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قراءة كتاب The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2)

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‏اللغة: English
The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2)

The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2)

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 9

the water and the sunbeams imparted vastly greater richness and effect, and everywhere a gleam of blue, the blue of the sky, smiling in the interval between two showers.

Within, laughter, idle chatter, salutations, impatience, skirts turned up, satins puffing vaingloriously over the narrow pleats of petticoats and delicately striped silk stockings, oceans of fringe, of lace, of flounces, held with one hand in too heavy bundles, and torn beyond recognition. Then, to connect the two sides of the picture, the prisoners framed by the arched doorway and standing in its dark shadow, with the vast background of light behind them, footmen running about under umbrellas, shouting names of coachmen and names of masters, and coupés slowly approaching, into which terrified couples hastily jump.

"Monsieur Jansoulet's carriage!"

Everybody turned to look, but we know that that disturbed him but little. And while the honest Nabob posed for a moment, awaiting his people, amid those fashionable women, those famous men, that assorted gathering of all Paris which was present there with a name to fit each of its figures, a slender, neatly-gloved hand was held out to him, and the Duc de Mora, who was about to enter his coupé, said to him as he passed, with the effusiveness that happiness gives to the most reserved of men:

"My congratulations, my dear deputy."

It was said aloud, and every one could hear,—"My dear deputy."


There is in the life of every man a golden hour, a luminous mountain-top where all that he can hope for of prosperity, of joy, of triumph, awaits him and is showered upon him. The mountain is more or less high, more or less precipitous and difficult to climb; but it exists equally for all, for the most powerful and the humblest. But, like the longest day of the year, when the sun has reached the end of his upward journey and the next day seems a first step toward winter, that summum bonum of human existence is but a moment to be enjoyed, after which we have no choice but to descend. Poor man! you must remember that late afternoon in May, that time of alternating rain and sunshine, you must fix its changing splendor forever in your memory. It was the hour of your midsummer, when the flowers were blooming, the branches bending beneath their weight of golden fruit, and the crops whose gleanings you so recklessly threw aside, were fully ripe. The star will fade now, gradually receding and descending, and soon will be incapable of piercing the woeful darkness wherein your destiny is about to be fulfilled.


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