Vanity Fair (110 page)

Everybody—everybody that was noble of course, for as for the
bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM—
visited his neighbour. H. E. Madame de Burst received once a
week, H. E. Madame de Schnurrbart had her night—the theatre was
open twice a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a
man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in the
unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran
very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. There was
the Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by
our envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de
Macabau. Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame
Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had
three more notes in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival—it
sufficed, I say, for our Minister to advance any opinion to have it
instantly contradicted by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions.
The Lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her
voice (what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt
that the Strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and
certainly too stout; when she came on in the last scene of the
Sonnambula, for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her
hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over the plank of
the mill, it was all she could do to squeeze out of the window, and
the plank used to bend and creak again under her weight—but how she
poured out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of
feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms—almost fit to smother him!
Whereas the little Lederlung—but a truce to this gossip—the fact
is that these two women were the two flags of the French and the
English party at Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its
allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, the
Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the
French party were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's
Lady, who had served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his
wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from Pans, and always
had them and her caps by M. de Macabau's courier. The Secretary of
his Chancery was little Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as
Satan, and who made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the
place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the Pariser
Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these
gentlemen were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each
other with epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a
couple of wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and
never showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces. Neither
Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government
without a most savage series of attacks upon his rival. For
instance, on our side we would write, "The interests of Great
Britain in this place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are
perilled by the continuance in office of the present French envoy;
this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick at no
falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends. He poisons
the mind of the Court against the English minister, represents the
conduct of Great Britain in the most odious and atrocious light, and
is unhappily backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities
are as notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side they
would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system of stupid insular
arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest nation in the
world. Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal
Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he
insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate that
H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne
of the lilies. His gold is prodigated in every direction which his
stupid menaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won
over creatures of the Court here—and, in fine, Pumpernickel will
not be quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content
until this poisonous viper be crushed under heel": and so on. When
one side or the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch,
news of it was sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that
Emmy took a night and received company with great propriety and
modesty. She had a French master, who complimented her upon the
purity of her accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she
had learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the
grammar so as to be able to teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff
came to give her lessons in singing, which she performed so well and
with such a true voice that the Major's windows, who had lodgings
opposite under the Prime Minister, were always open to hear the
lesson. Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and
simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to call her
du at once. These are trivial details, but they relate to happy
times. The Major made himself George's tutor and read Caesar and
mathematics with him, and they had a German master and rode out of
evenings by the side of Emmy's carriage—she was always too timid,
and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance on horse-
back. So she drove about with one of her dear German friends, and
Jos asleep on the back-seat of the barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a
very gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness
and Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year
to her fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's
sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and
Jos might have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of
his own arms on his carriage and forks; when—when events occurred,
and those grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary
Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-
Schlippenschloppen took place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been
known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal
Victor XIV. All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees
were invited to the feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night in
Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of
honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived
from all quarters. The Princess was married by proxy, at her
father's residence, by the Count de Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were
given away in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who
sold and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of
Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court,
while hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St.
Catherine of Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French
envoy got both. "He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-
horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules of his
service to take any decorations: "Let him have the cordons; but
with whom is the victory?" The fact is, it was a triumph of British
diplomacy, the French party having proposed and tried their utmost
to carry a marriage with a Princess of the House of Potztausend-
Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and
triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young
bride. The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour
wine, while that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The
great waters played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens
for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure,
carrying off watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink
ribbon, &c., at the top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having
swarmed up the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding
down with the rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the
glory's sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had
very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of the mast,
blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their
illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented
the young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most
ludicrous likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture
hollow; and I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the
Cross of the Bath which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of
course. Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the
Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room
for trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the
festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems
or Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the town were
not allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies
were admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets
were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the
grand festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company
of his uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a
play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of
course, he was not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of
the entertainment and hankered round the tables where the croupiers
and the punters were at work. Women were playing; they were masked,
some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times of
carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it
had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her
eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables
with a card and a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the
croupier called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card
with great care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the
colours after the red or black had come up a certain number of
times. It was strange to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the
last two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as
he cried out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and
number. She gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were
already too much out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the
card on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. Then she looked
round her and saw Georgy's honest face staring at the scene. The
little scamp! What business had he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her
shining eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his
accent, of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight
foreign tone. "You have nevare played—will you do me a littl'
favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was at work
for his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."
And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the
only coin there, and she put it into George's hand. The boy laughed
and did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough. There is a power that arranges
that, they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you.
What is your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own
pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major,
in his uniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made their
appearance. Other people, finding the entertainment stupid and
preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball
earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and
found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him
and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the
place of temptation. Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch
employed as we have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to
bring Mr. George to such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play
and wine. "ll faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de
Monsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,
but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if he
would come away. He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who
was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much
interested at the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for
the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved
before the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but
left him and walked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their way
home.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very
eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed him why he
shouldn't, and would have enforced his precepts by the example of
Georgy's own father, had he liked to say anything that should
reflect on the other's memory. When he had housed him, he went to
bed and saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia's,
presently disappear. Amelia's followed half an hour afterwards. I
don't know what made the Major note it so accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no
gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now
and then, and he had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered
pockets of his court waistcoat. He put down one over the fair
shoulder of the little gambler before him, and they won. She made a
little movement to make room for him by her side, and just took the
skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.