A STREET OF PARIS

 AND

 ITS INHABITANT

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by

 Henri Pene du Bois

 Illustrated by

 Francois Courboin

 PREPARER'S NOTE

 This eBook was prepared from an edition published by Meyer Brothers and Company, New York, 1900. 

 Of this edition 400 copies were printed. 25 copies on Japan Paper, numbered 1 to 25. 375 copies on specially made paper, numbered 26 to 400. 

 PREFACE

This little Parisian silhouette in prose was written by Balzac to bethe first chapter of a new series of the "Comedie Humaine" that he waspreparing while the first was finishing. Balzac was never tired. Hesaid that the men who were tired were those who rested and tried towork afterwards. 

"A Street of Paris and its Inhabitant" was in its author's mind whenHetzel, engaged in collecting a copy for the work entitled "Le Diablea Paris" that all book lovers admire, asked Balzac for an unpublishedmanuscript. 

Balzac gave him this, after retouching it, in order that it shouldhave the air of a finished story. Why Hetzel did not use it in "LeDiable a Paris, " no one knows. He went into exile, in Brussels, at themilitary revolution that made Napoleon III Emperor and, needing money, sold "A Street of Paris and its Inhabitant" with other manuscripts toLe Siecle. 

Balzac's work was printed entire in three pages of the journal LeSiecle, in Paris, July 28, 1845. M. Le Vicomte Spoelberch de Lovenjoulowns Balzac's autograph manuscript of it. These details are given byhim and might be reproduced here with his signature. But thepublishers wish not to be deprived of the pleasure of paying homage tothe Vicomte Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. 

He has made in the biography of Balzac, in editions of his books, inthe pious collection of his unpublished writings, the ideal literaryman's monument. 

H. P. Du B. 

 I

 PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE STREET

Paris has curved streets, streets that are serpentine. It counts, perhaps, only the Rue Boudreau in the Chaussee d'Antin and the RueDuguay-Trouin near the Luxembourg as streets shaped exactly like aT-square. The Rue Duguay-Trouin extends one of its two arms to the Rued'Assas and the other to the Rue de Fleurus. 

In 1827 the Rue Duguay-Trouin was paved neither on one side nor on theother; it was lighted neither at its angle nor at its ends. Perhaps itis not, even to-day, paved or lighted. In truth, this street has sofew houses, or the houses are so modest, that one does not see them;the city's forgetfulness of them is explained, then, by their littleimportance. 

Lack of solidity in the soil is a reason for that state of things. Thestreet is situated on a point of the Catacombs so dangerous that aportion of the road disappeared recently, leaving an excavation to theastonished eyes of the scarce inhabitants of that corner of Paris. 

A great clamor arose in the newspapers about it. The government corkedup the "Fontis"--such is the name of that territorial bankruptcy--andthe gardens that border the street, destitute of passers-by, werereassured the more easily because the tax list did not weigh on them. 

The arm of the street that extends to the Rue de Fleurus is entirelyoccupied, at the left, by a wall on the top of which shine brokenbottles and iron lances fixed in the plaster--a sort of warning tohands of lovers and of thieves. 

In this wall is a door, the famous little garden door, so necessary todramas and to novels, which is beginning to disappear from Paris. 

This door, painted in dark green, having an invisible lock, and onwhich the tax collector had not yet painted a number; this wall, alongwhich grow thistles and grass with beaded blades; this street, withfurrows made by the wheels of wagons; other walls gray and crownedwith foliage, are in harmony with the silence that reigns in theLuxembourg, in the convent of the Carmelites, in the gardens of theRue de Fleurus. 

If you went there, you would ask yourself, "Who can possibly livehere?"

Who? Wait and see. 

 II

 SILHOUETTE OF THE INHABITANT

One day, about three in the afternoon, that door was opened. Out of itcame a little old man, fat, provided with an abdomen heavy andprojecting which obliges him to make many sacrifices. He has to weartrousers excessively wide, not to be troubled in walking. He hasrenounced, long ago, the use of boots and trouser straps. He wearsshoes. His shoes were hardly polished. 

The waistcoat, incessantly impelled to the upper part of the gastriccavities by that great abdomen, and depressed by the weight of twothoracic bumps that would make the happiness of a thin woman, offersto the pleasantries of the passers-by a perfect resemblance to anapkin rolled on the knees of a guest absorbed in discussion atdessert. 

The legs are thin, the arm is long, one of the hands is gloved only onmost solemn occasions and the other hand ignores absolutely theadvantage of a second skin. 

That personage avoids the alms and the pity that his venerable greenfrock coat invites, by wearing the red ribbon at his button-hole. Thisproves the utility of the Order of the Legion of Honor which has beencontested too much in the past ten years, the new Knights of the Ordersay. 

The battered hat, in a constant state of horror in the places where areddish fuzz endures, would not be picked up by a rag picker, if thelittle old man let it fall and left it at a street corner. 

Too absent-minded to submit to the bother that the wearing of a wigentails, that man of science--he is a man of science--shows, when hemakes a bow, a head that, viewed from the top, has the appearance ofthe Farnese Hercules's knee. 

Above each ear, tufts of twisted white hair shine in the sun like theangry silken hairs of a boar at bay. The neck is athletic andrecommends itself to the notice of caricaturists by an infinity ofwrinkles, of furrows; by a dewlap faded but armed with darts in thefashion of thistles. 

The constant state of the beard explains at once why the necktie, always crumpled and rolled by the gestures of a disquiet head, has itsown beard, infinitely softer than that of the good old man, and formedof threads scratched from its unfortunate tissue. 

Now, if you have divined the torso and the powerful back, you willknow the sweet tempered face, somewhat pale, the blue ecstatic eyesand the inquisitive nose of that good old man, when you learn that, in the morning, wearing a silk head kerchief and tightened in adressing-gown, the illustrious professor--he is a professor--resembledan old woman so much that a young man who came from the depths ofSaxony, of Weimar, or of Prussia, expressly to see him, said to him, "Forgive me, Madame!" and withdrew. 

This silhouette of one of the most learned and most veneratedmembers of the Institute betrays so well enthusiasm for study andabsent-mindedness caused by application to the quest of truth, that youmust recognize in it the celebrated Professor Jean Nepomucene ApollodoreMarmus de Saint-Leu, one of the most admirable men of genius of ourtime. 

 III

 MADAME ADOLPHE

When the old man--the professor counted then sixty-two summers--hadwalked three steps, he turned his head at this question, hurled in anacute tone by a voice that he recognized:

"Have you a handkerchief?"

A woman stood on the step of the garden door and was watching hermaster with solicitude. 

She seemed to be fifty years of age, and her dress indicated that shewas one of those servants who are invested with full authority inhousehold affairs. 

She was darning stockings. 

The man of science came back and said naively:

"Yes, Madame Adolphe, I have my handkerchief. "

"Have you your spectacles?" she asked. 

The man of science felt the side pocket of his waistcoat. 

"I have them, " he replied. 

"Show them to me, " she said. "Often you have only the case. "

The professor took the case out of his pocket and showed thespectacles with a triumphant air. 

"You would do well to keep them on your nose, " she said. 

M. De Saint-Leu put on his spectacles, after rubbing the glasses withhis handkerchief. 

Naturally, he thrust the handkerchief under his left arm while he sethis spectacles on his nose. Then he walked a few steps towards the Ruede Fleurus and relaxed his hold on the handkerchief, which fell. 

"I was sure of it, " said Madame Adolphe to herself. She picked up thehandkerchief and cried:

"Monsieur! Monsieur!"

"Well!" exclaimed the professor, made indignant by her watchfulness. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said, receiving the handkerchief. 

"Have you any money?" asked Madame Adolphe with maternal solicitude. 

"I need none, " he replied naively, explaining thus the lives of allmen of science. 

"It depends, " Madame Adolphe said. "If you go by way of the Pont desArts you need one sou. "

"You are right, " replied the man of science, as if he were retracinginstructions for a voyage to the North Pole. "I will go through theLuxembourg, the Rue de Seine, the Pont des Arts, the Louvre, the Ruedu Coq, the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, the Rue des Fosses-Montmartre. It is the shortest route to the Faubourg Poissonniere. "

"It is three o'clock, " Madame Adolphe said. "Your sister-in-law dinesat six. You have three hours before you--Yes--you'll be there, butyou'll be late. " She searched her apron pocket for two sous, which shehanded to the professor. 

"Very well, then, " she said to him. "Do not eat too much. You are nota glutton, but you think of other things. You are frugal, but you eatwhen you are absent-minded as if you had no bread at home. Take carenot to make Madame Vernet, your sister-in-law, wait. If you make herwait, you will never be permitted again to go there alone, and it willbe shameful for you. "

Madame Adolphe returned to the threshold of the little door and fromthere watched her master. She had to cry to him, "To the right! To theright!" for he was turning toward the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. 

"And yet he is a man of science, people say, " she muttered to herself. "How did he ever manage to get married? I'll ask Madame when I dressher hair. "

 IV

 INCONVENIENCE OF QUAYS WHERE ARE BOOK STALLS

At four o'clock, Professor Marmus was at the end of the Rue de Seine, under the arcades of the Institute. Those who know him will admit thathe had done nobly, since he had taken only one hour to go through theLuxembourg and down the Rue de Seine. 

There a lamentable voice, the voice of a child, plucked from the goodman the two sous that Madame Adolphe had given to him. When he reachedthe Pont des Arts he remembered that he had to pay toll and turnedback suddenly to beg for a sou from the child. 

The little rascal had gone to break the coin, in order to give onlyone sou to his mother. She was walking up and down the Rue Mazarinewith her baby at her breast. 

It became necessary for the professor to turn his back on the veteransoldier who guards against the possibility of a Parisian passing overthe bridge without paying the toll. 

Two roads were open to him: the Pont Neuf and the Pont Royal. Curiosity makes one lose more time in Paris than anywhere else. 

How may one walk without looking at those little oblong boxes, wide asthe stones of the parapet, that all along the quays stimulate booklovers with posters saying, "Four Sous--Six Sous--Ten Sous--TwelveSous--Thirty Sous?" These catacombs of glory have devoured many hoursthat belonged to the poets, to the philosophers and to the men ofscience of Paris. 

Great is the number of ten-sous pieces spent in the four-sous stalls!

The professor saw a pamphlet by Vicq-d'Azyr, a complete Charles Bonnetin the edition of Fauche Borel, and an essay on Malus. 

"And such then is the sum of our achievements, " he said to himself. "Malus! A genius arrested in his course when he had almost capturedthe empire of light! But we have had Fresnel. Fresnel has doneexcellent things!--Oh, they will recognize some day that light is onlya mode of substance. "

The professor held the notice on Malus. He turned its pages. He hadknown Malus. He recalled to himself and recited the names of all theMaluses. Then he returned to Malus, to his dear Malus, for they hadentered the Institute together at the return to Paris of theexpedition to Egypt. Ah! It was then the Institute of France and not amass of disunited Academies. 

"The Emperor had preserved, " said Marmus to himself, "the saintly ideaof the Convention. I remember, " he muttered aloud, "what he said to mewhen I was presented to him as a member of the Institute. Napoleon theFirst said, 'Marmus, I am the Emperor of the French, but you are theKing of the infinitely little and you will organize them as I haveorganized the Empire. ' Ah, he was a very great man and a man of wit!The French appreciated this too late. "

The professor replaced Malus and the essay on him in the ten-sousstall, without remarking how often hope had been lit and extinguishedalternately in the gray eyes of an old woman seated on a stool in anangle of the quay. 

"He was there, " Marmus said, pointing to the Tuileries on the oppositebank of the river. "I saw him reviewing his sublime troops! I saw himthin, ardent as the sands of Egypt; but, as soon as he became Emperor, he grew fat and good-natured, for all fat men are excellent--this iswhy Sinard is thin, he is a gall-making machine. But would Napoleonhave supported my theory?"

 V

 FIRST COURSE

It was the hour at which they went to the dinner table in the house ofMarmus's sister-in-law. The professor walked slowly toward the Chamberof Deputies, asking himself if his theory might have had Napoleon'ssupport. He could no longer judge Napoleon save from that point ofview. Did Napoleon's genius coincide with that of Marmus in regard tothe assimilation of things engendered by an attraction perpetual andcontinuous?

 VI

 SECOND COURSE

"No, Baron Sinard was a worshipper of power. He would have gone to theEmperor and told him that my theory was the inspiration of an atheist. And Napoleon, who has done a great deal of religious sermonizing forpolitical reasons, would have persecuted me. He had no love for ideas. He was a courtier of facts! Moreover, in Napoleon's time, it would nothave been possible for me to communicate freely with Germany. Wouldthey have lent me their aid--Wytheimler, Grosthuys, Scheele, Stamback, Wagner?

"To make men of science agree--men of science agree!--the Emperorshould have made peace; in time of peace, perhaps, he would have takenan interest in my quarrel with Sinard! Sinard, my friend, my pupil, become my antagonist, my enemy! He, a man of genius--

"Yes, he is a man of genius. I do justice to him in the face of allthe world. "

At this moment the professor could talk aloud without trouble tohimself or to the passers-by. He was near the Chamber of Deputies, thesession was closed, all Paris was at dinner--except the man ofscience. 

Marmus was haranguing the statues which, it must be conceded, aresimilar to all audiences. In France there is not an audience that isnot prohibited from giving marks of approval or disapproval. Otherwise, there is not an audience that would not turn orator. 

At the Iena bridge Marmus had a pain in the stomach. He heard thehoarse voice of a cab driver. Marmus thought that he was ill and lethimself be ushered into the cab. He made himself comfortable in it. 

When the driver asked, "Where?" Marmus replied quietly:

"Home. "

"Where is your home, Monsieur?" asked the driver. 

"Number three, " Marmus replied. 

"What street?" asked the driver. 

"Ah, you are right, my friend. But this is extraordinary, " he said, taking the driver into his confidence. "I have been so busy comparingthe hyoides and the caracoides--yes, that's it. I will catch Sinard inthe act. At the next session of the Institute he will have to yield toevidence. "

The driver wrapped his ragged cloak around him. Resignedly, he wassaying to himself, "I have seen many odd folks, but this one--" Heheard the word "Institute. "

"The Institute, Monsieur?" he asked. 

"Yes, my friend, the Institute, " replied Marmus. 

"Well he wears the red ribbon, " said the driver to himself. "Perhapshe has something to do with the Institute. "

The professor, infinitely more comfortable in his cab than on thesidewalk, devoted himself entirely to solving the problem that wentagainst his theory and would not surrender--the rascal! The cab stopsat the Institute; the janitor sees the Academician and bows to himrespectfully. The cab driver, his suspicions dispelled, talks with thejanitor of the Institute while the illustrious professor goes--ateight in the evening--to the Academie des Sciences. 

The cab driver tells the janitor where he found his fare. 

"At the Iena bridge, " repeats the janitor. "M. Marmus was coming backfrom Passy. He had dined, doubtless, with M. Planchette, one of hisfriends of the Academy. "

"He couldn't tell me his address, " says the cab driver. 

"He lives in the Rue Duguay-Trouin, Number three, " says the janitor. 

"What a neighborhood!" exclaims the driver. 

"My friend, " asks of the janitor the professor who had found the doorshut, "is there no meeting of the Academy to-day?"

"To-day!" exclaims the janitor. "At this hour!"

"What is the time?" asks the man of science. 

"About eight o'clock, " the janitor replies. 

"It is late, " comments M. Marmus. "Take me home, driver. "

The driver goes through the quays, the Rue du Bac, falls into a tangleof wagons, returns by the Rue de Grenelle, the Croix-Rouge, the RueCassette, then he makes a mistake. He tries to find the Rue d'Assas, in the Rue Honore-Chevalier, in the Rue Madame, in all the impossiblestreets and, swearing that if he had known he would not have come sofar for a hundred sous, disembarks the professor in the RueDuguay-Trouin. 

The cab driver claims an hour, for the police ordinances, that defendconsumers of time in cabs from the stratagems of cab drivers, had notyet posted the walls of Paris with their protecting articles thatsettle in advance all difficulties. 

"Very well, my friend, " says M. Marmus to the cab driver. "Pay him, "M. Marmus says to Madame Adolphe. "I do not feel well, my child. "

"Monsieur, what did I tell you?" she exclaimed. "You have eaten toomuch. While you were away, I said to myself, 'It is Mme. Vernet'sbirthday. They will urge him at table and he will come back sick. 'Well, go to bed. I will make camomile tea for you. "

 VII

 DESSERT

The professor walked through the garden into a pavilion at one of itscorners, where he lived alone in order not to be disturbed by hiswife. 

He went up the stairway leading to his little room, and complained somuch of his pains in the stomach that Madame Adolphe filled him withcamomile tea. 

"Ah, here is a carriage! It is Madame returning in great anxiety, I amsure, " said Madame Adolphe, giving to the professor his sixth cup ofcamomile tea. "Now, sir, I hope that you will be able to drink itwithout me. Do not let it fall all over your bed. You know how Madamewould laugh. You are very happy to have a little wife who is soamiable and so joyful. "

"Say nothing to her, my child, " exclaimed the professor, whosefeatures expressed a sort of childish fear. 

The truly great man is always more or less a child. 

 VIII

 THIS SHOWS THAT THE WIFE OF A MAN OF SCIENCE IS VERY UNHAPPY

"Well, good-bye. Return in the cab, it is paid for, " Madame Marmus wassaying when Madame Adolphe arrived at the door. 

The cab had already turned the corner. Madame Adolphe, not having seenMadame Marmus's escort, said to herself:

"Poor Madame! He must be her nephew. "

Madame Marmus, a little woman, lithe, graceful, mirthful, wasdivinely dressed and in a fashion too young for her age, counting hertwenty-five years as a wife. Nevertheless, she wore well a gown withsmall pink stripes, a cape embroidered and edged with lace, boots prettyas the wings of a butterfly. She carried in her hand a pink hat withpeach flowers. 

"You see, Madame Adolphe, " she said, "my hair is all uncurled. I toldyou that in this hot weather it should be dressed in bandeaux. "

"Madame, " the servant replied, "Monsieur is very sick. You let him eattoo much. "

"What could I do?" Madame Marmus replied. "He was at one end of thetable and I at the other. He returned without me, as his habit is!Poor little man! I will go to him as soon as I change my dress. "

Madame Adolphe returns to the pavilion to propose an emetic, andscolds the professor for not having returned with Madame Marmus. 

"Since you wished to come in a cab, you might have spared me theexpense of the one that Madame Marmus took. The charge for your cabwas an hour. Did you stop anywhere?"

"At the Institute, " he replied. 

"At the Institute! Where did you take the cab?" she asked. 

"In front of a bridge, I think, " he replied. 

"Was it still daylight?" she asked. 

"Almost, " he said. 

"Then you did not go to Madame Vernet's!" exclaimed Madame Adolphe. 

"Why did you not come to Madame Vernet's?" asked his wife. 

Madame Marmus, having come to the door on the tips of her toes, hadheard Madame Adolphe's exclamation. She did not wish to see MadameAdolphe's astonishment. Surely Madame Adolphe could not have forgottenthe assurance with which the professor's wife had placed him inimagination at Madame Vernet's table. 

"My dear child, I do not know, " said the professor in a repentanttone. 

"Then you have not dined, " said Madame Marmus, whose attitude remainedthat of the purest innocence. 

"With what could he have dined, Madame? He had two sous, " said MadameAdolphe, looking at Madame Marmus with an accusing air. 

"Ah, I am truly to be pitied, my poor Madame Adolphe, " said MadameMarmus. "This sort of thing has been going on for twenty years, and Iam not yet accustomed to it. Six days after our wedding, we were goingout of our room one morning to take breakfast. M. Marmus hears thedrum of the Polytechnic School pupils of whom he was the professor. Hequits me to go and see them pass. I was nineteen years of age and whenI pouted, you cannot guess what he said to me. He said, 'These youngpeople are the flower and the glory of France!' This is how mymarriage began. You can judge of the rest. "

"Oh, Monsieur, is it possible?" asked Madame Adolphe with an indignantair. 

"I have cornered Sinard!" exclaimed M. Marmus triumphantly. 

"Oh, he would let himself die!" exclaimed Madame Adolphe. 

"Get something for him to eat, " said Madame Marmus. "He would lethimself do anything. Ah, my good Madame Adolphe, a man of science, yousee, is a man who knows nothing--of life. "

The malady was cured by a cataplasm of Italian cheese that the man ofscience ate without knowing what he was eating, for he held Sinard ina corner--

"Poor Madame, " said the kind Madame Adolphe. "I pity you. He wasreally so absent-minded as that!"

And Madame Adolphe forgot the strange avowal of her mistress.