The Thirteen

by Honoré de Balzac

The letter bore no postmark, and the address prevented Monsieur de Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, made him fancy relations between this man and Madame Jules. A jealous lover supposes everything; and it is by supposing everything and selecting the most probable of their conjectures that judges, spies, lovers, and observers get at the truth they are looking for.

“Is the letter for him? Is it from Madame Jules?”

His restless imagination tossed a thousand such questions to him; but when he read the first words of the letter he smiled. Here it is, textually, in all the simplicity of its artless phrases and its miserable orthography,—a letter to which it would be impossible to add anything, or to take anything away, unless it were the letter itself. But we have yielded to the necessity of punctuating it. In the original there were neither commas nor stops of any kind, not even notes of exclamation,—a fact which tends to undervalue the system of notes and dashes by which modern authors have endeavored to depict the great disasters of all the passions:—

Henry,—Among the manny sacrifisis I imposed upon myself for your
sake was that of not giving you anny news of me; but an
iresistible voise now compells me to let you know the wrong you
have done me. I know beforehand that your soul hardened in vise
will not pitty me. Your heart is deaf to feeling. Is it deaf to
the cries of nature? But what matter? I must tell you to what a
dredful point you are gilty, and the horror of the position to
which you have brought me. Henry, you knew what I sufered from my
first wrong-doing, and yet you plunged me into the same misery,
and then abbandoned me to my dispair and sufering. Yes, I will say
it, the belif I had that you loved me and esteemed me gave me
corage to bare my fate. But now, what have I left? Have you not
made me loose all that was dear to me, all that held me to life;
parents, frends, onor, reputation,—all, I have sacrifised all to
you, and nothing is left me but shame, oprobrum, and—I say this
without blushing—poverty. Nothing was wanting to my misfortunes
but the sertainty of your contempt and hatred; and now I have them
I find the corage that my project requires. My decision is made;
the onor of my famly commands it. I must put an end to my
suferins. Make no remarks upon my conduct, Henry; it is orful, I
know, but my condition obliges me. Without help, without suport,
without one frend to comfort me, can I live? No. Fate has desided
for me. So in two days, Henry, two days, Ida will have seased to
be worthy of your regard. Oh, Henry! oh, my frend! for I can never
change to you, promise me to forgive me for what I am going to do.
Do not forget that you have driven me to it; it is your work, and
you must judge it. May heven not punish you for all your crimes. I
ask your pardon on my knees, for I feel nothing is wanting to my
misery but the sorow of knowing you unhappy. In spite of the
poverty I am in I shall refuse all help from you. If you had loved
me I would have taken all from your friendship; but a benfit given
by pitty my soul refussis. I would be baser to take it than he
who offered it. I have one favor to ask of you. I don’t know how
long I must stay at Madame Meynardie’s; be genrous enough not to
come there. Your last two vissits did me a harm I cannot get ofer.
I cannot enter into particlers about that conduct of yours. You
hate me,—you said so; that word is writen on my heart, and
freeses it with fear. Alas! it is now, when I need all my corage,
all my strength, that my faculties abandon me. Henry, my frend,
before I put a barrier forever between us, give me a last pruf of
your esteem. Write me, answer me, say you respect me still, though
you have seased to love me. My eyes are worthy still to look into
yours, but I do not ask an interfew; I fear my weakness and my
love. But for pitty’s sake write me a line at once; it will give
me the corage I need to meet my trubbles. Farewell, orther of all
my woes, but the only frend my heart has chosen and will never
forget.

Ida.

This life of a young girl, with its love betrayed, its fatal joys, its pangs, its miseries, and its horrible resignation, summed up in a few words, this humble poem, essentially Parisian, written on dirty paper, influenced for a passing moment Monsieur de Maulincour. He asked himself whether this Ida might not be some poor relation of Madame Jules, and that strange rendezvous, which he had witnessed by chance, the mere necessity of a charitable effort. But could that old pauper have seduced this Ida? There was something impossible in the very idea. Wandering in this labyrinth of reflections, which crossed, recrossed, and obliterated one another, the baron reached the rue Pagevin, and saw a hackney-coach standing at the end of the rue des Vieux-Augustins where it enters the rue Montmartre. All waiting hackney-coaches now had an interest for him.

“Can she be there?” he thought to himself, and his heart beat fast with a hot and feverish throbbing.

He pushed the little door with the bell, but he lowered his head as he did so, obeying a sense of shame, for a voice said to him secretly:—

“Why are you putting your foot into this mystery?”

He went up a few steps, and found himself face to face with the old portress.