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The Lily of the Valley-Part9_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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reasons. In the first place she was pure as a child, and her thoughts

wandered into no forbidden regions; in the next I amused the count and



made a sop for that lion without claws or mane. I found an excuse for

my visits which seemed plausible to every one. Monsieur de Mortsauf



proposed to teach me backgammon, and I accepted; as I did so the

countess was betrayed into a look of compassion, which seemed to say,



"You are flinging yourself into the jaws of the lion." If I did not

understand this at the time, three days had not passed before I knew



what I had undertaken. My patience, which nothing exhausts, the fruit

of my miserablechildhood, ripened under this last trial. The count



was delighted when he could jeer at me for not putting in practice the

principles or the rules he had explained; if I reflected before I



played he complained of my slowness; if I played fast he was angry

because I hurried him; if I forgot to mark my points he declared,



making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. It

was like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, of



which I can really give you no idea unless I compare myself to

Epictetus under the yoke of a malicious child. When we played for



money his winnings gave him the meanest and most abject delight.

A word from his wife was enough to console me, and it frequently



recalled him to a sense of politeness and good-breeding. But before

long I fell into the furnace of an unexpectedmisery. My money was



disappearing under these losses. Though the count was always present

during my visits until I left the house, which was sometimes very



late, I cherished the hope of finding some moment when I might say a

word that would reach my idol's heart; but to obtain that moment, for



which I watched and waited with a hunter's painfulpatience, I was

forced to continue these weary games, during which my feelings were



lacerated and my money lost. Still, there were moments when we were

silent, she and I, looking at the sunlight on the meadows, the clouds



in a gray sky, the misty hills, or the quivering of the moon on the

sandbanks of the river; saying only, "Night is beautiful!"



"Night is woman, madame."

"What tranquillity!"



"Yes, no one can be absolutely wretched here."

Then she would return to her embroidery frame. I came at last to hear



the inward beatings of an affection which sought its object. But the

fact remained--without money, farewell to these evenings. I wrote to



my mother to send me some. She scolded me and sent only enough to last

a week. Where could I get more? My life depended on it. Thus it



happened that in the dawn of my first great happiness I found the same

sufferings that assailed me elsewhere; but in Paris, at college, at



school I evaded them by abstinence; there my privations were negative,

at Frapesle they were active; so active that I was possessed by the



impulse to theft, by visions of crime, furious desperations which rend

the soul and must be subdued under pain of losing our self-respect.



The memory of what I suffered through my mother's parsimony taught me

that indulgence for young men which one who has stood upon the brink



of the abyss and measured its depths, without falling into them, must

inevitably feel. Though my own rectitude was strengthened by those



moments when life opened and let me see the rocks and quicksands

beneath the surface, I have never known that terrible thing called



human justice draw its blade through the throat of a criminal without

saying to myself: "Penal laws are made by men who have never known



misery."

At this crisis I happened to find a treatise on backgammon in Monsieur



de Chessel's library, and I studied it. My host was kind enough to

give me a few lessons; less harshly taught by the count I made good



progress and applied the rules and calculations I knew by heart.

Within a few days I was able to beat Monsieur de Mortsauf; but no






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