Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  “From these two facts, the romance may easily be reconstructed,” said Lousteau. “And this Cavaliere Paluzzi — what a man! — The style is weak in these two passages; the author was perhaps a clerk in the Excise Office, and wrote the novel to pay his tailor!”

  “In his time,” said Bianchon, “the censor flourished; you must show as much indulgence to a man who underwent the ordeal by scissors in 1805 as to those who went to the scaffold in 1793.”

  “Do you understand in the least?” asked Madame Gorju timidly of Madame de Clagny.

  The Public Prosecutor’s wife, who, to use a phrase of Monsieur Gravier’s, might have put a Cossack to flight in 1814, straightened herself in her chair like a horseman in his stirrups, and made a face at her neighbor, conveying, “They are looking at us; we must smile as if we understood.”

  “Charming!” said the Mayoress to Gatien. “Pray go on, Monsieur Lousteau.”

  Lousteau looked at the two women, two Indian idols, and contrived to keep his countenance. He thought it desirable to say, “Attention!” before going on as follows: —

  OR ROMAN REVENGE 209

  dress rustled in the silence. Sud

  denly Cardinal Borborigano stood

  before the Duchess.

  “His face was gloomy, his brow

  was dark with clouds, and a bitter

  smile lurked in his wrinkles.

  “Madame,” said he, “you are under

  suspicion. If you are guilty, fly. If

  you are not, still fly; because,

  whether criminal or innocent, you

  will find it easier to defend yourself

  from a distance.”

  “I thank your Eminence for your

  solicitude,” said she. “The Duke of

  Bracciano will reappear when I find

  it needful to prove that he is alive.”

  “Cardinal Borborigano!” exclaimed Bianchon. “By the Pope’s keys! If you do not agree with me that there is a magnificent creation in the very name, if at those words dress rustled in the silence you do not feel all the poetry thrown into the part of Schedoni by Mrs. Radcliffe in The Black Penitent, you do not deserve to read a romance.”

  “For my part,” said Dinah, who had some pity on the eighteen faces gazing up at Lousteau, “I see how the story is progressing. I know it all. I am in Rome; I can see the body of a murdered husband whose wife, as bold as she is wicked, has made her bed on the crater of a volcano. Every night, at every kiss, she says to herself, ‘All will be discovered!’”

  “Can you see her,” said Lousteau, “clasping Monsieur Adolphe in her arms, to her heart, throwing her whole life into a kiss? — Adolphe I see as a well-made young man, but not clever — the sort of man an Italian woman likes. Rinaldo hovers behind the scenes of a plot we do not know, but which must be as full of incident as a melodrama by Pixerecourt. Or we can imagine Rinaldo crossing the stage in the background like a figure in one of Victor Hugo’s plays.”

  “He, perhaps, is the husband,” exclaimed Madame de la Baudraye.

  “Do you understand anything of it all?” Madame Piedefer asked of the Presidente.

  “Why, it is charming!” said Dinah to her mother.

  All the good folks of Sancerre sat with eyes as large as five-franc pieces.

  “Go on, I beg,” said the hostess.

  Lousteau went on: —

  210 OLYMPIA

  “Your key — — ”

  “Have you lost it?”

  “It is in the arbor.”

  “Let us hasten.”

  “Can the Cardinal have taken it?”

  “No, here it is.”

  “What danger we have escaped!”

  Olympia looked at the key, and

  fancied she recognized it as her own.

  But Rinaldo had changed it; his

  cunning had triumphed; he had the

  right key. Like a modern Cartouche,

  he was no less skilful than bold,

  and suspecting that nothing but a

  vast treasure could require a duchess

  to carry it constantly at her belt.

  “Guess!” cried Lousteau. “The corresponding page is not here. We must look to page 212 to relieve our anxiety.”

  212 OLYMPIA

  “If the key had been lost?”

  “He would now be a dead man.”

  “Dead? But ought you not to

  grant the last request he made, and

  to give him his liberty on the con-

  ditions — — ”

  “You do not know him.”

  “But — ”

  “Silence! I took you for my

  lover, not for my confessor.”

  Adolphe was silent.

  “And then comes an exquisite galloping goat, a tail-piece drawn by Normand, and cut by Duplat. — the names are signed,” said Lousteau.

  “Well, and then?” said such of the audience as understood.

  “That is the end of the chapter,” said Lousteau. “The fact of this tailpiece changes my views as to the authorship. To have his book got up, under the Empire, with vignettes engraved on wood, the writer must have been a Councillor of State, or Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, or the late lamented Desforges, or Sewrin.”

  “‘Adolphe was silent.’ — Ah!” cried Bianchon, “the Duchess must have been under thirty.”

  “If there is no more, invent a conclusion,” said Madame de la Baudraye.

  “You see,” said Lousteau, “the waste sheet has been printed fair on one side only. In printer’s lingo, it is a back sheet, or, to make it clearer, the other side which would have to be printed is covered all over with pages printed one above another, all experiments in making up. It would take too long to explain to you all the complications of a making-up sheet; but you may understand that it will show no more trace of the first twelve pages that were printed on it than you would in the least remember the first stroke of the bastinado if a Pasha condemned you to have fifty on the soles of your feet.”

  “I am quite bewildered,” said Madame Popinot-Chandier to Monsieur Gravier. “I am vainly trying to connect the Councillor of State, the Cardinal, the key, and the making-up — — ”

  “You have not the key to the jest,” said Monsieur Gravier. “Well! no more have I, fair lady, if that can comfort you.”

  “But here is another sheet,” said Bianchon, hunting on the table where the proofs had been laid.

  “Capital!” said Lousteau, “and it is complete and uninjured. It is signed IV.; J, Second Edition. Ladies, the figure IV. means that this is part of the fourth volume. The letter J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, shows that this is the tenth sheet. And it is perfectly clear to me, that in spite of any publisher’s tricks, this romance in four duodecimo volumes, had a great success, since it came to a second edition. — We will read on and find a clue to the mystery.

  OR ROMAN REVENGE 21

  corridor; but finding that he was

  pursued by the Duchess’ people

  “Oh, get along!”

  “But,” said Madame de la Baudraye, “some important events have taken place between your waste sheet and this page.”

  “This complete sheet, madame, this precious made-up sheet. But does the waste sheet in which the Duchess forgets her gloves in the arbor belong to the fourth volume? Well, deuce take it — to proceed.

  Rinaldo saw no safer refuge than to

  make forthwith for the cellar where

  the treasures of the Bracciano fam-

  ily no doubt lay hid. As light of

  foot as Camilla sung by the Latin

  poet, he flew to the entrance to the

  Baths of Vespasian. The torchlight

  already flickered on the walls when

  Rinaldo, with the readiness be-

  stowed on him by nature, discovered

  the door concealed in the stone-

  work, and suddenly vanished. A

  hideous thought then flashed on
<
br />   Rinaldo’s brain like lightning rend-

  ing a cloud: He was imprisoned!

  He felt the wall with uneasy haste

  “Yes, this made-up sheet follows the waste sheet. The last page of the damaged sheet was 212, and this is 217. In fact, since Rinaldo, who in the earlier fragment stole the key of the Duchess’ treasure by exchanging it for another very much like it, is now — on the made-up sheet — in the palace of the Dukes of Bracciano, the story seems to me to be advancing to a conclusion of some kind. I hope it is as clear to you as it is to me. — I understand that the festivities are over, the lovers have returned to the Bracciano Palace; it is night — one o’clock in the morning. Rinaldo will have a good time.”

  “And Adolphe too!” said President Boirouge, who was considered rather free in his speech.

  “And the style!” said Bianchon. — ”Rinaldo, who saw no better refuge than to make for the cellar.”

  “It is quite clear that neither Maradan, nor Treuttel and Wurtz, nor Doguereau, were the printers,” said Lousteau, “for they employed correctors who revised the proofs, a luxury in which our publishers might very well indulge, and the writers of the present day, would benefit greatly. Some scrubby pamphlet printer on the Quay — ”

  “What quay?” a lady asked of her neighbor. “They spoke of baths — ”

  “Pray go on,” said Madame de la Baudraye.

  “At any rate, it is not by a councillor,” said Bianchon.

  “It may be by Madame Hadot,” replied Lousteau.

  “What has Madame Hadot of La Charite to do with it?” the Presidente asked of her son.

  “This Madame Hadot, my dear friend,” the hostess answered, “was an authoress, who lived at the time of the Consulate.”

  “What, did women write in the Emperor’s time?” asked Madame Popinot-Chandier.

  “What of Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael?” cried the Public Prosecutor, piqued on Dinah’s account by this remark.

  “To be sure!”

  “I beg you to go on,” said Madame de la Baudraye to Lousteau.

  Lousteau went on saying: “Page 218.

  218 OLYMPIA

  and gave a shriek of despair when

  he had vainly sought any trace of a

  secret spring. It was impossible to

  ignore the horrible truth. The door,

  cleverly constructed to serve the

  vengeful purposes of the Duchess,

  could not be opened from within.

  Rinaldo laid his cheek against the

  wall in various spots; nowhere

  could he feel the warmer air from

  the passage. He had hoped he

  might find a crack that would show

  him where there was an opening in

  the wall, but nothing, nothing! The

  whole seemed to be of one block of

  marble.

  Then he gave a hollow roar like

  that of a hyaena — —

  “Well, we fancied that the cry of the hyaena was a recent invention of our own!” said Lousteau, “and here it was already known to the literature of the Empire. It is even introduced with a certain skill in natural history, as we see in the word hollow.”

  “Make no more comments, monsieur,” said Madame de la Baudraye.

  “There, you see!” cried Bianchon. “Interest, the romantic demon, has you by the collar, as he had me a while ago.”

  “Read on,” cried de Clagny, “I understand.”

  “What a coxcomb!” said the Presiding Judge in a whisper to his neighbor the Sous-prefet.

  “He wants to please Madame de la Baudraye,” replied the new Sous-prefet.

  “Well, then I will read straight on,” said Lousteau solemnly.

  Everybody listened in dead silence.

  OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

  A deep groan answered Rinaldo’s

  cry, but in his alarm he took it for

  an echo, so weak and hollow was

  the sound. It could not proceed

  from any human breast.

  “Santa Maria!” said the voice.

  “If I stir from this spot I shall

  never find it again,” thought Ri-

  naldo, when he had recovered his

  usual presence of mind. “If I knock,

  I shall be discovered. What am I

  to do?”

  “Who is here?” asked the voice.

  “Hallo!” cried the brigand; “do

  the toads here talk?”

  “I am the Duke of Bracciano.

  Whoever you may be, if you are not

  a follower of the Duchess’, in the

  name of all the saints, come towards

  me.”

  220 OLYMPIA

  “I should have to know where to

  find you, Monsieur le Duc,” said Ri-

  naldo, with the insolence of a man

  who knows himself to be necessary.

  “I can see you, my friend, for my

  eyes are accustomed to the darkness.

  Listen: walk straight forward —

  good; now turn to the left — come

  on — this way. There, we are close

  to each other.”

  Rinaldo putting out his hands as

  a precaution, touched some iron

  bars.

  “I am being deceived,” cried the

  bandit.

  “No, you are touching my cage.

  OR ROMAN REVENGE 221

  Sit down on a broken shaft of por-

  phyry that is there.”

  “How can the Duke of Bracciano

  be in a cage?” asked the brigand.

  “My friend, I have been here for

  thirty months, standing up, unable

  to sit down — — But you, who are

  you?”

  “I am Rinaldo, prince of the Cam-

  pagna, the chief of four-and-twenty

  brave men whom the law describes

  as miscreants, whom all the ladies

  admire, and whom judges hang in

  obedience to an old habit.”

  “God be praised! I am saved.

  An honest man would have been

  afraid, whereas I am sure of coming

  to an understanding with you,”

  cried the Duke. “Oh, my worthy

  222 OLYMPIA

  deliverer, you must be armed to the

  teeth.”

  “E verissimo” (most true).

  “Do you happen to have — ”

  “Yes, files, pincers — Corpo di

  Bacco! I came to borrow the treas-

  ures of the Bracciani on a long

  loan.”

  “You will earn a handsome share

  of them very legitimately, my good

  Rinaldo, and we may possibly go

  man hunting together — ”

  “You surprise me, Eccellenza!”

  “Listen to me, Rinaldo. I will

  say nothing of the craving for

  vengeance that gnaws at my heart.

  I have been here for thirty months

  — you too are Italian — you will un-

  OR ROMAN REVENGE 223

  derstand me! Alas, my friend, my

  fatigue and my horrible incarcera-

  tion are nothing in comparison

  with the rage that devours my soul.

  The Duchess of Bracciano is still

  one of the most beautiful women in

  Rome. I loved her well enough to

  be jealous — ”

  “You, her husband!”

  “Yes, I was wrong, no doubt.”

  “It is not the correct thing, to be

  sure,” said Rinaldo.

  “My jealousy was roused by the

  Duchess’ conduct,” the Duke went

  on. “The event proved me right. A

  young Frenchman fell in love with

  Olympia, and she loved him. I had
/>
  proofs of their reciprocal affection

  “Pray excuse me, ladies,” said Lousteau, “but I find it impossible to go on without remarking to you how direct this Empire literature is, going to the point without any details, a characteristic, as it seems to me, of a primitive time. The literature of that period holds a place between the summaries of chapters in Telemaque and the categorical reports of a public office. It had ideas, but refrained from expressing them, it was so scornful! It was observant, but would not communicate its observations to any one, it was so miserly! Nobody but Fouche ever mentioned what he had observed. ‘At that time,’ to quote the words of one of the most imbecile critics in the Revue des Deux Mondes, ‘literature was content with a clear sketch and the simple outline of all antique statues. It did not dance over its periods.’ — I should think not! It had no periods to dance over. It had no words to play with. You were plainly told that Lubin loved Toinette; that Toinette did not love Lubin; that Lubin killed Toinette and the police caught Lubin, who was put in prison, tried at the assizes, and guillotined. — A strong sketch, a clear outline! What a noble drama! Well, in these days the barbarians make words sparkle.”

  “Like a hair in a frost,” said Monsieur de Clagny.

  “So those are the airs you affect?”[*] retorted Lousteau.

  [*] The rendering given above is only intended to link the

  various speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with

  the French. In the original, “Font chatoyer les mots.”

  “Et quelquefois les morts,” dit Monsieur de Clagny.

  “Ah! Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-la (airs-la).”

  Literally: “And sometimes the dead.” — ”Ah, are those the airs you

  assume?” — the play on the insertion of the letter R (mots,