Cain Hargreaves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misterblackbird) wrote2010-02-05 06:49 pm
misterblackbird) wrote2010-02-05 06:49 pm
Entry 377; Day 413
I can hardly believe the hour--already, it's so late in the day. But, really, I daresay that this city doesn't wake up until nightfall itself. Yes, I admit, it does wake in the day, rawly, with sunlight on its lemon streets. Moist pith of farls of bread, the green wormwood, matin incense, all rising the court the air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hands. In Rodot's Yvonne and Madeleine make anew their tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry, their mouths yellowed by the cream of flan breton. Faces of the men go by too, their well-pleased pleasers, curled conquistadors.
Perhaps I ought to try my hand at being a poet too.
But what is there to do but walk the streets with the ordinary people, the housewives and the gentlemen, until nightfall? No one is a lady or a gentleman, save by nickname, after dark. I'll leave daylight to the genuine ones and use my title only when it serves me best. I do like the way a girl's eyes go wide when I tell I'm an earl.
I'm sure Uncle Neil would be appalled at how late in the day I tend to get up. He said as much to me when he'd visit me in London. Of course, he'd be equally appalled at how I've taken rooms over a theatre. Perhaps it isn't respectable, but it's certainly more interesting than an ordinary flat. And I've the arts under my feet to patronize. Far be it from me to deny the dancers and the singers and the actors a floor or two below me.
I think I'm one of the few actually in possession of his own fortune. I've no idea how many acquaintances I've heard complaining to one another about needing a loan from Father or Uncle or Mother. Granted, yes, perhaps my own uncle could cut off my own funds and drive me back to London, but he hasn't dared yet.
I wonder if they don't all think it's best that I'm here, and well out of their way. I am still the earl, I am still the head of the family, I am still the one who holds all the land and the wealth and the power of our name, so they won't try anything. But perhaps it's best to let me stay here and play with the artists and poets and dancing girls and out of their way and their trouble. Any reputation I make for myself here can't possibly follow me back to London, I know that. I'll take back anything and everything I can find in dark alleys for my collection, but that's my old reputation, and hardly anything new trailing after me in London's streets.
Anyway, even if Uncle Neil dared to stop me from getting to my own inheritance, I've ways and means to make a little income for myself while I'm here.
Well, that isn't my great interest this evening at all, nor has it ever been. I've my fortune, my own will, my own interest, and my own muses and vices. What have I to lose, having loved and lost thrice already. And the rest are just paper dolls for amusements--paper dolls and glass trinkets. And I'm as tired as ever of respectable ladies. Send me a girl who's a Gypsy, or a girl whose mother was a daughter of Japan and whose eyes shine like obsidian, or a girl whose father was a rajah once somewhere in India or perhaps a deposed sultan. I'll speak to them before I'd speak to the caged and polished porcelain daughters of lords in London.
Those porcelain dolls won't dance, for one thing.
I've crossed paths with a few new acquaintances of late--a few Americans, a few other Englishmen. I say that we ought to meet somewhere tonight--Le Serpent Rouge, Bobino, I'll even endure crowds at the Moulin Rouge, anywhere. I'm not here to stay indoors. Leave the students to their books and I'll take their places on the Left Bank.
Is anyone with me? It's evening, but I've a taste for Death in the Afternoon. Gentlemen, let us descend.
~C.
[ooc: How...interestingly unchanged Cain is by this curse ._.v Cain is a visiting English nobleman, drinking and carousing and slumming in Paris/not!Paris. Do come and join him~ Also, bonus points to anyone who can pin some of the quotes I've included in this post~]
Perhaps I ought to try my hand at being a poet too.
But what is there to do but walk the streets with the ordinary people, the housewives and the gentlemen, until nightfall? No one is a lady or a gentleman, save by nickname, after dark. I'll leave daylight to the genuine ones and use my title only when it serves me best. I do like the way a girl's eyes go wide when I tell I'm an earl.
I'm sure Uncle Neil would be appalled at how late in the day I tend to get up. He said as much to me when he'd visit me in London. Of course, he'd be equally appalled at how I've taken rooms over a theatre. Perhaps it isn't respectable, but it's certainly more interesting than an ordinary flat. And I've the arts under my feet to patronize. Far be it from me to deny the dancers and the singers and the actors a floor or two below me.
I think I'm one of the few actually in possession of his own fortune. I've no idea how many acquaintances I've heard complaining to one another about needing a loan from Father or Uncle or Mother. Granted, yes, perhaps my own uncle could cut off my own funds and drive me back to London, but he hasn't dared yet.
I wonder if they don't all think it's best that I'm here, and well out of their way. I am still the earl, I am still the head of the family, I am still the one who holds all the land and the wealth and the power of our name, so they won't try anything. But perhaps it's best to let me stay here and play with the artists and poets and dancing girls and out of their way and their trouble. Any reputation I make for myself here can't possibly follow me back to London, I know that. I'll take back anything and everything I can find in dark alleys for my collection, but that's my old reputation, and hardly anything new trailing after me in London's streets.
Anyway, even if Uncle Neil dared to stop me from getting to my own inheritance, I've ways and means to make a little income for myself while I'm here.
Well, that isn't my great interest this evening at all, nor has it ever been. I've my fortune, my own will, my own interest, and my own muses and vices. What have I to lose, having loved and lost thrice already. And the rest are just paper dolls for amusements--paper dolls and glass trinkets. And I'm as tired as ever of respectable ladies. Send me a girl who's a Gypsy, or a girl whose mother was a daughter of Japan and whose eyes shine like obsidian, or a girl whose father was a rajah once somewhere in India or perhaps a deposed sultan. I'll speak to them before I'd speak to the caged and polished porcelain daughters of lords in London.
Those porcelain dolls won't dance, for one thing.
I've crossed paths with a few new acquaintances of late--a few Americans, a few other Englishmen. I say that we ought to meet somewhere tonight--Le Serpent Rouge, Bobino, I'll even endure crowds at the Moulin Rouge, anywhere. I'm not here to stay indoors. Leave the students to their books and I'll take their places on the Left Bank.
Is anyone with me? It's evening, but I've a taste for Death in the Afternoon. Gentlemen, let us descend.
~C.
[ooc: How...interestingly unchanged Cain is by this curse ._.v Cain is a visiting English nobleman, drinking and carousing and slumming in Paris/not!Paris. Do come and join him~ Also, bonus points to anyone who can pin some of the quotes I've included in this post~]
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject