酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Father Goriot-Part5_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页


was his eldest daughter.

"So you have two or three dozen daughters, have you?" said Mme.



Vauquer sharply.

"I have only two," her boarder answered meekly, like a ruined man



who is broken in to all the cruel usage of misfortune.

Towards the end of the third year Father Goriot reduced his



expenses still further; he went up to the third story, and now

paid forty-five francs a month. He did without snuff, told his



hairdresser that he no longer required his services, and gave up

wearing powder. When Goriot appeared for the first time in this



condition, an exclamation of astonishment broke from his hostess

at the color of his hair--a dingy olive gray. He had grown sadder



day by day under the influence of some hidden trouble; among all

the faces round the table, his was the most woe-begone. There was



no longer any doubt. Goriot was an elderly libertine, whose eyes

had only been preserved by the skill of the physician from the



malign influence of the remedies necessitated by the state of his

health. The disgusting color of his hair was a result of his



excesses and of the drugs which he had taken that he might

continue his career. The poor old man's mental and physical



condition afforded some grounds for the absurdrubbish talked

about him. When his outfit was worn out, he replaced the fine



linen by calico at fourteen sous the ell. His diamonds, his gold

snuff-box, watch-chain and trinkets, disappeared one by one. He



had left off wearing the corn-flower blue coat, and was

sumptuously arrayed, summer as well as winter, in a coarse



chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches. He

grew thinner and thinner; his legs were shrunken, his cheeks,



once so puffed out by contented bourgeois prosperity, were

covered with wrinkles, and the outlines of the jawbones were



distinctly visible; there were deep furrows in his forehead. In

the fourth year of his residence in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-



Genevieve he was no longer like his former self. The hale

vermicelli manufacturer, sixty-two years of age, who had looked



scarce forty, the stout, comfortable, prosperoustradesman, with

an almost bucolic air, and such a brisk demeanor that it did you



good to look at him; the man with something boyish in his smile,

had suddenly sunk into his dotage, and had become a feeble,



vacillating septuagenarian.

The keen, bright blue eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-



gray color; the red inflamed rims looked as though they had shed

tears of blood. He excited feelings of repulsion in some, and of



pity in others. The young medical students who came to the house

noticed the drooping of his lower lip and the conformation of the



facial angle; and, after teasing him for some time to no purpose,

they declared that cretinism was setting in.



One evening after dinner Mme. Vauquer said half banteringly to

him, "So those daughters of yours don't come to see you any more,



eh?" meaning to imply her doubts as to his paternity; but Father

Goriot shrank as if his hostess had touched him with a sword-



point.

"They come sometimes," he said in a tremulous voice.



"Aha! you still see them sometimes?" cried the students. "Bravo,

Father Goriot!"



The old man scarcely seemed to hear the witticisms at his expense

that followed on the words; he had relapsed into the dreamy state



of mind that these superficial observers took for senile torpor,

due to his lack of intelligence. If they had only known, they



might have been deeply interested by the problem of his

condition; but few problems were more obscure. It was easy, of



course, to find out whether Goriot had really been a vermicelli

manufacturer; the amount of his fortune was readily discoverable;



but the old people, who were most inquisitive as to his concerns,

never went beyond the limits of the Quarter, and lived in the



lodging-house much as oysters cling to a rock. As for the rest,

the current of life in Paris daily awaited them, and swept them



away with it; so soon as they left the Rue Neuve-Sainte-

Genevieve, they forgot the existence of the old man, their butt



at dinner. For those narrow souls, or for careless youth, the

misery in Father Goriot's withered face and its dull apathy were



quite incompatible with wealth or any sort of intelligence. As

for the creatures whom he called his daughters, all Mme.






文章总共2页
文章标签:翻译  译文  翻译文  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号