The Martian: A Novel

by George Du Maurier

On Saturday nights Barty would draw a lovely female profile, with a beautiful big black eye, in pen and ink, and carefully shade it; especially the hair, which was always as the raven's wing! And on Sunday morning he and I used to walk together to 108 Champs Élysées and enter the rez‑de‑chaussée (where my mother and sister lived) by the window, before my mother was up. Then Barty took out his lovely female pen‑and‑ink profile to gaze at, and rolled himself a cigarette and lit it, and lay back on the sofa, and made my sister play her lightest music—"La pluie de Perles," by Osborne—and "Indiana," a beautiful valse by Marcailhou—and thus combine three or four perfect blisses in one happy quart d'heure.

Then my mother would appear, and we would have breakfast—after which Barty and I would depart by the window as we had come, and go and do our bit of Boulevard and Palais Royal. Then to the Rue du Bac for another breakfast with the Rohans; and then, "au petit bonheur"; that is, trusting to Providence for whatever turned up. The programme didn't vary very much: either I dined with him at the Rohans', or he with me at 108. Then, back to Brossard's at ten—tired and happy.

One Sunday I remember well we stayed in school, for old Josselin the fisherman came to see us there—Barty's grandfather, now a widower; and M. Mérovée asked him to lunch with us, and go to the baths in the afternoon.

Imagine old Bonzig's delight in this "vieux loup de mer," as he called him! That was a happy day for the old fisherman also; I shall never forget his surprise at M. Dumollard's telescope—and how clever he was on the subject.

He came to the baths, and admired and criticised the good swimming of the boys—especially Barty's, which was really remarkable. I don't believe he could swim a stroke himself.

Then we went and dined together at Lord Archibald's, in the Rue du Bac—"Mon Colonel," as the old fisherman always called him. He was a very humorous and intelligent person, this fisher, though nearer eighty than seventy; very big, and of a singularly picturesque appearance—for he had not endimanché himself in the least; and very clean. A splendid old man; oddly enough, somewhat Semitic of aspect—as though he had just come from a miraculous draught of fishes in the Sea of Galilee, out of a cartoon by Raphael!

I recollect admiring how easily and pleasantly everything went during dinner, and all through the perfection of this ancient sea‑toiler's breeding in all essentials.

Of course the poor all over the world are less nice in their habits than the rich, and less correct in their grammar and accent, and narrower in their views of life; but in every other respect there seemed little to choose between Josselins and Rohans and Lonlay‑Savignacs; and indeed, according to Lord Archibald, the best manners were to be found at these two opposite poles—or even wider still. He would have it that Royalty and chimney‑sweeps were the best‑bred people all over the world—because there was no possible mistake about their social status.

I felt a little indignant—after all, Lady Archibald was built out of chocolate, for all her Lonlay and her Savignac! just as I was built out of Beaune and Chambertin.

I'm afraid I shall be looked upon as a snob and a traitor to my class if I say that I have at last come to be of the same opinion myself. That is, if absolute simplicity, and the absence of all possible temptation to try and seem an inch higher up than we really are—But there! this is a very delicate question, about which I don't care a straw; and there are such exceptions, and so many, to confirm any such rule!