章节正文
baroness exactly resembled those old women whom Schnetz puts into the
Italian scenes of his "genre" pictures. She was so habitually silent
that she might have been taken for another Mrs. Shandy; but,
occasionally, a word, look, or gesturebetrayed that her feelings
still retained all the vigor and the freshness of their youth. Her
dress, devoid of coquetry, was often in bad taste. She usually sat
passive, buried in a low sofa, like a Sultana Valide, awaiting or
admiring her Ginevra, her pride, her life. The beauty, toilet, and
grace of her daughter seemed to have become her own. All was well with
her if Ginevra was happy. Her hair was white, and a few strands only
were seen above her white and wrinkled forehead, or beside her hollow
cheeks.
"It is now fifteen days," she said, "since Ginevra made a practice of
being late."
"Jean is so slow!" cried the impatient old man, buttoning up his blue
coat and seizing his hat, which he dashed upon his head as he took his
cane and departed.
"You will not get far," said his wife, calling after him.
As she spoke, the porte-cochere was opened and shut, and the old
mother heard the steps of her Ginevra in the court-yard. Bartolomeo
almost instantly reappeared, carrying his daughter, who struggled in
his arms.
CHAPTER IV
LOVE
"Here she is, my Ginevra, Ginevrettina, Ginevrola, mia Ginevra bella!"
cried the old man.
"Oh, father, you hurt me!"
Instantly Ginevra was put down with an air of respect. She nodded her
head with a gracefulmovement at her mother, who was frightened by her
cry, as if to say, "Don't be alarmed, it was only a trick to get
away."
The pale, wan face of the baroness recovered its usual tones, and even
assumed a look of gayety. Piombo rubbed his hands violently,--with him
the surest symptom of joy; he had taken to this habit at court when he
saw Napoleon becoming angry with those of his generals and ministers
who served him ill or committed blunders. When, as now, the muscles of
his face relaxed, every wrinkle on his forehead expressed benevolence.
These two old people presented at this moment precisely the aspect of
a drooping plant to which a little water has given fresh life after
long dryness.
"Now, to dinner! to dinner!" cried the baron, offering his large hand
to his daughter, whom he called "Signora Piombellina,"--another
symptom of gayety, to which Ginevra replied by a smile.
"Ah ca!" said Piombo, as they left the table, "your mother has called
my attention to the fact that for some weeks you have stayed much
longer than usual at the studio. It seems that painting is more to you
than your parents--"
"Oh, father!"
"Ginevra is preparing some surprise for us, I think," said the mother.
"A picture of your own! will you bring us that?" cried the Corsican,
clapping his hands.
"Yes, I am very much occupied at the studio," replied Ginevra, rather
slowly.
"What is the matter, Ginevra? You are turning pale!" cried her mother.
"No!" exclaimed the young girl in a tone of resolution,--"no! it shall
never be said that Ginevra Piombo acted a lie."
Hearing this singularexclamation, Piombo and his wife looked at their
daughter in astonishment.
"I love a young man," she added, in a voice of emotion.
Then, not venturing to look at her parents, she lowered her large
eyelids as if to veil the fire of her eyes.
"Is he a prince?" asked her father, ironically, in a tone of voice
which made the mother quail.
"No, father," she said, gently, "he is a young man without fortune."
"Is he very handsome?"
"He is very unfortunate."
"What is he?"
"Labedoyere's comrade; he was proscribed, without a refuge; Servin
concealed him, and--"
"Servin is a good fellow, who has done well," cried Piombo; "but you,
my daughter, you do wrong to love any man, except your father."
"It does not depend on me to love, or not to love," replied Ginevra,
still gently.
"I flattered myself," continued her father, "that my Ginevra would be
faithful to me until I died; and that my love and that of her mother
would suffice her till then; I did not expect that our tenderness
would find a rival in her soul, and--"
"Did I ever reproach you for your fanaticism for Napoleon?" said
Ginevra. "Have you never loved any one but me? Did you not leave me
for months together when you went on missions. I bore your absence
courageously. Life has necessities to which we must all submit."
"Ginevra!"
"No, you don't love me for myself; your reproaches betray your
intolerable egotism."
"You dare to blame your father's love!" exclaimed Piombo, his eyes
flashing.
"Father, I don't blame you," replied Ginevra, with more gentleness
than her trembling mother expected. "You have grounds for your
egotism, as I have for my love. Heaven is my witness that no girl has
ever fulfilled her duty to her parents better than I have done to you.
I have never felt anything but love and happiness where others often
see obligation. It is now fifteen years that I have never left your
protecting wing, and it has been a most dear pleasure to me to charm
your life. But am I ungrateful for all this in giving myself up to the
joy of loving; is it ingratitude to desire a husband who will protect
me hereafter?"
"What! do you reckon benefits with your father, Ginevra?" said Piombo,
in a dangerous tone.
A dreadful pause then followed, during which no one dared to speak.
Bartolomeo at last broke the silence by crying out in a heart-rending
tone:--
"Oh! stay with us! stay with your father, your old father! I cannot
have you love another man. Ginevra, you will not have long to await
your liberty."
"But, father, remember that I need not leave you; we shall be two to
love you; you will learn to know the man to whose care you bequeath
me. You will be doubly cherished by me and by him,--by him who is my
other self, by me who am all his."
"Oh! Ginevra, Ginevra!" cried the Corsican, clenching his fists; "why
did you not marry when Napoleon brought me to accept the idea? Why did
you not take the counts and dukes he presented to you?"
"They loved me to order," said the girl. "Besides, they would have
made me live with them, and I did not wish to leave you alone."
"You don't wish to leave me alone," said Piombo, "and yet you marry!--
that is leaving me alone. I know you, my daughter; in that case, you
would cease to love us. Elisa," he added, looking at his wife, who
remained motionless, and as if stupefied, "we have no longer a
daughter; she wishes to marry."
The old man sat down, after raising his hands to heaven with a gesture
of invoking the Divine power; then he bowed himself over as if weighed
down with sorrow.
Ginevra saw his agitation, and the restraint which he put upon his
anger touched her to the heart; she expected some violentcrisis, some
ungovernable fury; she had not armed her soul against paternal
gentleness.
"Father," she said, in a tender voice, "no, you shall never be
abandoned by your Ginevra. But love her a little for her own sake. If
you know how he loves me! Ah! HE would never make me unhappy!"
"Comparisons already!" cried Piombo, in a terrible voice. "No, I can
never endure the idea of your marriage. If he loved you as you deserve
to be loved he would kill me; if he did not love you, I should put a
dagger through him."
The hands of the old man trembled, his lips trembled, his body
trembled, but his eyes flashed lightnings. Ginevra alone was able to
endure his glance, for her eyes flamed also, and the daughter was
worthy of the sire.
"Oh! to love you! What man is worthy of such a life?" continued
Piombo. "To love you as a father is paradise on earth; who is there
worthy to be your husband?"
"HE," said Ginevra; "he of whom I am not worthy."
"He?" repeated Piombo, mechanically; "who is HE?"
"He whom I love."
"How can he know you enough to love you?"
"Father," said Ginevra, with a gesture of impatience, "whether he
loves me or not, if I love him--"
"You love him?" cried Piombo.
Ginevra bent her head softly.
"You love him more than you love us?"
"The two feelings cannot be compared," she replied.
"Is one stronger than the other?"
"I think it is," said Ginevra.
"You shall not marry him," cried the Corsican, his voice shaking the
window-panes.
"I shall marry him," replied Ginevra, tranquilly.
"Oh, God!" cried the mother, "how will this quarrel end? Santa
Virgina! place thyself between them!"
The baron, who had been striding up and down the room, now seated
himself; an icy sternness darkened his face; he looked fixedly at his
daughter, and said to her, in a gentle, weakened voice,--
"Ginevra, no! you will not marry him. Oh! say nothing more to-night--
let me think the contrary. Do you wish to see your father on his
knees, his white hairs prostrate before you? I supplicate you--"
"Ginevra Piombo does not pass her word and break it," she replied. "I
am your daughter."
"She is right," said the baroness. "We are sent into the world to
marry."
"Do you encourage her in disobedience?" said the baron to his wife,
who, terrified by the word, now changed to marble.
"Refusing to obey an unjust order is not disobedience," said Ginevra.
"No order can be unjust from the lips of your father, my daughter. Why
do you judge my action? The repugnance that I feel is counsel from on
high, sent, it may be, to protect you from some great evil."
"The only evil could be that he did not love me."
"Always HE!"
"Yes, always," she answered. "He is my life, my good, my thought. Even
if I obeyed you he would be ever in my soul. To forbid me to marry him
is to make me hate you."
"You love us not!" cried Piombo.
"Oh!" said Ginevra, shaking her head.
"Well, then, forget him; be faithful to us. After we are gone--you
understand?"
"Father, do you wish me to long for your death?" cried Ginevra.
"I shall outlive you. Children who do not honor their parents die
early," said the father, driven to exasperation.
"All the more reason why I should marry and be happy," she replied.
This coolness and power of argument increased Piombo's trouble; the
blood rushed violently to his head, and his face turned purple.
Ginevra shuddered; she sprang like a bird on her father's knee, threw
her arms around his neck, and caressed his white hair, exclaiming,
tenderly:--
"Oh, yes, yes, let me die first! I could never survive you, my father,
my kind father!"
"Oh! my Ginevra, my own Ginevra!" replied Piombo, whose anger melted
under this caress like snow beneath the rays of the sun.
"It was time you ceased," said the baroness, in a trembling voice.
"Poor mother!"
"Ah! Ginevretta! mia bella Ginevra!"
And the father played with his daughter as though she were a child of
six. He amused himself by releasing the waving volume of her hair, by
dandling her on his knee; there was something of madness in these
expressions of his love. Presently his daughter scolded while kissing
Italian scenes of his "genre" pictures. She was so habitually silent
that she might have been taken for another Mrs. Shandy; but,
occasionally, a word, look, or gesturebetrayed that her feelings
still retained all the vigor and the freshness of their youth. Her
dress, devoid of coquetry, was often in bad taste. She usually sat
passive, buried in a low sofa, like a Sultana Valide, awaiting or
admiring her Ginevra, her pride, her life. The beauty, toilet, and
grace of her daughter seemed to have become her own. All was well with
her if Ginevra was happy. Her hair was white, and a few strands only
were seen above her white and wrinkled forehead, or beside her hollow
cheeks.
"It is now fifteen days," she said, "since Ginevra made a practice of
being late."
"Jean is so slow!" cried the impatient old man, buttoning up his blue
coat and seizing his hat, which he dashed upon his head as he took his
cane and departed.
"You will not get far," said his wife, calling after him.
As she spoke, the porte-cochere was opened and shut, and the old
mother heard the steps of her Ginevra in the court-yard. Bartolomeo
almost instantly reappeared, carrying his daughter, who struggled in
his arms.
CHAPTER IV
LOVE
"Here she is, my Ginevra, Ginevrettina, Ginevrola, mia Ginevra bella!"
cried the old man.
"Oh, father, you hurt me!"
Instantly Ginevra was put down with an air of respect. She nodded her
head with a gracefulmovement at her mother, who was frightened by her
cry, as if to say, "Don't be alarmed, it was only a trick to get
away."
The pale, wan face of the baroness recovered its usual tones, and even
assumed a look of gayety. Piombo rubbed his hands violently,--with him
the surest symptom of joy; he had taken to this habit at court when he
saw Napoleon becoming angry with those of his generals and ministers
who served him ill or committed blunders. When, as now, the muscles of
his face relaxed, every wrinkle on his forehead expressed benevolence.
These two old people presented at this moment precisely the aspect of
a drooping plant to which a little water has given fresh life after
long dryness.
"Now, to dinner! to dinner!" cried the baron, offering his large hand
to his daughter, whom he called "Signora Piombellina,"--another
symptom of gayety, to which Ginevra replied by a smile.
"Ah ca!" said Piombo, as they left the table, "your mother has called
my attention to the fact that for some weeks you have stayed much
longer than usual at the studio. It seems that painting is more to you
than your parents--"
"Oh, father!"
"Ginevra is preparing some surprise for us, I think," said the mother.
"A picture of your own! will you bring us that?" cried the Corsican,
clapping his hands.
"Yes, I am very much occupied at the studio," replied Ginevra, rather
slowly.
"What is the matter, Ginevra? You are turning pale!" cried her mother.
"No!" exclaimed the young girl in a tone of resolution,--"no! it shall
never be said that Ginevra Piombo acted a lie."
Hearing this singularexclamation, Piombo and his wife looked at their
daughter in astonishment.
"I love a young man," she added, in a voice of emotion.
Then, not venturing to look at her parents, she lowered her large
eyelids as if to veil the fire of her eyes.
"Is he a prince?" asked her father, ironically, in a tone of voice
which made the mother quail.
"No, father," she said, gently, "he is a young man without fortune."
"Is he very handsome?"
"He is very unfortunate."
"What is he?"
"Labedoyere's comrade; he was proscribed, without a refuge; Servin
concealed him, and--"
"Servin is a good fellow, who has done well," cried Piombo; "but you,
my daughter, you do wrong to love any man, except your father."
"It does not depend on me to love, or not to love," replied Ginevra,
still gently.
"I flattered myself," continued her father, "that my Ginevra would be
faithful to me until I died; and that my love and that of her mother
would suffice her till then; I did not expect that our tenderness
would find a rival in her soul, and--"
"Did I ever reproach you for your fanaticism for Napoleon?" said
Ginevra. "Have you never loved any one but me? Did you not leave me
for months together when you went on missions. I bore your absence
courageously. Life has necessities to which we must all submit."
"Ginevra!"
"No, you don't love me for myself; your reproaches betray your
intolerable egotism."
"You dare to blame your father's love!" exclaimed Piombo, his eyes
flashing.
"Father, I don't blame you," replied Ginevra, with more gentleness
than her trembling mother expected. "You have grounds for your
egotism, as I have for my love. Heaven is my witness that no girl has
ever fulfilled her duty to her parents better than I have done to you.
I have never felt anything but love and happiness where others often
see obligation. It is now fifteen years that I have never left your
protecting wing, and it has been a most dear pleasure to me to charm
your life. But am I ungrateful for all this in giving myself up to the
joy of loving; is it ingratitude to desire a husband who will protect
me hereafter?"
"What! do you reckon benefits with your father, Ginevra?" said Piombo,
in a dangerous tone.
A dreadful pause then followed, during which no one dared to speak.
Bartolomeo at last broke the silence by crying out in a heart-rending
tone:--
"Oh! stay with us! stay with your father, your old father! I cannot
have you love another man. Ginevra, you will not have long to await
your liberty."
"But, father, remember that I need not leave you; we shall be two to
love you; you will learn to know the man to whose care you bequeath
me. You will be doubly cherished by me and by him,--by him who is my
other self, by me who am all his."
"Oh! Ginevra, Ginevra!" cried the Corsican, clenching his fists; "why
did you not marry when Napoleon brought me to accept the idea? Why did
you not take the counts and dukes he presented to you?"
"They loved me to order," said the girl. "Besides, they would have
made me live with them, and I did not wish to leave you alone."
"You don't wish to leave me alone," said Piombo, "and yet you marry!--
that is leaving me alone. I know you, my daughter; in that case, you
would cease to love us. Elisa," he added, looking at his wife, who
remained motionless, and as if stupefied, "we have no longer a
daughter; she wishes to marry."
The old man sat down, after raising his hands to heaven with a gesture
of invoking the Divine power; then he bowed himself over as if weighed
down with sorrow.
Ginevra saw his agitation, and the restraint which he put upon his
anger touched her to the heart; she expected some violentcrisis, some
ungovernable fury; she had not armed her soul against paternal
gentleness.
"Father," she said, in a tender voice, "no, you shall never be
abandoned by your Ginevra. But love her a little for her own sake. If
you know how he loves me! Ah! HE would never make me unhappy!"
"Comparisons already!" cried Piombo, in a terrible voice. "No, I can
never endure the idea of your marriage. If he loved you as you deserve
to be loved he would kill me; if he did not love you, I should put a
dagger through him."
The hands of the old man trembled, his lips trembled, his body
trembled, but his eyes flashed lightnings. Ginevra alone was able to
endure his glance, for her eyes flamed also, and the daughter was
worthy of the sire.
"Oh! to love you! What man is worthy of such a life?" continued
Piombo. "To love you as a father is paradise on earth; who is there
worthy to be your husband?"
"HE," said Ginevra; "he of whom I am not worthy."
"He?" repeated Piombo, mechanically; "who is HE?"
"He whom I love."
"How can he know you enough to love you?"
"Father," said Ginevra, with a gesture of impatience, "whether he
loves me or not, if I love him--"
"You love him?" cried Piombo.
Ginevra bent her head softly.
"You love him more than you love us?"
"The two feelings cannot be compared," she replied.
"Is one stronger than the other?"
"I think it is," said Ginevra.
"You shall not marry him," cried the Corsican, his voice shaking the
window-panes.
"I shall marry him," replied Ginevra, tranquilly.
"Oh, God!" cried the mother, "how will this quarrel end? Santa
Virgina! place thyself between them!"
The baron, who had been striding up and down the room, now seated
himself; an icy sternness darkened his face; he looked fixedly at his
daughter, and said to her, in a gentle, weakened voice,--
"Ginevra, no! you will not marry him. Oh! say nothing more to-night--
let me think the contrary. Do you wish to see your father on his
knees, his white hairs prostrate before you? I supplicate you--"
"Ginevra Piombo does not pass her word and break it," she replied. "I
am your daughter."
"She is right," said the baroness. "We are sent into the world to
marry."
"Do you encourage her in disobedience?" said the baron to his wife,
who, terrified by the word, now changed to marble.
"Refusing to obey an unjust order is not disobedience," said Ginevra.
"No order can be unjust from the lips of your father, my daughter. Why
do you judge my action? The repugnance that I feel is counsel from on
high, sent, it may be, to protect you from some great evil."
"The only evil could be that he did not love me."
"Always HE!"
"Yes, always," she answered. "He is my life, my good, my thought. Even
if I obeyed you he would be ever in my soul. To forbid me to marry him
is to make me hate you."
"You love us not!" cried Piombo.
"Oh!" said Ginevra, shaking her head.
"Well, then, forget him; be faithful to us. After we are gone--you
understand?"
"Father, do you wish me to long for your death?" cried Ginevra.
"I shall outlive you. Children who do not honor their parents die
early," said the father, driven to exasperation.
"All the more reason why I should marry and be happy," she replied.
This coolness and power of argument increased Piombo's trouble; the
blood rushed violently to his head, and his face turned purple.
Ginevra shuddered; she sprang like a bird on her father's knee, threw
her arms around his neck, and caressed his white hair, exclaiming,
tenderly:--
"Oh, yes, yes, let me die first! I could never survive you, my father,
my kind father!"
"Oh! my Ginevra, my own Ginevra!" replied Piombo, whose anger melted
under this caress like snow beneath the rays of the sun.
"It was time you ceased," said the baroness, in a trembling voice.
"Poor mother!"
"Ah! Ginevretta! mia bella Ginevra!"
And the father played with his daughter as though she were a child of
six. He amused himself by releasing the waving volume of her hair, by
dandling her on his knee; there was something of madness in these
expressions of his love. Presently his daughter scolded while kissing
- gesture [´dʒestʃə]
n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词) - forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
- graceful [´greisfəl] a.优美的，流畅的 (初中英语单词)
- movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
- wrinkle [´riŋkəl] n.&v.(使)起皱(纹) (初中英语单词)
- aspect [´æspekt] n.面貌；神色；方向 (初中英语单词)
- painting [´peintiŋ] n.绘画；(油)画；着色 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- refuge [´refju:dʒ] v.&n.避难(所)；庇护 (初中英语单词)
- betray [bi´trei] vt.背叛；辜负；暴露 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- obligation [,ɔbli´geiʃən] n.义务；职责；合约 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- endure [in´djuə] vt.忍耐，忍受；坚持 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- paradise [´pærədais] n.天堂；乐园 (初中英语单词)
- contrary [´kɔntrəri] a.相反的 n.相反 (初中英语单词)
- encourage [in´kʌridʒ] vt.鼓励；怂勇；促进 (初中英语单词)
- counsel [´kaunsəl] n.商议；劝告；律师 (初中英语单词)
- forbid [fə´bid] vt.禁止，不许，阻止 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- survive [sə´vaiv] vt.幸存；残存 (初中英语单词)
- volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- toilet [´tɔilit] n.梳妆(台)；卫生间 (高中英语单词)
- impatient [im´peiʃənt] a.不耐烦的，急躁的 (高中英语单词)
- symptom [´simptəm] n.症状，症候 (高中英语单词)
- napoleon [nə´pəuljən] n.拿破仑 (高中英语单词)
- precisely [pri´saisli] ad.精确地；刻板地 (高中英语单词)
- offering [´ɔfəriŋ] n.提供；礼物；捐献 (高中英语单词)
- studio [´stju:diəu] n.画室；照相室 (高中英语单词)
- singular [´siŋgjulə] a.单一的；非凡的 (高中英语单词)
- suffice [sə´fais] vt.使满足 vi.足够 (高中英语单词)
- reproach [ri´prəutʃ] vt.&n.责备；指责；耻辱 (高中英语单词)
- loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- agitation [,ædʒi´teiʃən] n.鼓动；摇动；焦虑 (高中英语单词)
- restraint [ri´streint] n.抑制；管束；克制 (高中英语单词)
- crisis [´kraisis] n.转折点；危机 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- violently [´vaiələntli] ad.强暴地；猛烈地 (高中英语单词)
- caress [kə´res] n.&vt.爱抚；接吻 (高中英语单词)
- madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
- freshness [´freʃnis] n.新鲜 (英语四级单词)
- exclamation [,eksklə´meiʃən] n.喊(惊)叫；感叹词 (英语四级单词)
- impatience [im´peiʃəns] n.不耐烦，急躁 (英语四级单词)
- prostrate [´prɔstreit, prɔ´streit] a.俯伏的 vt.弄倒 (英语四级单词)
- unjust [ʌn´dʒʌst] a.不公平(正)的 (英语四级单词)
- baroness [´bærənis] n.男爵夫人，女男爵 (英语六级单词)
- habitually [hə´bitjuəli] adv.习惯地 (英语六级单词)
- devoid [di´vɔid] a.无...的，缺...的 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- ingratitude [in´grætitju:d] n.忘恩负义 (英语六级单词)
- doubly [´dʌbli] ad.加倍地，双重地 (英语六级单词)
- mechanically [mi´kænikəli] ad.机械地；无意识地 (英语六级单词)
- coolness [´ku:lnis] n.凉，凉爽；冷静 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:翻译 译文 翻译文
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
