A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

 The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reach’d down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her: they were all too large.  The beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand. - It would not alter their dimensions. - She begg’d I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least. - She held it open; - my hand slipped into it at once. - It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little. - No, said she, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety, - where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them; - they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it - it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the counter - it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us.

The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to the window, then at the gloves, - and then at me.  I was not disposed to break silence: - I followed her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her, - and so on alternately.

I found I lost considerably in every attack: - she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, that she look’d into my very heart and reins. - It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did. -

It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket.

I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single livre above the price. - I wish’d she had asked a livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about. - Do you think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger - and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy? - M’en croyez capable? - Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed me.

THE TRANSLATION. PARIS.

 There was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man whose manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that I once knew one, - for he is no more, - and why should I not rescue one page from violation by writing his name in it, and telling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at this long distance from his death - but my eyes gush out with tears.  For his sake I have a predilection for the whole corps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of benches and placed myself beside him.

The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a shagreen case, return’d them and the book into his pocket together.  I half rose up, and made him a bow.

Translate this into any civilized language in the world - the sense is this:

“Here’s a poor stranger come into the box - he seems as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose: - ’tis shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face - and using him worse than a German.”

The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, and told him, “I was sensible of his attention, and return’d him a thousand thanks for it.”

There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.

I was going one evening to Martini’s concert at Milan, and, was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F- was coming out in a sort of a hurry: - she was almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave a spring to once side to let her pass. - She had done the same, and on the same side too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been, for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again. - We both flew together to the other side, and then back, - and so on: - it was ridiculous: we both blush’d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should have done at first; - I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the passage.  She look’d back twice, and walk’d along it rather sideways, as if she would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her. - No, said I - that’s a vile translation: the Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in; - so I ran and begg’d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention to have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by the same intention towards me; - so we reciprocally thank’d each other.  She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no cicisbeo near her, I begg’d to hand her to her coach; - so we went down the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure. - Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six different efforts to let you go out. - And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter. - I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said I. - With all my heart, said she, making room. - Life is too short to be long about the forms of it, - so I instantly stepp’d in, and she carried me home with her. - And what became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I.

I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.

THE DWARF. PARIS.

 I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre, - and that was, the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs. - No doubt she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements. - The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.

As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by it. - Melancholy application! especially where the size was extremely little, - the face extremely dark, - the eyes quick, - the nose long, - the teeth white, - the jaw prominent, - to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me pain to write down: - every third man a pigmy! - some by rickety heads and hump backs; - others by bandy legs; - a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth; - a fourth, in their perfect and natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.

A Medical Traveller might say, ’tis owing to undue bandages; - a Splenetic one, to want of air; - and an Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, - the narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop’d up, that they had not actually room enough to get them. - I do not call it getting anything, said he; - ’tis getting nothing. - Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, ’tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.