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

all other wills, and give to each the devilish power of all. This
world apart within the world, hostile to the world, admitting none of
the world's ideas, not recognizing any law, not submitting to any
conscience but that of necessity, obedient to a devotion only, acting
with every faculty for a single associate when one of their number
asked for the assistance of all,--this life of filibusters in lemon
kid gloves and cabriolets; this intimate union of superior beings,
cold and sarcastic, smiling and cursing in the midst of a false and
puerile society; this certainty of forcing all things to serve an end,
of plotting a vengeance that could not fail of living in thirteen
hearts; this happiness of nurturing a secret hatred in the face of
men, and of being always in arms against this; this ability to
withdraw to the sanctuary of self with one idea more than even the
most remarkable of men could have,--this religion of pleasure and
egotism cast so strong a spell over Thirteen men that they revived the
society of Jesuits to the profit of the devil.

It was horrible and stupendous; but the compact was made, and it
lasted precisely because it appeared to be so impossible.

There was, therefore, in Paris a brotherhood of THIRTEEN, who belonged
to each other absolutely, but ignored themselves as absolutely before
the world. At night they met, like conspirators, hiding no thought,
disposing each and all of a common fortune, like that of the Old Man
of the Mountain; having their feet in all salons, their hands in all
money-boxes, and making all things serve their purpose or their fancy
without scruple. No chief commanded them; no one member could arrogate
to himself that power. The most eager passion, the most exacting
circumstance, alone had the right to pass first. They were Thirteen
unknown kings,--but true kings, more than ordinary kings and judges
and executioners,--men who, having made themselves wings to roam
through society from depth to height, disdained to be anything in the
social sphere because they could be all. If the present writer ever
learns the reasons of their abdication of this power, he will take
occasion to tell them.[*]

[*] See Theophile Gautier's account of the society of the "Cheval
Rouge." Memoir of Balzac. Roberts Brothers, Boston.

Now, with this brief explanation, he may be allowed to begin the tale
of certain episodes in the history of the THIRTEEN, which have more
particularly attracted him by the Parisian flavor of their details and
the whimsicality of their contrasts.





FERRAGUS,
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS