Bildungsromans; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Villages -- France -- Fiction
And I dare say it was all quite true: but it was also from resentment of
the thought that, to many of their fellow-visitors, they were themselves
simply respectable but rather common people who did not know this King
and Queen so prodigal with their small change, that the solicitor, the
magistrate, the barrister, when what they were pleased to call the
"Carnival" went by, felt so much annoyance, and expressed aloud an
indignation that was quite understood by their friend the head waiter
who, obliged to shew proper civility to these generous if not authentic
Sovereigns, still, while he took their orders, would dart from afar at
his old patrons a covert but speaking glance. Perhaps there was also
something of the same resentment at being erroneously supposed to be
less and unable to explain that they were more smart, underlining the
"fine specimen" with which they qualified a young "blood", the
consumptive and dissipated son of an industrial magnate, who appeared
every day in a new suit of clothes with an orchid in his buttonhole,
drank champagne at luncheon, and then strolled out of the hotel, pale,
impassive, a smile of complete indifference on his lips, to the casino
to throw away at the baccarat table enormous sums, "which he could ill
afford to lose," as the solicitor said with a resigned air to the chief
magistrate, whose wife had it "on good authority" that this
"detrimental" young man was bringing his parents' grey hair in sorrow to
the grave.
On the other hand, the barrister and his friends could not exhaust their
flow of sarcasm on the subject of a wealthy old lady of title, because
she never moved any where without taking her whole household with her.
Whenever the wives of the solicitor and the magistrate saw her in the
dining-room at meal-times they put up their glasses and gave her an
insolent scrutiny, as minute and distrustful as if she had been some
dish with a pretentious name but a suspicious appearance which, after
the negative result of a systematic study, must be sent away with a
lofty wave of the hand and a grimace of disgust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account