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A Daughter of Eve-Part1_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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Noel's "Lecons de Litterature," was done aloud in the evening; but



always in presence of their mother's confessor, for even in those

books there did sometimes occur passages which, without wise comments,



might have roused their imagination. Fenelon's "Telemaque" was thought

dangerous.



The Comtesse de Granville loved her daughters sufficiently to wish to

make them angels after the pattern of Marie Alacoque, but the poor



girls themselves would have preferred a less virtuous and more amiable

mother. This education bore its natural fruits. Religion, imposed as a



yoke and presented under its sternest aspect, wearied with formal

practice these innocent young hearts, treated as sinful. It repressed



their feelings, and was never precious to them, although it struck its

roots deep down into their natures. Under such training the two Maries



would either have become mere imbeciles, or they must necessarily have

longed for independence. Thus it came to pass that they looked to



marriage as soon as they saw anything of life and were able to compare

a few ideas. Of their own tender graces and their personal value they



were absolutelyignorant. They were ignorant, too, of their own

innocence; how, then, could they know life? Without weapons to meet



misfortune, without experience to appreciate happiness, they found no

comfort in the maternal jail, all their joys were in each other. Their



tender confidences at night in whispers, or a few short sentences

exchanged if their mother left them for a moment, contained more ideas



than the words themselves expressed. Often a glance, concealed from

other eyes, by which they conveyed to each other their emotions, was



like a poem of bitter melancholy. The sight of a cloudless sky, the

fragrance of flowers, a turn in the garden, arm in arm,--these were



their joys. The finishing of a piece of embroidery was to them a

source of enjoyment.



Their mother's social circle, far from opening resources to their

hearts or stimulating their minds, only darkened their ideas and



depressed them; it was made up of rigid old women, withered and

graceless, whose conversation turned on the differences which



distinguished various preachers and confessors, on their own petty

indispositions, on religious events insignificant even to the



"Quotidienne" or "l'Ami de la Religion." As for the men who appeared

in the Comtesse de Granville's salon, they extinguished any possible



torch of love, so cold and sadly resigned were their faces. They were

all of an age when mankind is sulky and fretful, and natural



sensibilities are chiefly exercised at table and on the things

relating to personal comfort. Religious egotism had long dried up



those hearts devoted to narrow duties and entrenched behind pious

practices. Silent games of cards occupied the whole evening, and the



two young girls under the ban of that Sanhedrim enforced by maternal

severity, came to hate the dispiriting personages about them with



their hollow eyes and scowling faces.

On the gloom of this life one sole figure of a man, that of a music-



master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that music

was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within



her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music. A

spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a



neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the eldest

girl was ten years old, the Comte de Granville insisted on the



importance of giving her a master. Madame de Granville gave all the

value of conjugal obedience to this needed concession,--it is part of



a devote's character to make a merit of doing her duty.

The master was a Catholic German; one of those men born old, who seem



all their lives fifty years of age, even at eighty. And yet, his

brown, sunken, wrinkled face still kept something infantile and



artless in its dark creases. The blue of innocence was in his eyes,

and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair,



falling naturally like that of the Christ in art, added to his

ecstatic air a certain solemnity which was absolutely deceptive as to



his real nature; for he was capable of committing any silliness with

the most exemplary gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to



which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes looked too

high among the clouds to concern themselves with such materialities.






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