“Alas, your Lordship,” I answered (fearing a second thrust), “I have no idea. I thought I was a blackbird, but they have convinced me that I am not one.”
The singularity of my answer, and my air of sincerity, interested him. He came beside me, and made me tell my story, a task of which I acquitted myself with all the sadness and all the humility which were suitable to my position and the fearful weather which we were having.
“If you were a carrier-pigeon like me,” he said, after having heard me, “the petty annoyances at which you distress yourself would not disturb you one moment. We travel, that is our life, and we have our loves, it is true, but I do not know who my father is. To cleave the air, to traverse space, to see the mountains and plains beneath our feet, to breathe the very azure of the heavens, not the exhalations of the earth, to fly like the arrow to an appointed mark which never escapes us, that is our pleasure and our existence. I travel farther in one day than a man can do in ten.”
“Upon my word, sir,” I said, somewhat emboldened, “you are a Bohemian bird.”
“That’s another thing about which I don’t much trouble,” he replied. “I have no country at all; I know only three things: my travels, my wife, and my little ones. Where my wife is, there is my country.”
“But what have you hanging there at your neck? It’s like an old, tattered curl-paper.”
“These are papers of importance,” he replied, puffing himself out; I am going to Brussels this trip, and I am taking news to the celebrated banker X—— which will make the funds fall one franc seventy-eight centimes.”
“Gracious goodness!” I exclaimed, “it is a fine life yours, and Brussels, I am sure, must be a town well worth seeing. Could you not take me with you? Since I am not a blackbird, I am perhaps a carrier-pigeon.”
“If you were one,” he replied, “you would have returned that peck which I gave you a moment ago.”
“Why, sir, I’ll return it to you; don’t let us quarrel over such a trifle. See, the morning is appearing and the storm is subsiding. Pray let me follow you! I am lost, I have nothing left me in the world;—if you refuse me, there is nothing for it but to drown myself in this gutter.”