Chapter 31 - Page 2

thing that I who lacked all ability to become
"comme il faut," should have assimilated the idea so completely
as I did. Possibly it was the fact that it had cost me such
enormous labour to acquire that brought about its strenuous
development in my mind. I hardly like to think how much of the
best and most valuable time of my first sixteen years of
existence I wasted upon its acquisition. Yet every one whom I
imitated--Woloda, Dubkoff, and the majority of my acquaintances--
seemed to acquire it easily. I watched them with envy, and
silently toiled to become proficient in French, to bow gracefully
and without looking at the person whom I was saluting, to gain
dexterity in small-talk and dancing, to cultivate indifference
and ennui, and to keep my fingernails well trimmed (though I
frequently cut my finger-ends with the scissors in so doing). And
all the time I felt that so much remained to be done if I was
ever to attain my end! A room, a writing-table, an equipage I
still found it impossible to arrange "comme il faut," however
much I fought down my aversion to practical matters in my desire
to become proficient. Yet everything seemed to arrange itself
properly with other people, just as though things could never
have been otherwise! Once I remember asking Dubkoff, after much
zealous and careful labouring at my finger-nails (his own were
extraordinarily good), whether his nails had always been as now,
or whether he had done anything to make them so: to which he
replied that never within his recollection had he done anything
to them, and that he could not imagine a gentleman's nails
possibly being different. This answer incensed me greatly, for I
had not yet learnt that one of the chief conditions of "comme il
faut"-ness was to hold one's tongue about the labour by which it
had been acquired. "Comme il faut"-ness I looked upon as not only
a great merit, a splendid accomplishment, an embodiment of all
the perfection which must strive to attain, but as the one
indispensable condition without which there could never be
happiness, nor glory, nor any good whatsoever in this world. Even
the greatest artist or savant or benefactor of the human race
would at that time have won from me no respect if he had not also
been "comme il faut." A man possessed of "comme il faut"-ness
stood higher than, and beyond all possible equality with, such
people, and might well leave it to them to paint pictures, to
compose music, to write books, or to do good. Possibly he might
commend them for so doing (since why should not merit be
commended where-ever it be found?), but he could never stand ON A
LEVEL with them, seeing that he was "comme il faut" and