Comedy: American Style by Jessie Redmon Fauset

Author:Jessie Redmon Fauset
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2013-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

They sailed on the S.S. Paris . . . second class. Nothing, no promise, no spoken word from her mother could more completely have allayed the last lurking suspicions which Teresa might have entertained concerning the older woman’s plans. . . . Usually she insisted on every manifestation of pomp and circumstance which she considered at all consonant with her husband’s pocket-book. . . . Instead she herself suggested unexpected economies, “since the two of us are going.”

Also there were suggestions about clothes. It was indeed Dr. Cary who broached the idea of the purchase of one or two Paris frocks for his girl. . . . Olivia said she would leave this entirely to Teresa. “For myself,” she said, “I find French styles greatly over-rated. I think we can do just as well in New York. But unless we run across some real bargains, why buy anything until the fall? Teresa has plenty of dresses, nice ones left over from school.”

Which was indeed true. For shopping for the necessities of that lost romance, Teresa, planning to be of as little expense as possible to Henry, had equipped herself most fully. . . . Her illness during the ensuing year had lessened greatly her necessity for new clothes so that she was taking with her on the trip many garments which she had never donned.

She liked the sea-trip. She liked the free-masonry which it engendered; she liked to watch the amazing lack of restraint which young America displays when she gets on, so to speak, her sea-legs. . . . All sorts of people on this boat too besides Americans. French people returning with unrestrained joy from perpetually unwelcome exile; South Americans, swarthy, wary, a trifle too urbane, asking few questions, listening attentively to the answers, volunteering nothing enlightening about themselves; retiring, when questioned about themselves, into a sudden baffling non-comprehension of English.

But mostly the passengers consisted of Americans . . . school-teachers travelling for amusement or more schooling; students; a few business men; a tranquil minister; a couple of weary doctors and their wives; a few musicians who kept the salon wearisome with their ceaseless practicing.

There was an impresario too, who, leaning over the rail beside Teresa one afternoon, told her that this was his thirty-sixth trip. . . . His initial voyage had been in the steerage, coming, a baby, from Russia. . . . Often he travelled second-class like this because in this way he discovered new talents. People whose paths you would never cross in New York . . . the only city in the world worth considering . . . often let themselves go on shipboard. In the early evening he came and sat beside her watching the dances. . . .

“That colored girl there,” he said, pointing to one of the passengers, “has something attractive about her. I like to watch her dance. But she’s too civilized. . . . It’s a pity too; she might be another Marise, with a little more abandon, a little more give to her .

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