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Two Poets-Part6_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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had inspired Mme. de Bargeton with a taste for music and reading.



During the Revolution one Abbe Niollant, the Abbe Roze's best pupil,

found a hiding-place in the old manor-house of Escarbas, and brought



with him his baggage of musical compositions. The old country

gentleman's hospitality was handsomely repaid, for the Abbe undertook



his daughter's education. Anais, or Nais, as she was called must

otherwise have been left to herself, or, worse still, to some coarse-



minded servant-maid. The Abbe was not only a musician, he was well and

widely read, and knew both Italian and German; so Mlle. de Negrepelise



received instruction in those tongues, as well as in counterpoint. He

explained the great masterpieces of the French, German, and Italian



literatures, and deciphered with her the music of the great composers.

Finally, as time hung heavy on his hands in the seclusion enforced by



political storms, he taught his pupil Latin and Greek and some

smatterings of natural science. A mother might have modified the



effects of a man's education upon a young girl, whose independent

spirit had been fostered in the first place by a country life. The



Abbe Niollant, an enthusiast and a poet, possessed the artistic

temperament in a peculiarly high degree, a temperament compatible with



many estimable qualities, but prone to raise itself above bourgeois

prejudices by the liberty of its judgments and breadth of view. In



society an intellect of this order wins pardon for its boldness by its

depth and originality; but in private life it would seem to do



positive mischief, by suggesting wanderings from the beaten track. The

Abbe was by no means wanting in goodness of heart, and his ideas were



therefore the more contagious for this high-spirited girl, in whom

they were confirmed by a lonely life. The Abbe Niollant's pupil



learned to be fearless in criticism and ready in judgement; it never

occurred to her tutor that qualities so necessary in a man are



disadvantages in a woman destined for the homely life of a house-

mother. And though the Abbe constantly impressed it upon his pupil



that it behoved her to be the more modest and gracious with the extent

of her attainments, Mlle. de Negrepelisse conceived an excellent



opinion of herself and a robustcontempt for ordinary humanity. All

those about her were her inferiors, or persons who hastened to do her



bidding, till she grew to be as haughty as a great lady, with none of

the charming blandness and urbanity of a great lady. The instincts of



vanity were flattered by the pride that the poor Abbe took in his

pupil, the pride of an author who sees himself in his work, and for



her misfortune she met no one with whom she could measure herself.

Isolation is one of the greatest drawbacks of a country life. We lose



the habit of putting ourselves to any inconvenience for the sake of

others when there is no one for whom to make the trifling sacrifices



of personal effort required by dress and manner. And everything in us

shares in the change for the worse; the form and the spirit



deteriorate together.

With no social intercourse to compel self-repression, Mlle. de



Negrepelisse's bold ideas passed into her manner and the expression of

her face. There was a cavalier air about her, a something that seems



at first original, but only suited to women of adventurous life. So

this education, and the consequent asperities of character, which



would have been softened down in a higher social sphere, could only

serve to make her ridiculous at Angouleme so soon as her adorers



should cease to worshipeccentricities that charm only in youth.

As for M. de Negrepelisse, he would have given all his daughter's



books to save the life of a sick bullock; and so miserly was he, that

he would not have given her two farthings over and above the allowance



to which she had a right, even if it had been a question of some




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