The Works of Alphonse Daudet (Volume 10)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Excerpt: ... ROSE AND NINETTE. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OUR DAY. After clearly perceiving that study of books and striving after nicety of language merely lead us into parodoxes, I have resolved never to make any sacrifice save in favor of conviction and truth, in order that a complete and profound sincerity shall dominate my works and lend them that consecrated character which the divine presence of the truth ought to give, that character which makes tears come to our eyes when a child bears witness to what it has seen. Alfred De Vigny. (Journal d'un Poite.) CHAPTER I. Only fifteen days after the divorce had been granted to him, and still intoxicated with the happiness of his release from bondage, Regis de Fagan stood one morning at the open window of his new bachelor apartments, watching for the appearance of his two little daughters, who were allowed by the Court to spend two Sundays in the month with him. This was their first Sunday, and in all the pile of letters from women showered for the last twenty years upon the table of the popular playwright very few had caused him such VoL. II.--10 emotion as the simple little note that had come the evening before: My Dear Father -- We shall be at Passy to-morrow by the ten o'clock train. Mademoiselle will leave us in front of 37 Boulevard Beausepur and come for us at nine o'clock in the evening punctually. Your respectful and most affectionate daughter, rose De Fagan. Underneath, in a large and still somewhat unformed hand, the younger sister had placed her signature Ninette. And now, made nervous by the length of time he had to wait, he was asking himself if they would really come, if at the last moment their mother, that wily and unscrupulous one, or the redoubtable mademoiselle, might not have found some pretext to detain them. Not that h...