



Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny





THE DESERTED WOMAN


By Honore De Balzac



Translated by Ellen Marriage





                             DEDICATION

                To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes,
                      from her devoted servant,
                          Honore de Balzac.
                         PARIS, August 1835.





THE DESERTED WOMAN


In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a
young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on by
overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His convalescence
demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and freedom from
excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin seemed to offer
all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a picturesque place about
six miles from the sea, the patient therefore betook himself, and was
received with the cordiality characteristic of relatives who lead very
retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a godsend.

All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le
Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two or
three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who made up
Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the acquaintance
of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to be "the
whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable stock
characters which every observer finds in every one of the many capitals
of the little States which made up the France of an older day.

First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as
incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though no
one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This
species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but unmistakably,
connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, and related to
the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of the illustrious
house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no manners, crushes
everybody else with his nominal superiority, tolerates the sub-prefect
much as he submits to the taxes, and declines to acknowledge any of the
novel powers created by the nineteenth century, pointing out to you as
a political monstrosity the fact that the prime minister is a man of no
birth. His wife takes a decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has
had adorers in her time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter.
She brings up her daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will
always be rich enough with their name.

Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They
retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old
fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner
of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits passably
well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the lords of
the manor of a bygone age, _minus_ the quitrents and heriots, the pack
of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among themselves, and one
and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only see at a distance.
The historical house _incognito_ is as quaint a survival as a piece of
ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among them there is sure to be
an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, an old courtier of the
Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the order of Saint-Louis, and went
to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu: and here you will find him
like a stray leaf out of some old pamphlet of the time of Louis Quinze.

This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, though
of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of months of
every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous tone and
short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though
she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the
mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors.
_Her_ plate is of modern fashion; she has "grooms," <DW64>s, a
valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a tilbury, and
does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his younger brother is
auditor to a Council of State. The father is well posted up in official
scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis XVIII. and Madame du Cayla.
He invests his money in the five per cents, and is careful to avoid the
topic of cider, but has been known occasionally to fall a victim to the
craze for rectifying the conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes
of the department. He is a member of the Departmental Council, has
his clothes from Paris, and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In
short, he is a country gentleman who has fully grasped the significance
of the Restoration, and is coining money at the Chamber, but his
Royalism is less pure than that of the rival house; he takes
the _Gazette_ and the _Debats_, the other