The poor monk blushed as red as scarlet. 'Mon Dieu!' said he, pressing his hands together, 'you never used me unkindly.' 'I should think,' said the lady, 'he is not likely.' I blushed in my turn, but from what movements I leave to the few who feel to analyse. 'Excuse me, madame,' replied I, 'I treated him most unkindly, and from no provocations.' ''Tis impossible,' said the lady. 'My God!' cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seemed not to belong to him, 'the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.' The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in maintaining it was impossible that a spirit so regulated as his could give offence to any.
I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. We remained silent, without any sensations of that foolish pain which takes place when in such a circle you look for ten minutes in one another's faces without saying a word. Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction, he made a low bow and said 'twas too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this contest; but be it as it would, he begged we might exchange boxes. In saying this he presented his to me with one hand as he took mine from me in the other, and having kissed it, with a stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom—and took his leave.
I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, to help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the jostlings of the world: they had found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when, upon some military services ill requited, and meeting at the same time a disappointment in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent as in himself.
I feel a damp upon my spirits as I am going to add, that in my last return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off. I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him—when, upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I burst into a flood of tears. But I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the world not to smile, but pity me.
MONTRIUL.
The Bidet.—When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are a little soured by the adventure, there is always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you. Let no man say, 'Let them go to the devil'—'tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it. I always find it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving them—they will be registered elsewhere.
Having settled all these small matters, I got into my postchaise with more ease than ever I got into a postchaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little bidet (post-horse), and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs), he cantered away before me, as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.
But what is happiness! What is grandeur in this painted scene of life! A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a stop to La Fleur's career—his bidet would not pass it; a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kicked out of his jack-boots the very first kick.
La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more or less upon it than Diable! so presently got up and came to the charge again—then this way—then that way: and, in short, every way but by the dead ass. La Fleur insisted upon the thing—and the bidet threw him.