CHAPTER II.
In Buenos Ayres, though a town of fully sixty thousand inhabitants, nearly every body of any pretensions knows every other body, either by sight, by report, or nodding acquaintanceship. Society may be divided into English, French, and native, or Spanish. Among the English we comprise the British, Americans, Germans, Danes, and Swedes—in fact, all the Anglo-Saxon family, (without excluding therefrom the Irish,) as they can all speak English, and are somewhat allied in character, pursuits, and political relationship. The French and Italians, again, resemble each other more than they do the above.
The visiting and visitable part of the native community, form a most interesting and agreeable feature in Buenos-Ayrean society. Thanks to civil wars, and to Rosas, the females vastly preponderate in numbers over the males. You may visit five or six families, and meet five or six ladies in each, and not a single gentleman; partly from the reasons we have given above, and partly because to ladies appear exclusively to be allotted the duties of ceremonial reception—husbands and brothers, if there be any, remaining in their studies, or back rooms, even when the sala, or reception room, is crowded with visitors or a small evening party. Oh, how pleasant and agreeable are these Senoras, and Senoritas! how sweetly they help you out with a sentence when you are at a loss! how freely they suggest subjects of conversation! how good-humouredly they smile at your awkward mistakes, and make you fancy that you will soon be a perfect proficient in Spanish—as indeed you soon would be under their tuition; how soon you forget that you have never seen them before! how soon you learn to suck matte, and to pay compliments! and when you are about to leave, and a flower is agreeably presented to you by a smiling Senorita, with an assurance that the house and every thing in it is entirely at your disposal, you bow your way out with a profusion of promises to return, with a rose at your button-hole, a smile on the face, and an elasticity of step that will last half the day. Oh, Tom Thorne! Tom Thorne! how could you resist so many dimpling smiles and sweet compliments? How could you flirt away the forenoons in the circles of beauty, look the language, breathe the gay atmosphere, reflect the glad glances, enjoy the warm enlivening glow of youthful feelings, bask in the sunshine of favour streaming upon you from the eyes of youth, innocence, and beauty, and then cool down your feelings with cigars and brandy?
But we are forgetting our subject. Among each of the great national families we have classed together, there were particular sets and circles, out of which many would seldom or never move, while some would be nearly equally familiar with all: and this mixture of different nations, tinctured with a dash of republicanism, gives a tone of metropolitan urbanity and courtesy to Buenos-Ayrean society, which is very agreeable. All being dependent on their own exertions, there can be little affectation of superiority; and all being occupied through the day, they are the more inclined to relax into the agreeable in the evening: and perhaps there are few places under the sun where there are more or merrier evening reunions than there were in the city of Buenos Ayres before the blasting tyranny of Rosas decimated the natives, made fathers suspicious of sons, brothers spies upon brothers, Frenchmen arm themselves for mutual protection, Englishmen almost afraid of the name, and banished wealth and security from the province.
The sala of Senora Tertulia was brilliantly lighted up and brilliantly filled with youth and beauty; the atmosphere was loaded with rich perfumes from the gay and gaudy festoons that adorned the massy chandeliers, and from the sweet little bouquets that heaved on the bosoms of the fair dancers. Knights of every order of chivalry were strutting through the room. Priests were listening to innocent confessions. Don Juans were whispering sweet compliments into willing ears. Dominoes were playing at cards with Italian Counts. Turks were drinking the firewaters of the Franks at side-tables. Gauchos were there rigged out in all the finery of the Pampas; and every masquerade-shop in the town had been ransacked by those whose wit could not supply, or whose means could not afford new or appropriate costumes. And so there was a fair proportion of clowns, harlequins, starved apothecaries, and Highlanders with cotton drawers. Many old gentlemen with the long ruffles, the broad skirts, powdered wigs, and jockey looking waistcoats of the sixteenth century, were seen bowing, scraping, and taking snuff: in fine, every one either was or ought to have been enjoying himself. The music struck up, and off they went.
A quadrille had just finished. Lords wore handing dames and ladies fair to their seats, which the polite old gentlemen of the sixteenth century vacated for them; that short interregnum was commencing in which young ladies study attitudes and young gentlemen compliments, when a scream of surprise and a loud roar of laughter at one of the doors of entrance attracted the attention of all. There appeared to be a struggle for admission on one part and a dubious attempt at exclusion on the other. The lady of the house hurried to the spot; a card was secretly shown to her; and the cloud of doubt that hung over her brow at the first sight of the strange spectacle before her was exchanged in a moment for the warm sunshine of a kindly welcome. “Walk in, pray—walk in, Mr Bruin,” and a tall slim figure in a strange dress, the front of which was buttoned behind, with a mask on the back of his head, and long hair streaming all over his face so as completely to conceal his features, led into the room a great white bear. The conductor carried a huge high baton, surmounted by a garland of flowers; and the neck of Bruin was attached to the baton by a chain of the same materials. The Bear and his conductor soon became the centre of attraction.
“Now, Mr Brain, show the ladies how you can dance, sir;” and the shaggy hero stumped on his huge hind paws, shook his head and his tail, and dangled his fore flippers, to the admiration of all.
“Now for a waltz, Mr Bruin.”
“Bur wur hough,” growled the bear in guttural accents, very like German.
“Mr Bruin says he must have a partner,” drawled the conductor from the back of his head; and Bruin, clutching the garland of flowers from the top of the pole, stumped round the circle of fair by-standers, with the view apparently of suiting his fancy.
“I presume, Mr Bruin, you are dazzled with such a galaxy of bright star-like eyes,” said a wag.
“Bur wur hur ough,” growled Bruin.
“They remind him of the Aurora Borealis, in the North Seas,” was the interpretation given out from the back of the head.
“I suppose you are a great traveller, Bruin,” demanded another querist.
“Wur bur ough hur.”
“He accompanied Sir John Ross in his polar expeditions,” was the response.
By this time every one enjoyed the humour of the conceit; and when Bruin placed the garland of flowers on the brow of Anita Mendoza, the belle of the ball-room, it was not ungraciously received by the blushing beauty, and raptures of applause approved the selection.
“You show a very fair taste, Mr Bruin,” said the smiling landlady.
“We represent Beauty and the Beast of the nursery tale,” was the meaning of the bur wur of the response.
“Can I offer you any thing to eat or drink?” demanded the landlady.
“Mr Bruin will trouble you for an ice and a young sea unicorn,” replied the transposed conductor.
“I hope you won’t eat any of us, Mr Bruin,” said one of the ring.
“He would rather hug his partner than worry puppies,” was the ready rejoinder.
“When did you meet your great father-in-law, Dr Johnson, ursa major?” asked a would-be wit.
“Mr Bruin desires me to give you a pot of his grease to make your whiskers grow,” said the conductor, handing an elegant little bear’s grease pot out of the pouch that hung by Bruin’s side.
“Give me one! give me one!” shouted a number of ladies at the same time.
“For a hug a-piece,” shouted the bear in propria persona, forgetting his disguise.
“It is Tom Thorne! ’tis Mr Thorne!” shouted out a number of voices; and the bear was soon patted, caressed, and rifled of all the contents of his pouch by the fair triflers, no longer afraid of a hug from bear like Tom Thorne. Amid the fun and merriment created by this incident, a smart explosion was heard, followed by wreaths of aromatic smoke from pastiles ignited by the explosion caused by opening the elegant little grease pot given to the beardless youth. The proprietress of every one of Bruin’s little presents now became a heroine.
Great was the curiosity displayed to know the contents, and great was the glee and satisfaction as curious little devices or bonbons, wrapped up in love-verses, were extracted from the elegant little receptacles; and not till the music struck up, and Bruin led Anita Mendoza as his partner to the head of the country-dance, was the usual routine of the ball room resumed. All pretensions to etiquette had vanished; and good-humour, mirth, and jollity reigned triumphant throughout the evening. Many thought Bruin’s lot not only bearable but even enviable, judging from the easy and smiling reception with which his attentions were welcomed by courtly lady and stately dame. The supper that followed was as merry as the dance; and our hero, divesting himself of his bearish accoutrements, was as much the source of amusement in the supper-room by his jokes as in the ball-room by his tricks. Refreshing himself with copious draughts of champagne, he appeared to find no difficulty whatever in allaying hunger in the absence of young unicorns.
But the merriest night must have a close, and the clearest head will get dizzy under the influence of champagne; and Tom, finding himself unusually excited, and unwilling to detract from the éclat of his previous debout, slid unperceived out of the room.