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-Part12_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


I listened to the ring-dove plaints of my own heart, I heard again the

simple tones of that ingenuous confidence, I gathered in the air the



emanations of that soul which henceforth must ever seek me. How grand

that woman seemed to me, with her absoluteforgetfulness of self, her



religion of mercy to wounded hearts, feeble or suffering, her declared

allegiance to her legal yoke. She was there, serene upon her pyre of



saint and martyr. I adored her face as it shone to me in the darkness.

Suddenly I fancied I perceived a meaning in her words, a mysterious



significance which made her to my eyes sublime. Perhaps she longed

that I should be to her what she was to the little world around her.



Perhaps she sought to draw from me her strength and consolation,

putting me thus within her sphere, her equal, or perhaps above her.



The stars, say some bold builders of the universe, communicate to each

other light and motion. This thought lifted me to ethereal regions. I



entered once more the heaven of my former visions; I found a meaning

for the miseries of my childhood in the illimitable happiness to which



they had led me.

Spirits quenched by tears, hearts misunderstood, saintly Clarissa



Harlowes forgotten or ignored, children neglected, exiles innocent of

wrong, all ye who enter life through barren ways, on whom men's faces



everywhere look coldly, to whom ears close and hearts are shut, cease

your complaints! You alone can know the infinitude of joy held in that



moment when one heart opens to you, one ear listens, one look answers

yours. A single day effaces all past evil. Sorrow, despondency,



despair, and melancholy, passed but not forgotten, are links by which

the soul then fastens to its mate. Woman falls heir to all our past,



our sighs, our lost illusions, and gives them back to us ennobled; she

explains those former griefs as payment claimed by destiny for joys



eternal, which she brings to us on the day our souls are wedded. The

angels alone can utter the new name by which that sacred love is



called, and none but women, dear martyrs, truly know what Madame de

Mortsauf now became to me--to me, poor and desolate.



CHAPTER II

FIRST LOVE



This scene took place on a Tuesday. I waited until Sunday and did not

cross the river. During those five days great events were happening at



Clochegourde. The count received his brevet as general of brigade, the

cross of Saint Louis, and a pension of four thousand francs. The Duc



de Lenoncourt-Givry, made peer of France, recovered possession of two

forests, resumed his place at court, and his wife regained all her



unsold property, which had been made part of the imperial crown lands.

The Comtesse de Mortsauf thus became an heiress. Her mother had



arrived at Clochegourde, bringing her a hundred thousand francs

economized at Givry, the amount of her dowry, still unpaid and never



asked for by the count in spite of his poverty. In all such matters of

external life the conduct of this man was proudly disinterested.



Adding to this sum his own few savings he was able to buy two

neighboring estates, which would yield him some nine thousand francs a



year. His son would of course succeed to the grandfather's peerage,

and the count now saw his way to entail the estate upon him without



injury to Madeleine, for whom the Duc de Lenoncourt would no doubt

assist in promoting a good marriage.



These arrangements and this new happiness shed some balm upon the

count's sore mind. The presence of the Duchesse de Lenoncourt at



Clochegourde was a great event to the neighborhood. I reflected

gloomily that she was a great lady, and the thought made me conscious



of the spirit of caste in the daughter which the nobility of her

sentiments had hithertohidden from me. Who was I--poor,



insignificant, and with no future but my courage and my faculties? I

did not then think of the consequences of the Restoration either for



me or for others. On Sunday morning, from the private chapel where I

sat with Monsieur and Madame de Chessel and the Abbe de Quelus, I cast



an eager glance at another lateralchapel occupied by the duchess and

her daughter, the count and his children. The large straw hat which



hid my idol from me did not tremble, and this unconsciousness of my

presence seemed to bind me to her more than all the past. This noble



Henriette de Lenoncourt, my Henriette, whose life I longed to garland,




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