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40 pages

English

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Description

This novel is part of the Scenes of Private Life section of Honore de Balzac's sweeping saga The Human Comedy. Renowned artist Theodore de Sommervieux falls head-over-heels in love with the beautiful, refined Augustine Guillaume, and soon the besotted pair are married. But after a blissful honeymoon period, the couple discovers that sometimes love is not enough to make a marriage work.

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776539635
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0064€. 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
* * *
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
CLARA BELL

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At the Sign of the Cat and Racket First published in 1829 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-963-5 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-964-2 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Addendum
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To Mademoiselle Marie de Montheau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
*
Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue duPetit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses whichenable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threateningwalls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated withhieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xsand Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front,outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident thatevery beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightestvehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof ofwhich no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warpedby the extremes 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. This upperstory was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order,no doubt, not to overweight the frail house.
One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefully wrappedin his cloak, stood under the awning of a shop opposite this old house,which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In point offact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenth century offeredmore than one problem to the consideration of an observer. Each storypresented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrowwindows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards,so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman canascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young manseemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yetrested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blindswere drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the largeBohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention wasattracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, soclumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum ofArts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry.These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, butfor his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the blue-checkedcotton curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profaneeyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation,or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the wholeneighborhood, dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntarysmile parted 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 tohave bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrustedwith as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an oldduchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carvedjoist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. Thispicture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be saidthat the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical acaricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big asitself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball,returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, andaccessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that theartist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passingobserver. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yetmore grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must havepuzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had beeneaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for thefigure of a spectator—so long, and thick, and furry were the tails ofour forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure fieldwhich ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name"Guillaume," and to the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel." Sun andrain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to theletters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changedplaces in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography.
To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growingcleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, it maybe observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical tomany Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living picturesby which our roguish ancestors contrived to tempt customers into theirhouses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, wereanimals in cages whose skills astonished the passer-by, and whoseaccomplishments prove the patience of the fifteenth-century artisan.Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than thesigns of "Providence," "Good-faith," "Grace of God," and "Decapitationof John the Baptist," which may still be seen in the Rue Saint-Denis.
However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire thecat, which a minute's attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. Theyoung man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after themanner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the moreremarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore white silkstockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had justcome, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour he hadin his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out of curl,and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been dressed a laCaracalla , a fashion introduced as much by David's school of paintingas by the mania for Greek and Roman styles which characterized the earlyyears of this century.
In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late,rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busy streetlay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to those whohave wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when its roar, hushedfor a moment, rises and spreads in the distance like the great voiceof the sea. This strange young man must have seemed as curious to theshopkeeping folk of the "Cat and Racket" as the "Cat and Racket" wasto him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxious face look even palerthan it really was. The fire that flashed in his black eyes, gloomyand sparkling by turns, was in harmony with the singular outline ofhis features, with his wide, flexible mouth, hardened into a smile. Hisforehead, knit with violent annoyance, had a stamp of doom. Is not theforehead the most prophetic feature of a man? When the stranger'sbrow expressed passion the furrows formed in it were terrible in theirstrength and energy; but when he recovered his calmness, so easilyupset, it beamed with a luminous grace which gave great attractivenessto a countenance in which joy, grief, love, anger, or scorn blazed outso contagiously that the coldest man could not fail to be impressed.
He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of theloft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparition ofthree laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as theface of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments. Thesethree faces, framed by the window, recalled the puffy cherubs floatingamong the clouds that surround God the Father. The apprentices snuffedup the exhalations of the street with an eagerness that showed how hotand poisonous the atmosphere of their garret must be. After pointing tothe singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed, of the apprenticesretired and came back holding an instrument whose hard metal pipe is nowsuperseded by a leather tube; and they all grinned with mischief as theylooked down on the loiterer, and sprinkled him with a fine whiteshower of which the scent proved that three chins had just been shaved.Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest corner of their loft, to enjoytheir victim's rage, the lads ceased laughing on seeing the haughtyindifference with which the young man shook his cloak, and theintense contempt expressed by his face as he glanced up at the emptywindow-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one ofthe clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners,of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavypanes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his longwaiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of thewhite cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frillof tumbled muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence.Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed hereand there through little openings left by her movements in sleep. Noexpression of embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, orthe calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works ofRaphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in those Virgins,and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrast between the che