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The Lily of the Valley-Part27_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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it," she said, stretching her hand over his head with a solemn

gesture.



"I have done all I could to save him," I said.

"Oh, you!" she said, "you are good; it is I who am guilty."



She stooped to that discolored brow, wiped the perspiration from it

and laid a kiss there solemnly; but I saw, not without joy, that she



did it as an expiation.

"Blanche, I am thirsty," said the count in a feeble voice.



"You see he knows me," she said giving him to drink.

Her accent, her affectionate manner to him seemed to me to take the



feelings that bound us together and immolate them to the sick man.

"Henriette," I said, "go and rest, I entreat you."



"No more Henriette," she said, interrupting me with imperious haste.

"Go to bed if you would not be ill. Your children, HE HIMSELF would



order you to be careful; it is a case where selfishness becomes a

virtue."



"Yes," she said.

She went away, recommending her husband to my care by a gesture which



would have seemed like approaching delirium if childlike grace had not

been mingled with the supplicating forces of repentance. But the scene



was terrible, judged by the habitual state of that pure soul; it

alarmed me; I feared the exaltation of her conscience. When the doctor



came again, I revealed to him the nature of my pure Henriette's self-

reproach. This confidence, made discreetly, removed Monsieur Origet's



suspicions, and enabled him to quiet the distress of that noble soul

by telling her that in any case the count had to pass through this



crisis, and that as for the nut-tree, his remaining there had done

more good than harm by developing the disease.



For fifty-two days the count hovered between life and death. Henriette

and I each watched twenty-six nights. Undoubtedly, Monsieur de



Mortsauf owed his life to our nursing and to the careful exactitude

with which we carried out the orders of Monsieur Origet. Like all



philosophical physicians, whose sagacious observation of what passes

before them justifies many a doubt of noble actions when they are only



the accomplishment of a duty, this man, while assisting the countess

and me in our rivalry of devotion, could not help watching us, with



scrutinizing glances, so afraid was he of being deceived in his

admiration.



"In diseases of this nature," he said to me at his third visit, "death

has a powerful auxiliary in the moral nature when that is seriously



disturbed, as it is in this case. The doctor, the family, the nurses

hold the patient's life in their hands; sometimes a single word, a



fear expressed by a gesture, has the effect of poison."

As he spoke Origet studied my face and expression; but he saw in my



eyes the clear look of an honest soul. In fact during the whole course

of this distressing illness there never passed through my mind a



single one of the involuntary evil thoughts which do sometimes sear

the consciences of the innocent. To those who study nature in its



grandeur as a whole all tends to unity through assimilation. The moral

world must undoubtedly be ruled by an analogous principle. In an pure



sphere all is pure. The atmosphere of heaven was around my Henriette;

it seemed as though an evil desire must forever part me from her. Thus



she not only stood for happiness, but for virtue; she WAS virtue.

Finding us always equally careful and attentive, the doctor's words



and manners took a tone of respect and even pity; he seemed to say to

himself, "Here are the real sufferers; they hide their ills, and



forget them." By a fortunate change, which, according to our excellent

doctor, is common enough in men who are completely shattered, Monsieur



de Mortsauf was patient, obedient, complained little, and showed

surprising docility,--he, who when well never did the simplest thing



without discussion. The secret of this submission to medical care,

which he formerly so derided, was an innate dread of death; another



contradiction in a man of tried courage. This dread may perhaps

explain several other peculiarities in the character which the cruel



years of exile had developed.

Shall I admit to you, Natalie, and will you believe me? these fifty



days and the month that followed them were the happiest moments of my

life. Love, in the celestial spaces of the soul is like a noble river






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