XVIII.
If It Was Really For The Sake Of The Black Prince
That I Had Stopped At Poitiers (For My
Prevision of
Notre Dame la Grande and of the little temple of St.
John was of the dimmest), I ought
To have stopped at
Angouleme for the sake of David and Eve Sechard,
of Lucien de Rubempre and of Madame de Bargeton,
who when she wore a _toilette etudiee_ sported a Jewish
turban ornamented with an Eastern brooch, a scarf of
gauze, a necklace of cameos, and a robe of "painted
muslin," whatever that may be; treating herself to
these luxuries out of an income of twelve thousand
francs. The persons I have mentioned have not that
vagueness of identity which is the misfortune of his-
torical characters; they are real, supremely real, thanks
to their affiliation to the great Balzac, who had invented
an artificial reality which was as much better than the
vulgar article as mock-turtle soup is than the liquid it
emulates. The first time I read "Les Illusions Perdues"
I should have refused to believe that I was capable of
passing the old capital of Anjou without alighting to
visit the Houmeau. But we never know what we are
capable of till we are tested, as I reflected when I
found myself looking back at Angouleme from the
window of the train, just after we had emerged from
the long tunnel that passes under the town. This
tunnel perforates the hill on which, like Poitiers,
Angouleme rears itself, and which gives it an eleva-
tion still greater than that of Poitiers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 133 of 276
Words from 36540 to 36805
of 75796
