“Her nephew, a child, lived with her. One morning he was, as usual, studying his lessons in the dining-room where she happened to be. The child began to translate word by word a verse of Sophocles, and as he wrote he pronounced aloud both the Greek and the translation:
Greek Phrases 100
The head divine; of Jocasta; is dead.... tearing her hair; she calls; La?os dead... we see; the woman hung. He added a flourish which tore the paper, stuck out his ink-stained tongue, and repeated in sing-song, ‘Hung, hung, hung!’
“The wretched woman, whose will-power had been destroyed, passively obeyed the suggestion in the word, repeated three times. She rose, and without a word or look went straight to her room. Some hours later the police-inspector, called to verify a violent death, made this reflection: ‘I have seen many women who have committed suicide, but this is the first time I have seen one who has hanged herself.’
“We speak of suggestion. Here is an instance which is at once natural and credible11. I am a little doubtful, in spite of everything, of those which are arranged in the medical schools.
“But that a being in whom the will-power is dead obeys every external impulse is a truth which reason admits and which experience proves. The example which you cited reminds me of another one somewhat similar. It is that of my unfortunate comrade, Alexandre Le Mansel. A verse of Sophocles killed your heroine. A phrase of Lampridius destroyed the friend of whom I will tell you.
“Le Mansel, with whom I studied at the high school of Avranches, was unlike all his comrades. He seemed at once younger and older than he really was. Small and fragile, he was at fifteen years of age afraid of everything that alarms little children. Darkness caused him an overpowering terror, and he could never meet one of the servants of the school, who happened to have a big lump on the top of his head, without bursting into tears. And yet at times, when we saw him close at hand, he looked quite old. His parched12 skin, glued to his temples, nourished his thin hair very inadequately13. His forehead was polished like that of a middle-aged14 man. As for his eyes, they had no expression, and strangers often thought he was blind. His mouth alone gave character to his face. His sensitive lips expressed in turn a child-like joy and strange sufferings. The sound of his voice was clear and charming. When he recited his lessons he gave the verses their full harmony and rhythm, which made us laugh very much. During recreation he willingly joined our games, and he was not awkward, but he played with such feverish15 enthusiasm, and yet he was so absent-minded, that some of us felt an insurmountable aversion towards him.
“He was not popular, and we would have made him our butt16 had he not rather overawed us by something of savage17 pride and by his reputation as a clever scholar, for though he was unequal in his work he was often at the head of his class. It was said that he would often talk in his sleep and that he would leave his bed in the dormitory while sound asleep. This, however, we had not observed for ourselves as we were at the age of sound sleep.
“For a long time he inspired me with more surprise than sympathy. Then of a sudden we became friends during a walk which the whole class took to the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. We tramped barefooted along the beach, carrying our shoes and our bread at the end of a stick and singing at the top of our voices. We passed the postern, and having thrown our bundles at the foot of the ‘Michelettes,’ we sat down side by side on one of those ancient iron cannons18 corroded19 by five centuries of rain and fog.
“Looking dreamily from the ancient stones to the sky, and swinging his bare feet, he said to me: ‘Had I but lived in the time of those wars and been a knight20, I would have captured these two old cannons; I would have captured twenty, I would have captured a hundred! I would have captured all the cannons of the English. I would have fought single-handed in front of this gate. And the Archangel Michel would have stood guard over my head like a white cloud.’
“These words and the slow chant in which he uttered them thrilled me. I said to him, ‘I would have been your squire21. I like you, Le Mansel; will you be my friend?’ And I held my hand out to him and he took it solemnly.
“At the master’s command we put on our shoes, and our little band climbed the steep ascent22 that leads to the abbey. Midway, near a spreading fig-tree, we saw the cottage where Tiphaine Raguel, widow of Bertrand du Guesdin, lived in peril23 of the sea.
“This dwelling24 is so small that it is a wonder that it was ever inhabited. To have lived there the worthy25 Tiphaine must have been a queer old body, or, rather, a saint living only the spiritual life. Le Mansel opened his arms as if to embrace this sacred hut; then, falling on his knees, he kissed the stones, heedless of the laughter of his comrades who, in their merriment, began to pelt26 him with pebbles27. I will not describe our walk among the dungeons28, the cloisters29, the halls and the chapel30. Le Mansel seemed oblivious31 to everything. Indeed, I should not have recalled this incident except to show how our friendship began.
“‘Tiphaine is not dead,’ I rubbed my eyes as I saw Le Mansel in his shirt at my side. I requested him rather rudely to let me sleep, and I thought no more of this singular communication.
“From that day on I understood the character of our fellow pupil much better than before, and I discovered an inordinate33 pride which I had never before suspected. It will not surprise you if I acknowledge that at the age of fifteen I was but a poor psychologist. But Le Mansel’s pride was too subtle to strike one at once. It had no concrete shape, but seemed to embrace remote phantasms. And yet it influenced all his feelings and gave to his ideas, uncouth34 and incoherent though they were, something of unity35.
“During the holidays that followed our walk to the Mont St. Michel, Le Mansel invited me to spend a day at the home of his parents, who were farmers and landowners at Saint Julien.
“My mother consented with some repugnance36. Saint Julien is six kilometres from the town. Having put on a white waistcoat and a smart blue tie I started on my way there early one Sunday morning.
“Alexandre stood at the door waiting for me and smiling like a little child. He took me by the hand and led me into the ‘parlour.’ The house, half country, half town-like, was neither poor nor ill furnished. And yet my heart was deeply oppressed when I entered, so great was the silence and sadness that reigned37.
“Near the window, whose curtains were slightly raised as if to satisfy some timid curiosity, I saw a woman who seemed old, though I cannot be sure that she was as old as she appeared to be. She was thin and yellow, and her eyes, under their red lids glowed in their black sockets38. Though it was summer her body and her head were shrouded39 in some black woollen material. But that which made her look most ghastly was a band of metal which encircled her forehead like a diadem40.
“‘This is mama,’ Le Mansel said to me, ‘she has a headache.’
“Madam Le Mansel greeted me in a plaintive41 voice, and doubtless observing my astonished glance at her forehead, said, smiling:
“‘What I wear on my forehead, young sir, is not a crown; it is a magnetic band to cure my headache.’ I did my best to reply when Le Mansel dragged me away to the garden, where we found a bald little man who flitted along the paths like a ghost. He was so thin and so light that there seemed some danger of his being blown away by the wind. His timid manner and lus long and lean neck, when he bent42 forward, and his head, no larger than a man’s fist, his shy side-glances and his skipping gait, his short arms uplifted like a pair of flippers, gave him undeniably a great resemblance to a plucked chicken.
“My friend, Le Mansel, explained that this was his father, but that they were obliged to let him stay in the yard as he really only lived in the company of his chickens, and he had in their society quite forgotten to talk to human beings. As he spoke43 his father suddenly disappeared, and very soon an ecstatic clucking filled the air. He was with his chickens.
“Le Mansel and I strolled several times around the garden and he told me that at dinner, presently, I should see his grandmother, but that I was to take no notice of what she said, as she was sometimes a little out of her mind. Then he drew me aside into a pretty arbour and whispered, blushing:
“‘I have written some verses about Tiphaine Raguel. I’ll repeat them to you some other time. You’ll see, you’ll see.’
“The dinner-bell rang and we went into the dining-room. M. Le Mansel came in with at basket full of eggs.
“‘Eighteen this morning,’ he said, and his voice sounded like a cluck.
“A most delicious omelette was served. I was seated between Madame Le Mansel, who was moaning under her crown, and her mother, an old Normandy woman with round cheeks, who, having lost all her teeth, smiled with her eyes. She seemed very attractive to me. While we were eating roast-duck and chicken à la crème the good lady told us some very amusing stories, and, in spite of what her grandson had said, I did not observe that her mind was in the slightest degree affected44. On the contrary, she seemed to be the life of the house.
“After dinner we adjourned45 to a little sitting-room46 whose walnut47 furniture was covered with yellow Utrecht velvet48. An ornamental49 clock between two candelabra decorated the mantelpiece, and on the top of its black plinth, and protected and covered by a glass globe, was a red egg. I do not know why, once having observed it, I should have examined it so attentively50. Children have such unaccountable curiosity. However, I must say that the egg was of a most wonderful and magnificent colour. It had no resemblance whatever to those Easter eggs dyed in the juice of the beetroot, so much admired by the urchins51 who stare in at the fruit-shops. It was of the colour of royal purple. And with the indiscretion of my age I could not resist saying as much.
“M. Le Mansel’s reply was a kind of crow which expressed his admiration52.
“‘That egg, young sir,’ he added, ‘has not been dyed as you seem to think. It was laid by a Cingalese hen in my poultry-yard just as you see it there. It is a phenomenal egg.’
“‘You must not forget to say,’ Madame Le Mansel added in a plaintive voice, ‘that this egg was laid the very day our Alexandre was born.’
“In the meantime the old grandmother looked at me with sarcastic54 eyes, and pressed her loose lips together and made a sign that I was not to believe what I heard.
“‘Humph!’ she whispered, ‘chickens often sit on what they don’t lay, and if some malicious55 neighbour slips into their nest a——’
“Her grandson interrupted her fiercely. He was pale, and his hands shook.
“‘Don’t listen to her,’ he cried to me. ‘You know what I told you. Don’t listen!’
“My further connection with Alexandre Le Mansel contains nothing worth relating. My friend often spoke of his verses to Tiphaine, but he never showed them to me. Indeed, I very soon lost sight of him. My mother sent me to Paris to finish my studies. I took my degree in two faculties57, and then I studied medicine. During the time that I was preparing my doctor’s thesis I received a letter from my mother, who told me that poor Alexandre had been very ailing58, and that after a serious attack he had become timid and excessively suspicious; that, however, he was quite harmless, and in spite of the disordered state of his health and reason he showed an extraordinary aptitude59 for mathematics. There was nothing in these tidings to surprise me. Often, as I studied the diseases of the nervous centres, my mind reverted60 to my poor friend at Saint Julien, and in spite of myself I foresaw for him the general paralysis61 which inevitably62 threatened the offspring of a mother racked by chronic63 nervous headaches and a rheumatic, addle-brained father.
“The sequel, however, did not, apparently64, prove me to be in the right. Alexandre Le Mansel, as I heard from Avranches, regained65 his normal health, and as he grew towards manhood gave active proof of the brilliancy of his intellect. He worked with ardour at his mathematical studies, and he even sent to the Academy of Sciences solutions of several problems hitherto unsolved, which were found to be as elegant as they were accurate. Absorbed in his work, he rarely found time to write to me. His letters were affectionate, clear, and to the point, and nothing could be found in them to arouse the mistrust of the most suspicious neurologist. However, very soon after this our correspondence ceased, and I heard nothing more of him for the next ten years.
“Last year I was greatly surprised when my servant brought me the card of Alexandre Le Mansel, and said that the gentleman was waiting for me in the ante-room.
“I was in my study consulting with a colleague on a matter of some importance. However, I begged him to excuse me for a moment while I hurried to greet my old friend. I found he had grown very old, bald, haggard, and terribly emaciated66. I took him by the arm and led him into the salon67.
“‘I am glad to see you again,’ he said, ‘and I have much to tell you. I am exposed to the most unheard-of persecutions. But I have courage, and I shall struggle bravely, and I shall triumph over my enemies.’
“These words disquieted68 me, as they would have disquieted in my place any other nerve specialist. I recognised a symptom of the disease which, by the fatal laws of heredity, menaced my friend, and which had appeared to be checked.
“‘My dear friend,’ I said, ‘we will talk about that presently. Wait here a moment. I just want to finish something. In the meantime take a book and amuse yourself.’
“You know I have a great number of books, and my drawing-room contains about six thousand volumes in three mahogany book-cases. Why, then, should my unfortunate friend choose the very one likely to do him harm, and open it at that fatal page? I conferred some twenty minutes longer with my colleague, and having taken leave of him I returned to the room where I had left Le Mansel. I found the unfortunate man in the most fearful condition. He struck a book that lay open before him and, which I at once recognised as a translation of the Historia Augusta. He recited at the top of his voice this sentence of Lampridius:
“‘On the day of the birth of Alexander Severus, a chicken, belonging to the father of the newly-born, laid a red egg—augury of the imperial purple to which the child was destined69.’
“His excitement increased to fury. He foamed70 at the mouth. He cried: ‘The egg, the egg of the day of my birth. I am an Emperor. I know that you want to kill me. Keep away, you wretch10!’ He strode down the room, then, returning, came towards me with open arms. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘my old comrade, what do you wish me to bestow71 on you? An Emperor—an Emperor.... My father was right.... the red egg. I must be an Emperor! Scoundrel, why did you hide this book from me? This is a crime of high treason; it shall be punished! ‘I shall be Emperor! Emperor! Yes, it is my duty.... Forward.... forward!”
“He was gone. In vain I tried to detain him. He escaped me. You know the rest. All the newspapers have described how, after leaving me, he bought a revolver and blew out the brains of the sentry72 who tried to prevent his forcing his way into the Elysée.
“And thus it happens that a sentence written by a Latin historian of the fourth century was the cause, fifteen hundred years after, of the death in our country of a wretched private soldier. Who will ever disentangle the web of cause and effect?
“Who can venture to say, as he accomplishes some simple act: ‘I know what I am doing.’ My dear friend, this is all I have to tell. The rest is of no interest except in medical statistics. Le Mansel, shut up in an insane asylum73, remained for fifteen days a prey74 to the most violent mania75. Whereupon he fell into a state of complete imbecility, during which he became so greedy that he even devoured76 the wax with which they polished the floor. Three months later he was suffocated77 while trying to swallow a sponge.”
The doctor ceased and lighted a cigarette. After a moment of silence, I said to him, “You have told me a terrible story, doctor.”
“It is terrible,” he replied, “but it is true. I should be glad of a little brandy.”
The End
The End
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1
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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decomposing
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| 腐烂( decompose的现在分词 )； （使）分解； 分解（某物质、光线等） | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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cannons
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| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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corroded
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| 已被腐蚀的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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pelt
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| v.投掷，剥皮，抨击，开火 | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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dungeons
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cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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chapel
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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unity
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repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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diadem
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| n.王冠，冕 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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adjourned
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| （使）休会， （使）休庭( adjourn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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urchins
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| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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53
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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58
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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aptitude
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| n.(学习方面的)才能，资质，天资 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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67
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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68
disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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70
foamed
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| 泡沫的 | |
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bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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72
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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73
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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74
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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77
suffocated
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| （使某人）窒息而死( suffocate的过去式和过去分词 )； （将某人）闷死； 让人感觉闷热； 憋气 | |
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