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The Two Brothers-Part7_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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piece the colonel's thick skull and put the sharp jester in peril.



"You must be tired," whispered Agathe in Philippe's ear; "come to

bed."



"Travel educates youth," said Bixiou, grinning, when Madame Bridau and

the colonel had disappeared.



Joseph, who got up at dawn and went to bed early, did not see the end

of the party. The next morning Agathe and Madame Descoings, while



preparing breakfast, could not help remarking that soires would be

terribly expensive if Philippe were to go on playing that sort of



game, as the Descoings phrased it. The worthy old woman, then seventy-

six years of age, proposed to sell her furniture, give up her



appartement on the second floor (which the owner was only too glad to

occupy), and take Agathe's parlor for her chamber, making the other



room a sitting-room and dining-room for the family. In this way they

could save seven hundred francs a year; which would enable them to



give Philippe fifty francs a month until he could find something to

do. Agathe accepted the sacrifice. When the colonel came down and his



mother had asked how he liked his little bedroom, the two widows

explained to him the situation of the family. Madame Descoings and



Agathe possessed, by putting all their resources together, an income

of five thousand three hundred francs, four thousand of which belonged



to Madame Descoings and were merely a life annuity. The Descoings made

an allowance of six hundred a year to Bixiou, whom she had



acknowledged as her grandson during the last few months, also six

hundred to Joseph; the rest of her income, together with that of



Agathe, was spent for the household wants. All their savings were by

this time eaten up.



"Make yourselves easy," said the lieutenant-colonel. "I'll find a

situation and put you to no expense; all I need for the present is



board and lodging."

Agathe kissed her son, and Madame Descoings slipped a hundred francs



into his hand to pay for his losses of the night before. In ten days

the furniture was sold, the appartement given up, and the change in



Agathe's domestic arrangements accomplished with a celerity seldom

seen outside of Paris. During those ten days, Philippe regularly



decamped after breakfast, came back for dinner, was off again for the

evening, and only got home about midnight to go to bed. He contracted



certain habits half mechanically, and they soon became rooted in him;

he got his boots blacked on the Pont Neuf for the two sous it would



have cost him to go by the Pont des Arts to the Palais-Royal, where he

consumed regularly two glasses of brandy while reading the newspapers,



--an occupation which employed him till midday; after that he

sauntered along the rue Vivienne to the cafe Minerve, where the



Liberals congregated, and where he played at billiards with a number

of old comrades. While winning and losing, Philippe swallowed four or



five more glasses of divers liquors, and smoked ten or a dozen cigars

in going and coming, and idling along the streets. In the evening,



after consuming a few pipes at the Hollandais smoking-rooms, he would

go to some gambling-place towards ten o'clock at night. The waiter



handed him a card and a pin; he always inquired of certain well-

seasoned players about the chances of the red or the black, and staked



ten francs when the lucky moment seemed to come; never playing more

than three times, win or lose. If he won, which usually happened, he



drank a tumbler of punch and went home to his garret; but by that time

he talked of smashing the ultras and the Bourbon body-guard, and



trolled out, as he mounted the staircase, "We watch to save the

Empire!" His poor mother, hearing him, used to think "How gay Philippe



is to-night!" and then she would creep up and kiss him, without

complaining of the fetid odors of the punch, and the brandy, and the



pipes.

"You ought to be satisfied with me, my dear mother," he said, towards



the end of January; "I lead the most regular of lives."

The colonel had dined five times at a restaurant with some of his army



comrades. These old soldiers were quite frank with each other on the

state of their own affairs, all the while talking of certain hopes






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