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Two Poets-Part14_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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ladies, penniless girls who had been carefully brought up, and were

dressed in the simple way that sets off natural loveliness.



These personages, beyond question the first in the company, met with a

reception of chilling silence; the respect paid to them was full of



jealousy, especially as everybody saw that Mme. de Bargeton paid

marked attention to the guests. The two families belonged to the very



small minority who hold themselves aloof from provincial gossip,

belong to no clique, live quietly in retirement, and maintain a



dignified reserve. M. de Pimentel and M. de Rastignac, for instance,

were addressed by their names in full, and no length of acquaintance



had brought their wives and daughters into the select coterie of

Angouleme; both families were too nearly connected with the Court to



compromise themselves through provincial follies.

The Prefect and the General in command of the garrison were the last



comers, and with them came the country gentleman who had brought the

treatise on silkworms to David that very morning. Evidently he was the



mayor of some canton or other, and a fine estate was his sufficient

title to gentility; but from his appearance, it was plain that he was



quite unused to polite society. He looked uneasy in his clothes, he

was at a loss to know what to do with his hands, he shifted about from



one foot to another as he spoke, and half rose and sat down again when

anybody spoke to him. He seemed ready to do some menial service; he



was obsequious, nervous, and grave by turns, laughing eagerly at every

joke, listening with servility; and occasionally, imagining that



people were laughing at him, he assumed a knowing air. His treatise

weighed upon his mind; again and again he tried to talk about



silkworms; but the luckless wight happened first upon M. de Bartas,

who talked music in reply, and next on M. de Saintot, who quoted



Cicero to him; and not until the evening was half over did the mayor

meet with sympathetic listeners in Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard, a



widowed gentlewoman and her daughter.

Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard were not the least interesting persons in



the clique, but their story may be told in a single phrase--they were

as poor as they were noble. In their dress there was just that tinge



of pretension which betrayed carefully hidden penury. The daughter, a

big, heavy young woman of seven-and-twenty, was supposed to be a good



performer on the piano, and her mother praised her in season and out

of season in the clumsiest way. No eligible man had any taste which



Camille did not share on her mother's authoritative statement. Mme. du

Brossard, in her anxiety to establish her child, was capable of saying



that her dear Camille liked nothing so much as a roving life from one

garrison to another; and before the evening was out, that she was sure



her dear Camille liked a quiet country farmhouseexistence of all

things. Mother and daughter had the pinched sub-acid dignity



characteristic of those who have learned by experience the exact value

of expressions of sympathy; they belonged to a class which the world



delights to pity; they had been the objects of the benevolent interest

of egoism; they had sounded the empty void beneath the consoling



formulas with which the world ministers to the necessities of the

unfortunate.



M. de Severac was fifty-nine years old, and a childless widower.

Mother and daughter listened, therefore, with devoutadmiration to all



that he told them about his silkworm nurseries.

"My daughter has always been fond of animals," said the mother. "And



as women are especially interested in the silk which the little




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