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The Purse-Part2_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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pride in the luxury he had lately conquered for his mother.

"Well, monsieur, I hope you no longer feel the effects of your



fall," said the old lady, rising from an antiquearmchair that

stood by the chimney, and offering him a seat.



"No, madame. I have come to thank you for the kind care you gave

me, and above all mademoiselle, who heard me fall."



As he uttered this speech, stamped with the exquisite stupidity

given to the mind by the first disturbing symptoms of true love,



Hippolyte looked at the young girl. Adelaide was lighting the

Argand lamp, no doubt that she might get rid of a tallow candle



fixed in a large copper flat candlestick, and graced with a heavy

fluting of grease from its guttering. She answered with a slight



bow, carried the flat candlestick into the ante-room, came back,

and after placing the lamp on the chimney shelf, seated herself



by her mother, a little behind the painter, so as to be able to

look at him at her ease, while apparently much interested in the



burning of the lamp; the flame, checked by the damp in a dingy

chimney, sputtered as it struggled with a charred and badly-



trimmed wick. Hippolyte, seeing the large mirror that decorated

the chimney-piece, immediately fixed his eyes on it to admire



Adelaide. Thus the girl's little stratagem only served to

embarrass them both.



While talking with Madame Leseigneur, for Hippolyte called her

so, on the chance of being right, he examined the room, but



unobtrusively and by stealth.

The Egyptian figures on the iron fire-dogs were scarcely visible,



the hearth was so heaped with cinders; two brands tried to meet

in front of a sham log of fire-brick, as carefully buried as a



miser's treasure could ever be. An old Aubusson carpet, very much

faded, very much mended, and as worn as a pensioner's coat, did



not cover the whole of the tiled floor, and the cold struck to

his feet. The walls were hung with a reddish paper, imitating



figured silk with a yellow pattern. In the middle of the wall

opposite the windows the painter saw a crack, and the outline



marked on the paper of double-doors, shutting off a recess where

Madame Leseigneur slept no doubt, a fact ill disguised by a sofa



in front of the door. Facing the chimney, above a mahogany chest

of drawers of handsome and tasteful design, was the portrait of



an officer of rank, which the dim light did not allow him to see

well; but from what he could make out he thought that the fearful



daub must have been painted in China. The window-curtains of red

silk were as much faded as the furniture, in red and yellow



worsted work, [as] if this room "contrived a double debt to pay."

On the marble top of the chest of drawers was a costly malachite



tray, with a dozen coffee cups magnificently painted and made, no

doubt, at Sevres. On the chimney shelf stood the omnipresent



Empire clock: a warrior driving the four horses of a chariot,

whose wheel bore the numbers of the hours on its spokes. The



tapers in the tall candlesticks were yellow with smoke, and at

each corner of the shelf stood a porcelain vase crowned with



artificial flowers full of dust and stuck into moss.

In the middle of the room Hippolyte remarked a card-table ready



for play, with new packs of cards. For an observer there was

something heartrending in the sight of this misery painted up



like an old woman who wants to falsify her face. At such a sight

every man of sense must at once have stated to himself this



obvious dilemma--either these two women are honesty itself, or

they live by intrigue and gambling. But on looking at Adelaide, a



man so pure-minded as Schinner could not but believe in her

perfect innocence, and ascribe the incoherence of the furniture



to honorable causes.

"My dear," said the old lady to the young one, "I am cold; make a



little fire, and give me my shawl."




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