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

cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would
issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park;
and then would come back in order to dress again and
go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House.
He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme
shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If
Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first
entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary
cleverness.

The first move showed considerable skill. When she
called Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that
Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell
Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the
compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you
had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome
as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she
was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the
compliment-Rebecca spoke loud enough-and he did
hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine
man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big
body, and made it tingle with pleasure. Then, however,
came a recoil. "Is the girl making fun of me?" he thought,
and straightway he bounced towards the bell, and was
for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's jokes
and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and
stay where he was. He conducted the young lady down
to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind.
"Does she really think I am handsome?" thought he,
"or is she only making game of me?" We have talked
of Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help
us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say
of one of their own sex, "She is as vain as a man,"
and they will have perfect reason. The bearded creatures
are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their
toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages,
quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as
any coquette in the world.

Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and
blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green
eyes downwards. She was dressed in white, with bare
shoulders as white as snow-the picture of youth,
unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity.
"I must be very quiet," thought Rebecca, "and very much
interested about India."

Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a
fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the
course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to