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An Old Maid-Part8_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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employed her mind on setting traps for her possible lovers, in order



to test their real sentiments. Her nets were so well laid that the

luckless suitors were all caught, and succumbed to the test she



applied to them without their knowledge. Mademoiselle Cormon did not

study them; she watched them. A single word said heedlessly, a joke



(that she often was unable to understand), sufficed to make her reject

an aspirant as unworthy: this one had neither heart nor delicacy; that



one told lies, and was not religious; a third only wanted to coin

money under the cloak of marriage; another was not of a nature to make



a woman happy; here she suspected hereditary gout; there certain

immoral antecedents alarmed her. Like the Church, she required a noble



priest at her altar; she even wanted to be married for imaginary

ugliness and pretended defects, just as other women wish to be loved



for the good qualities they have not, and for imaginary beauties.

Mademoiselle Cormon's ambition took its rise in the most delicate and



sensitive feminine feeling; she longed to reward a lover by revealing

to him a thousand virtues after marriage, as other women then betray



the imperfections they have hitherto concealed. But she was ill

understood. The noble woman met with none but common souls in whom the



reckoning of actual interests was amount" target="_blank" title="a.最高的 n.元首">paramount, and who knew nothing of

the nobler calculations of sentiment.



The farther she advanced towards that fatal epoch so adroitly called

the "second youth," the more her distrust increased. She affected to



present herself in the most unfavorable light, and played her part so

well that the last wooers hesitated to link their fate to that of a



person whose virtuous blind-man's-buff required an amount of

penetration that men who want the virtuous ready-made would not bestow



upon it. The constant fear of being married for her money rendered her

suspicious and uneasy beyond all reason. She turned to the rich men;



but the rich are in search of great marriages; she feared the poor

men, in whom she denied the disinterestedness she sought so eagerly.



After each disappointment in marriage, the poor lady, led to despise

mankind, began to see them all in a false light. Her character



acquired, necessarily, a secret misanthropy, which threw a tinge of

bitterness into her conversation, and some severity into her eyes.



Celibacy gave to her manners and habits a certain increasing rigidity;

for she endeavored to sanctify herself in despair of fate. Noble



vengeance! she was cutting for God the rough diamond rejected by man.

Before long public opinion was against her; for society accepts the



verdict an independent woman renders on herself by not marrying,

either through losing suitors or rejecting them. Everybody supposed



that these rejections were founded on secret reasons, always ill

interpreted. One said she was deformed; another suggested some hidden



fault; but the poor girl was really as pure as a saint, as healthy as

an infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had intended her for



all the pleasures, all the joys, and all the fatigues of motherhood.

Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obliging



auxiliary to her desires. She had no other beauty than that very

improperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxom



freshness of youth that the devil, theologically speaking, could never

have,--though perhaps the expression may be explained by the constant



desire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself. The

feet of the heiress were broad and flat. Her leg, which she often



exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting

her gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a



woman. It was sinewy, with a thick projecting calf like a sailor's. A

stout waist, the plumpness of a wet-nurse, strong dimpled arms, red



hands, were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fat

whiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gave



to her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air of

surprise and sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for an



old maid. If Rose had not been, as she was, really innocent, she would




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