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The Magic Skin-Part3_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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votive shields, panoplies, carved shrines, and figures on the wall at

every step. Haunted by the strangest shapes, by marvelouscreations



belonging to the borderland betwixt life and death, he walked as if

under the spell of a dream. His own existence became a matter of doubt



to him; he was neither wholly alive nor dead, like the curious objects

about him. The light began to fade as he reached the show-rooms, but



the treasures of gold and silver heaped up there scarcely seemed to

need illumination from without. The most extravagant whims of



prodigals, who have run through millions to perish in garrets, had

left their traces here in this vast bazar of human follies. Here,



beside a writing desk, made at the cost of 100,000 francs, and sold

for a hundred pence, lay a lock with a secret worth a king's ransom.



The human race was revealed in all the grandeur of its wretchedness;

in all the splendor of its infinite littleness. An ebony table that an



artist might worship, carved after Jean Goujon's designs, in years of

toil, had been purchased perhaps at the price of firewood. Precious



caskets, and things that fairy hands might have fashioned, lay there

in heaps like rubbish.



"You must have the worth of millions here!" cried the young man as he

entered the last of an immense suite of rooms, all decorated and gilt



by eighteenth century artists.

"Thousands of millions, you might say," said the florid shopman; "but



you have seen nothing as yet. Go up to the third floor, and you shall

see!"



The stranger followed his guide to a fourth gallery, where one by one

there passed before his wearied eyes several pictures by Poussin, a



magnificent statue by Michael Angelo, enchanting landscapes by Claude

Lorraine, a Gerard Dow (like a stray page from Sterne), Rembrandts,



Murillos, and pictures by Velasquez, as dark and full of color as a

poem of Byron's; then came classic bas-reliefs, finely-cut agates,



wonderful cameos! Works of art upon works of art, till the craftsman's

skill palled on the mind, masterpiece after masterpiece till art



itself became hateful at last and enthusiasm died. He came upon a

Madonna by Raphael, but he was tired of Raphael; a figure by Correggio



never received the glance it demanded of him. A priceless vase of

antique porphyry carved round about with pictures of the most



grotesquely wanton of Roman divinities, the pride of some Corinna,

scarcely drew a smile from him.



The ruins of fifteen hundred vanished years oppressed him; he sickened

under all this human thought; felt bored by all this luxury and art.



He struggled in vain against the constantly renewed fantastic shapes

that sprang up from under his feet, like children of some sportive



demon.

Are not fearful poisons set up in the soul by a swift concentration of



all her energies, her enjoyments, or ideas; as modern chemistry, in

its caprice, repeats the action of creation by some gas or other? Do



not many men perish under the shock of the sudden expansion of some

moral acid within them?



"What is there in that box?" he inquired, as he reached a large closet

--final triumph of human skill, originality, wealth, and splendor, in



which there hung a large, square mahoganycoffer, suspended from a

nail by a silver chain.



"Ah, monsieur keeps the key of it," said the stout assistant

mysteriously. "If you wish to see the portrait, I will gladlyventure






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