"de Balzac, Honore - Gaudissart 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

auburn hair, and laughing tawny eyes, has all the lively humor, and
activity, and gaiety of the South; while the fourth, he of the tawny
red hair and fan-shaped beard, is rough as a communist, with his
portentous cravat, his sternness, his dignity, and curt speech.

These varieties of shopmen, corresponding to the principal types of
feminine customers, are arms, as it were, directed by the head, a
stout personage with a full-blown countenance, a partially bald
forehead, and a chest measure befitting a Ministerialist deputy.
Occasionally this person wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in
recognition of the manner in which he supports the dignity of the
French drapers' wand. From the comfortable curves of his figure you
can see that he has a wife and family, a country house, and an account
with the Bank of France. He descends like a deux ex machina, whenever
a tangled problem demands a swift solution. The feminine purchasers
are surrounded on all sides with urbanity, youth, pleasant manners,
smiles, and jests; the most seeming-simple human products of
civilization are here, all sorted in shades to suit all tastes.

Just one word as to the natural effects of architecture, optical
science, and house decoration; one short, decisive, terrible word, of
history made on the spot. The work which contains this instructive
page is sold at number 76 Rue de Richelieu, where above an elegant
shop, all white and gold and crimson velvet, there is an entresol into
which the light pours straight from the Rue de Menars, as into a
painter's studio--clean, clear, even daylight. What idler in the
streets has not beheld the Persian, that Asiatic potentate, ruffling
it above the door at the corner of the Rue de la Bourse and the Rue de
Richelieu, with a message to deliver urbi et orbi, "Here I reign more
tranquilly than at Lahore"? Perhaps but for this immortal analytical
study, archaeologists might begin to puzzle their heads about him five
hundred years hence, and set about writing quartos with plates (like
M. Quatremere's work on Olympian Jove) to prove that Napoleon was
something of a Sofi in the East before he became "Emperor of the
French." Well, the wealthy shop laid siege to the poor little
entresol; and after a bombardment with banknotes, entered and took
possession. The Human Comedy gave way before the comedy of cashmeres.
The Persian sacrificed a diamond or two from his crown to buy that so
necessary daylight; for a ray of sunlight shows the play of the
colors, brings out the charms of a shawl, and doubles its value; 'tis
an irresistible light; literally, a golden ray. From this fact you may
judge how far Paris shops are arranged with a view to effect.

But to return to the young assistants, to the beribboned man of forty
whom the King of the French receives at his table, to the red-bearded
head of the department with his autocrat's air. Week by week these
meritus Gaudissarts are brought in contact with whims past counting;
they know every vibration of the cashmere chord in the heart of woman.
No one, be she lady or lorette, a young mother of a family, a
respectable tradesman's wife, a woman of easy virtue, a duchess or a