FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33  
34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   >>   >|  
ut the street, the street with its passing purchasers and idlers, and its overflowing holiday crowd, that on Sundays throng the side walks and pavements. And how bored she was, wretched creature, in the country, how she regretted the Paris life! Heurtebise, on the contrary, required the country for his mental health. Paris still bewildered him like some countrified boor on his first visit. His wife could not understand it, and bitterly complained of her exile. By way of diversion she invited her old acquaintances, and when her husband was absent they amused themselves by turning over his papers, his memoranda, and the work he was engaged upon. "Do look, my dear, how funny it is. He shuts himself up to write this. He paces up and down, talking to himself. As for me, I understand nothing of what he does." And then came endless regrets, and recollections of her past life. "Ah! if I had known. When I think that I might have married Aubertot and Fajon, the linen-drapers." She always spoke of the two partners at the same time, as though she would have married the firm. Neither did she restrain her feelings in her husband's presence. [Illustration: p031-042] She disturbed him, prevented all work, settling down with her friends in the very room he was writing in, and filling it with the silly chatter of idle women, who talked loud, full of disdain for a literary profession which brought in so little, and whose most laborious hours always resemble a capricious idleness. From time to time Heurtebise strove to escape from the life which he felt was daily becoming more dismal. He rushed off to Paris, hired a small room at an hotel, tried to fancy he was a bachelor; but suddenly he thought of his son, and with a desperate longing to embrace him hurried back the same evening into the country. [Illustration: p032-043] On these occasions, in order to avoid the inevitable scene on his return, he took a friend back with him and kept him there as long as he could. As soon as he was no longer alone face to face with his wife, his fine intellect awoke and his interrupted schemes of work little by little and one after the other came back to him. But what anguish it was when his friends left! He would have kept his guests for ever, clinging to them by all the strength of his _ennui_. With what sadness would he accompany us to the stand of the little suburban omnibus which bore us back to Paris! and when we left, how slowly he
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33  
34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

country

 

understand

 

husband

 

married

 
friends
 

Heurtebise

 

Illustration

 

street

 

chatter

 

rushed


dismal

 

profession

 

literary

 
resemble
 
brought
 
laborious
 

capricious

 

idleness

 

escape

 

talked


strove

 

disdain

 

anguish

 
guests
 

schemes

 

intellect

 
interrupted
 
clinging
 

omnibus

 
suburban

slowly
 

accompany

 
strength
 

sadness

 
longer
 

hurried

 

embrace

 
evening
 

longing

 

desperate


bachelor

 
suddenly
 

thought

 

friend

 
return
 

occasions

 

inevitable

 

complained

 
diversion
 

bitterly