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The Lily of the Valley-Part25_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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old maid and the persistency of a child. Minds like his prefer to dash

themselves against the light; they return again and again and hum



about it without ever getting into it, like those big flies which

weary our ears as they buzz upon the glass.



Henriette was silent. To stop the conversation, in which I feared my

young blood might take fire, I answered in monosyllables, mostly



acquiescent, avoiding discussion; but Monsieur de Mortsauf had too

much sense not to perceive the meaning of my politeness. Presently he



was angry at being always in the right; he grew refractory, his

eyebrows and the wrinkles of his forehead worked, his yellow eyes



blazed, his rufous nose grew redder, as it did on the day I first

witnessed an attack of madness. Henriette gave me a supplicating look,



making me understand that she could not employ on my behalf an

authority to which she had recourse to protect her children. I at once



answered the count seriously, taking up the political question, and

managing his peevish spirit with the utmost care.



"Poor dear! poor dear!" she murmured two or three times; the words

reaching my ear like a gentle breeze. When she could intervene with



success she said, interrupting us, "Let me tell you, gentlemen, that

you are very dull company."



Recalled by this conversation to his chivalrous sense of what was due

to a woman, the count ceased to talk politics, and as we bored him in



our turn by commonplace matters, he presently left us to continue our

walk, declaring that it made his head spin to go round and round on



the same path.

My sad conjectures were true. The soft landscape, the warm atmosphere,



the cloudless skies, the soothing poetry of this valley, which for

fifteen years had calmed the stinging fancies of that diseased mind,



were now impotent. At a period of life when the asperities of other

men are softened and their angles smoothed, the disposition of this



man became more and more aggressive. For the last few months he had

taken a habit of contradicting for the sake of contradiction, without



reason, without even trying to justify his opinions; he insisted on

knowing the why and the wherefore of everything; grew restless under a



delay or an omission; meddled with every item of the household

affairs, and compelled his wife and the servants to render him the



most minute and fatiguing account of all that was done; never allowing

them the slightest freedom of action. Formerly he did not lose his



temper except for some special reason; now his irritation was

constant. Perhaps the care of his farms, the interests of agriculture,



an active out-door life had formerly soothed his atrabilious temper by

giving it a field for its uneasiness, and by furnishing employment for



his activity. Possibly the loss of such occupation had allowed his

malady to prey upon itself; no longer exercised on matters without, it



was showing itself in more fixed ideas; the moral being was laying

hold of the physical being. He had lately become his own doctor; he



studied medical books, fancied he had the diseases he read of, and

took the most extraordinary and unheard of precautions about his



health,--precautions never the same, impossible to foresee, and

consequently impossible to satisfy. Sometimes he wanted no noise;



then, when the countess had succeeded in establishing absolute

silence, he would declare he was in a tomb, and blame her for not



finding some medium between incessant noise and the stillness of La

Trappe. Sometimes he affected a perfect indifference for all earthly



things. Then the whole household breathed freely; the children played;

family affairs went on without criticism. Suddenly he would cry out



lamentably, "They want to kill me!--My dear," he would say to his

wife, increasing the injustice of his words by the aggravating tones



of his sharp voice, "if it concerned your children you would know very

well what was the matter with them."



He dressed and re-dressed himself incessantly, watching every change

of temperature, and doing nothing without consulting the barometer.






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