Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 186: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ft % 4. Ny! ° 179 PICKWICK ABROAD. ri a J Ht One body only was stretched upon a| she- is. intoxicated, even a this early bench in the Morgue—and the moment I | our.” cast my eyes upon the features of that animate form, hvid and swollen as they were, I re ognized the lineaments of a lovely face which was too deeply imprinted in my memory to be ever furgotten. One loud scream issued from my lips, and I rushed almost frantically from the Morgue. Wildly did I run along the narrow street which leads to the Place de Par vis; and I arrived at the magnificent old gate of the ancient Cathedral just as the bridegroom was lianding a lovely young lady from the carr: Aze. # «>.op 1” eriéd I, almost unconscious of what I did: “ Count de Franvonville, thou will not surely commemorate thy bridal with one, while another who has loved thee lies a corpse at a little distanee !” “ Ah! is it you, Anastasie ?” said the no- bleman, very coolly: “I am glad to see . Fou. Make my compliments to your ex- -gellent old mother, and take this to remem- der the twenty-first of September—my marriage-day !” he added, handing me his purse, which I rejected. “Villain” exclaimed I: “the poor girl, ¥hose cousin you slew in a duel, and whom you robbed of honor and happiness for ever, Aes at this moment a corpse in the Morgue. I am another of your victims—me have you also deprived of that which woman cannot too highly value !” I do not hesitate to confess that revenge alone prompted me thus to address the gal- Jant nobleman: regret for the past, in refer- ence to myself, I certainly did not then feel. At this moment the piper of the bride interfered. “When did you leave the lunatic asy- lum, my dear ?” coolly demanded the Count ; then turning to his father-in-law, he said, “She is a poor girl who committed a rob- bery in my hotel some years ago, and ran away with the footman. But I found out that she was mad, and sent her to a private asylum in the Champs Elysées, where she has conducted herself in anything but a creditable manner. child-murder.” As these infamous falsehoods fell upon my ear, I felt my brain whirl, and all pow- ers of utterance leave me. I staggered and fell—and just before I sank into : state of insensibility on the avement, heard the wretch observe—~“ T ere, you oe 5 . Indeed, at this mo- ment, there are warrants out against her for When I schsuidegll I found myself in a neighboring café ; but the mar riage had been celebrated, and the cavalcade had re- turned to the princely hotel of the Count de Franconville. That same. evening while the gilded saloons of tha noblema ma residence were echoing the sounds ‘of mu sic and dancing—the corpse of the young girl, whom I had met in the house of the sage-femme, was. conveyed to the tomb! She had ended her days of misery by pre-_ when the rumor of her seducer’s intende marriage met her ears. The following lines were faut in her bosom on a paper, whith the wet had scarcely damaged ; and as the circumstances by which such an effusion came into my possession are singular, J here reproduce that sad effusion of a bro: Ken spirit. ty ot LINES. bi If the joys of my life for ever must perish, And hopes that I cling to so fondly, decay, Oh ! why should my bosom thus steadfastly cherish The visions that please me and vanish away ? Why nourish an adder to sting me reposing ? Why grasp at a straw on the edge of the stream ? Why hope, when the lustre of day-light is closing, To catch from the western horizon its beam ? Alas! the greeh tree cannot flourish for ever, The elegant rose is not always in bloom ; They fade, and they wither ait eir leaves the blasts SCVCT, dil) ws ye And mortals, like them, mus tomb !) ‘ooogl a But the efficacie 8 s le ns: and pressions which such adventures conti to have produced for my benefit, were soon effaced by the vicious counsels of my moth: er, and by the pursuits of that society I daily met with at home) or at the resi- dences of others. Our only employments were how to entrap victims; and the man- ner in which Mr. Tupman was : pen by me and my confederates the first time we ever met, may be taken as a sample of our proceedings. One day I was walking along the Boule- vard Montmartre, when I met an individual whom J ‘thonght f I knew. I could not be cipitating herself into the river, ene e* §—&O [HOO <SriG@ mn