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Bureaucracy-Part8_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of the company of the National



Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law belonged. Monsieur Cardot,

who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin did, namely, accepted one



invitation out of six. The company sang at dessert, shook hands and

embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other all manner of happiness;



the presents were exhibited and the opinion of the guests asked about

them. The day Saillard received his fur cap he wore it during the



dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At night, mere ordinary

acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till very late,



formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six years

Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed the



piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame

Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's woman-servant,



together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of

the salon. The servants always received three francs on these



occasions to buy themselves wine or coffee.

This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent



beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own

merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed



their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was

considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau



presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a

cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had



had the genius to study and to cast aside his father's business and

find a career in politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In



short, silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a

deep thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day



become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to

such remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips closer



together, and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.

In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who



perspired freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the

brain. This enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close,



was joined to the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of

his coat. He had the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a



stomach which sobriety held within the limits of the majestic, to use

a saying of Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that of



the Emperor Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes and the

flattened nose turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the short



chin. The forehead was low and narrow. Though his temperament was

lymphatic, the devout Isidore was under the influence of a conjugal



passion which time did not lessen.

In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor



and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a

political office-holder, of little ability as head of his department,



a cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a

flabby cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut



deep enough to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in

which he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square



head, deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary

man. Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was



a terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their work,

enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with such



terrible punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment late.

Baudoyer wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois waistcoat, gray



trousers and cravats of various colors. His feet were large and

ill-shod. From the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch of



old trinkets, among which in 1824 he still wore "American beads,"

which were very much the fashion in the year VII.



In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious




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