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The Elixir of Life-Part2_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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hair on his head had risen and stiffened with horror, his

agonized glance still spoke. He was a father rising in just anger



from his tomb, to demand vengeance at the throne of God.

"There! it is all over with the old man!" cried Don Juan.



He had been so interested in holding the mysterious phial to the

lamp, as a drinker holds up the wine-bottle at the end of a meal,



that he had not seen his father's eyes fade. The cowering poodle

looked from his master to the elixir, just as Don Juan himself



glanced again and again from his father to the flask. The

lamplight flickered. There was a deep silence; the viol was mute.



Juan Belvidero thought that he saw his father stir, and trembled.

The changeless gaze of those accusing eyes frightened him; he



closed them hastily, as he would have closed a loose shutter

swayed by the wind of an autumn night. He stood there motionless,



lost in a world of thought.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill sound like the



creaking of a rusty spring. It startled Don Juan; he all but

dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a dagger,



issued through every pore. It was only a piece of clockwork, a

wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three times, an ingenious



contrivance by which the learned of that epoch were wont to be

awakened at the appointed hour to begin the labors of the day.



Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The

thing, composed of wood, and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was



more faithful in its service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo--

he, a man with that peculiar piece of human mechanism within him



that we call a heart.

Don Juan the sceptic shut the flask again in the secret drawer in



the Gothic table--he meant to run no more risks of losing the

mysteriousliquid.



Even at that solemn moment he heard the murmur of a crowd in the

gallery, a confused sound of voices, of stifled laughter and



light footfalls, and the rustling of silks--the sounds of a band

of revelers struggling for gravity. The door opened, and in came



the Prince and Don Juan's friends, the seven courtesans, and the

singers, disheveled and wild like dancers surprised by the dawn,



when the tapers that have burned through the night struggle with

the sunlight.



They had come to offer the customary condolence to the young

heir.



"Oho! is poor Don Juan really taking this seriously?" said the

Prince in Brambilla's ear.



"Well, his father was very good," she returned.

But Don Juan's night-thoughts had left such unmistakable traces



on his features, that the crew was awed into silence. The men

stood motionless. The women, with wine-parched lips and cheeks



marbled with kisses, knelt down and began a prayer. Don Juan

could scarce help trembling when he saw splendor and mirth and



laughter and song and youth and beauty and power bowed in

reverence before Death. But in those times, in that adorable



Italy of the sixteenth century, religion and revelry went hand in

hand; and religious excess became a sort of debauch, and a



debauch a religious rite!

The Prince grasped Don Juan's hand affectionately, then when all



faces had simultaneously put on the same grimace--half-gloomy,

half-indifferent--the whole masque disappeared, and left the



chamber of death empty. It was like an allegory of life.

As they went down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Rivabarella:



"Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety for a boast? He

loves his father."



"Did you see that black dog?" asked La Brambilla.

"He is enormously rich now," sighed Bianca Cavatolino.



"What is that to me?" cried the proud Veronese (she who had

crushed the comfit-box).



"What does it matter to you, forsooth?" cried the Duke. "With his

money he is as much a prince as I am."



At first Don Juan was swayed hither and thither by countless

thoughts, and wavered between two decisions. He took counsel with



the gold heaped up by his father, and returned in the evening to

the chamber of death, his whole soul brimming over with hideous



selfishness. He found all his household busy there. "His

lordship" was to lie in state to-morrow; all Ferrara would flock



to behold the wonderful spectacle; and the servants were busy




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