The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gambara, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Gambara

Author: Honore de Balzac

Release Date: August, 1999 [Etext #1873]
Posting Date: March 4, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GAMBARA ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

GAMBARA

By Honore de Balzac

Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring

DEDICATION

To Monsieur le Marquis de Belloy

It was sitting by the fire, in a mysterious and magnificent
retreat,--now a thing of the past but surviving in our memory,
--whence our eyes commanded a view of Paris from the heights of
Belleville to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the
triumphal Arc de l'Etoile, that one morning, refreshed by tea,
amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and die like rockets
from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you tossed to
my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann,--that casket of unrecognized
gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to
hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat
them, playing on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the
stress of divine inspiration, believing that he is expressing
celestial music to his bewildered listeners.

It was you who created GAMBARA; I have only clothed him. Let me
render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, regretting only
that you do not yourself take up the pen at a time when gentlemen
ought to wield it as well as the sword, if they are to save their
country. You may neglect yourself, but you owe your talents to us.

GAMBARA

New Year's Day of 1831 was pouring out its packets of sugared almonds,
four o'clock was striking, there was a mob in the Palais-Royal, and the
eating-houses were beginning to fill. At this moment a coupe drew up at
the _perron_ and a young man stepped out; a man of haughty appearance,
and no doubt a foreigner; otherwise he would not have displayed the
aristocratic _chasseur_ who attended him in a plumed hat, nor the coat
of arms which the heroes of July still attacked.

This gentleman went into the Palais-Royal, and followed the crowd round