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Modeste Mignon-Part23_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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before the colonel.

"You know all, my kind papa?" she said as soon as they were on the



road to the beach.

"I know all, and a good deal more than you do," he replied.



After that remark father and daughter went some little way in silence.

"Explain to me, my child, how it happens that a girl whom her mother



idolizes could have taken such an important step as to write to a

stranger without consulting her."



"Oh, papa! because mamma would never have allowed it."

"And do you think, my daughter, that that was proper? Though you have



been educating your mind in this fatal way, how is it that your good

sense and your intellect did not, in default of modesty, step in and



show you that by acting as you did you were throwing yourself at a

man's head. To think that my daughter, my only remaining child, should



lack pride and delicacy! Oh, Modeste, you made your father pass two

hours in hell when he heard of it; for, after all, your conduct has



been the same as Bettina's without the excuse of a heart's seduction;

you were a coquette in cold blood, and that sort of coquetry is head-



love, the worst vice of French women."

"I, without pride!" said Modeste, weeping; "but HE has not yet seen



me."

"HE knows your name."



"I did not tell it to him till my eyes had vindicated the

correspondence, lasting three months, during which our souls had



spoken to each other."

"Oh, my dear misguided angel, you have mixed up a species of reason



with a folly that has compromised your own happiness and that of your

family."



"But, after all, papa, happiness is the absolution of my temerity,"

she said, pouting.



"Oh! your conduct is temerity, is it?"

"A temerity that my mother practised before me," she retorted quickly.



"Rebellious child! your mother after seeing me at a ball told her

father, who adored her, that she thought she could be happy with me.



Be honest, Modeste; is there any likeness between a love hastily

conceived, I admit, but under the eyes of a father, and your mad



action of writing to a stranger?"

"A stranger, papa? say rather one of our greatest poets, whose



character and whose life are exposed to the strongest light of day, to

detraction, to calumny,--a man robed in fame, and to whom, my dear



father, I was a mere literary and dramaticpersonage, one of

Shakespeare's women, until the moment when I wished to know if the man



himself were as beautiful as his soul."

"Good God! my poor child, you are turning marriage into poetry. But



if, from time immemorial, girls have been cloistered in the bosom of

their families, if God, if social laws put them under the stern yoke



of parental sanction, it is, mark my words, to spare them the

misfortunes that this very poetry which charms and dazzles you, and



which you are thereforeunable to judge of, would entail upon them.

Poetry is indeed one of the pleasures of life, but it is not life



itself."

"Papa, that is a suit still pending before the Court of Facts; the



struggle is forever going on between our hearts and the claims of

family."



"Alas for the child that finds her happiness in resisting them," said

the colonel, gravely. "In 1813 I saw one of my comrades, the Marquis



d'Aiglemont, marry his cousin against the wishes of her father, and

the pair have since paid dear for the obstinacy which the young girl



took for love. The family must be sovereign in marriage."

"My poet has told me all that," she answered. "He played Orgon for



some time; and he was brave enough to disparage the personal lives of

poets."



"I have read your letters," said Charles Mignon, with the flicker of a

malicious smile on his lips that made Modeste very uneasy, "and I



ought to remark that your last epistle was scarcely permissible in any

woman, even a Julie d'Etanges. Good God! what harm novels do!"



"We should live them, my dear father, whether people wrote them or

not; I think it is better to read them. There are not so many



adventures in these days as there were under Louis XIV. and Louis XV.,

and so they publish fewer novels. Besides, if you have read those



letters, you must know that I have chosen the most angelic soul, the

most sternlyupright man for your son-in-law, and you must have seen






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