"William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity fair" - читать интересную книгу автора

wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of
his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years of
his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely
seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the
detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he
had collected, to Calcutta.

Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for
the cure of which he returned to Europe, and which
was the source of great comfort and amusement to him
in his native country. He did not live with his family
while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like
a gay young bachelor. Before he went to India he was
too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a
man about town, and plunged into them on his return
with considerable assiduity. He drove his horses in the
Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the
Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented
the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made
his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights
and a cocked hat.

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk
of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great
enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and
Brummel were the leading bucks of the day. But he was
as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley Wollah. He
scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were
it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill,
and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness.
He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivan; the appearance
of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was
but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell
Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the
jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his
amour-propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious
thought and alarm; now and then he would make a
desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat;
but his indolence and love of good living speedily got
the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found
himself again at his three meals a day. He never was
well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his
big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation.
His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his
toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and
essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had
tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay,
and waistband then invented. Like most fat men, he
would have his clothes made too tight, and took care
they should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful