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A Start in Life-Part14_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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used by the count's gardeners. All these little stealings had some



ostensible excuse.

Madame Moreau had taken into her service a daughter of one of the



gardeners, who was first her maid and afterwards her cook. The

poultry-game, also the dairy-maid, assisted in the work of the



household; and the steward had hired a discharged soldier to groom the

horses and do the heavy labor.



At Nerville, Chaumont, Maffliers, Nointel, and other places of the

neighborhood, the handsome wife of the steward was received by persons



who either did not know, or pretended not to know her previous

condition. Moreau did services to many persons. He induced his master



to agree to certain things which seem trifles in Paris, but are really

of immense importance in the country. After bringing about the



appointment of a certain "juge de paix" at Beaumont and also at Isle-

Adam, he had, in the same year, prevented the dismissal of a keeper-



general of the Forests, and obtained the cross of the Legion of honor

for the first cavalry-sergeant at Beaumont. Consequently, no festivity



was ever given among the bourgeoisie to which Monsieur and Madame

Moreau were not invited. The rector of Presles and the mayor of



Presles came every evening to play cards with them. It is difficult

for a man not to be kind and hospitable after feathering his nest so



comfortably.

A pretty woman, and an affected one, as all retired" target="_blank" title="a.退休的；通职的">retired waiting-maids of



great ladies are, for after they are married they imitate their

mistresses, Madame Moreau imported from Paris all the new fashions.



She wore expensive boots, and never was seen on foot, except,

occasionally, in the finest weather. Though her husband allowed but



five hundred francs a year for her toilet, that sum is immense in the

provinces, especially if well laid out. So that Madame Moreau, fair,



rosy, and fresh, about thirty-six years of age, still slender and

delicate in shape in spite of her three children, played the young



girl and gave herself the airs of a princess. If, when she drove by in

her caleche, some stranger had asked, "Who is she?" Madame Moreau



would have been furious had she heard the reply: "The wife of the

steward at Presles." She wished to be taken for the mistress of the



chateau. In the villages, she patronized the people in the tone of a

great lady. The influence of her husband over the count, proved in so



many years, prevented the small bourgeoisie from laughing at Madame

Moreau, who, in the eyes of the peasants, was really a personage.



Estelle (her name was Estelle) took no more part in the affairs of the

stewardship then the wife of a broker does in her husband's affairs at



the Bourse. She even depended on Moreau for the care of the household

and their own fortune. Confident of his MEANS, she was a thousand



leagues from dreaming that this comfortable existence, which had

lasted for seventeen years, could ever be endangered. And yet, when



she heard of the count's determination to restore the magnificent

chateau, she felt that her enjoyments were threatened, and she urged



her husband to come to the arrangement with Leger about Les

Moulineaux, so that they might retire from Presles and live at Isle-



Adam. She had no intention of returning to a position that was more or

less that of a servant in presence of her former mistress, who,



indeed, would have laughed to see her established in the lodge with

all the airs and graces of a woman of the world.



The rancorous enmity which existed between the Reyberts and the

Moreaus came from a wound inflicted by Madame de Reybert upon Madame



Moreau on the first occasion when the latter assumed precedence over

the former on her first arrival at Presles, the wife of the steward



being determined not to allow her supremacy to be undermined by a

woman nee de Corroy. Madame de Reybert thereupon reminded, or,



perhaps, informed the whole country-side of Madame Moreau's former

station. The words "waiting-maid" flew from lip to lip. The envious



acquaintances of the Moreaus throughout the neighborhood from Beaumont

to Moisselles, began to carp and criticize with such eagerness that a



few sparks of the conflagration fell into the Moreau household. For

four years the Reyberts, cut dead by the handsome Estelle, found



themselves the objects of so much animadversion on the part of the

adherents of the Moreaus that their position at Presles would not have



been endurable without the thought of vengeance which had, so far,




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