The Two Brothers | Page 3

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

THE TWO BROTHERS
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.
Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are screened
from the action of the laws by the closed doors of domestic life; but as
to which the finger of God, often called chance, supplies the place of

human justice, and in which the moral is none the less striking and
instructive because it is pointed by a scoffer.
To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family and for
Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too late, the effects
produced by the diminution of paternal authority. That authority, which
formerly ceased only at the death of the father, was the sole human
tribunal before which domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings
themselves, on special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the
function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can take the
place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never drawn a picture
that shows more plainly how essential to European society is the
indissoluble marriage bond, how fatal the results of feminine weakness,
how great the dangers arising from selfish interests when indulged
without restraint. May a society which is based solely on the power of
wealth shudder as it sees the impotence of the law in dealing with the
workings of a system which deifies success, and pardons every means
of attaining it. May it return to the Catholic religion, for the purification
of its masses through the inspiration of religious feeling, and by means
of an education other than that of a lay university.
In the "Scenes from Military Life" so many fine natures, so many high
and noble self-devotions will be set forth, that I may here be allowed to
point out the depraving effect of the necessities of war upon certain
minds who venture to act in domestic life as if upon the field of battle.
You have cast a sagacious glance over the events of our own time; its
philosophy shines, in more than one bitter reflection, through your
elegant pages; you have appreciated, more clearly than other men, the
havoc wrought in the mind of our country by the existence of four
distinct political systems. I cannot, therefore, place this history under
the protection of a more competent authority. Your name may, perhaps,
defend my work against the criticisms that are certain to follow it,--for
where is the patient who keeps silence when the surgeon lifts the
dressing from his wound?
To the pleasure of dedicating this Scene to you, is joined the pride I
feel in thus making known your friendship for one who here subscribes
himself
Your sincere admirer,

De Balzac Paris, November, 1842.

THE TWO BROTHERS


CHAPTER I
In 1792 the townspeople of Issoudun enjoyed the services of a
physician named Rouget, whom they held to be a man of consummate
malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife
extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the
neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of
friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had
never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor
Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is not
pleasant to deal with." Consequently, during his lifetime, his townsmen
kept silence about him and treated him civilly. His wife, a demoiselle
Descoings, feeble in health during her girlhood (which was said to be a
reason why the doctor married her), gave birth to a son, and also to a
daughter who arrived, unexpectedly, ten years after her brother, and
whose birth took the husband, doctor though he were, by surprise.