Rollo in Paris Part 11

"Yes," said Rollo, "I will."

"And let us go into my room to read," said Jennie. "I like my room the best."

"Well," said Rollo, "I like your room best, too."

So Rollo took the Bible off from the table of his father's room, and then he and Jennie went on together into Jennie's room. This room was a little boudoir, which opened from Mr. and Mrs. Holiday's room; it was a charming little place, and it was no wonder that Jennie liked it. It was hung with drapery all around, except where the window was, on one side, and a large looking gla.s.s and a picture on two other sides. There was even a curtain over the door, so that when you were in, and the door was shut, and the curtain over it was let down, you seemed to be entirely secluded from all the world. This drapery was green, and the room, being entirely enclosed in it, might have seemed sombre had it not been for the brilliancy and beauty of the furniture, and the variegated colors and high polish of the floor. There was an elegant bedstead and bed in the back part of the room, with a carved canopy over it. There was a bureau also, with drawers, where Jennie kept her clothes; and a little fireplace, with a pretty bra.s.s fender before it; and a marble mantel piece above, with a clock and two vases of flowers upon it. There were a great many other curious and beautiful articles of furniture in the room, which gave it a very attractive appearance, and made it, in fact, as pretty a place of seclusion as a lady could desire to have. Jennie enjoyed this room very much indeed; but still, after all, notwithstanding the expensiveness and beauty of the decorations which adorned it, I do not know that Jennie enjoyed it any more than she did a little seat that she had under some lilac bushes, near the brook at the bottom of her father's garden, at home.

There was a small couch in the recess of the window in Jennie's boudoir; and here she and Rollo established themselves, with the Bible lying open before them upon a small table which they had placed before the couch to hold it. They raised their own seats by means of large, square cus.h.i.+ons which were there, so as to bring themselves to the right height for reading from the book while it lay upon the table; and they put their feet upon a tabouret which belonged to the room. The tabouret was made for a seat, but it answered an admirable purpose for a foot-stool. As soon as the two children were thus comfortably established, they opened the Bible, and Rollo began to turn over the leaves in the books of Samuel and of Kings, in order to find something which he thought would interest Jennie.

At length he found a chapter which seemed, so far as he could judge by running his eye along the verses, to consist princ.i.p.ally of narration and dialogue; and so he determined to begin the reading at once.

"Now," said he, "Jennie, I will read one verse, and then you shall read one, and I will tell you the meaning of all the words that you don't know."

Jennie was much pleased with this arrangement, and she read the verses which came to her with great propriety. It is true that there were a great many words at which she was obliged to hesitate some little time before she could p.r.o.nounce them; and there were others which she could not p.r.o.nounce at all. Rollo had the tact to wait just long enough in these cases. By telling children too quick when they are endeavoring to spell out a word, we deprive them of the pleasure of surmounting the difficulty themselves; and, by waiting too long, we perplex and discourage them. There are very few children who, when they are hearing their younger brothers and sisters read, have the proper discretion on this point. In fact, a great many full-grown teachers fail in this respect most seriously, and make the business of reading on the part of their pupils a constant source of disappointment and vexation to them, when it might have been a pleasure.

Rollo, too, besides the patient and kind encouragement which he afforded to Jane in her attempts to read her verses herself, read those which fell to his share in a very distinct and deliberate manner, keeping the place all the while with his finger, so that Jennie might easily follow him. He stopped also from time to time to explain the story to Jennie, and to talk about the several incidents that were described in it, in order to make it sure that Jennie understood them all. It would have been much easier for him to have taken the book himself, and to have read the whole chapter off at once, fluently. But this would have defeated his whole object; which was, not to do what he could do most easily, but to do good and help Jennie. If a boy were going up a high hill, with his sister in his company, it would be easier for him to go directly on and leave his sister behind. A selfish boy would be likely to do this; but a generous-minded boy would prefer to go slowly, and help his sister along over the rocks and up the steep places.

Rollo and Jane both became so much interested in their reading that they continued it almost an hour. It then began to be dark, and so they put the book away. Their mother came in about that time, and was very much pleased when she found how Rollo and Jennie had been employed; and Rollo and Jennie themselves experienced a substantial and deeply-seated feeling of satisfaction and comfort that all the merry-making of the Elysian Fields could never give. If any of the readers of this book have any doubt of this, let them try the experiment themselves. At some time, after they have been spending a portion of the Sabbath in such a way as to give them an inward feeling of uneasiness and self-condemnation, let them engage for a time in the voluntary performance of some serious duty, as Rollo did, and in the spirit and temper which he manifested, and see how strongly it will tend to bring back their peace of mind and restore them to happiness. To try the experiment more effectually still, spend the whole Sabbath in this manner, and then see with what a feeling of quiet and peaceful satisfaction you will go to bed at night, and with what a joyous and buoyant spirit you will awake on Monday morning.

Before Rollo left Paris, he went, one Tuesday afternoon, with his mother and Jennie and his uncle George, to see the performances at the Hippodrome, and he enjoyed the spectacle very much indeed. Besides the performances which have already been described, there were two others which astonished him exceedingly. In one of these a man came into the middle of the area, and there the a.s.sistants lifted up a large and heavy pole, which they poised in the air, and then set the lower end of it in a sort of socket which was made in an ap.r.o.n which the man wore, which socket was fastened securely to the man's hips and shoulders by strong straps, so that he could sustain the weight of the pole by means of them. The pole was about thirty feet high, and the top was branched like a pitchfork. It was shaped, in fact, exactly like a pitchfork, except that there was a bar across from the top of one branch to the top of the other, and a rope hanging down from the middle of the bar half way down to the place of bifurcation--that is, to the place where the straight part of the pole ended and the branches began. Things being thus arranged, a boy, who was about twelve years old, apparently, came out, and, leaping up upon the man's shoulders, began to climb up the pole.

When he reached the top of it he took hold of the rope, and by means of the rope climbed up to the bar. Here he began to perform a great variety of the most astonis.h.i.+ng evolutions, the man all the time poising the pole in the air. The boy would climb about the bar in every way, drawing himself up sometimes backwards and sometimes forward, and swinging to and fro, and turning over and over in every conceivable position. He would hang to the bar sometimes by his hands and sometimes by his legs--sometimes with his head downward, sometimes with his feet downward. He would whirl round and round over the bar a great many times, till Rollo and Jane were tired of seeing him, and then he would rest by hanging to the pole by the back_ of his head_, without touching the bar with any other part of his body. All this time the man who held the pole kept it carefully poised, moving to and fro about the area continually in following the oscillations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HIPPODROME.]

The other performance was in some respects more extraordinary still.

There was a mast set up in the ground, thirty or forty feet high. At the ground, ten feet from the foot of the mast, there commenced an inclined plane, formed of a plank about a foot or eighteen inches wide, which ascended in a spiral direction round and round the mast till it reached the top. A man ascended this plane by means of a large ball, about two feet in diameter, which he rolled up standing upon it, and rolling it by stepping continually on the ascending side. There was no ledge or guard whatever to keep the ball from rolling off the plane--nothing but a narrow plank ascending continually, and winding in a spiral manner around the mast. This experiment it was quite frightful to see. Several of the children who were sitting near Mr. George's party began to cry, saying, "O, he will fall--he will fall!" In fact, Jennie could not bear to look at him, and so she shut her eyes; and even Mrs. Holiday looked another way. But Rollo watched it through, and saw the man go on up to the very top of the mast, and stand there on his ball on the top, forty feet above the ground, with his hands extended in triumph. After remaining there a short time, he came down as he had gone up; and when he reached the ground, he rolled his ball along, keeping on it all the time, till he came to a chariot which was waiting to receive him. He stepped from the ball off to the chariot, and was then driven all around the ring, being received every where, as he pa.s.sed, with the acclamations of the spectators.

CHAPTER VII.

CARLOS.

One morning, just after breakfast, when Rollo and Jennie were sitting at the window of their hotel, looking at a band of about forty drummers that were arranging themselves on the Asphaltum, in the Place Vendome, in front of the column, preparatory to an exercise of practice on their instrument, Mr. George came into the room. Mr. George took up a newspaper which was lying upon the table, and, seating himself in a large arm chair which was near, he read from it for a few minutes, and then, laying down the paper, said,--

"Rollo, how do you p.r.o.nounce L-o-u-v-o-i-s?"

Mr. George did not speak the word, but spelled it letter by letter.

"I don't know," said Rollo.

"Because," said Mr. George, "that is the name of the hotel where I have gone."

"What made you go away from this hotel, uncle George?" asked Jennie.

"Didn't you like it?"

"Yes," replied Mr. George, "I liked it very much. But I wanted to change the scene. I had become very familiar with every thing in this part of the city, and with the modes of life in this hotel. So I thought I would change, and go to some other quarter of the city, where I could see Paris, and Paris life, in new aspects."

"I wish I had gone with you," said Rollo. "I wonder if my father would not let me go now. Is there a room for me at your hotel?" he added, looking up eagerly.

"I don't know," said Mr. George. "You can ask when you go there. But to day I am going to see the Garden of Plants; and you may go with me, if you like."

"Well," said Rollo, "I should like to go very much."

"And may I go, too?" said Jennie.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "if your mother is willing."

"Well," said Jennie, joyfully, "I'll go and ask her. Only I wish it was a garden of flowers instead of a garden of plants."

So Jennie went to ask her mother if she might go with her uncle George.

She soon returned with her shawl and bonnet on, and then, Mr. George leading the way, they all went together down stairs, and got into a carriage which was waiting for them at the door. The carriage was an open one, with the top turned back, so that they all had a fine opportunity to see the streets and the persons pa.s.sing as they rode along.

Mr. George directed the coachman to drive first to his hotel; and the carriage, leaving the Place Vendome on the northern side, entered into a perfect maze of narrow streets, through which it advanced toward the heart of the city.

After a time, they came to a long, straight street, which led across the city, through the centre of it, from the river to the Boulevards; and when they were about in the middle of this street, the attention of the children was attracted by a very long and gloomy-looking building, which formed one side of the street for a considerable distance before them.

It had no windows toward the street, but only a range of square recesses in the walls, of the form of windows, but without any gla.s.s. Jennie asked Mr. George if it was the prison.

"Not exactly," said Mr. George; "and yet there is one room in it where there are more than a hundred men, and they are not permitted to speak a loud word."

"Let's go and see them," said Rollo.

"Very well," said Mr. George; "we will."

So saying, he called upon the coachman to stop opposite to a great archway which opened through the building near the middle of it. Mr.

George and the children descended from the carriage and went in under the archway. Looking through, they saw a large court yard, with gra.s.s, and trees, and a fountain. They did not, however, go on into this court yard, but turned to the right to a very broad flight of steps which seemed to lead into the building. There was a man in uniform, with a c.o.c.ked hat upon his head, who stood in the pa.s.sage way to guard the entrance. He made no objection, however, to the party's going in; and so they all went on up the stairway.

After pa.s.sing through a series of magnificent pa.s.sages and vestibules, with very broad staircases, and ma.s.sive stone bal.u.s.trades, and other marks of a very ancient and venerable style of architecture, Mr. George led the way through an open door, where the children saw extended before them, as far as the eye could reach, a long range of rooms, opening into one another, and all filled with bookshelves and books. The rooms had windows only on one side; that is, on the side next the courtyard; and the doors which led from one room to the other were all near that side of the room. Thus three sides of each room were almost wholly unbroken, and they were all filled with bookshelves and books. The doors which led from one room to another were all in a range; so that standing at one end, opposite to one of these doors, the spectator could look through the whole range of rooms to the other end. The distance was, moreover, so great, that, though there was a group of several persons standing at the farther end of the range of rooms at the time that Rollo entered, they looked so small and so indistinct that Rollo could not count them to tell how many there were.

"It is a library," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "it is the National Library of Paris, one of the largest libraries in the world. The books have been acc.u.mulating here for ages."

"I don't see what can be the use of such a large library," said Rollo; "n.o.body can possibly read all the books."

"No," said Mr. George, "they cannot read them all; but they may wish to consult them. There are often particular reasons for seeing some particular book, which was published so long ago that it is not now to be found in common bookstores; in such cases, people come here, and they are pretty sure to find the book in this collection."

There were several parties of ladies and gentlemen to be seen, at different distances, walking along the range of rooms, all of whom seemed to be visitors. Mr. George, himself, walked on, and the children followed him. They pa.s.sed from one apartment to another, amazed at the number of books. They were all neatly arranged on bookshelves, which extended from the floor to the ceiling, and were protected by a wire netting in front; so that, although the visitors could see the books, they could not take them down.

Mr. George and the children walked on, until, at length, they came to the end of the range of rooms, and there they found another range, running at right angles to the first, back from the street. They turned and walked along through these rooms, too. The floors of all the rooms were very smooth and glossy, being formed of narrow boards, of dark-colored wood, curiously inlaid, and highly polished. Rollo told Jennie that he believed he could slide on such floors as well as he could on ice, if he thought they would let him try. He knew very well, however, that it would not be proper to try. Besides, he observed that there were standing at different distances along the range of rooms certain men, in uniform, who seemed to be officers stationed in the library to guard against any thing like irregularity or disorder on the part of the visitors.

Besides the books, there were a great many other things to interest visitors in the rooms of the library, such as models of buildings, statues, collections of coins, medals, and precious gems, and other similar curiosities. These things were arranged on tables and in cases made expressly for them, and placed in the various rooms. The tables and cases occupy, generally, the central parts of the rooms that they were placed in, so as not to interfere with the use of the sides of the rooms for books. In one place was a collection of some of the oldest books that ever were printed, showing the style of typography that prevailed when the art of printing was first discovered. Mr. George took great interest in looking at these. Rollo and Jennie, however, did not think much of them; and so, while their uncle was examining these ancient specimens, they went to the windows and looked out into the court yard.

This court formed a green and beautiful garden, shaded with trees and adorned with fountains and walks. The visitors could see that the buildings of the library extended in long ranges all around it.

At length, at the end of the second range of rooms, the party came to a third range, which was parallel to the first, and which extended along the back side of the court yard. The children could not go into these apartments, for the entrance to them was closed by a gla.s.s part.i.tion.

They could, however, look through the part.i.tion and see what there was within. They beheld a very long hall, which was several hundred feet in length, apparently, and quite wide, and it was lined on both sides with bookshelves and books. Long tables were extended up and down this hall, with a great number of gentlemen sitting at them, all engaged in silent study. Some were reading; some were writing; some were looking at books of maps or engravings. There were desks at various places up and down the room, with officers belonging to the library sitting at them, and several messengers, dressed in uniform, going to and fro bringing books.