The Red Inn

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THE RED INN

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated by

Katharine Prescott Wormeley




DEDICATION

To Monsieur le Marquis de Custine.




THE RED INN



In I know not what year a Parisian banker, who had very extensive
commercial relations with Germany, was entertaining at dinner one of
those friends whom men of business often make in the markets of the
world through correspondence; a man hitherto personally unknown to
him. This friend, the head of a rather important house in Nuremburg,
was a stout worthy German, a man of taste and erudition, above all a
man of pipes, having a fine, broad, Nuremburgian face, with a square
open forehead adorned by a few sparse locks of yellowish hair. He was
the type of the sons of that pure and noble Germany, so fertile in
honorable natures, whose peaceful manners and morals have never been
lost, even after seven invasions.

This stranger laughed with simplicity, listened attentively, and drank
remarkably well, seeming to like champagne as much perhaps as he liked
his straw-colored Johannisburger. His name was Hermann, which is that
of most Germans whom authors bring upon their scene. Like a man who
does nothing frivolously, he was sitting squarely at the banker's
table and eating with that Teutonic appetite so celebrated throughout
Europe, saying, in fact, a conscientious farewell to the cookery of
the great Careme.

To do honor to his guest the master of the house had invited a few
intimate friends, capitalists or merchants, and several agreeable and
pretty women, whose pleasant chatter and frank manners were in harmony
with German cordiality. Really, if you could have seen, as I saw, this
joyous gathering of persons who had drawn in their commercial claws,
and were speculating only on the pleasures of life, you would have
found no cause to hate usurious discounts, or to curse bankruptcies.
Mankind can't always be doing evil. Even in the society of pirates one
might find a few sweet hours during which we could fancy their
sinister craft a pleasure-boat rocking on the deep.

"Before we part, Monsieur Hermann will, I trust, tell one more German
story to terrify us?"

These words were said at dessert by a pale fair girl, who had read, no
doubt, the tales of Hoffmann and the novels of Walter Scott. She was
the only daughter of the banker, a charming young creature whose
education was then being finished at the Gymnase, the plays of which
she adored. At this moment the guests were in that happy state of
laziness and silence which follows a delicious dinner, especially if
we have presumed too far on our digestive powers. Leaning back in
their chairs, their wrists lightly resting on the edge of the table,
they were indolently playing with the gilded blades of their
dessert-knives. When a dinner comes to this declining moment some
guests will be seen to play with a pear seed; others roll crumbs of
bread between their fingers and thumbs; lovers trace indistinct
letters with fragments of fruit; misers count the stones on their
plate and arrange them as a manager marshals his supernumeraries at
the back of the stage. These are little gastronomic felicities which
Brillat-Savarin, otherwise so complete an author, overlooked in his
book. The footmen had disappeared. The dessert was like a squadron
after a battle: all the dishes were disabled, pillaged, damaged;
several were wandering around the table, in spite of the efforts of
the mistress of the house to keep them in their places. Some of the
persons present were gazing at pictures of Swiss scenery,
symmetrically hung upon the gray-toned walls of the dining-room. Not
a single guest was bored; in fact, I never yet knew a man who was sad
during his digestion of a good dinner. We like at such moments to
remain in quietude, a species of middle ground between the reverie of
a thinker and the comfort of the ruminating animals; a condition
which we may call the material melancholy of gastronomy.

So the guests now turned spontaneously to the excellent German,
delighted to have a tale to listen to, even though it might prove of
no interest. During this blessed interregnum the voice of a narrator
is always delightful to our languid senses; it increases their
negative happiness. I, a seeker after impressions, admired the faces
about me, enlivened by smiles, beaming in the light of the wax
candles, and somewhat flushed by our late good cheer; their diverse
expressions producing piquant effects seen among the porcelain
baskets, the fruits, the glasses, and the candelabra.

All of a sudden my imagination was caught by the aspect of a guest who
sat directly in front of me. He was a man of medium height, rather fat
and smiling, having the air and manner of a stock-broker, and
apparently endowed with a very ordinary mind. Hitherto I had scarcely
noticed him, but now his face, possibly darkened by a change in the
lights, seemed to me to have altered its character; it had certainly
grown ghastly; violet tones were spreading over it; you might have
thought it the cadaverous head of a dying man. Motionless as the
personages painted on a diorama, his stupefied eyes were fixed on the
sparkling facets of a cut-glass stopper, but certainly without
observing them; he seemed to be engulfed in some weird contemplation
of the future or the past. When I had long examined that puzzling face
I began to reflect about it. "Is he ill?" I said to myself. "Has he
drunk too much wine? Is he ruined by a drop in the Funds? Is he
thinking how to cheat his creditors?"

"Look!" I said to my neighbor, pointing out to her the face of the
unknown man, "is that an embryo bankrupt?"

"Oh, no!" she answered, "he would be much gayer." Then, nodding her
head gracefully, she added, "If that man ever ruins himself I'll tell
it in Pekin! He possesses a million in real estate. That's a former
purveyor to the imperial armies; a good sort of man, and rather
original. He married a second time by way of speculation; but for all
that he makes his wife extremely happy. He has a pretty daughter, whom
he refused for many years to recognize; but the death of his son,
unfortunately killed in a duel, has compelled him to take her home,
for he could not otherwise have children. The poor girl has suddenly
become one of the richest heiresses in Paris. The death of his son
threw the poor man into an agony of grief, which sometimes reappears
on the surface."

At that instant the purveyor raised his eyes and rested them upon me;
that glance made me quiver, so full was it of gloomy thought. But
suddenly his face grew lively; he picked up the cut-glass stopper and
put it, with a mechanical movement, into a decanter full of water that
was near his plate, and then he turned to Monsieur Hermann and smiled.
After all, that man, now beatified by gastronomical enjoyments, hadn't
probably two ideas in his brain, and was thinking of nothing.
Consequently I felt rather ashamed of wasting my powers of divination
"in anima vili,"--of a doltish financier.

While I was thus making, at a dead loss, these phrenological
observations, the worthy German had lined his nose with a good pinch
of snuff and was now beginning his tale. It would be difficult to
reproduce it in his own language, with his frequent interruptions and
wordy digressions. Therefore, I now write it down in my own way;
leaving out the faults of the Nuremburger, and taking only what his
tale may have had of interest and poesy with the coolness of writers
who forget to put on the title pages of their books: "Translated from
the German."



THOUGHT AND ACT

Toward the end of Venemiaire, year VII., a republican period which in
the present day corresponds to October 20, 1799, two young men,
leaving Bonn in the early morning, had reached by nightfall the
environs of Andernach, a small town standing on the left bank of the
Rhine a few leagues from Coblentz. At that time the French army,
commanded by Augereau, was manoeuvring before the Austrians, who then
occupied the right bank of the river. The headquarters of the
Republican division was at Coblentz, and one of the demi-brigades
belonging to Augereau's corps was stationed at Andernach.

The two travellers were Frenchmen. At sight of their uniforms, blue
mixed with white and faced with red velvet, their sabres, and above
all their hats covered with a green varnished-cloth and adorned with a
tricolor plume, even the German peasants had recognized army surgeons,
a body of men of science and merit liked, for the most part, not only
in our own army but also in the countries invaded by our troops. At
this period many sons of good families taken from their medical
studies by the recent conscription law due to General Jourdan, had
naturally preferred to continue their studies on the battle-field
rather than be restricted to mere military duty, little in keeping
with their early education and their peaceful destinies. Men of
science, pacific yet useful, these young men did an actual good in the
midst of so much misery, and formed a bond of sympathy with other men
of science in the various countries through which the cruel
civilization of the Republic passed.

The two young men were each provided with a pass and a commission as
assistant-surgeon signed Coste and Bernadotte; and they were on their
way to join the demi-brigade to which they were attached. Both
belonged to moderately rich families in Beauvais, a town in which the
gentle manners and loyalty of the provinces are transmitted as a
species of birthright. Attracted to the theatre of war before the date
at which they were required to begin their functions, they had
travelled by diligence to Strasburg. Though maternal prudence had only
allowed them a slender sum of money they thought themselves rich in
possessing a few louis, an actual treasure in those days when
assignats were reaching their lowest depreciation and gold was worth
far more than silver. The two young surgeons, about twenty years of
age at the most, yielded themselves up to the poesy of their situation
with all the enthusiasm of youth. Between Strasburg and Bonn they had
visited the Electorate and the banks of the Rhine as artists,
philosophers, and observers. When a man's destiny is scientific he is,
at their age, a being who is truly many-sided. Even in making love or
in travelling, an assistant-surgeon should be gathering up the
rudiments of his fortune or his coming fame.

The two young had therefore given themselves wholly to that deep
admiration which must affect all educated men on seeing the banks of
the Rhine and the scenery of Suabia between Mayenne and Cologne,--a
strong, rich, vigorously varied nature, filled with feudal memories,
ever fresh and verdant, yet retaining at all points the imprints of
fire and sword. Louis XIV. and Turenne have cauterized that beautiful
land. Here and there certain ruins bear witness to the pride or rather
the foresight of the King of Versailles, who caused to be pulled down
the ancient castles that once adorned this part of Germany. Looking at
this marvellous country, covered with forests, where the picturesque
charm of the middle ages abounds, though in ruins, we are able to
conceive the German genius, its reverie, its mysticism.

The stay of the two friends at Bonn had the double purpose of science
and pleasure. The grand hospital of the Gallo-Batavian army and of
Augereau's division was established in the very palace of the Elector.
These assistant-surgeons of recent date went there to see old
comrades, to present their letters of recommendation to their medical
chiefs, and to familiarize themselves with the first aspects of their
profession. There, as elsewhere, they got rid of a few prejudices to
which we cling so fondly in favor of the beauties of our native land.
Surprised by the aspect of the columns of marble which adorn the
Electoral Palace, they went about admiring the grandiose effects of
German architecture, and finding everywhere new treasures both modern
and antique.

From time to time the highways along which the two friends rode at
leisure on their way to Andernach, led them over the crest of some
granite hill that was higher than the rest. Thence, through a clearing
of the forest or cleft in the rocky barrier, they caught sudden
glimpses of the Rhine framed in stone or festooned with vigorous
vegetation. The valleys, the forest paths, the trees exhaled that
autumnal odor which induced to reverie; the wooded summits were
beginning to gild and to take on the warm brown tones significant of
age; the leaves were falling, but the skies were still azure and the
dry roads lay like yellow lines along the landscape, just then
illuminated by the oblique rays of the setting sun. At a mile and a
half from Andernach the two friends walked their horses in silence, as
if no war were devastating this beautiful land, while they followed a
path made for the goats across the lofty walls of bluish granite
between which foams the Rhine. Presently they descended by one of the
declivities of the gorge, at the foot of which is placed the little
town, seated coquettishly on the banks of the river and offering a
convenient port to mariners.

"Germany is a beautiful country!" cried one of the two young men, who
was named Prosper Magnan, at the moment when he caught sight of the
painted houses of Andernach, pressed together like eggs in a basket,
and separated only by trees, gardens, and flowers. Then he admired for
a moment the pointed roofs with their projecting eaves, the wooden
staircases, the galleries of a thousand peaceful dwellings, and the
vessels swaying to the waves in the port.

[At the moment when Monsieur Hermann uttered the name of Prosper
Magnan, my opposite neighbor seized the decanter, poured out a glass
of water, and emptied it at a draught. This movement having attracted
my attention, I thought I noticed a slight trembling of the hand and a
moisture on the brow of the capitalist.

"What is that man's name?" I asked my neighbor.

"Taillefer," she replied.

"Do you feel ill?" I said to him, observing that this strange
personage was turning pale.

"Not at all," he said with a polite gesture of thanks. "I am
listening," he added, with a nod to the guests, who were all
simultaneously looking at him.

"I have forgotten," said Monsieur Hermann, "the name of the other
young man. But the confidences which Prosper Magnan subsequently made
to me enabled me to know that his companion was dark, rather thin, and
jovial. I will, if you please, call him Wilhelm, to give greater
clearness to the tale I am about to tell you."

The worthy German resumed his narrative after having, without the
smallest regard for romanticism and local color, baptized the young
French surgeon with a Teutonic name.]

By the time the two young men reached Andernach the night was dark.
Presuming that they would lose much time in looking for their chiefs
and obtaining from them a military billet in a town already full of
soldiers, they resolved to spend their last night of freedom at an inn
standing some two or three hundred feet from Andernach, the rich color
of which, embellished by the fires of the setting sun, they had
greatly admired from the summit of the hill above the town. Painted
entirely red, this inn produced a most piquant effect in the
landscape, whether by detaching itself from the general background of
the town, or by contrasting its scarlet sides with the verdure of the
surrounding foliage, and the gray-blue tints of the water. This house
owed its name, the Red Inn, to this external decoration, imposed upon
it, no doubt from time immemorial by the caprice of its founder. A
mercantile superstition, natural enough to the different possessors of
the building, far-famed among the sailors of the Rhine, had made them
scrupulous to preserve the title.

Hearing the sound of horses' hoofs, the master of the Red Inn came out
upon the threshold of his door.

"By heavens! gentlemen," he cried, "a little later and you'd have had
to sleep beneath the stars, like a good many more of your compatriots
who are bivouacking on the other side of Andernach. Here every room is
occupied. If you want to sleep in a good bed I have only my own room
to offer you. As for your horses I can litter them down in a corner of
the courtyard. The stable is full of people. Do these gentlemen come
from France?" he added after a slight pause.

"From Bonn," cried Prosper, "and we have eaten nothing since morning."

"Oh! as to provisions," said the innkeeper, nodding his head, "people
come to the Red Inn for their wedding feast from thirty miles round.
You shall have a princely meal, a Rhine fish! More, I need not say."

After confiding their weary steeds to the care of the landlord, who
vainly called to his hostler, the two young men entered the public
room of the inn. Thick white clouds exhaled by a numerous company of
smokers prevented them from at first recognizing the persons with whom
they were thrown; but after sitting awhile near the table, with the
patience practised by philosophical travellers who know the inutility
of making a fuss, they distinguished through the vapors of tobacco the
inevitable accessories of a German inn: the stove, the clock, the pots
of beer, the long pipes, and here and there the eccentric
physiognomies of Jews, or Germans, and the weather-beaten faces of
mariners. The epaulets of several French officers were glittering
through the mist, and the clank of spurs and sabres echoed incessantly
from the brick floor. Some were playing cards, others argued, or held
their tongues and ate, drank, or walked about. One stout little woman,
wearing a black velvet cap, blue and silver stomacher, pincushion,
bunch of keys, silver buckles, braided hair,--all distinctive signs of
the mistress of a German inn (a costume which has been so often
depicted in colored prints that it is too common to describe here),
--well, this wife of the innkeeper kept the two friends alternately
patient and impatient with remarkable ability.

Little by little the noise decreased, the various travellers retired
to their rooms, the clouds of smoke dispersed. When places were set
for the two young men, and the classic carp of the Rhine appeared upon
the table, eleven o'clock was striking and the room was empty. The
silence of night enabled the young surgeons to hear vaguely the noise
their horses made in eating their provender, and the murmur of the
waters of the Rhine, together with those indefinable sounds which
always enliven an inn when filled with persons preparing to go to bed.
Doors and windows are opened and shut, voices murmur vague words, and
a few interpellations echo along the passages.

At this moment of silence and tumult the two Frenchmen and their
landlord, who was boasting of Andernach, his inn, his cookery, the
Rhine wines, the Republican army, and his wife, were all three
listening with a sort of interest to the hoarse cries of sailors in a
boat which appeared to be coming to the wharf. The innkeeper, familiar
no doubt with the guttural shouts of the boatmen, went out hastily,
but presently returned conducting a short stout man, behind whom
walked two sailors carrying a heavy valise and several packages. When
these were deposited in the room, the short man took the valise and
placed it beside him as he seated himself without ceremony at the same
table as the surgeons.

"Go and sleep in your boat," he said to the boatmen, "as the inn is
full. Considering all things, that is best."

"Monsieur," said the landlord to the new-comer, "these are all the
provisions I have left," pointing to the supper served to the two
Frenchmen; "I haven't so much as another crust of bread nor a bone."

"No sauer-kraut?"

"Not enough to put in my wife's thimble! As I had the honor to tell
you just now, you can have no bed but the chair on which you are
sitting, and no other chamber than this public room."

At these words the little man cast upon the landlord, the room, and
the two Frenchmen a look in which caution and alarm were equally
expressed.

["Here," said Monsieur Hermann, interrupting himself, "I ought to tell
you that we have never known the real name nor the history of this
man; his papers showed that he came from Aix-la-Chapelle; he called
himself Wahlenfer and said that he owned a rather extensive pin
manufactory in the suburbs of Neuwied. Like all the manufacturers of
that region, he wore a surtout coat of common cloth, waistcoat and
breeches of dark green velveteen, stout boots, and a broad leather
belt. His face was round, his manners frank and cordial; but during
the evening he seemed unable to disguise altogether some secret
apprehension or, possibly, some anxious care. The innkeeper's opinion
has always been that this German merchant was fleeing his country.
Later I heard that his manufactory had been burned by one of those
unfortunate chances so frequent in times of war. In spite of its
anxious expression the man's face showed great kindliness. His
features were handsome; and the whiteness of his stout throat was well
set off by a black cravat, a fact which Wilhelm showed jestingly to
Prosper."

Here Monsieur Taillefer drank another glass of water.]

Prosper courteously proposed that the merchant should share their
supper, and Wahlenfer accepted the offer without ceremony, like a man
who feels himself able to return a civility. He placed his valise on
the floor and put his feet on it, took off his hat and gloves and
removed a pair of pistols from his belt; the landlord having by this
time set a knife and fork for him, the three guests began to satisfy
their appetites in silence. The atmosphere of this room was hot and
the flies were so numerous that Prosper requested the landlord to open
the window looking toward the outer gate, so as to change the air.
This window was barricaded by an iron bar, the two ends of which were
inserted into holes made in the window casings. For greater security,
two bolts were screwed to each shutter. Prosper accidentally noticed
the manner in which the landlord managed these obstacles and opened
the window.

As I am now speaking of localities, this is the place to describe to
you the interior arrangements of the inn; for, on an accurate
knowledge of the premises depends an understanding of my tale. The
public room in which the three persons I have named to you were
sitting, had two outer doors. One opened on the main road to
Andernach, which skirts the Rhine. In front of the inn was a little
wharf, to which the boat hired by the merchant for his journey was
moored. The other door opened upon the courtyard of the inn. This
courtyard was surrounded by very high walls and was full, for the time
being, of cattle and horses, the stables being occupied by human
beings. The great gate leading into this courtyard had been so
carefully barricaded that to save time the landlord had brought the
merchant and sailors into the public room through the door opening on
the roadway. After having opened the window, as requested by Prosper
Magnan, he closed this door, slipped the iron bars into their places
and ran the bolts. The landlord's room, where the two young surgeons
were to sleep, adjoined the public room, and was separated by a
somewhat thin partition from the kitchen, where the landlord and his
wife intended, probably, to pass the night. The servant-woman had left
the premises to find a lodging in some crib or hayloft. It is
therefore easy to see that the kitchen, the landlord's chamber, and
the public room were, to some extent, isolated from the rest of the
house. In the courtyard were two large dogs, whose deep-toned barking
showed vigilant and easily roused guardians.

"What silence! and what a beautiful night!" said Wilhelm, looking at
the sky through the window, as the landlord was fastening the door.

The lapping of the river against the wharf was the only sound to be
heard.

"Messieurs," said the merchant, "permit me to offer you a few bottles
of wine to wash down the carp. We'll ease the fatigues of the day by
drinking. From your manner and the state of your clothes, I judge that
you have made, like me, a good bit of a journey to-day."

The two friends accepted, and the landlord went out by a door through
the kitchen to his cellar, situated, no doubt, under this portion of
the building. When five venerable bottles which he presently brought
back with him appeared on the table, the wife brought in the rest of
the supper. She gave to the dishes and to the room generally the
glance of a mistress, and then, sure of having attended to all the
wants of the travellers, she returned to the kitchen.

The four men, for the landlord was invited to drink, did not hear her
go to bed, but later, during the intervals of silence which came into
their talk, certain strongly accentuated snores, made the more
sonorous by the thin planks of the loft in which she had ensconced
herself, made the guests laugh and also the husband. Towards midnight,
when nothing remained on the table but biscuits, cheese, dried fruit,
and good wine, the guests, chiefly the young Frenchmen, became
communicative. The latter talked of their homes, their studies, and of
the war. The conversation grew lively. Prosper Magnan brought a few
tears to the merchant's eyes, when with the frankness and naivete of a
good and tender nature, he talked of what his mother must be doing at
that hour, while he was sitting drinking on the banks of the Rhine.