For one thing, I had gone on the streets as little as possible, though
I should naturally have done that, for the behaviour of the French on
this bank holiday of theirs is repugnant in the extreme to the sane
English point of view--I mean their frivolous public dancing and
marked conversational levity. Indeed, in their soberest moments, they
have too little of British weight. Their best-dressed men are
apparently turned out not by menservants but by modistes. I will not
say their women are without a gift for wearing gowns, and their chefs
have unquestionably got at the inner meaning of food, but as a people
at large they would never do with us. Even their language is not based
on reason. I have had occasion, for example, to acquire their word for
bread, which is "pain." As if that were not wild enough, they
mispronounce it atrociously. Yet for years these people have been
separated from us only by a narrow strip of water!
By keeping close to our rooms, then, I had thought to evade what of
evil might have been in store for me on this day. Another evening I
might have ventured abroad to a cinema palace, but this was no time
for daring, and I took a further precaution of locking our doors.
Then, indeed, I had no misgiving save that inspired by the last words
of the Honourable George.
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