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pubOne.info present you this new edition. On a winter's night, about two in the morning, the Comtesse Jeanne d'Herouville felt such violent pains that in spite of her inexperience, she was conscious of an approaching confinement; and the instinct which makes us hope for ease in a change of posture induced her to sit up in her bed, either to study the nature of these new sufferings, or to reflect on her situation. She was a prey to cruel fears, - caused less by the dread of a first lying-in, which terrifies most women, than by certain dangers which awaited her child.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819932413
Langue	English

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THE HATED SON
By Honore De Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Madame la Baronne James Rothschild.
THE HATED SON
PART I. HOW THE MOTHER LIVED
CHAPTER I. A BEDROOM OF THE SIXTEENTHCENTURY
On a winter's night, about two in the morning, theComtesse Jeanne d'Herouville felt such violent pains that in spiteof her inexperience, she was conscious of an approachingconfinement; and the instinct which makes us hope for ease in achange of posture induced her to sit up in her bed, either to studythe nature of these new sufferings, or to reflect on her situation.She was a prey to cruel fears, — caused less by the dread of afirst lying-in, which terrifies most women, than by certain dangerswhich awaited her child.
In order not to awaken her husband who was sleepingbeside her, the poor woman moved with precautions which her intenseterror made as minute as those of a prisoner endeavoring to escape.Though the pains became more and more severe, she ceased to feelthem, so completely did she concentrate her own strength on thepainful effort of resting her two moist hands on the pillow and soturning her suffering body from a posture in which she could findno ease. At the slightest rustling of the huge green silk coverlet,under which she had slept but little since her marriage, shestopped as though she had rung a bell. Forced to watch the count,she divided her attention between the folds of the rustling stuffand a large swarthy face, the moustache of which was brushing hershoulder. When some noisier breath than usual left her husband'slips, she was filled with a sudden terror that revived the colordriven from her cheeks by her double anguish.
The prisoner reached the prison door in the dead ofnight and trying to noiselessly turn the key in a pitiless lock,was never more timidly bold.
When the countess had succeeded in rising to herseat without awakening her keeper, she made a gesture of childlikejoy which revealed the touching naivete of her nature. But thehalf-formed smile on her burning lips was quickly suppressed; athought came to darken that pure brow, and her long blue eyesresumed their sad expression. She gave a sigh and again laid herhands, not without precaution, on the fatal conjugal pillow. Then—as if for the first time since her marriage she found herself freein thought and action— she looked at the things around her,stretching out her neck with little darting motions like those of abird in its cage. Seeing her thus, it was easy to divine that shehad once been all gaiety and light-heartedness, but that fate hadsuddenly mown down her hopes, and changed her ingenuous gaiety tosadness.
The chamber was one of those which, to this dayoctogenarian porters of old chateaus point out to visitors as “thestate bedroom where Louis XIII. once slept. ” Fine pictures, mostlybrown in tone, were framed in walnut, the delicate carvings ofwhich were blackened by time. The rafters of the ceiling formedcompartments adorned with arabesques in the style of the precedingcentury, which preserved the colors of the chestnut wood. Thesedecorations, severe in tone, reflected the light so little that itwas difficult to see their designs, even when the sun shone fullinto that long and wide and lofty chamber. The silver lamp, placedupon the mantel of the vast fireplace, lighted the room so feeblythat its quivering gleam could be compared only to the nebulousstars which appear at moments through the dun gray clouds of anautumn night. The fantastic figures crowded on the marble of thefireplace, which was opposite to the bed, were so grotesquelyhideous that she dared not fix her eyes upon them, fearing to seethem move, or to hear a startling laugh from their gaping andtwisted mouths.
At this moment a tempest was growling in thechimney, giving to every puff of wind a lugubrious meaning, — thevast size of the flute putting the hearth into such closecommunication with the skies above that the embers upon it had asort of respiration; they sparkled and went out at the will of thewind. The arms of the family of Herouville, carved in white marblewith their mantle and supporters, gave the appearance of a tomb tothis species of edifice, which formed a pendant to the bed, anothererection raised to the glory of Hymen. Modern architects would havebeen puzzled to decide whether the room had been built for the bedor the bed for the room. Two cupids playing on the walnutheadboard, wreathed with garlands, might have passed for angels;and columns of the same wood, supporting the tester were carvedwith mythological allegories, the explanation of which could havebeen found either in the Bible or Ovid's Metamorphoses. Take awaythe bed, and the same tester would have served in a church for thecanopy of the pulpit or the seats of the wardens. The married pairmounted by three steps to this sumptuous couch, which stood upon aplatform and was hung with curtains of green silk covered withbrilliant designs called “ramages”— possibly because the birds ofgay plumage there depicted were supposed to sing. The folds ofthese immense curtains were so stiff that in the semi-darkness theymight have been taken for some metal fabric. On the green velvethanging, adorned with gold fringes, which covered the foot of thislordly couch the superstition of the Comtes d'Herouville hadaffixed a large crucifix, on which their chaplain placed a freshbranch of sacred box when he renewed at Easter the holy water inthe basin at the foot of the cross.
On one side of the fireplace stood a large box orwardrobe of choice woods magnificently carved, such as bridesreceive even now in the provinces on their wedding day. These oldchests, now so much in request by antiquaries, were the arsenalsfrom which women drew the rich and elegant treasures of theirpersonal adornment, — laces, bodices, high collars and ruffs, gownsof price, alms-purses, masks, gloves, veils, — in fact all theinventions of coquetry in the sixteenth century.
On the other side, by way of symmetry, was anotherpiece of furniture, somewhat similar in shape, where the countesskept her books, papers, and jewels. Antique chairs covered withdamask, a large and greenish mirror, made in Venice, and richlyframed in a sort of rolling toilet-table, completed the furnishingsof the room. The floor was covered with a Persian carpet, therichness of which proved the gallantry of the count; on the upperstep of the bed stood a little table, on which the waiting-womanserved every night in a gold or silver cup a drink prepared withspices.
After we have gone some way in life we know thesecret influence exerted by places on the condition of the soul.Who has not had his darksome moments, when fresh hope has come intohis heart from things that surrounded him? The fortunate, or theunfortunate man, attributes an intelligent countenance to thethings among which he lives; he listens to them, he consults them—so naturally superstitious is he. At this moment the countessturned her eyes upon all these articles of furniture, as if theywere living beings whose help and protection she implored; but theanswer of that sombre luxury seemed to her inexorable.
Suddenly the tempest redoubled. The poor young womancould augur nothing favorable as she listened to the threateningheavens, the changes of which were interpreted in those credulousdays according to the ideas or the habits of individuals. Suddenlyshe turned her eyes to the two arched windows at the end of theroom; but the smallness of their panes and the multiplicity of theleaden lines did not allow her to see the sky and judge if theworld were coming to an end, as certain monks, eager for donations,affirmed. She might easily have believed in such predictions, forthe noise of the angry sea, the waves of which beat against thecastle wall, combined with the mighty voice of the tempest, so thateven the rocks appeared to shake. Though her sufferings were nowbecoming keener and less endurable, the countess dared not awakenher husband; but she turned and examined his features, as ifdespair were urging her to find a consolation there against so manysinister forebodings.
If matters were sad around the poor young woman,that face, notwithstanding the tranquillity of sleep, seemed sadderstill. The light from the lamp, flickering in the draught, scarcelyreached beyond the foot of the bed and illumined the count's headcapriciously; so that the fitful movements of its flash upon thosefeatures in repose produced the effect of a struggle with angrythought. The countess was scarcely reassured by perceiving thecause of that phenomenon. Each time that a gust of wind projectedthe light upon the count's large face, casting shadows among itsbony outlines, she fancied that her husband was about to fix uponher his two insupportably stern eyes.
Implacable as the war then going on between theChurch and Calvinism, the count's forehead was threatening evenwhile he slept. Many furrows, produced by the emotions of a warriorlife, gave it a vague resemblance to the vermiculated stone whichwe see in the buildings of that period; his hair, like the whitishlichen of old oaks, gray before its time, surrounded without gracea cruel brow, where religious intolerance showed its passionatebrutality. The shape of the aquiline nose, which resembled the beakof a bird of prey, the black and crinkled lids of the yellow eyes,the prominent bones of a hollow face, the rigidity of the wrinkles,the disdain expressed in the lower lip, were all expressive ofambition, despotism, and power, the more to be feared because thenarrowness of the skull betrayed an almost total absence ofintelligence, and a mere brute courage devoid of generosity. Theface was horribly disfigured by a large transversal scar which hadthe appearance of a second mouth on the right cheek.
At the age of thirty-three the count, anxious todistinguish himself in that unhappy religious war the signal forwhich was given on Saint-Bartholomew's day, had been gr