—from Vanity Fair(Chapter 67)
William Thackeray
Whatever Becky’s private plan might be by which Dobbin’s true love was to be crowned with success，the little woman thought that the secret might keep, and indeed being by no means so much interested about anybody’s welfare as about her own, she had a great number of things pertaining to herself to consider, and which concerned her a great deal more than Major Dobbin’s happiness in this life.
She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug comfortable quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-natured simple people such as she had not met with for many a long day; and, wanderer as she was by force and inclination, there were moments when rest was pleasant to her.As the most hardened Arab that ever careered across the desert over the hump of a dromedary likes to repose sometimes under the date-trees by the water, or to come into the cities, walk into the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again marauding, so Jos’s tents were pleasant to this little Ishmaelite.She picketed her steed, hung up her weapons, and warmed herself comfortably by his fire.The halt in that roving, restless life was inexpressibly soothing and pleasant to her.
So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to please everybody; and we know that she was eminent and successful as a practitioner in the art of giving pleasure.As for Jos, even in that little interview in the garret at the Elephant Inn, she had found means to win back a great deal of his good-will.In the course of a week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic admirer.He didn’t go to sleep after dinner, as his custom was in the much less lively society of Amelia.He drove out with Becky in his open carriage.He asked little parties and invented festivities to do her honor.
Tapeworm, the Charge d’Affaires, who had abused her so cruelly, came to dine with Jos, and then came every day to pay his respects to Becky.Poor Emmy, who was never very talkative, and more glum and silent than ever after Dobbin’s departure, was quite forgotten when this superior genius made her appearance.The French Minister was as much charmed with her as his English rival.The German ladies, never particularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in English people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of Mrs.Osborne‘s charming friend, and though she did not ask to go to Court, yet the most august and Transparent Personages there heard of her fascinations and were quite curious to know her.When it became known that she was noble, of an ancient English family, that her husband was a Colonel of the Guard, Excellenz and Governor of an island, only separated from his lady by one of those trifling differences which are of little account in a country where Werther is still read and the Wahlverwandtschaften of Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody thought of refusing to receive her in the very highest society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were even more ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable benefits upon Amelia.Love and Liberty are interpreted by those simple Germans in a way which honest folks in Yorkshire and Somersetshire little understand, and a lady might, in some philosophic and civilized towns, be divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands and keep her character in society.Jos’s house never was so pleasant since he had a house of his own as Rebecca caused it to be.She sang, she played, she laughed, she talked in two or three languages, she brought everybody to the house, and she made Jos believe that it was his own great social talents and wit which gathered the society of the place round about him.