“The Russians, too, have left us; the Geroboffskys gone back to their snows again, and expiating their 'liberal tendencies' by a tour in Siberia. The Chaptowitsch, recalled in disgrace for asking one of Louis Philippe's sons to a breakfast! We have got in exchange a few Carlists, half a dozen 'Legitimists,' with very stately manners and small fortunes. But a good house to dine at, a good salon for a lounge, a pleasant haunt for all seasons and at all hours, what is there? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And what a city this was once! crammed, as it used to be, with dear, delightful 'ruined families;' that is, those who left ruin to their creditors at home, to come out and live gloriously abroad. And now I look down my list, and, except my little Sunday dinner at 'Marescotte's,' and that half luncheon thing I take at the Villa Pessarole, I really see nothing for the whole week. The Onslows, alone, figure in strong capitals. Let me see, then, how they must be treated. I have already housed them at the Palazzo Mazzarini, and, for some days at least, their time will be filled up with upholsterers, decorators, and such-like. Then the campaign will open, and I can but watch eventualities, and there will be no lack of these. The young Guardsman likes play. I must see that Prince Carini does not get hold of him. Miss Onslow has a taste for Gothic and stained glass; that, nowadays, often ends in a love of saints' shin-bones and other relics. My lady is disposed to be a 'fast one;' and, in fact, except the gruff old doctor, who is a confounded bore, the whole craft is deficient in ballast. But I was forgetting 'the Dalton,' shame on me, for she is very pretty, indeed!” He seemed to ruminate and reflect for some minutes, and then said aloud, “Yes, ma belle Catharine, with the aid of Albert Jekyl, with his counsel to guide, and his head to direct you, there 's no saying what your destiny might not be! It would be, I know well, very hard to convince you of the fact, and, possibly, were I to try it, you 'd be silly enough to fancy me in love with you!” Albert Jekyl in love! The idea was so excellent that he lay back and laughed heartily at it. “And yet,” said he, after a pause, “you 'll see this fact aright one of these days. You 'll learn the immense benefit my knowledge would be when joined to your own beauty. Ay, Kate! but it will be too late, just so, too late; then, like every one else, you 'll have played all your trumps before you begin to learn the game. A girl who has caught up every trick of manner, every little tactic of society within a month, and who, at this hour, would stand the scrutiny of the most fastidious eye, is a great prize in the wheel. This aptitude might lead to great things, though, in all probability, it will never conduce, save to very little ones!”
With this reflection Jekyl arose to begin his toilet, an occupation which, less from dandyism than pure self-love, he usually prolonged during the whole morning. It was to him a period of self-examination. He seemed, to use a mercantile figure, to be taking stock of his own capabilities, and investigating his own means of future success.
It was an “open day,” that is, he knew not where he should dine; so that his costume, while partaking of all the characteristics of the morning, had yet combined certain little decorative traits that would not be unsuitable if pressed to accept an unpremeditated hospitality.
There were very few, indeed, with whom Jekyl would have condescended so to dine, not only from the want of dignity incurred, but that on principle he would have preferred the humblest fare at home to the vulgarity of a pot-luck dinner, which invariably, as he said himself, deranged your digestion, and led to wrong intimacies.
His dress being completed, he looked out along the crowd to see in whose carriage he was to have a seat to the Cascini. More than one inviting gesture motioned him to a place, as equipage after equipage passed on; but although some of those who sought him were high in rank, and others distinguished for beauty and attraction, Jekyl declined the courtesies with that little wave of the hand so significative in all Italian intercourse. Occasionally, indeed, a bland, regretful smile seemed to convey the sorrow the refusal cost him; and once he actually placed his hand over where his heart might be, as though to express a perfect pang of suffering; but still he bided his time.
At last a very dark visage, surrounded by a whisker of blackest hair, peeped from beneath the head of a very shabby caleche, whose horse and coachman were all of the “seediest;” and Jekyl cried out, “Morlache!” while he made a sign towards the Cascini. The other replied by spreading out his hand horizontally from his mouth, and blowing along the surface, a pantomime meant to express a railroad. Jekyl immediately descended and took his place beside him.
CHAPTER XXI. A FAMILY PICTURE
THE fashionable life of a great city has a character of sameness which defies all attempts at portraiture. Well-bred people, and their amusements, are all constructed so perfectly alike, certain family traits pervading them throughout, that every effort at individualization is certain to be a failure. You may change the venue, if you will, from London to Paris, to Vienna, or St. Petersburg, but the issue is always the same; the very same interests are at work, and the same passions exercised, by the self-same kind of people. If such be the rule among the first-rate capitals of Europe, it is very far from being the case in those smaller cities which belong to inferior States, and which, from reasons of health, pleasure, or economy, are the resort of strangers from different parts of the world. In these society is less disciplined, social rank less defined; conflicting claims and rival nationalities disturb the scene, and there is, so to say, a kind of struggle for pre-eminence, which in better regulated communities is never witnessed. If, as is unquestionably true, such places rarely present the attractions of good society, they offer to the mere observer infinitely more varied and amusing views of life than he would ever expect to see elsewhere. As in the few days of a revolution, when the “barricades are up,” and all hurrying to the conflict, more of national character will be exhibited than in half a century of tame obedience to the law; so here are displayed, to the sun and the noonday, all those passions and pretensions which rarely see the light in other places.
The great besetting sin of this social state is the taste for NOTORIETY. Everything must contribute to this. Not alone wealth, splendor, rank, and genius, but vice, in all its shapes and forms, must be notorious. “Better be calumniated in all the moods and tenses than untalked of,” is the grand axiom. Do something that can be reported of you, good, if you will, bad, if you must; but do it. If you be not rich enough to astonish by the caprices of your wealth, do something by your wits, or even your whiskers. The color of a man's gloves has sufficed to make his fortune.