DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The bohemian girl
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0034
The Bohemian Girl
3°
Chalks did no more work that afternoon ; and that evening
quite twenty of us dined at Madame Chanve’s ; and it was almost
like old times.
VIII
“ Oh, yes,” she explained to me afterwards, “ my uncle is a good
man. My aunt and cousins are very good women. But for me,
to live with them- -pas possible, mon eher. Their thoughts were
not my thoughts, we could not speak the same language. They
disapproved of me unutterably. They suffered agonies, poor
things. Oh, they were very kind, very patient. But-! My
gods were their devils. My father—my great, grand, splendid
father—was ‘poor Alfred,’ ‘poor uncle Alfred.’ Oue voulez-
vous ? And then—the life, the society ! The parishioners—the
people who came to tea—the houses where we sometimes dined !
Are you interested in crops ? In the preservation of game ? In
the diseases of cattle ? Oläla ! (C’est bien le cas de s’en servir,
de cette expression-lä.) Oläla, lälä ! And then—have you ever
been homesick ? Oh, I longed, I pined, for Paris, as one
suffocating would long, would die, for air. Enfin, I could not
stand it any longer. They thought it wicked to smoke cigarettes.
My poor aunt—when she smelt cigarette-smoke in my bed-room !
Oh, her face ! I had to sneak away, behind the shrubbery at the
end of the garden, for stealthy whifFs. And it was impossible to
get French tobacco. At last I took the bull by the horns, and
fled. It will have been a terrible shock for them. But better
one good blow than endless little ones ; better a lump-sum, than
instalments with interest.”
But what was she going to do ? How was she going to live ?
For,
3°
Chalks did no more work that afternoon ; and that evening
quite twenty of us dined at Madame Chanve’s ; and it was almost
like old times.
VIII
“ Oh, yes,” she explained to me afterwards, “ my uncle is a good
man. My aunt and cousins are very good women. But for me,
to live with them- -pas possible, mon eher. Their thoughts were
not my thoughts, we could not speak the same language. They
disapproved of me unutterably. They suffered agonies, poor
things. Oh, they were very kind, very patient. But-! My
gods were their devils. My father—my great, grand, splendid
father—was ‘poor Alfred,’ ‘poor uncle Alfred.’ Oue voulez-
vous ? And then—the life, the society ! The parishioners—the
people who came to tea—the houses where we sometimes dined !
Are you interested in crops ? In the preservation of game ? In
the diseases of cattle ? Oläla ! (C’est bien le cas de s’en servir,
de cette expression-lä.) Oläla, lälä ! And then—have you ever
been homesick ? Oh, I longed, I pined, for Paris, as one
suffocating would long, would die, for air. Enfin, I could not
stand it any longer. They thought it wicked to smoke cigarettes.
My poor aunt—when she smelt cigarette-smoke in my bed-room !
Oh, her face ! I had to sneak away, behind the shrubbery at the
end of the garden, for stealthy whifFs. And it was impossible to
get French tobacco. At last I took the bull by the horns, and
fled. It will have been a terrible shock for them. But better
one good blow than endless little ones ; better a lump-sum, than
instalments with interest.”
But what was she going to do ? How was she going to live ?
For,