A Flight
WHEN Don Diego de - I forget his name - the inventor of the last
new Flying Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more
for gentlemen - when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax
and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen's
dominions, and shall have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy
situation; and when all persons of any gentility will keep at least
a pair of wings, and be seen skimming about in every direction; I
shall take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in a cheap
and independent manner. At present, my reliance is on the South-
Eastern Railway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at
eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof
of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being 'forced' like
a cucumber or a melon, or a pine-apple. And talking of pine-
apples, I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train
as there appear to be in this Train.
Whew! The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples. Every French
citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home. The compact
little Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to
whom I yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child,
'MEAT-CHELL,' at the St. James's Theatre the night before last) has
a pine-apple in her lap. Compact Enchantress's friend, confidante,
mother, mystery, Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap,
and a bundle of them under the seat. Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in
Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-
Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in
dirt and braid, carries pine-apples in a covered basket. Tall,
grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair
close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive
waist to coat: saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his
feminine boots, precious as to his jewellery, smooth and white as
to his linen: dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed - got up, one
thinks, like Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into
a highly genteel Parisian - has the green end of a pine-apple
sticking out of his neat valise.
Whew! If I were to be kept here long, under this forcing-frame, I
wonder what would become of me - whether I should be forced into a
giant, or should sprout or blow into some other phenomenon!
Compact Enchantress is not ruffled by the heat - she is always
composed, always compact. O look at her little ribbons, frills,
and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at her hair, at her
bracelets, at her bonnet, at everything about her! How is it
accomplished? What does she do to be so neat? How is it that
every trifle she wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a
part of her? And even Mystery, look at HER! A model. Mystery is
not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light
passability; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that,
one of these days, when she dies, they'll be amazed to find an old
woman in her bed, distantly like her. She was an actress once, I
shouldn't wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps,
Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a
shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in
railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery
does now. That's hard to believe!
Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full. First Englishman, in
the monied interest - flushed, highly respectable - Stock Exchange,
perhaps - City, certainly. Faculties of second Englishman entirely
absorbed in hurry. Plunges into the carriage, blind. Calls out of
window concerning his luggage, deaf. Suffocates himself under
pillows of great-coats, for no reason, and in a demented manner.
Will receive no assurance from any porter whatsoever. Is stout and
hot, and wipes his head, and makes himself hotter by breathing so
hard. Is totally incredulous respecting assurance of Collected
Guard, that 'there's no hurry.' No hurry! And a flight to Paris
in eleven hours!
It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no hurry.
Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the
South-Eastern Company. I can fly with the South-Eastern, more
lazily, at all events, than in the upper air. I have but to sit
here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not
accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an
idle summer flight; my flight is provided for by the South-Eastern
and is no business of mine.
The bell! With all my heart. It does not require me to do so much
as even to flap my wings. Something snorts for me, something
shrieks for me, something proclaims to everything else that it had
better keep out of my way, - and away I go.
Ah! The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame, though it
does blow over these interminable streets, and scatter the smoke of
this vast wilderness of chimneys. Here we are - no, I mean there
we were, for it has darted far into the rear - in Bermondsey where
the tanners live. Flash! The distant shipping in the Thames is
gone. Whirr! The little streets of new brick and red tile, with
here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the
scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for
the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a
volley. Whizz! Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds.
Rattle! New Cross Station. Shock! There we were at Croydon.
Bur-r-r-r! The tunnel.
I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I begin to
feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other way. I am
clearly going back to London now. Compact Enchantress must have
forgotten something, and reversed the engine. No! After long
darkness, pale fitful streaks of light appear. I am still flying
on for Folkestone. The streaks grow stronger - become continuous -
become the ghost of day - become the living day - became I mean -
the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly through
sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops.
There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying. I wonder where it was,
and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow, a
Parliamentary Train, with a crowd of heads and faces looking at us
out of cages, and some hats waving. Monied Interest says it was at
Reigate Station. Expounds to Mystery how Reigate Station is so
many miles from London, which Mystery again develops to Compact
Enchantress. There might be neither a Reigate nor a London for me,
as I fly away among the Kentish hops and harvest. What do I care?
Bang! We have let another Station off, and fly away regardless.
Everything is flying. The hop-gardens turn gracefully towards me,
presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl
away. So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full
bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherry-
orchards, apple-orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields
that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now
and then a church. Bang, bang! A double-barrelled Station! Now a
wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a - Bang! a
single-barrelled Station - there was a cricket-match somewhere with
two white tents, and then four flying cows, then turnips - now the
wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and spin, and blurr
their edges, and go up and down, and make the intervals between
each other most irregular: contracting and expanding in the
strangest manner. Now we slacken. With a screwing, and a
grinding, and a smell of water thrown on ashes, now we stop!
Demented Traveller, who has been for two or three minutes watchful,
clutches his great-coats, plunges at the door, rattles it, cries
'Hi!' eager to embark on board of impossible packets, far inland.
Collected Guard appears. 'Are you for Tunbridge, sir?'
'Tunbridge? No. Paris.' 'Plenty of time, sir. No hurry. Five
minutes here, sir, for refreshment.' I am so blest (anticipating
Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a glass of water for
Compact Enchantress.
Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall take
wing again directly? Refreshment-room full, platform full, porter
with watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel, another porter
with equal deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully
to ice cream. Monied Interest and I re-entering the carriage
first, and being there alone, he intimates to me that the French
are 'no go' as a Nation. I ask why? He says, that Reign of Terror
of theirs was quite enough. I ventured to inquire whether he
remembers anything that preceded said Reign of Terror? He says not
particularly. 'Because,' I remark, 'the harvest that is reaped,
has sometimes been sown.' Monied Interest repeats, as quite enough
for him, that the French are revolutionary, - 'and always at it.'
Bell. Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel (whom the stars
confound!), gives us her charming little side-box look, and smites
me to the core. Mystery eating sponge-cake. Pine-apple atmosphere
faintly tinged with suspicions of sherry. Demented Traveller flits
past the carriage, looking for it. Is blind with agitation, and
can't see it. Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy
creature in the flight, who has any cause to hurry himself. Is
nearly left behind. Is seized by Collected Guard after the Train
is in motion, and bundled in. Still, has lingering suspicions that
there must be a boat in the neighbourhood, and WILL look wildly out
of window for it.
Flight resumed. Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleaners,
apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and double-
barrelled, Ashford. Compact Enchantress (constantly talking to
Mystery, in an exquisite manner) gives a little scream; a sound
that seems to come from high up in her precious little head; from
behind her bright little eyebrows. 'Great Heaven, my pine-apple!
My Angel! It is lost!' Mystery is desolated. A search made. It
is not lost. Zamiel finds it. I curse him (flying) in the Persian
manner. May his face be turned upside down, and jackasses sit upon
his uncle's grave!
Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with flapping
crows flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea, now
Folkestone at a quarter after ten. 'Tickets ready, gentlemen!'
Demented dashes at the door. 'For Paris, sir? No hurry.'
Not the least. We are dropped slowly down to the Port, and sidle
to and fro (the whole Train) before the insensible Royal George
Hotel, for some ten minutes. The Royal George takes no more heed
of us than its namesake under water at Spithead, or under earth at
Windsor, does. The Royal George's dog lies winking and blinking at
us, without taking the trouble to sit up; and the Royal George's
'wedding party' at the open window (who seem, I must say, rather
tired of bliss) don't bestow a solitary glance upon us, flying thus
to Paris in eleven hours. The first gentleman in Folkestone is
evidently used up, on this subject.
Meanwhile, Demented chafes. Conceives that every man's hand is
against him, and exerting itself to prevent his getting to Paris.
Refuses consolation. Rattles door. Sees smoke on the horizon, and
'knows' it's the boat gone without him. Monied Interest
resentfully explains that HE is going to Paris too. Demented
signifies, that if Monied Interest chooses to be left behind, HE
don't.
'Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gentlemen. No hurry,
ladies and gentlemen, for Paris. No hurry whatever!'
Twenty minutes' pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking at
Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while she
eats of everything there that is eatable, from pork-pie, sausage,
jam, and gooseberries, to lumps of sugar. All this time, there is
a very waterfall of luggage, with a spray of dust, tumbling
slantwise from the pier into the steamboat. All this time,
Demented (who has no business with it) watches it with starting
eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown HIS luggage. When it at last
concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh - is shouted
after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitched into the departing
steamer upside down, and caught by mariners disgracefully.
A lovely harvest-day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea. The piston-
rods of the engines so regularly coming up from below, to look (as
well they may) at the bright weather, and so regularly almost
knocking their iron heads against the cross beam of the skylight,
and never doing it! Another Parisian actress is on board, attended
by another Mystery. Compact Enchantress greets her sister artist -
Oh, the Compact One's pretty teeth! - and Mystery greets Mystery.
My Mystery soon ceases to be conversational - is taken poorly, in a
word, having lunched too miscellaneously - and goes below. The
remaining Mystery then smiles upon the sister artists (who, I am
afraid, wouldn't greatly mind stabbing each other), and is upon the
whole ravished.
And now I find that all the French people on board begin to grow,
and all the English people to shrink. The French are nearing home,
and shaking off a disadvantage, whereas we are shaking it on.
Zamiel is the same man, and Abd-el-Kader is the same man, but each
seems to come into possession of an indescribable confidence that
departs from us - from Monied Interest, for instance, and from me.
Just what they gain, we lose. Certain British 'Gents' about the
steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of everything
and truth of nothing, become subdued, and in a manner forlorn; and
when the steersman tells them (not exultingly) how he has 'been
upon this station now eight year, and never see the old town of
Bullum yet,' one of them, with an imbecile reliance on a reed, asks
him what he considers to be the best hotel in Paris?
Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three
charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in
letters a little too thin for their height) on the Custom-house
wall - also by the sight of large cocked hats, without which
demonstrative head-gear nothing of a public nature can be done upon
this soil. All the rabid Hotel population of Boulogne howl and
shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at us. Demented,
by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered over to
their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirlpool of
Touters - is somehow understood to be going to Paris - is, with
infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and brought into
Custom-house bondage with the rest of us.
Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of
preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby
snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his
eye before the boat came into port. He darts upon my luggage, on
the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the
bottom of the great deep; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the
property of 'Monsieur a traveller unknown;' pays certain francs for
it, to a certain functionary behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box
at a Theatre (the arrangements in general are on a wholesale scale,
half military and half theatrical); and I suppose I shall find it
when I come to Paris - he says I shall. I know nothing about it,
except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he gives
me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general distraction.
Railway station. 'Lunch or dinner, ladies and gentlemen. Plenty
of time for Paris. Plenty of time!' Large hall, long counter,
long strips of dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast
chickens, little loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes
of brandy, cakes, and fruit. Comfortably restored from these
resources, I begin to fly again.
I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact Enchantress
and Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a waist like a
wasp's, and pantaloons like two balloons. They all got into the
next carriage together, accompanied by the two Mysteries. They
laughed. I am alone in the carriage (for I don't consider Demented
anybody) and alone in the world.
Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills, fields,
fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming. I wonder where
England is, and when I was there last - about two years ago, I
should say. Flying in and out among these trenches and batteries,
skimming the clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant
ditches, I become a prisoner of state, escaping. I am confined
with a comrade in a fortress. Our room is in an upper story. We
have tried to get up the chimney, but there's an iron grating
across it, imbedded in the masonry. After months of labour, we
have worked the grating loose with the poker, and can lift it up.
We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and blankets into
ropes. Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our ropes to the
top, descend hand over hand upon the roof of the guard-house far
below, shake the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the sentinels
pacing away, hook again, drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep
into the shelter of the wood. The time is come - a wild and stormy
night. We are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we
are swimming in the murky ditch, when lo! 'Qui v'la?' a bugle, the
alarm, a crash! What is it? Death? No, Amiens.
More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins of
soup, more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more
caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment. Everything good,
and everything ready. Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort
of station. People waiting. Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches,
some sabots, plenty of neat women, and a few old-visaged children.
Unless it be a delusion born of my giddy flight, the grown-up
people and the children seem to change places in France. In
general, the boys and girls are little old men and women, and the
men and women lively boys and girls.
Bugle, shriek, flight resumed. Monied Interest has come into my
carriage. Says the manner of refreshing is 'not bad,' but
considers it French. Admits great dexterity and politeness in the
attendants. Thinks a decimal currency may have something to do
with their despatch in settling accounts, and don't know but what
it's sensible and convenient. Adds, however, as a general protest,
that they're a revolutionary people - and always at it.
Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drumming, open
country, river, earthenware manufactures, Creil. Again ten
minutes. Not even Demented in a hurry. Station, a drawing-room
with a verandah: like a planter's house. Monied Interest considers
it a band-box, and not made to last. Little round tables in it, at
one of which the Sister Artists and attendant Mysteries are
established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they were going to stay a
week.
Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying again, and
lazily wondering as I fly. What has the South-Eastern done with
all the horrible little villages we used to pass through, in the
DILIGENCE? What have they done with all the summer dust, with all
the winter mud, with all the dreary avenues of little trees, with
all the ramshackle postyards, with all the beggars (who used to
turn out at night with bits of lighted candle, to look in at the
coach windows), with all the long-tailed horses who were always
biting one another, with all the big postilions in jack-boots -
with all the mouldy cafes that we used to stop at, where a long
mildewed table-cloth, set forth with jovial bottles of vinegar and
oil, and with a Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was never
wanting? Where are the grass-grown little towns, the wonderful
little market-places all unconscious of markets, the shops that
nobody kept, the streets that nobody trod, the churches that nobody
went to, the bells that nobody rang, the tumble-down old buildings
plastered with many-coloured bills that nobody read? Where are the
two-and-twenty weary hours of long, long day and night journey,
sure to be either insupportably hot or insupportably cold? Where
are the pains in my bones, where are the fidgets in my legs, where
is the Frenchman with the nightcap who never WOULD have the little
coupe-window down, and who always fell upon me when he went to
sleep, and always slept all night snoring onions?
A voice breaks in with 'Paris! Here we are!'
I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can't believe it. I feel
as if I were enchanted or bewitched. It is barely eight o'clock
yet - it is nothing like half-past - when I have had my luggage
examined at that briskest of Custom-houses attached to the station,
and am rattling over the pavement in a hackney-cabriolet.
Surely, not the pavement of Paris? Yes, I think it is, too. I
don't know any other place where there are all these high houses,
all these haggard-looking wine shops, all these billiard tables,
all these stocking-makers with flat red or yellow legs of wood for
signboard, all these fuel shops with stacks of billets painted
outside, and real billets sawing in the gutter, all these dirty
corners of streets, all these cabinet pictures over dark doorways
representing discreet matrons nursing babies. And yet this morning
- I'll think of it in a warm-bath.
Very like a small room that I remember in the Chinese baths upon
the Boulevard, certainly; and, though I see it through the steam, I
think that I might swear to that peculiar hot-linen basket, like a
large wicker hour-glass. When can it have been that I left home?
When was it that I paid 'through to Paris' at London Bridge, and
discharged myself of all responsibility, except the preservation of
a voucher ruled into three divisions, of which the first was
snipped off at Folkestone, the second aboard the boat, and the
third taken at my journey's end? It seems to have been ages ago.
Calculation is useless. I will go out for a walk.
The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and balconies,
the elegance, variety, and beauty of their decorations, the number
of the theatres, the brilliant cafes with their windows thrown up
high and their vivacious groups at little tables on the pavement,
the light and glitter of the houses turned as it were inside out,
soon convince me that it is no dream; that I am in Paris, howsoever
I got there. I stroll down to the sparkling Palais Royal, up the
Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Vendome. As I glance into a print-shop
window, Monied Interest, my late travelling companion, comes upon
me, laughing with the highest relish of disdain. 'Here's a
people!' he says, pointing to Napoleon in the window and Napoleon
on the column. 'Only one idea all over Paris! A monomania!'
Humph! I THINK I have seen Napoleon's match? There was a statue,
when I came away, at Hyde Park Corner, and another in the City, and
a print or two in the shops.
I walk up to the Barriere de l'Etoile, sufficiently dazed by my
flight to have a pleasant doubt of the reality of everything about
me; of the lively crowd, the overhanging trees, the performing
dogs, the hobby-horses, the beautiful perspectives of shining
lamps: the hundred and one enclosures, where the singing is, in
gleaming orchestras of azure and gold, and where a star-eyed Houri
comes round with a box for voluntary offerings. So, I pass to my
hotel, enchanted; sup, enchanted; go to bed, enchanted; pushing
back this morning (if it really were this morning) into the
remoteness of time, blessing the South-Eastern Company for
realising the Arabian Nights in these prose days, murmuring, as I
wing my idle flight into the land of dreams, 'No hurry, ladies and
gentlemen, going to Paris in eleven hours. It is so well done,
that there really is no hurry!'
-THE END-
Charles Dickens' short story: A Flight
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