The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adieu, by Honore de Balzac

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Adieu

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Release Date: December, 1998 [Etext #1554]
Posting Date: February 26, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADIEU ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

ADIEU

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To Prince Frederic Schwartzenburg

ADIEU

CHAPTER I. AN OLD MONASTERY

"Come, deputy of the Centre, forward! Quick step! march! if we want to
be in time to dine with the others. Jump, marquis! there, that's right!
why, you can skip across a stubble-field like a deer!"

These words were said by a huntsman peacefully seated at the edge of the
forest of Ile-Adam, who was finishing an Havana cigar while waiting for
his companion, who had lost his way in the tangled underbrush of the
wood. At his side four panting dogs were watching, as he did, the
personage he addressed. To understand how sarcastic were these
exhortations, repeated at intervals, we should state that the
approaching huntsman was a stout little man whose protuberant stomach
was the evidence of a truly ministerial "embonpoint." He was struggling
painfully across the furrows of a vast wheat-field recently harvested,
the stubble of which considerably impeded him; while to add to his other
miseries the sun's rays, striking obliquely on his face, collected an
abundance of drops of perspiration. Absorbed in the effort to maintain
his equilibrium, he leaned, now forward, now back, in close imitation
of the pitching of a carriage when violently jolted. The weather looked
threatening. Though several spaces of blue sky still parted the thick
black clouds toward the horizon, a flock of fleecy vapors were advancing
with great rapidity and drawing a light gray curtain from east to
west. As the wind was acting only on the upper region of the air, the
atmosphere below it pressed down the hot vapors of the earth. Surrounded
by masses of tall trees, the valley through which the hunter