The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids Read online

  ways, more or less, machinery of this ponderous,

  elaborate sort strikes, in some moods, strange

  dread into the human heart, as some living,

  panting Behemoth might. But what made the

  thing I saw so specially terrible to me was the

  metallic necessity, the unbudging fatality which

  governed it. Though, here and there, I could

  not follow the thin, gauzy vail of pulp in the

  course of its more mysterious or entirely invis-

  ible advance, yet it was indubitable that, at

  those points where it eluded me, it still marched

  on in unvarying docility to the autocratic cun-

  ning of the machine. A fascination fastened

  on me. I stood spell-bound and wandering in

  my soul. Before my eyes -- there, passing in

  slow procession along the wheeling cylinders, I

  seemed to see, glued to the pallid incipience of

  the pulp, the yet more pallid faces of all the

  pallid girls I had eyed that heavy day. Slowly,

  mournfully, beseechingly, yet unresistingly, they

  gleamed along, their agony dimly outlined on

  the imperfect paper, like the print of the tor-

  mented face on the handkerchief of Saint Ve-

  ronica.

  "Halloa! the heat of the room is too much

  for you," cried Cupid, staring at me.

  "No -- I am rather chill, if any thing."

  "Come out, Sir — out -- out," and, with the

  protecting air of a careful father, the precocious

  lad hurried me outside.

  In a few moments, feeling revived a little, I

  went into the folding-room -- the first room I

  had entered, and where the desk for transacting

  business stood, surrounded by the blank count-

  ers and blank girls engaged at them.

  "Cupid here has led me a strange tour," said

  I to the dark-complexioned man before men-

  tioned, whom I had ere this discovered not only

  to be an old bachelor, but also the principal pro-

  prietor. "Yours is a most wonderful factory.

  Your great machine is a miracle of inscrutable

  intricacy."

  "Yes, all our visitors think it so. But we

  don't have many. We are in a very out-of-the-

  way corner here. Few inhabitants, too. Most

  of our girls come from far-off villages."

  "The girls," echoed I, glancing round at their

  silent forms. " Why is it, Sir, that in most factories,

  female operatives, of whatever age, are

  indiscriminately called girls, never women?"

  "Oh! as to that -- why, I suppose, the fact

  of their being generally unmarried -- that's the

  reason, I should think. But it never struck

  me before. For our factory here, we will not

  have married women; they are apt to be off-

  and-on too much. We want none but steady

  workers: twelve hours to the day, day after day,

  through the three hundred and sixty-five days,

  excepting Sundays, Thanksgiving, and Fast-

  days. That's our rule. And so, having no

  married women, what females we have are

  rightly enough called girls."

  "Then these are all maids," said I, while

  some pained homage to their pale virginity made

  me involuntarily bow.

  "All maids."

  Again the strange emotion filled me.

  "Your cheeks look whitish yet, Sir," said the

  man, gazing at me narrowly. "You must be

  careful going home. Do they pain you at all

  now? It's a bad sign, if they do."

  "No doubt, Sir," answered I, "when once I

  have got out of the Devil's Dungeon, I shall

  feel them mending."

  "Ah, yes; the winter air in valleys, or gorges,

  or any sunken place, is far colder and more bit-

  ter than elsewhere. You would hardly believe

  it now, but it is colder here than at the top of

  Woedolor Mountain."

  "I dare say it is, Sir. But time presses me;

  I must depart."

  With that, remuffling myself in dread-naught

  and tippet, thrusting my hands into my huge

  seal-skin mittens, I sallied out into the nipping

  air, and found poor Black, my horse, all cring-

  ing and doubled up with the cold.

  Soon, wrapped in furs and meditations, I as-

  cended from the Devil's Dungeon.

  At the Black Notch I paused, and once more

  bethought me of Temple-Bar. Then, shooting

  through the pass, all alone with inscrutable na-

  ture, I exclaimed -- Oh! Paradise of Bachelors!

  and oh! Tartarus of Maids!