The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Woman of Thirty, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: A Woman of Thirty

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Ellen Marriage

Release Date: November, 1999 [Etext #1950]
Posting Date: March 6, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN OF THIRTY ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

A WOMAN OF THIRTY

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To Louis Boulanger, Painter.

A WOMAN OF THIRTY

I. EARLY MISTAKES

It was a Sunday morning in the beginning of April 1813, a morning which
gave promise of one of those bright days when Parisians, for the first
time in the year, behold dry pavements underfoot and a cloudless sky
overhead. It was not yet noon when a luxurious cabriolet, drawn by two
spirited horses, turned out of the Rue de Castiglione into the Rue de
Rivoli, and drew up behind a row of carriages standing before the newly
opened barrier half-way down the Terrasse de Feuillants. The owner of
the carriage looked anxious and out of health; the thin hair on his
sallow temples, turning gray already, gave a look of premature age to
his face. He flung the reins to a servant who followed on horseback,
and alighted to take in his arms a young girl whose dainty beauty had
already attracted the eyes of loungers on the Terrasse. The little lady,
standing upon the carriage step, graciously submitted to be taken by the
waist, putting an arm round the neck of her guide, who set her down upon
the pavement without so much as ruffling the trimming of her green rep
dress. No lover would have been so careful. The stranger could only be
the father of the young girl, who took his arm familiarly without a word
of thanks, and hurried him into the Garden of the Tuileries.

The old father noted the wondering stare which some of the young men
gave the couple, and the sad expression left his face for a moment.
Although he had long since reached the time of life when a man is fain
to be content with such illusory delights as vanity bestows, he began to
smile.

"They think y