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The Marriage Contract-Part9_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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blameworthy action, nevertheless belonged to all those criminalities



in embryo, Maitre Mathias felt neither sorrow nor generous

indignation. He was not the Misanthrope; he was an old notary,



accustomed in his business to the shrewd calculations of worldly

people, to those clever bits of treachery which do more fatal injury



than open murder on the high-road committed by some poor devil, who is

guillotined in consequence. To the upper classes of society these



passages in life, these diplomatic meetings and discussions are like

the necessary cesspools where the filth of life is thrown. Full of



pity for his client, Mathias cast a foreseeing eye into the future and

saw nothing good.



"We'll take the field with the same weapons," thought he, "and beat

them."



At this moment, Paul, Solonet and Madame Evangelista, becoming

embarrassed by the old man's silence, felt that the approval of that



censor was necessary to carry out the transaction, and all three

turned to him simultaneously.



"Well, my dear Monsieur Mathias, what do you think of it?" said Paul.

"This is what I think," said the conscientious and uncompromising



notary. "You are not rich enough to commit such regal folly. The

estate of Lanstrac, if estimated at three per cent on its rentals,



represents, with its furniture, one million.; the farms of Grassol and

Guadet and your vineyard of Belle-Rose are worth another million; your



two houses in Bordeaux and Paris, with their furniture, a third

million. Against those three millions, yielding forty-seven thousand



francs a year, Mademoiselle Natalie brings eight hundred thousand

francs in the Five-per-cents, the diamonds (supposing them to be worth



a hundred thousand francs, which is still problematical) and fifty

thousand francs in money; in all, one million and fifty thousand



francs. In presence of such facts my brother notary tells you

boastfully that we are marrying equal fortunes! He expects us to



encumber ourselves with a debt of eleven hundred and fifty-six

thousand francs to our children by acknowledging the receipt of our



wife's patrimony, when we have actually" target="_blank" title="ad.事实上；实际上">actually received but little more than

a doubtful million. You are listening to such stuff with the rapture



of a lover, and you think that old Mathias, who is not in love, can

forget arithmetic, and will not point out the difference between



landed estate, the actual value of which is enormous and constantly

increasing, and the revenues of personal property, the capital of



which is subject to fluctuations and diminishment of income. I am old

enough to have learned that money dwindles and land augments. You have



called me in, Monsieur le comte, to stipulate for your interests;

either let me defend those interests, or dismiss me."



"If monsieur is seeking a fortune equal in capital to his own," said

Solonet, "we certainly cannot give it to him. We do not possess three



millions and a half; nothing can be more evident. While you can boast

of your three overwhelming millions, we can only produce our poor one



million,--a mere nothing in your eyes, though three times the dowry of

an archduchess of Austria. Bonaparte received only two hundred and



fifty thousand francs with Maria-Louisa."

"Maria-Louisa was the ruin of Bonaparte," muttered Mathias.



Natalie's mother caught the words.

"If my sacrifices are worth nothing," she cried, "I do not choose to



continue such a discussion; I trust to the discretion of Monsieur le

comte, and I renounce the honor of his hand for my daughter."



According to the strategy marked out by the younger notary, this

battle of contending interests had now reached the point where victory



was certain for Madame Evangelista. The mother-in-law had opened her

heart, delivered up her property, and was therefore practically



released as her daughter's guardian. The future husband, under pain of

ignoring the laws of generouspropriety and being false to love, ought



now to accept these conditions previously planned, and cleverly led up

to by Solonet and Madame Evangelista. Like the hands of a clock turned



by mechanism, Paul came faithfully up to time.

"Madame!" he exclaimed, "is it possible you can think of breaking off



the marriage?"

"Monsieur," she replied, "to whom am I accountable? To my daughter.



When she is twenty-one years of age she will receive my guardianship

account and release me. She will then possess a million, and can, if



she likes, choose her husband among the sons of the peers of France.

She is a daughter of the Casa-Reale."



"Madame is right," remarked Solonet. "Why should she be more hardly

pushed to-day than she will be fourteen months hence? You ought not to






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