My uncle is going to send for another of my aunts to come to Paris.
Well! what of that?--My uncle is a Mussulman, you know; and, being a man
of principle, his duties are more onerous than yours, that's all!
My services were required to take a little house at Passy, where she is
to live. I wonder whether it is my aunt Gretchen, my aunt Euphrosine, or
my aunt Cora? He has not given me the slightest hint on this point.
While awaiting this addition to our family, Barbassou-Pasha pursues his
eccentric career in a manner that beats description. This visit to Paris
has brought out more than ever the quaint independence of his
character. One is reminded of a man who stands on a bridge watching the
river flow by, but now and then takes a header into it to cool himself.
The other day at the club, he lost sixty-three thousand francs to me at
baccarat, just for a little distraction. The evening after, he was
entertaining at our house his late Lieutenant Rabassu, whom he always
speaks of as "the cause of his death," and who has come here upon some
business. He won eleven francs from him at piquet, playing for a franc
the hundred points. For the moment I felt quite alarmed for the poor
victim! But my mind was soon set at ease; for Rabassu, who is used to
his captain's play, knows how to cheat as cleverly as his master. Their
losses soon balanced each other.
Putting aside little dissipations of this kind, I should add that "the
late Barbassou" is really very steady-going for a man of his
temperament. He takes everything which comes in the routine of our
fashionable life so naturally, that nobody would imagine he had spent
several years at the hulks in Turkey.
My aunt Eudoxia, of whom he stands in wholesome awe, and who keeps him
in check, forces him to cultivate the vanities of this world. He escorts
her to balls and fêtes with all that ceremony with which you are
familiar; and quitting the lofty regions of his own philosophical
existence, without however permitting anything to disturb his
self-possession, he goes forth into the gay and hurried throngs of Paris
with as little concern as he would into any village street. In short, he
is in exquisite form, and--but for the legal disabilities which deprive
him of his rights of citizenship--you would find him still exactly what
he was when you knew him five years ago.
However, the other day he received a little shock in connection with a
very simple incident, which might have been perfectly anticipated.