“‘A nous deux!’”
I remembered that this came at the end of the book, turned to it and found:
“Rastignac ... saw beneath him Paris, ... The glance he darted on this buzzing hive seemed in advance to drink its honey, while he said proudly:
“‘Now for our turn—hers and mine.’”
An epigrammatic tag sadly boshed, I think.
I find that “leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with” occurs in this book; so we must absolve poor old Bismark at any rate from inventing this bloodthirsty phrase.
And I find the Ukraine mentioned! The Ukraine! The dear old Ukraine! A sweet land of which I—and you? be honest! had never heard before the days of the W.T.I.D.
I have sent for a complete set of Heine from Heinemann; it just occurred to me that I have read little of this great man’s. And I am told that the translation is good....
Do E. and J., he asks, 26.7.20, ever perpetrate those plays upon words of which Heine was so fond? They are not exactly puns; I am not sure that quodlibets isn’t the word for them. E.G.: Herr von Schnabelowpski smites the heart of a Dutch hotel-proprietress. Over the real china cups she gazes at him porcela(i)nguidly.
That is not a very good example. This one is better: Heine calls on Rothschild at Frankfurt. Rothschild receives him quite famillionairly.