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Two Poets-Part4_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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looked upon Lucien as the benefactor whom he could never repay.



Any one may guess how the ruling thoughts and inner life of this pair

of friends unfitted them for carrying on the business of a printing



house. So far from making fifteen to twenty thousand francs, like

Cointet Brothers, printers and publishers to the diocese, and



proprietors of the Charente Chronicle (now the only newspaper in the

department)--Sechard & Son made a bare three hundred francs per month,



out of which the foreman's salary must be paid, as well as Marion's

wages and the rent and taxes; so that David himself was scarcely



making twelve hundred francs per annum. Active and industrious men of

business would have bought new type and new machinery, and made an



effort to secure orders for cheap printing from the Paris book trade;

but master and foreman, deep in absorbing intellectual interests, were



quite content with such orders as came to them from their remaining

customers.



In the long length the Cointets had come to understand David's

character and habits. They did not slander him now; on the contrary,



wise policy required that they should allow the business to flicker

on; it was to their interest indeed to maintain it in a small way,



lest it should fall into the hands of some more formidable competitor;

they made a practice of sending prospectuses and circulars--job-



printing, as it is called--to the Sechard's establishment. So it came

about that, all unwittingly, David owed his existence, commercially



speaking, to the cunning schemes of his competitors. The Cointets,

well pleased with his "craze," as they called it, behaved to all



appearance both fairly and handsomely; but, as a matter of fact, they

were adopting the tactics of the mail-coach owners who set up a sham



opposition coach to keep bona fide rivals out of the field.

Inside and outside, the condition of the Sechard printing



establishment bore testimony to the sordidavarice of the old "bear,"

who never spent a penny on repairs. The old house had stood in sun and



rain, and borne the brunt of the weather, till it looked like some

venerable tree trunk set down at the entrance of the alley, so riven



it was with seams and cracks of all sorts and sizes. The house front,

built of brick and stone, with no pretensions to symmetry, seemed to



be bending beneath the weight of a worm-eaten roof covered with the

curved pantiles in common use in the South of France. The decrepit



casements were fitted with the heavy, unwieldy shutters necessary in

that climate, and held in place by massive iron cross bars. It would



have puzzled you to find a more dilapidated house in Angouleme;

nothing but sheer tenacity of mortar kept it together. Try to picture



the workshop, lighted at either end, and dark in the middle; the walls

covered with handbills and begrimed by friction of all the workmen who



had rubbed past them for thirty years; the cobweb of cordage across

the ceiling, the stacks of paper, the old-fashioned presses, the pile



of slabs for weighting the damp sheets, the rows of cases, and the two

dens in the far corners where the master printer and foreman sat--and



you will have some idea of the life led by the two friends.

One day early in May, 1821, David and Lucien were standing together by



the window that looked into the yard. It was nearly two o'clock, and

the four or five men were going out to dinner. David waited until the



apprentice had shut the street door with the bell fastened to it; then

he drew Lucien out into the yard as if the smell of paper, ink, and



presses and old woodwork had grown intolerable to him, and together

they sat down under the vines, keeping the office and the door in



view. The sunbeams, playing among the trellised vine-shoots, hovered

over the two poets, making, as it were, an aureole about their heads,



bringing the contrast between their faces and their characters into a




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