Scenes from a Courtesans Life

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

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Title: Scenes From a Courtesan's Life
Author: Honore de Balzac
Release Date: August 26, 2005 [EBook #1660]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCENES
FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE ***

Produced by Dagny; Bonnie Sala and John Bickers

SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE
BY

HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by James Waring

PREPARER'S NOTE
Note: The story of Lucien de Rubempre begins in the Lost Illusions
trilogy which consists of Two Poets, A Distinguished Provincial at
Paris, and Eve and David. The action in Scenes From A Courtesan's
Life commences directly after the end of Eve and David.

DEDICATION
To His Highness Prince Alfonso Serafino di Porcia.
Allow me to place your name at the beginning of an essentially Parisian
work, thought out in your house during these latter days. Is it not
natural that I should offer you the flowers of rhetoric that blossomed in
your garden, watered with the regrets I suffered from home-sickness,
which you soothed, as I wandered under the boschetti whose elms
reminded me of the Champs-Elysees? Thus, perchance, may I expiate
the crime of having dreamed of Paris under the shadow of the Duomo,
of having longed for our muddy streets on the clean and elegant
flagstones of Porta-Renza. When I have some book to publish which
may be dedicated to a Milanese lady, I shall have the happiness of
finding names already dear to your old Italian romancers among those
of women whom we love, and to whose memory I would beg you to
recall your sincerely affectionate
DE BALZAC. July 1838.

SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE

ESTHER HAPPY; OR, HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE
In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were struck
by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages and
greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home by
unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory
and again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain
experienced loungers. In this immense assembly the crowd does not
trouble itself much to watch the crowd; each one's interest is
impassioned, and even idlers are preoccupied.
The young dandy was so much absorbed in his anxious quest that he
did not observe his own success; he did not hear, he did not see the
ironical exclamations of admiration, the genuine appreciation, the
biting gibes, the soft invitations of some of the masks. Though he was
so handsome as to rank among those exceptional persons who come to
an opera ball in search of an adventure, and who expect it as
confidently as men looked for a lucky coup at roulette in Frascati's day,
he seemed quite philosophically sure of his evening; he must be the
hero of one of those mysteries with three actors which constitute an
opera ball, and are known only to those who play a part in them; for, to
young wives who come merely to say, "I have seen it," to country
people, to inexperienced youths, and to foreigners, the opera house
must on those nights be the palace of fatigue and dulness. To these, that
black swarm, slow and serried--coming, going, winding, turning,
returning, mounting, descending, comparable only to ants on a pile of
wood--is no more intelligible than the Bourse to a Breton peasant who
has never heard of the Grand livre.
With a few rare exceptions, men wear no masks in Paris; a man in a
domino is thought ridiculous. In this the spirit of the nation betrays
itself. Men who want to hide their good fortune can enjoy the opera ball
without going there; and masks who are absolutely compelled to go in
come out again at once. One of the most amusing scenes is the crush at
the doors produced as soon as the dancing begins, by the rush of
persons getting away and struggling with those who are pushing in. So
the men who wear masks are either jealous husbands who come to

watch their wives, or husbands on the loose who do not wish to be
watched by them--two situations equally ridiculous.
Now, our young man was followed, though he knew it not, by a man in
a mask, dogging his steps, short and stout, with a rolling gait, like a
barrel. To every one familiar with the opera this disguise betrayed a
stock-broker,