Читать книгу The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 - Various - Страница 3

In the Lexington Papers, just published in London, we have some good anecdotes of society two hundred and fifty years ago. Here is one:

"A few days ago two ladies met in a narrow street at ten o'clock in the morning. Neither chose to permit her carriage to be drawn back, and they remained without moving for six hours. A little after twelve o'clock they sent for some refreshment for themselves and food for their horses. Each was firmly resolved to stay the night there rather than go back; and they would have done so, but a tavern-keeper in the street, who was prevented by their obstinacy from bringing to his door a cart laden with wine, went in search of the commissary of the district, who at length, but with much trouble, succeeded in effecting an arrangement upon these terms—that each should retire at the same moment, and that neither should pass through the street."

And here another, which would versify into a fine horrible ballad—as grand and ghastly as Alfred Tennyson's "Sisters:"

"The Parliament has lately confirmed the sentence of death passed on two daughters of a gentleman of Anjou, named Madaillon, for the murder of the lover of their younger sister. It appears that he was engaged to be married to the eldest sister, but deserting her, and passing over the second, he transferred his addresses to the youngest. The two eldest sisters, in revenge, invited him to play at blind man's buff, and while one bound his eyes, the other cut his throat."

And this is similar:

"In Piedmont a gentleman addressed at the same time one lady who was rich and plain, and one who was poor and very beautiful; and they, by chance becoming acquainted, exhibited to each other their correspondence with the vacillating lover, and one of them invited him to a meeting, in which after joining in reproaches, they dexterously each deprived him of an ear."