|
PIERRETTE
PIERRETTE HONORE DE BALZAC I
THE LORRAINS
At the dawn of an October day in 1827 a young fellow about sixteen
years of age whose clothing proclaimed what modern phraseology so
insolently calls a proletary was standing in a small square of Lower
Provins. At that early hour he could examine without being observed
the various houses surrounding the open space which was oblong in
form. The mills along the river were already working; the whirr of
their wheels repeated by the echoes of the Upper Town in the keen air
and sparkling clearness of the early morning only intensified the
general silence so that the wheels of a diligence could be heard a
league away along the highroad. The two longest sides of the square
separated by an avenue of lindens were built in the simple style
which expresses so well the peaceful and matter-of-fact life of the
bourgeoisie. No signs of commerce were to be seen; on the other hand
the luxurious porte-cocheres of the rich were few and those few
turned seldom on their hinges excepting that of Monsieur Martener a
physician whose profession obliged him to keep a cabriolet and to
use it. A few of the house-fronts were covered by grape vines others
by roses climbing to the second-story windows through which they
wafted the fragrance of their scattered bunches. One end of the square
enters the main street of the Lower Town the gardens of which reach
to the bank of one of the two rivers which water the valley of
Provins. The other end of the square enters a street which runs
parallel to the main street.
At the latter which was also the quietest end of the square the
young workman recognized the house of which he was in search which
showed a front of white stone grooved in lines to represent courses
windows with closed gray blinds and slender iron balconies decorated
with rosettes painted yellow. Above the ground floor and the first
floor were three dormer windows projecting from a slate roof; on the
peak of the central one was a new weather-vane. This modern innovation
represented a hunter in the attitude of shooting a hare. The front
door was reached by three stone steps. On one side of this door a
leaden pipe discharged the sink-water into a small street-gutter
showing the whereabouts of the kitchen. On the other side were two
windows carefully closed by gray shutters in which were heart-shaped
openings cut to admit the light; these windows seemed to be those of
the dining-room. In the elevation gained by the three steps were vent-
holes to the cellar closed by painted iron shutters fantastically cut
in open-work. Everything was new. In this repaired and restored house
the fresh-colored look of which contrasted with the time-worn
exteriors of all the other houses an observer would instantly
perceive the paltry taste and perfect self-satisfaction of the retired
petty shopkeeper.
The young man looked at these details with an expression of pleasure
that seemed to have something rather sad in it; his eyes roved from
the kitchen to the roof with a motion that showed a deliberate
purpose. The rosy glow of the rising sun fell on a calico curtain at
one of the garret windows the others being without that luxury. As he
caught sight of it the young fellow's face brightened gaily. He
stepped back a little way leaned against a linden and sang in the
drawling tone peculiar to the west of France the following Breton
ditty published by Bruguiere a composer to whom we are indebted for
many charming melodies. In Brittany the young villagers sing this
song to all newly-married couples on their wedding-day:--
"We've come to wish you happiness in marriage
To m'sieur your husband
As well as to you:
"You have just been bound madam' la mariee
With bonds of gold
That only death unbinds:
"You will go no more to balls or gay assemblies;
You must stay at home
While we shall go.
"Have you thought well how you are pledged to be
True to your spouse
And love him like yourself?
"Receive these flowers our hands do now present you;
Alas! your fleeting honors
Will fade as they."
This native air (as sweet as that adapted by Chateaubriand to /Ma
soeur te souvient-il encore/) sung in this little town of the Brie
district must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone
of imperious memories so faithfully does it picture the manners and
customs the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land
where a sort of melancholy reigns hardly to be defined; caused
perhaps by the aspect of life in Brittany which is deeply touching.
This power of awakening a world of grave and sweet and tender memories
by a familiar and sometimes lively ditty is the privilege of those
popular songs which are the superstitions of music--if we may use the
word "superstition" as signifying all that remains after the ruin of a
people all that survives their revolutions.
As he finished the first couple the singer who never took his eyes
from the attic curtain saw no signs of life. While he sang the
second the curtain stirred. When the words "Receive these flowers"
were sung a youthful face appeared; a white hand cautiously opened
the casement and a girl made a sign with her head to the singer as he
ended with the melancholy thought of the simple verses--"Alas! your
fleeting honors will fade as they."
To her the young workman suddenly showed drawing it from within his
jacket a yellow flower very common in Brittany and sometimes to be
found in La Brie (where however it is rare)--the furze or broom.
"Is it really you Brigaut?" said the girl in a low voice.
"Yes Pierrette yes. I am in Paris. I have started to make my way;
but I'm ready to settle here near you."
Just then the fastening of a window creaked in a room on the first
floor directly below Pierrette's attic. The girl showed the utmost
terror and said to Brigaut quickly:--
"Run away!"
The lad jumped like a frightened frog to a bend in the street caused
by the projection of a mill just where the square opens into the main
thoroughfare; but in spite of his agility his hob-nailed shoes echoed
on the stones with a sound easily distinguished from the music of the
mill and no doubt heard by the person who opened the window.
That person was a woman. No man would have torn himself from the
comfort of a morning nap to listen to a minstrel in a jacket; none but
a maid awakes to songs of love. Not only was this woman a maid but
she was an old maid. When she had opened her blinds with the furtive
motion of the bat she looked in all directions but saw nothing and
only heard faintly the flying footfalls of the lad. Can there be
anything more dreadful than the matutinal apparition of an ugly old
maid at her window? Of all the grotesque sights which amuse the eyes
of travellers in country towns that is the most unpleasant. It is too
repulsive to laugh at. This particular old maid whose ear was so
keen was denuded of all the adventitious aids of whatever kind
which she employed as embellishments; her false front and her
collarette were lacking; she wore that horrible little bag of black
silk on which old women insist on covering their skulls and it was
now revealed beneath the night-cap which had been pushed aside in
sleep. This rumpled condition gave a menacing expression to the head
such as painters bestow on witches. The temples ears and nape of the
neck were disclosed in all their withered horror--the wrinkles being
marked in scarlet lines that contrasted with the would-be white of the
bed-gown which was tied round her neck by a narrow tape. The gaping of
this garment revealed a breast to be likened only to that of an old
peasant woman who cares nothing about her personal ugliness. The
fleshless arm was like a stick on which a bit of stuff was hung. Seen
at her window this spinster seemed tall from the length and
angularity of her face which recalled the exaggerated proportions of
certain Swiss heads. The character of their countenance--the features
being marked by a total want of harmony--was that of hardness in the
lines sharpness in the tones; while an unfeeling spirit pervading
all would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These
characteristics fully visible at this moment were usually modified
in public by a sort of commercial smile--a bourgeois smirk which
mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might
very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares
with her brother. The brother by-the-bye was sleeping so tranquilly
in his own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house could not
have awakened him wonderful as its diapason is said to be.
The old maid stretched her neck out of the window twisted it and
raised her cold pale-blue little eyes with their short lashes set in
lids that were always rather swollen to the attic window endeavoring
to see Pierrette. Perceiving the uselessness of that attempt she
retreated into her room with a movement like that of a tortoise which
draws in its head after protruding it from its carapace. The blinds
were then closed and the silence of the street was unbroken except by
peasants coming in from the country or very early persons moving
about.
When there is an old maid in a house watch-dogs are unnecessary; not
the slightest event can occur that she does not see and comment upon
and pursue to its utmost consequences. The foregoing trifling
circumstance was therefore destined to give rise to grave
suppositions and to open the way for one of those obscure dramas
which take place in families and are none the less terrible because
they are secret--if indeed we may apply the word "drama" to such
...
|
