"When I am out of the hands of these doctors and have my new leg and eye—I will return, and then, I want to go into Parliament."
The Duchesse warmed up at once.—That was just the thing for me to do—that and to marry some nice girl of my own world, of which there must be an embarrassment of choice—with all the men killed in my country!
"I would want such an exceptional woman, Duchesse!"
"Do not look for the moon, my son—Be thankful if she has been sufficiently well brought up to have a decent conduct—the manners of the young girls now revolt me.—I try to go with the times——but these new fashions are disgusting."
"Do you think a woman ought to be perfectly innocent and ignorant of life to make the marriage happy—" I asked.
"The insides of the minds of young girls one is never sure of, but the tenue should be correct at all costs, so that they may have something to uphold them as well as religion—which is no longer so surrounding as it used to be."
"Duchesse, I want someone who would love me passionately, and whom I could passionately love."
"For that, my poor boy—" and she sighed—"it is not found among young girls—these things come after one knows, and can discriminate—put them aside from your thoughts—they are temptations which one resists if one can, and at all events makes no scandals about.—Love! Mon Dieu, it is the song of the poets, it cannot happen in the world—with satisfaction—It must be a pain always—Do your duty to your race, and your class—and try not to mix up sentiment with it!"
"There is no hope of my finding someone I could really love, then?"
"I do not know—in your own country it may be—here it is the wife of someone else who holds the charm—and if it were not for tenue society could not exist.