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第15节

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Does it make much difference whether we shall hide our gray heads

beneath lace or a handkerchief striped with blue and red; whether we

sweep a crossing with a birch broom; or the steps of the Tuileries

with satins; whether we sit beside a gilded hearth; or cower over the

ashes in a red earthen pot; whether we go to the Opera or look on in

the Place de Greve?〃



〃Aquilina mia; you have never shown more sense than in this depressing

fit of yours;〃 Euphrasia remarked。 〃Yes; cashmere; point d'Alencon;

perfumes; gold; silks; luxury; everything that sparkles; everything

pleasant; belongs to youth alone。 Time alone may show us our folly;

but good fortune will acquit us。 You are laughing at me;〃 she went on;

with a malicious glance at the friends; 〃but am I not right? I would

sooner die of pleasure than of illness。 I am not afflicted with a

mania for perpetuity; nor have I a great veneration for human nature;

such as God has made it。 Give me millions; and I would squander them;

I should not keep one centime for the year to come。 Live to be

charming and have power; that is the decree of my every heartbeat。

Society sanctions my life; does it not pay for my extravagances? Why

does Providence pay me every morning my income; which I spend every

evening? Why are hospitals built for us? And Providence did not put

good and evil on either hand for us to select what tires and pains us。

I should be very foolish if I did not amuse myself。〃



〃And how about others?〃 asked Emile。



〃Others? Oh; well; they must manage for themselves。 I prefer laughing

at their woes to weeping over my own。 I defy any man to give me the

slightest uneasiness。〃



〃What have you suffered to make you think like this?〃 asked Raphael。



〃I myself have been forsaken for an inheritance;〃 she said; striking

an attitude that displayed all her charms; 〃and yet I had worked night

and day to keep my lover! I am not to be gulled by any smile or vow;

and I have set myself to make one long entertainment of my life。〃



〃But does not happiness come from the soul within?〃 cried Raphael。



〃It may be so;〃 Aquilina answered; 〃but is it nothing to be conscious

of admiration and flattery; to triumph over other women; even over the

most virtuous; humiliating them before our beauty and our splendor?

Not only so; one day of our life is worth ten years of a bourgeoise

existence; and so it is all summed up。〃



〃Is not a woman hateful without virtue?〃 Emile said to Raphael。



Euphrasia's glance was like a viper's; as she said; with an irony in

her voice that cannot be rendered:



〃Virtue! we leave that to deformity and to ugly women。 What would the

poor things be without it?〃



〃Hush; be quiet;〃 Emile broke in。 〃Don't talk about something you have

never known。〃



〃That I have never known!〃 Euphrasia answered。 〃You give yourself for

life to some person you abominate; you must bring up children who will

neglect you; who wound your very heart; and you must say; 'Thank you!'

for it; and these are the virtues you prescribe to woman。 And that is

not enough。 By way of requiting her self…denial; you must come and add

to her sorrows by trying to lead her astray; and though you are

rebuffed; she is compromised。 A nice life! How far better to keep

one's freedom; to follow one's inclinations in love; and die young!〃



〃Have you no fear of the price to be paid some day for all this?〃



〃Even then;〃 she said; 〃instead of mingling pleasures and troubles; my

life will consist of two separate partsa youth of happiness is

secure; and there may come a hazy; uncertain old age; during which I

can suffer at my leisure。〃



〃She has never loved;〃 came in the deep tones of Aquilina's voice。

〃She never went a hundred leagues to drink in one look and a denial

with untold raptures。 She has not hung her own life on a thread; nor

tried to stab more than one man to save her sovereign lord; her king;

her divinity。 。 。 。 Love; for her; meant a fascinating colonel。〃



〃Here she is with her La Rochelle;〃 Euphrasia made answer。 〃Love comes

like the wind; no one knows whence。 And; for that matter; if one of

those brutes had once fallen in love with you; you would hold sensible

men in horror。〃



〃Brutes are put out of the question by the Code;〃 said the tall;

sarcastic Aquilina。



〃I thought you had more kindness for the army;〃 laughed Euphrasia。



〃How happy they are in their power of dethroning their reason in this

way;〃 Raphael exclaimed。



〃Happy?〃 asked Aquilina; with dreadful look; and a smile full of pity

and terror。 〃Ah; you do not know what it is to be condemned to a life

of pleasure; with your dead hidden in your heart。 。 。 。〃



A moment's consideration of the rooms was like a foretaste of Milton's

Pandemonium。 The faces of those still capable of drinking wore a

hideous blue tint; from burning draughts of punch。 Mad dances were

kept up with wild energy; excited laughter and outcries broke out like

the explosion of fireworks。 The boudoir and a small adjoining room

were strewn like a battlefield with the insensible and incapable。

Wine; pleasure; and dispute had heated the atmosphere。 Wine and love;

delirium and unconsciousness possessed them; and were written upon all

faces; upon the furniture; were expressed by the surrounding disorder;

and brought light films over the vision of those assembled; so that

the air seemed full of intoxicating vapor。 A glittering dust arose; as

in the luminous paths made by a ray of sunlight; the most bizarre

forms flitted through it; grotesque struggles were seen athwart it。

Groups of interlaced figures blended with the white marbles; the noble

masterpieces of sculpture that adorned the rooms。



Though the two friends yet preserved a sort of fallacious clearness in

their ideas and voices; a feeble appearance and faint thrill of

animation; it was yet almost impossible to distinguish what was real

among the fantastic absurdities before them; or what foundation there

was for the impossible pictures that passed unceasingly before their

weary eyes。 The strangest phenomena of dreams beset them; the lowering

heavens; the fervid sweetness caught by faces in our visions; and

unheard…of agility under a load of chains;all these so vividly; that

they took the pranks of the orgy about them for the freaks of some

nightmare in which all movement is silent; and cries never reach the

ear。 The valet de chambre succeeded just then; after some little

difficulty; in drawing his master into the ante…chamber to whisper to

him:



〃The neighbors are all at their windows; complaining of the racket;

sir。〃



〃If noise alarms them; why don't they lay down straw before their

doors?〃 was Taillefer's rejoinder。



Raphael's sudden burst of laughter was so unseasonable and abrupt;

that his friend demanded the reason of his unseemly hilarity。



〃You will hardly understand me;〃 he replied。 〃In the first place; I

must admit that you stopped me on the Quai Voltaire just as I was

about to throw myself into the Seine; and you would like to know; no

doubt; my motives for dying。 And when I proceed to tell you that by an

almost miraculous chance the most poetic memorials of the material

world had but just then been summed up for me as a symbolical

interpretation of human wisdom; whilst at this minute the remains of

all the intellectual treasures ravaged by us at table are comprised in

these two women; the living and authentic types of folly; would you be

any the wiser? Our profound apathy towards men and things supplied the

half…tones in a crudely contrasted picture of two theories of life so

diametrically opposed。 If you were not drunk; you might perhaps catch

a gleam of philosophy in this。〃



〃And if you had not both feet on that fascinating Aquilina; whose

heavy breathing suggests an analogy with the sounds of a storm about

to burst;〃 replied Emile; absently engaged in the harmless amusement

of winding and unwinding Euphrasia's hair; 〃you would be ashamed of

your inebriated garrulity。 Both your systems can be packed in a

phrase; and reduced to a single idea。 The mere routine of living

brings a stupid kind of wisdom with it; by blunting our intelligence

with work; and on the other hand; a life passed in the limbo of the

abstract or in the abysses of the moral world; produces a sort of

wisdom run mad。 The conditions may be summed up in brief; we may

extinguish emotion; and so live to old age; or we may choose to die

young as martyrs to contending passions。 And yet this decree is at

variance with the temperaments with which we were endowed by the

bitter jester who modeled all creatures。〃



〃Idiot!〃 Raphael burst in。 〃Go on epitomizing yourself after that

fashion; and you will fill volumes。 If I attempted to formulate those

two ideas clearly; I might as well say that man is corrupted by the

exercise of his wits; and purified by ignorance。 You are calling the

whole fabric of society to

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