Sons of the Soil

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Honoré de Balzac. Sons of the Soil

DEDICATION

PART I

CHAPTER I. THE CHATEAU

CHAPTER II. A BUCOLIC OVERLOOKED BY VIRGIL

CHAPTER III. THE TAVERN

CHAPTER IV. ANOTHER IDYLL

CHAPTER V. ENEMIES FACE TO FACE

CHAPTER VI. A TALE OF THIEVES

CHAPTER VII. CERTAIN LOST SOCIAL SPECIES

CHAPTER VIII. THE GREAT REVOLUTIONS OF A LITTLE VALLEY

CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING THE MEDIOCRACY

CHAPTER X. THE SADNESS OF A HAPPY WOMAN

CHAPTER XI. THE OARISTYS, EIGHTEENTH ECLOGUE OF THEOCRITUS

CHAPTER XII. SHOWETH HOW THE TAVERN IS THE PEOPLE’S PARLIAMENT

CHAPTER XIII. A TYPE OF THE COUNTRY USURER

PART II

CHAPTER I. THE LEADING SOCIETY OF SOULANGES

CHAPTER II. THE CONSPIRATORS IN THE QUEEN’S SALON

CHAPTER III. THE CAFE DE LA PAIX

CHAPTER IV. THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-AUX-FAYES

CHAPTER V. VICTORY WITHOUT A FIGHT

CHAPTER VI. THE FOREST AND THE HARVEST

CHAPTER VII. THE GREYHOUND

CHAPTER VIII. RURAL VIRTUE

CHAPTER IX THE CATASTROPHE

CHAPTER X. THE TRIUMPH OF THE VANQUISHED

ADDENDUM

Отрывок из книги

Les Aigues, August 6, 1823.

To Monsieur Nathan,

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“Present, captain!” cried Fourchon, holding out a hand to Vermichel to help him up the steps.

Of all Burgundian figures, Vermichel would have seemed to you the most Burgundian. The practitioner was not red, he was scarlet. His face, like certain tropical portions of the globe, was fissured, here and there, with small extinct volcanoes, defined by flat and greenish patches which Fourchon called, not unpoetically, the “flowers of wine.” This fiery face, the features of which were swelled out of shape by continual drunkenness, looked cyclopic; for it was lighted on the right side by a gleaming eye, and darkened on the other by a yellow patch over the left orb. Red hair, always tousled, and a beard like that of Judas, made Vermichel as formidable in appearance as he was meek in reality. His prominent nose looked like an interrogation-mark, to which the wide-slit mouth seemed to be always answering, even when it did not open. Vermichel, a short man, wore hob-nail shoes, bottle-green velveteen trousers, an old waistcoat patched with diverse stuffs which seemed to have been originally made of a counterpane, a jacket of coarse blue cloth and a gray hat with a broad brim. All this luxury, required by the town of Soulanges where Vermichel fulfilled the combined functions of porter at the town-hall, drummer, jailer, musician, and practitioner, was taken care of by Madame Vermichel, an alarming antagonist of Rabelaisian philosophy. This virago with moustachios, about one yard in width and one hundred and twenty kilograms in weight (but very active), ruled Vermichel with a rod of iron. Thrashed by her when drunk, he allowed her to thrash him still when sober; which caused Pere Fourchon to say, with a sniff at Vermichel’s clothes, “It is the livery of a slave.”

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