In the distance I saw a playful Meditation
rise to birth, I heard the satanic laughter which ran through it, and
now you doubtless are about to kill it.--But come, tell me in
confidence what means you have discovered by which to assist a woman
to squander the swift moments during which her beauty is at its full
flower and her desires at their full strength.--Perhaps you have some
stratagems, some clever devices, to describe to me--"
The viscount began to laugh at this literary disappointment of mine,
and he said to me, with a self-satisfied air:
"My wife, like all the young people of our happy century, has been
accustomed, for three or four consecutive years, to press her fingers
on the keys of a piano, a long-suffering instrument. She has hammered
out Beethoven, warbled the airs of Rossini and run through the
exercises of Crammer. I had already taken pains to convince her of the
excellence of music; to attain this end, I have applauded her, I have
listened without yawning to the most tiresome sonatas in the world,
and I have at last consented to give her a box at the Bouffons. I have
thus gained three quiet evenings out of the seven which God has
created in the week. I am the mainstay of the music shops. At Paris
there are drawing-rooms which exactly resemble the musical snuff-boxes
of Germany.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246