in passing. Then I don't know it, and that is a good reason for
being here; and I can't pronounce half the long queer names I see
inscribed over the shops, and that is another good reason for being
here, since I surely ought to learn how.' In short, I was 'here,'
and I wanted an excuse for not going away from here, and I made it
to my satisfaction, and stayed here.
What part in my decision was borne by Monsieur P. Salcy, is of no
moment, though I own to encountering that gentleman's name on a red
bill on the wall, before I made up my mind. Monsieur P. Salcy,
'par permission de M. le Maire,' had established his theatre in the
whitewashed Hotel de Ville, on the steps of which illustrious
edifice I stood. And Monsieur P. Salcy, privileged director of
such theatre, situate in 'the first theatrical arrondissement of
the department of the North,' invited French-Flemish mankind to
come and partake of the intellectual banquet provided by his family
of dramatic artists, fifteen subjects in number. 'La Famille P.
SALCY, composee d'artistes dramatiques, au nombre de 15 sujets.'
Neither a bold nor a diversified country, I say again, and withal
an untidy country, but pleasant enough to ride in, when the paved
Page 168
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
roads over the flats and through the hollows, are not too deep in
black mud. A country so sparely inhabited, that I wonder where the
peasants who till and sow and reap the ground, can possibly dwell,
and also by what invisible balloons they are conveyed from their
distant homes into the fields at sunrise and back again at sunset.
The occasional few poor cottages and farms in this region, surely
cannot afford shelter to the numbers necessary to the cultivation,
albeit the work is done so very deliberately, that on one long
harvest day I have seen, in twelve miles, about twice as many men
and women (all told) reaping and binding. Yet have I seen more
cattle, more sheep, more pigs, and all in better case, than where
there is purer French spoken, and also better ricks - round
swelling peg-top ricks, well thatched; not a shapeless brown heap,
like the toast of a Giant's toast-and-water, pinned to the earth
with one of the skewers out of his kitchen. A good custom they
have about here, likewise, of prolonging the sloping tiled roof of
farm or cottage, so that it overhangs three or four feet, carrying
off the wet, and making a good drying-place wherein to hang up
herbs, or implements, or what not. A better custom than the
popular one of keeping the refuse-heap and puddle close before the
house door: which, although I paint my dwelling never so brightly
blue (and it cannot be too blue for me, hereabouts), will bring
fever inside my door. Wonderful poultry of the French-Flemish
country, why take the trouble to BE poultry? Why not stop short at
eggs in the rising generation, and die out and have done with it?
Parents of chickens have I seen this day, followed by their
wretched young families, scratching nothing out of the mud with an
air - tottering about on legs so scraggy and weak, that the valiant
word drumsticks becomes a mockery when applied to them, and the
crow of the lord and master has been a mere dejected case of croup.
Carts have I seen, and other agricultural instruments, unwieldy,
dislocated, monstrous. Poplar-trees by the thousand fringe the
fields and fringe the end of the flat landscape, so that I feel,
looking straight on before me, as if, when I pass the extremest
fringe on the low horizon, I shall tumble over into space. Little
whitewashed black holes of chapels, with barred doors and Flemish
inscriptions, abound at roadside corners, and often they are
garnished with a sheaf of wooden crosses, like children's swords;
or, in their default, some hollow old tree with a saint roosting in
it, is similarly decorated, or a pole with a very diminutive saint
enshrined aloft in a sort of sacred pigeon-house. Not that we are
deficient in such decoration in the town here, for, over at the
church yonder, outside the building, is a scenic representation of
the Crucifixion, built up with old bricks and stones, and made out
dusty skull of some holy personage (perhaps), shut up behind a
little ashy iron grate, as if it were originally put there to be
cooked, and the fire had long gone out. A windmilly country this,
though the windmills are so damp and rickety, that they nearly
knock themselves off their legs at every turn of their sails, and
creak in loud complaint. A weaving country, too, for in the
wayside cottages the loom goes wearily - rattle and click, rattle
and click - and, looking in, I see the poor weaving peasant, man or
woman, bending at the work, while the child, working too, turns a
little hand-wheel put upon the ground to suit its height. An
unconscionable monster, the loom in a small dwelling, asserting
himself ungenerously as the bread-winner, straddling over the
children's straw beds, cramping the family in space and air, and
making himself generally objectionable and tyrannical. He is
tributary, too, to ugly mills and factories and bleaching-grounds,
rising out of the sluiced fields in an abrupt bare way, disdaining,
like himself, to be ornamental or accommodating. Surrounded by
these things, here I stood on the steps of the Hotel de Ville,
persuaded to remain by the P. Salcy family, fifteen dramatic
Page 169
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
subjects strong.
There was a Fair besides. The double persuasion being
irresistible, and my sponge being left behind at the last Hotel, I
made the tour of the little town to buy another. In the small
sunny shops - mercers, opticians, and druggist-grocers, with here
and there an emporium of religious images - the gravest of old
spectacled Flemish husbands and wives sat contemplating one another
across bare counters, while the wasps, who seemed to have taken
military possession of the town, and to have placed it under waspmartial
law, executed warlike manoeuvres in the windows. Other
shops the wasps had entirely to themselves, and nobody cared and
nobody came when I beat with a five-franc piece upon the board of
custom. What I sought was no more to be found than if I had sought
a nugget of Californian gold: so I went, spongeless, to pass the
evening with the Family P. Salcy.
The members of the Family P. Salcy were so fat and so like one
another - fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, and aunts -
that I think the local audience were much confused about the plot
of the piece under representation, and to the last expected that
everybody must turn out to be the long-lost relative of everybody
else. The Theatre was established on the top story of the Hotel de
Ville, and was approached by a long bare staircase, whereon, in an
airy situation, one of the P. Salcy Family - a stout gentleman
i
mperfectly repressed by a belt - took the money. This occasioned
the greatest excitement of the evening; for, no sooner did the
curtain rise on the introductory Vaudeville, and reveal in the
person of the young lover (singing a very short song with his
eyebrows) apparently the very same identical stout gentleman
imperfectly repressed by a belt, than everybody rushed out to the
paying-place, to ascertain whether he could possibly have put on
that dress-coat, that clear complexion, and those arched black
vocal eyebrows, in so short a space of time. It then became
manifest that this was another stout gentleman imperfectly
repressed by a belt: to whom, before the spectators had recovered
their presence of mind, entered a third stout gentleman imperfectly
repressed by a belt, exactly like him. These two 'subjects,'
making with the money-taker three of the announced fifteen, fell
into conversation touching a charming young widow: who, presently
appearing, proved to be a stout lady altogether irrepressible by
any means - quite a parallel case to the American Negro - fourth of
the fifteen subjects, and sister of the fifth who presided over the
check-department. In good time the whole of the fifteen subjects
were dramatically presented, and we had the inevitable Ma Mere, Ma
Mere! and also the inevitable malediction d'un pere, and likewise
the inevitable Marquis, and also the inevitable provincial young
man, weak-minded but faithful, who followed Julie to Paris, and
cried and laughed and choked all at once. The story was wrought
out with the help of a virtuous spinning-wheel in the beginning, a
vicious set of diamonds in the middle, and a rheumatic blessing
(which arrived by post) from Ma Mere towards the end; the whole
resulting in a small sword in the body of one of the stout
gentlemen imperfectly repressed by a belt, fifty thousand francs
per annum and a decoration to the other stout gentleman imperfectly
repressed by a belt, and an assurance from everybody to the
provincial young man that if he were not supremely happy - which he
seemed to have no reason whatever for being - he ought to be. This
afforded him a final opportunity of crying and laughing and choking
all at once, and sent the audience home sentimentally delighted.
Audience more attentive or better behaved there could not possibly
be, though the places of second rank in the Theatre of the Family
P. Salcy were sixpence each in English money, and the places of
first rank a shilling. How the fifteen subjects ever got so fat
Page 170
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
upon it, the kind Heavens know.
What gorgeous china figures of knights and ladies, gilded till they
gleamed again, I might have bought at the Fair for the garniture of
my home, if I had been a French-Flemish peasant, and had had the
money! What shining coffee-cups and saucers I might have won at
the turntables, if I had had the luck! Ravishing perfumery also,
and sweetmeats, I might have speculated in, or I might have fired
for prizes at a multitude of little dolls in niches, and might have
hit the doll of dolls, and won francs and fame. Or, being a
French-Flemish youth, I might have been drawn in a hand-cart by my
compeers, to tilt for municipal rewards at the water-quintain;
which, unless I sent my lance clean through the ring, emptied a
full bucket over me; to fend off which, the competitors wore
grotesque old scarecrow hats. Or, being French-Flemish man or
woman, boy or girl, I might have circled all night on my hobbyhorse
in a stately cavalcade of hobby-horses four abreast,
interspersed with triumphal cars, going round and round and round
and round, we the goodly company singing a ceaseless chorus to the
music of the barrel-organ, drum, and cymbals. On the whole, not
more monotonous than the Ring in Hyde Park, London, and much
merrier; for when do the circling company sing chorus, THERE, to
the barrel-organ, when do the ladies embrace their horses round the
neck with both arms, when do the gentlemen fan the ladies with the
tails of their gallant steeds? On all these revolving delights,
and on their own especial lamps and Chinese lanterns revolving with
them, the thoughtful weaver-face brightens, and the Hotel de Ville
sheds an illuminated line of gaslight: while above it, the Eagle
of France, gas-outlined and apparently afflicted with the
prevailing infirmities that have lighted on the poultry, is in a
very undecided state of policy, and as a bird moulting. Flags
flutter all around. Such is the prevailing gaiety that the keeper
of the prison sits on the stone steps outside the prison-door, to
have a look at the world that is not locked up; while that
agreeable retreat, the wine-shop opposite to the prison in the
prison-alley (its sign La Tranquillite, because of its charming
situation), resounds with the voices of the shepherds and
shepherdesses who resort there this festive night. And it reminds
me that only this afternoon, I saw a shepherd in trouble, tending
this way, over the jagged stones of a neighbouring street. A
magnificent sight it was, to behold him in his blouse, a feeble
little jog-trot rustic, swept along by the wind of two immense
gendarmes, in cocked-hats for which the street was hardly wide
enough, each carrying a bundle of stolen property that would not
have held his shoulder-knot, and clanking a sabre that dwarfed the
prisoner.
'Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you at this Fair, as a mark of
my confidence in the people of this so-renowned town, and as an act
of homage to their good sense and fine taste, the Ventriloquist,
the Ventriloquist! Further, Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to
you the Face-Maker, the Physiognomist, the great Changer of
Countenances, who transforms the features that Heaven has bestowed
upon him into an endless succession of surprising and extraordinary
visages, comprehending, Messieurs et Mesdames, all the contortions,
energetic and expressive, of which the human face is capable, and
all the passions of the human heart, as Love, Jealousy, Revenge,
Hatred, Avarice, Despair! Hi hi! Ho ho! Lu lu! Come in!' To
this effect, with an occasional smite upon a sonorous kind of
tambourine - bestowed with a will, as if it represented the people
who won't come in - holds forth a man of lofty and severe
demeanour; a man in stately uniform, gloomy with the knowledge he
possesses of the inner secrets of the booth. 'Come in, come in!
Your opportunity presents itself to-night; to-morrow it will be
Page 171
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
gone for ever. To-morrow morning by the Express Train the railroad
will reclaim the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker! Algeria will
reclaim the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker! Yes! For the honour
of their country they have accepted propositions of a magnitude
incredible, to appear in Algeria. See them for the last time
before their departure! We go to commence on the instan
t. Hi hi!
Ho ho! Lu lu! Come in! Take the money that now ascends, Madame;
but after that, no more, for we commence! Come in!'
Nevertheless, the eyes both of the gloomy Speaker and of Madame
receiving sous in a muslin bower, survey the crowd pretty sharply
after the ascending money has ascended, to detect any lingering
sous at the turning-point. 'Come in, come in! Is there any more
money, Madame, on the point of ascending? If so, we wait for it.
If not, we commence!' The orator looks back over his shoulder to
say it, lashing the spectators with the conviction that he beholds
through the folds of the drapery into which he is about to plunge,
the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker. Several sous burst out of
pockets, and ascend. 'Come up, then, Messieurs!' exclaims Madame
in a shrill voice, and beckoning with a bejewelled finger. 'Come
up! This presses. Monsieur has commanded that they commence!'
Monsieur dives into his Interior, and the last half-dozen of us
follow. His Interior is comparatively severe; his Exterior also.
A true Temple of Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, a small
table with two moderator lamps hanging over it, and an ornamental
looking-glass let into the wall. Monsieur in uniform gets behind
the table and surveys us with disdain, his forehead becoming
diabolically intellectual under the moderators. 'Messieurs et
Mesdames, I present to you the Ventriloquist. He will commence
with the celebrated Experience of the bee in the window. The bee,
apparently the veritable bee of Nature, will hover in the window,
and about the room. He will be with difficulty caught in the hand
of Monsieur the Ventriloquist - he will escape - he will again
hover - at length he will be recaptured by Monsieur the
Ventriloquist, and will be with difficulty put into a bottle.
Achieve then, Monsieur!' Here the proprietor is replaced behind
the table by the Ventriloquist, who is thin and sallow, and of a
weakly aspect. While the bee is in progress, Monsieur the
Proprietor sits apart on a stool, immersed in dark and remote
thought. The moment the bee is bottled, he stalks forward, eyes us
gloomily as we applaud, and then announces, sternly waving his
hand: 'The magnificent Experience of the child with the whoopingcough!'
The child disposed of, he starts up as before. 'The