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

d'Estourny, who was found guilty of cheating at cards. The young
corsair escaped into foreign parts without taking thought of
Mademoiselle Mignon, who was of little value to him since the failure
of the bank. Bettina heard of his infamous desertion and of her
father's ruin almost at the same time. She returned home struck by
death, and wasted away in a short time at the Chalet. Her death at
least protected her reputation. The illness that Monsieur Mignon
alleged to be the cause of her absence, and the doctor's order which
sent her to Nice were now generally believed. Up to the last moment
the mother hoped to save her daughter's life. Bettina was her darling
and Modeste was the father's. There was something touching in the two
preferences. Bettina was the image of Charles, just as Modeste was the
reproduction of her mother. Both parents continued their love for each
other in their children. Bettina, a daughter of Provence, inherited
from her father the beautiful hair, black as a raven's wing, which
distinguishes the women of the South, the brown eye, almond-shaped and
brilliant as a star, the olive tint, the velvet skin as of some golden
fruit, the arched instep, and the Spanish waist from which the short
basque skirt fell crisply. Both mother and father were proud of the
charming contrast between the sisters. "A devil and an angel!" they
said to each other, laughing, little thinking it prophetic.

After weeping for a month in the solitude of her chamber, where she
admitted no one, the mother came forth at last with injured eyes.
Before losing her sight altogether she persisted, against the wishes
of her friends, in visiting her daughter's grave, on which she riveted
her gaze in contemplation. That image remained vivid in the darkness
which now fell upon her, just as the red spectrum of an object shines
in our eyes when we close them in full daylight. This terrible and
double misfortune made Dumay, not less devoted, but more anxious about
Modeste, now the only daughter of the father who was unaware of his
loss. Madame Dumay, idolizing Modeste, like other women deprived of
their children, cast her motherliness about the girl,--yet without
disregarding the commands of her husband, who distrusted female
intimacies. Those commands were brief. "If any man, of any age, or any
rank," Dumay said, "speaks to Modeste, ogles her, makes love to her,
he is a dead man. I'll blow his brains out and give myself to the
authorities; my death may save her. If you don't wish to see my head
cut off, do you take my place in watching her when I am obliged to go
out."

For the last three years Dumay had examined his pistols every night.
He seemed to have put half the burden of his oath upon the Pyrenean
hounds, two animals of uncommon sagacity. One slept inside the Chalet,
the other was stationed in a kennel which he never left, and where he
never barked; but terrible would have been the moment had the pair
made their teeth meet in some unknown adventurer.

We can now imagine the sort of life led by mother and daughter at the
Chalet. Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, often accompanied by