Aristocracy (Social class) -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Oh, I wish we were back on the _Sauterelle!_--which reminds me I have
never told you anything about Trouville. The whole place was full of
such beautiful ladies, and such nice clothes. They must all have been
married, their things were so becoming. The Vicomte seemed to know them
well, and they all spoke of them by their Christian names, such as,
_Voilà Blanche d'Antin!_ or _Emilie_ something else, as we passed them,
but none of our party bowed to the really pretty ones, which I thought
very queer if they knew them well enough to speak of them by their
Christian names. I remember you always told me never to do that--I mean
to use people's first names in speaking of them if you are not
acquainted with them--but evidently it is different here. The
Tournelles and all the others did stop to speak to heaps of duller
looking people, and every one tried to persuade us to stay and go to
the races.
We went to the Casino in the evening and saw a piece; it was boring. We
had two boxes, and they kept talking to me all the time, so I really
could not pay much attention to the acting.
Down below us was the Marquise de Vermandoise's brother-in-law, with a
rather dowdy little woman. They talked a great deal about him, and the
Marquise said it was just like his economy to go to Trouville with such
"une espèce de petite fagottée bon marché." So I suppose it was some
poor relation he was treating, but they seemed very good friends, as he
held her hand all the time, quite forgetting the people up above could
see. Then we played "Petits Chevaux," and I won every time; I do like
it very much.
[Sidenote: _A Bathing Party_]
We came back to Vinant by the two o'clock train, but first we went to
bathe. I was really annoyed at having to have a hired dress, a
frightful thing, and weighing a ton. The Marquise and the others had
brought theirs on the chance of our having time for a dip. The
Baronne's and Héloise's were too sweet. The Baronne's cap had the same
kind of lovely little curls round it that she wears at night; but she
is a great coward, and hardly went in deeper than her ankles, in spite
of all the entreaties of "Antoine" and the Vicomte. The Marquise de
Vermandoise looks splendid in the water, just like a goddess, and her
bathing-dress was thin enough red silk for us to see how beautifully
she is made. The splashing about seemed to make her so gay, she kept
putting her tongue into the gap where her tooth is gone, and looked so
wicked they would all have swam anywhere after her. She and de
Tournelle went out a long way to a boat, and they did seem to be having
a good time. I wish I could swim like that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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