A Second Home

Second Home, A

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Title: A Second Home
Author: Honore de Balzac
Translator: Clara Bell
Release Date: August 29, 2005 [EBook #1810]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SECOND
HOME ***

Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers

A SECOND HOME
BY

HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by Clara Bell

DEDICATION
To Madame la Comtesse Louise de Turheim as a token of
remembrance and affectionate respect.

A SECOND HOME

The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and
most tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round
the little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi,
exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the
turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed till 1823,
when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plot adjoining the
Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Duc d'Angouleme on
his return from Spain.
The widest part of the Rue du Tourniquet was the end opening into the
Rue de la Tixeranderie, and even there it was less than six feet across.
Hence in rainy weather the gutter water was soon deep at the foot of the
old houses, sweeping down with it the dust and refuse deposited at the
corner-stones by the residents. As the dust-carts could not pass through,
the inhabitants trusted to storms to wash their always miry alley; for
how could it be clean? When the summer sun shed its perpendicular
rays on Paris like a sheet of gold, but as piercing as the point of a sword,
it lighted up the blackness of this street for a few minutes without
drying the permanent damp that rose from the ground-floor to the first
story of these dark and silent tenements.
The residents, who lighted their lamps at five o'clock in the month of
June, in winter never put them out. To this day the enterprising

wayfarer who should approach the Marais along the quays, past the end
of the Rue du Chaume, the Rues de l'Homme Arme, des Billettes, and
des Deux-Portes, all leading to the Rue du Tourniquet, might think he
had passed through cellars all the way.
Almost all the streets of old Paris, of which ancient chronicles laud the
magnificence, were like this damp and gloomy labyrinth, where the
antiquaries still find historical curiosities to admire. For instance, on the
house then forming the corner where the Rue du Tourniquet joined the
Rue de la Tixeranderie, the clamps might still be seen of two strong
iron rings fixed to the wall, the relics of the chains put up every night
by the watch to secure public safety.
This house, remarkable for its antiquity, had been constructed in a way
that bore witness to the unhealthiness of these old dwellings; for, to
preserve the ground-floor from damp, the arches of the cellars rose
about two feet above the soil, and the house was entered up three
outside steps. The door was crowned by a closed arch, of which the
keystone bore a female head and some time-eaten arabesques. Three
windows, their sills about five feet from the ground, belonged to a
small set of rooms looking out on the Rue du Tourniquet, whence they
derived their light. These windows were protected by strong iron bars,
very wide apart, and ending below in an outward curve like the bars of
a baker's window.
If any passer-by during the day were curious enough to peep into the
two rooms forming this little dwelling, he could see nothing; for only
under the sun of July could he discern, in the second room, two beds
hung with green serge, placed side by side under the paneling of an
old-fashioned alcove; but in the afternoon, by about three o'clock, when
the candles were lighted, through the pane of the first room an old
woman might be seen sitting on a stool by the fireplace, where she
nursed the fire in a brazier, to simmer a stew, such as porters' wives are
expert in. A few kitchen utensils, hung up against the wall, were visible
in the twilight.
At that hour an old table on trestles, but bare of linen, was laid with
pewter-spoons, and the dish concocted by the old woman. Three

wretched chairs were all the furniture of this room, which was at once
the kitchen