"De Balzac, Honore - Modeste Mignon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

discretion, he could talk over difficult business matters, obtain the
advice of the notary gratis, and get an inkling of the real truth of
the gossip of the street. This stolid gold-glutton (the epithet is
Butscha's) belonged by nature to the class of substances which
chemistry terms absorbents. Ever since the catastrophe of the house of
Mignon, where the Kellers had placed him to learn the principles of
maritime commerce, no one at the Chalet had ever asked him to do the
smallest thing, no matter what; his reply was too well known. The
young fellow looked at Modeste precisely as he would have looked at a
cheap lithograph.

"He's one of the pistons of the big engine called 'Commerce,'" said
poor Butscha, whose clever mind made itself felt occasionally by such
little sayings timidly jerked out.

The four Latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an
old lady dressed in black velvet, who did not rise from the armchair
in which she was seated, for the reason that both eyes were covered
with the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may be
sketched in one sentence. Her august countenance of the mother of a
family attracted instant notice as that of one whose irreproachable
life defies the assaults of destiny, which nevertheless makes her the
target of its arrows and a member of the unnumbered tribe of Niobes.
Her blonde wig, carefully curled and well arranged upon her head,
became the cold white face which resembled that of some burgomaster's
wife painted by Hals or Mirevelt. The extreme neatness of her dress,
the velvet boots, the lace collar, the shawl evenly folded and put on,
all bore testimony to the solicitous care which Modeste bestowed upon
her mother.

When silence was, as the notary had predicted, restored in the pretty
salon, Modeste, sitting beside her mother, for whom she was
embroidering a kerchief, became for an instant the centre of
observation. This curiosity, barely veiled by the commonplace
salutations and inquiries of the visitors, would have revealed even to
an indifferent person the existence of the domestic plot to which
Modeste was expected to fall a victim; but Gobenheim, more than
indifferent, noticed nothing, and proceeded to light the candles on
the card-table. The behavior of Dumay made the whole scene terrifying
to Butscha, to the Latournelles, and above all to Madame Dumay, who
knew her husband to be capable of firing a pistol at Modeste's lover
as coolly as though he were a mad dog.

After dinner that day the cashier had gone to walk followed by two
magnificent Pyrenees hounds, whom he suspected of betraying him, and
therefore left in charge of a farmer, a former tenant of Monsieur
Mignon. On his return, just before the arrival of the Latournelles, he
had taken his pistols from his bed's head and placed them on the
chimney-piece, concealing this action from Modeste. The young girl
took no notice whatever of these preparations, singular as they were.