Fathers and mothers are worldly, as a matter of course. It comes upon them just like chronic rheumatism, or baldness, or any other infirmity of time and years, but it's hateful to see young people calculating and speculating; planning for this, and plotting for that. You ask, perhaps, "What has this to do with foreign travel?" and I say, "Everything." Your young lady that has polka'd at Paris, galloped up the Rhine, waltzed at Vienna, and bolero'd at Madrid, has about as much resemblance to an English or Irish girl brought up at home as the show-off horse of a circus has to a thoroughbred hunter. It's all training and teaching,—very graceful, perhaps, and pretty to look at,—but only fit for display, and worth nothing without lamps, sawdust, and spectators. Now, these things are not native to us, partly from climate, partly from old habit, prejudice, and natural inclination. We like to have a home. Our fireside has a kind of religious estimation in our eyes, associated as it is with that family grouping that includes everything from two years and a half to eighty,—from the pleasant prattle of infancy to the harmless murmurings of grandpapa. The foreigner—I don't care of what nation, they are all alike—has no idea of this. His own house to him is only one remove above a prison. He has little light, and less fire; neither comfort nor companionship! For him, life means society, plenty of well-dressed people, handsome salons, wax-lights, movement, bustle, and confusion, the din of five hundred tongues that only wag for scandal, and the sparkle of eyes that are only brilliant for wickedness.
These foreigners are really wonderful people, so frivolous about all that is grave or serious, so sober-minded in every folly and absurdity, we never rightly understand them, and that is one reason why all our imitation of them is so ludicrous.
Have you ever seen a fellow in a circus, Tom, whose feat was to jump from a horse's back through some half-dosen hoops a little bigger than his body? He has kept this performance for his finish, for it is his chef d'oeuvre and he wants to "sink in full glory resplendent." Somehow or other, though, he can't summon up pluck for the effort. Now the horse goes wrong leg, now it's the fault of the fellows that hold the hoops, now the pace is not fast enough; in fact, nothing goes right with him, and there he spins round and round, wishing with all his heart it was done and over. I 'm pretty much in the same plight this moment, Tom, at least as regards hesitation and indecision; for while I have been rambling on about foreign life and manners, my mind was full of a very different theme; but from downright shame have I kept off it, for I 'm tired of recording all our miseries and misfortunes. Here goes, however, for the spring,—I can't defer it any longer.
Since I came back, I have n't exchanged ten words with Mrs. D. It is an armed truce between us, and each stands ready, and only waiting for the attack. If, however, I consign to oblivion all remembrance of her extravagance, the chance is that she is to keep blind to my infidelity! In a word, the picnic and Mrs. G. are to be buried together. Of course the terms of our convention prevented my learning much of the family doings in my absence. Even had I moved for any papers or correspondence on the subject, I should have been met by a flat refusal; and, in fact, I was left, the way poor Curran used to say of himself, to pick up my facts from the opposite counsel's statement. I was not long destined to the bliss of ignorance. Such a hurricane of bills and accounts I never withstood before. James, however, by what arts of flattery I know not, succeeded in getting bold of his mother's bank-book, and went out, a few evenings ago, and paid everything; and, that we might escape at once from this den of iniquity, went immediately to the Prefecture for our passport. The Commissary was at his café, whither James followed him, and, somehow or other, an angry discussion got up between them, and they separated, after exchanging something that was not the compliments of the season.
I 'm so used to rows and shindies that I went fast asleep while he was telling me of it; but the following morning I was to have a jog to my memory that I did n't expect,—no less than two gendarmes, with their carbines on their arms, having arrived to escort me to the "Bureau of the Police." I dressed accordingly, and set out alone; for although James might have been useful in many ways, I was too much afraid of his rashness and hot temper to take him. We arrived before the door was open, and spent twenty minutes in the street, surrounded by a mixed assemblage, who commented upon me and my supposed crime with great freedom and impartiality.
After another long wait in a dirty ante-room, I was ushered into a large chamber, where the great functionary was seated at a table covered with papers, and at a smaller one, close by, sat what I perceived to be his clerk, or private secretary. Of course I imagined it was for something that James had said the previous evening that I was thus arraigned, and though I thought it was like reading the passage in the Decalogue backwards, to make the father suffer for the children, I resolved to be patient and submissive throughout.
"Your name?" said the Commissary, bluntly, but never offering me a seat, nor even noticing my "Good-morning."
"Dodd," said I, as shortly.
"Christian name?"
"Kenny James."