The Deserted Woman | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected] and John Bickers,
[email protected]

THE DESERTED WOMAN
by HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION
To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes, from her devoted servant,
Honore de Balzac. PARIS, August 1835.

THE DESERTED WOMAN

In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a
young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought
on by overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His
convalescence demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and
freedom from excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin
seemed to offer all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a
picturesque place about six miles from the sea, the patient therefore
betook himself, and was received with the cordiality characteristic of
relatives who lead very retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a
godsend.
All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le
Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two
or three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who made
up Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the
acquaintance of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to

be "the whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the
invariable stock characters which every observer finds in every one of
the many capitals of the little States which made up the France of an
older day.
First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as
incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though no
one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This
species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but unmistakably,
connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, and related to
the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of the illustrious
house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no manners,
crushes everybody else with his nominal superiority, tolerates the
sub-prefect much as he submits to the taxes, and declines to
acknowledge any of the novel powers created by the nineteenth century,
pointing out to you as a political monstrosity the fact that the prime
minister is a man of no birth. His wife takes a decided tone, and talks in
a loud voice. She has had adorers in her time, but takes the sacrament
regularly at Easter. She brings up her daughters badly, and is of the
opinion that they will always be rich enough with their name.
Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They
retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old
fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner
of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits passably well
with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the lords of the manor
of a bygone age, /minus/ the