



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
