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An Old Maid-Part1_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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embroidery, and a tight cravat showing no shirt-collar,--a last

vestige of the old French costume which he did not renounce, perhaps,



because it enabled him to show a neck like that of the sleekest abbe.

His shoes were noticeable for their square buckles, a style of which



the present generation has no knowledge; these buckles were fastened

to a square of polished black leather. The chevalier allowed two



watch-chains to hang parallel to each other from each of his waistcoat

pockets,--another vestige of the eighteenth century, which the



Incroyables had not disdained to use under the Directory. This

transition costume, uniting as it did two centuries, was worn by the



chevalier with the high-bred grace of an old French marquis, the

secret of which is lost to France since the day when Fleury, Mole's



last pupil, vanished.

The private life of this old bachelor was apparently open to all eyes,



though in fact it was quite mysterious. He lived in a lodging that was

modest, to say the best of it, in the rue du Cours, on the second



floor of a house belonging to Madame Lardot, the best and busiest

washerwoman in the town. This circumstance will explain the excessive



nicety of his linen. Ill-luck would have it that the day came when

Alencon was guilty of believing that the chevalier had not always



comported himself as a gentleman should, and that in fact he was

secretly married in his old age to a certain Cesarine,--the mother of



a child which had had the impertinence to come into the world without

being called for.



"He had given his hand," as a certain Monsieur du Bousquier remarked,

"to the person who had long had him under irons."



This horrible calumny embittered the last days of the dainty chevalier

all the more because, as the present Scene will show, he had lost a



hope long cherished to which he had made many sacrifices.

Madame Lardot leased to the chevalier two rooms on the second floor of



her house, for the modest sum of one hundred francs a year. The worthy

gentleman dined out every day, returning only in time to go to bed.



His sole expense therefore was for breakfast, invariablycomposed of a

cup of chocolate, with bread and butter and fruits in their season. He



made no fire except in the coldest winter, and then only enough to get

up by. Between eleven and four o'clock he walked about, went to read



the papers, and paid visits. From the time of his settling in Alencon

he had nobly admitted his poverty, saying that his whole fortune



consisted in an annuity of six hundred francs a year, the sole remains

of his former opulence,--a property which obliged him to see his man



of business (who held the annuity papers) quarterly. In truth, one of

the Alencon bankers paid him every three months one hundred and fifty



francs, sent down by Monsieur Bordin of Paris, the last of the

procureurs du Chatelet. Every one knew these details because the



chevalier exacted the utmostsecrecy from the persons to whom he first

confided them.



Monsieur de Valois gathered the fruit of his misfortunes. His place at

table was laid in all the most distinguished houses in Alencon, and he



was bidden to all soirees. His talents as a card-player, a narrator,

an amiable man of the highest breeding, were so well known and



appreciated that parties would have seemed a failure if the dainty

connoisseur was absent. Masters of houses and their wives felt the



need of his approving grimace. When a young woman heard the chevalier

say at a ball, "You are delightfully well-dressed!" she was more



pleased at such praise than she would have been at mortifying a rival.

Monsieur de Valois was the only man who could perfectly pronounce



certain phrases of the olden time. The words, "my heart," "my jewel,"

"my little pet," "my queen," and the amorous diminutives of 1770, had



a grace that was quite irresistible when they came from his lips. In

short, the chevalier had the privilege of superlatives. His






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