A Distinguished Provincial at ParisBalzac, Honoré de
General
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Balzac, Honoré de
France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
The three stayed with Lucien, trying to soothe his despair with
comforting words; but every spring seemed to be broken. At noon all the
brotherhood, with the exception of Michel Chrestien (who, however, had
learned the truth as to Lucien’s treachery), was assembled in the poor
little church of the Bonne-Nouvelle; Mlle. de Touches was present,
and Bérénice and Coralie’s dresser from the theatre, with a couple of
supernumeraries and the disconsolate Camusot. All the men accompanied
the actress to her last resting-place in Père Lachaise. Camusot,
shedding hot tears, had solemnly promised Lucien to buy the grave in
perpetuity, and to put a headstone above it with the words:
CORALIE
AGED NINETEEN YEARS
August, 1822
Lucien stayed there, on the sloping ground that looks out over Paris,
until the sun had set.
“Who will love me now?” he thought. “My truest friends despise me.
Whatever I might have done, she who lies here would have thought me
wholly noble and good. I have no one left to me now but my sister and
mother and David. And what do they think of me at home?”
Poor distinguished provincial! He went back to the Rue de la Lune; but
the sight of the rooms was so acutely painful, that he could not stay
in them, and he took a cheap lodging elsewhere in the same street. Mlle.
des Touches’ two thousand francs and the sale of the furniture paid the
debts.
Bérénice had two hundred francs left, on which they lived for two
months. Lucien was prostrate; he could neither write nor think; he gave
way to morbid grief. Bérénice took pity upon him.
“Suppose that you were to go back to your own country, how are you to
get there?” she asked one day, by way of reply to an exclamation of
Lucien’s.
“On foot.”
“But even so, you must live and sleep on the way. Even if you walk
twelve leagues a day, you will want twenty francs at least.”
“I will get them together,” he said.
He took his clothes and his best linen, keeping nothing but strict
necessaries, and went to Samanon, who offered fifty francs for his
entire wardrobe. In vain he begged the money-lender to let him have
enough to pay his fare by the coach; Samanon was inexorable. In a
paroxysm of fury, Lucien rushed to Frascati’s, staked the proceeds of
the sale, and lost every farthing. Back once more in the wretched room
in the Rue de la Lune, he asked Bérénice for Coralie’s shawl. The good
girl looked at him, and knew in a moment what he meant to do. He had
confessed to his loss at the gaming-table; and now he was going to hang
himself.
“Are you mad, sir? Go out for a walk, and come back again at midnight.
I will get the money for you; but keep to the Boulevards, do not go
towards the Quais.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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