At the Sign of the Cat and Racket , livre ebook

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38 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819933984
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
By Honore De Balzac
Translated by Clara Bell
DEDICATION
To Mademoiselle Marie de Montheau
AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at thecorner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of thosedelightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Parisby analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemedto have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other namecould the passer-by give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal ordiagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallelcracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered inits mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerablestructure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no examplewill, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by theextremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over theroadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as toshelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. Thisupper story was built of planks, overlapping each other likeslates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house.
One rainy morning in the month of March, a youngman, carefully wrapped in his cloak, stood under the awning of ashop opposite this old house, which he was studying with theenthusiasm of an antiquary. In point of fact, this relic of thecivic life of the sixteenth century offered more than one problemto the consideration of an observer. Each story presented somesingularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow windows, closetogether, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as toproduce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can ascribeto his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young manseemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had notyet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where theVenetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslincurtains behind the large Bohemian glass panes, did not interesthim either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to themodest sash-frames of wood, so clumsily wrought that they mighthave found a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts to illustratethe early efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazedwith small squares of glass so green that, but for his good eyes,the young man could not have seen the blue-checked cotton curtainswhich screened the mysteries of the room from profane eyes. Now andthen the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation, or of thesilence in which the house was buried, like the whole neighborhood,dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary smileparted his lips each time he looked at the shop, where, in fact,there were some laughable details.
A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars,which appeared to have bent under the weight of the decrepit house,had been encrusted with as many coats of different paint as thereare of rouge on an old duchess' cheek. In the middle of this broadand fantastically carved joist there was an old paintingrepresenting a cat playing rackets. This picture was what moved theyoung man to mirth. But it must be said that the wittiest of modernpainters could not invent so comical a caricature. The animal heldin one of its forepaws a racket as big as itself, and stood on itshind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball, returned by a man ina fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and accessories, all weretreated in such a way as to suggest that the artist had meant tomake game of the shop-owner and of the passing observer. Time,while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet moregrotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must havepuzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail hadbeen eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken forthe figure of a spectator— so long, and thick, and furry were thetails of our forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on anazure field which ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might beread the name “Guillaume, ” and to the left, “Successor to MasterChevrel. ” Sun and rain had worn away most of the gildingparsimoniously applied to the letters of this superscription, inwhich the Us and Vs had changed places in obedience to the laws ofold-world orthography.
To quench the pride of those who believe that theworld is growing cleverer day by day, and that modern humbugsurpasses everything, it may be observed that these signs, of whichthe origin seems so whimsical to many Paris merchants, are the deadpictures of once living pictures by which our roguish ancestorscontrived to tempt customers into their houses. Thus the SpinningSow, the Green Monkey, and others, were animals in cages whoseskills astonished the passer-by, and whose accomplishments provethe patience of the fifteenth-century artisan. Such curiosities didmore to enrich their fortunate owners than the signs of“Providence, ” “Good-faith, ” “Grace of God, ” and “Decapitation ofJohn the Baptist, ” which may still be seen in the RueSaint-Denis.
However, our stranger was certainly not standingthere to admire the cat, which a minute's attention sufficed tostamp on his memory. The young man himself had his peculiarities.His cloak, folded after the manner of an antique drapery, showed asmart pair of shoes, all the more remarkable in the midst of theParis mud, because he wore white silk stockings, on which thesplashes betrayed his impatience. He had just come, no doubt, froma wedding or a ball; for at this early hour he had in his hand apair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out of curl, andflowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been dressed a laCaracalla , a fashion introduced as much by David's school ofpainting as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles whichcharacterized the early years of this century.
In spite of the noise made by a few marketgardeners, who, being late, rattled past towards the greatmarket-place at a gallop, the busy street lay in a stillness ofwhich the magic charm is known only to those who have wanderedthrough deserted Paris at the hours when its roar, hushed for amoment, rises and spreads in the distance like the great voice ofthe sea. This strange young man must have seemed as curious to theshopkeeping folk of the “Cat and Racket” as the “Cat and Racket”was to him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxious face lookeven paler than it really was. The fire that flashed in his blackeyes, gloomy and sparkling by turns, was in harmony with thesingular outline of his features, with his wide, flexible mouth,hardened into a smile. His forehead, knit with violent annoyance,had a stamp of doom. Is not the forehead the most prophetic featureof a man? When the stranger's brow expressed passion the furrowsformed in it were terrible in their strength and energy; but whenhe recovered his calmness, so easily upset, it beamed with aluminous grace which gave great attractiveness to a countenance inwhich joy, grief, love, anger, or scorn blazed out so contagiouslythat the coldest man could not fail to be impressed.
He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when thedormer-window of the loft was suddenly flung open, that he did notobserve the apparition of three laughing faces, pink and white andchubby, but as vulgar as the face of Commerce as it is seen insculpture on certain monuments. These three faces, framed by thewindow, recalled the puffy cherubs floating among the clouds thatsurround God the Father. The apprentices snuffed up the exhalationsof the street with an eagerness that showed how hot and poisonousthe atmosphere of their garret must be. After pointing to thesingular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed, of theapprentices retired and came back holding an instrument whose hardmetal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they allgrinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, andsprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent provedthat three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in thefarthest corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, thelads ceased laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with whichthe young man shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressedby his face as he glanced up at the empty window-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up thelower half of one of the clumsy windows on the third floor by theaid of the sash runners, of which the pulley so often suddenlygives way and releases the heavy panes it ought to hold up. Thewatcher was then rewarded for his long waiting. The face of a younggirl appeared, as fresh as one of the white cups that bloom on thebosom of the waters, crowned by a frill of tumbled muslin, whichgave her head a look of exquisite innocence. Though wrapped inbrown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed here and there throughlittle openings left by her movements in sleep. No expression ofembarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, or the calmlook of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works ofRaphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in thoseVirgins, and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrastbetween the cheeks of that face on which sleep had, as it were,given high relief to a superabundance of life, and the antiquity ofthe heavy window with its clumsy shape and black sill. Like thoseday-blowing flowers, which in the early morning have not yetunfurled their cups, twisted by the chills of night, the girl, asyet hardly awake, let her blue eyes wander beyond the neighboringroofs to look at the sky; then, from habit, she cast them down onthe gloomy depths of the street, where they immediately met thoseof her adorer. Vanity, no doubt, distressed her at being seen inundress; she started back, the worn pulley gave way, and the sashfell with the rapid run, which in our day has earned for thisartless invention of our forefathers an odious name, Fenetre ala Guillotine . The vision had disapp