The Martian: A Novel - George Du Maurier

Part Fifth

"Ô céleste haine,
Comment t'assouvir?
Ô souffrance humaine,
Qui te peut guérir?
Si lourde est ma peine
J'en voudrais mourir—
Tel est mon désir!
"Navré de comprendre,
Las de compatir,
Pour ne plus entendre,
Ni voir, ni sentir,
Je suis prêt à render
Mon dernier soupir—
Et c'est mon désir!
"Ne plus rien connaître,
Ni me souvenir—
Ne jamais renaître,
Ni me rendormir—
Ne plus jamais être,
Mais en bien finir—
Voilà mon désir!"— Anon.

Barty went third class to Bruges, and saw all over it, and slept at the "Fleur de Blé," and heard new chimes, and remembered his Longfellow.

Next morning, a very fine one, as he was hopefully smoking his centime cigar with immense relish near the little three‑horsed wagonette that was to bear him to Blankenberghe, he saw that he was to have three fellow‑passengers, with a considerable amount of very interesting luggage, and rejoiced.

First, a tall man about thirty, in a very smart white summer suit, surmounted by a jaunty little straw hat with a yellow ribbon. He was strikingly handsome, and wore immense black whiskers but no mustache, and had a most magnificent double row of white, pearly teeth, which he showed very much when he smiled, and he smiled very often. He was evidently a personage of importance and very well off, for he gave himself great airs and ordered people about and chaffed them, and it made them laugh instead of making them angry; and he was obeyed with wonderful alacrity. He spoke French fluently, but with a marked Italian accent.

Next, a very blond lady of about the same age, not beautiful, but rather overdressed, and whose accent, when she spoke French, was very German, and who looked as if she might be easily moved to wrath. Now and then she spoke to the gentleman in a very audible Italian aside, and Barty was able to gather that her Italian was about as rudimentary as his own.

Last and least, a pale, plain, pathetic little girl of six or eight, with a nose rather swollen, and a black plait down her back, and large black eyes, something like Leah Gibson's; and she never took these eyes off Barty's face.

Their luggage consisted of two big trunks, a guitar and violin (in their cases), and music‑books bound together by a rope.