Читать книгу The Age of Scandal - T. H. White - Страница 11

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The British Army, in the third George’s reign, used 6500 tons of flour for powdering every year.

England was then in advance of the continent. The jeer at the eighteenth century, that its grandeur was in close proximity to a cess-pit, was only true of the court of Versailles. On the continent the diamond necklace and the vaso di notte might be side by side, but English tourists complained of this, or reported it as abnormal.

She [a French domestic] had the modesty to address herself to me, as understanding her Language, to desire me to beg one of the Sailors to give her a Chamber Pot: upon which, thinking she was sick, as many were upon the Deck, I advised her to go to the Side of the Ship, and my Servant should hold her gown for Fear of tumbling over Board: but she directly told me, that however practicable such a Situation might be for us, it would not suit her at all: and without more ado, or further Ceremony, sans Facon, à la Françoise, she plainly told me she wanted a Chamber Pot, pour faire lacher l’Eau; these were her words: so I forthwith got her accommodated with one, which she, with as little Shame as Decency and Ceremony made immediate use of, before all the Company, and then gave it with the utmost Sangfroid and Indifference, to my Servant to empty it over Board for her ... The Woman, when she saw me, and some others of the Company laughing at her Action, talked reasonably and sensibly upon the Occasion, as any one could: asked in plain, gras and indelicate Words, what any of us would do, if a sudden Griping should take us, and we should want to go to the Necessary House. But tho’ the Woman’s Arguments were right in the main, yet she mistook only in this single very material Point: that altho’ what she had done was absolutely necessary, yet she might have made an excuse to have gone under Deck; and have done privately, and by herself, what she chose to do before all the World. But such is the Difference between English and French Education and Customs!