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The Two Brothers-Part11_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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finds him a good place, and there he is, leading the life of a

Sardanapalus with a ballet-girl, and guzzling the funds of his



journal; that costs the mother another twelve thousand francs! I don't

care two straws for myself, but Philippe will bring that poor woman to



beggary. He thinks I'm of no account because I was never in the

dragoons of the Guard; but perhaps I shall be the one to support that



poor dear mother in her old age, while he, if he goes on as he does,

will end I don't know how. Bixiou often says to me, 'He is a downright



rogue, that brother of yours.' Your grandson is right. Philippe will

be up to some mischief that will compromise the honor of the family,



and then we shall have to scrape up another ten or twelve thousand

francs! He gambles every night; when he comes home, drunk as a



templar, he drops on the staircase the pricked cards on which he marks

the turns of the red and black. Old Desroches is trying to get him



back into the army, and, on my word on honor, I believe he would hate

to serve again. Would you ever have believed that a boy with such



heavenly blue eyes and the look of Bayard could turn out such a

scoundrel?"



CHAPTER V

In spite of the coolness and discretion with which Philippe played his



trifling game every night, it happened every now and then that he was

what gamblers call "cleaned out." Driven by the irresistible necessity



of having his evening stake of ten francs, he plundered the household,

and laid hands on his brother's money and on all that Madame Descoings



or Agathe left about. Already the poor mother had had a dreadful

vision in her first sleep: Philippe entered the room and took from the



pockets of her gown all the money he could find. Agathe pretended to

sleep, but she passed the rest of the night in tears. She saw the



truth only too clearly. "One wrong act is not a vice," Madame

Descoings had declared; but after so many repetitions, vice was



unmistakable. Agathe could doubt no longer; her best-beloved son had

neither delicacy nor honor.



On the morrow of that frightfulvision, before Philippe left the house

after breakfast, she drew him into her chamber and begged him, in a



tone of entreaty, to ask her for what money he needed. After that, the

applications were so numerous that in two weeks Agathe was drained of



all her savings. She was literally without a penny, and began to think

of finding work. The means of earning money had been discussed in the



evenings between herself and Madame Descoings, and she had already

taken patterns of worsted work to fill in, from a shop called the



"Pere de Famille,"--an employment which pays about twenty sous a day.

Notwithstanding Agathe's silence on the subject, Madame Descoings had



guessed the motive of this desire to earn money by women's-work. The

change in her appearance was eloquent: her fresh face had withered,



the skin clung to the temples and the cheek-bones, and the forehead

showed deep lines; her eyes lost their clearness; an inward fire was



evidently consuming her; she wept the greater part of the night. A

chief cause of these outward ravages was the necessity of hiding her



anguish, her sufferings, her apprehensions. She never went to sleep

until Philippe came in; she listened for his step, she had learned the



inflections of his voice, the variations of his walk, the very

language of his cane as it touched the pavement. Nothing escaped her.



She knew the degree of drunkenness he had reached, she trembled as she

heard him stumble on the stairs; one night she picked up some pieces



of gold at the spot where he had fallen. When he had drunk and won,

his voice was gruff and his cane dragged; but when he had lost, his



step had something sharp, short and angry about it; he hummed in a

clear voice, and carried his cane in the air as if presenting arms. At



breakfast, if he had won, his behavior was gay and even affectionate;

he joked roughly, but still he joked, with Madame Descoings, with



Joseph, and with his mother; gloomy, on the contrary, when he had

lost, his brusque, rough speech, his hard glance, and his depression,



frightened them. A life of debauch and the abuse of liquors debased,

day by day, a countenance that was once so handsome. The veins of the



face were swollen with blood, the features became coarse, the eyes

lost their lashes and grew hard and dry. No longer careful of his



person, Philippe exhaled the miasmas of a tavern and the smell of

muddy boots, which, to an observer, stamped him with debauchery.






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