Now the middle-class cannot afford to buy new clothes whenever they
feel inclined, neither can they end up a jaunt by a Turkish bath and a
great feast with wine. So their care is always to preserve intact what
they happen to have, to exceed in nothing, to study cleanliness,
order, decency, sobriety, and a steady temper, and they fence all this
round and preserve it in the only way it can be preserved, to wit,
with conventions, and they are quite right.
I find it very hard to keep up to the demands of these my colleagues,
but I recognize that they are on the just side in the quarrel; let
none of them go about pretending that I have not defended them in this
book.
So I thought of how I should put myself right with these people. I saw
that an elaborate story (as, that I had been set upon by a tramp who
forced me to change clothes: that I dressed thus for a bet: that I was
an officer employed as a spy, and was about to cross the frontier into
Germany in the guise of a labourer: that my doctor forbade me to
shave - or any other such rhodo-montade): I saw, I say, that by
venturing upon any such excuses I might unwittingly offend some other
unknown canon of theirs deeper and more sacred than their rule on
clothes; it had happened to me before now to do this in the course of
explanations.
So I took another method, and said, as I sat down -
'Pray excuse this appearance of mine. I have had a most unfortunate
adventure in the hills, losing my way and being compelled to sleep out
all night, nor can I remain to get tidy, as it is essential that I
should reach my luggage (which is at Remiremont) before midnight.'
I took great care to pay for my glass of white wine before dinner with
a bank-note, and I showed my sketches to my neighbour to make an
impression. I also talked of foreign politics, of the countries I had
seen, of England especially, with such minute exactitude that their
disgust was soon turned to admiration.
The hostess of this inn was delicate and courteous to a degree, and at
every point attempting to overreach her guests, who, as regularly as
she attacked, countered with astonishing dexterity.
Thus she would say: 'Perhaps the joint would taste better if it were
carved on the table; or do the gentlemen prefer it carved aside?'
To which a banker opposite me said in a deep voice: 'We prefer, madam,
to have it carved aside.'
Or she would put her head in and say:
