Honorine - Honoré de Balzac (best large ebook reader TXT) 📗

spectacle, he spoke these last words: 'Ought we not, in the interests of human nature, to inquire what is the irresistible power which leads us to sacrifice an exquisite creature to the most fugitive of all pleasures, and in spite of our reason? In my conscience I heard cries. Honorine was not alone in her anguish. And yet I would have it!... I am consumed by remorse. In the Rue Payenne I was dying of the joys I had not; now I shall die in Italy of the joys I have had.... Wherein lay the discord between two natures, equally noble, I dare assert?'"

For some minutes profound silence reigned on the terrace.

Then the Consul, turning to the two women, asked, "Was she virtuous?"

Mademoiselle des Touches rose, took the Consul's arm, went a few steps away, and said to him:

"Are not men wrong too when they come to us and make a young girl a wife while cherishing at the bottom of their heart some angelic image, and comparing us to those unknown rivals, to perfections often borrowed from a remembrance, and always finding us wanting?"

"Mademoiselle, you would be right if marriage were based on passion; and that was the mistake of those two, who will soon be no more. Marriage with heart-deep love on both sides would be Paradise."

Mademoiselle des Touches turned from the Consul, and was immediately joined by Claude Vignon, who said in her ear:

"A bit of a coxcomb is M. de l'Hostal."

"No," replied she, whispering to Claude these words: "for he has not yet guessed that Honorine would have loved him.--Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing the Consul's wife approaching, "his wife was listening! Unhappy man!"

Eleven was striking by all the clocks, and the guests went home on foot along the seashore.

"Still, that is not life," said Mademoiselle des Touches. "That woman was one of the rarest, and perhaps the most extraordinary exceptions in intellect--a pearl! Life is made up of various incidents, of pain and pleasure alternately. The Paradise of Dante, that sublime expression of the ideal, that perpetual blue, is to be found only in the soul; to ask it of the facts of life is a luxury against which nature protests every hour. To such souls as those the six feet of a cell, and the kneeling chair are all they need."

"You are right," said Leon de Lora; "but good-for-nothing as I may be, I cannot help admiring a woman who is capable, as that one was, of living by the side of a studio, under a painter's roof, and never coming down, nor seeing the world, nor dipping her feet in the street mud."

"Such a thing has been known--for a few months," said Claude Vignon, with deep irony.

"Comtesse Honorine is not unique of her kind," replied the Ambassador to Mademoiselle des Touches. "A man, nay, and a politician, a bitter writer, was the object of such a passion; and the pistol shot which killed him hit not him alone; the woman who loved lived like a nun ever after."

"Then there are yet some great souls in this age!" said Camille Maupin, and she stood for some minutes pensively leaning on the balustrade of the quay.


ADDENDUM

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

Bauvan, Comte Octave de
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche

Desplein
The Atheist's Mass
Cousin Pons
Lost Illusions
The Thirteen
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Seamy Side of History
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Fontanon, Abbe
A Second Home
The Government Clerks
The Member for Arcis

Gaudissart, Felix
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Cousin Pons
Cesar Birotteau
Gaudissart the Great

Gaudron, Abbe
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life

Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte)
The Gondreville Mystery
A Second Home
Farewell (Adieu)
Cesar Birotteau
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Cousin Pons

Lora, Leon de
The Unconscious Humorists
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Betty
Beatrix

Loraux, Abbe
A Start in Life
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cesar Birotteau

Popinot, Jean-Jules
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
The Seamy Side of History
The Middle Classes

Serizy, Comte Hugret de
A Start in Life
A Bachelor's Establishment
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des
Beatrix
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department

Vignon, Claude
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
Honorine
Beatrix
Cousin Betty
The Unconscious Humorists

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Publication Date: 07-21-2010

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