Condensed Novels - Bret Harte (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📗

attacked her, and this is what she lost:—

First her lover.

Then her child.

Then her place.

Then her hair.

Then her teeth.

Then her liberty.

Then her life.

What do you think of society after that? I tell you the present social system is a humbug.

 

X.

 

This is necessarily the end of Fantine. There are other things that will be stated in other volumes to follow. Don’t be alarmed; there are plenty of miserable people left.

Au revoir—my friend.

 

“LA FEMME.”

AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET.

 

I.

WOMEN AS AN INSTITUTION.

 

“If it were not for women, few of us would at present be in existence.” This is the remark of a cautious and discreet writer. He was also sagacious and intelligent.

Woman! Look upon her and admire her. Gaze upon her and love her. If she wishes to embrace you, permit her. Remember she is weak and you are strong.

But don’t treat her unkindly. Don’t make love to another woman before her face, even if she be your wife. Don’t do it. Always be polite, even should she fancy somebody better than you.

If your mother, my dear Amadis, had not fancied your father better than somebody, you might have been that somebody’s son. Consider this. Always be a philosopher, even about women.

Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one else. I am a Frenchman.

 

II.

THE INFANT.

 

She is a child—a little thing—an infant.

She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free—they are married—perhaps—they love one another—who knows?

But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant—a small thing—a trifle!

She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and positively ugly. She feels this keenly and cries. She weeps. Ah, my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really distressing.

Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously like M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his Confessions.

If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even YOU, misunderstand her.

Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her own. She says, “goo goo,” and “ga ga.”

She demands something—this infant!

She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored. Restore her, Mother!

It is the first duty of a mother to restore her child!

 

III.

THE DOLL.

 

She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of a doll.

It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and purple-black hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, with the quick knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a blonde, and that her doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how touching! Happy child! She spends hours in preparing its toilet. She begins to show her taste in the exquisite details of its dress. She loves it madly, devotedly. She will prefer it to bonbons. She already anticipates the wealth of love she will hereafter pour out on her lover, her mother, her father, and finally, perhaps, her husband.

This is the time the anxious parent will guide these first outpourings. She will read her extracts from Michelet’s L’Amour, Rousseau’s Heloise, and the Revue des deux Mondes.

 

IV.

THE MUD PIE.

 

She was in tears to-day.

She had stolen away from her bonne and was with some rustic infants. They had noses in the air, and large, coarse hands and feet.

They had seated themselves around a pool in the road, and were fashioning fantastic shapes in the clayey soil with their hands. Her throat swelled and her eyes sparkled with delight as, for the first time, her soft palms touched the plastic mud. She made a graceful and lovely pie. She stuffed it with stones for almonds and plums. She forgot everything. It was being baked in the solar rays, when madame came and took her away.

She weeps. It is night, and she is weeping still.

 

V.

HER FIRST LOVE.

 

She no longer doubts her beauty. She is loved. She saw him secretly. He is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He has already had an affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor Finfin is desolate. He is noble. She knows he is the son of Madame la Baronne Couturiere. She adores him.

She affects not to notice him. Poor little thing! Hippolyte is distracted—annihilated—inconsolable and charming.

She admires his boots, his cravat, his little gloves his exquisite pantaloons—his coat, and cane.

She offers to run away with him. He is transported, but magnanimous. He is wearied, perhaps. She sees him the next day offering flowers to the daughter of Madame la Comtesse Blanchisseuse.

She is again in tears.

She reads Paul et Virginie. She is secretly transported. When she reads how the exemplary young woman laid down her life rather than appear en deshabille to her lover, she weeps again. Tasteful and virtuous Bernardine de St. Pierre!—the daughters of France admire you!

All this time her doll is headless in the cabinet. The mud pie is broken on the road.

 

VI.

THE WIFE.

 

She is tired of loving and she marries.

Her mother thinks it, on the whole, the best thing. As the day approaches, she is found frequently in tears. Her mother will not permit the affianced one to see her, and he makes several attempts to commit suicide.

But something happens. Perhaps it is winter, and the water is cold. Perhaps there are not enough people present to witness his heroism.

In this way her future husband is spared to her. The ways of Providence are indeed mysterious. At this time her mother will talk with her. She will offer philosophy. She will tell her she was married herself.

But what is this new and ravishing light that breaks upon her? The toilet and wedding clothes! She is in a new sphere.

She makes out her list in her own charming writing. Here it is. Let every mother heed it.*

 

*

*

 

She is married. On the day after, she meets her old lover, Hippolyte. He is again transported.

 

* The delicate reader will appreciate the omission of certain articles for which English synonymes are forbidden.

 

VII.

HER OLD AGE.

 

A Frenchwoman never grows old.

 

MARY MCGILLUP.

A SOUTHERN NOVEL.

AFTER BELLE BOYD.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. S—LA.

 

INTRODUCTION.

 

“Will you write me up?”

The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel Mary McGillup,—a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous black hair. I must confess that the question was a peculiar one, and, under the circumstances, somewhat puzzling. It was true I had been kindly treated by the Northerners, and, though prejudiced against them, was to some extent under obligations to them. It was true that I knew little or nothing of American politics, history, or geography. But when did an English writer ever weigh such trifles? Turning to the speaker, I inquired with some caution the amount of pecuniary compensation offered for the work.

“Sir!” she said, drawing her fragile form to its full height, “you insult me,—you insult the South.”

“But look ye here, d’ye see—the tin—the blunt—the ready—the stiff; you know. Don’t ye see, we can’t do without that, you know!”

It shall be contingent on the success of the story,” she answered haughtily. “In the mean time take this precious gem.” And drawing a diamond ring from her finger, she placed it with a roll of MSS. in my hands and vanished.

Although unable to procure more than L1 2s. 6 d. from an intelligent pawnbroker to whom I stated the circumstances and with whom I pledged the ring, my sympathies with the cause of a downtrodden and chivalrous people were at once enlisted. I could not help wondering that in rich England, the home of the oppressed and the free, a young and lovely woman like the fair author of those pages should be obliged to thus pawn her jewels—her marriage gift—for the means to procure her bread! With the exception of the English aristocracy,—who much resemble them,—I do not know of a class of people that I so much admire as the Southern planters. May I become better acquainted with both!

Since writing the above, the news of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination has reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be men who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me to repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection which has become justly celebrated. It is this:—

“It is usual, in cases of murder, to look for the criminal among those who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death of Lincoln, his immediate successor in office alone receives the benefit of his dying.”

If her Majesty Queen Victoria were assassinated, which Heaven forbid, the one most benefited by her decease would, of course, be his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, her immediate successor. It would be unnecessary to state that suspicion would at once point to the real culprit, which would of course be his Royal Highness. This is logic.

But I have done. After having thus stated my opinion in favor of the South, I would merely remark that there is One who judgeth all things,—who weigheth the cause between brother and brother,—and awardeth the perfect retribution; and whose ultimate decision I, as a British subject, have only anticipated.

G. A. S.

 

CHAPTER I.

 

Every reader of Belle Boyd’s narrative will remember an allusion to a “lovely, fragile-looking girl of nineteen,” who rivalled Belle Boyd in devotion to the Southern cause, and who, like her, earned the enviable distinction of being a “rebel spy.”

I am that “fragile” young creature. Although on friendly terms with the late Miss Boyd, now Mrs. Hardinge, candor compels me to state that nothing but our common politics prevents me from exposing the ungenerous spirit she has displayed in this allusion. To be dismissed in a single paragraph after years of— But I anticipate. To put up with this feeble and forced acknowledgment of services rendered would be a confession of a craven spirit, which, thank God, though “fragile” and only “nineteen,” I do not possess. I may not have the “blood of a Howard” in my veins, as some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself by naming, claim to have, but I have yet to learn that the race of McGillup ever yet brooked slight or insult. I shall not say that attention in certain quarters seems to have turned SOME PEOPLE’S heads; nor that it would have been more delicate if certain folks had kept quiet on the subject of their courtship, and the rejection of certain offers, when it is known that their forward conduct was all that procured them a husband! Thank heaven, the South has some daughters who are above such base considerations! While nothing shall tempt me to reveal the promises to share equally the fame of certain enterprises, which were made by one who shall now be nameless, I have deemed it only just to myself to put my own adventures upon record. If they are not equal to those of another individual, it is because, though “fragile,” my education has taught me to have some consideration for the truth. I am done.

 

CHAPTER II.

 

I was born in