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Penguin Island-Part26_Anatole France_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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everybody.



"It is the same with our ideas on love as with our ideas on everything else,"

said he, "they rest upon anterior habits whose very memory has been effaced.



In morals, the limitations that have lost their grounds for existing, the most

useless obligations, the cruelest and most injuriousrestraints, are because



of their profoundantiquity and the mystery of their origin, the least

disputed and the least disputable as well as the most respected, and they are



those that cannot be violated without incurring the most severe blame. All

morality relative to the relations of the sexes is founded on this principle:



that a woman once obtained belongs to the man, that she is his property like

his horse or his weapons. And this having ceased to be true, absurdities



result from it, such as the marriage or contract of sale of a woman to a man,

with clauses restricting the right of ownership introduced as a consequence of



the gradual diminution of the claims of the possessor.

"The obligation imposed on a girl that she should bring her virginity to her



husband comes from the times when girls were married immediately they were of

a marriageable age. It is ridiculous that a girl who marries at twenty-five or



thirty should be subject to that obligation. You will, perhaps, say that it is

a present with which her husband, if she gets one at last, will be gratified;



but every moment we see men wooing married women and showing themselves

perfectly satisfied to take them as they find them.



"Still, even in our own day, the duty of girls is determined in religious

morality by the old belief that God, the most powerful of warriors, is



polygamous, that he has reserved all maidens for himself, and that men can

only take those whom he has left. This belief, although traces of it exist in



several metaphors of mysticism, is abandoned to-day, by most civilised

peoples. However, it still dominates the education of girls not only among our



believers, but even among our free-thinkers, who, as a rule, think freely for

the reason that they do not think at all.



"Discretion means ability to separate and discern. We say that a girl is

discreet when she knows nothing at all. We cultivate her ignorance. In spite



of all our care the most discreet know something, for we cannot conceal from

them their own nature and their own sensations. But they know badly, they know



in a wrong way. That is all we obtain by our careful education. . . ."

"Sir," suddenly said Joseph Boutourle, the High Treasurer of Alca, "believe



me, there are innocent girls, perfectlyinnocent girls, and it is a great

pity. I have known three. They married, and the result was tragical."



"I have noticed," Professor Haddock went on, "that Europeans in general and

Penguins in particular occupy themselves, after sport and motoring, with



nothing so much as with love. It is giving a great deal of importance to a

matter that has very little weight."



"Then, Professor," exclaimed Madame Cremeur in a choking voice, "when a woman

has completely surrendered herself to you, you think it is a matter of no



importance?"

"No, Madame; it can have its importance," answered Professor Haddock, "but it



is necessary to examine if when she surrenders herself to us she offers us a

delicious fruit-garden or a plot of thistles and dandelions. And then, do we



not misuse words? In love, a woman lends herself rather than gives herself.

Look at the pretty Madame Pensee. . . ."



"She is my mother," said a tall, fair young man.

"Sir, I have the greatest respect for her," replied Professor Haddock; "do not



be afraid that I intend to say anything in the least offensive about her. But

allow me to tell you that, as a rule, the opinions of sons about their mothers



are not to be relied on. They do not bear enough in mind that a mother is a

mother only because she loved, and that she can still love. That, however, is



the case, and it would be deplorable were it otherwise. I have noticed, on the

contrary, that daughters do not deceive themselves about their mothers'



faculty for loving or about the use they make of it; they are rivals; they

have their eyes upon them."



The insupportable Professor spoke a great deal longer, adding indecorum to

awkwardness, and impertinence to incivility, accumulating incongruities,



despising what is respectable, respecting what is despicable; but no one




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