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The Duchesse de Langeais-Part9_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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Duchesse de Langeais. The difficult and brilliantconquest had

been made beyond a doubt, and the glory of it was reserved for



the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to imagine the jests,

good and bad, when this topic had once been started; the world of



Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts for such

a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it while



it is fresh.

All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense.



From his place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn

again and again to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections.



He could not help admitting to himself that of all the women

whose beauty had captivated his eyes, not one had seemed to be a



more exquisite embodiment of faults and fair qualities blended in

a completeness that might realise the dreams of earliest manhood.



Is there a man in any rank of life that has not felt indefinable

rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled out (if only in



his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and social

aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman?



And if this threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no

argument for loving her, it is beyond cavil one of the great



inducements to the sentiment. Love would soon be convalescent,

as the eighteenth century moralist remarked, were it not for



vanity. And it is certainly true that for everyone, man or

woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in the superiority of the



beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a contemptuous glance

can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to surround herself



with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of kings, of

finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so



ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into

confusion? beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a



small thing to know that your self-love will never suffer through

her? A man makes these reflections in the twinkling of an eye.



And how if, in the future opened out by early ripened passion, he

catches glimpses of the changeful delight of her charm, the frank



innocence of a maiden soul, the perils of love's voyage, the

thousand folds of the veil of coquetry? Is not this enough to



move the coldest man's heart?

This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau's position with regard to



woman; his past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary

fact. He had been thrown, when little more than a boy, into the



hurricane of Napoleon's wars; his life had been spent on fields

of battle. Of women he knew just so much as a traveller knows of



a country when he travels across it in haste from one inn to

another. The verdict which Voltaire passed upon his eighty years



of life might, perhaps, have been applied by Montriveau to his

own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not thirty-seven



follies with which to reproach himself? At his age he was as

much a novice in love as the lad that has just been furtively



reading Faublas. Of women he had nothing to learn; of love he

knew nothing; and thus, desires, quite unknown before, sprang



from this virginity of feeling.

There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work



demanded of them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de

Montriveau by war and a life of adventure--these know what it is



to be in this unusual position if they very seldom confess to it.

Every man in Paris is supposed to have been in love. No woman in






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