Romance of Youth, a — Volume 2 by François Coppée
page 30 of 61 (49%)
page 30 of 61 (49%)
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the young advocate drank many cups of Orleanist tea, going even into the
same drawing-rooms as Beule and Prevost-Paradol, and accompanying political ladies to the receptions at the Academie Francaise. "That is where you must make havoc, you rascal!" But Papillon defends himself with conceited smiles and meaning looks. According to him--and he puts his two thumbs into the armholes of his vest--the ambitious must be chaste. "Abstineo venere," said he, lowering his eyes in a comical manner, for he did not fear Latin quotations. However, he declared himself very hard to please in that matter; he dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What he did not tell them was, that a dressmaker's little errand-girl, with whom he had tried to converse as he left the law-school, had surveyed him from head to foot and threatened him with the police. Upon some new joke of Maurice's, the lawyer gave his amorous programme in the following terms: "Understand me, a woman must be as intelligent as Hypatia, and have the sensibility of Heloise; the smile of a Joconde, and the limbs of an Antiope; and, even then, if she had not the throat of a Venus de Medicis, I should not love her." Without going quite so far, the actor showed himself none the less exacting. According to his ideas, Deborah, the tragedienne at the Odeon --a Greek statue!--had too large hands, and the fascinating Blanche Pompon at the Varietes was a mere wax doll. |
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