AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU.
Never have I seen a more noble tragic face.In the centre of the forehead there was a great furrow of care, towards which the brows rose piteously.What a deep solemn grief in the eyes! They looked blankly at the object before them, but through it, as it were, and into the grief beyond.In moments of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent object so? It mingles dumbly with your grief, and remains afterwards connected with it in your mind.It may be some indifferent thing--a book which you were reading at the time when you received her farewell letter (how well you remember the paragraph afterwards--the shape of the words, and their position on the page); the words you were writing when your mother came in, and said it was all over--she was MARRIED--Emily married--to that insignificant little rival at whom you have laughed a hundred times in her company.Well, well; my friend and reader, whoe'er you be--old man or young, wife or maiden--you have had your grief-pang.
Boy, you have lain awake the first night at school, and thought of home.Worse still, man, you have parted from the dear ones with bursting heart: and, lonely boy, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade gave you; and, lonely man, just torn from your children--their little tokens of affection yet in your pocket--pacing the deck at evening in the midst of the roaring ocean, you can remember how you were told that supper was ready, and how you went down to the cabin and had brandy-and-water and biscuit.You remember the taste of them.Yes; for ever.You took them whilst you and your Grief were sitting together, and your Grief clutched you round the soul.
Serpent, how you have writhed round me, and bitten me.Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come in the night season, and I feel you gnawing, gnawing!...I tell you that man's face was like Laocoon's (which, by the way, I always think over-rated.The real head is at Brussels, at the Duke Daremberg's, not at Rome).
That man! What man? That man of whom I said that his magnificent countenance exhibited the noblest tragic woe.He was not of European blood, he was handsome, but not of European beauty.His face white--not of a Northern whiteness; his eyes protruding somewhat, and rolling in their grief.Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the eagle's.His lips were full.The beard, curling round them, was unkempt and tawny.The locks were of a deep, deep coppery red.The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed to the rough grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath.He came from the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered sandal, and the hardy foot it covered.
And his grief--whence came his sorrow? I will tell you.He bore it in his hand.He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became his.His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment.At early dawn nay, at what hour when the city is alive--do we not all hear the nasal cry of "Clo?" In Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d'habits, is the twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence known.It was in Paris I saw this man.
Where else have I not seen him? In the Roman Ghetto--at the Gate of David, in his fathers' once imperial city.The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of wardrobes--what you call an...
Enough! You know his name.
On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in that hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the grief which smote his noble features.Of course I cannot particularize the sum, but he had given too much for that hat.He felt he might have got the thing for less money.It was not the amount, I am sure; it was the principle involved.He had given fourpence (let us say) for that which threepence would have purchased.He had been done: and a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acuteness, experience, point of honor, should have made him the victor in any mercantile duel in which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it.I can understand his grief.Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippant way? Then you mistake me.He had been outwitted.He had desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and now found he had paid too much for his bargain.You don't suppose I would ask you to laugh at that man's grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy are trickling down this nose of mine.What do you mean by laughing? If you saw a wounded soldier on the field of battle, would you laugh? If you saw a ewe robbed of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute? It is you who are the cynic, and have no feeling: and you sneer because that grief is unintelligible to you which touches my finer sensibility.The OLD-CLOTHES'-MAN had been defeated in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, chequered, adventurous life.
Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life must be? The pursuit and conquest of twopence must be the most eager and fascinating of occupations.We might all engage in that business if we would.Do not whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over sixpenny points? They bring study, natural genius, long forethought, memory, and careful historical experience to bear upon their favorite labor.Don't tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings the rub, which keeps them for hours over their painted pasteboard.It is the desire to conquer.
Hours pass by.Night glooms.Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the "Portland," or the "Union,"while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room.Sol rises.Jones has lost four pounds: