Second Home , livre ebook

The Floating Press - De Balzac Honore ,
traduit par Clara Bell

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50 pages

English

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In this novella from Honore de Balzac, an impoverished mother and daughter slave away as embroiderers but are barely able to evade starvation. Finally, what seems to be a blessing enters into their lives -- an older gentleman falls in love with the daughter, Caroline, and whisks her away to a fine country estate. Will Caroline get the happily-ever-after she so richly deserves?

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776538454
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A SECOND HOME
* * *
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
CLARA BELL

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A Second Home First published in 1842 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-845-4 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-846-1 © 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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A Second Home Addendum
*
To Madame la Comtesse Louise de Turheim as a token of remembrance and affectionate respect.
A Second Home
*
The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and mosttortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round thelittle gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi,exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood theturnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removedtill 1823, when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plotadjoining the Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Ducd'Angouleme on his return from Spain.
The widest part of the Rue du Tourniquet was the end opening into theRue de la Tixeranderie, and even there it was less than six feet across.Hence in rainy weather the gutter water was soon deep at the foot of theold houses, sweeping down with it the dust and refuse deposited atthe corner-stones by the residents. As the dust-carts could not passthrough, the inhabitants trusted to storms to wash their alwaysmiry alley; for how could it be clean? When the summer sun shed itsperpendicular rays on Paris like a sheet of gold, but as piercing as thepoint of a sword, it lighted up the blackness of this street for afew minutes without drying the permanent damp that rose from theground-floor to the first story of these dark and silent tenements.
The residents, who lighted their lamps at five o'clock in the monthof June, in winter never put them out. To this day the enterprisingwayfarer who should approach the Marais along the quays, past the endof the Rue du Chaume, the Rues de l'Homme Arme, des Billettes, and desDeux-Portes, all leading to the Rue du Tourniquet, might think he hadpassed through cellars all the way.
Almost all the streets of old Paris, of which ancient chronicles laudthe magnificence, were like this damp and gloomy labyrinth, where theantiquaries still find historical curiosities to admire. For instance,on the house then forming the corner where the Rue du Tourniquet joinedthe Rue de la Tixeranderie, the clamps might still be seen of two strongiron rings fixed to the wall, the relics of the chains put up everynight by the watch to secure public safety.
This house, remarkable for its antiquity, had been constructed in a waythat bore witness to the unhealthiness of these old dwellings; for,to preserve the ground-floor from damp, the arches of the cellarsrose about two feet above the soil, and the house was entered up threeoutside steps. The door was crowned by a closed arch, of which thekeystone bore a female head and some time-eaten arabesques. Threewindows, their sills about five feet from the ground, belonged to asmall set of rooms looking out on the Rue du Tourniquet, whence theyderived their light. These windows were protected by strong iron bars,very wide apart, and ending below in an outward curve like the bars of abaker's window.
If any passer-by during the day were curious enough to peep into the tworooms forming this little dwelling, he could see nothing; for only underthe sun of July could he discern, in the second room, two beds hung withgreen serge, placed side by side under the paneling of an old-fashionedalcove; but in the afternoon, by about three o'clock, when the candleswere lighted, through the pane of the first room an old woman might beseen sitting on a stool by the fireplace, where she nursed the fire ina brazier, to simmer a stew, such as porters' wives are expert in. Afew kitchen utensils, hung up against the wall, were visible in thetwilight.
At that hour an old table on trestles, but bare of linen, was laid withpewter-spoons, and the dish concocted by the old woman. Three wretchedchairs were all the furniture of this room, which was at once thekitchen and the dining-room. Over the chimney-piece were a piece oflooking-glass, a tinder-box, three glasses, some matches, and a large,cracked white jug. Still, the floor, the utensils, the fireplace,all gave a pleasant sense of the perfect cleanliness and thrift thatpervaded the dull and gloomy home.
The old woman's pale, withered face was quite in harmony with thedarkness of the street and the mustiness of the place. As she sat there,motionless, in her chair, it might have been thought that she was asinseparable from the house as a snail from its brown shell; her face,alert with a vague expression of mischief, was framed in a flat cap madeof net, which barely covered her white hair; her fine, gray eyes were asquiet as the street, and the many wrinkles in her face might be comparedto the cracks in the walls. Whether she had been born to poverty, orhad fallen from some past splendor, she now seemed to have been longresigned to her melancholy existence.
From sunrise till dark, excepting when she was getting a meal ready, or,with a basket on her arm, was out purchasing provisions, the old womansat in the adjoining room by the further window, opposite a young girl.At any hour of the day the passer-by could see the needlewoman seatedin an old, red velvet chair, bending over an embroidery frame, andstitching indefatigably.
Her mother had a green pillow on her knee, and busied herself withhand-made net; but her fingers could move the bobbin but slowly;her sight was feeble, for on her nose there rested a pair of thoseantiquated spectacles which keep their place on the nostrils by the gripof a spring. By night these two hardworking women set a lamp betweenthem; and the light, concentrated by two globe-shaped bottles of water,showed the elder the fine network made by the threads on her pillow,and the younger the most delicate details of the pattern she wasembroidering. The outward bend of the window had allowed the girl torest a box of earth on the window-sill, in which grew some sweet peas,nasturtiums, a sickly little honeysuckle, and some convolvulus thattwined its frail stems up the iron bars. These etiolated plants produceda few pale flowers, and added a touch of indescribable sadness andsweetness to the picture offered by this window, in which the twofigures were appropriately framed.
The most selfish soul who chanced to see this domestic scene would carryaway with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the workingclass of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her needle.Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves wonderinghow a girl could preserve her color, living in such a cellar. A studentof lively imagination, going that way to cross to the Quartier-Latin,would compare this obscure and vegetative life to that of the ivy thatclung to these chill walls, to that of the peasants born to labor, whoare born, toil, and die unknown to the world they have helped to feed.A house-owner, after studying the house with the eye of a valuer, wouldhave said, "What will become of those two women if embroidery should goout of fashion?" Among the men who, having some appointment at theHotel de Ville or the Palais de Justice, were obliged to go throughthis street at fixed hours, either on their way to business or on theirreturn home, there may have been some charitable soul. Some widower orAdonis of forty, brought so often into the secrets of these sad lives,may perhaps have reckoned on the poverty of this mother and daughter,and have hoped to become the master at no great cost of the innocentwork-woman, whose nimble and dimpled fingers, youthful figure, andwhite skin—a charm due, no doubt, to living in this sunless street—hadexcited his admiration. Perhaps, again, some honest clerk, with twelvehundred francs a year, seeing every day the diligence the girl gave toher needle, and appreciating the purity of her life, was only waitingfor improved prospects to unite one humble life with another, one formof toil to another, and to bring at any rate a man's arm and a calmaffection, pale-hued like the flowers in the window, to uphold thishome.
Vague hope certainly gave life to the mother's dim, gray eyes. Everymorning, after the most frugal breakfast, she took up her pillow, thoughchiefly for the look of the thing, for she would lay her spectacles on alittle mahogany worktable as old as herself, and look out of the windowfrom about half-past eight till ten at the regular passers in thestreet; she caught their glances, remarked on their gait, their dress,their countenance, and almost seemed to be offering her daughter, hergossiping eyes so evidently tried to attract some magnetic sympathy bymanoeuvres worthy of the stage. It was evident that this little reviewwas as good as a play to her, and perhaps her single amusement.
The daughter rarely looked up. Modesty, or a painful consciousness ofpoverty, seemed to keep her eyes riveted to the work-frame; and onlysome exclamation of surprise from her mother moved her to show her smallfeatures. Then a clerk in a new coat, or who unexpectedly appeared witha woman on his arm, might catch sight of the girl's slightly upturnednose, her rosy mouth, and gray eyes, always bright and lively in spiteof her fatiguing toil. Her late hours had left a trace on her face by apale circle marked under each eye on the fresh rosiness of her cheeks.The poor child looked as if she