Chapter 10

O conoscenza-t non è senna il suo perché

ché il fedel prête ti chiamo: il più gran dei mali.

Egli era tutto disturbato, e pero non dubi-tava ancora,

al più al più, dubitava di esser presto¹ sul punto

di dubitare. O conoscenza! tu sei fatale a quelli, nei quali

l’oprar segue da vicino il credo .

  IL CARDINAL² GERDIL.

Need it be said that Octave was faithful to his promise? He abandoned the pleasures proscribed³ by Armance.

The need for action and the desire to acquire novel experiences had driven him to frequent bad company, often less tedious than good. Now that he was happy, a sort of instinct led him to mix with men; he wished to dominate them.

For the first time, Octave had caught a glimpse of the tedium⁴ of too perfect manners and of the excess of cold politeness: bad tone allows a man to talk about himself, in and out of season, and he feels less isolated⁵. After punch had been served in those brilliant saloons at the end of the Rue⁶ de Richelieu, which foreigners mistake for good company, one no longer has the sensation: “I am alone in a wilderness⁷ of people.” On the contrary, he can imagine that he has a score of intimate friends, whose names are unknown to him. May we venture to say, at the risk of compromising at one and the same time both our hero and ourself: Octave thought with regret of several of his supper companions.

The part of his life that had elapsed before his intimacy⁸ with the inhabitants of the H?tel de Bonnivet was beginning to strike him as foolish and marred⁹ by misunderstanding. “It rained,” he would say to himself in his original and vivid manner; “instead of taking an umbrella, I used foolishly to lose my temper with the state of the sky, and in moments of enthusiasm for what was beautiful and right, which were after all nothing but fits of madness, I used to imagine that the rain was falling on purpose to do me an ill turn.”

Charmed with the possibility of talking to Mademoiselle de Zohiloff of the observations he had made, like a second Philibert, in certain highly elegant ballrooms¹⁰: “I found it a little unexpected,” he would say to her. “I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes¹¹ all energy, all originality¹². If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered. And besides, good society usurps¹³ its privileges. It had in the past the privilege of judging what was proper, but now that it supposes itself to be attacked, it condemns¹⁴ not what is coarse and disagreeable without compensation, but what it thinks harmful to its interests.”

Armance listened coldly to her cousin, and said to him finally: “From what you think today, it is only a step to Jacobinism.” “I should be in despair,” Octave sharply retorted. “In despair at what? At knowing the truth,” said Armance. “For obviously you would not let yourself be converted by a doctrine¹⁵ that was marred by falsehood.” Throughout the rest of the evening, Octave could not help seeming lost in meditation¹⁶.

Now that he saw society in a rather truer light, Octave was beginning to suspect that Madame de Bon-nivet, for all her supreme¹⁷ pretension¹⁸ of never thinking about the world and of despising success, was the slave of an ambition which made her long for an unbounded success in society.

Certain calumnies¹⁹ uttered by the Marquise’s enemies, which chance had brought to his hearing, and which had seemed to him unspeakably horrible a few months earlier, were now nothing more in his eyes than exaggerations, treacherous²⁰ or in bad taste. “My fair cousin is not satisfied,” he said to himself, “with illustrious birth, an immense fortune. The splendid existence which her irreproachable²¹ conduct, her prudent²² mind, her wise benevolence²³ assure her is perhaps only a means to her and not an end.

“Madame de Bonnivet requires power. But she is very particular as to the nature of that power. The respect which one obtains from a great position in society, from a welcome at court, from all the advantages that are to be enjoyed under a monarchy²⁴ no longer means anything to her, she has enjoyed it too long. When one is King, what more can one want? To be God.

“She is satiated with the pleasure that comes from calculated respect, she needs a respect from the heart. She requires the sensation which Mahomet feels when he talks to Se?de, and it seems to me that I have come very near to the honour of being Seide.

[A slave of Mahomet in Voltaire’s tragedy.]

“My fair cousin cannot fill her life with the sensibility that she lacks. She needs, not touching²⁵ or sublime²⁶ illusions, not the devotion and passion of one man alone, but to see herself regarded as a Prophetess by a crowd of initiates²⁷, and above all, if one of them rebels, to be able to crush him immediately. She has too positive a nature to be content with illusions; she requires the reality of power, and, if I continue to talk to her with an open heart about various things, one day that absolute power may be brought into action against me.

“It is inevitable²⁸ that she must soon be besieged²⁹ by anonymous³⁰ letters; people will reproach her with the frequency of my visits. The Duchesse d’Ancre, irritated by my neglect of her own drawing-room, will perhaps allow herself to make a direct charge. My position is not strong enough to withstand this twofold danger. Very soon, while scrupulously³¹ maintaining all the outward forms of the closest friendship, and heaping reproaches on me for the infrequency of my visits, Madame de Bonnivet would put me under the obligation to make them very infrequent indeed.

“For instance, I give the impression of being half converted to this German mysticism; she will ask me to make some public and utterly³² ridiculous exhibition. If I submit to that, out of friendship for Armance, very soon she will suggest to me something that is quite impossible.”

1 presto   

adv.急速地；n.急板乐段；adj.急板的

参考例句：

• With something so important,you can't just wave a wand and presto!在这么重大的问题上，你想挥动一下指挥棒，转眼就变过来,办不到！
• I just turned the piece of wire in the lock and hey presto,the door opened.我把金属丝伸到锁孔里一拧，嘿，那门就开了。

2 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。

3 proscribed   

v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They are proscribed by federal law from owning guns. 根据联邦法律的规定，他们不准拥有枪支。 来自辞典例句
• In earlier days, the church proscribed dancing and cardplaying. 从前，教会禁止跳舞和玩牌。 来自辞典例句

4 tedium   

n.单调；烦闷

参考例句：

• We played games to relieve the tedium of the journey.我们玩游戏，来解除旅行的沉闷。
• In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium. 从我自己身上，我所观察到的烦闷的根源有下列一些。

5 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

6 rue   

n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔

参考例句：

• You'll rue having failed in the examination.你会悔恨考试失败。
• You're going to rue this the longest day that you live.你要终身悔恨不尽呢。

7 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

8 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

9 marred   

adj. 被损毁, 污损的

参考例句：

• The game was marred by the behaviour of drunken fans. 喝醉了的球迷行为不轨，把比赛给搅了。
• Bad diction marred the effectiveness of his speech. 措词不当影响了他演说的效果。

10 ballrooms   

n.舞厅( ballroom的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It was performed in fashionable Casino ballrooms. 人们在时髦的娱乐舞厅里跳这种舞蹈。 来自互联网
• Some settled into ballrooms or theaters or hotels for weeks or months at a time. 有的乐队在舞厅、剧院或旅馆作数月甚至数月的逗留。 来自互联网

11 proscribes   

v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

12 originality   

n.创造力，独创性；新颖

参考例句：

• The name of the game in pop music is originality.流行音乐的本质是独创性。
• He displayed an originality amounting almost to genius.他显示出近乎天才的创造性。

13 usurps   

篡夺，霸占( usurp的第三人称单数 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权

参考例句：

• The domestic and foreign each big bank also allin abundance usurps the credit card market. 国内外的各大银行也都纷纷强占信用卡市场。

14 condemns   

v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地

参考例句：

• Her widowhood condemns her to a lonely old age. 守寡使她不得不过着孤独的晚年生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The public opinion condemns prostitution. 公众舆论遣责卖淫。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

16 meditation   

n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录

参考例句：

• This peaceful garden lends itself to meditation.这个恬静的花园适于冥想。
• I'm sorry to interrupt your meditation.很抱歉，我打断了你的沉思。

17 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

18 pretension   

n.要求；自命，自称；自负

参考例句：

• I make no pretension to skill as an artist,but I enjoy painting.我并不自命有画家的技巧，但我喜欢绘画。
• His action is a satire on his boastful pretension.他的行动是对他自我卖弄的一个讽刺。

19 calumnies   

n.诬蔑，诽谤，中伤（的话）( calumny的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He doesn't care about scandals, slanders, calumnies, aspersions, or defamation. 他不在乎流言蜚语，诽谤，中伤，造谣，诬蔑。 来自互联网
• Spreading rumors and calumnies and plotting riots. 造谣诽谤，策动骚乱。 来自互联网

20 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

21 irreproachable   

adj.不可指责的，无过失的

参考例句：

• It emerged that his past behavior was far from irreproachable.事实表明，他过去的行为绝非无可非议。
• She welcomed her unexpected visitor with irreproachable politeness.她以无可指责的礼仪接待了不速之客。

22 prudent   

adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的

参考例句：

• A prudent traveller never disparages his own country.聪明的旅行者从不贬低自己的国家。
• You must school yourself to be modest and prudent.你要学会谦虚谨慎。

23 benevolence   

n.慈悲，捐助

参考例句：

• We definitely do not apply a policy of benevolence to the reactionaries.我们对反动派决不施仁政。
• He did it out of pure benevolence. 他做那件事完全出于善意。

24 monarchy   

n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国

参考例句：

• The monarchy in England plays an important role in British culture.英格兰的君主政体在英国文化中起重要作用。
• The power of the monarchy in Britain today is more symbolical than real.今日英国君主的权力多为象徵性的，无甚实际意义。

25 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

26 sublime   

adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的

参考例句：

• We should take some time to enjoy the sublime beauty of nature.我们应该花些时间去欣赏大自然的壮丽景象。
• Olympic games play as an important arena to exhibit the sublime idea.奥运会，就是展示此崇高理念的重要舞台。

27 initiates   

v.开始( initiate的第三人称单数 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员

参考例句：

• The booklet initiates us into the problems of living abroad. 这本小册子使我们对国外的生活情况有了初步了解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Everybody initiates and receives messages in some form or other. 每个人都以各种不同的方式发出并接收信息。 来自辞典例句

28 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

29 besieged   

包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Paris was besieged for four months and forced to surrender. 巴黎被围困了四个月后被迫投降。
• The community besieged the newspaper with letters about its recent editorial. 公众纷纷来信对报社新近发表的社论提出诘问，弄得报社应接不暇。

30 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

31 scrupulously   

adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地

参考例句：

• She toed scrupulously into the room. 她小心翼翼地踮着脚走进房间。 来自辞典例句
• To others he would be scrupulously fair. 对待别人，他力求公正。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

32 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。