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

The Collection of Antiquities-Part1_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
fatal list, and some few emigres began to return. Among the very first

nobles to come back to the old town were the Baron de Nouastre and his



daughter. They were completely ruined. M. d'Esgrignon generously

offered them the shelter of his roof; and in his house, two months



later, the Baron died, worn out with grief. The Nouastres came of the

best blood in the province; Mlle. de Nouastre was a girl of two-and-



twenty; the Marquis d'Esgrignon married her to continue his line. But

she died in childbirth, a victim to the unskilfulness of her



physician, leaving, most fortunately, a son to bear the name of the

d'Esgrignons. The old Marquis--he was but fifty-three, but adversity



and sharp distress had added months to every year--the poor old

Marquis saw the death of the loveliest of human creatures, a noble



woman in whom the charm of the feminine figures of the sixteenth

century lived again, a charm now lost save to men's imaginations. With



her death the joy died out of his old age. It was one of those

terrible shocks which reverberate through every moment of the years



that follow. For a few moments he stood beside the bed where his wife

lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he kissed her on the



forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the mainspring, and

hung it up beside the hearth. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.



"Mlle. d'Esgrignon," he said, "let us pray God that this hour may not

prove fatal yet again to our house. My uncle the archbishop was



murdered at this hour; at this hour also my father died----"

He knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the coverlet; his



sister did the same, in another moment they both rose to their feet.

Mlle. d'Esgrignon burst into tears; but the old Marquis looked with



dry eyes at the child, round the room, and again on his dead wife. To

the stubbornness of the Frank he united the fortitude of a Christian.



These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth

century. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age. She was



a beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the

Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand



francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady.

The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption



in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could

not forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier's [du



Bousquier] blandishments. The Marquis' manner with his old servant

changed somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate



kindliness, which might almost have been taken for friendship. From

that time forth the Marquis was grateful, and his magnanimous and



sinceregratitudecontinually wounded the poor notary's feelings. To

some sublime natures gratitude seems an excessivepayment; they would



rather have that sweet equality of feeling which springs from similar

ways of thought, and the blending of two spirits by their own choice



and will. And Maitre Chesnel had known the delights of such high

friendship; the Marquis had raised him to his own level. The old noble



looked on the good notary as something more than a servant, something

less than a child; he was the voluntary liege man of the house, a serf



bound to his lord by all the ties of affection. There was no balancing

of obligations; the sincereaffection on either side put them out of



the question.

In the eyes of the Marquis, Chesnel's official dignity was as nothing;



his old servitor was merely disguised as a notary. As for Chesnel, the

Marquis was now, as always, a being of a divine race; he believed in



nobility; he did not blush to remember that his father had thrown open

the doors of the salon to announce that "My Lord Marquis is served."



His devotion to the fallen house was due not so much to his creed as

to egoism; he looked on himself as one of the family. So his vexation



was intense. Once he had ventured to allude to his mistake in spite of

the Marquis' prohibition, and the old noble answered gravely--



"Chesnel, before the troubles you would not have permitted yourself to

entertain such injurious suppositions. What can these new doctrines be



if they have spoiled YOU?"

Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people



looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune

contributed to make him a person of importance. From that time forth



he felt a very decided aversion for the Sieur du Crosier; and though

there was little rancor in his composition, he set others against the






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