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The Magic Skin-Part2_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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"May God lengthen your days!" cried the two beggars.

As he reached the shop window of a print-seller, this man on the brink



of death met a young woman alighting from a showy carriage. He looked

in delight at her prettiness, at the pale face appropriately framed by



the satin of her fashionablebonnet. Her slender form and graceful

movements entranced him. Her skirt had been slightly raised as she



stepped to the pavement, disclosing a daintily fitting white stocking

over the delicate outlines beneath. The young lady went into the shop,



purchased albums and sets of lithographs; giving several gold coins

for them, which glittered and rang upon the counter. The young man,



seemingly occupied with the prints in the window, fixed upon the fair

stranger a gaze as eager as man can give, to receive in exchange an



indifferent glance, such as lights by accident on a passer-by. For him

it was a leave-taking of love and of woman; but his final and



strenuous questioning glance was neither understood nor felt by the

slight-natured woman there; her color did not rise, her eyes did not



droop. What was it to her? one more piece of adulation, yet another

sigh only prompted the delightful thought at night, "I looked rather



well to-day."

The young man quickly turned to another picture, and only left it when



she returned to her carriage. The horses started off, the final vision

of luxury and refinement went under an eclipse, just as that life of



his would soon do also. Slowly and sadly he followed the line of the

shops, listlessly examining the specimens on view. When the shops came



to an end, he reviewed the Louvre, the Institute, the towers of Notre

Dame, of the Palais, the Pont des Arts; all these public monuments



seemed to have taken their tone from the heavy gray sky.

Fitful gleams of light gave a foreboding look to Paris; like a pretty



woman, the city has mysterious fits of ugliness or beauty. So the

outer world seemed to be in a plot to steep this man about to die in a



painful trance. A prey to the maleficent power which acts relaxingly

upon us by the fluid circulating through our nerves, his whole frame



seemed gradually to experience a dissolving process. He felt the

anguish of these throes passing through him in waves, and the houses



and the crowd seemed to surge to and fro in a mist before his eyes. He

tried to escape the agitationwrought in his mind by the revulsions of



his physical nature, and went toward the shop of a dealer in

antiquities, thinking to give a treat to his senses, and to spend the



interval till nightfall in bargaining over curiosities.

He sought, one might say, to regain courage and to find a stimulant,



like a criminal who doubts his power to reach the scaffold. The

consciousness of approaching death gave him, for the time being, the



intrepidity of a duchess with a couple of lovers, so that he entered

the place with an abstracted look, while his lips displayed a set



smile like a drunkard's. Had not life, or rather had not death,

intoxicated him? Dizziness soon overcame him again. Things appeared to



him in strange colors, or as making slight movements; his irregular

pulse was no doubt the cause; the blood that sometimes rushed like a



burning torrent through his veins, and sometimes lay torpid and

stagnant as tepid water. He merely asked leave to see if the shop



contained any curiosities which he required.

A plump-faced young shopman with red hair, in an otter-skin cap, left



an old peasant woman in charge of the shop--a sort of feminine

Caliban, employed in cleaning a stove made marvelous by Bernard



Palissy's work. This youth remarked carelessly:

"Look round, monsieur! We have nothing very remarkable here



downstairs; but if I may trouble you to go up to the first floor, I

will show you some very fine mummies from Cairo, some inlaid pottery,



and some carved ebony--genuine Renaissance work, just come in, and of

perfect beauty."



In the stranger's fearful position this cicerone's prattle and

shopman's empty talk seemed like the petty vexations by which narrow



minds destroy a man of genius. But as he must even go through with it,




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