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 Lily of the Valley-Part7_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
escutcheon dated back to the Crusades, was intended to show contempt



for the large fortune and to belittle the possessions, the woods, the

arable lands, the meadows, of a neighbor who was not of noble birth.



Monsieur de Chessel fully understood this. They always met politely;

but there was none of that daily intercourse or that agreeable



intimacy which ought to have existed between Clochegourde and

Frapesle, two estates separated only by the Indre, and whose



mistresses could have beckoned to each other from their windows.

Jealousy, however, was not the sole reason for the solitude in which



the Count de Mortsauf lived. His early education was that of the

children of great families,--an incomplete and superficial instruction



as to knowledge, but supplemented by the training of society, the

habits of a court life, and the exercise of important duties under the



crown or in eminent offices. Monsieur de Mortsauf had emigrated at the

very moment when the second stage of his education was about to begin,



and accordingly that training was lacking to him. He was one of those

who believed in the immediate restoration of the monarchy; with that



conviction in his mind, his exile was a long and miserable period of

idleness. When the army of Conde, which his courage led him to join



with the utmostdevotion, was disbanded, he expected to find some

other post under the white flag, and never sought, like other



emigrants, to take up an industry. Perhaps he had not the sort of

courage that could lay aside his name and earn his living in the sweat



of a toil he despised. His hopes, daily postponed to the morrow, and

possibly a scruple of honor, kept him from offering his services to



foreign powers. Trials undermined his courage. Long tramps afoot on

insufficient nourishment, and above all, on hopes betrayed, injured



his health and discouraged his mind. By degrees he became utterly

destitute. If to some men misery is a tonic, on others it acts as a



dissolvent; and the count was of the latter.

Reflecting on the life of this poor Touraine gentleman, tramping and



sleeping along the highroads of Hungary, sharing the mutton of Prince

Esterhazy's shepherds, from whom the foot-worn traveller begged the



food he would not, as a gentleman, have accepted at the table of the

master, and refusing again and again to do service to the enemies of



France, I never found it in my heart to feel bitterness against him,

even when I saw him at his worst in after days. The natural gaiety of



a Frenchman and a Tourangean soon deserted him; he became morose, fell

ill, and was charitably cared for in some German hospital. His disease



was an inflammation of the mesenteric membrane, which is often fatal,

and is liable, even if cured, to change the constitution and produce



hypochondria. His love affairs, carefully buried out of sight and

which I alone discovered, were low-lived, and not only destroyed his



health but ruined his future.

After twelve years of great misery he made his way to France, under



the decree of the Emperor which permitted the return of the emigrants.

As the wretched wayfarer crossed the Rhine and saw the tower of



Strasburg against the evening sky, his strength gave way. "'France!

France!' I cried. 'I see France!'" (he said to me) "as a child cries



'Mother!' when it is hurt." Born to wealth, he was now poor; made to

command a regiment or govern a province, he was now without authority



and without a future; constitutionally healthy and robust, he returned

infirm and utterly worn out. Without enough education to take part



among men and affairs, now broadened and enlarged by the march of

events, necessarily without influence of any kind, he lived despoiled



of everything, of his moral strength as well as his physical. Want of

money made his name a burden. His unalterable opinions, his



antecedents with the army of Conde, his trials, his recollections, his

wasted health, gave him susceptibilities which are but little spared



in France, that land of jest and sarcasm. Half dead he reached Maine,

where, by some accident of the civil war, the revolutionarygovernment






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