文档介绍：A Woman of Thirty
A Woman of Thirty
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Ellen Marriage
1
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 you are my wife," he said in the young lady's ear, and he
held himself erect and walked with slow steps, which filled his daughter
with despair.
He seemed to take up the coquette's part for her; perhaps of the two, he
was the more gratified by the curious glances di