Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

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THE HUMAN COMEDY
PREFACE
STUDIES OF MANNERS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Scenes from Private Life
AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
THE BALL AT SCEAUX
LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES
THE PURSE
THE PURSE
MODESTE MIGNON
A START IN LIFE
ALBERT SAVARUS
VENDETTA
A SECOND HOME
DOMESTIC PEACE
MADAME FIRMIANI
STUDY OF A WOMAN
THE IMAGINARY MISTRESS
A DAUGHTER OF EVE
THE MESSAGE
THE GRAND BRETECHE
LA GRENADIERE
THE DESERTED WOMAN
HONORINE
BEATRIX
GOBSECK
A WOMAN OF THIRTY
FATHER GORIOT
COLONEL CHABERT
THE ATHEIST'S MASS
THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY
THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT
ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
Scenes from Provincial Life
URSULE MIROUET
EUGENIE GRANDET
The Celibates
PIERRETTE
THE VICAR OF TOURS
THE TWO BROTHERS
Parisians in the Country
THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT
The Jealousies of a Country Town
THE OLD MAID
THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES
Lost Illusions
TWO POETS
A DISTINGUISHED PROVINCIAL AT PARIS
EVE AND DAVID
Scenes from Parisian Life
The Thirteen
FERRAGUS
THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
THE FIRM OF NUCINGEN
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
ESTHER HAPPY: HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE
WHAT LOVE COSTS AN OLD MAN
THE END OF EVIL WAYS
VAUTRIN'S LAST AVATAR
SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN
FACINO CANE
SARRASINE
PIERRE GRASSOU
The Poor Relations
COUSIN BETTY
COUSIN PONS
A MAN OF BUSINESS
A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA
GAUDISSART II
BUREAUCRACY
UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS
THE LESSER BOURGEOISIE
The Seamy Side of History
MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE
THE INITIATE
Scenes from Political Life
Scenes from Military Life
Scenes from Country Life
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
ANALYTICAL STUDIES

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Monsieur Jean-Jerome-Severin Cardot had been a widower six years. As head-clerk of the Cocon d’Or, one of the oldest firms in Paris, he had bought the establishment in 1793, at a time when the heads of the house were ruined by the maximum; and the money of Mademoiselle Husson’s dowry had enabled him to do this, and so make a fortune that was almost colossal in ten years. To establish his children richly during his lifetime, he had conceived the idea of buying an annuity for himself and his wife with three hundred thousand francs, which gave him an income of thirty thousand francs a year. He then divided his capital into three shares of four hundred thousand francs each, which he gave to three of his children, — the Cocon d’Or, given to his eldest daughter on her marriage, being the equivalent of a fourth share. Thus the worthy man, who was now nearly seventy years old, could spend his thirty thousand a year as he pleased, without feeling that he injured the prospects of his children, all finely provided for, whose attentions and proofs of affection were, moreover, not prompted by self-interest.

Uncle Cardot lived at Belleville, in one of the first houses above the Courtille. He there occupied, on the first floor, an apartment overlooking the valley of the Seine, with a southern exposure, and the exclusive enjoyment of a large garden, for the sum of a thousand francs a year. He troubled himself not at all about the three or four other tenants of the same vast country-house. Certain, through a long lease, of ending his days there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot, — both of whom expected to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man’s death. These two women took the utmost care of him, and were all the more interested in doing so because no one was ever less fussy or less fault-finding than he. The apartment, furnished by the late Madame Cardot, had remained in the same condition for the last six years, — the old man being perfectly contented with it. He spent in all not more than three thousand francs a year there; for he dined in Paris five days in the week, and returned home at midnight in a hackney-coach, which belonged to an establishment at Courtille. The cook had only her master’s breakfast to provide on those days. This was served at eleven o’clock; after that he dressed and perfumed himself, and departed for Paris. Usually, a bourgeois gives notice in the household if he dines out; old Cardot, on the contrary, gave notice when he dined at home.

This little old man — fat, rosy, squat, and strong — always looked, in popular speech, as if he had stepped from a bandbox. He appeared in black silk stockings, breeches of “pou-de-soie” (paduasoy), a white pique waistcoat, dazzling shirt-front, a blue-bottle coat, violet silk gloves, gold buckles to his shoes and his breeches, and, lastly, a touch of powder and a little queue tied with black ribbon. His face was remarkable for a pair of eyebrows as thick as bushes, beneath which sparkled his gray eyes; and for a square nose, thick and long, which gave him somewhat the air of the abbes of former times. His countenance did not belie him. Pere Cardot belonged to that race of lively Gerontes which is now disappearing rapidly, though it once served as Turcarets to the comedies and tales of the eighteenth century. Uncle Cardot always said “Fair lady,” and he placed in their carriages, and otherwise paid attention to those women whom he saw without protectors; he “placed himself at their disposition,” as he said, in his chivalrous way.

But beneath his calm air and his snowy poll he concealed an old age almost wholly given up to mere pleasure. Among men he openly professed epicureanism, and gave himself the license of free talk. He had seen no harm in the devotion of his son-in-law, Camusot, to Mademoiselle Coralie, for he himself was secretly the Mecaenas of Mademoiselle Florentine, the first danseuse at the Gaiete. But this life and these opinions never appeared in his own home, nor in his external conduct before the world. Uncle Cardot, grave and polite, was thought to be somewhat cold, so much did he affect decorum; a “devote” would have called him a hypocrite.

The worthy old gentleman hated priests; he belonged to that great flock of ninnies who subscribed to the “Constitutionnel,” and was much concerned about “refusals to bury.” He adored Voltaire, though his preferences were really for Piron, Vade, and Colle. Naturally, he admired Beranger, whom he wittily called the “grandfather of the religion of Lisette.” His daughters, Madame Camusot and Madame Protez, and his two sons would, to use a popular expression, have been flabbergasted if any one had explained to them what their father meant by “singing la Mere Godichon.”

This long-headed parent had never mentioned his income to his children, who, seeing that he lived in a cheap way, reflected that he had deprived himself of his property for their sakes, and, therefore, redoubled their attentions and tenderness. In fact, he would sometimes say to his sons: —

“Don’t lose your property; remember, I have none to leave you.”

Camusot, in whom he recognized a certain likeness to his own nature, and whom he liked enough to make a sharer in his secret pleasures, alone knew of the thirty thousand a year annuity. But Camusot approved of the old man’s ethics, and thought that, having made the happiness of his children and nobly fulfilled his duty by them, he now had a right to end his life jovially.

“Don’t you see, my friend,” said the former master of the Cocon d’Or, “I might re-marry. A young woman would give me more children. Well, Florentine doesn’t cost me what a wife would; neither does she bore me; and she won’t give me children to lessen your property.”

Camusot considered that Pere Cardot gave expression to a high sense of family duty in these words; he regarded him as an admirable father-in-law.

“He knows,” thought he, “how to unite the interests of his children with the pleasures which old age naturally desires after the worries of business life.”

Neither the Cardots, nor the Camusots, nor the Protez knew anything of the ways of life of their aunt Clapart. The family intercourse was restricted to the sending of notes of “faire part” on the occasion of deaths and marriages, and cards at the New Year. The proud Madame Clapart would never have brought herself to seek them were it not for Oscar’s interests, and because of her friendship for Moreau, the only person who had been faithful to her in misfortune. She had never annoyed old Cardot by her visits, or her importunities, but she held to him as to a hope, and always went to see him once every three months and talked to him of Oscar, the nephew of the late respectable Madame Cardot; and she took the boy to call upon him three times during each vacation. At each of these visits the old gentleman had given Oscar a dinner at the Cadran-Bleu, taking him, afterwards, to the Gaiete, and returning him safely to the rue de la Cerisaie. On one occasion, having given the boy an entirely new suit of clothes, he added the silver cup and fork and spoon required for his school outfit.

Oscar’s mother endeavored to impress the old gentleman with the idea that his nephew cherished him, and she constantly referred to the cup and the fork and spoon and to the beautiful suit of clothes, though nothing was then left of the latter but the waistcoat. But such little arts did Oscar more harm than good when practised on so sly an old fox as uncle Cardot. The latter had never much liked his departed wife, a tall, spare, red-haired woman; he was also aware of the circumstances of the late Husson’s marriage with Oscar’s mother, and without in the least condemning her, he knew very well that Oscar was a posthumous child. His nephew, therefore, seemed to him to have no claims on the Cardot family. But Madame Clapart, like all women who concentrate their whole being into the sentiment of motherhood, did not put herself in Cardot’s place and see the matter from his point of view; she thought he must certainly be interested in so sweet a child, who bore the maiden name of his late wife.

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