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diff --git a/old/1189.txt b/old/1189.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96c3bca --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1189.txt @@ -0,0 +1,940 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Message, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Message + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: February, 1998 [Etext #1189] +Posting Date: February 20, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MESSAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny + + + + + +THE MESSAGE + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + +To M. le Marquis Damaso Pareto + + + + +THE MESSAGE + + +I have always longed to tell a simple and true story, which should +strike terror into two young lovers, and drive them to take refuge each +in the other's heart, as two children cling together at the sight of a +snake by a woodside. At the risk of spoiling my story and of being taken +for a coxcomb, I state my intention at the outset. + +I myself played a part in this almost commonplace tragedy; so if it +fails to interest you, the failure will be in part my own fault, in +part owing to historical veracity. Plenty of things in real life are +superlatively uninteresting; so that it is one-half of art to select +from realities those which contain possibilities of poetry. + +In 1819 I was traveling from Paris to Moulins. The state of my finances +obliged me to take an outside place. Englishmen, as you know, regard +those airy perches on the top of the coach as the best seats; and for +the first few miles I discovered abundance of excellent reasons for +justifying the opinion of our neighbors. A young fellow, apparently in +somewhat better circumstances, who came to take the seat beside me +from preference, listened to my reasoning with inoffensive smiles. An +approximate nearness of age, a similarity in ways of thinking, a common +love of fresh air, and of the rich landscape scenery through which the +coach was lumbering along,--these things, together with an indescribable +magnetic something, drew us before long into one of those short-lived +traveller's intimacies, in which we unbend with the more complacency +because the intercourse is by its very nature transient, and makes no +implicit demands upon the future. + +We had not come thirty leagues before we were talking of women and love. +Then, with all the circumspection demanded in such matters, we proceeded +naturally to the topic of our lady-loves. Young as we both were, we +still admired "the woman of a certain age," that is to say, the woman +between thirty-five and forty. Oh! any poet who should have listened to +our talk, for heaven knows how many stages beyond Montargis, would have +reaped a harvest of flaming epithet, rapturous description, and very +tender confidences. Our bashful fears, our silent interjections, our +blushes, as we met each other's eyes, were expressive with an eloquence, +a boyish charm, which I have ceased to feel. One must remain young, no +doubt, to understand youth. + +Well, we understood one another to admiration on all the essential +points of passion. We had laid it down as an axiom at the very outset, +that in theory and practice there was no such piece of driveling +nonsense in this world as a certificate of birth; that plenty of women +were younger at forty than many a girl of twenty; and, to come to the +point, that a woman is no older than she looks. + +This theory set no limits to the age of love, so we struck out, in all +good faith, into a boundless sea. At length, when we had portrayed our +mistresses as young, charming, and devoted to us, women of rank, women +of taste, intellectual and clever; when we had endowed them with +little feet, a satin, nay, a delicately fragrant skin, then came the +admission--on his part that Madame Such-an-one was thirty-eight years +old, and on mine that I worshiped a woman of forty. Whereupon, as if +released on either side from some kind of vague fear, our confidences +came thick and fast, when we found that we were in the same +confraternity of love. It was which of us should overtop the other in +sentiment. + +One of us had traveled six hundred miles to see his mistress for an +hour. The other, at the risk of being shot for a wolf, had prowled about +her park to meet her one night. Out came all our follies in fact. If it +is pleasant to remember past dangers, is it not at least as pleasant +to recall past delights? We live through the joy a second time. We told +each other everything, our perils, our great joys, our little pleasures, +and even the humors of the situation. My friend's countess had lighted +a cigar for him; mine made chocolate for me, and wrote to me every day +when we did not meet; his lady had come to spend three days with him at +the risk of ruin to her reputation; mine had done even better, or worse, +if you will have it so. Our countesses, moreover, were adored by their +husbands; these gentlemen were enslaved by the charm possessed by every +woman who loves; and, with even supererogatory simplicity, afforded us +that just sufficient spice of danger which increases pleasure. Ah! how +quickly the wind swept away our talk and our happy laughter! + +When we reached Pouilly, I scanned my new friend with much interest, and +truly, it was not difficult to imagine him the hero of a very serious +love affair. Picture to yourselves a young man of middle height, but +very well proportioned, a bright, expressive face, dark hair, blue eyes, +moist lips, and white and even teeth. A certain not unbecoming pallor +still overspread his delicately cut features, and there were faint dark +circles about his eyes, as if he were recovering from an illness. Add, +furthermore, that he had white and shapely hands, of which he was as +careful as a pretty woman should be; add that he seemed to be very well +informed, and was decidedly clever, and it should not be difficult for +you to imagine that my traveling companion was more than worthy of a +countess. Indeed, many a girl might have wished for such a husband, for +he was a Vicomte with an income of twelve or fifteen thousand livres, +"to say nothing of expectations." + +About a league out of Pouilly the coach was overturned. My +luckless comrade, thinking to save himself, jumped to the edge of a +newly-ploughed field, instead of following the fortunes of the vehicle +and clinging tightly to the roof, as I did. He either miscalculated in +some way, or he slipped; how it happened, I do not know, but the coach +fell over upon him, and he was crushed under it. + +We carried him into a peasant's cottage, and there, amid the moans wrung +from him by horrible sufferings, he contrived to give me a commission--a +sacred task, in that it was laid upon me by a dying man's last wish. +Poor boy, all through his agony he was torturing himself in his young +simplicity of heart with the thought of the painful shock to his +mistress when she should suddenly read of his death in a newspaper. He +begged me to go myself to break the news to her. He bade me look for a +key which he wore on a ribbon about his neck. I found it half buried in +the flesh, but the dying boy did not utter a sound as I extricated it +as gently as possible from the wound which it had made. He had scarcely +given me the necessary directions--I was to go to his home at La +Charite-sur-Loire for his mistress' love-letters, which he conjured me +to return to her--when he grew speechless in the middle of a sentence; +but from his last gesture, I understood that the fatal key would be my +passport in his mother's house. It troubled him that he was powerless to +utter a single word to thank me, for of my wish to serve him he had no +doubt. He looked wistfully at me for a moment, then his eyelids drooped +in token of farewell, and his head sank, and he died. His death was the +only fatal accident caused by the overturn. + +"But it was partly his own fault," the coachman said to me. + +At La Charite, I executed the poor fellow's dying wishes. His mother was +away from home, which in a manner was fortunate for me. Nevertheless, I +had to assuage the grief of an old woman-servant, who staggered back at +the tidings of her young master's death, and sank half-dead into a chair +when she saw the blood-stained key. But I had another and more dreadful +sorrow to think of, the sorrow of a woman who had lost her last love; +so I left the old woman to her prosopopeia, and carried off the precious +correspondence, carefully sealed by my friend of the day. + +The Countess' chateau was some eight leagues beyond Moulins, and then +there was some distance to walk across country. So it was not exactly an +easy matter to deliver my message. For divers reasons into which I need +not enter, I had barely sufficient money to take me to Moulins. However, +my youthful enthusiasm determined to hasten thither on foot as fast +as possible. Bad news travels swiftly, and I wished to be first at the +chateau. I asked for the shortest way, and hurried through the field +paths of the Bourbonnais, bearing, as it were, a dead man on my back. +The nearer I came to the Chateau de Montpersan, the more aghast I felt +at the idea of my strange self-imposed pilgrimage. Vast numbers of +romantic fancies ran in my head. I imagined all kinds of situations in +which I might find this Comtesse de Montpersan, or, to observe the laws +of romance, this _Juliette_, so passionately beloved of my traveling +companion. I sketched out ingenious answers to the questions which she +might be supposed to put to me. At every turn of a wood, in every +beaten pathway, I rehearsed a modern version of the scene in which +Sosie describes the battle to his lantern. To my shame be it said, I had +thought at first of nothing but the part that _I_ was to play, of my +own cleverness, of how I should demean myself; but now that I was in the +country, an ominous thought flashed through my soul like a thunderbolt +tearing its way through a veil of gray cloud. + +What an awful piece of news it was for a woman whose whole thoughts were +full of her young lover, who was looking forward hour by hour to a joy +which no words can express, a woman who had been at a world of pains to +invent plausible pretexts to draw him to her side. Yet, after all, it +was a cruel deed of charity to be the messenger of death! So I hurried +on, splashing and bemiring myself in the byways of the Bourbonnais. + +Before very long I reached a great chestnut avenue with a pile of +buildings at the further end--the Chateau of Montpersan stood out +against the sky like a mass of brown cloud, with sharp, fantastic +outlines. All the doors of the chateau stood open. This in itself +disconcerted me, and routed all my plans; but I went in boldly, and in +a moment found myself between a couple of dogs, barking as your +true country-bred animal can bark. The sound brought out a hurrying +servant-maid; who, when informed that I wished to speak to Mme. la +Comtesse, waved a hand towards the masses of trees in the English park +which wound about the chateau with "Madame is out there----" + +"Many thanks," said I ironically. I might have wandered for a couple of +hours in the park with her "out there" to guide me. + +In the meantime, a pretty little girl, with curling hair, dressed in a +white frock, a rose-colored sash, and a broad frill at the throat, had +overheard or guessed the question and its answer. She gave me a glance +and vanished, calling in shrill, childish tones: + +"Mother, here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to you!" + +And, along the winding alleys, I followed the skipping and dancing white +frill, a sort of will-o'-the-wisp, that showed me the way among the +trees. + +I must make a full confession. I stopped behind the last shrub in the +avenue, pulled up my collar, rubbed my shabby hat and my trousers with +the cuffs of my sleeves, dusted my coat with the sleeves themselves, +and gave them a final cleansing rub one against the other. I buttoned my +coat carefully so as to exhibit the inner, always the least worn, side +of the cloth, and finally had turned down the tops of my trousers over +my boots, artistically cleaned in the grass. Thanks to this Gascon +toilet, I could hope that the lady would not take me for the local rate +collector; but now when my thoughts travel back to that episode of my +youth, I sometimes laugh at my own expense. + +Suddenly, just as I was composing myself, at a turning in the green +walk, among a wilderness of flowers lighted up by a hot ray of sunlight, +I saw Juliette--Juliette and her husband. The pretty little girl +held her mother by the hand, and it was easy to see that the lady had +quickened her pace somewhat at the child's ambiguous phrase. Taken aback +by the sight of a total stranger, who bowed with a tolerably awkward +air, she looked at me with a coolly courteous expression and an adorable +pout, in which I, who knew her secret, could read the full extent of +her disappointment. I sought, but sought in vain, to remember any of the +elegant phrases so laboriously prepared. + +This momentary hesitation gave the lady's husband time to come forward. +Thoughts by the myriad flitted through my brain. To give myself a +countenance, I got out a few sufficiently feeble inquiries, asking +whether the persons present were really M. le Comte and Mme. la +Comtesse de Montpersan. These imbecilities gave me time to form my own +conclusions at a glance, and, with a perspicacity rare at that age, to +analyze the husband and wife whose solitude was about to be so rudely +disturbed. + +The husband seemed to be a specimen of a certain type of nobleman, the +fairest ornaments of the provinces of our day. He wore big shoes with +stout soles to them. I put the shoes first advisedly, for they made +an even deeper impression upon me than a seedy black coat, a pair of +threadbare trousers, a flabby cravat, or a crumpled shirt collar. +There was a touch of the magistrate in the man, a good deal more of the +Councillor of the Prefecture, all the self-importance of the mayor of +the arrondissement, the local autocrat, and the soured temper of the +unsuccessful candidate who has never been returned since the year 1816. +As to countenance--a wizened, wrinkled, sunburned face, and long, sleek +locks of scanty gray hair; as to character--an incredible mixture of +homely sense and sheer silliness; of a rich man's overbearing ways, and +a total lack of manners; just the kind of husband who is almost entirely +led by his wife, yet imagines himself to be the master; apt to domineer +in trifles, and to let more important things slip past unheeded--there +you have the man! + +But the Countess! Ah, how sharp and startling the contrast between +husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a flat, graceful +figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty was she, that you +would have feared to break some bone if you so much as touched her. She +wore a white muslin dress, a rose-colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons +in the pretty cap on her head; her chemisette was moulded so deliciously +by her shoulders and the loveliest rounded contours, that the sight of +her awakened an irresistible desire of possession in the depths of +the heart. Her eyes were bright and dark and expressive, her movements +graceful, her foot charming. An experienced man of pleasure would not +have given her more than thirty years, her forehead was so girlish. +She had all the most transient delicate detail of youth in her face. In +character she seemed to me to resemble the Comtesse de Lignolles and the +Marquise de B----, two feminine types always fresh in the memory of any +young man who has read Louvet's romance. + +In a moment I saw how things stood, and took a diplomatic course that +would have done credit to an old ambassador. For once, and perhaps for +the only time in my life, I used tact, and knew in what the special +skill of courtiers and men of the world consists. + +I have had so many battles to fight since those heedless days, that they +have left me no time to distil all the least actions of daily life, and +to do everything so that it falls in with those rules of etiquette and +good taste which wither the most generous emotions. + +"M. le Comte," I said with an air of mystery, "I should like a few words +with you," and I fell back a pace or two. + +He followed my example. Juliette left us together, going away +unconcernedly, like a wife who knew that she can learn her husband's +secrets as soon as she chooses to know them. + +I told the Count briefly of the death of my traveling companion. The +effect produced by my news convinced me that his affection for his young +collaborator was cordial enough, and this emboldened me to make reply as +I did. + +"My wife will be in despair," cried he; "I shall be obliged to break the +news of this unhappy event with great caution." + +"Monsieur," said I, "I addressed myself to you in the first instance, +as in duty bound. I could not, without first informing you, deliver +a message to Mme. la Comtesse, a message intrusted to me by an entire +stranger; but this commission is a sort of sacred trust, a secret of +which I have no power to dispose. From the high idea of your character +which he gave me, I felt sure that you would not oppose me in the +fulfilment of a dying request. Mme. la Comtesse will be at liberty to +break the silence which is imposed upon me." + +At this eulogy, the Count swung his head very amiably, responded with +a tolerably involved compliment, and finally left me a free field. We +returned to the house. The bell rang, and I was invited to dinner. As we +came up to the house, a grave and silent couple, Juliette stole a +glance at us. Not a little surprised to find her husband contriving some +frivolous excuse for leaving us together, she stopped short, giving me +a glance--such a glance as women only can give you. In that look of +hers there was the pardonable curiosity of the mistress of the house +confronted with a guest dropped down upon her from the skies and +innumerable doubts, certainly warranted by the state of my clothes, by +my youth and my expression, all singularly at variance; there was all +the disdain of the adored mistress, in whose eyes all men save one are +as nothing; there were involuntary tremors and alarms; and, above all, +the thought that it was tiresome to have an unexpected guest just now, +when, no doubt, she had been scheming to enjoy full solitude for her +love. This mute eloquence I understood in her eyes, and all the pity and +compassion in me made answer in a sad smile. I thought of her, as I had +seen her for one moment, in the pride of her beauty; standing in the +sunny afternoon in the narrow alley with the flowers on either hand; and +as that fair wonderful picture rose before my eyes, I could not repress +a sigh. + +"Alas, madame, I have just made a very arduous journey----, undertaken +solely on your account." + +"Sir!" + +"Oh! it is on behalf of one who calls you Juliette that I am come," I +continued. Her face grew white. + +"You will not see him to-day." + +"Is he ill?" she asked, and her voice sank lower. + +"Yes. But for pity's sake, control yourself.... He intrusted me with +secrets that concern you, and you may be sure that never messenger could +be more discreet nor more devoted than I." + +"What is the matter with him?" + +"How if he loved you no longer?" + +"Oh! that is impossible!" she cried, and a faint smile, nothing less +than frank, broke over her face. Then all at once a kind of shudder ran +through her, and she reddened, and she gave me a wild, swift glance as +she asked: + +"Is he alive?" + +Great God! What a terrible phrase! I was too young to bear that tone in +her voice; I made no reply, only looked at the unhappy woman in helpless +bewilderment. + +"Monsieur, monsieur, give me an answer!" she cried. + +"Yes, madame." + +"Is it true? Oh! tell me the truth; I can hear the truth. Tell me the +truth! Any pain would be less keen than this suspense." + +I answered by two tears wrung from me by that strange tone of hers. She +leaned against a tree with a faint, sharp cry. + +"Madame, here comes your husband!" + +"Have I a husband?" and with those words she fled away out of sight. + +"Well," cried the Count, "dinner is growing cold.--Come, monsieur." + +Thereupon I followed the master of the house into the dining-room. +Dinner was served with all the luxury which we have learned to expect in +Paris. There were five covers laid, three for the Count and Countess and +their little daughter; my own, which should have been HIS; and another +for the canon of Saint-Denis, who said grace, and then asked: + +"Why, where can our dear Countess be?" + +"Oh! she will be here directly," said the Count. He had hastily helped +us to the soup, and was dispatching an ample plateful with portentous +speed. + +"Oh! nephew," exclaimed the canon, "if your wife were here, you would +behave more rationally." + +"Papa will make himself ill!" said the child with a mischievous look. + +Just after this extraordinary gastronomical episode, as the Count was +eagerly helping himself to a slice of venison, a housemaid came in with, +"We cannot find madame anywhere, sir!" + +I sprang up at the words with a dread in my mind, my fears written +so plainly in my face, that the old canon came out after me into the +garden. The Count, for the sake of appearances, came as far as the +threshold. + +"Don't go, don't go!" called he. "Don't trouble yourselves in the +least," but he did not offer to accompany us. + +We three--the canon, the housemaid, and I--hurried through the garden +walks and over the bowling-green in the park, shouting, listening for +an answer, growing more uneasy every moment. As we hurried along, I told +the story of the fatal accident, and discovered how strongly the maid +was attached to her mistress, for she took my secret dread far more +seriously than the canon. We went along by the pools of water; all over +the park we went; but we neither found the Countess nor any sign that +she had passed that way. At last we turned back, and under the walls of +some outbuildings I heard a smothered, wailing cry, so stifled that it +was scarcely audible. The sound seemed to come from a place that +might have been a granary. I went in at all risks, and there we found +Juliette. With the instinct of despair, she had buried herself deep in +the hay, hiding her face in it to deaden those dreadful cries--pudency +even stronger than grief. She was sobbing and crying like a child, but +there was a more poignant, more piteous sound in the sobs. There was +nothing left in the world for her. The maid pulled the hay from her, her +mistress submitting with the supine listlessness of a dying animal. The +maid could find nothing to say but "There! madame; there, there----" + +"What is the matter with her? What is it, niece?" the old canon kept on +exclaiming. + +At last, with the girl's help, I carried Juliette to her room, gave +orders that she was not to be disturbed, and that every one must be told +that the Countess was suffering from a sick headache. Then we came down +to the dining-room, the canon and I. + +Some little time had passed since we left the dinner-table; I had +scarcely given a thought to the Count since we left him under the +peristyle; his indifference had surprised me, but my amazement increased +when we came back and found him seated philosophically at table. He had +eaten pretty nearly all the dinner, to the huge delight of his little +daughter; the child was smiling at her father's flagrant infraction of +the Countess' rules. The man's odd indifference was explained to me by +a mild altercation which at once arose with the canon. The Count was +suffering from some serious complaint. I cannot remember now what it +was, but his medical advisers had put him on a very severe regimen, and +the ferocious hunger familiar to convalescents, sheer animal appetite, +had overpowered all human sensibilities. In that little space I had seen +frank and undisguised human nature under two very different aspects, in +such a sort that there was a certain grotesque element in the very midst +of a most terrible tragedy. + +The evening that followed was dreary. I was tired. The canon racked his +brains to discover a reason for his niece's tears. The lady's husband +silently digested his dinner; content, apparently, with the Countess' +rather vague explanation, sent through the maid, putting forward some +feminine ailment as her excuse. We all went early to bed. + +As I passed the door of the Countess' room on the way to my night's +lodging, I asked the servant timidly for news of her. She heard my +voice, and would have me come in, and tried to talk, but in vain--she +could not utter a sound. She bent her head, and I withdrew. In spite of +the painful agitation, which I had felt to the full as youth can feel, I +fell asleep, tired out with my forced march. + +It was late in the night when I was awakened by the grating sound of +curtain rings drawn sharply over the metal rods. There sat the Countess +at the foot of my bed. The light from a lamp set on my table fell full +upon her face. + +"Is it really true, monsieur, quite true?" she asked. "I do not know +how I can live after that awful blow which struck me down a little while +since; but just now I feel calm. I want to know everything." + +"What calm!" I said to myself as I saw the ghastly pallor of her face +contrasting with her brown hair, and heard the guttural tones of her +voice. The havoc wrought in her drawn features filled me with dumb +amazement. + +Those few hours had bleached her; she had lost a woman's last glow of +autumn color. Her eyes were red and swollen, nothing of their beauty +remained, nothing looked out of them save her bitter and exceeding +grief; it was as if a gray cloud covered the place through which the sun +had shone. + +I gave her the story of the accident in a few words, without laying too +much stress on some too harrowing details. I told her about our first +day's journey, and how it had been filled with recollections of her and +of love. And she listened eagerly, without shedding a tear, leaning her +face towards me, as some zealous doctor might lean to watch any change +in a patient's face. When she seemed to me to have opened her whole +heart to pain, to be deliberately plunging herself into misery with the +first delirious frenzy of despair, I caught at my opportunity, and told +her of the fears that troubled the poor dying man, told her how and +why it was that he had given me this fatal message. Then her tears were +dried by the fires that burned in the dark depths within her. She grew +even paler. When I drew the letters from beneath my pillow and held them +out to her, she took them mechanically; then, trembling from head to +foot, she said in a hollow voice: + +"And _I_ burned all his letters!--I have nothing of him left!--Nothing! +nothing!" + +She struck her hand against her forehead. + +"Madame----" I began. + +She glanced at me in the convulsion of grief. + +"I cut this from his head, this lock of his hair." + +And I gave her that last imperishable token that had been a very part +of him she loved. Ah! if you had felt, as I felt then, her burning tears +falling on your hands, you would know what gratitude is, when it follows +so closely upon the benefit. Her eyes shone with a feverish glitter, +a faint ray of happiness gleamed out of her terrible suffering, as she +grasped my hands in hers, and said, in a choking voice: + +"Ah! you love! May you be happy always. May you never lose her whom you +love." + +She broke off, and fled away with her treasure. + +Next morning, this night-scene among my dreams seemed like a dream; to +make sure of the piteous truth, I was obliged to look fruitlessly under +my pillow for the packet of letters. There is no need to tell you how +the next day went. I spent several hours of it with the Juliette whom my +poor comrade had so praised to me. In her lightest words, her gestures, +in all that she did and said, I saw proofs of the nobleness of soul, the +delicacy of feeling which made her what she was, one of those beloved, +loving, and self-sacrificing natures so rarely found upon this earth. + +In the evening the Comte de Montpersan came himself as far as Moulins +with me. There he spoke with a kind of embarrassment: + +"Monsieur, if it is not abusing your good-nature, and acting very +inconsiderately towards a stranger to whom we are already under +obligations, would you have the goodness, as you are going to Paris, to +remit a sum of money to M. de ---- (I forget the name), in the Rue du +Sentier; I owe him an amount, and he asked me to send it as soon as +possible." + +"Willingly," said I. And in the innocence of my heart, I took charge +of a rouleau of twenty-five louis d'or, which paid the expenses of +my journey back to Paris; and only when, on my arrival, I went to +the address indicated to repay the amount to M. de Montpersan's +correspondent, did I understand the ingenious delicacy with which +Juliette had obliged me. Was not all the genius of a loving woman +revealed in such a way of lending, in her reticence with regard to a +poverty easily guessed? + +And what rapture to have this adventure to tell to a woman who clung to +you more closely in dread, saying, "Oh, my dear, not you! _You_ must not +die!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Message, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MESSAGE *** + +***** This file should be named 1189.txt or 1189.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/1189/ + +Produced by Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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