University of Virginia Library

10. X.
Paris Experience of Wash. Fudge.

GEO. WASHINGTON FUDGE admires
Paris. It would be strange if he did not
admire Paris. But in his view, it adds considerably
to the reputation of Paris, that he, Wash.
Fudge, does admire it. It has the same effect, he
does not doubt, upon his mother's appreciation of
Paris. Of his father's notions he is not so confident.

He has left his attic in the Hotel Meurice, and
has taken apartments across the water, upon the

Quai Voltaire. He is in the fourth story, and
is occupant of a charming salon, and chamber
attached. The waxed stairways and the brick
floors astonish him. The gilt clock that ticks upon
his mantel, the magnificent pier-table, the mirrors,
and the lounges delight him. He feels, too, a warm
regard for the old lady in horn spectacles, who sits
every day in the porter's lodge, who gives him such
a friendly bon jour, and who never quarrels either
with his hours or his visitors.

As for his hours, he rounds them by what he
reckons the polite standard. At eleven of the
morning, the old lady below serves him with a roll,
a cup of coffee, a little plate of radishes and of
butter. All these he dispatches leisurely, and
finishes his toilet by half-past twelve. He then
indulges himself in a ramble over the bridge and
through the garden of the Tuileries. He is much
struck with the architectural effect of the palace,
and describes it in a friendly letter to his mother as
“a magnificent specimen of long and high-roofed
architecture in stone.” He indulges in home-comparisons
of the fountains, and avenues of trees, not
wholly favorable to Grammercy Park. He strolls
to that angle of the terrace where he yesterday
encountered a very coquettish grisette; and not
finding her, he consoles himself with a chair, and

with a careless observation of the carriages, and
mounted guards, and women and children trooping
across the Place de la Concorde.

Sauntering afterward through the avenue of the
Champs Elysées, he encounters a vivacious talker,
who invites him, in the blandest manner, to try a
shot or two at a revolving company of clay images.
Washington being, as I said, of a liberal nature,
advances half a franc, which is good for four shots,
and counts on securing one of the prizes in the
shape of a paste gew-gaw for his old friend of the
conciergerie. He fires his successive discharges without
damaging in the least the little plaster Cupids,
who continue their quiet revolutions as before.

His next venture of the morning is in pistol-practice
upon the heart of a very brigand-looking
figure, which traverses a wild scene of canvas and
pine boards, at five sous the transit. Washington
having failed as before, continues his entertainment
by gazing over the shoulders of two short soldiers,
at the extraordinary tricks of an accomplished juggler,
who picks up pieces of two sous with a staff,
and who suggests a farther trial upon silver coin;
which being offered by Mr. Fudge, is at once transferred
in a graceful manner to the juggler's pocket,
amid the plaudits of the two short soldiers.

Mr. Fudge is farther attracted by the saltambic

feats of a young lady in an exceedingly short blue
velvet dress, who is surrounded by a ring of admiring
soldiers, and accompanied in her poses by fiddle
and clarionet. Washington patronizes the performance
by a liberal cast of small coins, and is
rewarded by a gracious smile from the young lady
in the short velvet dress.

At this juncture he recalls an engagement with
his Professor of the English and French languages.
The Professor has rooms at the top of a house in
the Rue St. Honoré. He keeps a parrot and a
cat—maltese color; and has farther graced his
apartment with two or three lively statuettes of
famous dancing characters. He is sixty years, or
thereabout, and takes snuff liberally; although he
still wears varnished boots, and talks freely of his
brilliant intrigues. He furthermore instructs Mr.
Fudge in execrable English about his connection
with the various revolutions of France, and his
hair-breadth escapes. He listens kindly to such
confidential disclosures as Mr. Fudge is pleased to
make in regard to his friends and family. He
indulges in a strain of political and philosophic
reflections which satisfy Washington Fudge that the
Professor has been a man sadly overlooked in the
distribution of the administrative functions. He
hints as much to the old lady in the porter's

lodge, who shrugs her shoulders, and says, “Possible!”

At six, he smokes a cigar over a small cup of
coffee, outside the Rotunde of the Palais Royale;
ogling meantime, through the window, the very
bewitching young lady who presides over the tables,
the spoons, and the sugar. He afterward luxuriates,
in company with his friend, in a cab-drive
along the Boulevard and the Quai, terminating at
the brilliantly-illuminated entrance of a hall in the
Rue St. Honoré. Upon the payment of two francs,
he is here ushered into a scene of bewildering magnificence.
A band of eighty performers is discoursing
music from a gay pavilion, decorated with
tri-color, in the centre of the salle. Gas-lights are
casting through orange and purple reflectors, hues
innumerable. The floor is trembling under the
tread of a hundred coupled waltzers, and the galleries
above and below are swimming with eyes,
fans, and feathers.

It is needless to say that young Mr. Fudge
pursues his habit of observation in such quarters,
with all his accustomed alacrity; he even addresses
one or two brother Americans, whom he encounters
in the course of the evening, in French; but, upon
being pressed in that language, recovers his recollection,
and resumes his native tongue.

Mr. Fudge observes, from the habit of his companions,
that the young ladies present are not
averse to wine—if mingled with water; he farther
observes that they do not resent, with any air of
disdain, such attentions as strangers may be disposed
to offer, in a spirit of kindness; they also
courteously relieve the foreigner of those embarrassments
which naturally belong to one unacquainted
with the customs and language of the country.

In short, Mr. Fudge is delighted with the adventures
of the evening, and goes home in a maudlin
state.

It is my opinion that this day's experience of my
young friend Wash. Fudge is quite similar to that
of most of the very young men who are sent to
Paris with a view of completing their education,
and establishing a position in polite society. It
is my opinion that many such stolid papas as
Mr. Solomon Fudge, wrapped up in an impenetrable
sense of their own foresight and prudence, are
meantime cherishing the confirmed belief that their
hopeful sons are acquiring a large acquaintance
with the language and public policy of the country,
and are reaping such advantages from foreign travel
as will advance highly their interests in the commercial
or political world.

And it is my farther opinion, that many such

aspiring mothers as Mrs. Solomon Fudge, indulge
in the pleasing reflection that their darling Wash.
Fudges are equipping themselves with every polite
accomplishment, becoming absolute masters of all
Parisian finesse, whether of language or manner,
and disturbing cruelly, by their various charms and
playful equivoques, the tender affections of all the
marriageable daughters of all the titled ladies of
Paris.

[The mother will live long enough yet, to find
her poor pride cut to the quick, by the children on
whose training she poises her worldly—and only—
hope. And the stately Solomon Fudge, with all
the dignity of his past honors crusted on him, and
the stiffness of his stock-list, and his haughtiness of
look, may yet find that the worldly and golden
armor he wears, with such clanking and glitter, has
in it weakly jointures, whereat the arrows of sorrow
and of mortification may drive (possibly from a
filial hand), and pierce through to his old, seared
heart, making his high manhood wilt, like grass
that is cut in June!]

In a genial and flowing humor, Mr. Fudge communicates
with an old boon-companion of the city:
He is not disappointed in the masked balls—not in
the least. They are quite up to his mark; altogether
splendid affairs. “You have to fancy all

the orchestras of your city tuning together to a
`tip-top polka;' and a thousand figures, more or
less, in brown, grey, blue and gold spangles; young
and old ones; big noses and little ones; everything
hobgoblin and ghostly; and all of them polking as
if the deuce was in them. Such tidy grisettes, too,
and such pretty figures as they show en garçon!
Have not indulged much myself upon the floor:
they have an awkward way of tossing their feet
into one's face, which is embarrassing; beside
which, had my hat once or twice crushed over my
eyes—supposed to be done by a tall Pierrot in
steeple-crowned hat and long sleeves, who looked
very sanctimoniously.

“Kept mostly to the salon, among the better
class of ladies; am fully satisfied that some among
them were of quite a superior order; indeed, as
much was hinted to me by the ladies themselves;
am obliged to keep very dark; French husbands
are an excessively jealous people. Held some
intensely interesting conversations; am naturally
improving in French—quite at home indeed. Having
a rendezvous at the Grand Opera at nine o'clock,
must close hastily. Hope the boys are well.”

Under such pleasant auspices, Mr. Fudge finds
the winter slipping away at a very comfortable
pace. He is expressing as much to himself, in a

consolatory way, over his egg and roll, on a fine
February morning, when the old lady from below
taps at his door, and hands him a very delicate-looking
note, slightly odorous of a subdued and
lady-like perfume. The hand, too, is fair and graceful—wholly
unknown to Mr. Fudge; and surprises
and delights him with the following challenge:

“M. Fudge est prié de se rendre ce soir, au bal
masqué, à minuit et demi, à la rencontre d'un domino
noir.”

To say merely that Mr. Fudge determined to be
present at the masked ball at the time designated,
would convey but a small idea of the ardor and
enthusiasm of his character. He elaborated his
toilet to a degree that to most men would have
been painful. His coiffeur surpassed himself. Mr.
Fudge fairly languished for the hour to arrive.

It is needless to add that he was punctual. He
encountered the Domino. He passed up and down
the corridors, and through the salon, with that
graceful figure leaning upon his arm: nor was it
the grace alone that fired him, but the piquancy of
her talk—catching his broken sentences, and rounding
them into fullness; anticipating his thought;
unriddling his half-expressed surprises; provoking
him with her knowledge of his history and family;
lifting her finger in warning against all his eagerness

to solve the mystery; discoursing philosophically
upon the scene before them; dropping half sentences
of English, and complimenting his French, in a way
that sets poor Wash. Fudge altogether beside
himself.

To make the matter still worse, his new acquaintance,
contrary, as he believes, to all precedent,
insists that Mr. Fudge shall make no attempt to
track her from the ball: her reasons for all the
mystery are so vague and shadowy as to pique his
curiosity the more.

Finally, at three of the morning, after a half-exacted
promise to appear again, she glides away
from him into the throng of Dominos, and is lost.

To Mr. Fudge this is a new and delightful
experience; indeed, on comparing it with the past
experience of Parisian acquaintances, he regards it
as altogether unique, and appreciates his success
and good fortune accordingly. He reëxamines very
scrutinizingly their very brief correspondence. It
is clearly a lady-like hand—a refined hand, so to
speak. He ventures to submit it to the eye of the
distinguished gentleman, his professor of languages.
The Professor is curious, very; he thinks Mr.
Fudge fortune's favorite (which Mr. Fudge privately
confirms), and is satisfied both of the station
and dignity of his correspondent. He farther

remarks that Mr. Fudge is a dangerous fellow;
and he doubts if he is doing his duty in perfecting
him to any greater degree in the finesse of the
language.

The knowledge which the unknown lady appears
to possess of Mr. Fudge's history and family somewhat
surprises him; not that such things might not
very properly and naturally be known to the European
world; but since he has found that in the
majority of instances such facts were not known.
His banker, being a bachelor, is relieved of the suspicion
which might otherwise attach to his wife or
daughters.

In this connection, however, the thought of
young Mr. Fudge reverts suddenly to the once
admired but now neglected Miss Jenkins. Miss
Jenkins is still in Paris; Miss Jenkins' figure
corresponded well with that of the domino; Miss
Jenkins' interesting manner might easily he thought,
under the excitement of the masquerade, ripen
into that coquettish tenderness which he had found
so beguiling. Miss Jenkins, moreover, was familiar,
to some extent, with his family history, and with
his aims in life. He had been cruelly inattentive
to Miss Jenkins: Miss Jenkins was now taking
the revenge of an affectionate and injured woman.

With this thought fastening itself by degrees

firmly upon his mind, Mr. Washington Fudge,
without the least touch of pity for feeble hearts in
his air or manner, throws back his coat-collar upon
his shoulders, inserts his thumbs in the arm-holes of
his waistcoat, and placing himself in a fancy attitude
before the mirror, indulges himself in a long,
low, cheerful whistle.