N article in le Libéral informed the town of?… that it possessed1 a prophetess. This was Mademoiselle Claude Deniseau, daughter of a man who kept a registry for country servants. Up to the age of seventeen Mademoiselle Deniseau had not revealed to the closest observer any abnormality of mind or body. She was a fair, fat, short girl, neither pretty nor ugly, but pleasant and of a lively disposition2. “She had received,” said le Libéral, “a good middle-class education, and she was religious without bigotry3.” At the beginning of her eighteenth year, on the 3rd of February, 189–, at six o’clock in the evening, being engaged in laying the cloth on the table in the dining-room, she thought she heard her mother’s voice saying, “Claudine, go to your room.” She went there and between the bed and the door she perceived a bright light, and heard a voice which spoke4 from the light, saying: “Claudine, this country must do penance5, for that will ward6 off great90 misfortunes. I am Saint Radegonde, Queen of France.” Mademoiselle Deniseau then descried7 in the splendour a luminous8 and, as it were, transparent9 face that wore a crown of gold and gems10.
After that Saint Radegonde came every day to converse11 with Mademoiselle Deniseau, to whom she revealed secrets and made prophecies. She had foretold12 the frosts that blighted13 the vine in blossom, and revealed that M. Rieu, curé of Sainte-Agnès, would not see the Easter festival. The venerable M. Rieu actually died on Holy Thursday. For the Republic and for France she never ceased to foretell14 terrible disasters close at hand—fires, floods, massacres15. But God, wearied of chastising16 a faithless people, would at last, under a king, bring back peace and prosperity to it. The saint diagnosed and cured diseases. Under her inspiration, Mademoiselle Deniseau had told Jobelin, the road-mender, of an ointment17 which had cured him of an anchylosis of the knee. Jobelin had been able to resume his work again.
These marvels18 attracted a crowd of inquirers to the flat inhabited by the Deniseau family in the Place Saint-Exupère, above the tramway office. The young girl was studied by ecclesiastics19, retired20 officers, and doctors of medicine. They believed that they noticed, when she was repeating the words of Saint Radegonde, that her voice became deeper,91 her expression sterner, and that her limbs became rigid21. They also noticed that she used expressions which are not customary with young girls, and that her words could be explained by no natural means.
M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin, at first indifferent and scoffing22, soon followed the extraordinary success of the prophetess with anxiety, for she announced the end of the Republic and the return of France to a Christian23 monarchy24.
M. Worms-Clavelin had entered office at the time of the scandals at the élysée under President Grévy. Since then he had participated in those cases of corruption25 that are endlessly being hushed up and as constantly revived to the great detriment26 of Parliament and the public authority. And this spectacle, which seemed natural to him, had ingrafted in his mind a profound feeling of laxity, which spread from him to all his subordinates. A senator and two deputies from his department were being threatened with legal proceedings27. The most influential28 members of the party, engineers and financiers, were either in prison or in hiding. Under these circumstances, satisfied that the people were attached to the republican rule, he expected from them neither enthusiasm nor deference29, which seemed to him but old-fashioned qualities and the empty symbols of a vanished age. Events had enlarged his naturally limited intelligence. The vast irony30 of things had passed into his soul,92 making it easy-going, mocking, indifferent. Having recognised, moreover, that the electoral committees constituted the only real authority that still subsisted31 in the department, he obeyed them with a semblance32 of zeal33 and with secret opposition34. If he executed their orders, it was not without a considerable modification35 of their rigour. In a word, from opportunist he had become liberal and progressive. He willingly allowed liberty of speech and action. But he was too wise to allow any unbearable36 excesses, and, like a conscientious37 official, he took good care that the government should not receive any glaring insult, and that the ministers should peaceably enjoy that common attitude of indifference38 which, by gaining over their friends as well as their enemies, ensured at the same time both their power and their repose39.
It pleased him that the governmental papers and the opposition ones, both being compromised by financial transactions, should be utterly40 discredited41, alike as to their praise and their blame. The socialist42 sheet, being the only independent one, was also the only violent one. But it was very poor; and the fear which it inspired drove people back towards the government. Thus M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin was entirely43 sincere when he informed the Home Secretary that the political situation was excellent in his department. And here was the prophetess of the Place Saint-Exupère destroying the harmony of93 this happy state. Under the direction of Saint Radegonde, she announced the fall of the ministry44, the dissolution of Parliament, the resignation of the President of the Republic, and the collapse45 of a discredited government. She was much more violent than le Libéral and far more influential. For le Libéral drew but few, while the whole town thronged46 around Mademoiselle Deniseau. The clergy47, the large landowners, the nobility, the clerical press, hung upon her and drank in her words. Saint Radegonde rallied the defeated enemies of the Republic and brought together the “Conservatives.” A harmless rally, but inconvenient48. M. Worms-Clavelin was especially afraid lest a Paris paper should noise the affair about. “It would then assume,” said he to himself, “the proportions of a scandal and would expose me to a reprimand from the minister.” He resolved to look for the quietest way of silencing Mademoiselle Deniseau, and first began to make inquiries49 as to the character of her relations.
Her father’s family was not much respected in the town. The Deniseaux were people of no position. Mademoiselle Claude’s father kept a registry office, the reputation of which was neither better nor worse than that of other registries. Masters and servants complained of it, but still made use of it. In 1871 Deniseau had had the Commune proclaimed in the Place Saint-Exupère. Somewhat later, upon the94 expulsion of three Dominicans at the point of the sword, he had offered resistance to the gendarmes50, and had got himself arrested. Next he had stood at municipal elections as a socialist, and had only obtained a very small number of votes. He was hot-headed and weak-minded, but believed to be honest.
The mother was a Nadal. The Nadals, in a better position than the Deniseaux, were small agricultural proprietors51, all much respected. One of the Nadals, an aunt to Mademoiselle Claude, being subject to hallucinations, had been shut up in an asylum52 for some years. The Nadals were religious and had clerical connections. M. Worms-Clavelin could learn nothing more about them.
One morning he had a conversation on this subject with his private secretary, M. Lacarelle, who belonged to an old family in the neighbourhood and knew the department well.
“My dear Lacarelle, we must put an end to this madness. For it is plain that Mademoiselle Deniseau is mad.”
Lacarelle replied gravely, not without the kind of arrogance53 inseparable from his long fair moustaches.
“Monsieur le préfet, opinions are divided with respect to this, and many people believe that Mademoiselle Deniseau is perfectly54 sane55.”
“After all, Lacarelle, you do not believe that95 Saint Radegonde comes every morning to chat with her and to drag the head of the State, along with the Government, down into the mire56.”
But Lacarelle was of opinion that there had been exaggeration, that ill-disposed persons were making the most of an extraordinary manifestation57. It really was extraordinary that Mademoiselle Deniseau should prescribe sovereign remedies for incurable58 diseases; she had cured Jobelin, the road-mender, and an old bailiff called Favru. That was not all. She foretold events that fell out as she had said.
“I can vouch59 for one fact, monsieur le préfet. Last week Mademoiselle Deniseau said: ‘There is a treasure hidden in a field called Faifeu, at Noiselles.’ They dug at the place described and discovered a great slab60 of stone which blocked the entrance of an underground passage.”
“But, still,” cried the préfet, “you cannot maintain that Saint Radegonde?…”
He stopped, thoughtful and questioning. He was profoundly ignorant of the saintly legends of Christian Gaul and of the national antiquities61 of France. But at school he had studied text-books of history. He was struggling to recall his boyish recollections.
“Saint Radegonde was the mother of Saint Louis?”
96 M. Lacarelle, who knew more history, only hesitated a moment.
“No,” said he, “the mother of Saint Louis was Blanche of Castille. Saint Radegonde was an earlier queen.”
“Well, she cannot be allowed to perform her conjuring62 tricks in the county town. And you, my dear Lacarelle, you ought to make her father understand—this Deniseau, I mean to say—that he has nothing to do but to give a good flogging to his daughter and put her under lock and key.”
Lacarelle smoothed his Gallic moustaches.
“Monsieur le préfet, I advise you to go and see this Deniseau girl. She is interesting. She will give you a private sitting quite to yourself.”
“You can’t mean it, Lacarelle! Fancy my going to be instructed by a little hussy that my Government is on the point of collapse!”
M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin was not credulous63. He only thought of religion from a political point of view. He had inherited no creed64 from his parents, who were aliens to every superstition65, as they were to every land. His soul had sucked none of the nourishment66 of the past from any soil. He remained empty, colourless, unfettered. Through metaphysical incompetency67 and the instinctive68 feeling for action and acquisition, he clung to tangible69 truth, and in all good faith believed himself to be a positivist.97 Having but lately drunk his bocks in the cafés at Montmartre in the company of chemists with political opinions, he still preserved a blind trustfulness in scientific methods, which he in his turn extolled70 in the lodges71 to the leading spirits among the freemasons. He enjoyed embellishing72 his political intrigues73 and administrative74 expedients75 with the fair appearance of sociological experiment. And the more useful science was to him the better he appreciated it. “I profess,” said he in all sincerity76, “that unquestioning faith in facts which constitutes the scientist, the sociologist77.” And it was just because he only believed in facts and because he professed78 the creed of positivism that the affair of the Sibyl began to worry him.
His private secretary, M. Lacarelle, had said to him: “This young woman has cured a road-mender and a bailiff. These are facts. She has pointed79 out the place where they would discover a treasure, and they really found in that place a trap-door to the opening of a subterranean80 passage. That is a fact. She foretold the failure of the vines. That is a fact.”
M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin had the instinct of mockery and a sense of humour, but this word fact exercised a spell over his mind; and it occurred vaguely81 to his memory that doctors like Charcot had made observations in the hospitals on sick98 people gifted with extraordinary powers. He remembered certain curious phenomena82 of hysteria and cases of second sight. He wondered whether Mademoiselle Deniseau were not a sufficiently83 interesting hysteric patient for her to be handed over to the experts in mental cases, which would rid the town of her.
He thought:
“I might give an official order for the consignment84 of this girl to an asylum, as in the case of any person whose mental derangement85 forms a danger to public order and personal safety; but the enemies of the government would squeal86 like polecats, and I can already hear lawyer Lerond charging me with unlawful committal. The plot must be unravelled87, if the clericals of the county town have concocted88 one. For it is not to be endured that Mademoiselle Deniseau should declare every day, as the mouthpiece of Saint Radegonde, that the Republic is sinking into the mire. I grant that some regrettable deeds have been done. Certain partial changes will force themselves on us, especially in national representation, but, thank God, the government is still strong enough for me to support it.”
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1
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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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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penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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descried
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| adj.被注意到的，被发现的，被看到的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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12
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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foretell
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| v.预言，预告，预示 | |
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15
massacres
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| 大屠杀( massacre的名词复数 )； 惨败 | |
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chastising
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| v.严惩（某人）（尤指责打）( chastise的现在分词 ) | |
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ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ecclesiastics
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| n.神职者，教会，牧师( ecclesiastic的名词复数 ) | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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detriment
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| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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subsisted
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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41
discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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42
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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44
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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45
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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50
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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52
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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53
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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56
mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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57
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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58
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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59
vouch
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| v.担保；断定；n.被担保者 | |
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60
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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61
antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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62
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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63
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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66
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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incompetency
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| n.无能力，不适当 | |
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68
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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embellishing
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| v.美化( embellish的现在分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色 | |
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intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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76
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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sociologist
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| n.研究社会学的人，社会学家 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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81
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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82
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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83
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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84
consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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85
derangement
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| n.精神错乱 | |
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86
squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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87
unravelled
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| 解开，拆散，散开( unravel的过去式和过去分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚 | |
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88
concocted
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| v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造 | |
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