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

Modeste Mignon-Part28_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
Gobenheim arranged the whist-table with all the more persistency



because, since the return of Monsieur Mignon, Latournelle and Dumay

had allowed themselves to play for ten sous points.



"Well, my little darling," said the father to the daughter in the

embrasure of a window. "Admit that papa thinks of everything. If you



send your orders this evening to your former dressmaker in Paris, and

all your other furnishing people, you shall show yourself eight days



hence in all the splendor of an heiress. Meantime we will install

ourselves in the villa. You already have a pretty horse, now order a



habit; you owe that amount of civility to the grand equerry."

"All the more because there will be a number of us to ride," said



Modeste, who was recovering the colors of health.

"The secretary did not say much," remarked Madame Mignon.



"A little fool," said Madame Latournelle; "the poet has an attentive

word for everybody. He thanked Monsieur Latournelle for his help in



choosing the house; and said he must have taken counsel with a woman

of good taste. But the other looked as gloomy as a Spaniard, and kept



his eyes fixed on Modeste as though he would like to swallow her

whole. If he had even looked at me I should have been afraid of him."



"He had a pleasant voice," said Madame Mignon.

"No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the Mignons in the



interests of his friend the poet," said Modeste, looking furtively at

her father. "It was certainly he whom we saw in church."



Madame Dumay and Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, accepted this as the

natural explanation of Ernest's journey.



CHAPTER XIX

OF WHICH THE AUTHOR THINKS A GOOD DEAL



"Do you know, Ernest," cried Canalis, when they had driven a short

distance from the house, "I don't see any marriageable woman in



society in Paris who compares with that adorable girl."

"Ah, that ends it!" replied Ernest. "She loves you, or she will love



you if you desire it. Your fame won half the battle. Well, you may now

have it all your own way. You shall go there alone in future. Modeste



despises me; she is right to do so; and I don't see any reason why I

should condemn myself to see, to love, desire, and adore that which I



can never possess."

After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own satisfaction at



having made a new version of Caesar's phrase, Canalis divulged a

desire to break with the Duchesse de Chaulieu. La Briere, totally



unable to keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night an

excuse to be set down, and then rushed like one possessed to the



seashore, where he stayed till past ten, in a half-demented state,

walking hurriedly up and down, talking aloud in broken sentences,



sometimes standing still or sitting down, without noticing the

uneasiness of two custom-house officers who were on the watch. After



loving Modeste's wit and intellect and her aggressivefrankness, he

now joined adoration of her beauty--that is to say, love without



reason, love inexplicable--to all the other reasons which had drawn

him ten days earlier, to the church in Havre.



He returned to the Chalet, where the Pyrenees hounds barked at him

till he was forced to relinquish the pleasure of gazing at Modeste's



windows. In love, such things are of no more account to the lover than

the work which is covered by the last layer of color is to an artist;



yet they make up the whole of love, just as the hidden toil is the

whole of art. Out of them arise the great painter and the true lover



whom the woman and the public end, sometimes too late, by adoring.

"Well then!" he cried aloud, "I will stay, I will suffer, I will love



her for myself only, in solitude. Modeste shall be my sun, my life; I

will breathe with her breath, rejoice in her joys and bear her griefs,



be she even the wife of that egoist, Canalis."

"That's what I call loving, monsieur," said a voice which came from a



shrub by the side of the road. "Ha, ha, so all the world is in love

with Mademoiselle de La Bastie?"



And Butscha suddenly appeared and looked at La Briere. La Briere

checked his anger when, by the light of the moon, he saw the dwarf,



and he made a few steps without replying.

"Soldiers who serve in the same company ought to be good comrades,"



remarked Butscha. "You don't love Canalis; neither do I."

"He is my friend," replied Ernest.



"Ha, you are the little secretary?"

"You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man's secretary. I have the



honor to be of counsel to a supreme court of this kingdom."




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