Cousin Pons by Honore Balzac

Author:Honore Balzac
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141961200
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

17. How all careers begin in Paris

DR POULAIN lived in the rue d’Orleans in a little ground-floor flat consisting of an ante-room, a sitting-room and two bedrooms. A pantry next to the ante-room and communicating with the doctor’s bedroom had been converted into a consulting-room. A kitchen, a servant’s bedroom and a small cellar were included in these rented quarters which were situated in one wing of a house – an immense construction built during the Empire on the site of an old mansion – of which the garden still remained and was shared by the tenants of the three ground-floor flats.

The doctor’s flat had undergone no change for forty years; paint, wallpaper and decoration were all redolent of Imperial times. Forty years of grime and smoke had tarnished the mirrors and their frames, the patterns on the wallpaper, the ceilings and the paint. This tiny habitation, although it was in the heart of the Marais district, cost one thousand francs a year in rent. The doctor’s seventy-year-old mother, Madame Poulain, was in occupation of the second bedroom for the rest of her mortal span. She worked for some breeches-makers, sewing gaiters, buckskins, braces, belts, in short everything pertaining to this kind of garment, which is more or less out of fashion today. Her time was taken up with looking after the house and her son’s only maid, and so she never went out, but took the air in the tiny garden, to which she stepped down through the french window of the drawing-room. At her husband’s death, twenty years before, she had sold his breeches-maker’s stock and goodwill to his chief journeyman, who reserved enough work for her to earn about thirty sous a day. She had sacrificed everything to her only son’s education, wishing at all costs to raise him to a social status higher than that of his father. Proud of her Aesculapius and believing he had a fine future before him, she was happy to care for him, to economize for his sake, dreaming only of his well-being, and bringing intelligence to the aid of love, which all mothers are not able to do. Thus Madame Poulain, remembering that she had been a humble seamstress, was anxious not to harm her son or expose him to ridicule or contempt, for the good woman larded her discourse with s’s as Madame Cibot did with n’s. She made a point of keeping to her room on the few occasions when distinguished patients came for a consultation, or when his college or hospital friends turned up. Never, therefore, had the doctor had any occasion to feel ashamed of his mother, whom he venerated, and whose heroic tenderness fully compensated for her lack of education. The sale of the breeches-making business had brought in about twenty thousand francs. In 1820 the widow had invested them in Government stock, and she had no other private means than the eleven hundred francs’ interest she drew from them. And so, for a long

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.