Monsieur du Miroir

by Nathaniel Hawthorne




Than the gentleman above named, there is nobody, in the whole circle of
my acquaintance, whom I have more attentively studied, yet of whom I
have less real knowledge, beneath the surface which it pleases him to
present. Being anxious to discover who and what he really is, and how
connected with me, and what are to be the results to him and to myself
of the joint interest which, without any choice on my part, seems to be
permanently established between us, and incited, furthermore, by the
propensities of a student of human nature, though doubtful whether
Monsieur du Miroir have aught of humanity but the figure,—I have
determined to place a few of his remarkable points before the public,
hoping to be favored with some clew to the explanation of his
character. Nor let the reader condemn any part of the narrative as
frivolous, since a subject of such grave reflection diffuses its
importance through the minutest particulars; and there is no judging
beforehand what odd little circumstance may do the office of a blind
man’s dog among the perplexities of this dark investigation; and
however extraordinary, marvellous, preternatural, and utterly
incredible some of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge my
honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact as if my testimony were
given on oath and involved the dearest interests of the personage in
question. Not that there is matter for a criminal accusation against
Monsieur du Miroir, nor am I the man to bring it forward if there were.
The chief that I complain of is his impenetrable mystery, which is no
better than nonsense if it conceal anything good, and much worse in the
contrary case.

But, if undue partialities could be supposed to influence me, Monsieur
du Miroir might hope to profit rather than to suffer by them, for in
the whole of our long intercourse we have seldom had the slightest
disagreement; and, moreover, there are reasons for supposing him a near
relative of mine, and consequently entitled to the best word that I can
give him. He bears indisputably a strong personal resemblance to
myself, and generally puts on mourning at the funerals of the family.
On the other hand, his name would indicate a French descent; in which
case, infinitely preferring that my blood should flow from a bold
British and pure Puritan source, I beg leave to disclaim all kindred
with Monsieur du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his origin to Spain,
and dub him a knight of the order of the CABALLEROS DE LOS ESPEJOZ, one
of whom was overthrown by Don Quixote. But what says Monsieur du Miroir
himself of his paternity and his fatherland? Not a word did he ever say
about the matter; and herein, perhaps, lies one of his most especial
reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery, that he lacks the
faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move;
his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if
corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and
anon he will seem to pause with as satisfied an air as if he had been
talking excellent sense. Good sense or bad, Monsieur du Miroir is the
sole judge of his own conversational powers, never having whispered so
much as a syllable that reached the ears of any other auditor. Is he
really dumb? or is all the world deaf? or is it merely a piece of my
friend’s waggery, meant for nothing but to make fools of us? If so, he
has the joke all to himself.

This dumb devil which possesses Monsieur do Miroir is, I am persuaded,
the sole reason that he does not make me the most flattering
protestations of friendship. In many particulars—indeed, as to all his
cognizable and not preternatural points, except that, once in a great
while, I speak a word or two—there exists the greatest apparent
sympathy between us. Such is his confidence in my taste that he goes
astray from the general fashion and copies all his dresses after mine.
I never try on a new garment without expecting to meet, Monsieur du
Miroir in one of the same pattern. He has duplicates of all my
waistcoats and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait, and
an old coat for private wear, manufactured, I suspect, by a Chinese
tailor, in exact imitation of a beloved old coat of mine, with a
facsimile, stitch by stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the
singular and minute coincidences that occur, both in the accidents of
the passing day and the serious events of our lives, remind me of those
doubtful legends of lovers, or twin children, twins of fate, who have
lived, enjoyed, suffered, and died in unison, each faithfully repeating
the last tremor of the other’s breath, though separated by vast tracts
of sea and land. Strange to say, my incommodities belong equally to my
companion, though the burden is nowise alleviated by his participation.
The other morning, after a night of torment from the toothache, I met
Monsieur du Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek that my own
pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I might judge by a fresh
contortion of his visage. All the inequalities of my spirits are
communicated to him, causing the unfortunate Monsieur du Miroir to mope
and scowl through a whole summer’s day, or to laugh as long, for no
better reason than the gay or gloomy crotchets of my brain. Once we
were joint sufferers of a three months’ sickness, and met like mutual
ghosts in the first days of convalescence. Whenever I have been in
love, Monsieur du Miroir has looked passionate and tender; and never
did my mistress discard me, but this too susceptible gentleman grew
lackadaisical. His temper, also, rises to blood heat, fever heat, or
boiling-water beat, according to the measure of any wrong which might
seem to have fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been calmed
down by the sight of my own inordinate wrath depicted on his frowning
brow. Yet, however prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to
mind that he ever struck a downright blow in my behalf; nor, in fact,
do I perceive that any real and tangible good has resulted from his
constant interference in my affairs; so that, in my distrustful moods,
I am apt to suspect Monsieur du Miroir’s sympathy to be mere outward
show, not a whit better nor worse than other people’s sympathy.
Nevertheless, as mortal man must have something in the guise of
sympathy,—and whether the true metal, or merely copper-washed, is of
less moment,—I choose rather to content myself with Monsieur du
Miroir’s, such as it is, than to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps
miss even the counterfeit.

In my age of vanities I have often seen him in the ballroom, and might
again were I to seek him there. We have encountered each other at the
Tremont Theatre, where, however, he took his seat neither in the
dress-circle, pit, nor upper regions, nor threw a single glance at the
stage, though the brightest star, even Fanny Kemble herself, might be
culminating there. No; this whimsical friend of mine chose to linger in
the saloon, near one of the large looking-glasses which throw back
their pictures of the illuminated room. He is so full of these
unaccountable eccentricities that I never like to notice Monsieur du
Miroir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with him, in places
of public resort. He, however, has no scruple about claiming my
acquaintance, even when his common-sense, if he had any, might teach
him that I would as willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was
but the other day that he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance
of a hardware-store, and thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a
bright, new warming-pan, whence he gave me a most merciless look of
recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but these childish tricks make
decent people rather shy of Monsieur du Miroir, and subject him to more
dead cuts than any other gentleman in town.

One of this singular person’s most remarkable peculiarities is his
fondness for water, wherein he excels any temperance man whatever. His
pleasure, it must be owned, is not so much to drink it (in which
respect a very moderate quantity will answer his occasions) as to souse
himself over head and ears wherever he may meet with it. Perhaps he is
a merman, or born of a mermaid’s marriage with a mortal, and thus
amphibious by hereditary right, like the children which the old river
deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly love. When no cleaner
bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen the foolish fellow in
a horse-pond. Some times he refreshes himself in the trough of a
town-pump, without caring what the people think about him. Often, while
carefully picking my way along the street after a heavy shower, I have
been scandalized to see Monsieur du Miroir, in full dress, paddling
from one mud-puddle to another, and plunging into the filthy depths of
each. Seldom have I peeped into a well without discerning this
ridiculous gentleman at the bottom, whence he gazes up, as through a
long telescopic tube, and probably makes discoveries among the stars by
daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths or in pathless forests, when I
have come to virgin fountains of which it would have been pleasant to
deem myself the first discoverer, I have started to find Monsieur du
Miroir there before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence.
I have leaned from a precipice that frowns over Lake George, which the
French call nature’s font of sacramental water, and used it in their
log-churches here and their cathedrals beyond the sea, and seen him far
below in that pure element. At Niagara, too, where I would gladly have
forgotten both myself and him, I could not help observing my companion
in the smooth water on the very verge of the cataract just above the
Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I should expect to
meet him there. Unless he be another Ladurlad, whose garments the depth
of ocean could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he keeps
himself in any decent pickle; though I am bound to confess that his
clothes seem always as dry and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend,
I could wish that he would not so often expose himself in liquor.

All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little
personal oddities which agreeably diversify the surface of society,
and, though they may sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily intercourse
fresher and livelier than if they were done away. By an occasional
hint, however, I have endeavored to pave the way for stranger things to
come, which, had they been disclosed at once, Monsieur du Miroir might
have been deemed a shadow, and myself a person of no veracity, and this
truthful history a fabulous legend. But, now that the reader knows me
worthy of his confidence, I will begin to make him stare.

To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs that
Monsieur du Miroir is at least a conjurer, if not one of that unearthly
tribe with whom conjurers deal. He has inscrutable methods of conveying
himself from place to place with the rapidity of the swiftest steamboat
or rail-car. Brick walls and oaken doors and iron bolts are no
impediment to his passage. Here in my chamber, for instance, as the
evening deepens into night, I sit alone,—the key turned and withdrawn
from the lock, the keyhole stuffed with paper to keep out a peevish
little blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I seem, were I to lift one of the
lamps and step five paces eastward, Monsieur du Miroir would be sure to
meet me with a lamp also in his hand; and were I to take the
stage-coach to-morrow, without giving him the least hint of my design,
and post onward till the week’s end, at whatever hotel I might find
myself I should expect to share my private apartment with this
inevitable Monsieur du Miroir. Or, out of a mere wayward fantasy, were
I to go, by moonlight, and stand beside the stone Pout of the Shaker
Spring at Canterbury, Monsieur du Miroir would set forth on the same
fool’s errand, and would not fail to meet me there. Shall I heighten
the reader’s wonder? While writing these latter sentences, I happened
to glance towards the large, round globe of one off the brass andirons,
and lo! a miniature apparition of Monsieur du Miroir, with his face
widened and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my
amazement! But he has played so many of these jokes that they begin to
lose their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the
heaven of a young lady’s eyes; so that, while I gazed and was dreaming
only of herself, I found him also in my dream. Years have so changed
him since that he need never hope to enter those heavenly orbs again.

From these veritable statements it will be readily concluded that, had
Monsieur du Miroir played such pranks in old witch times, matters might
have gone hard with him; at least if the constable and posse comitatus
could have executed a warrant, or the jailer had been cunning enough to
keep him. But it has often occurred to me as a very singular
circumstance, and as betokening either a temperament morbidly
suspicious or some weighty cause of apprehension, that he never trusts
himself within the grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you step
forward to meet him, he readily advances; if you offer him your hand,
he extends his own with an air of the utmost frankness; but, though you
calculate upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his little
finger. Ah, this Monsieur du Miroir is a slippery fellow!

These truly are matters of special admiration. After vainly
endeavoring, by the strenuous exertion of my own wits, to gain a
satisfactory insight into the character of Monsieur du Miroir, I had
recourse to certain wise men, and also to books of abstruse philosophy,
seeking who it was that haunted me, and why. I heard long lectures and
read huge volumes with little profit beyond the knowledge that many
former instances are recorded, in successive ages, of similar
connections between ordinary mortals and beings possessing the
attributes of Monsieur du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides
myself, have such attendants. Would that Monsieur du Miroir could be
persuaded to transfer his attachment to one of those, and allow some
other of his race to assume the situation that he now holds in regard
to me! If I must needs have so intrusive an intimate, who stares me in
the face in my closest privacy, and follows me even to my bedchamber, I
should prefer—scandal apart—the laughing bloom of a young girl to the
dark and bearded gravity of my present companion. But such desires are
never to be gratified. Though the members of Monsieur du Miroir’s
family have been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends
often in splendid halls, and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they
exhibit a rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment,
however unlovely in person or unamiable in disposition,—however
unfortunate, or even infamous, and deserted by all the world besides.
So will it be with my associate. Our fates appear inseparably blended.
It is my belief, as I find him mingling with my earliest recollections,
that we came into existence together, as my shadow follows me into the
sunshine, and that hereafter, as heretofore, the brightness or gloom of
my fortunes will shine upon, or darken, the face of Monsieur du Miroir.
As we have been young together, and as it is now near the summer noon
with both of us, so, if long life be granted, shall each count his own
wrinkles on the other’s brow and his white hairs on the other’s head.
And when the coffin-lid shall have closed over me and that face and
form, which, more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are
the sole light of his existence,—when they shall be laid in that dark
chamber, whither his swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him,—then
what is to become of poor Monsieur du Miroir? Will he have the
fortitude, with my other friends, to take a last look at my pale
countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral train? Will he come
often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles, and plant
flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the letters of my
burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to remind the
neglectful world of one who staked much to win a name, but will not
then care whether he lost or won?

Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. O, what terror, if this
friend of mine, after our last farewell, should step into the crowded
street, or roam along our old frequented path by the still waters, or
sit down in the domestic circle where our faces are most familiar and
beloved! No; but when the rays of heaven shall bless me no more, nor
the thoughtful lamplight gleam upon my studies, nor the cheerful
fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his task fulfilled, shall
this mysterious being vanish from the earth forever. He will pass to
the dark realm of nothingness, but will not find me there.

There is something fearful in bearing such a relation to a creature so
imperfectly known, and in the idea that, to a certain extent, all which
concerns myself will be reflected in its consequences upon him. When we
feel that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves we
judge more severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from
that delusive magic which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness
over our own pathway. Of late years, indeed, there has been much to
sadden my intercourse with Monsieur de Miroir. Had not our union been a
necessary condition of our life, we must have been estranged ere now.
In early youth, when my affections were warm and free, I loved him
well, and could always spend a pleasant hour in his society, chiefly
because it gave me an excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he
was, Monsieur du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of calling me a
handsome fellow; and I, of course, returned the compliment; so that,
the more we kept each other’s company, the greater coxcombs we mutually
grew. But neither of us need apprehend any such misfortune now. When we
chance to meet,—for it is chance oftener than design,—each glances
sadly at the other’s forehead, dreading wrinkles there; and at our
temples, whence the hair is thinning away too early; and at the sunken
eyes, which no longer shed a gladsome light over the whole face. I
involuntarily peruse him as a record of my heavy youth, which has been
wasted in sluggishness for lack of hope and impulse, or equally thrown
away in toil that had no wise motive and has accomplished no good end.
I perceive that the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has darkened
through his countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to
mingle with the shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated
man. Is it too wild a thought that my fate may have assumed this image
of myself, and therefore haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity,
originating every act which it appears to imitate, while it deludes me
by pretending to share the events of which it is merely the emblem and
the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it will throw too deep an awe
round my companion. At our next meeting, especially if it be at
midnight or in solitude, I fear that I shall glance aside and shudder;
in which case, as Monsieur du Miroir is extremely sensitive to
ill-treatment, he also will avert his eyes and express horror or
disgust.

But no; this is unworthy of me. As of old I sought his society for the
bewitching dreams of woman’s love which he inspired, and because I
fancied a bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I hold daily and
long communion with hint for the sake of the stern lessons that he will
teach my manhood. With folded arms we will sit face to face, and
lengthen out our silent converse till a wiser cheerfulness shall have
been wrought from the very texture of despondency. He will say, perhaps
indignantly, that it befits only him to mourn for the decay of outward
grace, which, while he possessed it, was his all. But have not you, he
will ask, a treasure in reserve, to which every year may add far more
value than age or death itself can snatch from that miserable clay? He
will tell me that though the bloom of life has been nipped with a
frost, yet the soul must not sit shivering in its cell, but bestir
itself manfully, and kindle a genial warmth from its own exercise
against; the autumnal and the wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will
bid him be of good cheer, nor take it amiss that I must blanch his
locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted apple, since it shall be my
endeavor so to beautify his face with intellect and mild benevolence
that he shall profit immensely by the change. But here a smile will
glimmer somewhat sadly over Monsieur du Miroir’s visage.

When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed we may take up
others as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the
remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the
attempt to escape him to the hopeless race that men sometimes run with
memory, or their own hearts, or their moral selves, which, though
burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant, will never be one step
behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids me, and make him
the picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my mind may not
wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its own shadow through a chaos
and catching only the monsters that abide there. Then will we turn our
thoughts to the spiritual world, of the reality of which my companions
shall furnish me an illustration, if not an argument; for, as we have
only the testimony of the eye to Monsieur du Miroir’s existence, while
all the other senses would fail to inform us that such a figure stands
within arm’s-length, wherefore should there not be beings innumerable
close beside us, and filling heaven and earth with their multitude, yet
of whom no corporeal perception can take cognizance? A blind man might
as reasonably deny that Monsieur du Miroir exists, as we, because the
Creator has hitherto withheld the spiritual perception, can therefore
contend that there are no spirits. O, there are! And, at this moment,
when the subject of which I write has grown strong within me and
surrounded itself with those solemn and awful associations which might
have seemed most alien to it, I could fancy that Monsieur du Miroir
himself is a wanderer from the spiritual world, with nothing human
except his delusive garment of visibility. Methinks I should tremble
now were his wizard power of gliding through all impediments in search
of me to place him suddenly before my eyes.

Ha! What is yonder? Shape of mystery, did the tremor of my heartstrings
vibrate to thine own, and call thee from thy home among the dancers of
the northern lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and
giant spectres that appear on clouds at daybreak and affright the
climber of the Alps? In truth it startled me, as I threw a wary glance
eastward across the chamber, to discern an unbidden guest with his eyes
bent on mine. The identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR! Still there he sits and
returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity as if he, too, had
spent a solitary evening in fantastic musings and made me his theme. So
inimitably does he counterfeit that I could almost doubt which of us is
the visionary form, or whether each be not the other’s mystery, and
both twin brethren of one fate, in mutually reflected spheres. O
friend, canst thou not hear and answer me? Break down the barrier
between us! Grasp my hand! Speak! Listen! A few words, perhaps, might
satisfy the feverish yearning of my soul for some master-thought that
should guide me through this labyrinth of life, teaching wherefore I
was born, and how to do my task on earth, and what is death. Alas! Even
that unreal image should forget to ape me and smile at these vain
questions. Thus do mortals deify, as it were, a mere shadow of
themselves, a spectre of human reason, and ask of that to unveil the
mysteries which Divine Intelligence has revealed so far as needful to
our guidance, and hid the rest.

Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir. Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may
be doubted whether you are the wiser, though your whole business is
REFLECTION.