Farewell
Balzac, Honoré de 1799-1850
English
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Below is a summary of Farewell
FAREWELL
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated By
Ellen Marriage
DEDICATION
To Prince Friedrich von Schwarzenberg
FAREWELL
"Come, Deputy of the Centre, come along! We shall have to mend our
pace if we mean to sit down to dinner when every one else does, and
that's a fact! Hurry up! Jump, Marquis! That's it! Well done! You are
bounding over the furrows just like a stag!"
These words were uttered by a sportsman seated much at his ease on the
outskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havana
cigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, who had
evidently been straying about for some time among the forest
undergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watched
the progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made.
To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that
the second sportsman was both short and stout; his ample girth
indicated a truly magisterial corpulence, and in consequence his
progress across the furrows was by no means easy. He was striding over
a vast field of stubble; the dried corn-stalks underfoot added not a
little to the difficulties of his passage, and to add to his
discomforts, the genial influence of the sun that slanted into his
eyes brought great drops of perspiration into his face. The uppermost
thought in his mind being a strong desire to keep his balance, he
lurched to and fro like a coach jolted over an atrocious road.
It was one of those September days of almost tropical heat that
finishes the work of summer and ripens the grapes. Such heat forebodes
a coming storm; and though as yet there were wide patches of blue
between the dark rain-clouds low down on the horizon, pale golden
masses were rising and scattering with ominous swiftness from west to
east, and drawing a shadowy veil across the sky. The wind was still,
save in the upper regions of the air, so that the weight of the
atmosphere seemed to compress the steamy heat of the earth into the
forest glades. The tall forest trees shut out every breath of air so
completely that the little valley across which the sportsman was
making his way was as hot as a furnace; the silent forest seemed
parched with the fiery heat. Birds and insects were mute; the topmost
twigs of the trees swayed with scarcely perceptible motion. Any one
who retains some recollection of the summer of 1819 must surely
compassionate the plight of the hapless supporter of the ministry who
toiled and sweated over the stubble to rejoin his satirical comrade.
That gentleman, as he smoked his cigar, had arrived, by a process of
calculation based on the altitude of the sun, to the conclusion that
it must be about five o'clock.
"Where the devil are we?" asked the stout sportsman. He wiped his brow
as he spoke, and propped himself against a tree in the field opposite
his companion, feeling quite unequal to clearing the broad ditch that
lay between them.
"And you ask that question of _me_!" retorted the other, laughing from
his bed of tall brown grasses on the top of the bank. He flung the end
of his cigar into the ditch, exclaiming, "I swear by Saint Hubert that
no one shall catch me risking myself again in a country that I don't
know with a magistrate, even if, like you, my dear d'Albon, he happens
to be an old schoolfellow."
"Why, Philip, have you really forgotten your own language? You surely
must have left your wits behind you in Siberia," said the stouter of
the two, with a glance half-comic, half-pathetic at the guide-post
distant about a hundred paces from them.
"I understand," replied the one addressed as Philip. He snatched up
his rifle, suddenly sprang to his feet, made but one jump of it into
the field, and rushed off to the guide-post. "This way, d'Albon, here
you are! left about!" he shouted, gesticulating in the direction of
the highroad. "_To Baillet and l'Isle-Adam!_" he went on; "so if we go
along here, we shall be sure to come upon the cross-road to Cassan."
"Quite right, Colonel," said M. d'Albon, putting the cap with which he
had been fanning himself back on his head.
"Then _forward_! highly respected Councillor," returned Colonel
Philip, whistling to the dogs, that seemed already to obey him rather
than the magistrate their owner.
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