Granville's estate

As to the matter of attire, it ended with Louis being willing to accept a plain shirt at Allard, but absolutely refusing the trousers of the kind favored by Parisians.

"You can give me a plain shirt, and the rest will be spared. I can't imagine myself wearing such a fancy shirt."

Louis flipped the "Fashion Illustrated" in his hand to Alred, on it was a hand-colored display of men's clothing, the collar decorated with black crow-shaped lace looked very cumbersome and ridiculous, enough to make anyone who was not interested in the clothes Conservative men keep it at arm's length.

This well-known pictorial was founded by a genius before the Great Revolution. The original purpose was to convey the fashion created by the ladies of the upper class to the wealthy bourgeois women to follow. As demand grew, Vogue Illustrated added a guide to what to wear for men after the tailoring of women's clothing.Because fashion is always changing, some fashions that were popular at the time and are now outdated become a bit ridiculous in today's eyes.

Allred just took one look at it, and then categorically denied that he had such a fancy shirt.

"The newspaper you took is for April. You know that there are a lot of masquerade parties during Easter, so there is such a strange atmosphere!"

As it turns out, Allred doesn't have any of those Easter shirts - but he does have more shirts in different styles in his wardrobe: grey, white, black, gold thread embroidered, double stacked Collared, high-necked, straight-collared, lapeled...some even require careful observation to spot the difference between two very similar-looking shirts.

Facing Alred's wardrobe, Louis only felt a dull pain in his forehead.

"Al, don't you think this is a little too much?"

"Mr. Farentin, just as ladies cannot wear the same dress twice at the ball, sometimes gentlemen cannot wear the same dress on certain occasions!"

For Louis' question, Mary cleverly helped Alrede out of the siege, so she got a grateful look from the latter.

"I didn't realize that I have so many clothes... Oh, Louis, you wear this!"

Alrede chose a very plain shirt for Louis, but because of a careless tailor, the dress was sewn a size too small, and it was thrown in the closet just like that. .The style of the shirt was acceptable to Louis, and besides the waistline was a bit bigger when he put it on, it actually fit him well.

After changing his clothes, Alred dealt with some things in the study, received a receipt and sent several checks; at around three o'clock in the afternoon, the carriage they were in drove out of St. George's 79th Street.

Louis observed that when they came out, various carriages came out of this block one after another. If it was a luxurious open-top Karash four-wheeled carriage or a Landau carriage, the people sitting under the parasols were often dressed in clothes and hats. Beautiful women; and if a man is riding, the specifications and decoration of the carriage will be relatively low-key, and there are relatively more covered carriages.

"Who are the people who live in this neighborhood?" Louis asked.

"There are some women who are sheltered by the generosity of the rich but who have to live here alone." Alrede replied, looking out of the car window, "a lot of people here are actually dependent on the real upper class in Paris." handouts from society to maintain a decent life."

That is to say, this block is a place where some people use it as a golden house to hide their beauty. Louis stopped asking this question, and instead explored the wonderful fate between his friend and that Miss Margaret.

"I'm really curious, how did you meet that Miss Margaret Labudin." Louis said, "Could it be that you fell in love with her at first sight at a certain ball or a certain nobleman's banquet? "

Contrary to Louis' expectations, Allred's answer was: "Neither, in fact, when I first met Margaret, she thought of me as a homeless bum."

"tramp?"

Louis was very surprised by this unexpected statement: "How can you be regarded as a homeless person? Did something bad happen to you at that time?"

Maybe because he remembered the scene when he first met Margaret, Alred had a slightly silly smile on his face, which made him look like the kind of person who is immersed in love. Some wonderful brilliance comes.

"You may never imagine the circumstances under which we first met, Louis!" Alred said, putting the cane aside, "It was probably the winter of my third year in Paris." Well, remember, I said I was trying to get paid for writing for newspapers."

"Of course I remember that."

"I knew a priest from another place at the time. After he knew that I had contributed to the newspaper, he hoped that I could write an article for him about criticizing the extravagant clothes of people in Paris, and publish it in the newspaper under his name-that A priest hoped to gain a high reputation by becoming a saint of enlightenment like Santa Clara; but this stumped me. In order to observe people's clothes, I went to the boulevard where the ladies often walked. , and sit all day to see people in various carriages."

"And you were treated as a tramp by Miss Margaret just because of that?"

"Ah, I didn't wear very much that day, and the temperature changed in the afternoon, which made me very cold." Recalling the scene at that time, Alred laughed: "At this time, Margaret's carriage Passed by me with her and her girlfriend in the car, guess what she did, Louie?—her carriage passed me, turned around, and she threw it at me A fifty franc louis d'or, said to me 'Go and buy a bottle of wine to warm the whole body!'"

"My God!" Even knowing that Miss Marguerite's life may be very extravagant from the bill incident the day before, Louis couldn't help but exclaimed when he heard what Alred said: "The fifty francs Gold coins? Are you sure you remember correctly, Al?"

"Of course I don't remember wrongly." Alred said, pulling out the franc box that Louis gave him when he graduated from his coat pocket.He opened the box carefully, and after taking out four thin five-franc silver coins one by one, the spring installed at the bottom of the franc box sent a fifty-franc Napoleon gold coin at the bottom to the bottom. above.

"You see, I've always carried this gold coin she gave me—Louis, if she was really just that kind of mercenary woman, then I didn't need to hesitate to know that I should leave her; but because of this coin Gold coin, I know she is not that kind of woman, so I will never forget her."

Allred said so in a tone that was both sweet and distressed.

Louis, who heard Miss Margaret's story, was in a complicated mood. He pursed his lips and turned his head to look out the window.

"Why don't you talk, Louie?"

Alred, who didn't get a response, couldn't help but want to ask his good friend.

"Al, I don't want to make you unhappy." Louis replied, "It's hard for me to imagine the mood in which Miss Margaret threw this gold coin to you. Her behavior is undoubtedly worthy of respect-but so First, it proves that her life is very arbitrary and doesn't even care about money, which makes me worry about you even more."

"I believe that her essence is a kind woman, but the environment she lives in never allows her to show her true heart. As you can see, she doesn't give me much chance to spend money for her. So you really don’t have to worry that I will lose everything because of her.” Alred said, putting the other silver coins back into the franc box: “That was the first time I saw her, and later my father transferred the property to me so that I could also I saw her again at a dance while owning the carriage."

"I asked her to dance, and I told her about it, and she said 'I don't remember it at all'; Louie, I'm sure she really doesn't, but I do, and I don't even remember her I remember what color shawl I wore that day."

"So, I look forward to seeing this Miss Margaret even more."

The carriage drove through the wide Louis XV Square and gradually approached their destination - the Bois de Boulogne where the nobles took their afternoon walks.What surprised Louis was that all kinds of open carriages and box carriages stretched endlessly along the road, gradually gathering together and driving in the same direction, just like holding a grand horse race.

"I have never seen so many carriages gathered together at the same time!"

Alred's carriage was completely inconspicuous among so many vehicles and horses, and Louis couldn't help but marvel at the spectacular scene outside the car window.

"Ah, these are all the carriages of people who go for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne." Arred looked through the window to two richly dressed men in a Carrasch limousine that drove past them. The lady paid her respects, and turned around to answer Louis' doubts: "Although it is said to go for a walk to breathe fresh air and improve health, it is an essential social activity for the nobles and rich people in Paris. Especially for those aristocrats, if someone has been absent from the Tuileries Gardens, the Bois de Boulogne, or the Boulevards during the day, rumors that he has fallen out of high society will immediately spread everywhere yes."

"It sounds like everyone doesn't need to work, just walk here every day to be a powerful person."