——God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around, for her,——but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.
As the postillion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.
Maria look’d wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat——and then at me——and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately——
——Well, Maria, said I softly——What resemblance do you find?
I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a Beast man is,——that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scatter’d——and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days——and never——never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live.
As for writing nonsense to them——I believe, there was a reserve—but that I leave to the world.
Adieu, Maria!—adieu, poor hapless damsel!——some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips——but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk’d softly to my chaise.
———What an excellent inn at Moulins!
[ CHAPTER XXV]
When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour has lain bleeding this half hour——I stop it, by pulling off one of my yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it——