The Wild Ass's Skin (Classics) by Balzac Honore

Author:Balzac, Honore [Balzac, Honore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1977-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

3. The Death-Agony

IN the early days of December, an old man past seventy was walking along the Rue de Varenne regardless of the rain, and peering up at every front door he passed, looking for the address of Marquis Raphael de Valentin with the simplicity of a child and the absorbed air of a philosopher. On his face, fringed with long, untidy grey hair and withered like an old parchment shrivelling in the fire, could be read the signs of a violent sorrow struggling with an authoritarian nature. If a painter had come upon this singular individual, dressed in black, thin and bony, undoubtedly, once back in his studio, he would have consigned him to his album and written underneath the portrait: A Classical Poet in search of a rhyme. Having checked the number which had been given him, this living replica of Rollin1 knocked timidly at the door of a magnificent mansion.

‘Is Monsieur Raphael at home?’ the worthy man asked of the liveried doorkeeper.

‘Monsieur le Marquis receives no one,’ the servant replied, gulping down a large sop of bread which he was spooning out of an ample bowl of coffee.

‘But his carriage is there,’ replied the unknown caller, and pointed to a smart equipage standing under a canopy of wood fashioned like a canvas awning which extended over the flight of steps to keep the rain off. ‘He will be coming out. I’ll wait for him.’

‘Oh no, old chap! You might be here till tomorrow morning,’ the porter replied. ‘There’s always a carriage waiting for the master. But please go away. I should lose an annuity of six hundred francs if I only once allowed inside, without orders to the contrary, any person not belonging to the house.’

At that moment a tall old man whose costume was very like that of an usher in a civil service department emerged from the entrance hall and hurried down the steps as he scanned the dumbfounded old petitioner.

‘Anyway, here’s Monsieur Jonathas,’ said the porter, ‘Ask him.’

The two old men, drawn to each other by sympathy or mutual curiosity, met in the centre of the vast circular courtyard in which tufts of grass were growing between the paving-stones. A chilling silence reigned in this house. Merely to see Jonathas was to feel curious about the mystery written on his features and hinted at by every aspect of this gloomy residence.

*

Raphael’s first care on entering into possession of the immense fortune his uncle had left him, had been to track down the devoted old servant on whose affection he could count. Jonathas wept for joy on seeing his young master again, for he believed he had said good-bye to him for ever. But his happiness was unbounded when the marquis promoted him to the exalted post of steward. Old Jonathas became an intermediary power between Raphael and the rest of the world. Put in supreme control of his master’s fortune, the blind agent of his undivulged intentions, he served as a sixth sense by means of which the emotions of life filtered through to Raphael.

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