Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  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 off-hand 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 beforehand, 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 lady‘s 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 Schlüsselback 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 Schlüsselback, 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 Schlüsselback, 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 Schlüsselback, an old lady with a humpback, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility,tr 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 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 fête-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 Nymph-bath 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 fêtes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its princely governors.

  JOS PERFORMS A POLONAISE

  Then from all the towns of the duchy which stretches for nearly ten miles,—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 troupes (the way in which his transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandière,ts as she was called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people are permitted to m
arch 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,tt 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 Conditorei.tu 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 ophicleidestv 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 café 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,tw 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 greatest 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 Sonnambulatx 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 Hofmarschall 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 Gri gnac, a young fellow as malicious as Satan, and who made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the albums of the place.

  Their head quarters and table d‘hôte 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 Angoulême, and dared to insinuate that H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne of the lilies.ty 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 Madame 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 Dutz 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 horseback. 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 Grafin 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 ye
ar 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 fêtes 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 Schlüsselback. 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 St. 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 fêtes of the marriage. Garlands and triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride. The great St. 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.