Library / Literature & Fiction
A Prince of Bohemia
- Pages
- about 50
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 56 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
I inscribe this to you, my dear Heine, to you that represent in
Paris the ideas and poetry of Germany, in Germany the lively and
witty criticism of France; for you better than any other will know
whatsoever this Study may contain of criticism and of jest, of
love and truth.
“My dear friend,” said Mme. de la Baudraye, drawing a pile of manuscript
from beneath her sofa cushion, “will you pardon me in our present
straits for making a short story of something which you told me a few
weeks ago?”
“Anything is fair in these times. Have you not seen writers serving up
their own hearts to the public, or very often their mistress’ hearts
when invention fails? We are coming to this, dear; we shall go in quest
of adventures, not so much for the pleasure of them as for the sake of
having the story to tell afterwards.”
“After all, you and the Marquise de Rochefide have paid the rent, and
I do not think, from the way things are going here, that I ever pay
yours.”
“Who knows? Perhaps the same good luck that befell Mme. de Rochefide may
come to you.”
“Do you call it good luck to go back to one’s husband?”
“Scene--a splendid salon in the Rue de Chartres-du-Roule. One
of the most famous writers of the day discovered sitting on a
settee beside a very illustrious Marquise, with whom he is on
such terms of intimacy, as a man has a right to claim when a
woman singles him out and keeps him at her side as a complacent
souffre-douleur rather than a makeshift.”
“Well,” says she, “have you found those letters of which you spoke
yesterday? You said that you could not tell me all about him without
them?”
“It is your turn to speak; I am listening like a child when his mother
begins the tale of Le Grand Serpentin Vert.”
A short sample. Read the whole book
More to read
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "I Say No"Wilkie CollinsLiterature & Fiction428 pages
- "Miss Lou"Edward Payson RoeLiterature & Fiction409 pages
- "Speaking of Operations--"Irvin S. CobbLiterature & Fiction37 pages
Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.