章节正文
de Listomere under a pretence of undue influence!
A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the
rank of captain. As a measure of ecclesiasticaldiscipline, the curate
of Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty.
The murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler. If Monseigneur
Troubert had kept Mademoiselle Gamard's property he would have found
it difficult to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure
Birotteau.
At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, drove
along the quay Saint-Symphorien in a post-chaise on his way to Paris
poor Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace
above the road. The unhappypriest, smitten by the archbishop, was
pale and haggard. Grief, stamped on every feature, distorted the face
that was once so mildly gay. Illness had dimmed his eyes, formerly
brightened by the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious
ideas, with a veil which simulated thought. It was but the skeleton of
the old Birotteau who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but
so content along the Cloister. The bishop cast one look of pity and
contempt upon his victim; then he consented to forget him, and went
his way.
There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a
Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth. In these days the Church is no
longer a political power, and does not absorb the whole strength of
her solitaries. Celibacy, however, presents the inherent vice of
concentating the faculties of man upon a single passion, egotism,
which renders celibates either useless or mischievous. We live at a
period when the defect of governments is to make Man for Society
rather than Society for Man. There is a perpetual struggle going on
between the Individual and the Social system which insists on using
him, while he is endeavoring to use it to his own profit; whereas, in
former days, man, really more free, was also more loyal to the public
weal. The round in which men struggle in these days has been
insensibly widened; the soul which can grasp it as a whole will ever
be a magnificentexception; for, as a general thing, in morals as in
physics, impulsion loses in intensity what it gains in extension.
Society can not be based on exceptions. Man in the first instance was
purely and simply, father; his heart beat warmly, concentrated in the
one ray of Family. Later, he lived for a clan, or a small community;
hence the great historical devotions of Greece and Rome. After that he
was a man of caste or of a religion, to maintain the greatness of
which he often proved himself sublime; but by that time the field of
his interests became enlarged by many intellectual regions. In our
day, his life is attached to that of a vast country; sooner or later
his family will be, it is predicted, the entire universe.
Will this moral cosmopolitanism, the hope of Christian Rome, prove to
be only a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the
realization of a noble vision, in the Brotherhood of Man. But, alas!
the human machine does not have such divine proportions. Souls that
are vast enough to grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men
only will never belong to either fathers of families or simple
citizens. Some physiologists have thought that as the brain enlarges
the heart narrows; but they are mistaken. The apparent egotism of men
who bear a science, a nation, a code of laws in their bosom is the
noblest of passions; it is, as one may say, the maternity of the
masses; to give birth to new peoples, to produce new ideas they must
unite within their mighty brains the breasts of woman and the force of
God. The history of such men as Innocent the Third and Peter the
Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation will show, if
need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of which
Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
Cloister of Saint-Gatien.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Birotteau, Abbe Francois Troubert, Abbe Hyacinthe
The Lily of the Valley The Member for Arcis
Cesar Birotteau
Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de
Bourbonne, De Louis Lambert
Madame Firmiani A Seaside Tragedy
Listomere, Baronne de
Cesar Birotteau
The Muse of the Department
End
A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the
rank of captain. As a measure of ecclesiasticaldiscipline, the curate
of Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty.
The murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler. If Monseigneur
Troubert had kept Mademoiselle Gamard's property he would have found
it difficult to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure
Birotteau.
At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, drove
along the quay Saint-Symphorien in a post-chaise on his way to Paris
poor Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace
above the road. The unhappypriest, smitten by the archbishop, was
pale and haggard. Grief, stamped on every feature, distorted the face
that was once so mildly gay. Illness had dimmed his eyes, formerly
brightened by the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious
ideas, with a veil which simulated thought. It was but the skeleton of
the old Birotteau who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but
so content along the Cloister. The bishop cast one look of pity and
contempt upon his victim; then he consented to forget him, and went
his way.
There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a
Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth. In these days the Church is no
longer a political power, and does not absorb the whole strength of
her solitaries. Celibacy, however, presents the inherent vice of
concentating the faculties of man upon a single passion, egotism,
which renders celibates either useless or mischievous. We live at a
period when the defect of governments is to make Man for Society
rather than Society for Man. There is a perpetual struggle going on
between the Individual and the Social system which insists on using
him, while he is endeavoring to use it to his own profit; whereas, in
former days, man, really more free, was also more loyal to the public
weal. The round in which men struggle in these days has been
insensibly widened; the soul which can grasp it as a whole will ever
be a magnificentexception; for, as a general thing, in morals as in
physics, impulsion loses in intensity what it gains in extension.
Society can not be based on exceptions. Man in the first instance was
purely and simply, father; his heart beat warmly, concentrated in the
one ray of Family. Later, he lived for a clan, or a small community;
hence the great historical devotions of Greece and Rome. After that he
was a man of caste or of a religion, to maintain the greatness of
which he often proved himself sublime; but by that time the field of
his interests became enlarged by many intellectual regions. In our
day, his life is attached to that of a vast country; sooner or later
his family will be, it is predicted, the entire universe.
Will this moral cosmopolitanism, the hope of Christian Rome, prove to
be only a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the
realization of a noble vision, in the Brotherhood of Man. But, alas!
the human machine does not have such divine proportions. Souls that
are vast enough to grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men
only will never belong to either fathers of families or simple
citizens. Some physiologists have thought that as the brain enlarges
the heart narrows; but they are mistaken. The apparent egotism of men
who bear a science, a nation, a code of laws in their bosom is the
noblest of passions; it is, as one may say, the maternity of the
masses; to give birth to new peoples, to produce new ideas they must
unite within their mighty brains the breasts of woman and the force of
God. The history of such men as Innocent the Third and Peter the
Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation will show, if
need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of which
Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
Cloister of Saint-Gatien.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Birotteau, Abbe Francois Troubert, Abbe Hyacinthe
The Lily of the Valley The Member for Arcis
Cesar Birotteau
Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de
Bourbonne, De Louis Lambert
Madame Firmiani A Seaside Tragedy
Listomere, Baronne de
Cesar Birotteau
The Muse of the Department
End
- measure [´meʒə]
n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词) - discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
- priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
- illness [´ilnis] n.生病，不健康，疾病 (初中英语单词)
- victim [´viktim] n.牺牲者；受害者 (初中英语单词)
- absorb [əb´sɔ:b] vt.吸收；吸引 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- useless [´ju:sləs] a.无用的，无价值的 (初中英语单词)
- system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
- whereas [weər´æz] conj.鉴于；因此；而 (初中英语单词)
- magnificent [mæg´nifisənt] a.壮丽的；豪华的 (初中英语单词)
- exception [ik´sepʃən] n.例外；反对，异议 (初中英语单词)
- instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
- greece [gri:s] n.希腊 (初中英语单词)
- maintain [mein´tein] vt.维持；保持；继续 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- apparent [ə´pærənt] a.显然的；表面上的 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- pretence [pri´tens] n.假装；托词；无理要求 (高中英语单词)
- murderer [´mə:dərə] n.杀人犯，凶手 (高中英语单词)
- archbishop [,ɑ:tʃ´biʃəp] n.大主教 (高中英语单词)
- skeleton [´skelitən] n.骨骼；骷髅 (高中英语单词)
- defect [di´fekt, ´di:fekt] n.缺点，不足 (高中英语单词)
- perpetual [pə´petʃuəl] a.永恒的；终身的 (高中英语单词)
- intensity [in´tensiti] a.激烈；强度；深度 (高中英语单词)
- historical [his´tɔrikəl] a.历史(上)的 (高中英语单词)
- greatness [´greitnis] n.巨大；高尚；卓越 (高中英语单词)
- intellectual [,inti´lektʃuəl] n.知识分子 (高中英语单词)
- brotherhood [´brʌðəhud] n.兄弟情谊；兄弟关系 (高中英语单词)
- mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- armchair [´ɑ:mtʃeə] n.扶手椅 (英语四级单词)
- haggard [´hægəd] a.憔悴的 (英语四级单词)
- mildly [´maildli] ad.温和地；适度地 (英语四级单词)
- cloister [´klɔistə] n.修道院；隐居处 (英语四级单词)
- mischievous [´mistʃivəs] a.有害的；淘气的 (英语四级单词)
- sublime [sə´blaim] a.崇高的，伟大的 (英语四级单词)
- ecclesiastical [i,kli:zi´æstikəl] n.基督教会的；教士的 (英语六级单词)
- mademoiselle [,mædəmə´zel] n.小姐；法国女教师 (英语六级单词)
- smitten [´smitn] smite的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
- devoid [di´vɔid] a.无...的，缺...的 (英语六级单词)
- inherent [in´hiərənt] a.固有的，天生的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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