We should be seriously grieved if the expression sage of which we made use at the end of the preceding chapter should lead the too credulous reader into a dangerous error.
The tendency of this edifying history is to prove, on the contrary, in the most simple and incontrovertible manner, that however man may subdue his passions and limit his enjoyments to the rigorous circle traced by fortune, it is sufficient that these passions exist, and that he is their slave, to disturb the most philosophical mind, and to excite tempests that are the more violent because concentrated in a narrow space. Of what import are the dimensions of the scene? A perturbation in a glass of water is a tempest full of horror to the fly who ventures to brave its dangers. Well, the worthy Major Anspach was this imprudent insect.
One fine day in April, when the air was soft and balmy, the descendant by the female line of the last Dukes of Lorraine, having brushed with the greatest care his long brown overcoat and his black plush pantaloons, sought, at his usual stately pace, his favorite resting-place, and its perfumes. The frequenters of “Provence in Miniature,” as that end of the garden is called. Children, nurses, young men and girls, were so well acquainted with the “man of the bench,” that no one was permitted to usurp the seat which so long possession had consecrated to his use; what, then, was the painful surprise of the major on approaching his domain to find it occupied!
His first impulse was to take the affair in the simplest form of view, to go up and explain to the audacious invader of his privileges by what a continuous occupation he, Major Anspach, Baron of Phalsbourg, descended in the female line from the last Dukes of Lorraine, had acquired the exclusive right to sit in that angle of the wall, between the jasmine and the flowering roses.
But the necessity he would be under of divulging his birth was repugnant to his pride; and as the individual occupying the bench—his bench—was an old man like himself; long like himself, thin and unhappy like himself, and who appeared, like himself, not to enjoy many of the luxuries of life, and whose face, like his own, bore traces of long suffering, and painful struggles with adversity; our worthy major contented himself by throwing upon the unknown the glance of an old lion—who on returning to his den and finding it occupied by another old lion dying, passes on—so our major. “It assuredly is only a temporary occupant,” said he mentally—“a walk to the end of the avenue and he will have departed.”
But he deceived himself—he wandered from walk to walk, from avenue to avenue, passing and repassing his “Paradise Lost,” shooting fiery glances from his eyes upon the indiscreet possessor of the coveted seat; but this last, took no notice of the menacing looks of our unhappy and irritated old friend, and continued peacefully to sun himself whilst gazing with melancholy eye upon the joyous circle of young girls who danced up almost to his feet.
The sun neared the horizon—the shadows began to lengthen—and, at last, twilight overspread the landscape; then the unknown arose, and making a turn or two to relieve his limbs, slowly disappeared by the Rue St. Honoré.
M. Anspach returned home in feverish exasperation.
On the following morning the sun again shone out beautifully, and our friend the major proceeded to finish elaborately his toilet. He had grown calm, and reason suggested that yesterday’s intruder could have no motive, for two days in succession, to make him miserable; nevertheless the old gentleman was unhappy—for at his age a day lost is something!
On arriving at the Tuileries, the first object to which he directed his longing eyes was his bench, and there again was seated his perverse old substitute. The major was astounded! He made a move as if to go and tear the invader from a place of happiness of which he was so unjustly deprived; but old age controls impulse, and the major felt that he could not depart from those rules of politeness which belonged to his rank and former position in society. It was a flagrant imposition it was true: there was even a kind of impertinence in the conduct of the intruder, who must have observed how much the major was chagrined by his adverse possession the day before.