The Human Comedy: Selected Stories

by Honoré de Balzac

  “All the nuns are at the church and are beginning the Mass for the Dead.”

  “I will stay here,” said Montriveau. “Go back to the parlor and shut the door at the end of the passage.”

  He rushed into the cell, pushing past his disguised companion, who pulled the veil down over his face. They saw then, in the antechamber of the cell, the dead duchess, resting on the ground on her bed board, lit by two candles. Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay said a word or uttered a cry, but they looked at each other. Then the general made a gesture meaning, “Let us carry her off.”

  “Run,” cried Ronquerolles, “the procession of nuns is coming, you will be caught!”

  With the magical swiftness prompted by an extreme desire, the dead woman was borne into the parlor, passed through the window, and transported to the foot of the walls, just as the abbess, followed by the nuns, arrived to take the body of Sister Theresa. The sister charged with guarding the dead woman had been imprudent enough to ransack her room in search of secrets and was so busily occupied that she heard nothing; she came out horrified to find the body gone. Before the amazed women thought to conduct a search, the duchess had been lowered by cables down to the rocks, and Montriveau’s companions had destroyed their work.

  At nine o’clock in the morning, no trace was left of the stairway or the cable bridges; the body of Sister Theresa was on board as the vessel came to the port, collected the sailors, and disappeared into the morning. Montriveau remained alone in his cabin with Antoinette de Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her face was transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty that the calm of death gives to our mortal remains.

  “Oh, that,” said Ronquerolles to Montriveau, when the general reappeared on the deck, “that was a woman, now it is nothing. Let us tie a cannonball to each foot, throw her in the water, and think no more about it than we would about a book we read during childhood.”

  “Yes,” said Montriveau, “for this is now nothing but a poem.”

  “That is sensible of you. From now on, have passions, but as for love, a man must know how to invest it wisely; only a woman’s last love can satisfy a man’s first.”

  Geneva, at Pré-Lévêque, January 26, 1834

  Translated by Carol Cosman

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to the three translators who responded to the call for new versions of Balzac, a writer who speaks well in twentieth-century English when expertly made to do so.

  My thanks as well to Meera Broome Seth, deft scholar who helped me annotate the stories where needed.

  My thanks also to Sara Kramer, editor at New York Review Books and, especially, to Edwin Frank who believed in this project from the beginning and magisterially carried it through to completion.

  NOTES

  FACINO CANE

  provveditore: A government official in the Venetian Republic.

  ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMANKIND

  like the dolphin in the fable: A reference to “The Monkey and the Dolphin,” one of Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables (IV.7).

  According to Sterne: See Tristram Shandy, chapter CCCXXXI.

  Lord Dudley: Henri de Marsay is in fact the natural son of Lord Dudley.

  a happy Clarissa: Clarissa Harlowe is the tragic heroine of Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Clarissa.

  La Malibran: A famous singer who was a great success in Paris during the 1830s.

  Camille Maupin: This is Mademoiselle des Touches’s literary pseudonym.

  Agnès Sorel: The longtime mistress of Charles VII, who considerably influenced him.

  “Son’io!”: “It’s me!”

  ULTIMAM COGITA: “Think of the end.”

  Il bondo cani: The pseudonym of the caliph who, while incognito, seduces women in The Caliph of Baghdad, an opéra comique by François-Adrien Boieldieu.

  THE RED INN

  our great Carême: A French chef famous for his gourmet cuisine.

  her education at the Gymnase: A popular theater. Balzac is punning on the German Gymnasium (secondary school).

  in anima vili: “On the base mind.”

  imperial: A card game similar to piquet.

  her father refused to acknowledge her . . . She’s very beautiful and very rich: In Balzac’s Père Goriot, we find Mademoiselle Taillefer disowned by her father and living in the Vauquer boardinghouse. However, upon her brother’s death (arranged by the scheming Vautrin), she becomes one of the richest heiresses in Paris.

  Like virtue, there are different degrees to a crime: Racine, Phèdre (act IV, scene 2).

  Doctrinaire Party: The group of royalists who favored constitutional monarchy during the Bourbon Restoration.

  Jeanie Deans’s father: A character in Walter Scott’s novel The Heart of Midlothian.

  SARRASINE

  Madame Malibran, Madame Sontag, or Madame Fodor: Well-known singers of the period.

  Antinous: The beloved of the Roman emperor Hadrian, whose beauty was considered effeminate.

  Vespasian’s axiom: Pecunia non olet (Money has no smell).

  Tancredi: An opera by Rossini which was a great success in Paris around the time “Sarrasine” was published.

  “Addio, addio!”: “Farewell, farewell!”

  “Poverino!”: “Poor fellow!”

  al Bambino: To the child Jesus.

  Girodet’s Endymion: Balzac greatly admired this painting. He initially wrote that it was Girodet (rather than Vien) who copied Sarrasine’s statue of Zambinella for the Lanty family. A look at the painting suggests its relevance to the theme of the story.

  A PASSION IN THE DESERT

  Monsieur Martin’s menagerie: In 1819, the animal trainer Henri Martin became the first man to enter a tiger’s cage. He also performed a pantomime with lions in 1831, around the time when wild animals were first introduced into the circus.

  the expedition undertaken in Upper Egypt: After the French victory over the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798, General Desaix received orders from Napoleon to pursue the Mamluk leader Murad Bey, who had fled to Upper Egypt.

  simarre: A woman’s long dress or robe.

  ADIEU

  Article 304 of the Penal Code: This article mandated the death penalty.

  the crossing of the Berezina: While retreating from Russia, Napoleon’s army was forced to make an impromptu crossing of the Berezina River in November 1812, which resulted in tens of thousands of casualties at the Battle of Berezina.

  pelisse: A women’s fur-lined coat.

  Z. MARCAS

  We watched all these developments like theater: Balzac’s narrator in La Duchesse de Langeais denounces the insular and static nature of the ruling class of the prior regime.

  Dressing up like the Coachman of Longjumeau: A costume made fashionable by Adolphe Adam’s 1836 opéra comique, The Coachman of Longjumeau.

  Toussaint Louverture: Toussaint Louverture led the slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). Once slavery was abolished in Saint-Domingue, Louverture allied himself with Napoleon and the French but was ultimately betrayed.

  Napoleon, on his rock, babbled like a magpie: During his exile on the island of Saint Helena, Napoleon dictated to his aide Las Cases his voluminous memoirs, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène.

  Morey, that Cuauhtémoc of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève: Pierre Morey, one of the conspirators in an 1835 plot to assassinate King Louis-Philippe, and Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor, are both believed to have evinced a stoic resolve while being executed.

  He had Berryer’s qualities of warmth . . . Monsieur Thiers’s finesse and skill: Antoine Pierre Berryer was a lawyer and ardent Legitimist (a conservative royalist who refused to recognize the July Monarchy and favored the Bourbon line over the Orléans); Adolphe Thiers was a politician and liberal adversary of the July Monarchy.

  the triumph of the Orléans branch over the elder Bourbon branch: The July Revolution saw the abdication of King Charles X of the House of Bourbon and the rise to the thr
one of Louis-Philippe of the cadet Orléans line.

  Like a new Bonaparte, he sought his Barras; like Colbert, he hoped to find a Mazarin: As the commander of the Army of the Interior during the Revolution, Paul Barras appointed Napoleon as his second-in-command in 1795. When Barras became a leader of the Directory, Napoleon replaced him as the commander. Cardinal Mazarin left the management of his personal fortune to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who eventually succeeded him as minister of finances to Louis XIV.

  the requirements of the election law: In response to the demands made by liberal reformers, in 1831 the French government enacted a law that lessened the monetary requirements for voting eligibility. These measures, however, only allowed the bourgeoisie, not the common people, to gain enfranchisement.

  All Richard III wanted was a horse: An allusion to Shakespeare’s Richard III (act V, scene 4).

  the antipodes of the Luxembourg Palace: The Luxembourg Palace was the site of the Chamber of Peers, a legislative assembly similar to the modern senate.

  Pozzo di Borgo had lived in that condition for a period: Pozzo di Borgo was a Corsican politician and diplomat who, while negotiating Russia’s peace agreement with Austria, was able to escape Napoleon’s call for his extradition as a French subject by fleeing Vienna and abstaining from official political activity for a year. Here Balzac alludes to this period, in which Pozzo di Borgo was probably plotting his attack against Napoleon.

  Carrel is dead: Armand Carrel was a journalist who helped to found the daily newspaper Le National in 1830. After the July Revolution, Carrel alone managed the paper, which became the primary voice of the opposition. He died in a duel with Émile de Girardin, the founder of the conservative daily La Presse.

  he hasn’t a palace, a stronghold of royal favor, like Metternich; nor like Villèle the sheltering roof of a reliable majority: Klemens von Metternich was a German prince and influential statesman; Jean-Baptiste de Villèle, a long-serving prime minister, was a leader of the Ultra-Royalists during the Bourbon Restoration.

  August 1830: In the aftermath of the July Revolution, many observed that the new members of Louis-Philippe’s administration differed little from those of the Bourbon Restoration.

  Emperor Diocletian to the unknown martyr: Thousands of Christians were martyred under the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.

  Charles fell silent: The narrator is revealed to be Charles Rabourdin, son of the protagonist of another Balzac novel, Les Employés.

  It is too late: This was allegedly the response that a liberal deputy pronounced to one of Charles X’s ministers when he declared that the king would order the annulment of the July Ordinances (which notably limited freedom of the press and appointed reactionary councillors of state).

  GOBSECK

  she behaved so very badly toward her father: In Balzac’s Père Goriot, Madame de Restaud, née Goriot, is ashamed of her father, who has sacrificed everything for his daughters. When he lies dying, she arrives too late to say farewell to him.

  the indemnification law restored further enormous sums to her: Under the reign of Charles X, the Law of Indemnity of 1825 restored to nobles their estates, which had been seized during the Revolution.

  Like Fontenelle, he was sparing with his vital energies: Fontenelle lived to be nearly a hundred years old.

  name was Gobseck: the name in French sounds like Gobe-sec, “gulp dry”

  He had known Monsieur de Lally . . . : Some of the names that follow are of historical figures, while others are fictional.

  the Monsieur Dimanche scene: Molière, Dom Juan (act IV, scene 3).

  the Counts de Horn, the Fouquier-Tinvilles, the Coignards: The Comte de Horn assassinated Gustav III, the King of Sweden; Fouquier-Tinville was a notorious public prosecutor during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution; Coignard was an escaped convict who assumed the false title Comte de Sainte-Hélène.

  the new Haitian government: The unification of Haiti and Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic) occurred in 1822 and lasted until 1844.

  The Torpedo: Gobseck’s great-grandniece, Esther Gobseck, appears in Balzac’s Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes. She commits suicide only hours before she would have inherited Gobseck’s fortune.

  “Who will all these riches go to?”: See previous note. In Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, after Esther’s suicide, Gobseck’s fortune goes to her lover Lucien de Rubempré. However, he is prevented from marrying the rich Clotilde de Grandlieu when her father finds out the true source of his fortune. Suspected of being connected to Esther’s death, Lucien is arrested and ends up committing suicide. Gobseck’s fortune then passes to Lucien’s relatives and eventually to Vautrin, the criminal mastermind behind Lucien’s provisory rise to social prominence.

  THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS

  the French expedition to Spain: This expedition took place in 1823.

  his Moses: Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, which premiered in 1818.

  Theater Favart: A venue at the Paris Opéra-Comique.

  “Fleuve du Tage”: Benoît Pollet’s song “The River Tagus,” which was popular in the 1820s.

  alcalde: The mayor or magistrate of a Spanish town.

  The visitor: A clergyman whose duty is to inspect convents.

  a robe whose color has become proverbial: Pale brown.

  knight banneret: A medieval knight entitled to carry a rectangular banner and lead a military troupe.

  Fuggers: A powerful dynasty of German bankers in the sixteenth century.

  its defeat in 1830: The July Revolution saw the end of the Bourbon Restoration and of the sovereign power of the nobility.

  the marriage of Monsieur de Talleyrand: Talleyrand married an English adventuress.

  Madame’s: The title of the Duchesse de Berry.

  the uprising of the Hundred Days: Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba and marched on Paris with an army of men, in a campaign that lasted from March until June, 1815, ending with his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Shortly after Waterloo, Louis XVIII returned to power, initiating the second Bourbon Restoration.

  Chevalier de Folard: A French soldier and military writer of the eighteenth century.

  Joubert’s side at Novi: At the Battle of Novi in August 1799, the French, led by Barthélemy-Catherine Joubert, were defeated by Austrian and Russian forces. Joubert was killed in the conflict.

  the Fontainebleau disaster: The 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stipulated Napoleon’s abdication and exile to Elba.

  The Gardener’s Dog: A play by Lope de Vega which illustrates the proverbial theme of the dog in the manger.

  Faublas: A libertine novel of the late eighteenth century by Louvet de Couvray (the novel’s full title is Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas).

  Crillon hearing the story of Jesus Christ: Apparently, upon hearing a sermon on the Passion, the sixteenth-century military officer Crillon drew his sword and cried, “Where were you, Crillon?”

  “morganatic” unions: A marriage between a member of the royalty or nobility and an individual of inferior social rank, whose children do not inherit the former’s titles and privileges.

  the break between Madame de Beauséant and Monsieur d’Ajuda, who, they say, is marrying Mademoiselle de Rochefide: This story line is depicted in Balzac’s Père Goriot and continues in La Femme abandonnée.

  nec plus ultra: “Nothing further beyond.”

  Génie du Christianisme: In 1802, Chateaubriand wrote this defense of Christianity in response to attacks made on the faith during the French Revolution.

  Sulla: A prominent Roman statesman who famously marched on Rome, initiating a civil war. He became dictator before abdicating power shortly before his death.

  the Battle of Dreux: A 1562 battle in which the Catholics defeated the Huguenots.

  Andiam, mio ben: A phrase from the duet “Là ci darem la mano” in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

  Pyrrhonists: The disciples of Pyrrho of Elis, an ancient Greek skeptic philosopher.

>   as Poppaea played with Nero: Poppaea was the second wife of the Roman emperor Nero. It was widely believed among ancient historians that Nero murdered Poppaea.

  place de Grève: A site of public executions and torture.

  “Non so”: “I don’t know.”

  Paris’s ten thousand Sévignés: The Marquise de Sévigné was a seventeenth-century writer, best known for the letters she wrote to her daughter.

  the wigmaker’s knife-wielding that so affected Canning in the assize court: An obscure allusion to the career of the British statesman George Canning.

  until some poet comes along to tell: Alfred de Vigny, in his historical novel Cinq-Mars.

  Boeotian stupidity: An allusion to the ancient Greek region of Boeotia.

  Monsieur, as he once was . . . The bad brother who voted so wrongly . . . This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous for his younger brother: The current monarch, “the bad brother,” was Louis XVIII. He was formerly known as “Monsieur” (the title given to the eldest brother of the reigning king) when Louis XVI was on the throne. Charles X was the youngest of the three brothers.

  fideicommissum: In a legal will, a gift that is bequeathed to an intermediary, with the intention that he or she will give it to a third person, the desired recipient of the bequest.

  young de Horn: The Count de Horn conspired to assassinate Gustav III, the King of Sweden.

  The Du Barry woman . . . the widow Scarron: Once a courtesan, Madame Du Barry became Louis XV’s last official mistress. Madame Scarron was widowed prior to coming to court and eventually became Louis XIV’s second wife (he gave her the title of Marquise de Maintenon).