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The Country Doctor-Part19_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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him! He would have made you a Councillor of State, for he was a great



administrator himself; even to the point of knowing how many

cartridges were left in the men's boxes after an action. Poor man!



While you were talking about La Fosseuse, I thought of him, and how he

was lying dead in St. Helena! Was that the kind of climate and country



to suit HIM, whose seat had been a throne, and who had lived with his

feet in the stirrups; hein? They say that he used to work in the



garden. The deuce! He was not made to plant cabbages. . . . And now we

must serve the Bourbons, and loyally, sir; for, after all, France is



France, as you were saying yesterday."

Genestas dismounted as he uttered these last words, and mechanically



followed the example set by Benassis, who fastened his horse's bridle

to a tree.



"Can she be away?" said the doctor, when he did not see La Fosseuse on

the threshold. They went into the house, but there was no one in the



sitting room on the ground floor.

"She must have heard the sound of a second horse," said Benassis, with



a smile, "and has gone upstairs to put on her cap, or her sash, or

some piece of finery."



He left Genestas alone, and went upstairs in search of La Fosseuse.

The commandant made a survey of the room. He noticed the pattern of



the paper that covered the walls--roses scattered over a gray

background, and the straw matting that did duty for a carpet on the



floor. The armchair, the table, and the smaller chairs were made of

wood from which the bark had not been removed. The room was not



without ornament; some flower-stands, as they might be called, made of

osiers and wooden hoops, had been filled with moss and flowers, and



the windows were draped by white dimity curtains bordered with a

scarlet fringe. There was a mirror above the chimney-piece, where a



plain china jar stood between two candlesticks. Some calico lay on the

table; shirts, apparently, had been cut out and begun, several pairs



of gussets were finished, and a work-basket, scissors, needles and

thread, and all a needle-woman's requirements lay beside them.



Everything was as fresh and clean as a shell that the sea had tossed

up on the beach. Genestas saw that a kitchen lay on the other side of



the passage, and that the staircase was at the further end of it. The

upper story, like the ground floor, evidently consisted of two rooms



only. "Come, do not be frightened," Benassis was saying to La

Fosseuse; "come down-stairs!"



Genestas promptly retreated into the sitting-room when he heard these

words, and in another moment a slender girl, well and gracefully made,



appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of cambric, covered with

narrow pink stripes, and cut low at the throat, so as to display a



muslin chemisette. Shyness and timidity had brought the color to a

face which had nothing very remarkable about it save a certain



flatness of feature which called to mind the Cossack and Russian

countenances that since the disasters of 1814 have unfortunately come



to be so widely known in France. La Fosseuse was, in fact, very like

these men of the North. Her nose turned up at the end, and was sunk in



her face, her mouth was wide and her chin small, her hands and arms

were red and, like her feet, were of the peasant type, large and



strong. Although she had been used to an outdoor life, to exposure to

the sun and the scorching summer winds, her complexion had the



bleached look of withered grass; but after the first glance this made

her face more interesting, and there was such a sweet expression in



her blue eyes, so much grace about her movements, and such music in

her voice, that little as her features seemed to harmonize with the



disposition which Benassis had praised to the commandant, the officer

recognized in her the capricious and ailing creature, condemned to



suffering by a nature that had been thwarted in its growth.

La Fosseuse deftly stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat,



then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she

had begun. She sat there under the officer's eyes, half bashful,



afraid to look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and

fell with the rapid breathing that betrayed her nervousness, and it






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