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A Start in Life-Part26_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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debtor on behalf of his son, now buried in the chapel of the chateau

de Serizy.



CHAPTER XI

OSCAR'S LAST BLUNDER



Some years after the affair at Makta, an old lady, dressed in black,

leaning on the arm of a man about thirty-four years of age, in whom



observers would recognize a retired officer, from the loss of an arm

and the rosette of the Legion of honor in his button-hole, was



standing, at eight o'clock, one morning in the month of May, under the

porte-cochere of the Lion d'Argent, rue de Faubourg Saint-Denis,



waiting, apparently, for the departure of a diligence. Undoubtedly

Pierrotin, the master of the line of coaches running through the



valley of the Oise (despatching one through Saint-Leu-Taverny and

Isle-Adam to Beaumont), would scarcely have recognized in this bronzed



and maimed officer the little Oscar Husson he had formerly taken to

Presles. Madame Husson, at last a widow, was as little recognizable as



her son. Clapart, a victim of Fieschi's machine, had served his wife

better by death than by all his previous life. The idle lounger was



hanging about, as usual, on the boulevard du Temple, gazing at the

show, when the explosion came. The poor widow was put upon the pension



list, made expressly for the families of the victim, at fifteen

hundred francs a year.



The coach, to which were harnessed four iron-gray horses that would

have done honor to the Messageries-royales, was divided into three



compartments, coupe, interieur, and rotonde, with an imperiale above.

It resembled those diligences called "Gondoles," which now ply, in



rivalry with the railroad, between Paris and Versailles. Both solid

and light, well-painted and well-kept, lined with fine blue cloth, and



furnished with blinds of a Moorish pattern and cushions of red

morocco, the "Swallow of the Oise" could carry, comfortably, nineteen



passengers. Pierrotin, now about fifty-six years old, was little

changed. Still dressed in a blue blouse, beneath which he wore a black



suit, he smoked his pipe, and superintended the two porters in livery,

who were stowing away the luggage in the great imperiale.



"Are your places taken?" he said to Madame Clapart and Oscar, eyeing

them like a man who is trying to recall a likeness to his memory.



"Yes, two places for the interieur in the name of my servant,

Bellejambe," replied Oscar; "he must have taken them last evening."



"Ah! monsieur is the new collector of Beaumont," said Pierrotin. "You

take the place of Monsieur Margueron's nephew?"



"Yes," replied Oscar, pressing the arm of his mother, who was about to

speak.



The officer wished to remain unknown for a time.

Just then Oscar thrilled at hearing the well-remembered voice of



Georges Marest calling out from the street: "Pierrotin, have you one

seat left?"



"It seems to me you could say 'monsieur' without cracking your

throat," replied the master of the line of coaches of the Valley of



the Oise, sharply.

Unless by the sound of the voice, Oscar could never have recognized



the individual whose jokes had been so fatal to him. Georges, almost

bald, retained only three or four tufts of hair above his ears; but



these were elaborately frizzed out to conceal, as best they could, the

nakedness of the skull. A fleshiness ill-placed, in other words, a



pear-shaped stomach, altered the once elegant proportions of the ex-

young man. Now almost ignoble in appearance and bearing, Georges



exhibited the traces of disasters in love and a life of debauchery in

his blotched skin and bloated, vinous features. The eyes had lost the



brilliancy, the vivacity of youth which chaste or studious habits have

the virtue to retain. Dressed like a man who is careless of his



clothes, Georges wore a pair of shabbytrousers, with straps intended

for varnished boots; but his were of leather, thick-soled, ill-



blacked, and of many months' wear. A faded waistcoat, a cravat,

pretentiously tied, although the material was a worn-out foulard,



bespoke the secret distress to which a former dandy sometimes falls a

prey. Moreover, Georges appeared at this hour of the morning in an



evening coat, instead of a surtout; a sure diagnostic of actual




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