Charles Dickens - Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

“In short,” said Mr Norris the father, settling the question comfortably, “there is a natural antipathy between the races.”

“Extending,” said Martin's friend, in a low voice, “to the cruellest of tortures, and the bargain and sale of unborn generations.”

Mr Norris the son said nothing, but he made a wry face, and dusted his fingers as Hamlet might after getting rid of Yorick's skull; just as though he had that moment touched a negro, and some of the black had come off upon his hands.

In order that their talk might fall again into its former pleasant channel, Martin dropped the subject, with a shrewd suspicion that it would be a dangerous theme to revive under the best of circumstances; and again addressed himself to the young ladies, who were very gorgeously attired in very beautiful colours, and had every article of dress on the same extensive scale as the little shoes and the thin silk stockings. This suggested to him that they were great proficients in the French fashions, which soon turned out to be the case, for though their information appeared to be none of the newest, it was very extensive; and the eldest sister in particular, who was distinguished by a talent for metaphysics, the laws of hydraulic pressure, and the rights of human kind, had a novel way of combining these acquirements and bringing them to bear on any subject from Millinery to the Millennium, both inclusive, which was at once improving and remarkable; so much so, in short, that it was usually observed to reduce foreigners to a state of temporary insanity in five minutes.

Martin felt his reason going; and as a means of saving himself, besought the other sister (seeing a piano in the room) to sing. With this request she willingly complied; and a bravura concert, solely sustained by the Misses Noriss, presently began. They sang in all languages—except their own. German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss; but nothing native; nothing so low as native. For, in this respect, languages are like many other travellers—ordinary and commonplace enough at home, but “specially genteel abroad.

There is little doubt that in course of time the Misses Norris would have come to Hebrew, if they had not been interrupted by an announcement from the Irishman, who, flinging open the door, cried in a loud voice—

“Jiniral Fladdock!”

“My!” cried the sisters, desisting suddenly. “The general come back!”

As they made the exclamation, the general, attired in full uniform for a ball, came darting in with such precipitancy that, hitching his boot in the carpet, and getting his sword between his legs, he came down headlong, and presented a curious little bald place on the crown of his head to the eyes of the astonished company. Nor was this the worst of it; for being rather corpulent and very tight, the general being down, could not get up again, but lay there writing and doing such things with his boots, as there is no other instance of in military history.

Of course there was an immediate rush to his assistance; and the general was promptly raised. But his uniform was so fearfully and wonderfully made, that he came up stiff and without a bend in him like a dead Clown, and had no command whatever of himself until he was put quite flat upon the soles of his feet, when he became animated as by a miracle, and moving edgewise that he might go in a narrower compass and be in less danger of fraying the gold lace on his epaulettes by brushing them against anything, advanced with a smiling visage to salute the lady of the house.

To be sure, it would have been impossible for the family to testify purer delight and joy than at this unlooked-for appearance of General Fladdock! The general was as warmly received as if New York had been in a state of siege and no other general was to be got for love or money. He shook hands with the Norrises three times all round, and then reviewed them from a little distance as a brave commander might, with his ample cloak drawn forward over the right shoulder and thrown back upon the left side to reveal his manly breast.

“And do I then,” cried the general, “once again behold the choicest spirits of my country!”

“Yes,” said Mr Norris the father. “Here we are, general.”

Then all the Norrises pressed round the general, inquiring how and where he had been since the date of his letter, and how he had enjoyed himself in foreign parts, and particularly and above all, to what extent he had become acquainted with the great dukes, lords, viscounts, marquesses, duchesses, knights, and baronets, in whom the people of those benighted countries had delight.

“Well, then, don't ask me,” said the general, holding up his hand. “I was among “em all the time, and have got public journals in my trunk with my name printed'—he lowered his voice and was very impressive here—'among the fashionable news. But, oh, the conventionalities of that a-mazing Europe!”

“Ah!” cried Mr Norris the father, giving his head a melancholy shake, and looking towards Martin as though he would say, “I can't deny it, sir. I would if I could.”

“The limited diffusion of a moral sense in that country!” exclaimed the general. “The absence of a moral dignity in man!”

“Ah!” sighed all the Norrises, quite overwhelmed with despondency.

“I couldn't have realised it,” pursued the general, “without being located on the spot. Norris, your imagination is the imagination of a strong man, but YOU couldn't have realised it, without being located on the spot!”

“Never,” said Mr Norris.

“The ex-clusiveness, the pride, the form, the ceremony,” exclaimed the general, emphasizing the article more vigorously at every repetition. “The artificial barriers set up between man and man; the division of the human race into court cards and plain cards, of every denomination—into clubs, diamonds, spades—anything but heart!”

“Ah!” cried the whole family. “Too true, general!”

“But stay!” cried Mr Norris the father, taking him by the arm. “Surely you crossed in the Screw, general?”

“Well! so I did,” was the reply.

“Possible!” cried the young ladies. “Only think!”

The general seemed at a loss to understand why his having come home in the Screw should occasion such a sensation, nor did he seem at all clearer on the subject when Mr Norris, introducing him to Martin, said:

“A fellow-passenger of yours, I think?”

“Of mine?” exclaimed the general; “No!”

He had never seen Martin, but Martin had seen him, and recognized him, now that they stood face to face, as the gentleman who had stuck his hands in his pockets towards the end of the voyage, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated.

Everybody looked at Martin. There was no help for it. The truth must out.

“I came over in the same ship as the general,” said Martin, “but not in the same cabin. It being necessary for me to observe strict economy, I took my passage in the steerage.”

If the general had been carried up bodily to a loaded cannon, and required to let it off that moment, he could not have been in a state of greater consternation than when he heard these words. He, Fladdock—Fladdock in full militia uniform, Fladdock the General, Fladdock, the caressed of foreign noblemen—expected to know a fellow who had come over in the steerage of line-of-packet ship, at the cost of four pound ten! And meeting that fellow in the very sanctuary of New York fashion, and nestling in the bosom of the New York aristocracy! He almost laid his hand upon his sword.

A death-like stillness fell upon the Norisses. If this story should get wind, their country relation had, by his imprudence, for ever disgraced them. They were the bright particular stars of an exalted New York sphere. There were other fashionable spheres above them, and other fashionable spheres below, and none of the stars in any one of these spheres had anything to say to the stars in any other of these spheres. But, through all the spheres it would go forth that the Norrises, deceived by gentlemanly manners and appearances, had, falling from their high estate, “received” a dollarless and unknown man. O guardian eagle of the pure Republic, had they lived for this!