LaGrandeBreteche(格兰德·布拉特契).pdf

LA GRANDE BRETECHE (Sequel to "Another Study of Woman.")
LA GRANDE
BRETECHE
( "Another Study of Woman.")
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated By Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
1
LA GRANDE BRETECHE (Sequel to "Another Study of Woman.")
LA GRANDE BRETECHE
"Ah! madame," replied the doctor, "I have some appalling stories in
my collection. But each one has its proper hour in a conversation--you
know the pretty jest recorded by Chamfort, and said to the Duc de Fronsac:
'Between your sally and the present moment lie ten bottles of champagne.'
"
"But it is two in the morning, and the story of Rosina has prepared us,"
said the mistress of the house.
"Tell us, Monsieur Bianchon!" was the cry on every side.
The obliging doctor bowed, and silence reigned.
"At about a hundred paces from Vendome, on the banks of the Loir,"
said he, "stands an old brown house, crowned with very high roofs, and so
completely isolated that there is nothing near it, not even a fetid tannery or
a squalid tavern, such as monly seen outside small towns. In front
of this house is a garden down to the river, where the box shrubs, formerly
clipped close to edge the walks, now straggle at their own will. A few
willows, rooted in the stream, have grown up quickly like an enclosing
fence, and half hide the house. The wild plants we call weeds have clothed
the bank with their beautiful luxuriance. The fruit-trees, neglected for
these ten years past, no longer bear a crop, and their suckers have formed a
thicket. The espaliers are like a copse. The paths, once graveled, are
overgrown with purslane; but, to be accurate there is no trace of a path.
"Looking down from the hilltop, to which cling the ruins of the old
castle of the Dukes of Vendome, the only spot whence the eye can see into
this enclosure, we think that at a time, difficult now to determine, this spot
of earth must have been the joy of some country gentleman devoted to
roses and tulips, in a word, to horticulture