Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/144

 drama. The breakfast, noisy like all provincial breakfasts and enlivened by some excellent wines which reach Nemours by the canal, either from Burgundy or La Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zélie had sent for some shell-fish, salt water fish and various gastronomic dainties, in order to celebrate Désiré’s return.

The dining-room, in the middle of which the round table presented a gladdening sight, looked like an inn-room. Satisfied with her quantity of stock, Zélie had built a pavilion between her immense yard and her garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit trees. Everything, with her, was only for cleanliness and solidity. Levrault-Levrault’s example had seemed terrible to the country. And so she forbade her architect to lead her into any similar nonsense. This room was consequently hung with a glazed paper, furnished with walnut chairs, walnut sideboards, and adorned with a faience stove, a timepiece and a barometer. If the plates and dishes were of common white china, the table was conspicuous through the linen and abundant silver. Once the coffee had been served by Zélie, who was on the move like a leaden shot in a bottle of champagne, for she contented herself with a cook; when Désiré, the future barrister, had been told all about the great event of the morning and its consequences, Zélie shut the door, and the notary Dionis was requested to speak. From the silence that ensued, and from the look that each heir fixed upon this authentic face, it was easy to