作者：（法）小仲马
出版社：清华大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
茶花女试读：
前言
亚历山大·小仲马(Alexandre Dumas fils，1824-1895)，十九世纪法国著名小说家、戏剧家，是法国文学史上最伟大的作家之一。
1824年7月27日，小仲马出生在法国巴黎郊外的小镇维莱-科特雷。他是法国著名作家大仲马与一名女裁缝的私生子。直到 1831 年，大仲马才承认这个儿子。七岁以前，小仲马与母亲相依为命，靠母亲的微薄收入度日，在贫困屈辱中度过了自己的童年。从含辛茹苦的母亲身上他感受到人世间的不平，这成了他在以后的创作中对女性同情的一个重要原因。1846-1847年，小仲马完成了一部以流浪汉的冒险经历为题材的长篇小说《四个女人和一只鹦鹉的奇遇》，还出版了诗集《青年罪孽》；1848年，出版了小说《茶花女》。《茶花女》是小仲马根据巴黎当时的一个真实故事撰写而成，是小仲马的代表作。随后，小仲马又写了20余部剧作，现实主义倾向更为鲜明。其中著名的作品有：《半上流社会》(1855)、《金钱问题》(1857)、《私生子》(1858)、《放荡的父亲》(1859)、《欧勃雷夫人的见解》(1867)、《阿尔丰斯先生》(1873)、《福朗西雍》(1887)等。小仲马的剧作大多以妇女、婚姻、家庭问题为题材。作为法国现实主义戏剧的先驱者之一，其剧作富有现实的生活气息，以真切自然的情理感人，结构比较严谨，语言通俗流畅。由于在小说、戏剧创作方面取得的巨大成就，小仲马于1875年当选为法兰西学院院士。
在小仲马的众多作品中，《茶花女》是其中杰出的代表。《茶花女》可以说是小仲马的自传体小说。1844年9月，小仲马与巴黎名妓玛丽·杜普莱西一见钟情。玛丽出身贫苦，流落巴黎，不幸落入风尘。她珍重与小仲马的真挚爱情，但为了维持生计，仍得同富豪们保持关系。小仲马一气之下给玛丽写了绝情信，并出国旅行。1847年，小仲马回国后得知只有23岁的玛丽已经离开了人世。现实生活的悲剧深深地震动了小仲马，他满怀悔恨与思念，闭门谢客，开始了创作之程。一年后，这本凝集着永恒爱情的《茶花女》问世了。该书一经问世便产生了强烈的社会反响，小仲马一举成名。几年以后，他将它改写成五幕话剧，并获得巨大的成功，上演时剧场爆满，万人空巷。小仲马发电报将《茶花女》演出大获成功的消息告诉远在比利时的父亲，电报上写道：“第一天上演时的盛况，足以令人误以为是您的作品。”父亲立即回电：“我最好的作品正是你，儿子！”，随后该书又被谱曲成歌剧。一个多世纪以来，《茶花女》被译成数十种文字，风靡世界；其话剧、歌剧、电影形式的演出经久不衰，现在仍然是一些著名剧团的保留节目。茶花女玛格丽特的悲惨命运一直深深地打动着世界各地读者和观众的心。
在中国，《茶花女》是读者最熟悉、最喜爱的外国文学名著之一。早在1898年，我国近代著名翻译家林纾就将该书翻译并引入国内，以《茶花女遗事》为名出版。从此，玛格丽特和阿尔芒的爱情故事在中国的读者群中迅速流传，深入人心。中国舞台上也经常上演《茶花女》歌剧。时至今日，这部被世界公认的文学名著仍然散发着永恒的魅力。目前，在国内数量众多的《茶花女》书籍中，主要的出版形式有两种：一种是中文翻译版，另一种是英文原版。其中的英文原版越来越受到读者的欢迎，这主要是得益于中国人热衷于学习英文的大环境。从英文学习的角度来看，直接使用纯英文素材更为有利。考虑到对英文内容背景的了解有助于英文阅读，使用中文导读应该是一种比较好的方式，也可以说是该类型书的第三种版本形式。采用中文导读而非中英文对照的方式进行编排，这样有利于国内读者摆脱对英文阅读依赖中文注释的习惯。基于以上原因，我们决定编译《茶花女》，并采用中文导读英文版的形式出版。在中文导读中，我们尽力使其贴近原作的精髓，也尽可能保留原作故事主线。我们希望能够编出为当代中国读者所喜爱的经典读本。读者在阅读英文故事之前，可以先阅读中文导读内容，这样有利于了解故事背景，从而加快阅读速度。同时，为了读者更好地理解故事内容，书中加入了大量的插图。我们相信，该经典著作的引进对加强当代中国读者，特别是青少年读者的人文修养是非常有帮助的。
本书主要内容由王勋、纪飞编译。参加本书故事素材搜集整理及编译工作的还有郑佳、刘乃亚、赵雪、熊金玉、李丽秀、李智能、李鑫、熊红华、傅颖、乐贵明、王婷婷、熊志勇、聂利生、傅建平、蔡红昌、孟宪行、胡国平、李晓红、胡武荣、贡东兴、张镇、熊建国、张文绮、王多多、陈楠、彭勇、王婷婷、邵舒丽、黄福成、冯洁、熊红华、王晓旭、王业伟、龚桂平、徐鑫、王晓旭、周丽萍、徐平国、肖洁、王小红等。限于科学、人文素养和英语水平，书中难免会有不当之处，衷心希望读者朋友批评 指正。第1章 Chapter 1导读
本书所叙述的事情都是真实的。我搜集了很多的资料，还有巴黎的人证，我希望通过自己对这件事情始末的深入了解，真实地向大家讲述一个动人的故事。
在1847年的一天，我看到街头上一张巨幅拍卖死者家具和珍玩的广告。按照指定的地点和时间我来到拍卖物品的现场，那里已经聚集了很多穿着华丽的贵妇人。我浏览了这位死者的家具和摆设，可以肯定这是一个高级妓女的住处。那些贵妇人似乎也对此很感兴趣，她们凭借参观拍卖品的理由，仔细地打量着妓女的家居布置。那些名贵的梳妆用品没有一件不是真金白银的，让人看了足可以想象这位妓女生前生活的奢侈。我想起了以前认识的一个女孩，她的母亲从没有给过她关爱，只是一心想着让她养老。直到有一天，女孩在母亲的操纵下开始了堕落的妓女生活，偶然的一次怀孕，作为母亲她竟然反对女儿生下孩子，女儿只好打掉了孩子，身体也变得特别虚弱，最后因为后遗症死了，而那位母亲却依然活着。
我向旁边的看守人打听着这些东西的主人名字，原来是我也见过的玛格丽特。由于生前所欠的债务没有还清，那些债务人打算通过拍卖家具和珍玩来收回债务。我突然对这位姑娘生前的命运产生了怜悯之情。得不到母亲关爱的女孩
In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one has spent a long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak a language until it has been seriously acquired. Not being old enough to invent, I content myself with narrating, and I beg the reader to assure himself of the truth of a story in which all the characters, with the exception of the heroine, are still alive. Eye-witnesses of the greater part of the facts which I have collected are to be found in Paris, and I might call upon them to confirm me if my testimony is not enough. And, thanks to a particular circumstance,I alone can write these things, for I alone am able to give the final details,without which it would have been impossible to make the story at once interesting and complete.
This is how these details came to my knowledge. On the 12th of March, 1847, I saw in the Rue Lafitte a great yellow placard announcing a sale of furniture and curiosities. The sale was to take place on account of the death of the owner. The owner’s name was not mentioned, but the sale was to be held at 9, Rue d’Antin, on the 16th, from 12 to 5. The placard further announced that the rooms and furniture could be seen on the 13th and 14th.
I have always been very fond of curiosities,and I made up my mind not to miss the occasion, if not of buying some, at all events of seeing them. Next day I called at 9, Rue d’Antin.
It was early in the day, and yet there were already a number of visitors, both men and women, and the women, though they were dressed in cashmere and velvet, and had their carriages waiting for them at the door, gazed with astonishment and admiration at the luxury which they saw before them.
I was not long in discovering the reason of this astonishment and admiration, for, having begun to examine things a little carefully, I discovered without difficulty that I was in the house of a kept woman. Now, if there is one thing which women in society would like to see (and there were society women there), it is the home of those women whose carriages splash their own carriages day by day, who, like them, side by side with them,have their boxes at the Opera and at the Italiens, and who parade in Paris the opulent insolence of their beauty, their diamonds, and their scandal.
This one was dead, so the most virtuous of women could enter even her bedroom. Death had purified the air of this abode of splendid foulness, and if more excuse were needed, they had the excuse that they had merely come to a sale, they knew not whose. They had read the placards, they wished to see what the placards had announced, and to make their choice beforehand. What could be more natural? Yet, all the same, in the midst of all these beautiful things, they could not help looking about for some traces of this courtesan’s life, of which they had heard, no doubt, strange enough stories.
Unfortunately the mystery had vanished with the goddess, and, for all their endeavours, they discovered only what was on sale since the owner’s decease, and nothing of what had been on sale during her lifetime. For the rest, there were plenty of things worth buying. The furniture was superb; there were rosewood and buff cabinets and tables, Sevres and Chinese vases, Saxe statuettes, satin, velvet, lace;there was nothing lacking.
I sauntered through the rooms, following the inquisitive ladies of distinction. They entered a room with Persian hangings,and I was just going to enter in turn, when they came out again almost immediately, smiling, and as if ashamed of their own curiosity. I was all the more eager to see the room. It was the dressing-room, laid out with all the articles of toilet, in which the dead woman’s extravagance seemed to be seen at its height.
On a large table against the wall, a table three feet in width and six in length, glittered all the treasures of Aucoc and Odiot. It was a magnificent collection, and there was not one of those thousand little things so necessary to the toilet of a woman of the kind which was not in gold or silver. Such a collection could only have been got together little by little, and the same lover had certainly not begun and ended it.
Not being shocked at the sight of a kept woman’s dressing-room, I amused myself with examining every detail, and I discovered that these magnificently chiselled objects bore different initials and different coronets. I looked at one after another, each recalling a separate shame, and I said that God had been merciful to the poor child, in not having left her to pay the ordinary penalty, but rather to die in the midst of her beauty and luxury, before the coming of old age, the courtesan’s first death.
Is there anything sadder in the world than the old age of vice, especially in woman? She preserves no dignity, she inspires no interest. The everlasting repentance, not of the evil ways followed, but of the plans that have miscarried, the money that has been spent in vain, is as saddening a thing as one can well meet with. I knew an aged woman who had once been “gay,”whose only link with the past was a daughter almost as beautiful as she herself had been. This poor creature to whom her mother had never said, “You are my child,” except to bid her nourish her old age as she herself had nourished her youth, was called Louise, and,being obedient to her mother, she abandoned herself without volition, without passion, without pleasure, as she would have worked at any other profession that might have been taught her.
The constant sight of dissipation, precocious dissipation, in addition to her constant sickly state, had extinguished in her mind all the knowledge of good and evil that God had perhaps given her, but that no one had ever thought of developing. I shall always remember her, as she passed along the boulevards almost every day at the same hour, accompanied by her mother as assiduously as a real mother might have accompanied her daughter.I was very young then, and ready to accept for myself the easy morality of the age. I remember, however, the contempt and disgust which awoke in me at the sight of this scandalous chaperoning. Her face, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its expression of innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like a figure of Resignation.
One day the girl’s face was transfigured. In the midst of all the debauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God had left over for her one happiness. And why indeed should God, who had made her without strength, have left her without consolation, under the sorrowful burden of her life? One day, then, she realized that she was to have a child, and all that remained to her of chastity leaped for joy. The soul has strange refuges. Louise ran to tell the good news to her mother. It is a shameful thing to speak of, but we are not telling tales of pleasant sins; we are telling of true facts, which it would be better, no doubt, to pass over in silence, if we did not believe that it is needful from time to time to reveal the martyrdom of those who are condemned without bearing, scorned without judging; shameful it is, but this mother answered the daughter that they had already scarce enough for two, and would certainly not have enough for three; that such children are useless, and a lying-in is so much time lost.
Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a friend of the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few days, and then got up paler and feebler than before.
Three months afterward a man took pity on her and tried to heal her, morally and physically; but the last shock had been too violent, and Louise died of it. The mother still lives; how? God knows.
The story returned to my mind while I looked at the silver toilet things, and a certain space of time must have elapsed during these reflections, for no one was left in the room but myself and an attendant, who, standing near the door, was carefully watching me to see that I did not pocket anything.
I went up to the man, to whom I was causing so much anxiety. “Sir,” I said,“can you tell me the name of the person who formerly lived here?”
“Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier.”
I knew her by name and by sight.
“What!” I said to the attendant; “Marguerite Gautier is dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did she die?”
“Three weeks ago, I believe.”
“And why are the rooms on view?”
“The creditors believe that it will send up the prices. People can see beforehand the effect of the things; you see that induces them to buy.”
“She was in debt, then?”
“To some extent, sir.”
“But the sale will cover it?”
“And more too.”
“Who will get what remains over?”
“Her family.”
“She had a family?”
“It seems so.”
“Thanks.”
The attendant, reassured as to my intentions,touched his hat, and I went out.
“Poor girl!” I said to myself as I returned home; “she must have had a sad death, for, in her world, one has friends only when one is perfectly well.” And in spite of myself I began to feel melancholy over the fate of Marguerite Gautier.
It will seem absurd to many people, but I have an unbounded sympathy for women of this kind, and I do not think it necessary to apologize for such sympathy.
One day, as I was going to the Prefecture for a passport, I saw in one of the neighbouring streets a poor girl who was being marched along by two policemen. I do not know what was the matter. All I know is that she was weeping bitterly as she kissed an infant only a few months old,from whom her arrest was to separate her. Since that day I have never dared to despise a woman at first sight.第2章 Chapter 2导读
我在拍卖的那一天从外地回来，现在关于玛格丽特的消息根本没有人提。这种女人生前的生活人人皆知，但死后却没有人关心。以前我经常看到玛格丽特独自坐车到香榭丽舍大街去，她总是很优雅地向熟人微笑；她经常去郊外散步，这些景象经常浮现在我面前，但玛格丽特--一个绝色美女，就这样离开了人世。
她总是披着开司米披肩，头饰很精美，鹅蛋脸上精致的五官、粉嫩的皮肤，总让你觉得像是不能触碰的神仙一样。她过着放荡奢侈的生活，但是脸上却依然透露出处女般的神态，这是别的妓女无法比拟的。玛格丽特总会出现在剧场的首场演出上，总会带着望远镜、蜜饯和茶花三样东西。她所带的茶花颜色会变化，但谁也弄不清楚到底是遵循什么规律，所以人们也称她为“茶花女”。人们传诵她和一位老公爵有染，老公爵因为失去女儿很心痛，看到极像自己女儿的玛格丽特，便把全部身心投入到玛格丽特身上，外人认为这是老公爵贪图女色包养情妇，谁也不知道他们的关系到底是咋样的。
The sale was to take place on the 16th. A day’s interval had been left between the visiting days and the sale, in order to give time for taking down the hangings, curtains, etc.玛格丽特总会出现在剧场的首场演出上，总会带着望远镜、蜜饯和茶花三样东西
I had just returned from abroad. It was natural that I had not heard of Marguerite’s death among the pieces of news which one’s friends always tell on returning after an absence. Marguerite was a pretty woman; but though the life of such women makes sensation enough, their death makes very little.They are suns which set as they rose, unobserved. Their death, when they die young, is heard of by all their lovers at the same moment, for in Paris almost all the lovers of a well-known woman are friends. A few recollections are exchanged, and everybody’s life goes on as if the incident had never occurred, without so much as a tear.
Nowadays, at twenty-five, tears have become so rare a thing that they are not to be squandered indiscriminately. It is the most that can be expected if the parents who pay for being wept over are wept over in return for the price they pay.
As for me, though my initials did not occur on any of Marguerite’s belongings, that instinctive indulgence, that natural pity that I have already confessed, set me thinking over her death, more perhaps than it was worth thinking over. I remembered having often met Marguerite in the Bois, where she went regularly every day in a little blue coupe drawn by two magnificent bays, and I had noticed in her a distinction quite apart from other women of her kind, a distinction which was enhanced by a really exceptional beauty.
These unfortunate creatures whenever they go out are always accompanied by somebody or other. As no man cares to make himself conspicuous by being seen in their company, and as they are afraid of solitude, they take with them either those who are not well enough off to have a carriage, or one or another of those elegant, ancient ladies, whose elegance is a little inexplicable, and to whom one can always go for information in regard to the women whom they accompany.
In Marguerite’s case it was quite different. She was always alone when she drove in the Champs-Elysees, lying back in her carriage as much as possible, dressed in furs in winter, and in summer wearing very simple dresses; and though she often passed people whom she knew, her smile, when she chose to smile, was seen only by them, and a duchess might have smiled in just such a manner. She did not drive to and fro like the others, from the Rond-Point to the end of the Champs-Elysees. She drove straight to the Bois. There she left her carriage,walked for an hour, returned to her carriage, and drove rapidly home.
All these circumstances which I had so often witnessed came back to my memory, and I regretted her death as one might regret the destruction of a beautiful work of art.
It was impossible to see more charm in beauty than in that of Marguerite. Excessively tall and thin, she had in the fullest degree the art of repairing this oversight of Nature by the mere arrangement of the things she wore. Her cashmere reached to the ground, and showed on each side the large flounces of a silk dress, and the heavy muff which she held pressed against her bosom was surrounded by such cunningly arranged folds that the eye, however exacting, could find no fault with the contour of the lines.Her head, a marvel, was the object of the most coquettish care. It was small,and her mother, as Musset would say, seemed to have made it so in order to make it with care.
Set, in an oval of indescribable grace, two black eyes, surmounted by eyebrows of so pure a curve that it seemed as if painted; veil these eyes with lovely lashes, which, when drooped, cast their shadow on the rosy hue of the cheeks; trace a delicate, straight nose, the nostrils a little open, in an ardent aspiration toward the life of the senses;design a regular mouth, with lips parted graciously over teeth as white as milk; colour the skin with the down of a peach that no hand has touched, and you will have the general aspect of that charming countenance. The hair, black as jet, waving naturally or not, was parted on the forehead in two large folds and draped back over the head, leaving in sight just the tip of the ears, in which there glittered two diamonds, worth four to five thousand francs each.How it was that her ardent life had left on Marguerite’s face the virginal, almost childlike expression, which characterized it, is a problem which we can but state, without attempting to solve it.
Marguerite had a marvellous portrait of herself, by Vidal, the only man whose pencil could do her justice. I had this portrait by me for a few days after her death, and the likeness was so astonishing that it has helped to refresh my memory in regard to some points which I might not otherwise have remembered.
Some among the details of this chapter did not reach me until later, but I write them here so as not to be obliged to return to them when the story itself has begun.
Marguerite was always present at every first night, and passed every evening either at the theatre or the ball. Whenever there was a new piece she was certain to be seen, and she invariably had three things with her on the ledge of her ground-floor box: her opera-glass, a bag of sweets, and a bouquet of camellias.
For twenty-five days of the month the camellias were white, and for five they were red; no one ever knew the reason of this change of colour, which I mention though I can not explain it; it was noticed both by her friends and by the habitue’s of the theatres to which she most often went. She was never seen with any flowers but camellias. At the florist’s, Madame Barjon’s, she had come to be called “the Lady of the Camellias,” and the name stuck to her.
Like all those who move in a certain set in Paris, I knew that Marguerite had lived with some of the most fashionable young men in society, that she spoke of it openly, and that they themselves boasted of it; so that all seemed equally pleased with one another. Nevertheless, for about three years, after a visit to Bagneres, she was said to be living with an old duke, a foreigner, enormously rich, who had tried to remove her as far as possible from her former life, and, as it seemed, entirely to her own satisfaction.
This is what I was told on the subject. In the spring of 1842 Marguerite was so ill that the doctors ordered her to take the waters, and she went to Bagneres. Among the invalids was the daughter of this duke; she was not only suffering from the same complaint, but she was so like Marguerite in appearance that they might have been taken for sisters; the young duchess was in the last stage of consumption, and a few days after Marguerite’s arrival she died.
One morning, the duke, who had remained at Bagneres to be near the soil that had buried a part of his heart, caught sight of Marguerite at a tum of the road. He seemed to see the shadow of his child,and going up to her, he took her hands, embraced and wept over her, and without even asking her who she was, begged her to let him love in her the living image of his dead child. Marguerite, alone at Bagneres with her maid, and not being in any fear of compromising herself, granted the duke’s request. Some people who knew her, happening to be at Bagneres, took upon themselves to explain Mademoiselle Gautier’s true position to the duke. It was a blow to the old man, for the resemblance with his daughter was ended in one direction, but it was too late. She had become a necessity to his heart, his only pretext, his only excuse, for living. He made no reproaches, he had indeed no right to do so, but he asked her if she felt herself capable of changing her mode of life, offering her in return for the sacrifice every compensation that she could desire. She consented.
It must be said that Marguerite was just then very ill. The past seemed to her sensitive nature as if it were one of the main causes of her illness, and a sort of superstition led her to hope that God would restore to her both health and beauty in return for her repentance and conversion. By the end of the summer, the waters, sleep, the natural fatigue of long walks, had indeed more or less restored her health. The duke accompanied her to Paris, where he continued to see her as he had done at Bagneres.
This liaison, whose motive and origin were quite unknown, caused a great sensation, for the duke, already known for his immense fortune, now became known for his prodigality. All this was set down to the debauchery of a rich old man, and everything was believed except the truth.The father’s sentiment for Marguerite had, in truth, so pure a cause that anything but a communion of heart would have seemed to him a kind of incest, and he had never spoken to her a word which his daughter might not have heard.
Far be it from me to make out our heroine to be anything but what she was. As long as she remained at Bagnères, the promise she had made to the duke had not been hard to keep,and she had kept it; but, once back in Paris, it seemed to her-accustomed to a life of dissipation, of balls, of orgies-as if the solitude, only interrupted by the duke’s stated visits, would kill her with boredom, and the hot breath of her old life came back across her head and heart.
We must add that Marguerite had returned more beautiful than she had ever been; she was but twenty, and her malady, sleeping but not subdued, continued to give her those feverish desires which are almost always the result of diseases of the chest.
It was a great grief to the duke when his friends, always on the lookout for some scandal on the part of the woman with whom, it seemed to them, he was compromising himself, came to tell him, indeed to prove to him, that at times when she was sure of not seeing him she received other visits, and that these visits were often prolonged till the following day. On being questioned, Marguerite admitted everything to the duke, and advised him, without arriere-pensee, to concern himself with her no longer, for she felt incapable of carrying out what she had undertaken, and she did not wish to go on accepting benefits from a man whom she was deceiving. The duke did not return for a week; it was all he could do, and on the eighth day he came to beg Marguerite to let him still visit her, promising that he would take her as she was, so long as he might see her, and swearing that he would never utter a reproach against her, not though he were to die of it.
This, then, was the state of things three months after Marguerite’s return; that is to say, in November or December, 1842.第3章 Chapter 3导读
拍卖那天，几乎所有的名媛都去了。那些人都热衷于对死者生前生活的窥探，似乎没人怀念玛格丽特。我默默地待在角落里，看着那些债权人脸上露出的微笑，心里很不舒服，这些人在玛格丽特临死前不停地纠缠，到她死后还冠冕堂皇地拍卖她的东西。那些女士用品很快便拍完了，很多都拍到了意想不到的价格。我一直没等到适合的东西，直到《玛侬·莱斯科》这本书的出现，我和另外一位不停地竞拍，最后我以一百法郎买下了原价只有十法郎的书，这引起了全场人的注意。我也不知道自己为何出如此高价买下这本书，可能就是因为想看扉页上的那几个字：玛侬对玛格丽特，惭愧！署名的叫阿尔芒·迪瓦尔，我猜测他们在感情上应该有些事情。拿到书后，我不停地反复细读着书中的内容，来回将玛格丽特与之相比：玛侬死在真心爱自己的情人的怀抱里；而玛格丽特死在自己豪华的住宅里，却孤独空虚，这比玛侬更加悲惨。
At one o’clock on the 16th I went to the Rue d’Antin. The voice of the auctioneer could be heard from the outer door. The rooms were crowded with people. There were all the celebrities of the most elegant impropriety,furtively examined by certain great ladies who had again seized the opportunity of the sales in order to be able to see, close at hand, women whom they might never have another occasion of meeting, and whom they envied perhaps in secret for their easy pleasures. The Duchess of F. elbowed Mlle. A., one of the most melancholy examples of our modem courtesan; the Marquis de T. hesitated over a piece of furniture the price of which was being run high by Mme. D., the most elegant and famous adulteress of our time; the Duke of Y., who in Madrid is supposed to be ruining himself in Paris, and in Paris to be ruining himself in Madrid, and who, as a matter of fact, never even reaches the limit of his income, talked with Mme. M., one of our wittiest story-tellers, who from time to time writes what she says and signs what she writes, while at the same time he exchanged confidential glances with Mme. de N., a fair ornament of the Champs-Elysees, almost always dressed in pink or blue, and driving two big black horses which Tony had sold her for 10,000 francs, and for which she had paid, after her fashion; finally, Mlle.R., who makes by her mere talent twice what the women of the world make by their dot and three times as much as the others make by their amours, had come,in spite of the cold, to make some purchases, and was not the least looked at among the crowd.拍卖会
We might cite the initials of many more of those who found themselves, not without some mutual surprise, side by side in one room. But we fear to weary the reader. We will only add that everyone was in the highest spirits, and that many of those present had known the dead woman, and seemed quite oblivious of the fact. There was a sound of loud laughter; the auctioneers shouted at the top of their voices; the dealers who had filled the benches in front of the auction table tried in vain to obtain silence, in order to transact their business in peace. Never was there a noisier or a more varied gathering.
I slipped quietly into the midst of this tumult, sad to think of when one remembered that the poor creature whose goods were being sold to pay her debts had died in the next room. Having come rather to examine than to buy, I watched the faces of the auctioneers, noticing how they beamed with delight whenever anything reached a price beyond their expectations. Honest creatures, who had speculated upon this woman’s prostitution, who had gained their hundred per cent out of her,who had plagued with their claims the last moments of her life, and who came now after her death to gather in, at once, the fruits of their dishonourable calculations and the interest on their shameful credit! How wise were the ancients in having only one God for traders and robbers!
Dresses, cashmeres, jewels, were sold with incredible rapidity. There was nothing that I cared for, and I still waited.All at once I heard: “A volume, beautifully bound,gilt-edged, entitled Manon Lescaut. There is something written on the first page. Ten francs.”
“Twelve,” said a voice after a longish silence.
“Fifteen,” I said.
Why? I did not know. Doubtless for the something written.
“Fifteen,” repeated the auctioneer.
“Thirty,” said the first bidder in a tone which seemed to defy further competition.
It had now become a struggle. “Thirty-five,” I cried in the same tone.
“Forty.”
“Fifty.”
“Sixty.”
“A hundred.”
If I had wished to make a sensation I should certainly have succeeded, for a profound silence had ensued, and people gazed at me as if to see what sort of a person it was who seemed to be so determined to possess the volume.
The accent which I had given to my last word seemed to convince my adversary; he preferred to abandon a conflict which could only have resulted in making me pay ten times its price for the volume, and,bowing, he said very gracefully, though indeed a little late:
“I give way, sir.”
Nothing more being offered, the book was assigned to me.
As I was afraid of some new fit of obstinacy,which my amour propre might have sustained somewhat better than my purse, I wrote down my name, had the book put on one side, and went out. I must have given considerable food for reflection to the witnesses of this scene, who would nodoubt ask themselves what my purpose could have been in paying a hundred francs for a book which I could have had anywhere for ten, or, at the outside, fifteen.
An hour after, I sent for my purchase. On the first page was written in ink, in an elegant hand, an inscription on the part of the giver. It consisted of these words:
Manon to Marguerite. Humility.
It was signed Armand Duval.
What was the meaning of the word Humility?Was Manon to recognise in Marguerite, in the opinion of M. Armand Duval, her superior in vice or in affection? The second interpretation seemed the more probable, for the first would have been an impertinent piece of plain speaking which Marguerite, whatever her opinion of herself, would never have accepted.
I went out again, and thought no more of the book until at night, when I was going to bed.
Manon Lescaut is a touching story. I know every detail of it, and yet whenever I come across the volume the same sympathy always draws me to it; I open it, and for the hundredth time I live over again with the heroine of the Abbe Prevost. Now this heroine is so true to life that I feel as if I had known her; and thus the sort of comparison between her and Marguerite gave me an unusual inclination to read it, and my indulgence passed into pity, almost into a kind of love for the poor girl to whom I owed the volume. Manon died in the desert, it is true, but in the arms of the man who loved her with the whole energy of his soul; who, when she was dead, dug a grave for her, and watered it with his tears, and buried his heart in it; while Marguerite, a sinner like Manon, and perhaps converted like her, had died in a sumptuous bed (it seemed, after what I had seen, the bed of her past), but in that desert of the heart, a more barren, a vaster, a more pitiless desert than that in which Manon had found her last resting-place.
Marguerite, in fact, as I had found from some friends who knew of the last circumstances of her life, had not a single real friend by her bedside during the two months of her long and painful agony.
Then from Manon and Marguerite my mind wandered to those whom I knew, and whom I saw singing along the way which led to just such another death. Poor souls! if it is not right to love them, is it not well to pity them? You pity the blind man who has never seen the daylight,the deaf who has never heard the harmonies of nature, the dumb who has never found a voice for his soul, and, under a false cloak of shame, you will not pity this blindness of heart, this deafness of soul, this dumbness of conscience, which sets the poor afflicted creature beside herself and makes her, in spite of herself, incapable of seeing what is good, of bearing the Lord, and of speaking the pure language of love and faith.
Hugo has written Marion Delorme, Musset has written Bernerette, Alexandre Dumas has written Fernande, the thinkers and poets of all time have brought to the courtesan the offering of their pity, and at times a great man has rehabilitated them with his love and even with his name. If I insist on this point, it is because many among those who have begun to read me will be ready to throw down a book in which they will fear to find an apology for vice and prostitution; and the author’s age will do something, no doubt, to increase this fear. Let me undeceive those who think thus, and let them go on reading, if nothing but such a fear hinders them.
I am quite simply convinced of a certain principle, which is: For the woman whose education has not taught her what is right, God almost always opens two ways which lead thither the ways of sorrow and of love. They are hard; those who walk in them walk with bleeding feet and torn hands, but they also leave the trappings of vice upon the thorns of the wayside, and reach the journey’s end in a nakedness which is not shameful in the sight of the Lord.
Those who meet these bold travellers ought to succour them, and to tell all that they have met them, for in so doing they point out the way. It is not a question of setting at the outset of life two sign-posts, one bearing the inscription “The Right Way,” the other the inscription “The Wrong Way,” and of saying to those who come there, “Choose.” One must needs, like Christ, point out the ways which lead from the second road to the first, to those who have been easily led astray; and it is needful that the beginning of these ways should not be too painful nor appear too impenetrable.
Here is Christianity with its marvellous parable of the Prodigal Son to teach us indulgence and pardon. Jesus was full of love for souls wounded by the passions of men; he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in those very wounds the balm which should heal them. Thus he said to the Magdalen: “Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much,” a sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.
Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ? Why, holding obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects,souls bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man’s bad blood, the evil of their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart?
It is to my own generation that I speak, to those for whom the theories of M. de Voltaire happily exist no longer, to those who, like myself, realize that humanity, for these last fifteen years, has been in one of its most audacious moments of expansion. The science of good and evil is acquired forever; faith is refashioned, respect for sacred things has returned to us, and if the world has not all at once become good, it has at least become better. The efforts of every intelligent man tend in the same direction, and every strong will is harnessed to the same principle: Be good,be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let us have the pride of good,and above all let us never despair. Do not let us despise the woman who is neither mother, sister, maid, nor wife. Do not let us limit esteem to the family nor indulgence to egoism. Since “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance,” let us give joy to heaven.Heaven will render it back to us with usury. Let us leave on our way the alms of pardon for those whom earthly desires have driven astray, whom a divine hope shall perhaps save, and, as old women say when they offer you. some homely remedy of their own, if it does no good it will do no harm.
Doubtless it must seem a bold thing to attempt to deduce these grand results out of the meagre subject that I deal with; but I am one of those who believe that all is in little. The child is small, and he includes the man; the brain is narrow, and it harbours thought;the eye is but a point, and it covers leagues.第4章 Chapter 4导读
玛格丽特留下的物品一共拍卖了15万法郎，偿债余下的5万法郎由她的远房姐姐继承。在巴黎的这场竞拍很快便被人遗忘了。到了三四天后的一个早晨，突然有个叫阿尔芒·迪瓦尔的人要求见我，我记得那是在那本书的扉页上出现过的名字。我见到了这位满身尘土都没来得及清理的年轻男子，他脸色苍白，情绪激动，请求我能将那本书让给他，我很高兴能够将书物归原主，他坚持要求付我书款但被我拒绝。我向他解释说当时自己也是一时兴起，和另外一位先生较劲才买下的。我很想问问他关于玛格丽特的事情，但是不敢贸然发问；他似乎看出了我的心思，递给我一张信纸，看得出来那张信纸已经被看过很多遍，这是玛格丽特写给他的一封信，主要内容是玛格丽特临终前的无助和一些事情的交代，她希望阿尔芒能够到朱丽·迪普拉那儿取回她的日记；为了避免债权人猜疑，她甚至不敢留下一件东西给阿尔芒。在最后离开人世的时候，她的身边无亲无友，特别凄凉，只有债主派来的看守人的脚步声，也没能见到最好的朋友阿尔芒最后一面。
我看完之后把信还给了阿尔芒，他还是很痛苦，为自己没有能见玛格丽特最后一面而伤心。我从没见过哪个男子这么伤心欲绝。他泪流满面，备受折磨，我真的很同情他。我希望能够当个耐心的倾听者，听他倾诉自己内心的痛苦。他保证改天会把事情的经过告诉我，但现在的他无法控制自己的眼泪，必须要回去了。我很高兴能够将书物归原主
Two days after, the sale was ended. It had produced 3.50,000 francs. The creditors divided among them two thirds, and the family, a sister and a grand-nephew, received the remainder.
The sister opened her eyes very wide when the lawyer wrote to her that she had inherited 50,000 francs. The girl had not seen her sister for six or seven years, and did not know what had become of her from the moment when she had disappeared from home. She came up to Paris in haste,and great was the astonishment of those who had known Marguerite when they saw as her only heir a fine, fat country girl, who until then had never left her village. She had made the fortune at a single stroke, without even knowing the source of that fortune. She went back, I heard afterward, to her countryside,greatly saddened by her sister’s death, but with a sadness which was somewhat lightened by the investment at four and a half per cent which she had been able to make.
All these circumstances, often repeated in Paris, the mother city of scandal, had begun to be forgotten, and I was even little by little forgetting the part I had taken in them, when a new incident brought to my knowledge the whole of Marguerite’s life,and acquainted me with such pathetic details that I was taken with the idea of writing down the story which I now write.
The rooms, now emptied of all their furniture, had been to let for three or four days when one morning there was a ring at my door.
My servant, or, rather, my porter, who acted as my servant, went to the door and brought me a card, saying that the person who had given it to him wished to see me.
I glanced at the card and there read these two words: Armand Duval.
I tried to think where I had seen the name,and remembered the first leaf of the copy of Manon Lescaut. What could the person who had given the book to Marguerite want of me? I gave orders to ask him in at once.
I saw a young man, blond, tall, pale, dressed in a travelling suit which looked as if he had not changed it for some days,and had not even taken the trouble to brush it on arriving at Paris, for it was covered with dust.
M. Duval was deeply agitated; he made no attempt to conceal his agitation, and it was with tears in his eyes and a trembling voice that he said to me:
“Sir, I beg you to excuse my visit and my costume; but young people are not very ceremonious with one another, and I was so anxious to see you today that I have not even gone to the hotel to which I have sent my luggage, and have rushed straight here, fearing that, after all, I might miss you, early as it is.”
I begged M. Duval to sit down by the fire; he did so, and, taking his handkerchief from his pocket, hid his face in it for a moment.
“You must be at a loss to understand,” he went on, sighing sadly, “for what purpose an unknown visitor, at such an hour, in such a costume, and in tears,can have come to see you. I have simply come to ask of you a great service.”
“Speak on, sir, I am entirely at your disposal.”
“You were present at the sale of Marguerite Gautier?”
At this word the emotion, which he had got the better of for an instant, was too much for him, and he was obliged to cover his eyes with his hand.
“I must seem to you very absurd,” he added, “but pardon me, and believe that I shall never forget the patience with which you have listened to me.”
“Sir,” I answered, “if the service which I can render you is able to lessen your trouble a little, tell me at once what I can do for you, and you will find me only too happy to oblige you.”
M. Duval’s sorrow was sympathetic, and in spite of myself I felt the desire of doing him a kindness.Thereupon he said to me:
“You bought something at Marguerite’s sale?”
“Yes, a book.”
“Manon Lescaut?”
“Precisely.”
“Have you the book still?”
“It is in my bedroom.”
On hearing this, Armand Duval seemed to be relieved of a great weight, and thanked me as if I had already rendered him a service merely by keeping the book.
I got up and went into my room to fetch the book, which I handed to him.
“That is it indeed,”he said, looking at the inscription on the first page and turning over the leaves; “that is it in deed,”and two big tears fell on the pages. “Well, sir,” said he, lifting his head, and no longer trying to hide from me that he had wept and was even then on the point of weeping, “do you value this book very greatly?”
“Why?”
“Because I have come to ask you to give it up to me.”
“Pardon my curiosity, but was it you, then,who gave it to Marguerite Gautier?”
“It was I.”
“The book is yours, sir; take it back. I am happy to be able to hand it over to you.”
“But,” said M. Duval with some embarrassment, “the least I can do is to give you in return the price which you paid for it.”
“Allow me to offer it to you. The price of a single volume in a sale of that kind is a mere nothing, and I do not remember how much I gave for it.”
“You gave one hundred francs.”
“True,” I said,embarrassed in my turn, “how do you know?”
“It is quite simple. I hoped to reach Paris in time for the sale, and I only managed to get here this morning. I was absolutely resolved to have something which had belonged to her, and I hastened to the auctioneer and asked him to allow me to see the list of the things sold and of the buyers’ names. I saw that this volume had been bought by you, and I decided to ask you to give it up to me, though the price you had set upon it made me fear that you might yourself have some souvenir in connection with the possession of the book.”
As he spoke, it was evident that he was afraid I had known Marguerite as he had known her. I hastened to reassure him.
“I knew Mlle. Gautier only by sight,” I said; “her death made on me the impression that the death of a pretty woman must always make on a young man who had liked seeing her. I wished to buy something at her sale, and I bid higher and higher for this book out of mere obstinacy and to annoy some one else, who was equally keen to obtain it, and who seemed to defy me to the contest. I repeat, then, that the book is yours, and once more I beg you to accept it; do not treat me as if I were an auctioneer, and let it be the pledge between us of a longer and more intimate acquaintance.”
“Good,” said Armand,holding out his hand and pressing mine; “I accept, and I shall be grateful to you all my life.”
I was very anxious to question Armand on the subject of Marguerite, for the inscription in the book, the young man’s hurried journey, his desire to possess the volume, piqued my curiosity;but I feared if I questioned my visitor that I might seem to have refused his money only in order to have the right to pry into his affairs.
It was as if he guessed my desire, for he said to me:
“Have you read the volume?”
“All through.”
“What did you think of the two lines that I wrote in it?”
“I realized at once that the woman to whom you had given the volume must have been quite outside the ordinary category,for I could not take those two lines as a mere empty compliment.”
“You were right. That woman was an angel.See, read this letter.” And he handed to me a paper which seemed to have been many times reread.
I opened it, and this is what it contained:
“MY DEAR ARMAND: -I have received your letter. You are still good, and I thank God for it. Yes, my friend, I am ill,and with one of those diseases that never relent; but the interest you still take in me makes my suffering less. I shall not live long enough, I expect, to have the happiness of pressing the hand which has written the kind letter I have just received; the words of it would be enough to cure me, if anything could cure me. I shall not see you, for I am quite near death, and you are hundreds of miles away. My poor friend! your Marguerite of old times is sadly changed.It is better perhaps for you not to see her again than to see her as she is.You ask if I forgive you; oh, with all my heart, friend, for the way you hurt me was only a way of proving the love you had for me. I have been in bed for a month, and I think so much of your esteem that I write every day the journal of my life, from the moment we left each other to the moment when I shall be able to write no longer. If the interest you take in me is real, Armand, when you come back go and see Julie Duprat. She will give you my journal. You will find in it the reason and the excuse for what has passed between us. Julie is very good to me; we often talk of you together. She was there when your letter came,and we both cried over it.
“If you had not sent me any word, I would have told her to give you those papers when you returned to France. Do not thank me for it. This daily looking back on the only happy moments of my life does me an immense amount of good, and if you will find in reading it some excuse for the past. I, for my part, find a continual solace in it. I should like to leave you something which would always remind you of me, but everything here has been seized, and I have nothing of my own.
“Do you understand, my friend? I am dying,and from my bed I can hear a man walking to and fro in the drawing room; my creditors have put him there to see that nothing is taken away, and that nothing remains to me in case I do not die. I hope they will wait till the end before they begin to sell.
“Oh, men have no pity! or rather, I am wrong,it is God who is just and inflexible!
“And now, dear love, you will come to my sale, and you will buy something, for if I put aside the least thing for you,they might accuse you of embezzling seized goods.
“It is a sad life that I am leaving!
“It would be good of God to let me see you again before I die. According to all probability, goodbye, my friend. Pardon me if I do not write a longer letter, but those who say they are going to cure me wear me out with bloodletting, and my hand refuses to write any more.
“MARGUERITE GAUTIER.”
The last two words were scarcely legible.
I returned the letter to Armand, who had, no doubt, read it over again in his mind while I was reading it on paper, for he said to me as he took it:
“Who would think that a kept woman could have written that?” And, overcome by recollections, he gazed for some time at the writing of the letter, which he finally carried to his lips.
“And when I think,”he went on, “that she died before I could see her, and that I shall never see her again, when I think that she did for me what no sister would ever have done, I can not forgive myself for having left her to die like that. Dead! Dead and thinking of me, writing and repeating my name,poor dear Marguerite!”
And Armand, giving free outlet to his thoughts and his tears, held out his hand to me, and continued:
“People would think it childish enough if they saw me lament like this over a dead woman such as she; no one will ever know what I made that woman suffer, how cruel I have been to her! how good, how resigned she was! I thought it was I who had to forgive her, and today I feel unworthy of the forgiveness which she grants me. Oh, I would give ten years of my life to weep at her feet for an hour!”
It is always difficult to console a sorrow that is unknown to one, and nevertheless I felt so lively a sympathy for the young man, he made me so frankly the confidant of his distress, that I believed a word from me would not be indifferent to him, and I said:
“Have you no parents, no friends? Hope. Go and see them; they will console you. As for me, I can only pity you.”
“It is true,” he said, rising and walking to and fro in the room, “I am wearying you. Pardon me, I did not reflect how little my sorrow must mean to you, and that I am intruding upon you something which can not and ought not to interest you at all.”
“You mistake my meaning. I am entirely at your service; only I regret my inability to calm your distress. If my society and that of my friends can give you any distraction, if, in short, you have need of me, no matter in what way, I hope you will realize how much pleasure it will give me to do anything for you.”
“Pardon, pardon,”said he; “sorrow sharpens the sensations. Let me stay here for a few minutes longer, long enough to dry my eyes, so that the idlers in the street may not look upon it as a curiosity to see a big fellow like me crying. You have made me very happy by giving me this book. I do not know how I can ever express my gratitude to you.”
“By giving me a little of your friendship,” said I, “and by telling me the cause of your suffering. One feels better while telling what one suffers.”
“You are right. But today I have too much need of tears; I can not very well talk. One day I will tell you the whole story, and you will see if I have reason for regretting the poor girl. And now,” he added, rubbing his eyes for the last time, and looking at himself in the glass, “say that you do not think me too absolutely idiotic, and allow me to come back and see you another time.”
He cast on me a gentle and amiable look. I was near embracing him. As for him, his eyes again began to fill with tears; he saw that I perceived it and turned away his head.
“Come,” I said, “courage.”
“Good-bye,” he said.
And, making a desperate effort to restrain his tears, he rushed rather than went out of the room.
I lifted the curtain of my window, and saw him get into the cabriolet which awaited him at the door; but scarcely was he seated before he burst into tears and hid his face in his pocket handkerchief.第5章 Chapter 5导读
阿尔芒很长时间都没有出现，而我周围的人却不停地提起有关玛格丽特的事情。现在我对玛格丽特的好奇心越来越重，见谁都打听，但人们都只是听到过一些传闻。我不由地很想见见阿尔芒，但是没有他的地址，于是我询问到玛格丽特的墓地 地址。
那时已经是阳光明媚的四月份，我看到了坟墓上插满了茶花，看墓人告诉我说那是受一个年轻人的托付。从他那儿得知，阿尔芒在墓前哭得很伤心，他现在去请求玛格丽特姐姐的同意，希望能够帮玛格丽特移墓。因为玛格丽特葬在这里，不时地会有人对她生前的生活指指点点。看墓人特别偏爱玛格丽特的墓，他看惯了其他人的无情冷漠，现在被阿尔芒的真诚和悲痛打动了。我从他那儿得知阿尔芒的住址，随后便去找阿尔芒，但是他外出还没回来，我留下了电话。第二天早晨便收到了回信：阿尔芒由于身体原因不能外出，我决定亲自去一趟。
A good while elapsed before I heard anything more of Armand, but, on the other hand, I was constantly hearing of Marguerite.坟墓上放满了茶花
I do not know if you have noticed, if once the name of anybody who might in the natural course of things have always remained unknown, or at all events indifferent to you, should he mentioned before you, immediately details begin to group themselves about the name, and you find all your friends talking toyou about something which they have never mentioned to you before. You discover that this person was almost touching you and has passed close to you many times in your life without your noticing it;you find coincidences in the events which are told you, a real affinity with certain events of your own existence. I was not absolutely at that point in regard to Marguerite, for I had seen and met her, I knew her by sight and by reputation; nevertheless, since the moment of the sale, her name came to my ears so frequently, and, owing to the circumstance that I have mentioned in the last chapter, that name was associated with so profound a sorrow, that my curiosity increased in proportion with my astonishment. The consequence was that whenever I met friends to whom I had never breathed the name of Marguerite, I always began by saying:
“Did you ever know a certain Marguerite Gautier?”
“The Lady of the Camellias?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, very well!”
The word was sometimes accompanied by a smile which could leave no doubt as to its meaning.
“Well, what sort of a girl was she?”
“A good sort of girl.”
“Is that all?”
“Oh, yes; more intelligence and perhaps a little more heart than most.”
“Do you know anything particular about her?”
“She ruined Baron de G.”
“No more than that?”
“She was the mistress of the old Duke of ...”
“Was she really his mistress?”
“So they say; at all events, he gave her a great deal of money.”
The general outlines were always the same.Nevertheless I was anxious to find out something about the relations between Marguerite and Armand. Meeting one day a man who was constantly about with known women, I asked him: “Did you know Marguerite Gautier?”
The answer was the usual: “Very well.”
“What sort of a girl was she?”
“A fine, good girl. I was very sorry to hear of her death.”
“Had she not a lover called Armand Duval?”
“Tall and blond?”
“Yes.”
“It is quite true.”
“Who was this Armand?”
“A fellow who squandered on her the little money he had, and then had to leave her. They say he was quite wild about it.”
“And she?”
“They always say she was very much in love with him, but as girls like that are in love. It is no good to ask them for what they can not give.”
“What has become of Armand?”
“I don’t know. We knew him very little. He was with Marguerite for five or six months in the country. When she came back, he had gone.”
“And you have never seen him since?”
“Never.”
I, too, had not seen Armand again. I was beginning to ask myself if, when he had come to see me, the recent news of Marguerite’s death had not exaggerated his former love, and consequently his sorrow, and I said to myself that perhaps he had already forgotten the dead woman, and along with her his promise to come and see me again. This supposition would have seemed probable enough in most instances, but in Armand’s despair there had been an accent of real sincerity, and, going from one extreme to another, I imagined that distress had brought on an illness,and that my not seeing him was explained by the fact that he was ill, perhaps dead.
I was interested in the young man in spite of myself. Perhaps there was some selfishness in this interest; perhaps I guessed at some pathetic love story under all this sorrow; perhaps my desire to know all about it had much to do with the anxiety which Armand’s silence caused me.
Since M. Duval did not return to see me, I decided to go and see him. A pretext was not difficult to find; unluckily I did not know his address, and no one among those whom I questioned could give it to me.
I went to the Rue d’Antin;perhaps Marguerite’s porter would know where Armand lived. There was a new porter; he knew as little about it as I. I then asked in what cemetery Mlle. Gautier had been buried. It was the Montmartre Cemetery. It was now the month of April; the weather was fine, the graves were not likely to look as sad and desolate as they do in winter; in short, it was warm enough for the living to think a little of the dead, and pay them a visit. I went to the cemetery, saying to myself: “One glance at Marguerite’s grave, and I shall know if Armand’s sorrow still exists, and perhaps I may find out what has become of him.”
I entered the keeper’s lodge, and asked him if on the 22nd of February a woman named Marguerite Gautier had not been buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. He turned over the pages of a big book in which those who enter this last resting-place are inscribed and numbered, and replied that on the 22nd of February, at 12 o’clock, a woman of that name had been buried.
I asked him to show me the grave, for there is no finding one’s way without a guide in this city of the dead, which has its streets like a city of the living. The keeper called over a gardener, to whom he gave the necessary instructions; the gardener interrupted him, saying: “I know, I know. -It is not difficult to find that grave,” he added, turning to me.
“Why?”
“Because it has very different flowers from the others.”
“Is it you who look after it?”
“Yes, sir; and I wish all relations took as much trouble about the dead as the young man who gave me my orders.”
After several turnings, the gardener stopped and said to me: “Here we are.”
I saw before me a square of flowers which one would never have taken for a grave, if it had not been for a white marble slab bearing a name.
The marble slab stood upright, an iron railing marked the limits of the ground purchased, and the earth was covered with white camellias.
“What do you say to that?” said the gardener.
“It is beautiful.”
“And whenever a camellia fades, I have orders to replace it.”
“Who gave you the order?”
“A young gentleman who cried the first time he came here; an old pal of hers, I suppose, for they say she was a gay one.Very pretty, too, I believe. Did you know her, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Like the other?”said the gardener, with a knowing smile.
“No, I never spoke to her.”
“And you come here, too! It is very good of you, for those that come to see the poor girl don’t exactly cumber the cemetery.”
“Doesn’t anybody come?”
“Nobody, except that young gentleman who came once.”
“Only once?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He never came back again?”
“No, but he will when he gets home.”
“He is away somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I believe he has gone to see Mlle. Gautier’s sister.”
“What does he want there?”
“He has gone to get her authority to have the corpse dug up again and put somewhere else.”
“Why won’t he let it remain here?”
“You know, sir, people have queer notions about dead folk. We see something of that every day. The ground here was only bought for five years, and this young gentleman wants a perpetual lease and a bigger plot of ground; it will be better in the new part.”
“What do you call the new part?”
“The new plots of ground that are for sale,there to the left. If the cemetery had always been kept like it is now, there wouldn’t be the like of it in the world; but there is still plenty to do before it will be quite all it should be. And then people are so queer!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are people who carry their pride even here. Now, this Mademoiselle Gautier, it appears she lived a bit free, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Poor lady, she’s dead now; there’s no more of her left than of them that no one has a word to say against. We water them every day. Well,when the relatives of the folk that are buried beside her found out the sort of person she was, what do you think they said? That they would try to keep her out from here, and that there ought to be a piece of ground somewhere apart for these sort of women, like there is for the poor. Did you ever hear of such a thing? I gave it to them straight, I did: well to do folk who come to see their dead four times a year, and bring their flowers themselves, and what flowers!and look twice at the keep of them they pretend to cry over, and write on their tombstones all about the tears they haven’t shed, and come and make difficulties about their neighbours. You may believe me or not,sir, I never knew the young lady; I don’t know what she did. Well, I’m quite in love with the poor thing; I look after her well, and I let her have her camellias at an honest price. She is the dead body that I like the best. You see, sir, we are obliged to love the dead, for we are kept so busy, we have hardly time to love anything else.”
I looked at the man, and some of my readers will understand, without my needing to explain it to them, the emotion which I felt on hearing him. He observed it, no doubt, for he went on:
“They tell me there were people who ruined themselves over that girl, and lovers that worshipped her; well, when I think there isn’t one of them that so much as buys her a flower now, that’s queer, sir, and sad. And, after all,she isn’t so badly off for she has her grave to herself, and if there is only one who remembers her, he makes up for the others. But we have other poor girls here, just like her and just her age, and they are just thrown into a pauper’s grave, and it breaks my heart when I hear their poor bodies drop into the earth. And not a soul thinks about them any more, once they are dead! ‘T isn’t a merry trade, ours, especially when we have a little heart left. What do you expect? I can’t help it.I have a fine, strapping girl myself; she’s just twenty, and when a girl of that age comes here I think of her, and I don’t care if it’s a great lady or a vagabond, I can’t help feeling it a bit. But I am taking up your time, sir, with my tales, and it wasn’t to hear them you came here. I was told to show you Mlle. Gautier’s grave; here you have it. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Do you know M. Armand Duval’s address?” I asked.
“Yes; he lives at Rue de-; at least, that’s where I always go to get my money for the flowers you see there.”
“Thanks, my good man.”
I gave one more look at the grave covered with flowers half longing to penetrate the depths of the earth and see what the earth had made of the fair creature that had been cast to it; then I walked sadly away.
“Do you want to see M. Duval, sir?” said the gardener, who was walking beside me.
“Yes.”
“Well, I am pretty sure he is not back yet,or he would have been here already.”
“You don’t think he has forgotten Marguerite?”
“I am not only sure he hasn’t, but I would wager that he wants to change her grave simply in order to have one more look at her.”
“Why do you think that?”
“The first word he said to me when he came to the cemetery was: ‘How can I see her again?’ That can’t be done unless there is a change of grave, and I told him all about the formalities that have to be attended to in getting it done; for, you see, if you want to move a body from one grave to another you must have it identified, and only the family can give leave for it under the direction of a police inspector. That is why M. Duval has gone to see Mlle. Gautier’s sister, and you may be sure his first visit will be for me.”
We had come to the cemetery gate. I thanked the gardener again, putting a few coins into his hand, and made my way to the address he had given me.
Armand had not yet returned. I left word for him, begging him to come and see me as soon as he arrived, or to send me word where I could find him.
Next day, in the morning, I received a letter from Duval, telling me of his return, and asking me to call on him, as he was so worn out with fatigue that it was impossible for him to go out.第6章 Chapter 6导读
我看到阿尔芒的时候，他浑身滚烫，躺在床上无法动身。我看到他依然像第一次见到时那么悲伤，只要谈起玛格丽特，眼泪还是控制不住地往下流。他已经得到了玛格丽特姐姐的允许，但这一路上他足足病了两个星期，现在好不容易才能回到这里。他告诉我已经拿回了玛格丽特的日记，这三星期每天都会翻上很多遍，希望等到自己心情平静的时候能够将这些事情解释给我听。之后他坚持要去警长那里办移墓的手续，我决定尽量向他提供帮助，帮他从邮局拿回了两封信。他穿戴整齐，我和他一起来到警局办好了一切手续。
第二天我们在玛格丽特的墓前看着棺材被挖出，阿尔芒极度紧张，我很担心他会支撑不下去。当棺材打开的那瞬间，所有的人都往后退了一步。尸体已经发出恶臭，我也差点晕倒；挖墓人掀开了白布，玛格丽特的尸体已经腐烂，五官几乎烂掉，但隐约还能看出玛格丽特以前的样子。阿尔芒一直盯着那张脸，警长在一旁确定之后，掘墓工人将尸体盖上，搬着棺材向指定的地方转移。阿尔芒此刻一脸木然，他没有任何表情，脸色惨白得像死尸一样。我只得搀扶着他离开墓地，到了车上他全身抽搐，一直到家仍在哆嗦。医生过来诊断他得了脑膜炎，幸好不是很严重，而且这样肉体上的病痛可以抵消一些精神上的折磨。
I found Armand in bed. On seeing me he held out a burning hand.卧病在床的阿尔芒
“You are feverish,” I said to him.
“It is nothing, the fatigue of a rapid journey; that is all.”
“You have been to see Marguerite’s sister?”
“Yes; who told you?”
“I knew it. Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes; but who told you of my journey, and of my reason for taking it?”
“The gardener of the cemetery.”
“You have seen the tomb?”
I scarcely dared reply, for the tone in which the words were spoken proved to me that the speaker was still possessed by the emotion which I had witnessed before, and that every time his thoughts or speech travelled back to that mournful subject emotion would still, for a long time to come, prove stronger than his will. I contented myself with a nod of the head.
“He has looked after it well?” continued Armand. Two big tears rolled down the cheeks of the sick man, and he turned away his head to hide them from me. I pretended not to see them, and tried to change the conversation.
“You have been away three weeks,” I said.
Armand passed his hand across his eyes and replied, “Exactly three weeks.”
“You had a long journey.”
“Oh, I was not travelling all the time. I was ill for a fortnight, or I should have returned long ago; but I had scarcely got there when I took this fever, and I was obliged to keep my room.”
“And you started to come back before you were really well?”
“If I had remained in the place for another week, I should have died there.”
“Well, now you are back again, you must take care of yourself; your friends will come and look after you; myself, first of all, if you will allow me.”
“I shall get up in a couple of hours.”
“It would be very unwise.”
“I must.”
“What have you to do in such a great hurry?”
“I must go to the inspector of police.”
“Why do you not get one of your friends to see after the matter? It is likely to make you worse than you are now.”
“It is my only chance of getting better. I must see her. Ever since I heard of her death, especially since I saw her grave, I have not been able to sleep. I can not realize that this woman, so young and so beautiful when I left her, is really dead. I must convince myself of it. I must see what God has done with a being that I have loved so much, and perhaps the horror of the sight will cure me of my despair. Will you accompany me, if it won’t be troubling you too much?”
“What did her sister say about it?”
“Nothing. She seemed greatly surprised that a stranger wanted to buy a plot of ground and give Marguerite a new grave, and she immediately signed the authorization that I asked her for.”
“Believe me, it would be better to wait until you are quite well.”
“Have no fear; I shall be quite composed.Besides, I should simply go out of my mind if I were not to carry out a resolution which I have set myself to carry out. I swear to you that I shall never be myself again until I have seen Marguerite. It is perhaps the thirst of the fever, a sleepless night’s dream, a moment’s delirium; but though I were to become a Trappist, like M. de Rance’, after having seen, I will see.”
“I understand,” I said to Armand, “and I am at your service. Have you seen Julie Duprat?”
“Yes, I saw her the day I returned, for the first time.”
“Did she give you the papers that Marguerite had left for you?”
Armand drew a roll of papers from under his pillow, and immediately put them back.
“I know all that is in these papers by heart,” he said. “For three weeks I have read them ten times over every day. You shall read them, too, but later on, when I am calmer, and can make you understand all the love and tenderness hidden away in this confession. For the moment I want you to do me a service.”
“What is it?”
“Your cab is below?”
“Yes.”
“Well, will you take my passport and ask if there are any letters for me at the poste restante? My father and sister must have written to me at Paris, and I went away in such haste that I did not go and see before leaving. When you come back we will go together to the inspector of police, and arrange for tomorrow’s ceremony.”
Armand handed me his passport, and I went to Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. There were two letters addressed to Duval. I took them and returned. When I re-entered the room Armand was dressed and ready to go out.
“Thanks,” he said,taking the letters. “Yes,” he added, after glancing at the addresses, “they are from my father and sister. They must have been quite at a loss to understand my silence.”
He opened the letters, guessed at rather than read them, for each was of four pages; and a moment after folded them up. “Come,” he said, “I will answer tomorrow.”
We went to the police station, and Armand handed in the permission signed by Marguerite’s sister.He received in return a letter to the keeper of the cemetery, and it was settled that the disinterment was to take place next day, at ten o’clock, that I should call for him an hour before, and that we should go to the cemetery together.
I confess that I was curious to be present,and I did not sleep all night, judging from the thoughts which filled my brain,it must have been a long night for Armand. When I entered his room at nine on the following morning he was frightfully pale, but seemed calm. He smiled and held out his hand. His candles were burned out; and before leaving he took a very heavy letter addressed to his father, and no doubt containing an account of that night’s impressions.
Half an hour later we were at Montmartre. The police inspector was there already. We walked slowly in the direction of Marguerite’s grave. The inspector went in front; Armand and I followed a few steps behind.
From time to time I felt my companion’s arm tremble convulsively, as if he shivered from head to feet. I looked at him. He understood the look, and smiled at me; we had not exchanged a word since leaving the house.
Just before we reached the grave, Armand stopped to wipe his face, which was covered with great drops of sweat. I took advantage of the pause to draw in a long breath, for I, too, felt as if I had a weight on my chest.
What is the origin of that mournful pleasure which we find in sights of this kind? When we reached the grave the gardener had removed all the flower pots, the iron railing had been taken away, and two men were turning up the soil.
Armand leaned against a tree and watched. All his life seemed to pass before his eyes. Suddenly one of the two pickaxes struck against a stone. At the sound Armand recoiled, as at an electric shock,and seized my hand with such force as to give me pain.
One of the grave-diggers took a shovel and began emptying out the earth; then, when only the stones covering the coffin were left, he threw them out one by one.
I scrutinized Armand, for every moment I was afraid lest the emotions which he was visibly repressing should prove too much for him; but he still watched, his eyes fixed and wide open, like the eyes of a madman, and a slight trembling of the cheeks and lips were the only signs of the violent nervous crisis under which he was suffering.
As for me, all I can say is that I regretted having come.
When the coffin was uncovered the inspector said to the grave-digger: “Open it.” They obeyed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The coffin was of oak, and they began to unscrew the lid. The humidity of the earth had rusted the screws, and it was not without some difficulty that the coffin was opened. A painful odour arose in spite of the aromatic plants with which it was covered.
“O my God, my God!”murmured Armand, and turned paler than before.
Even the grave-digger drew back.
A great white shroud covered the corpse,closely outlining some of its contours. This shroud was almost completely eaten away at one end, and left one of the feet visible.
I was nearly fainting, and at the moment of writing these lines I see the whole scene over again in all its imposing reality.
“Quick,” said the inspector. Thereupon one of the men put out his hand, began to unsew the shroud, and taking hold of it by one end suddenly laid bare the face of Marguerite.
It was terrible to see, it is horrible to relate. The eyes were nothing but two holes, the lips had disappeared,vanished, and the white teeth were tightly set. The black hair, long and dry,was pressed tightly about the forehead, and half veiled the green hollows of the cheeks; and yet I recognised in this face the joyous white and rose face that I had seen so often.
Armand, unable to turn away his eyes, had put the handkerchief to his mouth and bit it.
For my part, it was as if a circle of iron tightened about my head, a veil covered my eyes, a rumbling filled my ears, and all I could do was to unstop a smelling bottle which I happened to have with me, and to draw in long breaths of it.
Through this bewilderment I heard the inspector say to Duval, “Do you identify?”
“Yes,” replied the young man in a dull voice.
“Then fasten it up and take it away,” said the inspector.
The grave-diggers put back the shroud over the face of the corpse, fastened up the coffin, took hold of each end of it,and began to carry it toward the place where they had been told to take it.
Armand did not move. His eyes were fixed upon the empty grave; he was as white as the corpse which we had just seen. He looked as if he had been turned to stone.
I saw what was coming as soon as the pain caused by the spectacle should have abated and thus ceased to sustain him. I went up to the inspector. “Is this gentleman’s presence still necessary?” I said,pointing to Armand.
“No,” he replied, “and I should advise you to take him away. He looks ill.”
“Come,” I said to Armand, taking him by the arm.
“What?” he said,looking at me as if he did not recognise me.
“It is all over,” I added. “You must come, my friend; you are quite white;you are cold. These emotions will be too much for you.”
“You are right. Let us go,” he answered mechanically, but without moving a step.
I took him by the arm and led him along. He let himself be guided like a child, only from time to time murmuring, “Did you see her eyes?” and he turned as if the vision had recalled her.
Nevertheless, his steps became more irregular; he seemed to walk by a series of jerks; his teeth chattered; his hands were cold; a violent agitation ran through his body. I spoke to him; he did not answer. He was just able to let himself be led along. A cab was waiting at the gate. It was only just in time. Scarcely had he seated himself, when the shivering became more violent, and he had an actual attack of nerves, in the midst of which his fear of frightening me made him press my hand and whisper: “It is nothing, nothing. I want to weep.”
His chest laboured, his eyes were injected with blood, but no tears came. I made him smell the salts which I had with me,and when we reached his house only the shivering remained.
With the help of his servant I put him to bed, lit a big fire in his room, and hurried off to my doctor, to whom I told all that had happened. He hastened with me.
Armand was flushed and delirious; he stammered out disconnected words, in which only the name of Marguerite could be distinctly heard.
“Well?” I said to the doctor when he had examined the patient.
“Well, he has neither more nor less than brain fever, and very lucky it is for him, for I firmly believe (God forgive me!) that he would have gone out of his mind. Fortunately, the physical malady will kill the mental one, and in a month’s time he will be free from the one and perhaps from the other.”
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