The Human Comedy by Honoré de Balzac Read Free Book Online

gleam.
    “That treasure-house,” he whispered, “I can still see it, bright as a dream. I’m strolling through it, the diamonds sparkle, I am not so blind as you think: Gold and diamonds light my night, the night of the last Facino Cane—for my title will pass to the Memmi clan. Ah, Lord! The murderer’s punishment has begun so very early! Ave Maria . . .”
    He recited a few prayers that I did not hear.
    “We’ll go to Venice!” I cried when he stood up.
    “So I have found myself the right man!” he exclaimed, his face aflame.
    I gave him my arm and took him home. He shook my hand at the door of the Quinze-Vingts, just as several people from the wedding party passed by on their way home, shouting and carousing their heads off.
    “Shall we leave tomorrow?” asked the old man.
    “As soon as we’ve put together some money.”
    “But we can go on foot, I’ll beg alms along the way . . . I’m sturdy, and a person is young when he sees gold ahead.”
    Facino Cane died during the winter, after a two-month illness. The poor man had suffered a bad cold.
    Paris, March 1836
Translated by Linda Asher

ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMANKIND
    To Léon Gozlan, in sincere literary fellowship
    T HERE are two very different parties to be found at nearly every Parisian ball or rout. First the official party, peopled by its invitees, a fine crowd of very bored people. Everyone poses for his neighbor. Most of the young women have come solely for the sake of one person. Once each is satisfied that for this person she is the most beautiful woman of all, and that a few others have formed the same opinion, then—after exchanging a few trivial sentences (“Will you be leaving soon for La Crampade?” “Didn’t Madame de Portenduère sing beautifully!” “Who is that little woman with so many diamonds?”) or tossing out a handful of epigrammatic remarks of the sort that cause fleeting pleasure and lasting wounds—the crowd thins, the indifferent guests go on their way, the candles burn down into their rings. But with this the mistress of the house holds back a few artists, people of good cheer, friends, saying, “Stay, we’re having a late supper among ourselves.” They gather in the little drawing room. Here the second, true party begins, a party in which, as under the ancien régime, everyone hears what is said, in which the conversation is shared in by all, in which each is obliged to display his wit and contribute to the public amusement. All is in high relief; openhearted laughter replaces the starchy airs that, in society, dull the prettiest faces. In short, where the rout ends, pleasure begins. The rout, that dreary review of fashionable fineries, that parade of well-dressed self-infatuations, is one of those English inventions currently mechanifying the other nations. England seems determined to see the entire world bored just as she is, and just as bored as she. This second party is thus, in France, in a few houses, a welcome affirmation of the spirit that was once ours in this ebullient land. But alas, few houses thus affirm, and for a very simple reason: If people rarely take part in these suppers today, it is because there have never been, under any regime, fewer people settled, established, and secure than under the reign of Louis Philippe, in which the Revolution has begun a second time, legally. Everyone strives toward some goal or scurries after fortune. Time has become the dearest commodity on the market, and so no one can indulge in the prodigious prodigality of returning home a day after leaving, with no plans save to sleep late. Thus, that second party is found today only in the homes of women endowed with the means to open their salons; and since July 1830, such women can be counted on the fingers of one hand in Paris. Braving the mute opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or three women, among them Madame la Marquise d’Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches, have declined to abandon the influence they once