Mr Arthur Ansard, standing at his table, selecting a steel pen from a card on which a dozen are ranged up, like soldiers on parade.
I must find a regular graver to write this chapter of horrors. No goose quill could afford me any assistance. Now then. Let me see—(Reads, and during his reading Barnstaple comes in at the door behind him, unperceived.) “At this most monstrously appalling sight, the hair of Piftlianteriscki raised slowly the velvet cap from off his head, as if it had been perched upon the rustling quills of some exasperated porcupine—(I think that’s new)—his nostrils dilated to that extent that you might, with ease, have thrust a musket bullet into each—his mouth was opened so wide, so unnaturally wide, that the corners were rent asunder, and the blood slowly trickled down each side of his bristly chin—while each tooth loosened from its socket with individual fear.—Not a word could he utter, for his tongue, in its fright, clung with terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies of the fresh and slimy soles, paired together by some fisherwoman; but if his tongue was paralysed, his heart was not—it throbbed against his ribs with a violence which threatened their dislocation from the sternum, and with a sound which reverberated through the dark, damp subterrene—” I think that will do. There’s force there.
Barnstaple. There is, with a vengeance. Why, what is all this?
Ansard. My dear Barnstaple, you here! I’m writing a romance for B—. It is to be supposed to be a translation.
Barnstaple. The Germans will be infinitely obliged to you; but, my dear fellow, you appear to have fallen into the old school—that’s no longer in vogue.
Ansard. My orders are for the old school. B— was most particular on that point. He says that there is a re-action—a great re-action.
Barnstaple. What, on literature? Well, he knows as well as any man. I only wish to God there was in everything else, and we could see the good old times again.
Ansard. To confess the truth, I did intend to have finished this without saying a word to you. I wished to have surprised you.
Barnstaple. So you have, my dear fellow, with the few lines I have heard. How the devil are you to get your fellow out of that state of asphyxia?
Ansard. By degrees—slowly—very slowly—as they pretend that we lawyers go to heaven. But I’ll tell you what I have done, just to give you an idea of my work. In the first place, I have a castle perched so high up in the air, that the eagles, even in their highest soar, appear but as wrens below.