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The Lily of the Valley-Part16_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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and sell them a little later. Monsieur de Chessel had told me that the

walnut-trees in the Brehemont, also those about Amboise and Vouvray,



were not bearing. Walnut oil is in great demand in Touraine. Jacques

might get at least forty sous for the product of each tree, and as he



had two hundred the amount was considerable; he intended to spend it

on the equipment of a pony. This wish led to a discussion with his



father, who bade him think of the uncertainty of such returns, and the

wisdom of creating a reserve fund for the years when the trees might



not bear, and so equalizing his resources. I felt what was passing

through the mother's mind as she sat by in silence; she rejoiced in



the way Jacques listened to his father, the father seeming to recover

the paternaldignity that was lacking to him, thanks to the ideas



which she herself had prompted in him. Did I not tell you truly that

in picturing this woman earthly language was insufficient to render



either her character or her spirit. When such scenes occurred my soul

drank in their delights without analyzing them; but now, with what



vigor they detach themselves on the dark background of my troubled

life! Like diamonds they shine against the settling of thoughts



degraded by alloy, of bitter regrets for a lost happiness. Why do the

names of the two estates purchased after the Restoration, and in which



Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf both took the deepest interest, the

Cassine and the Rhetoriere, move me more than the sacred names of the



Holy Land or of Greece? "Who loves, knows!" cried La Fontaine. Those

names possess the talismanic power of words uttered under certain



constellations by seers; they explain magic to me; they awaken

sleeping forms which arise and speak to me; they lead me to the happy



valley; they recreate skies and landscape. But such evocations are in

the regions of the spiritual world; they pass in the silence of my own



soul. Be not surprised, therefore, if I dwell on all these homely

scenes; the smallest details of that simple, almost common life are



ties which, frail as they may seem, bound me in closest union to the

countess.



The interests of her children gave Madame de Mortsauf almost as much

anxiety as their health. I soon saw the truth of what she had told me



as to her secret share in the management of the family affairs, into

which I became slowly initiated. After ten years' steady effort Madame



de Mortsauf had changed the method of cultivating the estate. She had

"put it in fours," as the saying is in those parts, meaning the new



system under which wheat is sown every four years only, so as to make

the soil produce a different crop yearly. To evade the obstinate



unwillingness of the peasantry it was found necessary to cancel the

old leases and give new ones, to divide the estate into four great



farms and let them on equal shares, the sort of lease that prevails in

Touraine and its neighborhood. The owner of the estate gives the



house, farm-buildings, and seed-grain to tenants-at-will, with whom he

divides the costs of cultivation and the crops. This division is



superintended by an agent or bailiff, whose business it is to take the

share belonging to the owner; a costlysystem, complicated by the



market changes of values, which alter the character of the shares

constantly. The countess had induced Monsieur de Mortsauf to cultivate



a fifth farm, made up of the reserved lands about Clochegourde, as

much to occupy his mind as to show other farmers the excellence of the



new method by the evidence of facts. Being thus, in a hidden way, the

mistress of the estate, she had slowly and with a woman's persistency



rebuilt two of the farm-houses on the principle of those in Artois and

Flanders. It is easy to see her motive. She wished, after the



expiration of the leases on shares, to relet to intelligent and

capable persons for rental in money, and thus simplify the revenues of



Clochegourde. Fearing to die before her husband, she was anxious to

secure for him a regular income, and to her children a property which



no incapacity could jeopardize. At the present time the fruit-trees

planted during the last ten years were in full bearing; the hedges,



which secured the boundaries from dispute, were in good order; the

elms and poplars were growing well. With the new purchases and the new



farming system well under way, the estate of Clochegourde, divided

into four great farms, two of which still needed new houses, was



capable of bringing in forty thousand francs a year, ten thousand for

each farm, not counting the yield of the vineyards, and the two



hundred acres of woodland which adjoined them, nor the profits of the




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