Bildungsromans; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Villages -- France -- Fiction
entirely for himself; in any circumstances he did what seemed pleasing
to himself, what was most convenient, but at once the snobs would start
copying him. If he felt thirsty at the play, and sent out from his box
for a drink, the little sitting-rooms behind all the boxes would be
filled, a week later, with refreshments. One wet summer, when he had a
touch of rheumatism, he ordered an ulster of a loose but warm vicuna
wool, which is used only for travelling rugs, and kept the blue and
orange stripes shewing. The big tailors at once received orders from all
their customers for blue and orange ulsters of rough wool. If he had
some reason for wishing to keep every trace of ceremony out of a dinner
in a country house where he was spending the day, and to point the
distinction had come without evening clothes and sat down to table in
the suit he had been wearing that afternoon, it became the fashion, when
you were dining in the country, not to dress. If he was eating some
special sweet and instead of taking his spoon used a knife, or a special
implement of his own invention which he had had made for him by a
silversmith, or his fingers, it at once became wrong to eat it in any
other way. He wanted once to hear some Beethoven quartets again (for
with all his preposterous ideas he is no fool, mind, he has great gifts)
and arranged for some musicians to come and play them to him and a few
friends once a week. The ultra-fashionable thing that season was to give
quite small parties, with chamber music. I should say he's not done at
all badly out of life. With his looks, he must have had any number of
women! I can't tell you exactly whom, for he is very discreet. But I do
know that he was thoroughly unfaithful to my poor aunt. Not that that
prevented his being always perfectly charming to her, and her adoring
him; he was in mourning for her for years. When he is in Paris, he still
goes to the cemetery nearly every day."
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