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His
watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold
chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides,
were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He
gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the
freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, his cap was in
excellent taste. None but a Parisian, and a Parisian of the upper
spheres, could thus array himself without appearing ridiculous; none
other could give the harmony of self-conceit to all these fopperies,
which were carried off, however, with a dashing air,--the air of a
young man who has fine pistols, a sure aim, and Annette.

Now if you wish to understand the mutual amazement of the provincial
party and the young Parisian; if you would clearly see the brilliance
which the traveller's elegance cast among the gray shadows of the room
and upon the faces of this family group,--endeavor to picture to your
minds the Cruchots. All three took snuff, and had long ceased to
repress the habit of snivelling or to remove the brown blotches which
strewed the frills of their dingy shirts and the yellowing creases of
their crumpled collars. Their flabby cravats were twisted into ropes
as soon as they wound them about their throats. The enormous quantity
of linen which allowed these people to have their clothing washed only
once in six months, and to keep it during that time in the depths of
their closets, also enabled time to lay its grimy and decaying stains
upon it. There was perfect unison of ill-grace and senility about
them; their faces, as faded as their threadbare coats, as creased as
their trousers, were worn-out, shrivelled-up, and puckered. As for the
others, the general negligence of their dress, which was incomplete
and wanting in freshness,--like the toilet of all country places,
where insensibly people cease to dress for others and come to think
seriously of the price of a pair of gloves,--was in keeping with the
negligence of the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the only point on
which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines agreed.

When the Parisian took up his eye-glass to examine the strange
accessories of this dwelling,--the joists of the ceiling, the color of
the woodwork, and the specks which the flies had left there in
sufficient number to punctuate the "Moniteur" and the "Encyclopaedia
of Sciences,"--the loto-players lifted their noses and looked at him
with as much curiosity as they might have felt about a giraffe.
Monsieur des Grassins and his son, to whom the appearance of a man of
fashion was not wholly unknown, were nevertheless as much astonished
as their neighbors, whether it was that they fell under the
indefinable influence of the general feeling, or that they really
shared it as with satirical glances they seemed to say to their
compatriots,--

"That is what you see in Paris!"

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