A Harlot High and Low by Honore de Balzac

Author:Honore de Balzac [Balzac, Honore de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780141960746
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2009-12-07T06:00:00+00:00

The oath sworn by Corentin

WHEN he arrived at his country house in one of the quietest and pleasantest streets in the little town of Passy, the rue des Vignes, Corentin, who passed for a business man passionately fond of gardening, found his friend Peyrade’s coded note. Instead of resting, he climbed back into the cab which had brought him, had himself driven to the rue des Moineaux and found only Katt there. From this Fleming he learned of Lydia’s disappearance and marvelled at his own and Peyrade’s lack of foresight.

‘They don’t know me yet,’ he said to himself. ‘People like that will stop at nothing, it remains to be seen whether they will kill Peyrade, if they do I shall have to remain unknown…’

The more infamous a man’s life is, the more he will cling to it; its every minute is then a protestation, a vengeance. Corentin went away, at home disguised himself as a needy little old man, in a short frock coat turning green, a dog’s tooth wig, and returned on foot, impelled by his friendship for Peyrade. He wanted to give his orders to the cleverest and most conscientious of his Numbers. Along the rue Saint Honoré on his way from the Place Vendôme to the rue Saint Roch, he found himself walking behind a girl in slippers, dressed in women’s night clothes. This girl, who wore a white bed-jacket, a night-cap on her head, from time to time uttered a sob or other sound of involuntary complaint; Corentin passed her, looked back and saw that it was Lydia.

‘I am a friend of your father, Monsieur Canquoëlle,’ he said in his natural voice.

‘Ah! then you are someone I can trust!…’ she said.

‘Pretend not to know me,’ Corentin went on, ‘for we are pursued by cruel enemies, and forced to wear disguise. But tell me what happened to you…’

‘Oh, sir,’ said the poor girl, ‘I can tell you what it was, but I can’t describe it… I’m dishonoured, lost, without being able to say how!…’

‘Where have you come from?…’

‘I don’t know, sir! I ran away in such a hurry, I’ve been along so many streets, by so many turnings, thinking I was followed… And when I met someone respectable, I asked the way to the boulevards, so that I could reach the rue de la Paix! At last, after walking for… What time is it?’

‘Half past eleven!’ said Corentin.

‘I escaped just at nightfall, so I’ve been walking for five hours!…’ exclaimed Lydia.

‘Come along, you need a rest, you’ll find your kind old Katt…’

‘Oh, sir, there’ll be no more rest for me! The only rest I want is in the grave; and I shall go to wait for it in a convent, if they think I’m fit to enter one…’

‘Poor child! you did all you could to resist?’

‘Yes, sir. Ah! if you knew among what abject creatures they put me…’

‘I dare say they put you to sleep?’

‘ Ah, was that it?’ said poor Lydia. ‘Still a little strength, and I shall reach the house.

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