Part 15 (2/2)
When it happened that the distances between the bowls and the _cochonnet_ had to be measured, the cane of this silent being was used as a measure, the players coming up and taking it from the icy hands of the old man and returning it without a word or even a sign of friendliness. The loan of his cane seemed a servitude to which he had negatively consented. When a shower fell, he stayed near the _cochonnet_, the slave of the bowls, and the guardian of the unfinished game. Rain affected him no more than the fine weather did; he was, like the players themselves, an intermediary species between a Parisian who has the lowest intellect of his kind and an animal which has the highest.
In other respects, pallid and shrunken, indifferent to his own person, vacant in mind, he often came bareheaded, showing his spa.r.s.e white hair, and his square, yellow, bald skull, like the knee of a beggar seen through his tattered trousers. His mouth was half-open, no ideas were in his glance, no precise object appeared in his movements; he never smiled; he never raised his eyes to heaven, but kept them habitually on the ground, where he seemed to be looking for something. At four o'clock an old woman arrived, to take him Heaven knows where; which she did by towing him along by the arm, as a young girl drags a wilful goat which still wants to browse by the wayside. This old man was a horrible thing to see.
In the afternoon of the day when Jules Desmarets left Paris, his travelling-carriage, in which he was alone, pa.s.sed rapidly through the rue de l'Est, and came out upon the esplanade of the Observatoire at the moment when the old man, leaning against a tree, had allowed his cane to be taken from his hand amid the noisy vociferations of the players, pacifically irritated. Jules, thinking that he recognized that face, felt an impulse to stop, and at the same instant the carriage came to a standstill; for the postilion, hemmed in by some handcarts, had too much respect for the game to call upon the players to make way for him.
”It is he!” said Jules, beholding in that human wreck, Ferragus XXIII., chief of the Devorants. Then, after a pause, he added, ”How he loved her!--Go on, postilion.”
ADDENDUM
Note: Ferragus is the first part of a trilogy. Part two is ent.i.tled The d.u.c.h.esse de Langeais and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under the t.i.tle The Thirteen.
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Desmartes, Jules Cesar Birotteau
Desmartes, Madame Jules Cesar Birotteau
Desplein The Atheist's Ma.s.s Cousin Pons Lost Illusions The Government Clerks Pierrette A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine
Gruget, Madame Etienne The Government Clerks A Bachelor's Establishment
Haudry (doctor) Cesar Birotteau A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Cousin Pons
Langeais, d.u.c.h.esse Antoinette de Father Goriot The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais
Marsay, Henri de The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais The Girl with the Golden Eyes The Unconscious Humorists Another Study of Woman The Lily of the Valley Father Goriot Jealousies of a Country Town Ursule Mirouet A Marriage Settlement 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 A Marriage Settlement
Meynardie, Madame Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de Father Goriot Eugenie Grandet Cesar Birotteau Melmoth Reconciled Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Commission in Lunacy Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Modeste Mignon The Firm of Nucingen Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve The Member for Arcis
Pamiers, Vidame de The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais Jealousies of a Country Town
Ronquerolles, Marquis de The Imaginary Mistress The d.u.c.h.ess of Langeais The Girl with the Golden Eyes The Peasantry Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Another Study of Woman The Member for Arcis
Serizy, Comtesse de A Start in Life The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Another Study of Woman The Imaginary Mistress
II. THE d.u.c.h.eSSE OF LANGEAIS
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