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The Magic Skin-Part1_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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executioners known to shed tears over the fair-haired, girlish heads



that had to fall at the bidding of the Revolution?

The gamblers saw at a glance a dreadfulmystery in the novice's face.



His young features were stamped with a melancholy grace, his looks

told of unsuccess and many blighted hopes. The dull apathy of the



suicide had made his forehead so deadly pale, a bitter smile carved

faint lines about the corners of his mouth, and there was an



abandonment about him that was painful to see. Some sort of demon

sparkled in the depths of his eye, which drooped, wearied perhaps with



pleasure. Could it have been dissipation that had set its foul mark on

the proud face, once pure and bright, and now brought low? Any doctor



seeing the yellow circles about his eyelids, and the color in his

cheeks, would have set them down to some affection of the heart or



lungs, while poets would have attributed them to the havoc brought by

the search for knowledge and to night-vigils by the student's lamp.



But a complaint more fatal than any disease, a disease more merciless

than genius or study, had drawn this young face, and had wrung a heart



which dissipation, study, and sickness had scarcely disturbed. When a

notorious criminal is taken to the convict's prison, the prisoners



welcome him respectfully, and these evil spirits in human shape,

experienced in torments, bowed before an unheard-of anguish. By the



depth of the wound which met their eyes, they recognized a prince

among them, by the majesty of his unspoken irony, by the refined



wretchedness of his garb. The frock-coat that he wore was well cut,

but his cravat was on terms so intimate with his waistcoat that no one



could suspect him of underlinen. His hands, shapely as a woman's were

not perfectly clean; for two days past indeed he had ceased to wear



gloves. If the very croupier and the waiters shuddered, it was because

some traces of the spell of innocence yet hung about his meagre,



delicately-shaped form, and his scanty fair hair in its natural curls.

He looked only about twenty-five years of age, and any trace of vice



in his face seemed to be there by accident. A young constitution still

resisted the inroads of lubricity. Darkness and light, annihilation



and existence, seemed to struggle in him, with effects of mingled

beauty and terror. There he stood like some erring angel that has lost



his radiance; and these emeritus-professors of vice and shame were

ready to bid the novice depart, even as some toothless crone might be



seized with pity for a beautiful girl who offers herself up to infamy.

The young man went straight up to the table, and, as he stood there,



flung down a piece of gold which he held in his hand, without

deliberation. It rolled on to the Black; then, as strong natures can,



he looked calmly, if anxiously, at the croupier, as if he held useless

subterfuges in scorn.



The interest this coup awakened was so great that the old gamesters

laid nothing upon it; only the Italian, inspired by a gambler's



enthusiasm, smiled suddenly at some thought, and punted his heap of

coin against the stranger's stake.



The banker forgot to pronounce the phrases that use and wont have

reduced to an inarticulate cry--"Make your game. . . . The game is



made. . . . Bets are closed." The croupier spread out the cards, and

seemed to wish luck to the newcomer, indifferent as he was to the



losses or gains of those who took part in these sombre pleasures.

Every bystander thought he saw a drama, the closing scene of a noble



life, in the fortunes of that bit of gold; and eagerly fixed his eyes

on the prophetic cards; but however closely they watched the young






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