Short Fiction Edgar Allan Poe (books for men to read .txt) đ
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
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But if, in the first instance, there had occurred something which occasioned me surprise, in the second, this surprise became elevated into astonishment; and this astonishment was profoundâ âwas extremeâ âindeed I may say it was horrific. What, in the name of everything hideous, did this mean? Could I believe my eyes?â âcould I?â âthat was the question. Was thatâ âwas thatâ âwas that rouge? And were thoseâ âand were thoseâ âwere those wrinkles, upon the visage of EugĂ©nie Lalande? And oh! Jupiter, and every one of the gods and goddesses, little and big!â âwhatâ âwhatâ âwhatâ âwhat had become of her teeth? I dashed the spectacles violently to the ground, and, leaping to my feet, stood erect in the middle of the floor, confronting Mrs. Simpson, with my arms set akimbo, and grinning and foaming, but, at the same time, utterly speechless with terror and with rage.
Now I have already said that Madame EugĂ©nie Lalandeâ âthat is to say, Simpsonâ âspoke the English language but very little better than she wrote it, and for this reason she very properly never attempted to speak it upon ordinary occasions. But rage will carry a lady to any extreme; and in the present care it carried Mrs. Simpson to the very extraordinary extreme of attempting to hold a conversation in a tongue that she did not altogether understand.
âVell, Monsieur,â said she, after surveying me, in great apparent astonishment, for some momentsâ ââVell, Monsieur?â âand vat den?â âvat de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?â
âYou wretch!â said I, catching my breathâ ââyouâ âyouâ âyou villainous old hag!â
âAg?â âole?â âme not so ver ole, after all! Me not one single day more dan de eighty-doo.â
âEighty-two!â I ejaculated, staggering to the wallâ ââeighty-two hundred thousand baboons! The miniature said twenty-seven years and seven months!â
âTo be sure!â âdat is so!â âver true! but den de portraite has been take for dese fifty-five year. Ven I go marry my segonde usbande, Monsieur Lalande, at dat time I had de portraite take for my daughter by my first usbande, Monsieur Moissart!â
âMoissart!â said I.
âYes, Moissart,â said she, mimicking my pronunciation, which, to speak the truth, was none of the bestâ ââand vat den? Vat you know about de Moissart?â
âNothing, you old fright!â âI know nothing about him at all; only I had an ancestor of that name, once upon a time.â
âDat name! and vat you ave for say to dat name? âTis ver goot name; and so is Voissartâ âdat is ver goot name too. My daughter, Mademoiselle Moissart, she marry von Monsieur Voissartâ âand de name is bot ver respectaable name.â
âMoissart?â I exclaimed, âand Voissart! Why, what is it you mean?â
âVat I mean?â âI mean Moissart and Voissart; and for de matter of dat, I mean Croissart and Froisart, too, if I only tink proper to mean it. My daughterâs daughter, Mademoiselle Voissart, she marry von Monsieur Croissart, and den again, my daughterâs grande daughter, Mademoiselle Croissart, she marry von Monsieur Froissart; and I suppose you say dat dat is not von ver respectaable name.â
âFroissart!â said I, beginning to faint, âwhy, surely you donât say Moissart, and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart?â
âYes,â she replied, leaning fully back in her chair, and stretching out her lower limbs at great length; âyes, Moissart, and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart. But Monsieur Froissart, he vas von ver big vat you call foolâ âhe vas von ver great big donce like yourselfâ âfor he lef la belle France for come to dis stupide AmĂ©riqueâ âand ven he get here he went and ave von ver stupide, von ver, ver stupide sonn, so I hear, dough I not yet av ad de plaisir to meet vid himâ âneither me nor my companion, de Madame Stephanie Lalande. He is name de Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, and I suppose you say dat dat, too, is not von ver respectable name.â
Either the length or the nature of this speech, had the effect of working up Mrs. Simpson into a very extraordinary passion indeed; and as she made an end of it, with great labor, she jumped up from her chair like somebody bewitched, dropping upon the floor an entire universe of bustle as she jumped. Once upon her feet, she gnashed her gums, brandished her arms, rolled up her sleeves, shook her fist in my face, and concluded the performance by tearing the cap from her head, and with it an immense wig of the most valuable and beautiful black hair, the whole of which she dashed upon the ground with a yell, and there trammpled and danced a fandango upon it, in an absolute ecstasy and agony of rage.
Meantime I sank aghast into the chair which she had vacated. âMoissart and Voissart!â I repeated, thoughtfully, as she cut one of her pigeon-wings, and âCroissart and Froissart!â as she completed anotherâ ââMoissart and Voissart and Croissart and Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart!â âwhy, you ineffable old serpent, thatâs meâ âthatâs meâ âdâye hear? thatâs meââ âhere I screamed at the top of my voiceâ ââthatâs me-e-e! I am Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart! and if I havnât married my great, great, grandmother, I wish I may be everlastingly confounded!â
Madame EugĂ©nie Lalande, quasi Simpsonâ âformerly Moissartâ âwas, in sober fact, my great, great, grandmother. In her youth she had been beautiful, and even at eighty-two, retained the majestic height, the sculptural contour of head, the fine eyes and the Grecian nose of her girlhood. By the aid of these, of pearl-powder, of rouge, of false hair, false teeth, and false tournure, as well as of the most skilful modistes of Paris, she contrived to hold a respectable footing among the beauties en peu passĂ©es of the French metropolis. In this respect, indeed, she might have been regarded as little less than the equal of the celebrated Ninon De LâEnclos.
She was immensely wealthy, and being left, for the second time, a widow without children, she bethought herself of my existence in America, and for the purpose of making me her heir, paid a visit to the
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