Read Online The Girl With the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac, Charlotte Mandell - Free Book Online
Authors: Honoré de Balzac, Charlotte Mandell
Tags: Literary, Erótica, Romance, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Classics, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romantic Erotica
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which you will climb into, saying to the one who will be ready to open the door the password
cortejo
—a Spanish word that means
lover,”
Poincet added, directing a congratulatory look at Henri.
“Very well!”
The mulatto wanted to give Poincet two louis; but de Marsay wouldn’t allow this and paid the interpreter himself; as he was paying him, the mulatto said something.
“What is he saying?”
“He is warning me,” the unhappy man replied, “that, if I commit one single indiscretion, he will strangle me. He looks kind enough, and he looks quite capable of doing so.”
“I’m sure he is,” Henri replied. “He would do just what he says.”
“He adds,” the interpreter continued, “that the person whose messenger he is begs you, for you and for her, to act with the greatest prudence, because the daggers raised over your heads wouldfall into your hearts, and no human agency could save you from them.”
“He said that! All the better, it will be more amusing. –You can come back in, Paul!” he shouted to his friend.
The mulatto, who hadn’t stopped looking at Paquita Valdès’ lover with magnetic attention, went out, followed by the interpreter.
“Finally, here is a truly romantic adventure,” Henri said to himself when Paul returned. “After taking part in a few, I’ve finally encountered in this Paris of ours an intrigue accompanied by dangerous circumstances, major perils. By Jove, how bold danger makes woman! To annoy a woman, to try to constrain her, doesn’t that give her the right and the courage to leap barriers in an instant that she would have taken years to climb over? Sweet creature, go on, jump! Die? Poor child! Daggers? The fancies of women! They all feel the need to give gravity to their little escapade. But we’ll keep them in mind, Paquita! We’ll keep them in mind, my girl! Devil take me, now that I know that this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine, the adventure has lost its edge.”
Despite this flippant speech, the boy had resurfaced in Henri. To wait till the next day without suffering, he had recourse to exorbitant pleasures: He gambled, dined, supped with his friends; hedrank like a coachman, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand francs. At two in the morning he left the Rocher de Cancale, slept like a child, woke up the next day fresh and pink, and got dressed to go to the Tuileries, deciding to go riding on horseback after seeing Paquita so as to work up an appetite and dine better, in order to be able to pass the time more quickly.
At the appointed hour, Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage, and gave the password to a man who looked to him like the mulatto. When he heard this word, the man opened the door and quickly unfolded the step. Henri was carried so rapidly through Paris, and his thoughts left him with so little ability to pay attention to the streets through which they were passing, that he didn’t notice where the carriage stopped. The mulatto led him into a house where the steps were close to the carriage entrance. This stairway was dark, as was the landing, on which Henri was obliged to wait while the mulatto set about opening the door of a dank, foul-smelling apartment with no light, the rooms of which, barely illumined by the candle his guide found in the antechamber, seemed to him empty and sparsely furnished, like the rooms of a house whose inhabitants are away traveling. He recognized that sensation he got when he read one of those novels by Ann Radcliffe where the heropasses through the cold, dark, uninhabited rooms of some sad and deserted place. Finally the mulatto opened the door of a drawing room. The condition of the old furniture and faded draperies with which this room was decorated made it resemble the salon of a bordello. Here there was the same pretension to elegance and the same assemblage of things in poor taste, the dust, the grime. On a sofa covered in velvet of Utrecht red, in the corner of a
cortejo
—a Spanish word that means
lover,”
Poincet added, directing a congratulatory look at Henri.
“Very well!”
The mulatto wanted to give Poincet two louis; but de Marsay wouldn’t allow this and paid the interpreter himself; as he was paying him, the mulatto said something.
“What is he saying?”
“He is warning me,” the unhappy man replied, “that, if I commit one single indiscretion, he will strangle me. He looks kind enough, and he looks quite capable of doing so.”
“I’m sure he is,” Henri replied. “He would do just what he says.”
“He adds,” the interpreter continued, “that the person whose messenger he is begs you, for you and for her, to act with the greatest prudence, because the daggers raised over your heads wouldfall into your hearts, and no human agency could save you from them.”
“He said that! All the better, it will be more amusing. –You can come back in, Paul!” he shouted to his friend.
The mulatto, who hadn’t stopped looking at Paquita Valdès’ lover with magnetic attention, went out, followed by the interpreter.
“Finally, here is a truly romantic adventure,” Henri said to himself when Paul returned. “After taking part in a few, I’ve finally encountered in this Paris of ours an intrigue accompanied by dangerous circumstances, major perils. By Jove, how bold danger makes woman! To annoy a woman, to try to constrain her, doesn’t that give her the right and the courage to leap barriers in an instant that she would have taken years to climb over? Sweet creature, go on, jump! Die? Poor child! Daggers? The fancies of women! They all feel the need to give gravity to their little escapade. But we’ll keep them in mind, Paquita! We’ll keep them in mind, my girl! Devil take me, now that I know that this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine, the adventure has lost its edge.”
Despite this flippant speech, the boy had resurfaced in Henri. To wait till the next day without suffering, he had recourse to exorbitant pleasures: He gambled, dined, supped with his friends; hedrank like a coachman, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand francs. At two in the morning he left the Rocher de Cancale, slept like a child, woke up the next day fresh and pink, and got dressed to go to the Tuileries, deciding to go riding on horseback after seeing Paquita so as to work up an appetite and dine better, in order to be able to pass the time more quickly.
At the appointed hour, Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage, and gave the password to a man who looked to him like the mulatto. When he heard this word, the man opened the door and quickly unfolded the step. Henri was carried so rapidly through Paris, and his thoughts left him with so little ability to pay attention to the streets through which they were passing, that he didn’t notice where the carriage stopped. The mulatto led him into a house where the steps were close to the carriage entrance. This stairway was dark, as was the landing, on which Henri was obliged to wait while the mulatto set about opening the door of a dank, foul-smelling apartment with no light, the rooms of which, barely illumined by the candle his guide found in the antechamber, seemed to him empty and sparsely furnished, like the rooms of a house whose inhabitants are away traveling. He recognized that sensation he got when he read one of those novels by Ann Radcliffe where the heropasses through the cold, dark, uninhabited rooms of some sad and deserted place. Finally the mulatto opened the door of a drawing room. The condition of the old furniture and faded draperies with which this room was decorated made it resemble the salon of a bordello. Here there was the same pretension to elegance and the same assemblage of things in poor taste, the dust, the grime. On a sofa covered in velvet of Utrecht red, in the corner of a
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