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Adieu-Part6_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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the instinctive fear he caused her; she looked at the sugar and turned

away her head alternately, precisely like a dog whose master forbids



him to touch his food until he has said a letter of the alphabet which

he slowly repeats. At last the animal desire triumphed over fear.



Stephanie darted to Philippe, cautiously putting out her little brown

hand to seize the prize, touched the fingers of her poor lover as she



snatched the sugar, and fled away among the trees. This dreadful scene

overcame the colonel; he burst into tears and rushed into the house.



"Has love less courage than friendship?" Monsieur Fanjat said to him.

"I have some hope, Monsieur le baron. My poor niece was in a far worse



state than that in which you now find her."

"How was that possible?" cried Philippe.



"She went naked," replied the doctor.

The colonel made a gesture of horror and turned pale. The doctor saw



in that sudden pallor alarming symptoms; he felt the colonel's pulse,

found him in a violent fever, and half persuaded, half compelled him



to go to bed. Then he gave him a dose of opium to ensure a calm sleep.

Eight days elapsed, during which Colonel de Sucy struggled against



mortal agony; tears no longer came to his eyes. His soul, often

lacerated, could not harden itself to the sight of Stephanie's



insanity; but he covenanted, so to speak, with his cruel situation,

and found some assuaging of his sorrow. He had the courage to slowly



tame the countess by bringing her sweetmeats; he took such pains in

choosing them, and he learned so well how to keep the little conquests



he sought to make upon her instincts--that last shred of her intellect

--that he ended by making her much TAMER than she had ever been.



Every morning he went into the park, and if, after searching for her

long, he could not discover on what tree she was swaying, nor the



covert in which she crouched to play with a bird, nor the roof on

which she might have clambered, he would whistle the well-known air of



"Partant pour la Syrie," to which some tender memory of their love

attached. Instantly, Stephanie would run to him with the lightness of



a fawn. She was now so accustomed to see him, that he frightened her

no longer. Soon she was willing to sit upon his knee, and clasp him



closely with her thin and agile arm. In that attitude--so dear to

lovers!--Philippe would feed her with sugarplums. Then, having eaten



those that he gave her, she would often search his pockets with

gestures that had all the mechanicalvelocity of a monkey's motions.



When she was very sure there was nothing more, she looked at Philippe

with clear eyes, without ideas, with recognition. Then she would play



with him, trying at times to take off his boots to see his feet,

tearing his gloves, putting on his hat; she would even let him pass



his hands through her hair, and take her in his arms; she accepted,

but without pleasure, his ardent kisses. She would look at him



silently, without emotion, when his tears flowed; but she always

understood his "Partant pour la Syrie," when he whistled it, though he



never succeeded in teaching her to say her own name Stephanie.

Philippe was sustained in his agonizing enterprise by hope, which



never abandoned him. When, on fine autumn mornings, he found the

countess sitting peacefully on a bench, beneath a poplar now



yellowing, the poor lover would sit at her feet, looking into her eyes

as long as she would let him, hoping ever that the light that was in



them would become intelligent. Sometimes the thought deluded him that

he saw those hard immovable rays softening, vibrating, living, and he



cried out,--

"Stephanie! Stephanie! thou hearest me, thou seest me!"



But she listened to that cry as to a noise, the soughing of the wind

in the tree-tops, or the lowing of the cow on the back of which she



climbed. Then the colonel would wring his hands in despair,--despair

that was new each day.



One evening, under a calm sky, amid the silence and peace of that

rural haven, the doctor saw, from a distance, that the colonel was



loading his pistols. The old man felt then that the young man had

ceased to hope; he felt the blood rushing to his heart, and if he



conquered the vertigo that threatened him, it was because he would

rather see his niece living and mad than dead. He hastened up.



"What are you doing?" he said.

"That is for me," replied the colonel, pointing to a pistol already



loaded, which was lying on the bench; "and this is for her," he added,

as he forced the wad into the weapon he held.



The countess was lying on the ground beside him, playing with the




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