The Human Comedy: Selected Stories

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Ho there! Woman!” cried Monsieur de Sucy.

  She drifted toward the gate, staring simplemindedly at the two hunters, having forced a shy smile upon catching sight of them.

  “Where are we? What is this house? Whose is it? Who are you? Are you from this place?”

  These questions, and a host of others put to her in quick succession, met only with guttural growls, more animal than human.

  “She’s deaf and dumb, can’t you see?” said the magistrate.

  “Bons-Hommes!” cried the peasant girl.

  “Oh! She’s right. This might well be the old Bons-Hommes monastery,” said Monsieur d’Albon.

  The questions resumed. But the peasant girl blushed like a backward child, played with her wooden shoe, twisted the cow’s rope (the animal had gone back to grazing), stared at the two hunters, inspected every element of their dress; she yelped, she growled, she clucked, but she did not speak.

  “What’s your name?” said Philippe, staring into her eyes as if to place her under his power.

  “Geneviève,” she answered, with a mindless laugh.

  “So far the cow is the most intelligent creature we’ve met,” said the magistrate. “I’ll fire my rifle—no doubt that will bring someone.”

  But the colonel brusquely stayed d’Albon’s hand as he reached for his weapon. Pointing into the distance, he showed his friend that woman in black who had so piqued their curiosity. She was meandering along a garden path, as if lost in deep meditation, giving the two friends a moment to study her more closely. She was dressed in a threadbare gown of black satin. Her long hair fell in curls over her forehead, about her shoulders, past her waist, taking the place of a shawl. No doubt long used to this dishevelment, she rarely troubled to shake the hair from her temples, but when she did, she tossed her head so sharply that no second attempt was required to whisk that thick veil away from her forehead or eyes. Like an animal’s, her movements showed remarkable physical confidence, so quick and precise as to seem almost miraculous for a woman. The two hunters looked on astonished as she leapt onto the branch of an apple tree and perched there, light as any bird. She plucked a few fruits, ate them, then dropped to the ground with that fluid ease we find so wondrous in squirrels. Her limbs had an elasticity that spared her every move even the appearance of discomfort or effort. She played on the grass, rolled head over heels like a child, then suddenly threw out her feet and hands and lay on the lawn, as languorous, graceful, and uninhibited as a young cat asleep in the sun. Hearing a distant rumble of thunder, she quickly rolled over and rose onto all fours, with the prodigious agility of a dog hearing a stranger’s approach. Owing to this unusual position, her black hair suddenly fell into two wide swaths that hung swinging from either side of her head, granting the two spectators of that singular scene a vision of shoulders so white that the skin glowed like daisies of the meadow, and a neck whose perfection hinted at a body of a most exquisite form.

  She let out a grating cry and rose to her feet. So nimbly, so smoothly did each movement follow upon the last that she seemed less a human creature than one of those daughters of the sky celebrated in the poems of Ossian. She strolled toward a pool of water, delicately shook one leg to throw off her shoe, and dipped in her alabaster white foot with visible delight, no doubt marveling at the gemlike undulations it made. Then she knelt at the edge of the basin and, like a child, played at immersing her long tresses and then briskly raised her head to watch the water drip off, drop by drop, like strings of pearls shot through by the sun.

  “That woman is mad,” cried the councillor.

  Geneviève gave a loud, throaty shout, evidently addressed to the madwoman, who sat bolt upright, pushing the hair back from her cheeks. With this, the colonel and d’Albon caught a clear glimpse of her features; spotting the two friends, she bounded to the fence, agile and swift as a doe.

  “Adieu!” she said, in a voice both sweet and harmonious, but that melody, so eagerly awaited by the hunters, seemed to contain no trace of sentiment and no trace of thought.

  Monsieur d’Albon gazed admiringly on her long lashes, her thick black eyebrows, her glowing white skin unmarred by any tinge of red. A few delicate blue veins alone contrasted with her paleness. When the councillor turned toward his friend to voice his astonishment at the sight of this singular woman, he found him lying flat on the grass, as if lifeless. Monsieur d’Albon fired his rifle in the air to call for aid, shouting “Help! Help!” as he tried desperately to rouse the colonel. At the sound of the gunshot, the woman suddenly ran off fast as an arrow, shrieking in fright like a wounded animal and racing in circles over the meadow, giving every sign of profound terror. Hearing a calèche rattling down the L’Isle-Adam road, Monsieur d’Albon waved his handkerchief to beseech the sightseers’ assistance. The calèche turned immediately toward Bons-Hommes, and within it Monsieur d’Albon spied the faces of Monsieur and Madame de Grandville, his neighbors. They hurried out of the carriage and offered it to the magistrate. By chance, Madame de Grandville had with her a bottle of smelling salts, which was administered to Monsieur de Sucy. The moment he opened his eyes, the colonel looked toward the meadow, where the strange woman was endlessly running and shouting, and he let out a cry both indistinct and eloquent in its expression of horror, then he closed his eyes once again, gesturing to his friend as if begging to be hurried away from this sight. Monsieur and Madame de Grandville urged the councillor to take their calèche, obligingly offering to continue their excursion on foot.

  “Who is this woman?” asked the magistrate, pointing at the stranger.

  “She’s thought to come from Moulins,” answered Monsieur de Grandville. “She calls herself the Comtesse de Vandières. Word has it she’s mad, but as she’s been here only two months, I cannot vouch for the truth of those rumors.”

  Thanking Monsieur and Madame de Grandville, d’Albon started off for Cassan.

  “It’s her,” cried Philippe, recovering his senses.

  “Who?” asked d’Albon.

  “Stéphanie. Ah! Dead and living, living and mad! I thought it would be the end of me.”

  Understanding all the gravity of the crisis afflicting his friend, the prudent magistrate questioned him no further and took pains not to upset him. He was anxious to arrive at the château, for the change he could see in Colonel Philippe made him fear that the countess might have contaminated him with her terrible illness. On reaching avenue de L’Isle-Adam, d’Albon sent the footman ahead to summon the village doctor; thus, when the colonel was laid in his bed, the surgeon was already at his side.

  “Had the colonel’s stomach not been nearly empty,” he said, “he would surely have died. It was his depletion that saved him.”

  Once he had dictated the immediate measures to be taken, the doctor left to prepare a sedative potion. The next morning Monsieur de Sucy’s condition had improved, but the doctor insisted on watching over him personally.

  “I will admit, monsieur le marquis,” said the doctor to Monsieur d’Albon, “my first fear was a brain lesion. Monsieur de Sucy has had a terrible shock, and he is a man of strong passions, but with him it’s the first blow that decides everything. Tomorrow he may well be out of danger.”

  The doctor was not mistaken, and the next day he permitted the magistrate to see his friend.

  “My dear d’Albon,” said Philippe, pressing his hand, “I want a favor from you! Hurry straight to Bons-Hommes, find out all you can about that woman, and then come back quick as you can! I’ll be counting the minutes.”

  Monsieur d’Albon leapt onto a horse and galloped to the former abbey. As he drew near, he saw a tall, thin man standing before the fence, a man of amenable mien, who answered in the affirmative when the magistrate asked if this ruined house was his home. Monsieur d’Albon revealed the motive of his visit.

  “Was it you, then, monsieur,” cried the stranger, “who fired that cursed shot? You very nearly killed my poor patient.”

  “See here, monsieur, I fired
in the air.”

  “You would have done less harm to the countess if you’d hit her.”

  “In that case we’re even, for the sight of your countess nearly killed my friend, Monsieur de Sucy.”

  “Would that be the Baron Philippe de Sucy?” cried the doctor, joining his hands. “Was he in Russia, at the crossing of the Berezina?”

  “That’s right,” d’Albon answered. “He was captured by the Cossacks and taken to Siberia. He returned to us some eleven months ago.”

  “Come in, monsieur,” said the stranger, showing the magistrate into a salon on the ground floor of his house. Some destructive force had been at work in this room, but in a capricious and unpredictable manner. Precious porcelain vases sat in pieces beside a clock whose glass dome remained intact. The silk curtains over the windows were torn, the double muslin drapes untouched.

  “You see here,” he said to Monsieur d’Albon as they entered, “the ravages wrought by the charming creature to whom I have devoted my existence. She is my niece; despite the impotence of my art, I hope one day to restore her to reason by means of a method that, alas, only the rich can afford.”

  Then, rambling like all those who live solitary lives, preyed on by an irremediable sorrow, he recounted the following adventure, whose relation has here been adapted and stripped of the many digressions interjected by the narrator and the councillor.

  * * *

  When, toward nine in the evening, he withdrew from the heights of Studyanka, which he had defended all through that day of November 28, 1812, Marshal Victor left behind some thousand men whose charge was to protect one of the two surviving bridges over the Berezina as long as humanly possible. This rear guard had fought valiantly to save a vast crowd of stragglers, who, numb with cold, had gathered around the retreating army’s abandoned equipment and refused to go on. In the end, the heroism of those devoted troops would prove useless. By a stroke of misfortune, the soldiers who poured onto the banks of the Berezina found a massive array of coaches, caissons, and materiel left behind by the army as it crossed the river on November 27 and 28. Inheritors of riches beyond their wildest dreams, wits dulled by the cold, these wretches settled into the unoccupied campsites, broke up the equipment to build huts, made fire with whatever was at hand, butchered the horses for food, stripped the carriages of their felt or canvas for blankets, and slept; slept, rather than pressing on, rather than tranquilly crossing the Berezina under cover of darkness—that same Berezina that an unimaginable twist of fate had already rendered so deadly for the armed forces of France. These pitiable soldiers’ apathy can only be understood by those who remember traversing those vast deserts of snow, with no other drink than snow, no other bed than snow, no other prospect than a horizon of snow, no other food than snow, except for a few frozen beets, a few handfuls of flour, perhaps a bit of horsemeat. Dying of hunger, of thirst, of sleeplessness and exhaustion, the wretches had happened onto a riverbank where they found wood, fires, food, countless abandoned vehicles, campsites, in short an entire improvised city. The village of Studyanka had been wholly dismantled, divided, transported from the heights down to the plain. However dolente and perilous that city, its miseries and dangers could not have seemed more welcoming to people who saw before them only the fearsome wastelands of Russia. In short, it was an enormous sanctuary, in existence for not yet twenty hours. Whether by weariness of life or delight in an unhoped-for comfort, that mass of men was impermeable to any thought other than rest. To be sure, the artillery of the Russians’ left flank fired relentlessly on that horde, which appeared as a massive blot in the snow, here black, there aglow with flames, but to the numbed multitudes those implacable cannonballs seemed only one more inconvenience to be borne. It was like a thunderstorm whose bolts inspired only derision, for wherever they fell their victims would already be ailing or dying, if not already dead. At every moment, fresh packs of stragglers appeared. These walking corpses scattered at once, staggering from bonfire to bonfire, begging for a place to rest; then, having generally been turned away, they joined up again to obtain by brute force the hospitality they’d been refused a moment before. Deaf to the voices of a small number of officers who predicted that the coming day would be their last, they exhausted their courage and energy—the very courage and energy they would need to cross over the river—in the fabrication of a shelter for the night, in the confection of an often deadly meal. The death that awaited them no longer seemed so terrible a horror; at least it would allow them an hour of sleep. The word horror they reserved for their hunger, for their thirst, for the cold. When there was no more wood to be found, no more fire, nor canvas, nor shelter, fierce clashes erupted between the empty-handed newcomers and those so wealthy as to enjoy some manner of hearth. The weakest perished. At length the moment came when a group of men fleeing the Russians found nothing but snow for their campsite, and there they lay down, never to rise again. Gradually this mass of half-annihilated beings grew so dense, so deaf, and so dulled—or perhaps so happy—that Marshal Victor, Duke de Bellune, he who had so heroically defended them in battle against Wittgenstein’s twenty thousand Russian troops, had no choice but to force his way through that human forest in order to cross the Berezina with the five thousand warriors he was bringing to the emperor. Rather than make way, the dejected masses allowed themselves to be crushed, and they died in silence, smiling at their extinguished fires, never thinking of France.

  Not until ten o’clock in the evening did the Duke de Bellune find himself on the opposite bank. Before starting over the bridges and on toward Zembin, he had entrusted the fate of the rear guard of Studyanka to Éblé, that savior of all those who survived the calamities of the Berezina. Toward midnight, the great general, with a particularly courageous officer at his side, left the little riverside hut that served as his shelter and contemplated the spectacle of the enormous encampment that covered every inch of ground from the Berezina to the Borisov–Studyanka road. The Russians’ cannon had ceased their roar; on that expanse of snow, countless scattered fires, paling and seeming to cast no light, illuminated faces with nothing human about them. Some thirty thousand wretches from all the varied nations whose forces Napoleon had thrown at Russia were gathered on the riverbank, at great risk to their lives, brutishly unconcerned for their fate.

  “So many to be saved,” said the general to the officer. “Tomorrow morning the Russians will be the masters of Studyanka. We’ve no choice but to set fire to the bridge as soon as we catch sight of them. And so, my friend, summon your courage! Find your way up to the heights, and tell General Fournier he has no time to lose: He must vacate his position at once, drive through these crowds, and cross the bridge. Once he’s set off, follow close behind him. Find a few able men to assist you and set fire to the campsites, the equipment, the caissons, the coaches, everything! No pity! Herd all these men onto the bridge! Leave everything with two legs no choice but to take shelter on the opposite bank. Fire is now our only hope. Oh, if Berthier had allowed me to destroy that damned gear, this river would have swallowed up no one but my poor pontoniers, those fifty heroes who saved the army and who will be forgotten by all!”

  The general put his hand to his brow and stood silent. He sensed that Poland would be his grave, and that no voice would ever be raised in support of those glorious men who willingly leapt into the waters—the waters of the Berezina!—to sink trestles for the bridges. Today only one of their number is still living, or more precisely languishing, in a provincial village, unknown! The aide-de-camp set off. That devoted officer had scarcely taken a hundred paces toward Studyanka when General Éblé roused a few of his ailing pontoniers and started off on his mission of mercy, setting fire to the campsites around the bridge, forcing the crowd of sleeping soldiers to rise and cross the Berezina. In the meantime, after considerable struggles, the young aide-de-camp had arrived at the one wooden house still standing in Studyanka.

  “Is this hut so full, then, comrade?” he said to a man standing outside.


  “You’re a hard man if you can get in here,” the officer answered, never turning around, still hacking at the house’s wooden wall with his sword.

  “Is that you, Philippe?” said the aide-de-camp, recognizing a comrade by the sound of his voice.

  “Yes. Ah! It’s you, my friend,” answered Monsieur de Sucy, looking at the aide-de-camp, only twenty-three years old, like himself. “I thought surely you’d be across that accursed river by now. Have you come to bring us cakes and jam for our dessert? I can promise you a warm welcome,” he added, pulling away a strip of bark and giving it to his horse, by way of fodder.

  “I’m looking for your commander. On behalf of General Éblé, I must tell him to make for Zembin fast as he can! You have just enough time to plow your way through that crowd of living corpses. And then I’m to set them on fire, so they’ll get up and walk.”

  “You’re almost making me warm! I’m sweating already. Listen, I have two friends I must save. Ah, without those two dormice, my friend, I’d be a dead man at this moment! It’s for their sake that I’m looking after my horse rather than eating it. For pity’s sake, do you have a crust of bread? It’s been thirty hours since I last had something in my belly, and I’ve fought like a madman to keep up what little warmth and courage I have left.”

  “Poor Philippe! I have nothing, nothing. But is your general here?”

  “Don’t try to get in! This barn’s for our wounded. Go a little farther uphill. On your right, you’ll come upon a sort of pigsty, that’s where you’ll find the general. Adieu, my good fellow. If we ever again dance la trénis on a Paris floor . . .”

  There was no way to finish this sentence: The wind was blowing so viciously that the aide-de-camp had to walk in order not to freeze, and Major Philippe’s lips were too cold for words. Soon silence reigned, broken only by groans from the house and the muffled sound of Monsieur de Sucy’s starving, enraged horse, chewing the frozen bark of the trees from which the house was built. The major resheathed his cutlass, briskly took up the reins of the precious animal whose life he had managed to safeguard, and despite its resistance tugged it away from the wretched food it was downing so desperately.