title: Dangerous French mistress, and other stories
author: Laurie Colwin
description: Dust jacket design by Philippa Branson. Colwin's first book, a collection of short stories published in America as "Passion and Affect."
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # The Hated Son
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Honore de Balzac
  
  
  ##### Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
  
  
  DEDICATION
  
  
  
  
  
  To Madame la Baronne James Rothschild.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### PART I. HOW THE MOTHER LIVED
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER I. A BEDROOM OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  On a winter's night, about two in the morning, the Comtesse Jeanne
  
  
  d'Herouville felt such violent pains that in spite of her
  
  
  inexperience, she was conscious of an approaching confinement; and the
  
  
  instinct which makes us hope for ease in a change of posture induced
  
  
  her to sit up in her bed, either to study the nature of these new
  
  
  sufferings, or to reflect on her situation. She was a prey to cruel
  
  
  fears,--caused less by the dread of a first lying-in, which terrifies
  
  
  most women, than by certain dangers which awaited her child.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  In order not to awaken her husband who was sleeping beside her, t