The Martian: A Novel - George Du Maurier

Heavens! what a voice! and how like his, but for the difference of sex and her long and careful training (which he never had); and the accent, how perfect!

Then suddenly:

"À Saint‑Blaize, à la Zuecca ...
Vous étiez, vous étiez bien aise!
À Saint‑Blaize, à la Zuecca ...
Nous étions, nous étions bien là!
Mais de vous en souvenir
Prendrez‑vous la peine?
Mais de vous en souvenir,
Et d'y revenir?
À Saint‑Blaize, à la Zuecca ...
Vivre et mourir là!"

So sings Mrs. Trevor (Mary Josselin that was) in the richest, sweetest voice I know. And behold! at last I have caught my little French remembrance, just as the lamps are being lit—and I transfix it with my pen and write it down....

And then with a sigh I scratch it all out again, sunny and funny as it is. For it's all about a comical adventure I had with Palaiseau, the sniffer at the fête de St.‑Cloud—all about a tame magpie, a gendarme, a blanchisseuse, and a volume of de Musset's poems, and doesn't concern Barty in the least; for it so happened that Barty wasn't there!

Thus, in the summer of 1851, Barty Josselin and I bade adieu forever to our happy school life—and for a few years to our beloved Paris—and for many years to our close intimacy of every hour in the day.

I remember spending two or three afternoons with him at the great exhibition in Hyde Park just before he went on a visit to his grandfather, Lord Whitby, in Yorkshire—and happy afternoons they were! and we made the most of them. We saw all there was to be seen there, I think; and found ourselves always drifting back to the "Amazon" and the "Greek Slave," for both of which Barty's admiration was boundless.

And so was mine. They made the female fashions for 1851 quite deplorable by contrast—especially the shoes, and the way of dressing the hair; we almost came to the conclusion that female beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. It awes and chastens one so! and wakes up the knight‑errant inside! even the smartest French boots can't do this! not the pinkest silken hose in all Paris! not all the frills and underfrills and wonderfrills that M. Paul Bourget can so eloquently describe!