Free The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac Page A

table d’hôte, and eagerly seized a middle term which would serve both his desire and his repugnance. He would enter the place in order to dine there! Andrea opened the door and walked down a dark hallway at the end of which he found, after some fumbling, a damp and slippery staircase which to an Italian grand seigneur must have seemed little more than a ladder. Climbing the stairs by the light of a small lamp set on the floor and following a strong smell of cooking, he pushed a half-open door and found himself in a low room dingy with smoke and dirt, where a woman out of Leonardo’s caricatures was setting a table for some twenty diners, none as yet present. After a glance around this dim room where the paper dangled in strips from the walls, the count chose a seat near the stove that was hissing and smoking in one corner. Alerted by the sounds this first guest made as he came in and took off his cloak, the maître d’hôtel suddenly appeared. Imagine a tall, thin, wizened chef, endowed with a perfectly enormous nose, darting feverish glances around the room in an attempt to appear conscientious. Catching sight of Andrea, every item of whose appearance suggested great wealth, Signor Giardini bowed respectfully. The count indicated his desire to dine regularly in the company of his compatriots, to take a certain number of meal tickets in advance, and managed to give the conversation a friendly turn in order to arrive more readily at his real goal. No sooner had he mentioned the unknown woman he was interested in than Signor Giardini made a grotesque gesture and cast a sly glance at his guest, allowing a smile to pass over his lips.
    “
Basta!
” he exclaimed. “
Capisco!
Vossignoria
has been brought here by two appetites. Signora Gambara hasn’t wasted her time if she’s managed to interest a gentleman as generous as you appear to be. In few words I shall tell you all we know about this poor woman, who is truly to be pitied! The husband is a native of Cremona, I believe, and comes here from Germany, where he intended to create new music and new musical instruments among
i Tedeschi
! Is that not pitiable?” Giardini inquired with a shrug of the shoulders. “Signor Gambara, who takes himself for a great composer, does not strike me as great in other respects.
Galant’uomo
though he may be, full of wit and knowledge, on occasion quite agreeable, particularly when he has taken a few glasses of wine—a rare occasion, by reason of his dreadful poverty—he busies himself night and day composing imaginary operas and symphonies instead of trying to earn an honest living. His poor wife is reduced to doing needlework for all sorts of people, some really beyond the pale! What else can she do? She loves her husband like a father and looks after him like a baby! Any number of young men have dined with us to pay their court to the signora, yet none has achieved
success
,” he announced, emphasizing this last word. “Signora Marianna is a virtuous woman, too virtuous for her own good! Men give nothing for nothing today. And so the poor woman will starve to death! And how do you think the husband rewards such devotion? ... Bah! With not even a smile. Bread and water is all they eat, for not only does this poor devil not earn a sou, he even spends whatever money his wife earns on instruments which he carves and lengthens and shortens and takes apart and puts together until the only sounds they make scare away the cats; then he’s happy! And yet you’ll see—he’s the gentlest and kindest of men, anything but idle, always working. The truth is, he’s mad and doesn’t know it. I’ve seen him filing and forging those instruments of his and eating black bread with an appetite I myself would envy, though I serve the best table in Paris. Yes,
eccellenza
, a quarter of an hour from now you’ll learn the sort of man I am. I’ve introduced refinements into Italian cooking which will astound you. I am a Neapolitan,
eccellenza
,