Charles Lever - The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

This much-abused world of ours, railed at by divines, sneered down by cynics, slighted by philosophers, has still some marvellously pleasant things about it, amongst which, first and foremost, facile princeps , is Paris! In every other city of Europe there is a life to be learned and acquired just like a new language. You have to gain the acquaintance of certain people, obtain admission to certain houses, submit yourself to ways, habits, hours, all peculiar to the locality, and conform to usages in which – at first, at least – you rarely find anything beyond penalties on your time and your patience. But Paris demands no such sacrifices. To enjoy it, no apprenticeship is required. You become free of the guild at the Porte St. Denis. By the time you reach the Boulevards you have ceased to be a stranger. You enter the “Frères” at dinner hour like an old habitué. The atmosphere of light, elastic gayety around you, the tone of charming politeness that meets your commonest inquiry, the courtesy bestowed upon your character as a foreigner, are all as exhilarating in their own way as your sparkling glass of Moët, sipped in the window, from which you look down on plashing fountains, laughing children, and dark-eyed grisettes! The whole thing, in its bustle and movement, its splendor, sunlight, gilded furniture, mirrors, and smart toilettes, is a piece of natural magic, with this difference, – that its effect is ever new, ever surprising!

Sad and sorrowful faces are, of course, to be met with, since grief has its portion everywhere; but that air of languid indifference, that look of wearied endurance, which we characterize by the classic term of “boredom,” is, indeed, a rare spectacle in this capital; and yet now at the window of a splendid apartment in the Place Vendôme, listlessly looking down into the square beneath, stood a young man, every line of whose features conveyed this same expression. He had, although not really above twenty-four or twenty-five, the appearance of one ten years older. On a face of singular regularity, and decidedly handsome, dissipation had left its indelible traces. The eyes were deep sunk, the cheeks colorless, and around the angles of the mouth were those tell-tale circles which betray the action of an oft-tried temper, and the spirit that has gone through many a hard conflict. In figure he was very tall, and seemed more so in the folds of a long dressing-gown of antique brocade, which reached to his feet; a small, dark green skull-cap, with a heavy silver tassel, covered one side of his head, and in his hand he held a handsome meerschaum, which, half mechanically, he placed from time to time to his lips, although its bowl was empty.

At a breakfast-table covered with all that could provoke appetite, sat a figure as much unlike him as could be. He was under the middle size, and slightly inclined to flesh, with a face which, but for some strange resemblance to what one has seen in pictures by the older artists, would have been unequivocally vulgar. The eyes were small, keen, and furtive; the nose, slightly concave in its outline, expanded beneath into nostrils wide and full; but the mouth, thick-lipped, sensual, and coarse, was more distinctive than all, and showed that Mr. Herman Merl was a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, – a fact well corroborated by the splendor of a very flashy silk waistcoat, and various studs, gold chain, rings, and trinkets profusely scattered over his costume. And yet there was little of what we commonly recognize as the Jew in the character of his face. The eyes were not dark, the nose not aquiline; the hair, indeed, had the wavy massiveness of the Hebrew race; but Mr. Merl was a “Red Jew,” and the Red Jew, like the red partridge, is a species per se .

There was an ostentatious pretension in the “get up” of this gentleman. His moustache, his beard, his wrist-buttons, his shirt-studs, the camellia in his coat, – all, even to the heels of his boots, had been made studies, either to correct a natural defect, or show off what he fancied a natural advantage. He seemed to have studied color like a painter, for his dark brown frock was in true keeping with the tint of his skin; and yet, despite these painstaking efforts, the man was indelibly, hopelessly vulgar. Everything about him was imitation, but it was imitation that only displayed its own shortcomings.

“I wonder how you can resist these oysters, Captain,” said he, as he daintily adjusted one of these delicacies on his fork; “and the Chablis, I assure you, is excellent.”

“I never eat breakfast,” said the other, turning away from the window, and pacing the room with slow and measured tread.

“Why, you are forgetting all the speculations that used to amuse us on the voyage, – the delicious little dinners we were to enjoy at the ‘Rocher,’ the tempting dejeuners at ‘Véfour’s.’ By Jove! how hungry you used to make me, with your descriptions of the appetizing fare before us; and here we have it now: Ardennes ham, fried in champagne; Ostend oysters, salmi of quails with truffles – and such truffles! Won’t that tempt you?”

But his friend paid no attention to the appeal, and walking again to the window, looked out.

“Those little drummers yonder have a busy day of it,” said he, lazily; “that’s the fourth time they have had to beat the salute to Generals this morning.”

“Is there anything going on, then?”

But he never deigned an answer, and resumed his walk.

“I wish you’d send away that hissing teakettle, it reminds me of a steamboat,” said the Captain, peevishly; “that is, if you have done with it.”

“So it does,” said the other, rising to ring the bell; “there’s the same discordant noise, and the – the – the – ” But the rest of the similitude would n’t come, and Mr. Merl covered his retreat with the process of lighting a cigar, – an invaluable expedient that had served to aid many a more ready debater in like difficulty.

It would be a somewhat tedious, perhaps not a very profitable task, to inquire how two men, so palpably dissimilar, had thus become what the world calls friends. Enough if we say that Captain Martin, – the heir of Cro’ Martin, – when returning from India on leave, passed some time at the Cape, where, in the not very select society of the place, he met Mr. Merl. Now Mr. Merl had been at Ceylon, where he had something to do with a coffee plantation; and he had been at Benares, where opium interested him; and now again, at the Cape, a question of wine had probably some relation to his sojourn. In fact, he was a man travelling about the world with abundance of leisure, a well-stocked purse, and what our friends over the Strait would term an “industrial spirit.” Messes had occasionally invited him to their tables. Men in society got the habit of seeing him “about,” and he was in the enjoyment of that kind of tolerance which made every man feel, “He’s not my friend, — I didn’t introduce him; but he seems a good sort of fellow enough!” And so he was, – very good-tempered, very obliging, most liberal of his cigars, his lodgings always open to loungers, with pale ale, and even iced champagne, to be had |for asking. There was play, too; and although Merl was a considerable winner, he managed never to incur the jealous enmity that winning so often imposes. He was the most courteous of gamblers; he never did a sharp thing; never enforced a strict rule upon a novice of the game; tolerated every imaginable blunder of his partner with bland equanimity; and, in a word, if this great globe of ours had been a green-baize cloth, and all the men and women whist-players, Mr. Herman Merl had been the first gentleman in it, and carried off “all the honors” in his own hand.