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Two Poets-Part3_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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guessing at future contingencies, and hugging its presentiments.



Sechard senior living at a distance, far from the workshop and the

machinery which possessed such a fascination for him, reminding him,



as it did, of days when he was making his way, could FEEL that there

were disquieting symptoms of inactivity in his son. The name of



Cointet Brothers haunted him like a dread; he saw Sechard & Son

dropping into the second place. In short, the old man scented



misfortune in the wind.

His presentiments were too well founded; disaster was hovering over



the house of Sechard. But there is a tutelary deity for misers, and by

a chain of unforeseen circumstances that tutelary deity was so



ordering matters that the purchase-money of his extortionate bargain

was to be tumbled after all into the old toper's pouch.



Indifferent to the religious reaction brought about by the

Restoration, indifferent no less to the Liberal movement, David



preserved a most unlucky neutrality on the burning questions of the

day. In those times provincial men of business were bound to profess



political opinions of some sort if they meant to secure custom; they

were forced to choose for themselves between the patronage of the



Liberals on the one hand or the Royalists on the other. And Love,

moreover, had come to David's heart, and with his scientific



preoccupation and finer nature he had not room for the dogged greed of

which our successful man of business is made; it choked the keen



money-getting instinct which would have led him to study the

differences between the Paris trade and the business of a provincial



printing-house. The shades of opinion so sharply defined in the

country are blurred and lost in the great currents of Parisian



business life. Cointet Brothers set themselves deliberately to

assimilate all shades of monarchical opinion. They let every one know



that they fasted of a Friday and kept Lent; they haunted the

cathedral; they cultivated the society of the clergy; and in



consequence, when books of devotion were once more in demand, Cointet

Brothers were the first in this lucrative field. They slandered David,



accusing him of Liberalism, Atheism, and what not. How, asked they,

could any one employ a man whose father had been a Septembrist, a



Bonapartist, and a drunkard to boot? The old man was sure to leave

plenty of gold pieces behind him. They themselves were poor men with



families to support, while David was a bachelor and could do as he

pleased; he would have plenty one of these days; he could afford to



take things easily; whereas . . . and so forth and so forth.

Such tales against David, once put into circulation, produced their



effect. The monopoly of the prefectorial and diocesan work passed

gradually into the hands of Cointet Brothers; and before long David's



keen competitors, emboldened by his inaction, started a second local

sheet of advertisements and announcements. The older establishment was



left at length with the job-printing orders from the town, and the

circulation of the Charente Chronicle fell off by one-half. Meanwhile



the Cointets grew richer; they had made handsome profits on their

devotional books; and now they offered to buy Sechard's paper, to have



all the trade and judicial announcements of the department in their

own hands.



The news of this proposal sent by David to his father brought the old

vinegrower from Marsac into the Place du Murier with the swiftness of



the raven that scents the corpses on a battlefield.

"Leave me to manage the Cointets," said he to his son; "don't you



meddle in this business."

The old man saw what the Cointets meant; and they took alarm at his



clearsighted sagacity. His son was making a blunder, he said, and he,

Sechard, had come to put a stop to it.



"What was to become of the connection if David gave up the paper? It

all depended upon the paper. All the attorneys and solicitors and men



of business in L'Houmeau were Liberals to a man. The Cointets had

tried to ruin the Sechards by accusing them of Liberalism, and by so



doing gave them a plank to cling to--the Sechards should keep the

Liberal business. Sell the paper indeed! Why, you might as well sell



the stock-in-trade and the license!"

Old Sechard asked the Cointets sixty thousand francs for the printing



business, so as not to ruin his son; he was fond of his son; he was

taking his son's part. The vinegrower brought his son to the front to



gain his point, as a peasant brings in his wife.

His son was unwilling to do this, that, or the other; it varied



according to the offers which he wrung one after another from the

Cointets, until, not without an effort, he drew them on to give






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