet her, she looks you straight in the face, exactly as if you were a statue or her husband. Be on your guard, she kicks! In sober seriousness, she raises her foot in such a manner as makes me wish that I could box her dancing-master’s ears. Yes, yes, my friend, Lady A. commands my fullest respect, so long as she sits in her box and conducts herself as a statue. Her bust—classic! Her white hand, with long taper fingers—noble—very noble—though a little too thin; her face, full of hauteur! à la bonne heure! in her large blue eyes there is even the shadow of a shade of romance; and round her lips plays something like a smile, which has caught a cold and is afraid of coming out in the open air. But her forehead is a little too severe for me; behind it there is a good deal of scripture reading and history, and details of the money-market, perhaps even Latin and Greek. Her long taper fingers write a firm hand; I am quite sure they can, without the least musical scruples, hammer on the substantial keys of a Broadwood. Of course they can; but do you know what these carefully-trimmed fingers cannot do? They cannot move a fan! Do you know what this beauty, with all the slenderness of her waist, and all the fulness of her shoulders, can never attain? Deportment! She has two left arms and two left hands. A French waist can languish, love, hate, smile, and weep; but this beautiful English woman, during the performance, looks at the libretto as if it were a book of common prayer. Now and then she raises her fan like a screen; and perhaps in one of the entre-actes she condescends to a little coquetry. Such things happen now and then. You see how impartial I am. Mon Dieu! how awkward she is! Enfin, she wants the je ne sais quoi. And, au bout du compte, one fine morning you read in the Post, that such and such an accomplished and very chaste lady, who happens to be the youngest daughter of a half-ruined house, has eloped, that is to say, she has run away, with some red-cheeked chaplain or groom. Don’t tell me what the English are!” says M. Gueronnay, drawing a deep breath, and wiping the perspiration off his forehead with a triumphant look, as if he had captured the British fleet and brought it to Cherbourg. “There is your Italian Opera!”
“But you cannot pay such singers in Paris,” interrupted Sir John, mustering up all his courage. “And as for decency and good manners, I do not think they can be found in your Tuilleries. None but gentlemen are admitted in Her Majesty’s Theatre.”
“Gentlemen—that is to say, black dress coat and black pantaloons; ’tis a pity that wigs and hair-powder are not also de rigueur. If we are to believe what the Morning Post says, the ladies in the first row of boxes fainted away, because a foreigner with a blue neck-tie had by some means or other gained admittance to the pit. Mind he had paid for his place, as well as everybody else. My dear Sir John, good manners are not innate in you; and because you cannot rely on your instincts, you draw up an orthodox code of decency, and observe it strictly to the letter, as if it were the law of the land. A black dress coat is de rigueur, black pantaloons ditto; but the dress coat and the pantaloons may be old, dirty, and shabby. Only think, you pay your money and submit to be schooled by a theatrical lackey. I would not submit to it, that’s all; none but the English, who adore the aristocracy, would ever put up with such impertinence. But the foreigners are justly treated. Why should they go to your Italian Opera House? Can they not go to Paris; and do not Grisi, Mario, and Lablache also sing in Paris? We do not, indeed, crowd all the talents of Italy into a single opera, because our ears are not made of cast-iron.”
Dr. Keif thinks it high time to mediate between the vainglorious Frenchman and the incensed Sir John. “You go a little too far,” says he. “All English ladies are not like your light-haired marchioness, and there are exquisite connoisseurs in music in London; but I am quite free to confess, the powers of digestion of the public amaze me. John Bull listens to two sympathies by Beethoven, an overture by Weber, two fugues by Bach, ten songs by Mendelssohn, and half a dozen arias and variations at one sitting, and then he goes home and falls asleep in peace. At the theatre, a tragedy by Shakespeare, a three-act melodrama from the French, a ballet, and a broad London farce, do him no harm, so great is the strength of his stomach.”
“A capital remark! I am sure we shall understand one another,” whispers M. Gueronnay. “The cry here is always for large quantities. The Englishman throws down his sovereign and wants a hundred-weight of music in return. Mon cher Docteur, you should come to Paris. Do not smile, and do not allow our friend here to make you too partial to the English. Sir John is the best fellow in the world, but entre nous, he is very queer. But you, my dear doctor, you have esprit, you are not without a certain talent for observation. Why should you rest in this town? I am sure your eyes will be opened after your first quarter of a year in Paris. Par Dieu, Paris! Does not the whole of the civilised world wear the cast-off clothes of Paris? It is quite ridiculous your shaking your head at our having got rid of our constitution; but in return Europe trembles at our nod, and enfin ça ne durera pas. We may change and change again. Constitutions of original Paris-make we have in plenty. We have had more of them than England, Germany, and Italy—in fact, what is there that Paris has not? Do you want religion? there is Lacordaire and Lamennais; and there is the Univers—religions of all shades. Are you fond of philosophy and religion? Go to Prudhon. To tell you the truth, I myself do not care for philosophy and religion; they are either of them mauvais genre. I am for civilisation and property; and I should not mind seeing M. Prudhon hanged, but that does not prevent me, as a Frenchman, being very fond of him. In one word, the world is but a bad imitation of Paris. In Paris you find heaven and hell, order and liberty, the romance of orgies, and the solitude of the cloister, in the most charming harmony and in the grandest and most elegant form. But above all,” said M. Gueronnay, very impressively, “do not believe that you will ever learn to speak the French language unless you go to Paris. Impossible; you will never catch the accent. And England is the worst climate for French pronunciation that can be found. Look at me! I, a Parisian, still feel the pestilential influence of this English jargon, which they are presumptuous enough to call a language, and whenever I go back from London I am ashamed of myself, and dare not speak to the family of my porter.”
“Monsieur Enfin,” said Sir John, as he accompanied the Doctor to the door, “has been bothering you, but, dear me; what can you expect of a Frenchman? a harmless fellow, but queer, very queer! You might make a good deal of money if you shewed him in Piccadilly. At one time I took some trouble with him, and tried to give him an idea of what England is, but it was of no use. You cannot argue a dog’s hind-leg straight. You will never catch me quarrelling with him, that’s all.”
“It is the story of the pot and the kettle,” said Dr. Keif, when he was in the street. “Each one says of the other that he is a queer fellow.” Saying which, the Doctor smiles, without the least suspicion that he is quite as queer as the rest.
It is past midnight when the Doctor returns from his nocturnal expedition, the adventures of which shall be duly recorded in another chapter. George opens the door to him. “The family have gone to bed,” says he, “but the two gentlemen have not yet adjourned.” Indeed their voices are plainly audible in the hall, and Dr. Keif looking up, beholds Sir John and Mons. Enfin on the landing, each holding a flat candle-stick with the candle burnt down to an awful degree of lowness, in his hand. The case is as clear as daylight. False to his principles, Sir John is engaged in a desperate attempt to “reason the dog’s hind-leg straight.”
Dr. Keif came just in time to enjoy the climax of the controversy.
“Enfin—the less you say about literature the better. What English author ever made a revolution?”
“I assure you, sir, Shakespeare—”
“And I assure you, sir, that, in my opinion, Shakespeare is entirely deficient in power. No power whatever, parole d’honneur! Coarse! Ah yes! he is indeed coarse. But power? Ah, my dear sir, where will you find it?”
“And I tell you, sir, that your grisettes and lorettes and actresses want grace, that’s what they do. And why do they want it? To be graceful, a woman should be decent, sir, and respectable, sir; and your grisettes are not a whit better than they ought to be!”
“Good night, gentlemen,” whispers Dr. Keif, as he passes them on the landing. “Don’t settle the question now; I should like to say a few words about it to-morrow morning.”
They stare at him in a bewildered manner, and the very next moment they dispute as fierce as ever.
“Mons. Gueronnay thinks Shakespeare lacks power; and Sir John is disgusted with the French women, because they want grace! Why it’s as good as a play!” mutters Dr. Keif as he gains his own room.