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Modeste Mignon-Part39_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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life at Rosembray I will tell you my secret."



"Ah! Monsieur de La Briere," cried the colonel, as the young man

approached them along the garden path in which they were walking, "I



hope you are going to this hunt?"

"No, colonel," answered Ernest. "I have come to take leave of you and



of mademoiselle; I return to Paris--"

"You have no curiosity," said Modeste, interrupting, and looking at



him.

"A wish--that I cannot expect--would suffice to keep me," he replied.



"If that is all, you must stay to please me; I wish it," said the

colonel, going forward to meet Canalis, and leaving his daughter and



La Briere together for a moment.

"Mademoiselle," said the young man, raising his eyes to hers with the



boldness of a man without hope, "I have an entreaty to make to you."

"To me?"



"Let me carry away with me your forgiveness. My life can never be

happy; it must be full of remorse for having lost my happiness--no



doubt by my own fault; but, at least,--"

"Before we part forever," said Modeste, interrupting a la Canalis, and



speaking in a voice of some emotion, "I wish to ask you one thing; and

though you once disguised yourself, I think you cannot be so base as



to deceive me now."

The taunt made him turn pale, and he cried out, "Oh, you are



pitiless!"

"Will you be frank?"



"You have the right to ask me that degrading question," he said, in a

voice weakened by the violent palpitation of his heart.



"Well, then, did you read my letters to Monsieur de Canalis?"

"No, mademoiselle; and I allowed your father to read them it was to



justify my love by showing him how it was born, and how sincere my

efforts were to cure you of your fancy."



"But how came the idea of that unworthymasquerade ever to arise?" she

said, with a sort of impatience.



La Briere related truthfully the scene in the poet's study which

Modeste's first letter had occasioned, and the sort of challenge that



resulted from his expressing a favorable opinion of a young girl thus

led toward a poet's fame, as a plant seeks its share of the sun.



"You have said enough," said Modeste, restraining some emotion. "If

you have not my heart, monsieur, you have at least my esteem."



These simple words gave the young man a violent shock; feeling himself

stagger, he leaned against a tree, like a man deprived for a moment of



reason. Modest, who had left him, turned her head and came hastily

back.



"What is the matter?" she asked, taking his hand to prevent him from

falling.



"Forgive me--I thought you despised me."

"But," she answered, with a distant and disdainful manner, "I did not



say that I loved you."

And she left him again. But this time, in spite of her harshness, La



Briere thought he walked on air; the earth softened under his feet,

the trees bore flowers; the skies were rosy, the air cerulean, as they



are in the temples of Hymen in those fairy pantomimes which finish

happily. In such situations every woman is a Janus, and sees behind



her without turning round; and thus Modeste perceived on the face of

her lover the indubitable symptoms of a love like Butscha's,--surely



the "ne plus ultra" of a woman's hope. Moreover, the great value which

La Briere attached to her opinion filled Modeste with an emotion that



was inestimably sweet.

"Mademoiselle," said Canalis, leaving the colonel and waylaying



Modeste, "in spite of the little value you attach to my sentiments, my

honor is concerned in effacing a stain under which I have suffered too



long. Here is a letter which I received from the Duchesse de Chaulieu

five days after my arrival in Havre."



He let Modeste read the first lines of the letter we have seen, which

the duchess began by saying that she had seen Mongenod, and now wished



to marry her poet to Modeste; then he tore that passage from the body

of the letter, and placed the fragment in her hand.



"I cannot let you read the rest," he said, putting the paper in his

pocket; "but I confide these few lines to your discretion, so that you



may verify the writing. A young girl who could accuse me of ignoble

sentiments is quite capable of suspecting some collusion, some






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