Lawrence
Lefferts y Sillerton Jackson, expertos en moda y
relaciones en la vieja Nueva York,
opinan en contra de la introducción de la nueva dama en el palco de los Mingotts. Algo debían saber pues los
ojos de todos se posaron en ellos buscando sus reacciones. Ellos eran expertos
en familias de Nueva York y conocían respecto de etiqueta.
Al final court shoe y patent leather y para
saber: el Josephine look.
Del clásico de Edith Wharton: La Edad de la Inocencia.
If anybody can tell a fellow just when to wear a black
tie with evening clothes and when not to, it's Larry Lefferts…
Paragraphs
"Well—upon my soul!" exclaimed Lawrence
Lefferts, turning his opera-glass abruptly away from the stage. Lawrence
Lefferts was, on the whole, the foremost authority on "form" in New
York. He had probably devoted more time than anyone else to the study of this
intricate and fascinating question; but study alone could not account for his
complete and easy competence. One had only to look at him, from the slant of
his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair moustache to the long
patent-leather feet at the other end of his lean and elegant person, to feel that
the knowledge of "form" must be congenital in any one who knew how to
wear such good clothes so carelessly and carry such height with so much
lounging grace.
As a young admirer had once said of him: "If
anybody can tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening clothes
and when not to, it's Larry Lefferts." And on the question of pumps versus patent-leather "Oxfords"
his authority had never been disputed.
"My God!" he said; and silently handed his glass to old Sillerton Jackson.
Newland Archer, following Lefferts's glance, saw
with surprise that his exclamation had been occasioned by the entry of a new
figure into old Mrs. Mingott's box. It was that of a slim young woman, a little
less tall than May Welland, with brown hair growing in close curls about her
temples and held in place by a narrow band of diamonds. The suggestion of this
headdress, which gave her what was then called a "Josephine look," was carried out in the cut of the dark
blue velvet gown rather theatrically caught up under her bosom by a girdle with
a large old-fashioned clasp. The wearer of this unusual dress, who seemed quite
unconscious of the attention it was attracting, stood a moment in the centre of
the box, discussing with Mrs. Welland the propriety of taking the latter's
place in the front right-hand corner; then she yielded with a slight smile, and
seated herself in line with Mrs. Welland's sister-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingott,
who was installed in the opposite corner.
Mr. Sillerton Jackson had returned the opera-glass
to Lawrence Lefferts. The whole of the club turned instinctively, waiting to
hear what the old man had to say; for old Mr. Jackson was as great an authority
on "family" as Lawrence Lefferts was on "form." He knew all
the ramifications of New York's cousinships; and could not only elucidate such
complicated questions as that of the connection between the Mingotts (through
the Thorleys) with the Dallases of South Carolina, and that of the relationship
of the elder branch of Philadelphia Thorleys to the Albany Chiverses (on no
account to be confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place), but
could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family: as, for
instance, the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Leffertses (the Long
Island ones); or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches;
or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the Albany Chiverses,
with whom their New York cousins had always refused to intermarry—with the
disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson, who, as everybody knew ... but then
her mother was a Rushworth.
In addition to this forest of family trees, Mr.
Sillerton Jackson carried between his narrow hollow temples, and under his soft
thatch of silver hair, a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that
had smouldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within the last
fifty years. So far indeed did his information extend, and so acutely retentive
was his memory, that he was supposed to be the only man who could have told you
who Julius Beaufort, the banker, really was, and what had become of handsome
Bob Spicer, old Mrs. Manson Mingott's father, who had disappeared so
mysteriously (with a large sum of trust money) less than a year after his
marriage, on the very day that a beautiful Spanish dancer who had been
delighting thronged audiences in the old Opera-house on the Battery had taken
ship for Cuba. But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr.
Jackson's breast; for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his
repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his
reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he
wanted to know.
The club box, therefore, waited in visible suspense
while Mr. Sillerton Jackson handed back Lawrence Lefferts's opera-glass… (The
Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, chapter 1.)
Josefina, 1805 |
Para saber
Josephine
look: es un vestido al estilo del primer Imperio Francés, llamado así por la
esposa de Napoleón, Josefina, emperatriz de Francia. El Josephine look tenía una cintura
corta, escotado, caída amplia y mangas cortas y abombadas.
Court shoes |
Vocabulario
Court shoe
(British English), o pump (American
English), es un zapato con un frente cortado y sin ataduras, con un lazo
enfrente.
Patent leather
es una clase de revestimiento de cuero que tiene un acabado brilloso y
satinado. Una referencia temprana del patent leather se
ubica en el período británico en 1793. El proceso fue introducido en los Estados Unidos por el inventor Seth Boyden de Newark, New Jersey en 1818.
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Fuentes
The Age of Innocence,
Wikipedia
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