[A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac]@TWC D-Link book
A Start in Life

CHAPTER XI
12/13

Georges has fallen low.

All the others, thanks to speculation and to talent, have made their fortune.

Do we breakfast here, Pierrotin ?" he said, aloud, slapping that worthy on the shoulder.
"I am not the driver," said Pierrotin.
"What are you, then ?" asked Colonel Husson.
"The proprietor," replied Pierrotin.
"Come, don't be vexed with an old acquaintance," said Oscar, motioning to his mother, but still retaining his patronizing manner.

"Don't you recognize Madame Clapart ?" It was all the nobler of Oscar to present his mother to Pierrotin, because, at that moment, Madame Moreau de l'Oise, getting out of the coupe, overheard the name, and stared disdainfully at Oscar and his mother.
"My faith! madame," said Pierrotin, "I should never have known you; nor you, either, monsieur; the sun burns black in Africa, doesn't it ?" The species of pity which Oscar thus felt for Pierrotin was the last blunder that vanity ever led our hero to commit, and, like his other faults, it was punished, but very gently, thus:-- Two months after his official installation at Beaumont-sur-Oise, Oscar was paying his addresses to Mademoiselle Georgette Pierrotin, whose 'dot' amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he married the pretty daughter of the proprietor of the stage-coaches of the Oise, toward the close of the winter of 1838.
The adventure of the journey to Presles was a lesson to Oscar Husson in discretion; his disaster at Florentine's card-party strengthened him in honesty and uprightness; the hardships of his military career taught him to understand the social hierarchy and to yield obedience to his lot.
Becoming wise and capable, he was happy.

The Comte de Serizy, before his death, obtained for him the collectorship at Pontoise.


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