Count BrugaBoni & Liveright, 1926 - 319 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Antonica arms beauty began body bottle breath chair Chittering closed his eyes coldly Count Bruga Count Hippolyt Bruga cried curious dead demanded door dreams Excellenz face fact felt fool frowned gentleman glass grew guest of honor hand Hankey head heart Hippolyt answered Hippolyt replied hour husband illuminati innocence inquired interrupted Jules killed knew Lieutenant McTavish lips listened loft looked Madam Williger Madam Williger's magician melodion mind Minus Miss Langweiler murder murmured muttered mystery never night nodded O'Toole Officer Miller Officer Mullins Oliver Oliver Winterbottom opened Pamphula paused poet police Potiemkin Prince-Albert Princess Amelia Professor Noga regarded Rufus Jr Sarastro scowled secret seized shouted sighed Signor Panini silk silk hat sitting Sitzmeyer slowly smiled Smith sneered soul spoke stared stood strange street talk tell thing thought turned voice waiting wife wine Wint Winterbottom women words young woman
Popular passages
Page 204 - I entered the cabaret where I performed one evening, feeling unusually disturbed. It was winter. The cold had numbed me during my walk to the place. I was removing my overcoat in the dressing room and it came again as I had known it would. The warning . . . the hand closing over my heart. Without a word to anyone I left the place. In the street I felt choked, dizzy. I hailed a carriage with difficulty and drove to within a block of our home. And during this ride I kept muttering to myself that my...
Page 292 - ... such intentions. But after the book was done, it seemed to me that I might as well credit myself with some sort of solicitous and respectful attitude toward the Public. It might hornswoggle the Public into buying some more of my books — at least more copies of Count Bruga. Count Bruga as a novel is as insensitive as a hangman, as vain as a monkey, and as absurd as Sinbad. It recites what I intended to be the unreal and ironical history of a preposterous creature called Count Hyppolyt Bruga....
Page 192 - But now more than before I felt it behind the child's smile of her lips. When her hands touched mine for the first time she shuddered and grew pale. I knew then that she was aware of her destiny. The stars had told me she would not live long and that agony and terror waited for her on the short journey.
Page 26 - I happened to become a count through the fortuitous chemistry of procreation. The gates of life are patroled only by the whims of chance and passion. The same unfortunate methods utilized by nature in the production of newspapermen are responsible, it is painful to admit, in the creation of a nobleman.
Page 25 - Ritz under that title was a disreputable poet named Jules Ganz. Scenting a hoax or at least a half column of jocular copy, the reporters, two of whom were familiar with the social details of Jules's past, arrived at the Count's door fully posted and prepared. Nevertheless they were astonished. There was about this perfumed and radiant impostor who greeted them the ludicrousness and poignancy of an ideal caricature.
Page 24 - COUNT HIPPOLYT BRUGA received the press with a series of formidable bows that gave him the appearance of a man discovered in the midst of his setting-up exercises. Shaking himself down after the impressive ritual of greeting until his swallow-tail had recovered its original perfections, Hippolyt at once produced a bottle of Bourbon and a carton of cigarettes which he gravely and modestly proffered the visitors.
Page 24 - Editor: has recently passed. Count Bruga will be at home to your representative in his suite at the Ritz Wednesday afternoon between the hours of three and five. His Highness begs me to inform you further that he does not carry photographs of himself about with him. Respectfully yours, REMY MANKIEWICZ, Gentleman in Attendance to His Highness, Count Hippolyt Bruga.
Page 11 - Julius was arrested six times for vagrancy, thrown into as many jails with epileptic negroes and other vermin-ridden derelicts for companions, and after twelve months arrived at his father's house because he had no other place to arrive at and because it had been his habit to sustain himself during many weeks of hunger with succulent visions of his father's butcher shop.
Page 23 - ... with a lordly half dollar. Without removing his remarkable hat or taking time to examine his new quarters Hippolyt sat himself down at a wonderfully carved desk and wrote out twelve copies of the following letter: My dear Editor: has recently passed.
Page 11 - Texas guard house for assaulting a second lieutenant with a beer bottle while drunk in a border cafe, the youthful soldier was given a dishonorable discharge and commanded never to show his face again within shooting distance of his comrades-in-arms.