He
consulted him on every point, took the address of his tailor, imitated
him, and tried to strike the same attitudes. In short, Crevel was his
Great Man.
Valerie, surrounded by these bigwigs and the three artists, and
supported by Lisbeth, struck Wenceslas as a really superior woman, all
the more so because Claude Vignon spoke of her like a man in love.
"She is Madame de Maintenon in Ninon's petticoats!" said the veteran
critic. "You may please her in an evening if you have the wit; but as
for making her love you--that would be a triumph to crown a man's
ambition and fill up his life."
Valerie, while seeming cold and heedless of her former neighbor,
piqued his vanity, quite unconsciously indeed, for she knew nothing of
the Polish character. There is in the Slav a childish element, as
there is in all these primitively wild nations which have overflowed
into civilization rather than that they have become civilized. The
race has spread like an inundation, and has covered a large portion of
the globe. It inhabits deserts whose extent is so vast that it expands
at its ease; there is no jostling there, as there is in Europe, and
civilization is impossible without the constant friction of minds and
interests. The Ukraine, Russia, the plains by the Danube, in short,
the Slav nations, are a connecting link between Europe and Asia,
between civilization and barbarism. Thus the Pole, the wealthiest
member of the Slav family, has in his character all the childishness
and inconsistency of a beardless race.
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