A LOSS AND A RECOVERY.
I need not dwell upon my course of life during the next few months. Most men have experienced what it is to make one’s way in a strange town, and I do not think it would be very interesting to any one, if I were to give a detailed account of the process of being made a factitious lion of. My good friend the bookseller would have it so in my case: he wanted a lion at that moment: there was no other material at hand, and he made me into a lion. Not a newspaper did I open, without seeing my name in it. If I went to look at Faneuil Hall, or strolled from Court Street to the Common, it was sure to be recorded for the public, and by the mere act of iteration the public were driven by seeing my name every day, to think I must be somebody. But the worst of this lion system is, that it is not always very easy to shake off your lion skin when you are tired of it. I confess I began to be weary of seeing my name in the columns of the journals, and at first I was inclined to correct all the various lies that were told about me, and to assure the people of Boston, in print, that I had never done fifty things I was reported to have done, and never intended to do fifty other things that were sketched out for me by the fertile imagination of various editors. A kind and judicious friend, however, advised me to refrain; and as this little sort of false celebrity obtained for me a great number of most delightful acquaintances, I was obliged to take the good with the bad, and receive much hospitality and kindly and instructive communion, as some compensation for being made to dance grotesquely in the public prints. I lost no opportunity, however, of denying, in private, all that was said about me in public, of telling all my friends in the city that I was not the great man, or the celebrated character I was represented—that I had never been in La Vendee in my life, and had never even seen a battle but that of Zurich. I must do them the justice to say also, that these confessions did not diminish their kindness in the least; and that when they found me to be a very plain, humble person, they were, perhaps, more hospitable and friendly than before. The writing of my book was favorable to me in all respects. It was but a poor affair, it is true; but it saved my little fortune, filled the pockets of the bookseller—for its success was ridiculous, in consequence of all the Charlitanism which was used before it appeared—and it did still more for me, by weaning my thoughts from the one deep, sorrowful subject of contemplation, which otherwise would have engrossed my mind continually. The autumn was coming on rapidly when it appeared; the woods around were glowing with colors such as I never in my life beheld in Nature’s robe before; and partly to get away from the crowds of a great city, partly to enjoy the loveliness of the scenery at a little distance from Boston, I used to wander forth early in the morning, and often not return till nightfall. I used sometimes, too, to call at the post-office and inquire for letters, with very little expectation of receiving any. Who would write to me, unless it were good Professor Haas or Monsieur Du Four? but from the former I thought there had been but little time to hear, and upon the promises of the latter I placed but little reliance.
One day, however, a thick letter was handed to me, with my address written on coarse German paper, with a black seal, and bearing the post-mark of Hamburgh. The handwriting, however, was not that of the good old professor; and I opened it with considerable apprehension, thinking that he must be ill, and must have employed some other hand to write for him. It was worse than I expected. Professor Haas was dead; and the letter was from his old friend the notary, who had drawn up the marriage contract between Louise and myself. He informed me of the fact of my friend’s death, in brief, formal terms, and then went on to state that Professor Haas had left the whole bulk of his property to me, naming as executors, one of his fellow professors and the notary himself, with directions to sell his house, and all that he possessed, and remit the money to a great banking-house in London for my benefit. I thought this a somewhat strange proceeding till I read further. I then found that the professor, who had always entertained the most profound horror for Revolutionists, had, during his latter days, and especially his sickness, become impressed with a notion that the French Republicans would sooner or later get possession of Hamburgh, and plunder the whole city. Ample directions were added to enable me to dispose of the money in any way I pleased, and more than one half of the paper was occupied with a long statement of accounts, which I did not even try to understand. The sum already remitted to England, however, was large, and enough to put me at my ease for life.
First impressions are, I suppose, always the most generous ones; and however great might have been the relief at any other moment to know that the means of subsistence were no longer to depend upon the caprice of Fortune, the intelligence afforded me but little consolation, when coupled with the death of my poor friend. I was very, very sad. The last earthly tie between myself and my poor Louise seemed gone; and all the painful memories connected with the last days of her life, revived as darkly and gloomily as ever. I took no steps in regard to the property. I did not even answer the notary’s letter; but day after day I walked out over the curious broken ground, and cedar-covered hills to the south and west of Boston, meditating sadly upon the past. At the face of nature I used to look from time to time, finding I know not what, of similarity between the fading aspect of the autumn-woods and the withering away of my own hopes and happiness. But I looked little at man when he fell in my way, and many a time felt half angry when a fellow walker on the same road gave me good day, or stopped to ask me the hour. There were very few human habitations in that direction at the time; and one solitary public house, about four miles from the city, I used to pass with my eyes always bent upon the ground. I know not what induced me to raise my eyes toward it one day, as I was walking along, somewhat more slowly than usual—for the weather had become suddenly sultry, in what they call the Indian Summer. Perhaps it was that my eye caught an indistinct sight of some one sitting under the veranda—an old man, very shabbily dressed in brown. I could not see his features, for I was at the distance of more than a hundred yards, and I only took a casual glance. But as I returned by the same road, the old man was still sitting there; and a young girl of twelve or thirteen years of age was standing by, talking to him, and offering him something in a cup. In my morose selfishness, I was going on without any further notice, when suddenly he took the girl’s arm, and rose up feebly, looking straight toward me. A strange feeling of recognition instantly seized upon me, and I turned sharply toward the house, with doubt in my mind, but certainty in my heart—a contrast that takes place more often than people imagine.
As I got near, doubt vanished. It was Father Bonneville; but as doubt disappeared with me, it seemed to increase with him, for it would seem that, although he had been very ill, I was far more changed than he was. Something in my gait and figure had struck him; but when he saw a broad and powerful young man, instead of the stripling who had been separated from him at Zurich, he could hardly believe in my identity, and did not feel quite sure till his hand was grasped in mine. I never saw the poor man so much agitated in all the many scenes we had passed through together. His usual calm placidity abandoned him entirely; and for a moment or two he wept with feelings which I am sure were not all unpleasant. I sat down beside him, while the girl ran into the house to tell her father, who was the landlord thereof, that the French gentleman had found a friend; and during her absence he told me that he had been living there for the last six weeks, almost on charity. He had sought me he said, far and near, and at length, partly from some preconception of the course I was likely to take, partly from some false information he had received in Holland, had concluded I had sailed for America, within four months after the battle of Zurich. He had in consequence embarked for New York, and had at that time made many efforts to make me acquainted with his arrival. For six months after reaching the shores of America, he had continued to receive supplies of money; but suddenly they had ceased, he said, and then for some time he had supported himself by teaching. His scholars fell off, however, and he was advised to try Boston; but his means were too small for the hotels or boarding-houses of that city, and feeling himself ill, he had come out to that remote place, both for purer air and greater economy. His money lasted but a fortnight, and he had explained to the landlord his situation. The good man—for he really was a good man—told him not to make himself uneasy, and proposed that he should teach his two daughters for his board until he was well enough to return to Boston again. But poor Father Bonneville soon became too ill, either to teach or to rise from his bed, and then all the native kindness of the people came forth. His two little pupils nursed him, he told me, as if he had been a parent. Their father supplied him with every thing that he required, and brought a physician, at his own expense, to see him.
“This is the third time I have left my room,” he said, “and they are still as kind as ever, though I have been a great burden to them.”
“No burden at all, my good man,” said the landlord, who was by this time standing by our side. “It’s but little good one can do in this world, and God forbid we shouldn’t do it when we can. I am very happy, however, he has found one of his friends at last.”
“He has found one,” I said, shaking the landlord by the hand, “to whom he has been more than a father, and who will never forget your kindness to him. I thank God that I am now in a situation to say, he shall never at least know what want is again.”
“Well, well,” said the landlord, “that is all very well. But you had better come into the house and talk it out there. We are just going to dinner, and there’s as good a chowder as ever was made. He told my girl he couldn’t eat just now, but he’s got his appetite back now, I guess.”
We went in; and I sat down with them to their plain meal with more satisfaction than if I had been invited to a prince’s table.
Although my good old friend was exceedingly anxious to hear all my own adventures since we parted, I contrived to make him tell all that had occurred to him, which amounted to little more than what I have already stated. He had been detained by the Austrians, he said, for nearly two months, had been sent to Milan, and put in prison there, but in other respects had been well treated, and at length liberated, on its being made clear that he was a French emigrant with no political character. He hurried through the details, in order to get at my history, and then said, with a look of parental affection, “But now tell me, my dear Louis, what has happened to you since we met last? How comes that scar upon your cheek? Where have you been staying? And why are you in such deep mourning?”
The last words sent all the color from my cheek. I could feel the blood rush away as if to fill my heart too full, and I shook my head sadly, saying, “Do not ask me about that just now.”
I then related to him all that had occurred previous to my arrival in Hamburgh; how, after I had shot the man who was going to murder him, I had turned back to assist Lavater; how I had been knocked down and trodden under feet by the Austrian soldiers, and afterward carried to the hospital; I then told him that I had suffered from poverty as well as himself, and that I had begged my way to the north of Germany. “That is all over now,” I added, “and I trust that we shall never know such days again.”
“Well, you two have had a pretty hard life of it,” said the good landlord—for we had been speaking in English all the time, so that he understood us. “You were great people in your own country, I dare say; and that made it all the harder for you.”
“Not very great people,” I replied, “but very comfortable, and very happy, till we were driven forth for no fault of our own.”
I judged from what I saw of good Father Bonneville at this time, that he had not yet sufficiently recovered to return to Boston, and I therefore left him where he was for the night, promising to see him early on the following day. Although engaged to go out to a party in the city, I remained at home that evening pondering upon my course of action. I read over again, and more attentively, the letter from the notary, answered it, and signed the accounts, although to say truth, I knew little of the affairs to which they referred. I then considered long, and somewhat anxiously, two plans which naturally suggested themselves to my mind. The first was, to go to England, receive the sum which there awaited me, and establish myself with Father Bonneville in that country. But strange to say I had a dislike to the idea of visiting England. Father Bonneville, in all our wanderings, had shown no desire to take refuge in a land where so many other emigrants had found safety and met with hospitality. Views prejudicial to England had been widely circulated amongst the inhabitants of all those countries which entertain feelings and jealousies against Great Britain, on account of her calm, steady, and, at the same time, extraordinary progress in arts, sciences, commerce and arms. Even the very Swiss, while they admired and applauded it, did not like England; and the isolation of her geographical position seemed to affect the character of her inhabitants as well as her policy and her interests. Like every one who has never been in England, I conceived the most false and inferior idea of her people, her views, and her very aspect. I imagined that it was a cold, bleak, ungenial country, everlastingly overhung by fogs, with the sun rarely, if ever, apparent, and deriving its great wealth and importance solely from its commerce. I believed the people to be haughty, self-sufficient and repulsive, unsocial in all their habits, and although occasionally generous and benevolent, actuated upon all ordinary occasions by motives of self-interest and commercial selfishness. I had heard a great deal at Hamburgh, in the society of the professors there, of her treatment of scientific and literary men, of the cold neglect they experience, of their exclusion from all that forms the ambition of others, of the honors paid to them when dead, and the misery to which they were subjected while living. The old maxim still rang in my ears, that France was the country for a literary man to live in, and England for him to die in; and I believed that there really could be very little good or generous in a nation which displayed such cold neglect and bitter injustice toward those who labored to elevate the human mind, and whose names form no insignificant part of her glory. I was now, I thought, in a beautiful and youthful country, comprising within itself every climate and every soil, offering opportunity and encouragement to every one, where thought and action were free, where progress was rapid beyond conception, where no invidious distinctions existed, where competence, if not wealth, was the sure reward of exertion—a land of youth, of hope, and energy. I thought of England, in short, as England was at that time conventionally represented on the continents of Europe and of America; not as I knew it to be. It is not wonderful therefore, that in the end I determined to remain in the country where I then was, and to send for the funds which had been invested in London, without visiting Great Britain myself. It must be remembered at the same time, that Napoleon was now in the plenitude of his power, commanding sovereigns and dictating to nations, and that England stood single-handed against a world in arms. There was little hope therefore that I could aid even in the slightest degree in relieving France from the tyranny under which she groaned, and that seemed to me the only object worthy of desire, which could lead me once more to traverse the Atlantic.
When I laid down my head upon my pillow that night, my determination was fully taken to remain in the United States; and with my fondness for visionary prospects, I drew a pleasant picture of a New England farm, with competence and literary ease, and rural occupations, diversified by those sports of the field which I had enjoyed so much in other years. How soon, and how speedily, all such visions melted away; all such resolutions came to an end.
I rose the following morning, carried my letter to the post-office, and carelessly asked if there were any communications for me. The good man with spectacles, answered yes, and from a great bundle, took out a letter for which he demanded a high postage. It came from New Orleans, and contained but a few words to the following effect.
“Faithful to my promise, I have made every inquiry, Monsieur De Lacy, for the friends in regard to whose fate you were anxious when I saw you. Of the good Father Bonneville I have been able to obtain no intelligence; but Madame de Salins and Mademoiselle, her daughter, are now in London, and perhaps a letter addressed to them at numero 3 Swallow Street, may obtain for you information regarding Monsieur De Bonneville.
“Accept the assurances of the constant consideration and regard of
Your devoted,
Charles Du Four.”
What was it that possessed me! What was it in the sight of those few words which altered in a moment all my determinations? I speak sincerely—and I looked into my own heart at the time, and have done so often since—and I believe that it was solely the awakening of old associations—the revival of the memories of happy youthful days. I pictured Father Bonneville, and Mariette and myself all living together again, as we had done in those happy days on the banks of the Rhine, and my teaching Mariette to read and write, totally forgetting that she was no longer a little girl of six or seven years old, and of our having a pretty house of our own, and a nice garden, and spending our days in pleasantness and peace. We are all dream-led in this world, and this was but one of the pleasantest dreams of my life, come back upon me to show how much the visions of imagination can effect against the realities of reason. I left the door of the post-office, where I read the letter, with my resolution fixed—and now unchangeable—to visit England as soon as Father Bonneville was well enough to undertake the voyage.
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