FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298  
299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   >>   >|  
royal silversmiths, the Touranian had the advantage of having, as I have before observed, a continent member in his shirt. However, the good man could not close his eyes to the advantage of nature with which were so amply furnished the ladies with whom he dilated upon the value of his jewels. So it was that, after listening to the gentle discourse of the ladies, who tried to wheedle and to fondle him to obtain a favour from him, the good Touranian would return to his home, dreamy as a poet, wretched as a restless cuckoo, and would say to himself, "I must take to myself a wife. She would keep the house tidy, keep the plates hot for me, fold the clothes for me, sew my buttons on, sing merrily about the house, tease me to do everything according to her taste, would say to me as they all say to their husbands when they want a jewel, 'Oh, my own pet, look at this, is it not pretty?' And every one in the quarter will think of my wife and then of me, and say 'There's a happy man.' Then the getting married, the bridal festivities, to fondle Madame Silversmith, to dress her superbly, give her a fine gold chain, to worship her from crown to toe, to give her the whole management of the house, except the cash, to give her a nice little room upstairs, with good windows, pretty, and hung around with tapestry, with a wonderful chest in it and a fine large bed, with twisted columns and curtains of yellow silk. He would buy her beautiful mirrors, and there would always be a dozen or so of children, his and hers, when he came home to greet him." Then wife and children would vanish into the clouds. He transferred his melancholy imaginings to fantastic designs, fashioned his amorous thoughts into grotesque jewels that pleased their buyers well, they not knowing how many wives and children were lost in the productions of the good man, who, the more talent he threw into his art, the more disordered he became. Now if God had not had pity upon him, he would have quitted this world without knowing what love was, but would have known it in the other without that metamorphosis of the flesh which spares it, according to Monsieur Plato, a man of some authority, but who, not being a Christian, was wrong. But, there! these preparatory digressions are the idle digressions and fastidious commentaries which certain unbelievers compel a man to wind about a tale, swaddling clothes about an infant when it should run about stark naked. May the great devil g
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298  
299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
children
 

knowing

 

fondle

 

digressions

 

pretty

 
clothes
 
jewels
 

advantage

 

Touranian

 
ladies

grotesque

 

pleased

 
designs
 

fashioned

 

buyers

 
amorous
 

thoughts

 
talent
 

disordered

 
productions

fantastic

 

transferred

 

continent

 
beautiful
 
mirrors
 

observed

 

yellow

 
twisted
 
columns
 

curtains


vanish

 
clouds
 

melancholy

 

imaginings

 
unbelievers
 

compel

 

commentaries

 

fastidious

 

swaddling

 
infant

preparatory

 
silversmiths
 

quitted

 

metamorphosis

 

Christian

 

authority

 

spares

 

Monsieur

 

tapestry

 
merrily