The Ways of Men [78]
charm. With us most things are valued by the money they have cost. Ladies attend the opera simply and solely to see their friends and be admired.
"It grieves me to see that you are forming a poor opinion of our woman kind, for they are more charming and modest than any foreign women. A girl or matron who exhibits more of her shoulders than you, with your Eastern ideas, think quite proper, would sooner expire than show an inch above her ankle. We have our way of being modest as well as you, and that is one of our strongest prejudices."
"Now I know you are joking," he replied, with a slight show of temper, "or trying to mystify me, for only this morning I was on the beach watching the bathing, and I saw a number of ladies in quite short skirts - up to their knees, in fact - with the thinnest covering on their shapely extremities. Were those women above suspicion?"
"Absolutely," I assured him, feeling inclined to tear my hair at such stupidity. "Can't you see the difference? That was in daylight. Our customs allow a woman to show her feet, and even a little more, in the morning. It would be considered the acme of indecency to let those beauties be seen at a ball. The law allows a woman to uncover her neck and shoulders at a ball, but she would be arrested if she appeared decollete on the beach of a morning."
A long silence followed, broken only by the music and laughter from the ball-room. I could see my dazed Mohammedan remove his fez and pass an agitated hand through his dark hair; then he turned, and saluting me gravely, murmured:
"It is very kind of you to have taken so much trouble with me. I do not doubt that what you have said is full of the wisdom and consistency of a new civilization, which I fail to appreciate." Then, with a sigh, he added: "It will be better for me to return to my own country, where there are fewer exceptions to rules."
With a profound salaam the gentle youth disappeared into the surrounding darkness, leaving me rubbing my eyes and asking myself if, after all, the dreamland Oriental was not about right. Custom makes many inconsistencies appear so logical that they no longer cause us either surprise or emotion. But can we explain them?
Chapter 29 - Modern "Cadets de Gascogne"
AFTER witnessing the performance given by the Comedie Francaise in the antique theatre at Orange, we determined - my companion and I - if ever another opportunity of the kind offered, to attend, be the material difficulties what they might.
The theatrical "stars" in their courses proved favorable to the accomplishment of this vow. Before the year ended it was whispered to us that the "Cadets de Gascogne" were planning a tram through the Cevennes Mountains and their native Languedoc - a sort of lay pilgrimage to famous historic and literary shrines, a voyage to be enlivened by much crowning of busts and reciting of verses in the open air, and incidentally, by the eating of Gascony dishes and the degustation of delicate local wines; the whole to culminate with a representation in the arena at Beziers of DEJANIRE, Louis Gallet's and Saint- Saens's latest work, under the personal supervision of those two masters.
A tempting programme, was it not, in these days of cockney tours and "Cook" couriers? At any rate, one that we, with plenty of time on our hands and a weakness for out-of-the-way corners and untrodden paths, found it impossible to resist.
Rostand, in CYRANO DE BERGERAC, has shown us the "Cadets" of Moliere's time, a fighting, rhyming, devil-may-care band, who wore their hearts on their sleeves and chips on their stalwart shoulders; much such a brotherhood, in short, as we love to imagine that Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, Greene, and their intimates formed when they met at the "Ship" to celebrate a success or drink a health to the drama.
The men who compose the present society (which has now for many years borne a name only recently made famous by M. Rostand's genius) come delightfully near realizing the happy
"It grieves me to see that you are forming a poor opinion of our woman kind, for they are more charming and modest than any foreign women. A girl or matron who exhibits more of her shoulders than you, with your Eastern ideas, think quite proper, would sooner expire than show an inch above her ankle. We have our way of being modest as well as you, and that is one of our strongest prejudices."
"Now I know you are joking," he replied, with a slight show of temper, "or trying to mystify me, for only this morning I was on the beach watching the bathing, and I saw a number of ladies in quite short skirts - up to their knees, in fact - with the thinnest covering on their shapely extremities. Were those women above suspicion?"
"Absolutely," I assured him, feeling inclined to tear my hair at such stupidity. "Can't you see the difference? That was in daylight. Our customs allow a woman to show her feet, and even a little more, in the morning. It would be considered the acme of indecency to let those beauties be seen at a ball. The law allows a woman to uncover her neck and shoulders at a ball, but she would be arrested if she appeared decollete on the beach of a morning."
A long silence followed, broken only by the music and laughter from the ball-room. I could see my dazed Mohammedan remove his fez and pass an agitated hand through his dark hair; then he turned, and saluting me gravely, murmured:
"It is very kind of you to have taken so much trouble with me. I do not doubt that what you have said is full of the wisdom and consistency of a new civilization, which I fail to appreciate." Then, with a sigh, he added: "It will be better for me to return to my own country, where there are fewer exceptions to rules."
With a profound salaam the gentle youth disappeared into the surrounding darkness, leaving me rubbing my eyes and asking myself if, after all, the dreamland Oriental was not about right. Custom makes many inconsistencies appear so logical that they no longer cause us either surprise or emotion. But can we explain them?
Chapter 29 - Modern "Cadets de Gascogne"
AFTER witnessing the performance given by the Comedie Francaise in the antique theatre at Orange, we determined - my companion and I - if ever another opportunity of the kind offered, to attend, be the material difficulties what they might.
The theatrical "stars" in their courses proved favorable to the accomplishment of this vow. Before the year ended it was whispered to us that the "Cadets de Gascogne" were planning a tram through the Cevennes Mountains and their native Languedoc - a sort of lay pilgrimage to famous historic and literary shrines, a voyage to be enlivened by much crowning of busts and reciting of verses in the open air, and incidentally, by the eating of Gascony dishes and the degustation of delicate local wines; the whole to culminate with a representation in the arena at Beziers of DEJANIRE, Louis Gallet's and Saint- Saens's latest work, under the personal supervision of those two masters.
A tempting programme, was it not, in these days of cockney tours and "Cook" couriers? At any rate, one that we, with plenty of time on our hands and a weakness for out-of-the-way corners and untrodden paths, found it impossible to resist.
Rostand, in CYRANO DE BERGERAC, has shown us the "Cadets" of Moliere's time, a fighting, rhyming, devil-may-care band, who wore their hearts on their sleeves and chips on their stalwart shoulders; much such a brotherhood, in short, as we love to imagine that Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, Greene, and their intimates formed when they met at the "Ship" to celebrate a success or drink a health to the drama.
The men who compose the present society (which has now for many years borne a name only recently made famous by M. Rostand's genius) come delightfully near realizing the happy