The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Bureaucracy

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Release Date: June, 1998 [Etext #1343]
Posting Date: February 22, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***

Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny

BUREAUCRACY

By Honore De Balzac

Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the respectful
homage of sincere and deep admiration
De Balzac

BUREAUCRACY

CHAPTER I. THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD

In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to one
another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met with
several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are about
to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our most
important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with gray
hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in love
with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue eyes
full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted, like
that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a bearing that
was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the thoughtfulness
of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his character, a sketch
of this man's dress will bring it still further into relief. Rabourdin
wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat, a waistcoat crossed a la
Robespierre, black trousers without straps, gray silk stockings and low
shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach warmed by a cup of coffee, he
left home at eight in the morning with the regularity of clock-work,
always passing along the same streets on his way to the ministry: so
neat was he, so formal, so starched that he might have been taken for an
Engli