Peter Ibbetson by George Du Maurier
page 50 of 341 (14%)
page 50 of 341 (14%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
nurse), curious, inquisitive, and indefatigable; full of imagination;
all his senses keen with the keenness that belongs to the morning of life: the sight of a hawk, the hearing of a bat, almost the scent of a hound. Indeed, it required a nose both subtle and unprejudiced to understand and appreciate and thoroughly enjoy that Paris--not the Paris of M. le Baron Haussmann, lighted by gas and electricity, and flushed and drained by modern science; but the "good old Paris" of Balzac and Eugene Sue and _Les Mysteres_--the Paris of dim oil-lanterns suspended from iron gibbets (where once aristocrats had been hung); of water-carriers who sold water from their hand-carts, and delivered it at your door (_au cinqueme_) for a penny a pail--to drink of, and wash in, and cook with, and all. There were whole streets--and these by no means the least fascinating and romantic--where the unwritten domestic records of every house were afloat in the air outside it--records not all savory or sweet, but always full of interest and charm! One knew at a sniff as one passed the _porte cochere_ what kind of people lived behind and above; what they ate and what they drank, and what their trade was; whether they did their washing at home, and burned tallow or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-fond of Gruyere cheese--the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formidable cheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun with mice, and used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither; and bought violets, or pinks, or gillyflowers in season, and kept them too |
|