"De Balzac, Honore - Eugenie Grandet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

DEDICATION

To Maria.

May your name, that of one whose portrait is the noblest ornament
of this work, lie on its opening pages like a branch of sacred
box, taken from an unknown tree, but sanctified by religion, and
kept ever fresh and green by pious hands to bless the house.

De Balzac.




EUGENIE GRANDET



I

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires
melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary
moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is,
perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the
skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a
stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters
suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-
monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an
unaccustomed step.

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were, of a
dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street
leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street--now
little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain
sections--is remarkable for the resonance of its little pebbly
pavement, always clean and dry, for the narrowness of its tortuous
road-way, for the peaceful stillness of its houses, which belong to
the Old town and are over-topped by the ramparts. Houses three
centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, and their divers
aspects add to the originality which commends this portion of Saumur
to the attention of artists and antiquaries.

It is difficult to pass these houses without admiring the enormous
oaken beams, their ends carved into fantastic figures, which crown
with a black bas-relief the lower floor of most of them. In one place
these transverse timbers are covered with slate and mark a bluish line