The Potiphar Papers

by George William Curtis

“Yes, my dear Madame,” answered the Pacha, “this is indeed making the best of one’s opportunities. This is well worth coming to Europe for. It is, in fact, for this that Europe is chiefly valuable to an American, as the experience of an observer shows. Paris is, notoriously, the great centre of historical and romantic interest. To be sure, Italy, Rome, Switzerland, and Germany,—yes, and even England,—have some few objects of interest and attention. But the really great things of Europe, the superior interests, are all in Paris. Why, just reflect. Here is the Café de Paris, the Trois Frères, and the Maison Dorée. I don’t think you can get such dinners elsewhere. Then, there is the Grand Opera, the Comic Opera, and now and then the Italian—I rather think that is good music. Are there any such theatres as the Vaudeville, the Varietés, and the Montansier, where there is the most dexterous balancing on the edge of decency that ever you saw; and when the balance is lost, as it always is, at least a dozen times every evening, the applause is tremendous, showing that the audience have such a subtile sense of propriety that they can detect the slightest deviation from the right line. Is there not the Louvre, where, if there is not the best picture of a single great artist, there are good specimens of all? Will you please to show me such a promenade as the Boulevards, such fetês as those of the Champ Elysées, such shops as those of the Passages, and the Palais Royal. Above all, will you indicate to such students of mankind as Mr. Boosey, Mr. Firkin, and I, a city more abounding in piquant little women, with eyes, and coiffures and toilettes, and je ne sais quoi, enough to make Diogenes a dandy, to obtain their favor? I think, dear Madame, you would be troubled to do it. And while these things are Paris, while we are sure of an illimitable allowance of all this in the gay capital, we do right to remain here. Let who will, sadden in mouldy old Rome, or luxuriate in the orange-groves of Sorento and the south, or wander among the ruins of the most marvellous of empires, and the monuments of art of the highest human genius, or float about the canals of Venice, or woo the Venus and the Apollo; and learn from the silent lips of those teachers a lore sweeter than the French novelists impart;—let who will, climb the tremendous Alps, and feel the sublimity of Switzerland as he rises from the summer of Italian lakes and vineyards to the winter of the glaciers, or makes the tour of all climates in a day by descending those mountains towards the south;—let those who care for it, explore in Germany the sources of modern history, and the remote beginnings of the American spirit;—ours be the Boulevards, the demoiselles, the operas, and the unequalled dinners. Decency requires that we should see Rome, and climb an Alps. We will devote a summer week to the one, and a winter month to the other. They will restore us renewed and refreshed for the manly, generous, noble, and useful life we lead in Paris.”

“Admirably said,” returned Mrs. Potiphar, who had been studying the ladies opposite while the Pacha was speaking, “but a little bit prosy,” she whispered to me.

It would charm you to hear how intelligently Mrs. P. speaks about French society, since that evening at the opera. When we return, you will find how accomplished she is. We have been here only a few weeks, and we already know all the fashionable shops, and a little more French, and we go to the confectioners, and eat savarins every morning at 12, and we drive in the Bois de Boulogne in the afternoon, and we dine splendidly, and in the evening we go to the opera or a theatre. To be sure, we don’t have much society beside our own party. But then the shop-girls point out the distinguished women to Mrs. Potiphar, so that she can point them out when we drive; and our banker calls and keeps us up in gossip; and Mrs. Potiphar’s maid, Adèle, is inestimable in furnishing information; and Mr. Potiphar gets a great deal out of his commissionaire, and goes about studying his Galignani’s Guide, and frequents the English Heading Room, where I am told, he makes himself a little conspicuous when he finds that Englishmen won’t talk, by saying, “Oh! dear me!” and wiping his face with a bandanna. He usually opens his advances by making sure of an Englishman, and saying, “Bon matin,—but, perhaps, sir, you don’t speak French.”

“You evidently do not, sir,” replied one gentleman.

“No, sir; you’re right there,” answered Mr. P. But he couldn’t get another word from his companion.

In this delightful round the weeks glide by.

“You must be enjoying yourself immensely,” says the Pacha. “You understand life, my dear Mrs. Potiphar. Here you are, speaking very little French, in a city where the language is an atmosphere, and where you are in no sense acclimated until you can speak it fluently—with all French life shut out from you—living in a hotel—cheated by butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker—going to hear plays that you imperfectly understand—to an opera where you know nobody, and where your box is filled with your own countrymen, who are delightful, indeed, but whom you didn’t come to Paris to see—constantly buying a hundred things because they are pretty, and because you are in Paris—entirely ignorant, and quite as careless, of the historical interests of the city, of the pictures, of the statues, and buildings—surrounded by celebrities of all kinds, of whom you never heard, and therefore lose the opportunity of seeing them—in fact, paying the most extravagant price for everything, and purchasing only the consciousness of being in Paris—why, you ought to be happy, and considered to be having a fine time of it, if you are not? How naturally you will sigh for all this when you return and recur to Paris as the culmination of human bliss! Here’s my honored Potiphar, who has this morning been taken to a darkened room in a grand old house, in a lonely, aristocratic street; and there a picture-agent has shown him a splendid Nicolas Poussin, painted in his prime for the family, whose heir in reduced circumstances must now part with it at a tearful sacrifice. Honored P.‘s friend, the commissionaire, interprets this story, while the agent stands sadly meditating the sacrifice with which his duty acquaints him. He informs the good P., through the friendly commissionaire, that he has been induced to offer him the picture, not only because all Americans have so fine a taste (as his experience has proved to him) in paintings, nor because they are so much more truly munificent than the nobility of other nations, but because the heir in reduced circumstances wishes to think of the picture as entirely removed from the possibility of being seen in France. Family pride, which is almost crushed in disposing of so great and valued a work, would be entirely quenched, if the sale were to be known, and the picture recognized elsewhere in the country. Monsieur is a gentleman, and he will understand the feelings of a gentleman under such circumstances. The commissionaire and the picture-agent therefore preserve a profound silence, and my honored friend feels for his red bandanna, and is not comfortable in the lonely old house, with the picture and the people. The agent says that it is not unusual for the owner to visit the picture about that very hour, to hear what chance there is for its sale. If this knock should be he, it would not be very remarkable. The heir enters. He has a very heavy moustache, dark hair, and a slightly Hebrew cast of countenance.

“Mr. Potiphar is introduced. The heir contemplates the picture sadly, and he and the agent point out its beauties to each other. In fine, my honored Potiphar buys the work of art. To any one else, of course, in France, for instance, the price should be eleven thousand francs. But the French and the Americans have fraternized; a thousand francs shall be deducted.

“You see clearly it’s quite worth while coming to Paris to do this, because I suppose, there are not more than ten or twenty artists at home who could paint ten or twenty times as good a picture for a quarter of the price. But you, dearest Mrs. P., who know all about pictures, naturally don’t want American pictures in your house, any more than you want anything else American there.

“My young friends and allies, Messrs. Boosey, Firkin, and Croesus, say that they come to Paris to see the world. They get the words wrong, you know. They come that the world (that is, their world at home) may not see them. To accompany Mesdames de Papillon and Casta Diva to the opera, then to return to beautifully furnished apartments to sup, and to prolong the entertainment until morning, is what those charming youths mean when they say ‘see the world.’ To attend at that réunion of the Haut Ton, Monsieur Celarius’ dancing academy, is to see good society in Paris, after the manner of those dashing men of the world. It’s amusing enough, and it’s innocent enough in its way. They won’t go very far. They’ll spend a good deal of money for nothing. They’ll be plucked at gaming-houses. They’ll be quietly laughed at by Mesdames de Papillon and Casta Diva, and the male friends of those ladies who enjoy the benefit of the lavish bounty of our young Croesus and Firkins. They’ll swagger a good deal, and take airs, and come home and indulge in foreign habits now grown indispensable. They will pronounce upon the female toilette, and upon the gantier le plus comme il faut, in Paris. They will beg your pardon for expressing a little phrase in French—to which, really the English is inadequate. They will have, necessarily, the foreign air. Some of them will settle away into business men, and be very exemplary. Others will return to Paris, as moths to the light, asserting that the only place for a gentleman to live agreeably, to indulge his tastes, and get the most for his money, is Paris—which is strictly true of such gentlemen as they. A view of life that starts from the dinner-table, inevitably selects Paris for its career. For, obviously, if you live to dine well you must live where there is good cooking.