Short Fiction, Xavier de Maistre [books to read in your 20s txt] 📗

to spend the night in the midst of my effects. I sent out to fetch my bag, and, at the same time, made up my mind to start next day and, without taking leave or advice of anybody to abandon myself entirely to Providence. II

Whilst making these reflections and congratulating myself on my well-laid plans, time slipped away, and my servant did not return. Necessity had compelled me to take this fellow into my service some weeks before, and I had some suspicions as to his honesty. Suddenly it occurred to me that he might perhaps have walked off with my bag, and, without losing a moment, I hurried off to the hotel: it was time I did so. On turning the corner of the street in which the Hotel de la Bonne Femme is situated, I saw him hastily come out of the door, preceded by a porter, who carried my portmanteau. He, himself, had charge of my handbag, and, instead of turning my way, he set off to the left, in the opposite direction to that he ought to have taken. His intention was plain. I joined him leisurely and, without speaking to him, walked for some time at his side before he saw me. If one had wished to paint the expression on the human countenance of the height of astonishment and fear, there could have been no better model than my man, just at the moment when he became aware of my presence.

I had plenty of time to make a study of it, for he was so disconcerted by my sudden appearance and by the grave air with which I looked at him, that he kept on walking for some time beside me without saying a word, as if we had been taking a walk together. At last, he mumbled an excuse about some business in the Rue Grand Doire, but I put him into the right road and we reached home, where I discharged him. It was only then that I determined to make a fresh tour of my room during the last night I should pass there, and I at once busied myself about the preparations.

III

For a long time I had desired to revisit the country in which I had made such enjoyable excursions; moreover, I did not feel at all satisfied with my own description of it. Some friends, who had dipped into my former journey, had begged me to continue it, and, without doubt, I should have decided to do so sooner, if I had not been separated from my travelling companions. It was with sadness that I resumed my undertaking. Alas! I resumed it alone! I was about to travel without my dear Joanetti and my charming Rose.13 My first room itself showed signs of a most disastrous change. Nay! It no longer existed. Its site was then part of a horrible ruin blackened by flames, and all the murderous inventions of war had combined to destroy it utterly. The wall on which the portrait of Mme. Hautcastle used to hang, had been pierced by a shell. Indeed, if, happily, I had not made my journey before that catastrophe, the literary world would never have known of that wonderful room. In like manner, but for the observations of Hipparcus, they would today be ignorant of the former existence of one more star among the Plëiades, which has disappeared since the time of that gifted astronomer.

However, compelled by circumstances, I had, some time before, abandoned my room and carried my Penates elsewhere. “No great loss after all,” you will say; “but how will you replace Joanetti and Rose?” Ah! that is impossible, Joanetti had become so indispensible to me that I can never replace him. Besides, who can flatter himself that he will always live with those he loves. Just like those gnats we see dancing in the air during the beautiful summer evenings, men meet quite by chance, and but for a brief space of time. They must count themselves fortunate if, in the rapidity of their movements, in which they seem to rival the gnats themselves, they do not break each others heads.

I was lying down one evening, Joanetti was waiting upon me with his usual care and appeared more than ordinarily attentive. When he took away the light, I saw a marked alteration in his countenance. But could I have guessed that poor Joanetti was waiting upon me for the last time? I will not keep the reader in a suspense more cruel than the truth. I prefer to tell him straight off that Joanetti was married the same night and left me next day.

But let no one tax him with ingratitude for leaving his Master so summarily. I had known of his intention some time back and had wrongfully opposed it. Some officious friend came to my house the first thing one morning to tell me the news, and I had time, before seeing Joanetti, to lose my temper and cool down again, and this spared him the reproaches he was expecting. Before entering my chamber, he pretended to speak in a loud tone to someone on the staircase, so as to make me believe that he was not afraid; and, arming himself with all the defiance that such a good fellow could assume, he entered with a determined air. In an instant I saw in his face all that was passing in his soul, and I did not think any the worse of him for it. The wits of our day have so terrified good folks about the dangers of matrimony, that a bridegroom often resembles a man who has just had a bad fall without being hurt, and whose troubled look of mingled fright and contentment gives him a ridiculous expression. It was not astonishing then that the actions of my faithful servant were in keeping with the oddity of his situation. “Ah, then! you