Selected Tales (Oxford World's Classics) (51 page)

Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of the
bizarre
about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much as to be quite an adept in the
nil admirari,
^*
so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good cheer set before me.

The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to speak of his position as superintendent of a
Manon de Santé;
and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a favorite one with all present. A great many amusing stories were told, having reference to the
whims
of the patients.

‘We had a fellow here once,’ said a fat little gentleman, who sat at my right—‘a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and, by the way, is it not especially singular how often this particular crotchet has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely an insane asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot.
Our
gentleman was a Britannia-ware tea-pot, and was careful to polish himself every morning with buckskin and whiting.’

‘And then,’ said a tall man, just opposite, ‘we had here, not long ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a donkey—which, allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite true. He was a troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep him within bounds. For a long time he would eat nothing but thistles; but of this idea we soon cured him by insisting upon his eating nothing else. Then he was perpetually kicking out his heel—so—so—’

‘Mr De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!’ here interrupted an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. ‘Please keep your feet to yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style? Our friend, here, can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate imagined himself. your acting is very natural, as I live.’

‘
Mille pardons! Ma’mselle!
’ replied Monsieur De Kock, thus addressed—‘a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending. Ma’mselle Laplace—Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of taking wine with you.’

Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much ceremony, and took wine with Ma’mselle Laplace.

‘Allow me,
mon ami
,’ now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing myself, ‘allow me to send you a morsel of this veal
à la St Menehoult
—you will find it particularly fine.’

At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in depositing safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher, containing what I supposed to be the ‘
monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum
.’
^*
A closer scrutiny assured me, however, that it was only a small calf roasted whole, and set upon its knees, with an apple in its mouth, as is the English fashion of dressing a hare.

‘Thank you, no,’ I replied; ‘to say the truth, I am not particularly partial to veal
à la St
—what is it?—for I do not find that it altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate, however, and try some of the rabbit.’

There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what appeared to be the ordinary French rabbit—a very delicious
morceau
, which I can recommend.

‘Pierre,’ cried the host, ‘change this gentleman’s plate, and give him a side-piece of this rabbit
au-chát
.’

‘This what?’ said I.

‘This rabbit
au-chát
.’

‘Why, thank you—upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself to some of the ham.’

There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the tables of these people of the province. I will have none of their rabbit
au-chát
—and, for the matter of that, none of their
cat-au-rabbit
either.

‘And then,’ said a cadaverous-looking personage, near the foot of the table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had been broken off—‘and then, among other oddities, we had a patient, once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained himself to be a Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in his hand, soliciting his friends to try a small slice from the middle of his leg.’

‘He was a great fool, beyond doubt,’ interposed some one, ‘but not to be compared with a certain individual whom we all know, with the exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with a pop and a fizz, in this fashion.’

Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb in his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the popping of a cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the tongue upon the teeth, created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which lasted for several minutes, in imitation of the frothing of champagne. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig.

‘And then there was an ignoramus,’ said he, ‘who mistook himself for a frog; which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree. I wish you could have seen him, sir,’—here the speaker addressed myself—‘it would have done your heart good to see the natural airs that he put on. Sir, if that man was
not
a frog, I can only observe that it is a pity he was not. His croak thus—o-o-o-o-gh—o-o-o-o-gh! was the finest note in the world—Β flat; and when he put his elbows upon the table thus—after taking a glass or two of wine—and distended his mouth, thus, and
rolled up his eyes, thus, and winked them with excessive rapidity, thus, why then, sir, I take it upon myself to say, positively, that you would have been lost in admiration of the genius of the man.’

‘I have no doubt of it,’ I said.

‘And then,’ said somebody else, ‘then there was Petit Gaillard, who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed because he could not take himself between his own finger and thumb.’

‘And then there was Jules Desoulières, who was a very singular genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin. He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies—a thing which the cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means sure that a pumpkin pie
à la Desoulières
would not have been very capital eating, indeed!’

‘You astonish me!’ said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur Maillard.

‘Ha! ha! ha!’ said that gentleman—‘he! he! he!—hi! hi! hi!—ho! ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!—very good indeed! You must not be astonished,
mon ami;
our friend here is a wit—
a drôle
—you must not understand him to the letter.’

‘And then,’ said some other one of the party, ‘then there was Bouffon Le Grand—another extraordinary personage in his way. He grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the other he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes’ from the top of the forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham
^*
from the mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory, and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap upon the dinner-table thus, and—and—’

Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his shoulder, and whispered a few words in his ear; upon which he ceased talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his chair.

‘And then,’ said the friend, who had whispered, ‘there was Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum, because, in fact, he was seized with the droll, but not altogether irrational crotchet, that he had been converted into a tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin. He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this manner—so—’

Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper, performed an exactly similar office for himself.

‘But then,’ cried an old lady, at the top of her voice, ‘your Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best; for who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum? The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person, as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such, she behaved with propriety. She flapped her wings with prodigious effect—so—so—so—and, as for her crow, it was delicious! Cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-doo—cock-a-doodle-de-doo-doo-dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!’

‘Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!’ here interrupted our host, very angrily. ‘You can either conduct yourself as a lady should do, or you can quit the table forthwith—take your choice.’

The lady, (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just given,) blushed up to the eye-brows, and seemed exceedingly abashed at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful girl of the little parlor!

‘Oh, Madame Joyeuse
was
a fool!’ she exclaimed; ‘but there was really much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugénie Salsafette. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside, instead of inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all. You have only to do so—and then so—so—so—and then so—so—so—and then—’

‘Mon dieu! Ma’mselle Salsafette!’ here cried a dozen voices at once. ‘What
are
you about?—forbear!—that is sufficient!—we see, very plainly, how it is done!—hold! hold!’ and several persons were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma’mselle Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean Venus,
^*
when the point was very effectually and suddenly accomplished by a series of loud screams, or yells, from some portion of the main body of the château.

My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of reasonable
people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for a repetition of the sound. It came again—louder and seemingly nearer—and then a third time
very
loud, and than a fourth time with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately regained, and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to inquire the cause of the disturbance.

‘A mere
bagatelle
,’ said Monsieur Maillard. ‘We are used to these things, and care really very little about them. The lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at night. It occasionally happens, however, that the
concerto
yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose; when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended.’

‘And how many have you in charge?’

‘At present, we have not more than ten, altogether.’

‘Principally females, I presume?’

‘Oh, no—every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell you.’

‘Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics were of the gentler sex.’

‘It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were about twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very much, as you see.’

‘Yes—have changed very much, as you see,’ here interrupted the gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma’mselle Laplace.

‘Yes—have changed very much as you see!’ chimed in the whole company at once.

‘Hold your tongues, even one of you!’ said my host, in a great rage. Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands, until the end of the entertainment.

‘And this gentlewoman,’ said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending over and addressing him in a whisper—‘this good lady who has just spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo—she, I presume, is harmless—quite harmless, eh?’

‘Harmless!’ ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, ‘why—why what
can
you mean?’

‘Only slightly touched?’ said I, touching my head. ‘I take it for granted that she is not particularly—not dangerously affected, eh?’

‘
Mon Dieu!
what
is
it you imagine? This lady, my particular old friend, Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has her little eccentricities, to be sure—but then, you know, all old women—all
very
old women are more or less eccentric!’

‘To be sure,’ said I—‘to be sure—and then the rest of these ladies and gentlemen—’

‘Are my friends and keepers,’ interrupted Monsieur Maillard, drawing himself up with
hauteur
—‘my very good friends and assistants.’

‘What! all of them?’ I asked—‘the women and all?’

‘Assuredly,’ he said—‘we could not do at all without the women; they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous effect;—something like the fascination of the snake, you know.’

‘To be sure,’ said I—‘to be sure! They behave a little odd, eh?—they are a little
queer
, eh?—don’t you think so?’