“That's all,” he said; “shall I venture to tell him that I recommend you
for these?”
“Let me have a trial,” said I, gravely.
“I will write your letter to-night, then, and you shall set out
to-morrow for Vienna; thence you'll take the rail to Trieste, and by sea
you 'll reach Fiume, where Herr Oppovich lives.”
I thanked him heartily, and went to my room.
On the morning that followed began my new life. I was no longer to
be the pampered and spoiled child of fortune, surrounded with every
appliance of luxury, and waited on by obsequious servants. I was now to
travel modestly, to fare humbly, and to ponder over the smallest outlay,
lest it should limit me in some other quarter of greater need. But of
all the changes in my condition, none struck me so painfully at first
as the loss of consideration from strangers that immediately followed
my fallen state. People who had no concern with my well-to-do condition,
who could take no possible interest in my prosperity, had been courteous
to me hitherto, simply because I was prosperous, and were now become
something almost the reverse for no other reason, that I could see, than
that I was poor.
Where before I had met willingness to make my acquaintance, and an
almost cordial acceptance, I was now to find distance and reserve. Above
all, I discovered that there was a general distrust of the poor man, as
though he were one more especially exposed to rash influences, and more
likely to yield to them.
I got some sharp lessons in these things the first few days of my
journey, but I dropped down at last into the third-class train, and
found myself at ease. My fellow-travellers were not very polished
or very cultivated, but in one respect their good breeding had the
superiority over that of finer folk. They never questioned my right to
be saving, nor seemed to think the worse of me for being poor.
Herr Heinfetter had counselled me to stay a few days at Vienna, and
provide myself with clothes more suitable to my new condition than those
I was wearing.
“If old Ignaz Oppovich saw a silk-lined coat, he 'd soon send you about
your business,” said he; “and as to that fine watch-chain and its gay
trinkets, you have only to appear with it once to get your dismissal.”
It was not easy, with my little experience of life, to see how these
things should enter into an estimate of me, or why Herr Ignaz should
concern him with other attributes of mine than such as touched my
clerkship; but as I was entering on a world where all was new, where
not only the people, but their prejudices and their likings, were all
strange to me, I resolved to approach them in an honest spirit, and with
a desire to conform to them as well as I was able.
Lest the name Norcott appearing in the newspapers in my father's case
should connect me with his story, Hein-fetter advised me to call myself
after my mother's family, which sounded, besides, less highly born; and
I had my passport made out in the name of Digby Owen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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