United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This awful indiscretion is instantly detected by an old Blue-beard standing by, who eyes the offender severely, but says nothing; if she is one of his own wives, or the wife of an intimate friend, the poor lady has perhaps earned for herself a chastisement with a stick later in the evening.
She talked marvelously well, for she had all the charm and vivacity of the true Viennese. Even the aborigines, bristling pompadours, thick spectacles, terrifying manner, and all, became as dear as old friends, now that I knew I must lose them. The great, high-ceilinged room upstairs had taken on the look of home. The Blue-beard closet no longer appalled me.
The Young Girl ran her eye along the passage the Lady pointed out, blushed, laughed, and slapped the book down as though she would have liked to box the ears of Mr. John Milton, if he had been a contemporary and fellow-contributor to the "Weekly Bucket." I won't touch the thing, she said. He was a horrid man to talk so: and he had as many wives as Blue-Beard. Fair play, said the Master.
Friedrich himself, at Sans Souci, with his cocked-hat, walking-stick and wonderful gray eyes; Sophia Charlotte's grace, wit, and music; Wilhelmina and her book; the old Hyperborean; the black artists Seckendorf and Grumkow; George I. and his blue-beard chamber; the little drummer; the Old Dessaner; the cabinet Venus; Graevenitz Hecate; Algarotti; Goetz in his tower; the tragedy of Katte; the immeasurable comedy of Maupertuis, the flattener of the earth, and Voltaire; all these and a hundred more are summoned by a wizard's wand from the land of shadows, to march by the central figures of these volumes; to dance, flutter, love, hate, intrigue, and die before our eyes.
For to the imaginations of the children, Cousin Helen was as interesting and unreal as anybody in the Fairy Tales: Cinderella, or Blue-Beard, or dear Red Riding-Hood herself. Only there was a sort of mixture of Sunday-school book in their idea of her, for Cousin Helen was very, very good. None of them had ever seen her.
What sort of happiness is mine if it depends on an excursion, on a visit to a paltry house in Brittany? Why should I fear? Is there anything to fear? Add to this reasoning of Mrs. Blue-Beard the desire that nips all women to know if their power is solid or precarious, and you'll understand how it was that I said one day, with an unconcerned little air: "What sort of place is Les Touches?"
I had myself felt the power of this fascination while using it one day upon a softhearted blond creature who thought it delightful to have a Blue-Beard for a lover. But the drooping corners of Clemence's mouth showed at times an ironical expression which would have cooled down even an Othello's outbursts.
I remember his picturesque account of seeing a party of the Black Hussars bringing in some forage carts which they had taken from a body of the Cossacks, whom he described as lying on the top of the carts of hay, mortally wounded, and, like the Dying Gladiator, eyeing their own blood as it ran down through the straw. I afterwards took lessons from Walker, whom we used to call Blue-beard.
'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend, I exclaimed. 'Better for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off lady-killing this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather for his own sake.
"I always think those wives of Blue-Beard deserved their fate for not being able to obey him in his one request. But in regard to your pursuits, dear, while I am at work in my studio, you can use the grand piano in the drawing-room when you please, as well as the little one in your own room; and you can improvise on the chapel organ as much as you like."
Word Of The Day