"
[*] A word used to characterise the dress and manners of the
Romanticists, who were fond of Robespierre waistcoats, long
hair, and other peculiarities intended to distinguish them from
ordinary mortals.
Madame Dudevant waxed angry. It was not kind in a man who had resisted
her blandishments to make merry over her foibles.
The Russians, he gravely told her, were extremely amiable, easy to get
on with, exceedingly literary, since everything was done on paper, and
Russia was the only country in which people knew how to obey.
The mention of obedience in a people irritated the hostess; but on her
seething he poured a drop of cold water by asking jestingly:
"Would you, in a great danger, wish your servants to deliberate about
what you had ordered them to do?"
The
Sandist-Philosophico-Republico-Communico-Pierre-Lerouxico-Geranico-Deisto
train (the epithets are Balzac's) stopped dead at the question. Then
Marliani, one of the guests, remarked that argument was impossible with
poets. Balzac bowed, and added:
"You hear what he says?"
"You are a dreadful satirist," retorted George Sand. "Go on with your
_Comedie Humaine_.
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