The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
"Well," acquiesced the cosmopolitan, seating himself, and quietly
brimming his glass, "what shall we talk about?"
"Oh, anything you please," a sort of nervously accommodating.
"Well, suppose we talk about Charlemont?"
"Charlemont? What's Charlemont? Who's Charlemont?"
"You shall hear, my dear Charlie," answered the cosmopolitan. "I will
tell you the story of Charlemont, the gentleman-madman."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHICH MAY PASS FOR WHATEVER IT MAY PROVE TO BE WORTH.
But ere be given the rather grave story of Charlemont, a reply must in
civility be made to a certain voice which methinks I hear, that, in view
of past chapters, and more particularly the last, where certain antics
appear, exclaims: How unreal all this is! Who did ever dress or act like
your cosmopolitan? And who, it might be returned, did ever dress or act
like harlequin?
Strange, that in a work of amusement, this severe fidelity to real life
should be exacted by any one, who, by taking up such a work,
sufficiently shows that he is not unwilling to drop real life, and turn,
for a time, to something different. Yes, it is, indeed, strange that any
one should clamor for the thing he is weary of; that any one, who, for
any cause, finds real life dull, should yet demand of him who is to
divert his attention from it, that he should be true to that dullness.
There is another class, and with this class we side, who sit down to a
work of amusement tolerantly as they sit at a play, and with much the
same expectations and feelings. They look that fancy shall evoke scenes
different from those of the same old crowd round the custom-house
counter, and same old dishes on the boardinghouse table, with characters
unlike those of the same old acquaintances they meet in the same old way
every day in the same old street. And as, in real life, the proprieties
will not allow people to act out themselves with that unreserve
permitted to the stage; so, in books of fiction, they look not only for
more entertainment, but, at bottom, even for more reality, than real
life itself can show. Thus, though they want novelty, they want nature,
too; but nature unfettered, exhilarated, in effect transformed. In this
way of thinking, the people in a fiction, like the people in a play,
must dress as nobody exactly dresses, talk as nobody exactly talks, act
as nobody exactly acts. It is with fiction as with religion: it should
present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
If, then, something is to be pardoned to well-meant endeavor, surely a
little is to be allowed to that writer who, in all his scenes, does but
seek to minister to what, as he understands it, is the implied wish of
the more indulgent lovers of entertainment, before whom harlequin can
never appear in a coat too parti-colored, or cut capers too fantastic.
One word more. Though every one knows how bootless it is to be in all
cases vindicating one's self, never mind how convinced one may be that
he is never in the wrong; yet, so precious to man is the approbation of
his kind, that to rest, though but under an imaginary censure applied to
but a work of imagination, is no easy thing. The mention of this
weakness will explain why such readers as may think they perceive
something harmonious between the boisterous hilarity of the cosmopolitan
with the bristling cynic, and his restrained good-nature with the
boon-companion, are now referred to that chapter where some similar
apparent inconsistency in another character is, on general principles,
modestly endeavored to-be apologized for.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN.
"Charlemont was a young merchant of French descent, living in St.
Louis--a man not deficient in mind, and possessed of that sterling and
captivating kindliness, seldom in perfection seen but in youthful
bachelors, united at times to a remarkable sort of gracefully
devil-may-care and witty good-humor. Of course, he was admired by
everybody, and loved, as only mankind can love, by not a few. But in his
twenty-ninth year a change came over him. Like one whose hair turns gray
in a night, so in a day Charlemont turned from affable to morose. His
acquaintances were passed without greeting; while, as for his
confidential friends, them he pointedly, unscrupulously, and with a kind
of fierceness, cut dead.
"One, provoked by such conduct, would fain have resented it with words
as disdainful; while another, shocked by the change, and, in concern for
a friend, magnanimously overlooking affronts, implored to know what
sudden, secret grief had distempered him. But from resentment and from
tenderness Charlemont alike turned away.
"Ere long, to the general surprise, the merchant Charlemont was
gazetted, and the same day it was reported that he had withdrawn from
town, but not before placing his entire property in the hands of
responsible assignees for the benefit of creditors.
"Whither he had vanished, none could guess. At length, nothing being
heard, it was surmised that he must have made away with himself--a
surmise, doubtless, originating in the remembrance of the change some
months previous to his bankruptcy--a change of a sort only to be
ascribed to a mind suddenly thrown from its balance.
"Years passed. It was spring-time, and lo, one bright morning,
Charlemont lounged into the St. Louis coffee-houses--gay, polite,
humane, companionable, and dressed in the height of costly elegance. Not
only was he alive, but he was himself again. Upon meeting with old
acquaintances, he made the first advances, and in such a manner that it
was impossible not to meet him half-way. Upon other old friends, whom he
did not chance casually to meet, he either personally called, or left
his card and compliments for them; and to several, sent presents of game
or hampers of wine.
"They say the world is sometimes harshly unforgiving, but it was not so
to Charlemont. The world feels a return of love for one who returns to
it as he did. Expressive of its renewed interest was a whisper, an
inquiring whisper, how now, exactly, so long after his bankruptcy, it
fared with Charlemont's purse. Rumor, seldom at a loss for answers,
replied that he had spent nine years in Marseilles in France, and there
acquiring a second fortune, had returned with it, a man devoted
henceforth to genial friendships.
"Added years went by, and the restored wanderer still the same; or
rather, by his noble qualities, grew up like golden maize in the
encouraging sun of good opinions. But still the latent wonder was, what
had caused that change in him at a period when, pretty much as now, he
was, to all appearance, in the possession of the same fortune, the same
friends, the same popularity. But nobody thought it would be the thing
to question him here.
"At last, at a dinner at his house, when all the guests but one had
successively departed; this remaining guest, an old acquaintance, being
just enough under the influence of wine to set aside the fear of
touching upon a delicate point, ventured, in a way which perhaps spoke
more favorably for his heart than his tact, to beg of his host to
explain the one enigma of his life. Deep melancholy overspread the
before cheery face of Charlemont; he sat for some moments tremulously
silent; then pushing a full decanter towards the guest, in a choked
voice, said: 'No, no! when by art, and care, and time, flowers are made
to bloom over a grave, who would seek to dig all up again only to know
the mystery?--The wine.' When both glasses were filled, Charlemont took
his, and lifting it, added lowly: 'If ever, in days to come, you shall
see ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremble
for your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly through
love for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehand
with the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sin
to yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and like
him will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be,
if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happy
again.'
"When the guest went away, it was with the persuasion, that though
outwardly restored in mind as in fortune, yet, some taint of
Charlemont's old malady survived, and that it was not well for friends
to touch one dangerous string."
CHAPTER XXXV.
IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN STRIKINGLY EVINCES THE ARTLESSNESS OF HIS
NATURE.
"Well, what do you think of the story of Charlemont?" mildly asked he
who had told it.
"A very strange one," answered the auditor, who had been such not with
perfect ease, "but is it true?"
"Of course not; it is a story which I told with the purpose of every
story-teller--to amuse. Hence, if it seem strange to you, that
strangeness is the romance; it is what contrasts it with real life; it
is the invention, in brief, the fiction as opposed to the fact. For do
but ask yourself, my dear Charlie," lovingly leaning over towards him,
"I rest it with your own heart now, whether such a forereaching motive
as Charlemont hinted he had acted on in his change--whether such a
motive, I say, were a sort of one at all justified by the nature of
human society? Would you, for one, turn the cold shoulder to a friend--a
convivial one, say, whose pennilessness should be suddenly revealed to
you?"
"How can you ask me, my dear Frank? You know I would scorn such
meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted--"really, early as it is, I
think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels
unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of
it, has played the deuce with me."
"Little as you drank of this elixir of logwood? Why, Charlie, you are
losing your mind. To talk so of the genuine, mellow old port. Yes, I
think that by all means you had better away, and sleep it off.
There--don't apologize--don't explain--go, go--I understand you exactly.
I will see you to-morrow."
CHAPTER XXXVI.
IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUES
PRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.
As, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a stranger
advanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: "I think I heard you say
you would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so."
He turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, and
Saxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certain
angularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but a
look of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmer
dignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful,
than by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness in
maturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the original
gift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance of
the passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. A
neat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a red
clover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by the
virtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what of
shrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed a
kind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though it
seemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability play
second fiddle to the last.
"Sir," said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, "if I
cannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has just
been clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am not
disposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alone
have prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm,