A Second Home

H >> Honore de Balzac >> A Second Home

A SECOND HOME

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC


Translated by
Clara Bell



DEDICATION

To Madame la Comtesse Louise de Turheim as a token of
remembrance and affectionate respect.



A SECOND HOME



The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most
tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the
little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi,
exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the
turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed till
1823, when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plot
adjoining the Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Duc
d'Angouleme on his return from Spain.

The widest part of the Rue du Tourniquet was the end opening into the
Rue de la Tixeranderie, and even there it was less than six feet
across. Hence in rainy weather the gutter water was soon deep at the
foot of the old houses, sweeping down with it the dust and refuse
deposited at the corner-stones by the residents. As the dust-carts
could not pass through, the inhabitants trusted to storms to wash
their always miry alley; for how could it be clean? When the summer
sun shed its perpendicular rays on Paris like a sheet of gold, but as
piercing as the point of a sword, it lighted up the blackness of this
street for a few minutes without drying the permanent damp that rose
from the ground-floor to the first story of these dark and silent
tenements.

The residents, who lighted their lamps at five o'clock in the month of
June, in winter never put them out. To this day the enterprising
wayfarer who should approach the Marais along the quays, past the end
of the Rue du Chaume, the Rues de l'Homme Arme, des Billettes, and des
Deux-Portes, all leading to the Rue du Tourniquet, might think he had
passed through cellars all the way.

Almost all the streets of old Paris, of which ancient chronicles laud
the magnificence, were like this damp and gloomy labyrinth, where the
antiquaries still find historical curiosities to admire. For instance,
on the house then forming the corner where the Rue du Tourniquet
joined the Rue de la Tixeranderie, the clamps might still be seen of
two strong iron rings fixed to the wall, the relics of the chains put
up every night by the watch to secure public safety.

This house, remarkable for its antiquity, had been constructed in a
way that bore witness to the unhealthiness of these old dwellings;
for, to preserve the ground-floor from damp, the arches of the cellars
rose about two feet above the soil, and the house was entered up three
outside steps. The door was crowned by a closed arch, of which the
keystone bore a female head and some time-eaten arabesques. Three
windows, their sills about five feet from the ground, belonged to a
small set of rooms looking out on the Rue du Tourniquet, whence they
derived their light. These windows were protected by strong iron bars,
very wide apart, and ending below in an outward curve like the bars of
a baker's window.

If any passer-by during the day were curious enough to peep into the
two rooms forming this little dwelling, he could see nothing; for only
under the sun of July could he discern, in the second room, two beds
hung with green serge, placed side by side under the paneling of an
old-fashioned alcove; but in the afternoon, by about three o'clock,
when the candles were lighted, through the pane of the first room an
old woman might be seen sitting on a stool by the fireplace, where she
nursed the fire in a brazier, to simmer a stew, such as porters' wives
are expert in. A few kitchen utensils, hung up against the wall, were
visible in the twilight.

At that hour an old table on trestles, but bare of linen, was laid
with pewter-spoons, and the dish concocted by the old woman. Three
wretched chairs were all the furniture of this room, which was at once
the kitchen and the dining-room. Over the chimney-piece were a piece
of looking-glass, a tinder-box, three glasses, some matches, and a
large, cracked white jug. Still, the floor, the utensils, the
fireplace, all gave a pleasant sense of the perfect cleanliness and
thrift that pervaded the dull and gloomy home.

The old woman's pale, withered face was quite in harmony with the
darkness of the street and the mustiness of the place. As she sat
there, motionless, in her chair, it might have been thought that she
was as inseparable from the house as a snail from its brown shell; her
face, alert with a vague expression of mischief, was framed in a flat
cap made of net, which barely covered her white hair; her fine, gray
eyes were as quiet as the street, and the many wrinkles in her face
might be compared to the cracks in the walls. Whether she had been
born to poverty, or had fallen from some past splendor, she now seemed
to have been long resigned to her melancholy existence.

From sunrise till dark, excepting when she was getting a meal ready,
or, with a basket on her arm, was out purchasing provisions, the old
woman sat in the adjoining room by the further window, opposite a
young girl. At any hour of the day the passer-by could see the
needlewoman seated in an old, red velvet chair, bending over an
embroidery frame, and stitching indefatigably.

Her mother had a green pillow on her knee, and busied herself with
hand-made net; but her fingers could move the bobbin but slowly; her
sight was feeble, for on her nose there rested a pair of those
antiquated spectacles which keep their place on the nostrils by the
grip of a spring. By night these two hardworking women set a lamp
between them; and the light, concentrated by two globe-shaped bottles
of water, showed the elder the fine network made by the threads on her
pillow, and the younger the most delicate details of the pattern she
was embroidering. The outward bend of the window had allowed the girl
to rest a box of earth on the window-sill, in which grew some sweet
peas, nasturtiums, a sickly little honeysuckle, and some convolvulus
that twined its frail stems up the iron bars. These etiolated plants
produced a few pale flowers, and added a touch of indescribable
sadness and sweetness to the picture offered by this window, in which
the two figures were appropriately framed.

The most selfish soul who chanced to see this domestic scene would
carry away with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the
working class of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her
needle. Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves
wondering how a girl could preserve her color, living in such a
cellar. A student of lively imagination, going that way to cross to
the Quartier-Latin, would compare this obscure and vegetative life to
that of the ivy that clung to these chill walls, to that of the
peasants born to labor, who are born, toil, and die unknown to the
world they have helped to feed. A house-owner, after studying the
house with the eye of a valuer, would have said, "What will become of
those two women if embroidery should go out of fashion?" Among the men
who, having some appointment at the Hotel de Ville or the Palais de
Justice, were obliged to go through this street at fixed hours, either
on their way to business or on their return home, there may have been
some charitable soul. Some widower or Adonis of forty, brought so
often into the secrets of these sad lives, may perhaps have reckoned
on the poverty of this mother and daughter, and have hoped to become
the master at no great cost of the innocent work-woman, whose nimble
and dimpled fingers, youthful figure, and white skin--a charm due, no
doubt, to living in this sunless street--had excited his admiration.
Perhaps, again, some honest clerk, with twelve hundred francs a year,
seeing every day the diligence the girl gave to her needle, and
appreciating the purity of her life, was only waiting for improved
prospects to unite one humble life with another, one form of toil to
another, and to bring at any rate a man's arm and a calm affection,
pale-hued like the flowers in the window, to uphold this home.

Vague hope certainly gave life to the mother's dim, gray eyes. Every
morning, after the most frugal breakfast, she took up her pillow,
though chiefly for the look of the thing, for she would lay her
spectacles on a little mahogany worktable as old as herself, and look
out of the window from about half-past eight till ten at the regular
passers in the street; she caught their glances, remarked on their
gait, their dress, their countenance, and almost seemed to be offering
her daughter, her gossiping eyes so evidently tried to attract some
magnetic sympathy by manoeuvres worthy of the stage. It was evident
that this little review was as good as a play to her, and perhaps her
single amusement.

The daughter rarely looked up. Modesty, or a painful consciousness of
poverty, seemed to keep her eyes riveted to the work-frame; and only
some exclamation of surprise from her mother moved her to show her
small features. Then a clerk in a new coat, or who unexpectedly
appeared with a woman on his arm, might catch sight of the girl's
slightly upturned nose, her rosy mouth, and gray eyes, always bright
and lively in spite of her fatiguing toil. Her late hours had left a
trace on her face by a pale circle marked under each eye on the fresh
rosiness of her cheeks. The poor child looked as if she were made for
love and cheerfulness--for love, which had drawn two perfect arches
above her eyelids, and had given her such a mass of chestnut hair,
that she might have hidden under it as under a tent, impenetrable to
the lover's eye--for cheerfulness, which gave quivering animation to
her nostrils, which carved two dimples in her rosy cheeks, and made
her quick to forget her troubles; cheerfulness, the blossom of hope,
which gave her strength to look out without shuddering on the barren
path of life.

The girl's hair was always carefully dressed. After the manner of
Paris needlewomen, her toilet seemed to her quite complete when she
had brushed her hair smooth and tucked up the little short curls that
played on each temple in contrast with the whiteness of her skin. The
growth of it on the back of her neck was so pretty, and the brown
line, so clearly traced, gave such a pleasing idea of her youth and
charm, that the observer, seeing her bent over her work, and unmoved
by any sound, was inclined to think of her as a coquette. Such
inviting promise had excited the interest of more than one young man,
who turned round in the vain hope of seeing that modest countenance.

"Caroline, there is a new face that passes regularly by, and not one
of the old ones to compare with it."

These words, spoken in a low voice by her mother one August morning in
1815, had vanquished the young needlewoman's indifference, and she
looked out on the street; but in vain, the stranger was gone.

"Where has he flown to?" said she.

"He will come back no doubt at four; I shall see him coming, and will
touch your foot with mine. I am sure he will come back; he has been
through the street regularly for the last three days; but his hours
vary. The first day he came by at six o'clock, the day before
yesterday it was four, yesterday as early as three. I remember seeing
him occasionally some time ago. He is some clerk in the Prefet's
office who has moved to the Marais.--Why!" she exclaimed, after
glancing down the street, "our gentleman of the brown coat has taken
to wearing a wig; how much it alters him!"

The gentleman of the brown coat was, it would seem, the individual who
commonly closed the daily procession, for the old woman put on her
spectacles and took up her work with a sigh, glancing at her daughter
with so strange a look that Lavater himself would have found it
difficult to interpret. Admiration, gratitude, a sort of hope for
better days, were mingled with pride at having such a pretty daughter.

At about four in the afternoon the old lady pushed her foot against
Caroline's, and the girl looked up quickly enough to see the new
actor, whose regular advent would thenceforth lend variety to the
scene. He was tall and thin, and wore black, a man of about forty,
with a certain solemnity of demeanor; as his piercing hazel eye met
the old woman's dull gaze, he made her quake, for she felt as though
he had the gift of reading hearts, or much practice in it, and his
presence must surely be as icy as the air of this dank street. Was the
dull, sallow complexion of that ominous face due to excess of work, or
the result of delicate health?

The old woman supplied twenty different answers to this question; but
Caroline, next day, discerned the lines of long mental suffering on
that brow that was so prompt to frown. The rather hollow cheeks of the
Unknown bore the stamp of the seal which sorrow sets on its victims as
if to grant them the consolation of common recognition and brotherly
union for resistance. Though the girl's expression was at first one of
lively but innocent curiosity, it assumed a look of gentle sympathy as
the stranger receded from view, like a last relation following in a
funeral train.

The heat of the weather was so great, and the gentleman was so
absent-minded, that he had taken off his hat and forgotten to put it on
again as he went down the squalid street. Caroline could see the stern
look given to his countenance by the way the hair was brushed from his
forehead. The strong impression, devoid of charm, made on the girl by
this man's appearance was totally unlike any sensation produced by the
other passengers who used the street; for the first time in her life
she was moved to pity for some one else than herself and her mother;
she made no reply to the absurd conjectures that supplied material for
the old woman's provoking volubility, and drew her long needle in
silence through the web of stretched net; she only regretted not
having seen the stranger more closely, and looked forward to the
morrow to form a definite opinion of him.

It was the first time, indeed, that a man passing down the street had
ever given rise to much thought in her mind. She generally had nothing
but a smile in response to her mother's hypotheses, for the old woman
looked on every passer-by as a possible protector for her daughter.
And if such suggestions, so crudely presented, gave rise to no evil
thoughts in Caroline's mind, her indifference must be ascribed to the
persistent and unfortunately inevitable toil in which the energies of
her sweet youth were being spent, and which would infallibly mar the
clearness of her eyes or steal from her fresh cheeks the bloom that
still colored them.

For two months or more the "Black Gentleman"--the name they had given
him--was erratic in his movements; he did not always come down the Rue
du Tourniquet; the old woman sometimes saw him in the evening when he
had not passed in the morning, and he did not come by at such regular
hours as the clerks who served Madame Crochard instead of a clock;
moreover, excepting on the first occasion, when his look had given the
old mother a sense of alarm, his eyes had never once dwelt on the
weird picture of these two female gnomes. With the exception of two
carriage-gates and a dark ironmonger's shop, there were in the Rue du
Tourniquet only barred windows, giving light to the staircases of the
neighboring houses; thus the stranger's lack of curiosity was not to
be accounted for by the presence of dangerous rivals; and Madame
Crochard was greatly piqued to see her "Black Gentleman" always lost
in thought, his eyes fixed on the ground, or straight before him, as
though he hoped to read the future in the fog of the Rue du
Tourniquet. However, one morning, about the middle of September,
Caroline Crochard's roguish face stood out so brightly against the
dark background of the room, looking so fresh among the belated
flowers and faded leaves that twined round the window-bars, the daily
scene was gay with such contrasts of light and shade, of pink and
white blending with the light material on which the pretty needlewoman
was working, and with the red and brown hues of the chairs, that the
stranger gazed very attentively at the effects of this living picture.
In point of fact, the old woman, provoked by her "Black Gentleman's"
indifference, had made such a clatter with her bobbins that the gloomy
and pensive passer-by was perhaps prompted to look up by the unusual
noise.

The stranger merely exchanged glances with Caroline, swift indeed, but
enough to effect a certain contact between their souls, and both were
aware that they would think of each other. When the stranger came by
again, at four in the afternoon, Caroline recognized the sound of his
step on the echoing pavement; they looked steadily at each other, and
with evident purpose; his eyes had an expression of kindliness which
made him smile, and Caroline colored; the old mother noted them with
satisfaction. Ever after that memorable afternoon, the Gentleman in
Black went by twice a day, with rare exceptions, which both the women
observed. They concluded from the irregularity of the hours of his
homecoming that he was not released so early, nor so precisely
punctual as a subordinate official.

All through the first three winter months, twice a day, Caroline and
the stranger thus saw each other for so long as it took him to
traverse the piece of road that lay along the length of the door and
three windows of the house. Day after day this brief interview had the
hue of friendly sympathy which at last had acquired a sort of
fraternal kindness. Caroline and the stranger seemed to understand
each other from the first; and then, by dint of scrutinizing each
other's faces, they learned to know them well. Ere long it came to be,
as it were, a visit that the Unknown owed to Caroline; if by any
chance her Gentleman in Black went by without bestowing on her the
half-smile of his expressive lips, or the cordial glance of his brown
eyes, something was missing to her all day. She felt as an old man
does to whom the daily study of a newspaper is such an indispensable
pleasure that on the day after any great holiday he wanders about
quite lost, and seeking, as much out of vagueness as for want of
patience, the sheet by which he cheats an hour of life.

But these brief meetings had the charm of intimate friendliness, quite
as much for the stranger as for Caroline. The girl could no more hide
a vexation, a grief, or some slight ailment from the keen eye of her
appreciative friend than he could conceal anxiety from hers.

"He must have had some trouble yesterday," was the thought that
constantly arose in the embroideress' mind as she saw some change in
the features of the "Black Gentleman."

"Oh, he has been working too hard!" was a reflection due to another
shade of expression which Caroline could discern.

The stranger, on his part, could guess when the girl had spent Sunday
in finishing a dress, and he felt an interest in the pattern. As
quarter-day came near he could see that her pretty face was clouded by
anxiety, and he could guess when Caroline had sat up late at work; but
above all, he noted how the gloomy thoughts that dimmed the cheerful
and delicate features of her young face gradually vanished by degrees
as their acquaintance ripened. When winter had killed the climbers and
plants of her window garden, and the window was kept closed, it was
not without a smile of gentle amusement that the stranger observed the
concentration of the light within, just at the level of Caroline's
head. The very small fire and the frosty red of the two women's faces
betrayed the poverty of their home; but if ever his own countenance
expressed regretful compassion, the girl proudly met it with assumed
cheerfulness.

Meanwhile the feelings that had arisen in their hearts remained buried
there, no incident occurring to reveal to either of them how deep and
strong they were in the other; they had never even heard the sound of
each other's voice. These mute friends were even on their guard
against any nearer acquaintance, as though it meant disaster. Each
seemed to fear lest it should bring on the other some grief more
serious than those they felt tempted to share. Was it shyness or
friendship that checked them? Was it a dread of meeting with
selfishness, or the odious distrust which sunders all the residents
within the walls of a populous city? Did the voice of conscience warn
them of approaching danger? It would be impossible to explain the
instinct which made them as much enemies as friends, at once
indifferent and attached, drawn to each other by impulse, and severed
by circumstance. Each perhaps hoped to preserve a cherished illusion.
It might almost have been thought that the stranger feared lest he
should hear some vulgar word from those lips as fresh and pure as a
flower, and that Caroline felt herself unworthy of the mysterious
personage who was evidently possessed of power and wealth.

As to Madame Crochard, that tender mother, almost angry at her
daughter's persistent lack of decisiveness, now showed a sulky face to
the "Black Gentleman," on whom she had hitherto smiled with a sort of
benevolent servility. Never before had she complained so bitterly of
being compelled, at her age, to do the cooking; never had her catarrh
and her rheumatism wrung so many groans from her; finally, she could
not, this winter, promise so many ells of net as Caroline had hitherto
been able to count on.

Under these circumstances, and towards the end of December, at the
time when bread was dearest, and that dearth of corn was beginning to
be felt which made the year 1816 so hard on the poor, the stranger
observed on the features of the girl whose name was still unknown to
him, the painful traces of a secret sorrow which his kindest smiles
could not dispel. Before long he saw in Caroline's eyes the dimness
attributed to long hours at night. One night, towards the end of the
month, the Gentleman in Black passed down the Rue du Tourniquet at the
quite unwonted hour of one in the morning. The perfect silence allowed
of his hearing before passing the house the lachrymose voice of the
old mother, and Caroline's even sadder tones, mingling with the swish
of a shower of sleet. He crept along as slowly as he could; and then,
at the risk of being taken up by the police, he stood still below the
window to hear the mother and daughter, while watching them through
the largest of the holes in the yellow muslin curtains, which were
eaten away by wear as a cabbage leaf is riddled by caterpillars. The
inquisitive stranger saw a sheet of paper on the table that stood
between the two work-frames, and on which stood the lamp and the
globes filled with water. He at once identified it as a writ. Madame
Crochard was weeping, and Caroline's voice was thick, and had lost its
sweet, caressing tone.

"Why be so heartbroken, mother? Monsieur Molineux will not sell us up
or turn us out before I have finished this dress; only two nights more
and I shall take it home to Madame Roguin."

"And supposing she keeps you waiting as usual?--And will the money for
the gown pay the baker too?"

The spectator of this scene had long practice in reading faces; he
fancied he could discern that the mother's grief was as false as the
daughter's was genuine; he turned away, and presently came back. When
he next peeped through the hole in the curtain, Madame Crochard was in
bed. The young needlewoman, bending over her frame, was embroidering
with indefatigable diligence; on the table, with the writ lay a
triangular hunch of bread, placed there, no doubt, to sustain her in
the night and to remind her of the reward of her industry. The
stranger was tremulous with pity and sympathy; he threw his purse in
through a cracked pane so that it should fall at the girl's feet; and
then, without waiting to enjoy her surprise, he escaped, his cheeks
tingling.

Next morning the shy and melancholy stranger went past with a look of
deep preoccupation, but he could not escape Caroline's gratitude; she
had opened her window and affected to be digging in the square window-
box buried in snow, a pretext of which the clumsy ingenuity plainly
told her benefactor that she had been resolved not to see him only
through the pane. Her eyes were full of tears as she bowed her head,
as much as to say to her benefactor, "I can only repay you from my
heart."

But the Gentleman in Black affected not to understand the meaning of
this sincere gratitude. In the evening, as he came by, Caroline was
busy mending the window with a sheet of paper, and she smiled at him,
showing her row of pearly teeth like a promise. Thenceforth the
Stranger went another way, and was no more seen in the Rue due
Tourniquet.



It was one day early in the following May that, as Caroline was giving
the roots of the honeysuckle a glass of water, one Saturday morning,
she caught sight of a narrow strip of cloudless blue between the black
lines of houses, and said to her mother: