I therefore ran down the stairs, made my way to the back door; and so,
behold me, in a moment, upon the uneven pavement, among all these sights
and sounds which in such a place attend upon a period of extraordinary
crush and traffic. By this time the sun was near its setting, and threw
its golden beams on the red brick chimneys of the offices, and made the
two barrels, that figured as pigeon-houses, on the tops of poles, look
as if they were on fire. Everything in this light becomes picturesque;
and things interest us which, in the sober grey of morning, are dull
enough. After a little search I lighted upon the very carriage of which I was in
quest. A servant was locking one of the doors, for it was made with the
security of lock and key. I paused near, looking at the panel of the
door. "A very pretty device that red stork!" I observed, pointing to the
shield on the door, "and no doubt indicates a distinguished family?" The servant looked at me for a moment, as he placed the little key in
his pocket, and said with a slightly sarcastic bow and smile, "Monsieur
is at liberty to conjecture." Nothing daunted, I forthwith administered that laxative which, on
occasion, acts so happily upon the tongue--I mean a "tip." The servant looked at the Napoleon in his hand, and then in my face,
with a sincere expression of surprise. "Monsieur is very generous!" "Not worth mentioning--who are the lady and gentleman who came here in
this carriage, and whom, you may remember, I and my servant assisted
today in an emergency, when their horses had come to the ground?" "They are the Count, and the young lady we call the Countess--but I know
not, she may be his daughter." "Can you tell me where they live?" "Upon my honor, Monsieur, I am unable--I know not." "Not know where your master lives! Surely you know something more about
him than his name?" "Nothing worth relating, Monsieur; in fact, I was hired in Brussels, on
the very day they started. Monsieur Picard, my fellow-servant, Monsieur
the Comte's gentleman, he has been years in his service, and knows
everything; but he never speaks except to communicate an order. From him
I have learned nothing. We are going to Paris, however, and there I
shall speedily pick up all about them. At present I am as ignorant of
all that as Monsieur himself." "And where is Monsieur Picard?" "He has gone to the cutler's to get his razors set. But I do not think
he will tell anything." This was a poor harvest for my golden sowing. The man, I think, spoke
truth, and would honestly have betrayed the secrets of the family, if he
had possessed any. I took my leave politely; and mounting the stairs
again, I found myself once more in my room. Forthwith I summoned my servant. Though I had brought him with me from
England, he was a native of France--a useful fellow, sharp, bustling,
and, of course, quite familiar with the ways and tricks of his
countrymen. "St. Clair, shut the door; come here. I can't rest till I have made out
something about those people of rank who have got the apartments under
mine. Here are fifteen francs; make out the servants we assisted today
have them to a _petit souper_, and come back and tell me their
entire history. I have, this moment, seen one of them who knows nothing,
and has communicated it. The other, whose name I forget, is the unknown
nobleman's valet, and knows everything. Him you must pump. It is, of
course, the venerable peer, and not the young lady who accompanies him,
that interests me--you understand? Begone! fly! and return with all the
details I sigh for, and every circumstance that can possibly interest
me." It was a commission which admirably suited the tastes and spirits of my
worthy St. Clair, to whom, you will have observed, I had accustomed
myself to talk with the peculiar familiarity which the old French comedy
establishes between master and valet. I am sure he laughed at me in secret; but nothing could be more polite
and deferential. With several wise looks, nods and shrugs, he withdrew; and looking down
from my window, I saw him with incredible quickness enter the yard,
where I soon lost sight of him among the carriages. Chapter III

DEATH AND LOVE TOGETHER MATED


When the day drags, when a man is solitary, and in a fever of impatience
and suspense; when the minute hand of his watch travels as slowly as the
hour hand used to do, and the hour hand has lost all appreciable motion;
when he yawns, and beats the devil's tattoo, and flattens his handsome
nose against the window, and whistles tunes he hates, and, in short,
does not know what to do with himself, it is deeply to be regretted that
he cannot make a solemn dinner of three courses more than once in a day. The laws of matter, to which we are slaves, deny us that resource. But in the times I speak of, supper was still a substantial meal, and
its hour was approaching. This was consolatory. Three-quarters of an
hour, however, still interposed. How was I to dispose of that interval? I had two or three idle books, it is true, as companions-companions; but
there are many moods in which one cannot read. My novel lay with my rug
and walking-stick on the sofa, and I did not care if the heroine and the
hero were both drowned together in the water barrel that I saw in the
inn-yard under my window. I took a turn or two up and down my room, and
sighed, looking at myself in the glass, adjusted my great white
"choker," folded and tied after Brummel, the immortal "Beau," put on a
buff waist-coat and my blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons; I
deluged my pocket-handkerchief with Eau-de-Cologne (we had not then the
variety of bouquets with which the genius of perfumery has since blessed
us) I arranged my hair, on which I piqued myself, and which I loved to
groom in those days. That dark-brown _chevelure_, with a natural
curl, is now represented by a few dozen perfectly white hairs, and its
place--a smooth, bald, pink head--knows it no more. But let us forget
these mortifications. It was then rich, thick, and dark-brown. I was
making a very careful toilet. I took my unexceptionable hat from its
case, and placed it lightly on my wise head, as nearly as memory and
practice enabled me to do so, at that very slight inclination which the
immortal person I have mentioned was wont to give to his. A pair of
light French gloves and a rather club-like knotted walking-stick, such
as just then came into vogue for a year or two again in England, in the
phraseology of Sir Walter Scott's romances "completed my equipment." All this attention to effect, preparatory to a mere lounge in the yard,
or on the steps of the Belle Étoile, was a simple act of devotion to the
wonderful eyes which I had that evening beheld for the first time, and
never, never could forget! In plain terms, it was all done in the vague,
very vague hope that those eyes might behold the unexceptionable get-up
of a melancholy slave, and retain the image, not altogether without
secret approbation.