The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pierrette, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Pierrette

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Release Date: April, 1999 [Etext #1704]
Posting Date: February 28, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRETTE ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

PIERRETTE

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To Mademoiselle Anna Hanska:

Dear Child,--You, the joy of the household, you, whose pink or
white pelerine flutters in summer among the groves of
Wierzschovnia like a will-o'-the-wisp, followed by the tender eyes
of your father and your mother,--how can I dedicate to _you_ a
story full of melancholy? And yet, ought not sorrows to be spoken
of to a young girl idolized as you are, since the day may come
when your sweet hands will be called to minister to them? It is so
difficult, Anna, to find in the history of our manners and morals
a subject that is worthy of your eyes, that no choice has been
left me; but perhaps you will be made to feel how fortunate your
fate is when you read the story sent to you by
Your old friend,
De Balzac.

PIERRETTE

I. THE LORRAINS

At the dawn of an October day in 1827 a young fellow about sixteen years
of age, whose clothing proclaimed what modern phraseology so insolently
calls a proletary, was standing in a small square of Lower Provins.
At that early hour he could examine without being observed the various
houses surrounding the open space, which was oblong in form. The
mills along the river were already working; the whirr of their wheels,
repeated by the echoes of the Upper Town in the keen air and sparkling
clearness of the early morning, only intensified the general silence so
that the wheels of a diligence could be heard a league away along the
highroad. The two longest sides of the square, separated by an avenue
of lindens, were built in the simple style which expresse