Paris Nights E-Book

Arnold Bennett

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Paris Nights And Other Impressions of Places and People is a fiction written by an English writer Arnold Bennett. First published in 1913. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

Paris Nights

And Other Impressions of Places and People

By

Arnold Bennett

Illustrator: E. A. Rickards

Table of Contents

PARIS NIGHTS—1910

I—ARTISTIC EVENING

II—THE VARIÉTIÉS

III—EVENING WITH EXILES

IV—BOURGEOIS

V—CAUSE CÉLÈBRE

VI—RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET AT THE OPERA

LIFE IN LONDON—1911

I—THE RESTAURANT

II—BY THE RIVER

III—THE CLUB

IV—THE CIRCUS

V—THE BANQUET

VI—ONE OF THE CROWD

ITALY—1910

I—NIGHT AND MORNING IN FLORENCE

II—THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910

III—MORE ITALIAN OPERA

THE RIVIERA—1907

I—THE HÔTEL TRISTE

II—WAR!

III-“MONTE”

IV—A DIVERSION AT SAN REMO

FONTAINEBLEAU—1904-1909

I—FIRST JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST

II—SECOND JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST

III—THE CASTLE GARDENS

IV—AN ITINERARY

SWITZERLAND—1909-1911

I—THE HOTEL ON THE LANDSCAPE

II—THE EGOIST

III—THE BLAND WANDERER

IV—ON A MOUNTAIN

ENGLAND AGAIN—1907

I—THE GATE OF THE EMPIRE

II—AN ESTABLISHMENT

III—AMUSEMENTS

IV—MANCHESTER

V—LONDON

VI—INDUSTRY

THE MIDLANDS—1910-1911

I—THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE

II—THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE

III—FIRST VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF MAN

IV—THE ISLAND BOARDING-HOUSE

V—TEN HOURS AT BLACKPOOL

THE BRITISH HOME—1908

I—AN EVENING AT THE SMITHS’

II—THE GREAT MANNERS QUESTION

III—SPENDING-AND GETTING VALUE

IV—THE PARENTS

V—HAMIT’S POINT OF VIEW

VI—THE FUTURE

STREETS ROADS AND TRAINS—1907-1909

I—IN WATLING STREET

II—STREET TALKING

III—ON THE ROAD

IV—A TRAIN

V—ANOTHER TRAIN

ARTISTIC EVENING

PARIS NIGHTS—1910

I—ARTISTIC EVENING

The first invitation I ever received into a purely Parisian interior might have been copied out of a novel by Paul Bourget. Its lure was thus phrased: “Un peu de musique et d’agréables femmes.” It answered to my inward vision of Paris. My experiences in London, which fifteen years earlier I had entered with my mouth open as I might have entered some city of Oriental romance, had, of course, done little to destroy my illusions about Paris, for the ingenuousness of the artist is happily indestructible. Hence, my inward vision of Paris was romantic, based on the belief that Paris was essentially “different.” Nothing more banal in London than a “little music,” or even “some agreeable women”! But what a difference between a little music and un peu de musique! What an exciting difference between agreeable women and agréables femmes! After all, this difference remains nearly intact to this day. Nobody who has not lived intimately in and with Paris can appreciate the unique savour of that word femmes. “Women” is a fine word, a word which, breathed in a certain tone, will make all men—even bishops, misogynists, and political propagandists—fall to dreaming! But femmes is yet more potent. There cling to it the associations of a thousand years of dalliance in a land where dalliance is passionately understood.

The usual Paris flat, high up, like the top drawer of a chest of drawers! No passages, but multitudinous doors. In order to arrive at any given room it is necessary to pass through all the others. I passed through the dining-room, where a servant with a marked geometrical gift had arranged a number of very small plates round the rim of a vast circular table. In the drawing-room my host was seated at a grand piano with a couple of candles in front of him and a couple of women behind him. See the light glinting on bits of the ebon piano, and on his face, and on their chins and jewels, and on the corner of a distant picture frame; and all the rest of the room obscure! He wore a jacket, negligently; the interest of his attire was dramatically centred in his large, limp necktie; necktie such as none hut a hero could unfurl in London. A man with a very intelligent face, eager, melancholy (with a sadness acquired in the Divorce Court), wistful, appealing. An idealist! He called himself a publicist. One of the women, a musical composer, had a black skirt and a white blouse; she was ugly but provocative. The other, all in white, was pretty and sprightly, but her charm lacked the perverseness which is expected and usually found in Paris; she painted, she versified, she recited. With the eye of a man who had sat for years in the editorial chair of a ladies’ paper, I looked instinctively at the hang of the skirts. It was not good. Those vague frocks were such as had previously been something else, and would soon he transformed by discreet modifications into something still else. Candlelight was best for them. But what grace of demeanour, what naturalness, what candid ease and appositeness of greeting, what absence of self-consciousness! Paris is the self-unconscious.