His family, however, reawakened his enthusiasm. "To Paris!" . . . He
began to fancy that he was twenty again, and forgetting his habitual
parsimony, wished his household to travel like royalty, in the most
luxurious staterooms, and with personal servants. Two copper-hued
country girls, born on the ranch and elevated to the rank of maids
to the senora and her daughter, accompanied them on the voyage, their
oblique eyes betraying not the slightest astonishment before the
greatest novelties.
Once in Paris, Desnoyers found himself quite bewildered. He confused
the names of streets, proposed visits to buildings which had long since
disappeared, and all his attempts to prove himself an expert authority
on Paris were attended with disappointment. His children, guided by
recent reading up, knew Paris better than he. He was considered
a foreigner in his own country. At first, he even felt a certain
strangeness in using his native tongue, for he had remained on the ranch
without speaking a word of his language for years at a time. He was used
to thinking in Spanish, and translating his ideas into the speech of his
ancestors spattered his French with all kinds of Creole dialect.
"Where a man makes his fortune and raises his family, there is his true
country," he said sententiously, remembering Madariaga.
The image of that distant country dominated him with insistent obsession
as soon as the impressions of the voyage had worn off.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116