The carriage approached the Pont-Neuf. They stepped out. A dry cold made vivid the sombre January weather. Under her veil Therese joyfully3 inhaled4 the wind which swept on the hardened soil a dust white as salt. She was glad to wander freely among unknown things. She liked to see the stony5 landscape which the clearness of the air made distinct; to walk quickly and firmly on the quay6 where the trees displayed the black tracery of their branches on the horizon reddened by the smoke of the city; to look at the Seine. In the sky the first stars appeared.
“One would think that the wind would put them out,” she said.
He observed, too, that they scintillated7 a great deal. He did not think it was a sign of rain, as the peasants believe. He had observed, on the contrary, that nine times in ten the scintillation of stars was an augury8 of fine weather.
Near the little bridge they found old iron-shops lighted by smoky lamps. She ran into them. She turned a corner and went into a shop in which queer stuffs were hanging. Behind the dirty panes9 a lighted candle showed pots, porcelain10 vases, a clarinet, and a bride’s wreath.
He did not understand what pleasure she found in her search.
“These shops are full of vermin. What can you find interesting in them?”
“Everything. I think of the poor bride whose wreath is under that globe. The dinner occurred at Maillot. There was a policeman in the procession. There is one in almost all the bridal processions one sees in the park on Saturdays. Don’t they move you, my friend, all these poor, ridiculous, miserable11 beings who contribute to the grandeur12 of the past?”
Among cups decorated with flowers she discovered a little knife, the ivory handle of which represented a tall, thin woman with her hair arranged a la Maintenon. She bought it for a few sous. It pleased her, because she already had a fork like it. Le Menil confessed that he had no taste for such things, but said that his aunt knew a great deal about them. At Caen all the merchants knew her. She had restored and furnished her house in proper style. This house was noted13 as early as 1690. In one of its halls were white cases full of books. His aunt had wished to put them in order. She had found frivolous14 books in them, ornamented15 with engravings so unconventional that she had burned them.
“Is she silly, your aunt?” asked Therese.
For a long time his anecdotes16 about his aunt had made her impatient. Her friend had in the country a mother, sisters, aunts, and numerous relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her. He talked of them with admiration17. It annoyed her that he often visited them. When he came back, she imagined that he carried with him the odor of things that had been packed up for years. He was astonished, naively18, and he suffered from her antipathy19 to them.
He said nothing. The sight of a public-house, the panes of which were flaming, recalled to him the poet Choulette, who passed for a drunkard. He asked her if she still saw that Choulette, who called on her wearing a mackintosh and a red muffler.
It annoyed her that he spoke20 like General Lariviere. She did not say that she had not seen Choulette since autumn, and that he neglected her with the capriciousness of a man not in society.
“He has wit,” she said, “fantasy, and an original temperament21. He pleases me.”
And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied:
“I haven’t a taste, I have tastes. You do not disapprove22 of them all, I suppose.”
He replied that he did not criticise23 her. He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome in respectable houses.
She exclaimed:
“Not welcome in respectable houses — Choulette? Don’t you know that he goes every year for a month to the Marquise de Rieu? Yes, to the Marquise de Rieu, the Catholic, the royalist. But since Choulette interests you, listen to his latest adventure. Paul Vence related it to me. I understand it better in this street, where there are shirts and flowerpots at the windows.
“This winter, one night when it was raining, Choulette went into a public-house in a street the name of which I have forgotten, but which must resemble this one, and met there an unfortunate girl whom the waiters would not have noticed, and whom he liked for her humility24. Her name was Maria. The name was not hers. She found it nailed on her door at the top of the stairway where she went to lodge25. Choulette was touched by this perfection of poverty and infamy26. He called her his sister, and kissed her hands. Since then he has not quitted her a moment. He takes her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the rich students read their reviews. He says sweet things to her. He weeps, she weeps. They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He loves her. He calls her his chaste27 one, his cross and his salvation28. She was barefooted; he gave her yarn29 and knitting-needles that she might make stockings. And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with enormous nails. He teaches her verses that are easy to understand. He is afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame where she lives in perfect simplicity30 and admirable destitution31.”
Le Menil shrugged32 his shoulders.
“But that Choulette is crazy, and Paul Vence has no right to tell you such stories. I am not austere33, assuredly; but there are immoralities that disgust me.” They were walking at random35. She fell into a dream.
“Yes, morality, I know — duty! But duty — it takes the devil to discover it. I can assure you that I do not know where duty is. It’s like a young lady’s turtle at Joinville. We spent all the evening looking for it under the furniture, and when we had found it, we went to bed.”
He thought there was some truth in what she said. He would think about it when alone.
“I regret sometimes that I did not remain in the army. I know what you are going to say — one becomes a brute36 in that profession. Doubtless, but one knows exactly what one has to do, and that is a great deal in life. I think that my uncle’s life is very beautiful and very agreeable. But now that everybody is in the army, there are neither officers nor soldiers. It all looks like a railway station on Sunday. My uncle knew personally all the officers and all the soldiers of his brigade. Nowadays, how can you expect an officer to know his men?”
She had ceased to listen. She was looking at a woman selling fried potatoes. She realized that she was hungry and wished to eat fried potatoes.
He remonstrated37:
“Nobody knows how they are cooked.”
But he had to buy two sous’ worth of fried potatoes, and to see that the woman put salt on them.
While Therese was eating them, he led her into deserted38 streets far from the gaslights. Soon they found themselves in front of the cathedral. The moon silvered the roofs.
“Notre Dame,” she said. “See, it is as heavy as an elephant yet as delicate as an insect. The moon climbs over it and looks at it with a monkey’s maliciousness39. She does not look like the country moon at Joinville. At Joinville I have a path — a flat path — with the moon at the end of it. She is not there every night; but she returns faithfully, full, red, familiar. She is a country neighbor. I go seriously to meet her. But this moon of Paris I should not like to know. She is not respectable company. Oh, the things that she has seen during the time she has been roaming around the roofs!”
He smiled a tender smile.
“Oh, your little path where you walked alone and that you liked because the sky was at the end of it! I see it as if I were there.”
It was at the Joinville castle that he had seen her for the first time, and had at once loved her. It was there, one night, that he had told her of his love, to which she had listened, dumb, with a pained expression on her mouth and a vague look in her eyes.
The reminiscence of this little path where she walked alone moved him, troubled him, made him live again the enchanted40 hours of his first desires and hopes. He tried to find her hand in her muff and pressed her slim wrist under the fur.
A little girl carrying violets saw that they were lovers, and offered flowers to them. He bought a two-sous’ bouquet41 and offered it to Therese.
She was walking toward the cathedral. She was thinking: “It is like an enormous beast — a beast of the Apocalypse.”
At the other end of the bridge a flower-woman, wrinkled, bearded, gray with years and dust, followed them with her basket full of mimosas and roses. Therese, who held her violets and was trying to slip them into her waist, said, joyfully:
“Thank you, I have some.”
“One can see that you are young,” the old woman shouted with a wicked air, as she went away.
Therese understood at once, and a smile came to her lips and eyes. They were passing near the porch, before the stone figures that wear sceptres and crowns.
“Let us go in,” she said.
He did not wish to go in. He declared that the door was closed. She pushed it, and slipped into the immense nave42, where the inanimate trees of the columns ascended43 in darkness. In the rear, candles were moving in front of spectre-like priests, under the last reverberations of the organs. She trembled in the silence, and said:
“The sadness of churches at night moves me; I feel in them the grandeur of nothingness.”
He replied:
“We must believe in something. If there were no God, if our souls were not immortal44, it would be too sad.”
She remained for a while immovable under the curtains of shadow hanging from the arches. Then she said:
“My poor friend, we do not know what to do with this life, which is so short, and yet you desire another life which shall never finish.”
In the carriage that took them back he said gayly that he had passed a fine afternoon. He kissed her, satisfied with her and with himself. But his good-humor was not communicated to her. The last moments they passed together were spoiled for her always by the presentiment45 that he would not say at parting the thing that he should say. Ordinarily, he quitted her brusquely, as if what had happened were not to last. At every one of their partings she had a confused feeling that they were parting forever. She suffered from this in advance and became irritable46.
Under the trees he took her hand and kissed her.
“Is it not rare, Therese, to love as we love each other?”
“Rare? I don’t know; but I think that you love me.”
“And you?”
“I, too, love you.”
“And you will love me always?”
“What does one ever know?”
And seeing the face of her lover darken:
“Would you be more content with a woman who would swear to love only you for all time?”
He remained anxious, with a wretched air. She was kind and she reassured47 him:
“You know very well, my friend, that I am not fickle48.”
Almost at the end of the lane they said good-by. He kept the carriage to return to the Rue Royale. He was to dine at the club and go to the theatre, and had no time to lose.
Therese returned home on foot. Opposite the Trocadero she remembered what the old flower-woman had said: “One can see that you are young.” The words came back to her with a significance not immoral34 but sad. “One can see that you are young!” Yes, she was young, she was loved, and she was bored to death.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
rue
|
|
| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fleeting
|
|
| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
joyfully
|
|
| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
inhaled
|
|
| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
stony
|
|
| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
quay
|
|
| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
scintillated
|
|
| v.（言谈举止中）焕发才智( scintillate的过去式和过去分词 )；谈笑洒脱；闪耀；闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
augury
|
|
| n.预言，征兆，占卦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
panes
|
|
| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
porcelain
|
|
| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
grandeur
|
|
| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
frivolous
|
|
| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
ornamented
|
|
| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
anecdotes
|
|
| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
naively
|
|
| adv. 天真地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
antipathy
|
|
| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
temperament
|
|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
disapprove
|
|
| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
criticise
|
|
| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
lodge
|
|
| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
infamy
|
|
| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
chaste
|
|
| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
yarn
|
|
| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
simplicity
|
|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
destitution
|
|
| n.穷困，缺乏，贫穷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
austere
|
|
| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
immoral
|
|
| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
random
|
|
| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
brute
|
|
| n.野兽，兽性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
remonstrated
|
|
| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
maliciousness
|
|
| [法] 恶意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
40
enchanted
|
|
| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
bouquet
|
|
| n.花束，酒香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
nave
|
|
| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
ascended
|
|
| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
immortal
|
|
| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
presentiment
|
|
| n.预感，预觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
irritable
|
|
| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
reassured
|
|
| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
fickle
|
|
| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |