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A Daughter of Eve-Part5_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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by one of the wittiest, but also one of the laziest writers of that

epoch, Emile Blondet, celebrated behind closed doors, highly praised



by journalists, but unknown beyond the barriers. Blondet himself was

well aware of this; he indulged in no illusions, and, among his other



witty and contemptuoussayings, he was wont to remark that fame is a

poison good to take in little doses.



From the moment when the man we speak of, Raoul Nathan, after a long

struggle, forced his way to the public gaze, he had put to profit the



sudden infatuation for form manifested by those elegant descendants of

the middle ages, jestingly called Young France. He assumed the



singularities of a man of genius and enrolled himself among those

adorers of art, whose intentions, let us say, were excellent; for



surely nothing could be more ridiculous than the costume of Frenchmen

in the nineteenth century, and nothing more courageous than an attempt



to reform it. Raoul, let us do him this justice, presents in his

person something fine, fantastic, and extraordinary, which needs a



frame. His enemies, or his friends, they are about the same thing,

agree that nothing could harmonize better with his mind than his



outward form.

Raoul Nathan would, perhaps, be more singular if left to his natural



self than he is with his various accompaniments. His worn and haggard

face gives him an appearance of having fought with angels or devils;



it bears some resemblance to that the German painters give to the dead

Christ; countless signs of a constant struggle between failing human



nature and the powers on high appear in it. But the lines in his

hollow cheeks, the projections of his crooked, furrowed skull, the



caverns around his eyes and behind his temples, show nothing weakly in

his constitution. His hard membranes, his visible bones are the signs



of remarkable solidity; and though his skin, discolored by excesses,

clings to those bones as if dried there by inward fires, it



nevertheless covers a most powerful structure. He is thin and tall.

His long hair, always in disorder, is worn so for effect. This ill-



combed, ill-made Byron has heron legs and stiffened knee-joints, an

exaggerated stoop, hands with knotty muscles, firm as a crab's claws,



and long, thin, wiry fingers. Raoul's eyes are Napoleonic, blue eyes,

which pierce to the soul; his nose is crooked and very shrewd; his



mouth charming, embellished with the whitest teeth that any woman

could desire. There is fire and movement in the head, and genius on



that brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who strike your

mind as you pass them, and who, in a salon, make a luminous spot to



which all eyes are attracted.

He makes himself remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from



Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal

neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and



crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He

keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the



pose which Girodet's portrait of Monsieur de Chateaubriand has

rendered famous; but less to imitate that great man (for he does not



wish to resemble any one) than to rumple the over-smooth front of his

shirt. His cravat is no sooner put on than it is twisted by the



convulsive motions of his head, which are quick and abrupt, like those

of a thoroughbred horse impatient of harness, and constantly tossing



up its head to rid itself of bit and bridle. His long and pointed

beard is neither combed, nor perfumed, nor brushed, nor trimmed, like



those of the elegant young men of society; he lets it alone, to grow

as it will. His hair, getting between the collar of his coat and his



cravat, lies luxuriantly on his shoulders, and greases whatever spot

it touches. His wiry, bony hands ignore a nailbrush and the luxury of



lemon. Some of his cofeuilletonists declare that purifying waters

seldom touch their calcined skin.






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