I.—Ah, there are you too—to use your expression or Montaigne’s—perched on the epicycle of Mercury, and eyeing the various pantomimes of the human race.
He.—No, no, I tell you; I’m too heavy to raise myself so high. No sojourn in the fogs for me. I look about me, and I assume my postures, or I amuse myself with the postures that I see others taking. I am an excellent pantomime as you shall judge.
[Then he set himself to smile, to imitate the admirer, the suppliant, the fawning complaisant; he expects a command, receives it, starts off like an arrow, returns, the order is executed, he reports what he has done; he is attentive to everything; he picks up something that has fallen; he places a pillow or a footstool; he holds a saucer; he brings a chair, opens a door, closes a window, draws the curtains, gazes on the master and mistress; he stands immovable, his arms hanging by his side, his legs exactly straight; he listens, he seeks to read their faces, and then he adds:—That is my pantomime, very much the same as that of all flatterers, courtiers, valets, and beggars.
The buffooneries of this man, the stories of the abbé Galiani, the extravagances of Rabelais, have sometimes thrown me into profound reveries. They are three stores whence I have provided myself with ridiculous masks that I place on the faces of the gravest personages, and I see Pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in a monk, an ostrich in a minister, a goose in his first clerk.]
I.—But according to your account, I said to my man, there are plenty of beggars in the world, and yet I know nobody who is not acquainted with some of the steps of your dance.
He.—You are right. In a whole kingdom there is only one man who walks, and that is the sovereign.
I.—The sovereign? There is something to be said on that. For do you suppose that one may not from time to time find even by the side of him, a dainty foot, a pretty neck, a bewitching nose, that makes him execute his pantomime. Whoever has need of another is indigent, and assumes a posture. The king postures before his mistress, and before God he treads his pantomimic measure. The minister dances the step of courtier, flatterer, valet, and beggar before his king. The crowd of the ambitious cut a hundred capers, each viler than the rest, before the minister. The abbé, with his bands and long cloak, postures at least once a week before the patron of livings. On my word, what you call the pantomime of beggars is only the whole huge bustle of the earth....
He.—But let us bethink ourselves what o’clock it is, for I must go to the opera.