'Take care,' he added, 'and do not have too many _sommités._ They watch one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps over the table.'
'We had two pleasant breakfasts,' I said, 'a fortnight ago. You were leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage free to the great actor.'
'As for me,' he answered, 'I often shut myself up, particularly after dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, as I can eat, seems to oppress me.
'Z. is always charming. He has an _aplomb_, an ease, a _verve_ arising from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, _homme de lettres_, and _père de famille_, falling back on literature and the domestic affections. As for me, I have intervals of _sauvagerie_, or rather the times when I am not _sauvage_ are the intervals. I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations. I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and seashore of my province.'
We passed to the language of conversation.
'There are three words,' said Tocqueville, 'which you have lost, and which I wonder how you do without,--Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle. You are forced always to substitute the name. They are so mixed in all our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without them.
'Then the _tutoyer_ is a _nuance_ that you want. When husband and wife are talking together they pass insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an hour, from the _vous_ to the _tu_. When matters of business or of serious discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not concerned, it is _vous_. With the least _soupçon_ of tenderness the _tu_ returns.'
'Yet,' I said, 'you never use the _tu_ before a third person.'
'Never,' he answered, 'in good company. Among the _bourgeoisie_ always. It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry. I remember being present when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, but unacquainted with this _nuance_, were laboriously _tutoyering_ each other. I relieved them much by assuring them that it was not merely unnecessary, but objectionable.'