When she was thirteen, her father himself took her to town to place her in the convent. They stopped at an inn in the St. Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, they used painted plates that set forth3 the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The explanatory legends, chipped here and there by the scratching of knives, all glorified4 religion, the tendernesses of the heart, and the pomps of court.
Far from being bored at first at the convent, she took pleasure in the society of the good sisters, who, to amuse her, took her to the chapel5, which one entered from the refectory by a long corridor. She played very little during recreation hours, knew her catechism well, and it was she who always answered Monsieur le Vicaire’s difficult questions. Living thus, without every leaving the warm atmosphere of the classrooms, and amid these pale-faced women wearing rosaries with brass7 crosses, she was softly lulled8 by the mystic languor9 exhaled10 in the perfumes of the altar, the freshness of the holy water, and the lights of the tapers11. Instead of attending to mass, she looked at the pious13 vignettes with their azure14 borders in her book, and she loved the sick lamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp arrows, or the poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. She tried, by way of mortification15, to eat nothing a whole day. She puzzled her head to find some vow16 to fulfil.
When she went to confession17, she invented little sins in order that she might stay there longer, kneeling in the shadow, her hands joined, her face against the grating beneath the whispering of the priest. The comparisons of betrothed18, husband, celestial20 lover, and eternal marriage, that recur21 in sermons, stirred within her soul depths of unexpected sweetness.
In the evening, before prayers, there was some religious reading in the study. On week-nights it was some abstract of sacred history or the Lectures of the Abbe Frayssinous, and on Sundays passages from the “Genie du Christianisme,” as a recreation. How she listened at first to the sonorous22 lamentations of its romantic melancholies reechoing through the world and eternity23! If her childhood had been spent in the shop-parlour of some business quarter, she might perhaps have opened her heart to those lyrical invasions of Nature, which usually come to us only through translation in books. But she knew the country too well; she knew the lowing of cattle, the milking, the ploughs.
Accustomed to calm aspects of life, she turned, on the contrary, to those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of its storms, and the green fields only when broken up by ruins.
She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate24 desires of her heart, being of a temperament25 more sentimental26 than artistic27, looking for emotions, not landscapes.
At the convent there was an old maid who came for a week each month to mend the linen28. Patronized by the clergy29, because she belonged to an ancient family of noblemen ruined by the Revolution, she dined in the refectory at the table of the good sisters, and after the meal had a bit of chat with them before going back to her work. The girls often slipped out from the study to go and see her. She knew by heart the love songs of the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she stitched away.
She told stories, gave them news, went errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried in the pockets of her apron30, and of which the good lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals31 of her work. They were all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted32 ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every stage, horses ridden to death on every page, sombre forests, heartaches, vows33, sobs34, tears and kisses, little skiffs by moonlight, nightingales in shady groves35, “gentlemen” brave as lions, gentle as lambs, virtuous36 as no one ever was, always well dressed, and weeping like fountains. For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.
Through Walter Scott, later on, she fell in love with historical events, dreamed of old chests, guard-rooms and minstrels. She would have liked to live in some old manor-house, like those long-waisted chatelaines who, in the shade of pointed37 arches, spent their days leaning on the stone, chin in hand, watching a cavalier with white plume38 galloping39 on his black horse from the distant fields. At this time she had a cult6 for Mary Stuart and enthusiastic veneration40 for illustrious or unhappy women. Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes Sorel, the beautiful Ferroniere, and Clemence Isaure stood out to her like comets in the dark immensity of heaven, where also were seen, lost in shadow, and all unconnected, St. Louis with his oak, the dying Bayard, some cruelties of Louis XI, a little of St. Bartholomew’s Day, the plume of the Bearnais, and always the remembrance of the plates painted in honour of Louis XIV.
In the music class, in the ballads41 she sang, there was nothing but little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagunes, gondoliers;-mild compositions that allowed her to catch a glimpse athwart the obscurity of style and the weakness of the music of the attractive phantasmagoria of sentimental realities. Some of her companions brought “keepsakes” given them as new year’s gifts to the convent. These had to be hidden; it was quite an undertaking42; they were read in the dormitory. Delicately handling the beautiful satin bindings, Emma looked with dazzled eyes at the names of the unknown authors, who had signed their verses for the most part as counts or viscounts.
She trembled as she blew back the tissue paper over the engraving43 and saw it folded in two and fall gently against the page. Here behind the balustrade of a balcony was a young man in a short cloak, holding in his arms a young girl in a white dress wearing an alms-bag at her belt; or there were nameless portraits of English ladies with fair curls, who looked at you from under their round straw hats with their large clear eyes. Some there were lounging in their carriages, gliding44 through parks, a greyhound bounding along in front of the equipage driven at a trot19 by two midget postilions in white breeches. Others, dreaming on sofas with an open letter, gazed at the moon through a slightly open window half draped by a black curtain. The naive45 ones, a tear on their cheeks, were kissing doves through the bars of a Gothic cage, or, smiling, their heads on one side, were plucking the leaves of a marguerite with their taper12 fingers, that curved at the tips like peaked shoes. And you, too, were there, Sultans with long pipes reclining beneath arbours in the arms of Bayaderes; Djiaours, Turkish sabres, Greek caps; and you especially, pale landscapes of dithyrambic lands, that often show us at once palm trees and firs, tigers on the right, a lion to the left, Tartar minarets46 on the horizon; the whole framed by a very neat virgin1 forest, and with a great perpendicular47 sunbeam trembling in the water, where, standing48 out in relief like white excoriations on a steel-grey ground, swans are swimming about.
And the shade of the argand lamp fastened to the wall above Emma’s head lighted up all these pictures of the world, that passed before her one by one in the silence of the dormitory, and to the distant noise of some belated carriage rolling over the Boulevards.
When her mother died she cried much the first few days. She had a funeral picture made with the hair of the deceased, and, in a letter sent to the Bertaux full of sad reflections on life, she asked to be buried later on in the same grave. The goodman thought she must be ill, and came to see her. Emma was secretly pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the rare ideal of pale lives, never attained49 by mediocre50 hearts. She let herself glide51 along with Lamartine meanderings, listened to harps52 on lakes, to all the songs of dying swans, to the falling of the leaves, the pure virgins53 ascending54 to heaven, and the voice of the Eternal discoursing55 down the valleys. She wearied of it, would not confess it, continued from habit, and at last was surprised to feel herself soothed56, and with no more sadness at heart than wrinkles on her brow.
The good nuns57, who had been so sure of her vocation58, perceived with great astonishment59 that Mademoiselle Rouault seemed to be slipping from them. They had indeed been so lavish60 to her of prayers, retreats, novenas, and sermons, they had so often preached the respect due to saints and martyrs61, and given so much good advice as to the modesty62 of the body and the salvation63 of her soul, that she did as tightly reined64 horses; she pulled up short and the bit slipped from her teeth. This nature, positive in the midst of its enthusiasms, that had loved the church for the sake of the flowers, and music for the words of the songs, and literature for its passional stimulus65, rebelled against the mysteries of faith as it grew irritated by discipline, a thing antipathetic to her constitution. When her father took her from school, no one was sorry to see her go. The Lady Superior even thought that she had latterly been somewhat irreverent to the community.
Emma, at home once more, first took pleasure in looking after the servants, then grew disgusted with the country and missed her convent. When Charles came to the Bertaux for the first time, she thought herself quite disillusioned66, with nothing more to learn, and nothing more to feel.
But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps the disturbance67 caused by the presence of this man, had sufficed to make her believe that she at last felt that wondrous68 passion which, till then, like a great bird with rose-coloured wings, hung in the splendour of the skies of poesy; and now she could not think that the calm in which she lived was the happiness she had dreamed.
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1
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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8
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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10
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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tapers
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| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
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12
taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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13
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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14
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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18
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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20
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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21
recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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22
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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23
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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28
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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29
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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31
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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32
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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33
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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38
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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39
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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40
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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41
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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42
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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43
engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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44
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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45
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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46
minarets
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| n.（清真寺旁由报告祈祷时刻的人使用的）光塔( minaret的名词复数 ) | |
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47
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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48
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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49
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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50
mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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51
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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52
harps
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| abbr.harpsichord 拨弦古钢琴n.竖琴( harp的名词复数 ) | |
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53
virgins
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| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
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54
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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55
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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56
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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57
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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58
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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59
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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60
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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61
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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62
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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63
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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64
reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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65
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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66
disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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67
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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68
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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