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Modeste Mignon-Part17_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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wings."

"So that is the explanation of your seal, is it?" cried the notary.



Butscha's seal was a star, and under it the words "Fulgens, sequar,"--

"Shining One, I follow thee,"--the motto of the house of



Chastillonest.

"A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the ugliest," said



Butscha, as if speaking to himself; "Modeste is clever enough to fear

she may be loved only for her beauty."



Hunchbacks are extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for,

according to Nature's plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish.



The curvature or distortion of the spinalcolumn creates in these

outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where the



nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal

conditions,--where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to



say, in lightning flashes, to energize the interior being. From this,

forces result which are sometimes brought to light by magnetism,



though they are far more frequently lost in the vague spaces of the

spiritual world. It is rare to find a deformed person who is not



gifted with some special faculty,--a whimsical or sparkling gaiety

perhaps, an utter malignity, or an almost sublimegoodness. Like



instruments which the hand of art can never fully waken, these beings,

highly privileged though they know it not, live within themselves, as



Butscha lived, provided their natural forces so magnificently

concentrated have not been spent in the struggle they have been forced



to maintain, against tremendous odds, to keep alive. This explains

many superstitions, the popular legends of gnomes, frightful dwarfs,



deformed fairies,--all that race of bottles, as Rabelais called them,

containing elixirs and precious balms.



Butscha, therefore, had very nearly found the key to the puzzle. With

all the anxious solicitude of a hopeless lover, a vassal ever ready to



die,--like the soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia,

who still cried out, "Long live the Emperor,"--he meditated how to



capture Modeste's secret for his own private knowledge. So thinking,

he followed his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of



care upon his brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all

these watchful eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which



he should entrap his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some

intercepted glance, some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon



lays his finger on a hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not

appear, and Butscha was Dumay's partner against Monsieur and Madame



Latournelle. During the few moment's of Modeste's absence, about nine

o'clock, to prepare for her mother's bedtime, Madame Mignon and her



friends spoke openly to one another; but the poor clerk, depressed by

the conviction of Modeste's love, which had now seized upon him as



upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as Gobenheim had

been the night before.



"Well, what's the matter with you, Butscha?" cried Madame Latournelle;

"one would really think you hadn't a friend in the world."



Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a

Swedish sailor, and whose mother was dead.



"I have no one in the world but you," he answered with a troubled

voice; "and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I



can never lose it--and I will never deserve to lose it."

This answer struck the sensitive chord of true delicacy in the minds



of all present.

"We love you, Monsieur Butscha," said Madame Mignon, with much feeling



in her voice.

"I've six hundred thousand francs of my own, this day," cried Dumay,



"and you shall be a notary and the successor of Latournelle."

The American wife took the hand of the poor hunchback and pressed it.



"What! you have six hundred thousand francs!" exclaimed Latournelle,

pricking up his ears as Dumay let fall the words; "and you allow these



ladies to live as they do! Modeste ought to have a fine horse; and why

doesn't she continue to take lessons in music, and painting, and--"



"Why, he has only had the money a few hours!" cried the little wife.

"Hush!" murmured Madame Mignon.



While these words were exchanged, Butscha's augustmistress turned

towards him, preparing to make a speech:--






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