第36章

Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you find yourself at last in the reception-room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs.Botibol, the CONVERSAZIONE-giver.

When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, if she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand before her face as if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is.

Why the deuce should Mrs.Botibol blow me a kiss? Iwouldn't kiss her for the world.Why do I grin when Isee her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I don't care a straw for Mrs.Botibol.I know what she thinks about me.

I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a dear mutual friend).Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling and telegraphing each other in this insane way?--Because we are both performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose dictates we all of us obey.

Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to their usual English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol is grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing through the aperture by which we have just entered.It is Lady Ann Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call her,) has Wednesdays.That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her volume of poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan of Arc;' and 'Translations from the German' of course).The conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays.With inexpressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays.

All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz and chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell of musk--what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'--a scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another.'The Great Cacafogo,' Mrs.

Botibol whispers, as she passes you by.'A great creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the Hetman Platoff's pianist, you know.'

To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered together--a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere--who never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught lions of the season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question;Captain Flash, who is invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever she goes.

QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment.

You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss Smith in a corner.'Oh, Mr.Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.'

That's all she says.If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest wretch! Meanwhile Mrs.Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here.And what a blessing it is to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon getting your noble honour's lordship's cab.

And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday!