A Start in Life [20]
cane.
Oscar had reached that last quarter of adolescence when little things
cause immense joys and immense miseries,--a period when youth prefers
misfortune to a ridiculous suit of clothes, and caring nothing for the
real interests of life, torments itself about frivolities, about
neckcloths, and the passionate desire to appear a man. Then the young
fellow swells himself out; his swagger is all the more portentous
because it is exercised on nothings. Yet if he envies a fool who is
elegantly dressed, he is also capable of enthusiasm over talent, and
of genuine admiration for genius. Such defects as these, when they
have no root in the heart, prove only the exuberance of sap,--the
richness of the youthful imagination. That a lad of nineteen, an only
child, kept severely at home by poverty, adored by a mother who put
upon herself all privations for his sake, should be moved to envy by a
young man of twenty-two in a frogged surtout-coat silk-lined, a waist-
coat of fancy cashmere, and a cravat slipped through a ring of the
worse taste, is nothing more than a peccadillo committed in all ranks
of social life by inferiors who envy those that seem beyond them. Men
of genius themselves succumb to this primitive passion. Did not
Rousseau admire Ventura and Bacle?
But Oscar passed from peccadillo to evil feelings. He felt humiliated;
he was angry with the youth he envied, and there rose in his heart a
secret desire to show openly that he himself was as good as the object
of his envy.
The two young fellows continued to walk up and own from the gate to
the stables, and from the stables to the gate. Each time they turned
they looked at Oscar curled up in his corner of the coucou. Oscar,
persuaded that their jokes and laughter concerned himself, affected
the utmost indifference. He began to hum the chorus of a song lately
brought into vogue by the liberals, which ended with the words, "'Tis
Voltaire's fault, 'tis Rousseau's fault."
"Tiens! perhaps he is one of the chorus at the Opera," said Amaury.
This exasperated Oscar, who bounded up, pulled out the wooden "back,"
and called to Pierrotin:--
"When do we start?"
"Presently," said that functionary, who was standing, whip in hand,
and gazing toward the rue d'Enghien.
At this moment the scene was enlivened by the arrival of a young man
accompanied by a true "gamin," who was followed by a porter dragging a
hand-cart. The young man came up to Pierrotin and spoke to him
confidentially, on which the latter nodded his head, and called to his
own porter. The man ran out and helped to unload the little hand-cart,
which contained, besides two trunks, buckets, brushes, boxes of
singular shape, and an infinity of packages and utensils which the
youngest of the new-comers, who had climbed into the imperial, stowed
away with such celerity that Oscar, who happened to be smiling at his
mother, now standing on the other side of the street, saw none of the
paraphernalia which might have revealed to him the profession of his
new travelling companion.
The gamin, who must have been sixteen years of age, wore a gray blouse
buckled round his waist by a polished leather belt. His cap, jauntily
perched on the side of his head, seemed the sign of a merry nature,
and so did the picturesque disorder of the curly brown hair which fell
upon his shoulders. A black-silk cravat drew a line round his very
white neck, and added to the vivacity of his bright gray eyes. The
animation of his brown and rosy face, the moulding of his rather large
lips, the ears detached from his head, his slightly turned-up nose,--
in fact, all the details of his face proclaimed the lively spirit of a
Figaro, and the careless gayety of youth, while the vivacity of his
gesture and his mocking eye revealed an intellect already developed by
the practice of a profession adopted very early in life. As he had
already some claims to
Oscar had reached that last quarter of adolescence when little things
cause immense joys and immense miseries,--a period when youth prefers
misfortune to a ridiculous suit of clothes, and caring nothing for the
real interests of life, torments itself about frivolities, about
neckcloths, and the passionate desire to appear a man. Then the young
fellow swells himself out; his swagger is all the more portentous
because it is exercised on nothings. Yet if he envies a fool who is
elegantly dressed, he is also capable of enthusiasm over talent, and
of genuine admiration for genius. Such defects as these, when they
have no root in the heart, prove only the exuberance of sap,--the
richness of the youthful imagination. That a lad of nineteen, an only
child, kept severely at home by poverty, adored by a mother who put
upon herself all privations for his sake, should be moved to envy by a
young man of twenty-two in a frogged surtout-coat silk-lined, a waist-
coat of fancy cashmere, and a cravat slipped through a ring of the
worse taste, is nothing more than a peccadillo committed in all ranks
of social life by inferiors who envy those that seem beyond them. Men
of genius themselves succumb to this primitive passion. Did not
Rousseau admire Ventura and Bacle?
But Oscar passed from peccadillo to evil feelings. He felt humiliated;
he was angry with the youth he envied, and there rose in his heart a
secret desire to show openly that he himself was as good as the object
of his envy.
The two young fellows continued to walk up and own from the gate to
the stables, and from the stables to the gate. Each time they turned
they looked at Oscar curled up in his corner of the coucou. Oscar,
persuaded that their jokes and laughter concerned himself, affected
the utmost indifference. He began to hum the chorus of a song lately
brought into vogue by the liberals, which ended with the words, "'Tis
Voltaire's fault, 'tis Rousseau's fault."
"Tiens! perhaps he is one of the chorus at the Opera," said Amaury.
This exasperated Oscar, who bounded up, pulled out the wooden "back,"
and called to Pierrotin:--
"When do we start?"
"Presently," said that functionary, who was standing, whip in hand,
and gazing toward the rue d'Enghien.
At this moment the scene was enlivened by the arrival of a young man
accompanied by a true "gamin," who was followed by a porter dragging a
hand-cart. The young man came up to Pierrotin and spoke to him
confidentially, on which the latter nodded his head, and called to his
own porter. The man ran out and helped to unload the little hand-cart,
which contained, besides two trunks, buckets, brushes, boxes of
singular shape, and an infinity of packages and utensils which the
youngest of the new-comers, who had climbed into the imperial, stowed
away with such celerity that Oscar, who happened to be smiling at his
mother, now standing on the other side of the street, saw none of the
paraphernalia which might have revealed to him the profession of his
new travelling companion.
The gamin, who must have been sixteen years of age, wore a gray blouse
buckled round his waist by a polished leather belt. His cap, jauntily
perched on the side of his head, seemed the sign of a merry nature,
and so did the picturesque disorder of the curly brown hair which fell
upon his shoulders. A black-silk cravat drew a line round his very
white neck, and added to the vivacity of his bright gray eyes. The
animation of his brown and rosy face, the moulding of his rather large
lips, the ears detached from his head, his slightly turned-up nose,--
in fact, all the details of his face proclaimed the lively spirit of a
Figaro, and the careless gayety of youth, while the vivacity of his
gesture and his mocking eye revealed an intellect already developed by
the practice of a profession adopted very early in life. As he had
already some claims to