An Old Maid

by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Monsieur Eugene-Auguste-Georges-Louis Midy de la Greneraye

Surville, Royal Engineer of the Ponts at Chausses.
As a testimony to the affection of his brother-in-law,

De Balzac
AN OLD MAID

CHAPTER I
ONE OF MANY CHEVALIERS DE VALOIS

Most persons have encountered, in certain provinces in France, a
number of Chevaliers de Valois. One lived in Normandy, another at

Bourges, a third (with whom we have here to do) flourished in Alencon,
and doubtless the South possesses others. The number of the Valesian

tribe is, however, of no consequence to the present tale. All these
chevaliers, among whom were doubtless some who were Valois as Louis

XIV. was Bourbon, knew so little of one another that it was not
advisable to speak to one about the others. They were all willing to

leave the Bourbons in tranquil possession of the throne of France; for
it was too plainly established that Henri IV. became king for want of

a male heir in the first Orleans branch called the Valois. If there
are any Valois, they descend from Charles de Valois, Duc d'Angouleme,

son of Charles IX. and Marie Touchet, the male line from whom ended,
until proof to the contrary be produced, in the person of the Abbe de

Rothelin. The Valois-Saint-Remy, who descended from Henri II., also
came to an end in the famous Lamothe-Valois implicated in the affair

of the Diamond Necklace.
Each of these many chevaliers, if we may believe reports, was, like

the Chevalier of Alencon, an old gentleman, tall, thin, withered, and
moneyless. He of Bourges had emigrated; he of Touraine hid himself; he

of Alencon fought in La Vendee and "chouanized" somewhat. The youth of
the latter was spend in Paris, where the Revolution overtook him when

thirty years of age in the midst of his conquests and gallantries.
The Chevalier de Valois of Alencon was accepted by the highest

aristocracy of the province as a genuine Valois; and he distinguished
himself, like the rest of his homonyms, by excellent manners, which

proved him a man of society. He dined out every day, and played cards
every evening. He was thought witty, thanks to his foible for relating

a quantity of anecdotes on the reign of Louis XV. and the beginnings
of the Revolution. When these tales were heard for the first time,

they were held to be well narrated. He had, moreover, the great merit
of not repeating his personal bons mots and of never speaking of his

love-affairs, though his smiles and his airs and graces were
delightfully indiscreet. The worthy gentleman used his privilege as a

Voltairean noble to stay away from mass; and great indulgence was
shown to his irreligion because of his devotion to the royal cause.

One of his particular graces was the air and manner (imitated, no
doubt, from Mole) with which he took snuff from a gold box adorned

with the portrait of the Princess Goritza,--a charming Hungarian,
celebrated for her beauty in the last years of the reign of Louis XV.

Having been attached during his youth to that illustrious stranger, he
still mentioned her with emotion. For her sake he had fought a duel

with Monsieur de Lauzun.
The chevalier, now fifty-eight years of age, owned to only fifty; and

he might well allow himself that innocentdeception, for, among the
other advantages granted to fair thin persons, he managed to preserve

the still youthful figure which saves men as well as women from an
appearance of old age. Yes, remember this: all of life, or rather all

the elegance that expresses life, is in the figure. Among the
chevalier's other possessions must be counted an enormous nose with

which nature had endowed him. This nose vigorously divided a pale face
into two sections which seemed to have no knowledge of each other, for

one side would redden under the process of digestion, while the other
continued white. This fact is worthy of remark at a period when

physiology is so busy with the human heart. The incandescence, so to
call it, was on the left side. Though his long slim legs, supporting a

lank body, and his pallid skin, were not indicative of health,
Monsieur de Valois ate like an ogre and declared he had a malady

called in the provinces "hot liver," perhaps to excuse his monstrous
appetite. The circumstance of his singular flush confirmed this

declaration; but in a region where repasts are developed on the line
of thirty or forty dishes and last four hours, the chevalier's stomach

would seem to have been a blessing bestowed by Providence on the good
town of Alencon. According to certain doctors, heat on the left side

denotes a prodigal heart. The chevalier's gallantries confirmed this
scientific assertion, the responsibility for which does not rest,

fortunately, on the historian.
In spite of these symptoms, Monsieur de Valois' constitution was

vigorous, consequently long-lived. If his liver "heated," to use an
old-fashioned word, his heart was not less inflammable. His face was

wrinkled and his hair silvered; but an intelligentobserver would have
recognized at once the stigmata of passion and the furrows of pleasure

which appeared in the crow's-feet and the marches-du-palais, so prized
at the court of Cythera. Everything about this dainty chevalier

bespoke the "ladies' man." He was so minute in his ablutions that his
cheeks were a pleasure to look upon; they seemed to have been laved in

some miraculous water. The part of his skull which his hair refused to
cover shone like ivory. His eyebrows, like his hair, affected youth by

the care and regularity with which they were combed. His skin, already
white, seemed to have been extra-whitened by some secret compound.

Without using perfumes, the chevalier exhaled a certain fragrance of
youth, that refreshed the atmosphere. His hands, which were those of a

gentleman, and were cared for like the hands of a pretty woman,
attracted the eye to their rosy, well-shaped nails. In short, had it

not been for his magisterial and stupendous nose, the chevalier might
have been thought a trifle too dainty.

We must here compel ourselves to spoil this portrait by the avowal of
a littleness. The chevalier put cotton in his ears, and wore, appended

to them, two little ear-rings representing negroes' heads in diamonds,
of admirableworkmanship. He clung to these singular appendages,

explaining that since his ears had been bored he had ceased to have
headaches (he had had headaches). We do not present the chevalier as

an accomplished man; but surely we can pardon, in an old celibate
whose heart sends so much blood to his left cheek, these adorable

qualities, founded, perhaps, on some sublime secret history.
Besides, the Chevalier de Valois redeemed those negroes' heads by so

many other graces that society felt itself sufficiently compensated.
He really took such immense trouble to conceal his age and give

pleasure to his friends. In the first place, we must call attention to
the extreme care he gave to his linen, the only distinction that well-

bred men can nowadays exhibit in their clothes. The linen of the
chevalier was invariably of a fineness and whiteness that were truly

aristocratic. As for his coat, though remarkable for its cleanliness,
it was always half worn-out, but without spots or creases. The

preservation of that garment was something marvellous to those who
noticed the chevalier's high-bred indifference to its shabbiness. He

did not go so far as to scrape the seams with glass,--a refinement
invented by the Prince of Wales; but he did practice the rudiments of

English elegance with a personal satisfaction little understood by the
people of Alencon. The world owes a great deal to persons who take

such pains to please it. In this there is certainly some
accomplishment of that most difficult precept of the Gospel about

rendering good for evil. This freshness of ablution and all the other
little cares harmonized charmingly with the blue eyes, the ivory

teeth, and the blond person of the old chevalier.
The only blemish was that this retired Adonis had nothing manly about

him; he seemed to be employing this toiletvarnish to hide the ruins
occasioned by the military service of gallantry only. But we must

hasten to add that his voice produced what might be called an
antithesis to his blond delicacy. Unless you adopted the opinion of

certain observers of the human heart, and thought that the chevalier
had the voice of his nose, his organ of speech would have amazed you

by its full and redundant sound. Without possessing the volume of
classical bass voices, the tone of it was pleasing from a slightly

muffled quality like that of an English bugle, which is firm and
sweet, strong but velvety.

The chevalier had repudiated the ridiculouscostume still preserved by
certain monarchical old men; he had frankly modernized himself. He was

always seen in a maroon-colored coat with gilt buttons, half-tight
breeches of poult-de-soie with gold buckles, a white waistcoat without