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The Hated Son-Part7_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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Obliged at last to keep her bed, the duchess failed rapidly, for she

was then unable to see her son, forbidden as he was by her compact



with his father to approach the house. The sorrow of the youth was

equal to that of the mother. Inspired by the genius of repressed



feeling, Etienne created a mystical language by which to communicate

with his mother. He studied the resources of his voice like an opera-



singer, and often he came beneath her windows to let her hear his

melodiously melancholy voice, when Beauvouloir by a sign informed him



she was alone. Formerly, as a babe, he had consoled his mother with

his smiles, now, become a poet, he caressed her with his melodies.



"Those songs give me life," said the duchess to Beauvouloir, inhaling

the air that Etienne's voice made living.



At length the day came when the poor son's mourning began. Already he

had felt the mysterious correspondences between his emotions and the



movements of the ocean. The divining of the thoughts of matter, a

power with which his occult knowledge had invested him, made this



phenomenon more eloquent to him than to all others. During the fatal

night when he was taken to see his mother for the last time, the ocean



was agitated by movements that to him were full of meaning. The

heaving waters seemed to show that the sea was working intestinally;



the swelling waves rolled in and spent themselves with lugubrious

noises like the howling of a dog in distress. Unconsciously, Etienne



found himself saying:--

"What does it want of me? It quivers and moans like a living creature.



My mother has often told me that the ocean was in horrible convulsions

on the night when I was born. Something is about to happen to me."



This thought kept him standing before his window with his eyes

sometimes on his mother's windows where a faint light trembled,



sometimes on the ocean which continued to moan. Suddenly Beauvouloir

knocked on the door of his room, opened it, and showed on his saddened



face the reflection of some new misfortune.

"Monseigneur," he said, "Madame la duchesse is in so sad a state that



she wishes to see you. All precautions are taken that no harm shall

happen to you in the castle; but we must be prudent; to see her you



will have to pass through the room of Monseigneur the duke, the room

where you were born."



These words brought the tears to Etienne's eyes, and he said:--

"The Ocean DID speak to me!"



Mechanically he allowed himself to be led towards the door of the

tower which gave entrance to the private way leading to the duchess's



room. Bertrand was awaiting him, lantern in hand. Etienne reached the

library of the Cardinal d'Herouville, and there he was made to wait



with Beauvouloir while Bertrand went on to unlock the other doors, and

make sure that the hated son could pass through his father's house



without danger. The duke did not awake. Advancing with light steps,

Etienne and Beauvouloir heard in that immensechateau no sound but the



plaintive groans of the dying woman. Thus the very circumstances

attending the birth of Etienne were renewed at the death of his



mother. The same tempest, same agony, same dread of awaking the

pitiless giant, who, on this occasion at least, slept soundly.



Bertrand, as a further precaution, took Etienne in his arms and

carried him through the duke's room, intending to give some excuse as



to the state of the duchess if the duke awoke and detected him.

Etienne's heart was horribly wrung by the same fears which filled the



minds of these faithful servants; but this emotion prepared him, in a

measure, for the sight that met his eyes in that signorial room, which



he had never re-entered since the fatal day when, as a child, the

paternal curse had driven him from it.






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