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The Lily of the Valley-Part10_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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and using the most persuasive inflexion of her voice, "this most



unfortunate accident has revealed to you a secret which has hitherto

been sedulously kept; promise me to bury the recollection of that



scene. Do this for my sake, I beg of you. I don't ask you to swear it;

give me your word of honor and I shall be content."



"Need I give it to you?" I said. "Do we not understand each other?"

"You must not judge unfavorably of Monsieur de Mortsauf; you see the



effects of his many sufferings under the emigration," she went on.

"To-morrow he will entirely forget all that he has said and done; you



will find him kind and excellent as ever."

"Do not seek to excuse him, madame," I replied. "I will do all you



wish. I would fling myself into the Indre at this moment if I could

restore Monsieur de Mortsauf's health and ensure you a happy life. The



only thing I cannot change is my opinion. I can give you my life, but

not my convictions; I can pay no heed to what he says, but can I



hinder him from saying it? No, in my opinion Monsieur de Mortsauf

is--"



"I understand you," she said, hastilyinterrupting me; "you are right.

The count is as nervous as a fashionable woman," she added, as if to



conceal the idea of madness by softening the word. "But he is only so

at intervals, once a year, when the weather is very hot. Ah, what



evils have resulted from the emigration! How many fine lives ruined!

He would have been, I am sure of it, a great soldier, an honor to his



country--"

"I know," I said, interrupting in my turn to let her see that it was



useless to attempt to deceive me.

She stopped, laid one hand lightly on my brow, and looked at me. "Who



has sent you here," she said, "into this home? Has God sent me help, a

true friendship to support me?" She paused, then added, as she laid



her hand firmly upon mine, "For you are good and generous--" She

raised her eyes to heaven, as if to invoke some invisibletestimony to



confirm her thought, and then let them rest upon me. Electrified by

the look, which cast a soul into my soul, I was guilty, judging by



social laws, of a want of tact, though in certain natures such

indelicacy really means a brave desire to meet danger, to avert a



blow, to arrest an evil before it happens; oftener still, an abrupt

call upon a heart, a blow given to learn if it resounds in unison with



ours. Many thoughts rose like gleams within my mind and bade me wash

out the stain that blotted my conscience at this moment when I was



seeking a complete understanding.

"Before we say more," I said in a voice shaken by the throbbings of my



heart, which could be heard in the deep silence that surrounded us,

"suffer me to purify one memory of the past."



"Hush!" she said quickly, touching my lips with a finger which she

instantly removed. She looked at me haughtily, with the glance of a



woman who knows herself too exalted for insult to reach her. "Be

silent; I know of what you are about to speak,--the first, the last,



the only outrage ever offered to me. Never speak to me of that ball.

If as a Christian I have forgiven you, as a woman I still suffer from



your act."

"You are more pitiless than God himself," I said, forcing back the



tears that came into my eyes.

"I ought to be so, I am more feeble," she replied.



"But," I continued with the persistence of a child, "listen to me now

if only for the first, the last, the only time in your life."



"Speak, then," she said; "speak, or you will think I dare not hear

you."



Feeling that this was the turning moment of our lives, I spoke to her

in the tone that commands attention; I told her that all women whom I



had ever seen were nothing to me; but when I met her, I, whose life

was studious, whose nature was not bold, I had been, as it were,



possessed by a frenzy that no one who once felt it could condemn; that

never heart of man had been so filled with the passion which no being



can resist, which conquers all things, even death--

"And contempt?" she asked, stopping me.



"Did you despise me?" I exclaimed.

"Let us say no more on this subject," she replied.



"No, let me say all!" I replied, in the excitement of my intolerable

pain. "It concerns my life, my whole being, my inward self; it



contains a secret you must know or I must die in despair. It also




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