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The Duchesse de Langeais-Part10_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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And we always believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not



know what to expect from it for ourselves? Where is the man that

has found but a single opportunity of losing his heart? But you



love to deceive us, and we submit to be deceived, poor foolish

creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after all, a homage



paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all

purity."



The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the

novice in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep,



while the Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular

heaven.



"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell

this wild thing that I love her?"



He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess

had a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion



in this unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an

interest in her empty life. So she prepared with no little



dexterity to raise a certain number of redoubts for him to carry

by storm before he should gain an entrance into her heart.



Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after another; he

should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect teased



by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in

spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its



mischievous tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible

happiness to see that this strong man had told her the truth.



Armand had never loved, as he had said. He was about to go, in a

bad humour with himself, and still more out of humour with her;



but it delighted her to see a sullenness that she could conjure

away with a word, a glance, or a gesture.



"Will you come tomorrow evening?" she asked. "I am going to a

ball, but I shall stay at home for you until ten o'clock."



Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate

quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the



hours till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To

anyone who had known the magnificent worth of the man, it would



have been grievous to see him grown so small, so distrustful of

himself; the mind that might have shed light over undiscovered



worlds shrunk to the proportions of a she-coxcomb's boudoir.

Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low already in his



happiness that to save his life he could not have told his love

to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace of



shame in the lover's bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain

exultation over diminished masculinestature? Indeed, but for a



host of motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly

always the first to betray the secret?--a secret of which,



perhaps, they soon weary.

"Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur," said the man;



"she is dressing, she begs you to wait for her here."

Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in



the least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the

objects of her choosing; they revealed her life before he could



grasp her personality and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess

came noiselessly out of her chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her



flit like a shadow across the room, and trembled. She came up to

him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How do I look?" She was



sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, "I am adorned to

please you."



No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in

disguise, could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty



throat, so that the dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam

through the gleaming folds. The Duchess was dazzling. The pale



blue colour of her gown, repeated in the flowers in her hair,

appeared by the richness of its hue to lend substance to a



fragile form grown too whollyethereal; for as she glided towards

Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about her, putting



that valiantwarrior in mind of the bright damosel flies that

hover now over water, now over the flowers with which they seem



to mingle and blend.




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