The Marriage Contract

H >> Honore de Balzac >> The Marriage Contract


The great secret of social alchemy, my dear Paul, is to get the
most we can out of each age of life through which we pass; to have
and to hold the buds of our spring, the flowers of our summer, the
fruits of our autumn. We amused ourselves once, a few good fellows
and I, for a dozen or more years, like mousquetaires, black, red,
and gray; we denied ourselves nothing, not even an occasional
filibustering here and there. Now we are going to shake down the
plums which age and experience have ripened. Be one of us; you
shall have your share in the _pudding_ we are going to cook.

Come; you will find a friend all yours in the skin of

H. de Marsay.


As Paul de Manerville ended the reading of this letter, which fell
like the blows of a pickaxe on the edifice of his hopes, his
illusions, and his love, the vessel which bore him from France was
beyond the Azores. In the midst of this utter devastation a cold and
impotent anger laid hold of him.

"What had I done to them?" he said to himself.

That is the question of fools, of feeble beings, who, seeing nothing,
can nothing foresee. Then he cried aloud: "Henri! Henri!" to his loyal
friend. Many a man would have gone mad; Paul went to bed and slept
that heavy sleep which follows immense disasters,--the sleep that
seized Napoleon after Waterloo.




ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Casa-Real, Duc de
The Quest of the Absolute

Claes, Josephine de Temninck, Madame
The Quest of the Absolute

Magus, Elie
The Vendetta
A Bachelor's Establishment
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Pons

Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
The Thirteen
The Ball at Sceaux
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Manerville, Comtesse Paul de
The Lily of the Valley
A Daughter of Eve

Marsay, Henri de
The Thirteen
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Father Goriot
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ursule Mirouet
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modeste Mignon
The Secrets of a Princess
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve

Maulincour, Baronne de
The Thirteen

Stevens, Dinah
Cousin Pons

Vandenesse, Comte Felix de
The Lily of the Valley
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Cesar Birotteau
Letters of Two Brides
A Start in Life
The Secrets of a Princess
Another Study of Woman
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve