CHAPTER XXIV
----And the story too--if you please: for though I have all along been hastening towards this part of it, with so much earnest desire, as well knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the world, yet now that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen, and go on with the story for me that will --I see the difficulties of the descriptions I’m going to give--and feel my want of powers.
It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of blood this week in a most uncritical fever which attacked me at the beginning of this chapter; so that I have still some hopes remaining, it may be more in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the subtile _aura_ of the brain----be it which it will--an Invocation can do no hurt----and I leave the affair entirely to the _invoked_, to inspire or to inject me according as he sees good.
THE INVOCATION
Gentle Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of my beloved CERVANTES; Thou who glided’st daily through his lattice, and turned’st the twilight of his prison into noonday brightness by thy presence----tinged’st his little urn of water with heaven-sent nectar, and all the time he wrote of _Sancho_ and his master, didst cast thy mystic mantle o’er his wither’d stump,[9.1] and wide extended it to all the evils of his life------
----Turn in hither, I beseech thee! ----behold these breeches! ----they are all I have in the world----that piteous rent was given them at _Lyons_------
My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen’d amongst ’em--for the laps are in _Lombardy_, and the rest of ’em here --I never had but six, and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at _Milan_ cut me off the _fore_-laps of five --To do her justice, she did it with some consideration--for I was returning out of _Italy_.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinderbox which was moreover filch’d from me at _Sienna_, and twice that I pay’d five Pauls for two hard eggs, once at _Raddicoffini_, and a second time at _Capua_ --I do not think a journey through _France_ and _Italy_, provided a man keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some people would make you believe: there must be _ups_ and _downs_, or how the duce should we get into vallies where Nature spreads so many tables of entertainment. --’Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their voitures to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to his bread? --We really expect too much--and for the livre or two above par for your suppers and bed--at the most they are but one shilling and ninepence halfpenny----who would embroil their philosophy for it? for heaven’s and for your own sake, pay it----pay it with both hands open, rather than leave _Disappointment_ sitting drooping upon the eye of your fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gateway, at your departure----and besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of ’em worth a pound----at least I did----
----For my uncle _Toby’s_ amours running all the way in my head, they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own ----I was in the most perfect state of bounty and good-will; and felt the kindliest harmony vibrating within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike; so that whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference; everything I saw or had to do with, touch’d upon some secret spring either of sentiment or rapture.
----They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly----’Tis _Maria_; said the postillion, observing I was listening ----Poor _Maria_, continued he (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her.
The young fellow utter’d this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to _Moulins_----
------And who is _poor Maria?_ said I.
The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the postillion----it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did _Maria_ deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them----
He was going on, when _Maria_, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth, and began the air again----they were the same notes; ----yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young man----but who has taught her to play it--or how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation----she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that _service_ upon it almost night and day.
The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor _Maria_ taken such full possession of me.
We had got up by this time almost to the bank where _Maria_ was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk-net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side----she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her----
----God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around, for her, ----but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.
As the postillion spoke this, MARIA made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.
MARIA look’d wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat----and then at me----and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately----
----Well, _Maria_, said I softly ----What resemblance do you find?
I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a _Beast_ man is, ----that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever _Rabelais_ scatter’d----and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days----and never----never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live.
As for writing nonsense to them ----I believe, there was a reserve--but that I leave to the world.
Adieu, _Maria!_--adieu, poor hapless damsel! ----some time, but not _now_, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips----but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk’d softly to my chaise.
------What an excellent inn at _Moulins!_
[Footnote 9.1: He lost his hand at the battle of _Lepanto_.]
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