The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

superb and extraordinary Experience of the dialogue between

  Monsieur Tatambour in his dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in

  the cellar; concluding with the songsters of the grove, and the

  Concert of domestic Farm-yard animals.' All this done, and well

  done, Monsieur the Ventriloquist withdraws, and Monsieur the Face-

  Maker bursts in, as if his retiring-room were a mile long instead

  of a yard. A corpulent little man in a large white waistcoat, with

  a comic countenance, and with a wig in his hand. Irreverent

  disposition to laugh, instantly checked by the tremendous gravity

  of the Face-Maker, who intimates in his bow that if we expect that

  sort of thing we are mistaken. A very little shaving-glass with a

  leg behind it is handed in, and placed on the table before the

  Face-Maker. 'Messieurs et Mesdames, with no other assistance than

  this mirror and this wig, I shall have the honour of showing you a

  thousand characters.' As a preparation, the Face-Maker with both

  hands gouges himself, and turns his mouth inside out. He then

  becomes frightfully grave again, and says to the Proprietor, 'I am

  ready!' Proprietor stalks forth from baleful reverie, and

  announces 'The Young Conscript!' Face-Maker claps his wig on, hind

  side before, looks in the glass, and appears above it as a

  conscript so very imbecile, and squinting so extremely hard, that I

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  should think the State would never get any good of him. Thunders

  of applause. Face-Maker dips behind the looking-glass, brings his

  own hair forward, is himself again, is awfully grave. 'A

  distinguished inhabitant of the Faubourg St. Germain.' Face-Maker

  dips, rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed, toothless,

  slightly palsied, supernaturally polite, evidently of noble birth.

  'The oldest member of the Corps of Invalides on the fete-day of his

  master.' Face-Maker dips, rises, wears the wig on one side, has

  become the feeblest military bore in existence, and (it is clear)

  would lie frightfully about his past achievements, if he were not

  confined to pantomime. 'The Miser!' Face-Maker dips, rises,

  clutches a bag, and every hair of the wig is on end to express that

  he lives in continual dread of thieves. 'The Genius of France!'

  Face-Maker dips, rises, wig pushed back and smoothed flat, little

  cocked-hat (artfully concealed till now) put a-top of it, Face-

  Maker's white waistcoat much advanced, Face-Maker's left hand in

  bosom of white waistcoat, Face-Maker's right hand behind his back.

  Thunders. This is the first of three positions of the Genius of

  France. In the second position, the Face-Maker takes snuff; in the

  third, rolls up his fight hand, and surveys illimitable armies

  through that pocket-glass. The Face-Maker then, by putting out his

  tongue, and wearing the wig nohow in particular, becomes the

  Village Idiot. The most remarkable feature in the whole of his

  ingenious performance, is, that whatever he does to disguise

  himself, has the effect of rendering him rather more like himself

  than he was at first.

  There were peep-shows in this Fair, and I had the pleasure of

  recognising several fields of glory with which I became well

  acquainted a year or two ago as Crimean battles, now doing duty as

  Mexican victories. The change was neatly effected by some extra

  smoking of the Russians, and by permitting the camp followers free

  range in the foreground to despoil the enemy of their uniforms. As

  no British troops had ever happened to be within sight when the

  artist took his original sketches, it followed fortunately that

  none were in the way now.

  The Fair wound up with a ball. Respecting the particular night of

  the week on which the ball took place, I decline to commit myself;

  merely mentioning that it was held in a stable-yard so very close

  to the railway, that it was a mercy the locomotive did not set fire

  to it. (In Scotland, I suppose, it would have done so.) There, in

  a tent prettily decorated with looking-glasses and a myriad of toy

  flags, the people danced all night. It was not an expensive

  recreation, the price of a double ticket for a cavalier and lady

  being one and threepence in English money, and even of that small

  sum fivepence was reclaimable for 'consommation:' which word I

  venture to translate into refreshments of no greater strength, at

  the strongest, than ordinary wine made hot, with sugar and lemon in

  it. It was a ball of great good humour and of great enjoyment,

  though very many of the dancers must have been as poor as the

  fifteen subjects of the P. Salcy Family.

  In short, not having taken my own pet national pint pot with me to

  this Fair, I was very well satisfied with the measure of simple

  enjoyment that it poured into the dull French-Flemish country life.

  How dull that is, I had an opportunity of considering - when the

  Fair was over - when the tri-coloured flags were withdrawn from the

  windows of the houses on the Place where the Fair was held - when

  the windows were close shut, apparently until next Fair-time - when

  the Hotel de Ville had cut off its gas and put away its eagle -

  when the two paviours, whom I take to form the entire paving

  population of the town, were ramming down the stones which had been

  pulled up for the erection of decorative poles - when the jailer

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  had slammed his gate, and sulkily locked himself in with his

  charges. But then, as I paced the ring which marked the track of

  the departed hobby-horses on the market-place, pondering in my mind

  how long some hobby-horses do leave their tracks in public ways,

  and how difficult they are to erase, my eyes were greeted with a

  goodly sight. I beheld four male personages thoughtfully pacing

  the Place together, in the sunlight, evidently not belonging to the

  town, and having upon them a certain loose cosmopolitan air of not

  belonging to any town. One was clad in a suit of white canvas,

  another in a cap and blouse, the third in an old military frock,

  the fourth in a shapeless dress that looked as if it had been made

  out of old umbrellas. All wore dust-coloured shoes. My heart beat

  high; for, in those four male personages, although complexionless

  and eyebrowless, I beheld four subjects of the Family P. Salcy.

  Blue-bearded though they were, and bereft of the youthful

  smoothness of cheek which is imparted by what is termed in Albion a

  'Whitechapel shave' (and which is, in fact, whitening, judiciously

  applied to the jaws with the palm of the hand), I recognised them.

  As I stood admiring, there emerged from the yard of a lowly

  Cabaret, the excellent Ma Mere, Ma Mere, with the words, 'The soup

  is served;' words which so elated the subject in the canvas suit,

  that when they all ran in to partake, he went last, dancing with

  his hands stuck angularly into the pockets of his canvas trousers,

  after the Pierrot manner. Glancing down the Yard, the last I saw

  of him was, that he looked
in through a window (at the soup, no

  doubt) on one leg.

  Full of this pleasure, I shortly afterwards departed from the town,

  little dreaming of an addition to my good fortune. But more was in

  reserve. I went by a train which was heavy with third-class

  carriages, full of young fellows (well guarded) who had drawn

  unlucky numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way to

  a famous French garrison town where much of the raw military

  material is worked up into soldiery. At the station they had been

  sitting about, in their threadbare homespun blue garments, with

  their poor little bundles under their arms, covered with dust and

  clay, and the various soils of France; sad enough at heart, most of

  them, but putting a good face upon it, and slapping their breasts

  and singing choruses on the smallest provocation; the gayest

  spirits shouldering half loaves of black bread speared upon their

  walking-sticks. As we went along, they were audible at every

  station, chorusing wildly out of tune, and feigning the highest

  hilarity. After a while, however, they began to leave off singing,

  and to laugh naturally, while at intervals there mingled with their

  laughter the barking of a dog. Now, I had to alight short of their

  destination, and, as that stoppage of the train was attended with a

  quantity of horn blowing, bell ringing, and proclamation of what

  Messieurs les Voyageurs were to do, and were not to do, in order to

  reach their respective destinations, I had ample leisure to go

  forward on the platform to take a parting look at my recruits,

  whose heads were all out at window, and who were laughing like

  delighted children. Then I perceived that a large poodle with a

  pink nose, who had been their travelling companion and the cause of

  their mirth, stood on his hind-legs presenting arms on the extreme

  verge of the platform, ready to salute them as the train went off.

  This poodle wore a military shako (it is unnecessary to add, very

  much on one side over one eye), a little military coat, and the

  regulation white gaiters. He was armed with a little musket and a

  little sword-bayonet, and he stood presenting arms in perfect

  attitude, with his unobscured eye on his master or superior

  officer, who stood by him. So admirable was his discipline, that,

  when the train moved, and he was greeted with the parting cheers of

  the recruits, and also with a shower of centimes, several of which

  struck his shako, and had a tendency to discompose him, he remained

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  staunch on his post, until the train was gone. He then resigned

  his arms to his officer, took off his shako by rubbing his paw over

  it, dropped on four legs, bringing his uniform coat into the

  absurdest relations with the overarching skies, and ran about the

  platform in his white gaiters, waging his tail to an exceeding

  great extent. It struck me that there was more waggery than this

  in the poodle, and that he knew that the recruits would neither get

  through their exercises, nor get rid of their uniforms, as easily

  as he; revolving which in my thoughts, and seeking in my pockets

  some small money to bestow upon him, I casually directed my eyes to

  the face of his superior officer, and in him beheld the Face-Maker!

  Though it was not the way to Algeria, but quite the reverse, the

  military poodle's Colonel was the Face-Maker in a dark blouse, with

  a small bundle dangling over his shoulder at the end of an

  umbrella, and taking a pipe from his breast to smoke as he and the

  poodle went their mysterious way.

  CHAPTER XXVIII - MEDICINE MEN OF CIVILISATION

  My voyages (in paper boats) among savages often yield me matter for

  reflection at home. It is curious to trace the savage in the

  civilised man, and to detect the hold of some savage customs on

  conditions of society rather boastful of being high above them.

  I wonder, is the Medicine Man of the North American Indians never

  to be got rid of, out of the North American country? He comes into

  my Wigwam on all manner of occasions, and with the absurdest

  'Medicine.' I always find it extremely difficult, and I often find

  it simply impossible, to keep him out of my Wigwam. For his legal

  'Medicine' he sticks upon his head the hair of quadrupeds, and

  plasters the same with fat, and dirty white powder, and talks a

  gibberish quite unknown to the men and squaws of his tribe. For

  his religious 'Medicine' he puts on puffy white sleeves, little

  black aprons, large black waistcoats of a peculiar cut, collarless

  coats with Medicine button-holes, Medicine stockings and gaiters

  and shoes, and tops the whole with a highly grotesque Medicinal

  hat. In one respect, to be sure, I am quite free from him. On

  occasions when the Medicine Men in general, together with a large

  number of the miscellaneous inhabitants of his village, both male

  and female, are presented to the principal Chief, his native

  'Medicine' is a comical mixture of old odds and ends (hired of

  traders) and new things in antiquated shapes, and pieces of red

  cloth (of which he is particularly fond), and white and red and

  blue paint for the face. The irrationality of this particular

  Medicine culminates in a mock battle-rush, from which many of the

  squaws are borne out, much dilapidated. I need not observe how

  unlike this is to a Drawing Room at St. James's Palace.

  The African magician I find it very difficult to exclude from my

  Wigwam too. This creature takes cases of death and mourning under

  his supervision, and will frequently impoverish a whole family by

  his preposterous enchantments. He is a great eater and drinker,

  and always conceals a rejoicing stomach under a grieving exterior.

  His charms consist of an infinite quantity of worthless scraps, for

  which he charges very high. He impresses on the poor bereaved

  natives, that the more of his followers they pay to exhibit such

  scraps on their persons for an hour or two (though they never saw

  the deceased in their lives, and are put in high spirits by his

  decease), the more honourably and piously they grieve for the dead.

  The poor people submitting themselves to this conjurer, an

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  expensive procession is formed, in which bits of stick, feathers of

  birds, and a quantity of other unmeaning objects besmeared with

  black paint, are carried in a certain ghastly order of which no one

  understands the meaning, if it ever had any, to the brink of the

  grave, and are then brought back again.

  In the Tonga Islands everything is supposed to have a soul, so that

  when a hatchet is irreparably broken, they say, 'His immortal part

  has departed; he is gone to the happy hunting-plains.' This belief

  leads to the logical sequence that when a man is buried, some of

  his eating and drinking vessels, and some of his warlike

  implements, must be broken and buried with him. Superstitious and

  wrong, but surely a more respectable superstition than the hire of<
br />
  antic scraps for a show that has no meaning based on any sincere

  belief.

  Let me halt on my Uncommercial road, to throw a passing glance on

  some funeral solemnities that I have seen where North American

  Indians, African Magicians, and Tonga Islanders, are supposed not

  to be.

  Once, I dwelt in an Italian city, where there dwelt with me for a

  while, an Englishman of an amiable nature, great enthusiasm, and no

  discretion. This friend discovered a desolate stranger, mourning

  over the unexpected death of one very dear to him, in a solitary

  cottage among the vineyards of an outlying village. The

  circumstances of the bereavement were unusually distressing; and

  the survivor, new to the peasants and the country, sorely needed

  help, being alone with the remains. With some difficulty, but with

  the strong influence of a purpose at once gentle, disinterested,

  and determined, my friend - Mr. Kindheart - obtained access to the

  mourner, and undertook to arrange the burial.

  There was a small Protestant cemetery near the city walls, and as

  Mr. Kindheart came back to me, he turned into it and chose the

  spot. He was always highly flushed when rendering a service

  unaided, and I knew that to make him happy I must keep aloof from

  his ministration. But when at dinner he warmed with the good

  action of the day, and conceived the brilliant idea of comforting

  the mourner with 'an English funeral,' I ventured to intimate that

  I thought that institution, which was not absolutely sublime at

  home, might prove a failure in Italian hands. However, Mr.

  Kindheart was so enraptured with his conception, that he presently

  wrote down into the town requesting the attendance with to-morrow's

  earliest light of a certain little upholsterer. This upholsterer

  was famous for speaking the unintelligible local dialect (his own)

  in a far more unintelligible manner than any other man alive.

  When from my bath next morning I overheard Mr. Kindheart and the

  upholsterer in conference on the top of an echoing staircase; and

  when I overheard Mr. Kindheart rendering English Undertaking

  phrases into very choice Italian, and the upholsterer replying in

  the unknown Tongues; and when I furthermore remembered that the

  local funerals had no resemblance to English funerals; I became in

  my secret bosom apprehensive. But Mr. Kindheart informed me at