LOVE.
———
BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.
———
The winds are tranquil on the heaving deep;
And from her azure throne Night bendeth down,
And to old Ocean’s brow transfers her crown
Of peerless beauty. All things are asleep!—
Save Love, who doth his ceaseless vigils keep
In my fond heart, where to thine image, now,
He kneeleth, breathing many a passionate vow,
And earnest prayer, filled with affection deep.
Like pious pilgrim at his sainted shrine,
His dearest treasures, and most precious things—
Devotion, constancy and truth he brings,
And lays them humble offerings upon thine,
Inspired with trusting hope that thou, who art
All gentleness, wilt smile, nor bid him to depart.
DOCTOR SIAN SENG
OR THE CHINAMAN IN PARIS
———
(FROM THE FRENCH OF MERY.)
———
(Concluded from page 128.)
“I am,” cried I, falling at her feet, “a simple mortal, who loses his senses before your beauty.”
“Get up! doctor, get up,” said the danseuse, with a countenance of severity suddenly assumed—“no nonsense before your god-daughter! You forget yourself—she will tell a thousand stories when we get home. Have you never seen the ‘Terrible Children of Gavarni?’ They are all spies, these little innocents!”
I got up from my knees in confusion, and excused myself as well as I could. Her anger seemed to cool. She gave me her hand, and drawing a deep sigh, said,
“If I had all these beautiful things in my drawing-room, I should consider myself richer than the Sultana Valida.”
“This evening, Mademoiselle, my Chinese parlor shall be transferred to your hotel.”
“Well then, doctor, I will go and prepare for it. I hope you are in earnest, for the fun of the thing, even if it were only to shame the Parisians by your generosity. By the bye, wouldn’t you like to sketch my left foot also? What will you do with one foot without the other—don’t be modest—have the match to it!”
“Mademoiselle, I dared not ask you—”
“Ah! I am always generous—I don’t do things by halves.”
“What kindliness and grace! Mademoiselle, it is not this miserable collection I should offer you. I would I could place at your feet the pagoda of the suburb Vai lo ching, which is of porcelain, with tiles of massive gold!”
“That would suit me exactly, particularly the tiles!—Is my foot placed right?”
“My design is completed, Mademoiselle; my gratitude for your kindness will never end—may I call to-morrow to visit you?”
“To-morrow—dear doctor, to-morrow is an unlucky day! I dance to-morrow, and must practice for five hours.”
“The day after, then?”
“The day after? that’s Saturday—I always dine with my mother on Saturday—Sunday I shall be free as air. Suppose I take you to Versailles on Sunday? we can eat a hare at a country inn, and drink milk. You will accept my invitation will you not?—agreed then. Oh! how delighted I shall be to get into the fields and inhale the fragrance of the flowers. Sunday, then, dear doctor, my carriage shall be at your door at twelve o’clock; I am as exact as a Breguet watch—adieu!”
We have no women in China—it is the only thing our ancestors forgot to invent! If Mademoiselle Alexandrine were to appear at Pekin she would take the empire by storm! You can form no idea of that divine creature—graceful as a bird—speaking as melodiously as she sings—springing as she walks—doing a thousand delicious things in a moment, and throwing at you sweet and flashing glances, like the twinkling of a star.
In quitting my parlor, she left a void which made me nervous. It was necessary to do something not to fall a prey to melancholy. I hurried my servants to the four corners of the street for porters, and in about an hour my room was cleared—before dinner my beautiful danseuse had received every thing. What a sweet night I had! I had the copy of each foot in either hand! and I said to myself, at this moment she is blessing me—she praises my generosity before the altar of Tien—in her eyes a single man exists! and that is me!—for her the rest of the world has disappeared!
With what impatience was Sunday expected—that Sunday which promised me such happiness! I wanted to break all the clocks about me, because they seemed joined in a conspiracy against me, to lengthen out Saturday! Notwithstanding my impatience the hours rolled round, and on Sunday, an age after the clock struck eleven, it announced mid-day.
I stood in my balcony and devoured every carriage with my eyes. At six o’clock I had seen all the carriages in Paris roll by—and I was still alone! Alone! when one has been promised a rendezvous! There is in this deception the very delirium of despair!
As soon as it was proper I ran to visit Mademoiselle de St. Phar. The porter, hardly concealing a smile, said, “Mademoiselle de Saint Phar has gone to the country.”
“When will she return?” asked I, with deathlike visage.
“After Easter or Christmas,” answered the porter.
As I came away I heard loud laughter in chorus from the whole family of porters.
No news of Mademoiselle de Saint Phar! Every night at the opera—but no danseuse. Her name no longer appeared in the bills—it had disappeared from the ballet as her person had from her hotel.
Could I abase my dignity as representative of the Celestial Empire by causing search to be made for a danseuse? What would the grand secretary for foreign affairs have said of me! I could only suffer in silence. So I did suffer—and hold my tongue.
Forty days after that fatal Sunday I was walking along a great street, whose name I forget, and having a habit of reading signs as I pass along, what was my astonishment to read the following:
“CITY OF PEKIN!”
Chinese Curiosities at fix’d prices.
In taking a glance at the window, I recognized some of those I had formerly owned. So I stepped into the shop, resolved to repurchase them if the price were not too high. An involuntary exclamation escaped me! the shopkeeper was a young woman—in short, Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar!
I was thunderstruck, and as immovable as one of my clay compatriots at my side: but the danseuse smiled charmingly, and without interrupting her embroidery work, she said with a sang froid sublime,
“Ah! good morning, dear doctor—you are very good to favor us so early with a visit—look around and see if you cannot find something here to your taste. Your god-daughter has the small-pox—she asks for her god-father every day—the dear little Dileri!”
I crossed my arms upon my breast and shook my head—a pantomime which I have remarked in a drama at the Theatre Ambigu means “what infamy!”
Mademoiselle cast a sidelong glance at me—shrugged her shoulders, and biting off a scarlet thread with her teeth, said—
“By the bye, dear doctor, I am married now—I have been a wife fifteen days—Madame Telamon, at your service. I will introduce you to my husband—a very handsome man—you would scarcely reach to his waist even if you raised yourself upon your toes. Hold! here he is!”
I saluted her hastily, and left the shop furiously angry, the more so that I was obliged to conceal my rage. A single glance I gave toward the husband—real or false—sufficed for me to recognize the pretended decorator at the opera, who came to my box to invite my judgment upon his Chinese kiosque. That I had been the victim of a regular conspiracy was very evident—resignation was my only resource.
A fortnight afterward I assumed a disguise, and had the weakness to go and promenade before the shop in the evening twilight, to catch a last glimpse of the unworthy object of my idolatry.
The colossal husband was brushing the dust from a mandarin in porcelain, and I heard him murmur,
“If that Doctor Sian Seng should attempt to set his foot inside my door again, I’ll choke him, pack him in straw, and sell his carcass to the doctors for fifteen louis!”
Oh no! I shall never see this beautiful monster again; I have the resolution of a man and of a philosopher; I will fulfill my mission to the end, and will again make myself worthy of you, oh! holy city, which the silver moon illumines so caressingly when from the top of Mount Tyryathon she hangs like a lantern of silk from Nanking!
In Paris there are physicians who devote themselves entirely to specific diseases; there are some who treat only infants at the breast; others, after weaning; others who prescribe only for those of sixty and above of it. Bills are stuck up at the corners of all the streets, and advertisements in the newspapers, proclaiming a thousand infallible receipts for the six hundred maladies which the celebrated Pi-ké has found to germinate in the human body. They have discovered amongst other curious things in physics, how to put a new nose upon faces unfortunately deprived of that ornament, and to elongate it when too short. They make teeth of ivory for old men—hair for the bald—legs for those who have lost them—eyes for the blind—tongues for the dumb—ears for the deaf—brains for fools—and have wonderful methods to resuscitate the dead. But they forgot to invent one remedy—a cure for disappointed love! In China we know nothing about love; that passion was first discovered in France, by a troubadour called Raymond—for five hundred years it has ravaged fearfully. It is estimated that eleven millions seven hundred and thirty-eight persons have fallen victims to it, through assassinations, languishing death, and suicide, caused by this scourge of the human race—that amounts to double the number of victims of cholera in Asia since the reign of Aurengzebé. The French government have never taken any means to stop the progress of this epidemic, on the contrary, it pays largely toward the support of four royal theatres, where they celebrate the power of love and another mortal disease called champagne. Mr. Scribe has made a fortune of five hundred thousand francs a year, by celebrating the delights of love and champagne for the governmental theatres.
In leaving the shop where my Chinoiseries were sold by Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar, I had another violent attack of love; and you cannot imagine how I cursed that rascal Raymond. Having vented my rage where it was so well deserved, I began to think seriously about a cure, and I walked about the streets searching at every corner for some advertisement of a remedy; useless trouble! I went to the Hospital for Incurables, and asked the doctor there whether he had not some patient afflicted with this malady, so perfectly unknown in our harems; but he only shrugged his shoulders, and turned his back upon me. My head burned like fire—my heart beat violently—my eyes glazed. The phantom of Mademoiselle Alexandrine danced before my eyes continually with fascinating grace, my ears were filled with her silvery voice—alas! I lived only in her!
“Physician cure thyself,” has said the wise Menu—this thought suddenly occurred to me. Since the French doctors have forgotten to invent a cure for love, let us find a remedy; and we will give a Chinese name to this grand consolation for suffering Europe!
If I could live for a week without thinking of Mademoiselle Alexandrine I should be saved! It was impossible to remain in my lodgings, every thing there reminded me of her, the faithless one! Besides, solitude never cures the wounds of love, it only festers them. Visits to the country are still more dangerous. The streets, boulevards and theatres are filled with women, and the species too often reminds one of the individual traitress; still it is necessary to live a week in total forgetfulness of the ungrateful fair.
Fo has inspired me; let me render thanks to Fo! Paris is filled with monuments, many of them very high; I chose four from among them—the tower of Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Column Vendôme and the tower of St. James; by the payment of a few sous, one is permitted to ascend these towers, which are kept by a tractable porter. I resolved to pass some days in going up and down the stairs of these monuments and towers without taking rest, only, to vary the monotony of this continual ascent and descent, I jumped into a cabriolet occasionally at the Place Vendôme, drove to the Depôt of the Railroad to Versailles, and traversed the distance to that royal city five or six times, with my eyes shut. When evening came I returned home, and, after a slight repast, went to bed and slept soundly.
In my dreams I imagined that huge giants poised me in a swing, hung over the moon on a golden nail, and the fright I had in such an alarming position drove the phantom of Alexandrine from the boundless space in which I undulated between the Pantheon and the fixed stars!
The eighth day the porters of the four towers closed their doors against me, saying that I would wear out their stairs! My cure not being complete, I took to the road to Versailles, and hiring a carriage by the day, drove first on one side of the river, and then on the other, for five days longer, with the most salutary fatigue—at the end of a fortnight my remedy triumphed.
In looking back upon my endless routine of dark stairs—of dreamy swingings—and the ceaseless rumblings of my carriage, I perceived in the hazy distance the fleeting image of the false Alexandrine, and it appeared as if my passionate love were like the tale of a past age, or of an extinguished world!
A single instant I was recalled to the sensible recollection of her. In looking over my cash, I observed the enormous void caused by the expenditure of the 3700 francs at Garbo & Gamboi’s. The spirit of Chinese ingenuity and enterprise inspired me with a happy thought. I was upon the eve of recovering my lost francs! I inserted an advertisement in all the journals of the day, as follows:
RADICAL CURE FOR
DISAPPOINTED LOVE,
IN FIFTEEN DAYS?!!
Consult from 12 till 2 o’clock,
DOCTOR SIAN SENG,
Rue Neuve de Luxembourg.
No Cure, no Pay:
I did not expect such success as attended me. What a city! what a people! How quickly do new opinions become popular!
The first day I had 300 visits for consultation at 20 francs each. The second I was obliged to seek at the Prefecture of Police four gend’arms as a protection! They took my office by assault. At length I hit upon a plan of giving advice to classes of twelve at a time, which in some measure reduced the crowd.
The week following I gave public lectures at the Athenæum, at five francs the ticket. Mr. Lefort told me the fashion would not last long, and that I should “make hay while the sun shone”—a proverb Menu forgot to make!—besides, there was danger that the prefect of police would close the monuments. I therefore entered into a contract with the porter at the Tower of St. James, to receive all my patients who subscribed for a fortnight.
The two trains to Versailles were filled with victims with closed eyes! I was told that if I would ask the minister for a patent, that he would probably grant me a pension—as they did to Mr. Daguerre—of six thousand francs a year.
My best reward, however, I found in the unanimous gratitude of my relieved and happy patients; they wanted to strike a gold medal in my honor!—unheard of enthusiasm!
Five of my most inveterate cases, aged from twenty to fifty years, struck with an infatuation for the vaudeville, of which I relieved them, became great proselytes to my doctrines, and are determined to prosecute it on their own account after my departure—they even propose to purchase the Tower of St. James by subscription, and add two hundred more steps to the ascent.
Ti-en has given to the world no malady without its cure; he has placed the water-lily by the side of the pimento—the wood to make the sluice beside the torrent of Kiang-ho. It is for man to discover the remedy. Ti-en knows always what he does—and we—we do what we know not!
My mind is now calm; my heart is light, as is every thing which is empty. I shall now go and take my leave of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and endeavor to correct the errors in diplomacy I have made, since I have been possessed by the foot of Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar!
DOCTOR SIAN SENG.
“A true copy.” Mery.