姐,51。。。
轻松的小说阅读环境
Site Manager
巴黎圣母院英文版 - BOOK EIGHTH CHAPTER IV.~LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA~--LEAVE ALL H
繁体
恢复默认
返回目录【键盘操作】左右光标键:上下章节;回车键:目录;双击鼠标:停止/启动自动滚动;滚动时上下光标键调节滚动速度。
  In the Middle Ages, when an edifice was complete, there was almost as much of it in the earth as above it.Unless built upon piles, like Notre-Dame, a palace, a fortress, a church, had always a double bottom.In cathedrals, it was, in some sort, another subterranean cathedral, low, dark, mysterious, blind, and mute, under the upper nave which was overflowing with light and reverberating with organs and bells day and night.Sometimes it was a sepulchre.In palaces, in fortresses, it was a prison, sometimes a sepulchre also, sometimes both together.These mighty buildings, whose mode of formation and vegetation we have elsewhere explained, had not simply foundations, but, so to speak, roots which ran branching through the soil in chambers, galleries, and staircases, like the construction above.Thus churches, palaces, fortresses, had the earth half way up their bodies. The cellars of an edifice formed another edifice, into which one descended instead of ascending, and which extended its subterranean grounds under the external piles of the monument, like those forests and mountains which are reversed in the mirror-like waters of a lake, beneath the forests and mountains of the banks.At the fortress of Saint-Antoine, at the palais de Justice of paris, at the Louvre, these subterranean edifices were prisons. The stories of these prisons, as they sank into the soil, grew constantly narrower and more gloomy.They were so many zones, where the shades of horror were graduated.Dante could never imagine anything better for his hell.These tunnels of cells usually terminated in a sack of a lowest dungeon, with a vat-like bottom, where Dante placed Satan, where society placed those condemned to death.A miserable human existence, once interred there; farewell light, air, life, ~ogni speranza~--every hope; it only came forth to the scaffold or the stake.Sometimes it rotted there; human justice called this "forgetting."Between men and himself, the condemned man felt a pile of stones and jailers weighing down upon his head; and the entire prison, the massive bastille was nothing more than an enormous, complicated lock, which barred him off from the rest of the world.It was in a sloping cavity of this description, in the ~oubliettes~ excavated by Saint-Louis, in the ~inpace~ of the Tournelle, that la Esmeralda had been placed on being condemned to death, through fear of her escape, no doubt, with the colossal court-house over her head.poor fly, who could not have lifted even one of its blocks of stone!Assuredly, providence and society had been equally unjust; such an excess of unhappiness and of torture was not necessary to break so frail a creature.There she lay, lost in the shadows, buried, hidden, immured. Any one who could have beheld her in this state, after having seen her laugh and dance in the sun, would have shuddered. Cold as night, cold as death, not a breath of air in her tresses, not a human sound in her ear, no longer a ray of light in her eyes; snapped in twain, crushed with chains, crouching beside a jug and a loaf, on a little straw, in a pool of water, which was formed under her by the sweating of the prison walls; without motion, almost without breath, she had no longer the power to suffer; phoebus, the sun, midday, the open air, the streets of paris, the dances with applause, the sweet babblings of love with the officer; then the priest, the old crone, the poignard, the blood, the torture, the gibbet; all this did, indeed, pass before her mind, sometimes as a charming and golden vision, sometimes as a hideous nightmare; but it was no longer anything but a vague and horrible struggle, lost in the gloom, or distant music played up above ground, and which was no longer audible at the depth where the unhappy girl had fallen.Since she had been there, she had neither waked nor slept. In that misfortune, in that cell, she could no longer distinguish her waking hours from slumber, dreams from reality, any more than day from night.All this was mixed, broken, floating, disseminated confusedly in her thought.She no longer felt, she no longer knew, she no longer thought; at the most, she only dreamed.Never had a living creature been thrust more deeply into nothingness.Thus benumbed, frozen, petrified, she had barely noticed on two or three occasions, the sound of a trap door opening somewhere above her, without even permitting the passage of a little light, and through which a hand had tossed her a bit of black bread.Nevertheless, this periodical visit of the jailer was the sole communication which was left her with mankind.A single thing still mechanically occupied her ear; above her head, the dampness was filtering through the mouldy stones of the vault, and a drop of water dropped from them at regular intervals.She listened stupidly to the noise made by this drop of water as it fell into the pool beside her.This drop of water falling from time to time into that pool, was the only movement which still went on around her, the only clock which marked the time, the only noise which reached her of all the noise made on the surface of the earth.To tell the whole, however, she also felt, from time to time, in that cesspool of mire and darkness, something cold passing over her foot or her arm, and she shuddered.How long had she been there?She did not know.She had a recollection of a sentence of death pronounced somewhere, against some one, then of having been herself carried away, and of waking up in darkness and silence, chilled to the heart.She had dragged herself along on her hands. Then iron rings that cut her ankles, and chains had rattled. She had recognized the fact that all around her was wall, that below her there was a pavement covered with moisture and a truss of straw; but neither lamp nor air-hole.Then she had seated herself on that straw and, sometimes, for the sake of changing her attitude, on the last stone step in her dungeon. For a while she had tried to count the black minutes measured off for her by the drop of water; but that melancholy labor of an ailing brain had broken off of itself in her head, and had left her in stupor.At length, one day, or one night, (for midnight and midday were of the same color in that sepulchre), she heard above her a louder noise than was usually made by the turnkey when he brought her bread and jug of water.She raised her head, and beheld a ray of reddish light passing through the crevices in the sort of trapdoor contrived in the roof of the ~inpace~.At the same time, the heavy lock creaked, the trap grated on its rusty hinges, turned, and she beheld a lantern, a hand, and the lower portions of the bodies of two men, the door being too low to admit of her seeing their heads.The light pained her so acutely that she shut her eyes.When she opened them again the door was closed, the lantern was deposited on one of the steps of the staircase; a man alone stood before her.A monk's black cloak fell to his feet, a cowl of the same color concealed his face.Nothing was visible of his person, neither face nor hands.It was a long, black shroud standing erect, and beneath which something could be felt moving.She gazed fixedly for several minutes at this sort of spectre.But neither he nor she spoke.One would have pronounced them two statues confronting each other.Two things only seemed alive in that cavern; the wick of the lantern, which sputtered on account of the dampness of the atmosphere, and the drop of water from the roof, which cut this irregular sputtering with its monotonous splash, and made the light of the lantern quiver in concentric waves on the oily water of the pool.At last the prisoner broke the silence."Who are you?""A priest."The words, the accent, the sound of his voice made her tremble.The priest continued, in a hollow voice,--"Are you prepared?""For what?""To die.""Oh!" said she, "will it be soon?""To-morrow."Her head, which had been raised with joy, fell back upon her breast."'Tis very far away yet!" she murmured; "why could they not have done it to-day?""Then you are very unhappy?" asked the priest, after a silence."I am very cold," she replied.She took her feet in her hands, a gesture habitual with unhappy wretches who are cold, as we have already seen in the case of the recluse of the Tour-Roland, and her teeth chattered.The priest appeared to cast his eyes around the dungeon from beneath his cowl."Without light!without fire!in the water!it is horrible!""Yes," she replied, with the bewildered air which unhappiness had given her."The day belongs to every one, why do they give me only night?""Do you know," resumed the priest, after a fresh silence, "why you are here?""I thought I knew once," she said, passing her thin fingers over her eyelids, as though to aid her memory, "but I know no longer."All at once she began to weep like a child."I should like to get away from here, sir.I am cold, I am afraid, and there are creatures which crawl over my body.""Well, follow me."So saying, the priest took her arm.The unhappy girl was frozen to her very soul.Yet that hand produced an impression of cold upon her."Oh!" she murmured, "'tis the icy hand of death.Who are you?"The priest threw back his cowl; she looked.It was the sinister visage which had so long pursued her; that demon's head which had appeared at la Falourdel's, above the head of her adored phoebus; that eye which she last had seen glittering beside a dagger.This apparition, always so fatal for her, and which had thus driven her on from misfortune to misfortune, even to torture, roused her from her stupor.It seemed to her that the sort of veil which had lain thick upon her memory was rent away. All the details of her melancholy adventure, from the nocturnal scene at la Falourdel's to her condemnation to the Tournelle, recurred to her memory, no longer vague and confused as heretofore, but distinct, harsh, clear, palpitating, terrible. These souvenirs, half effaced and almost obliterated by excess of suffering, were revived by the sombre figure which stood before her, as the approach of fire causes letters traced upon white paper with invisible ink, to start out perfectly fresh.It seemed to her that all the wounds of her heart opened and bled simultaneously."Hah!" she cried, with her hands on her eyes, and a convulsive trembling, "'tis the priest!"Then she dropped her arms in discouragement, and remained seated, with lowered head, eyes fixed on the ground, mute and still trembling.The priest gazed at her with the eye of a hawk which has long been soaring in a circle from the heights of heaven over a poor lark cowering in the wheat, and has long been silently contracting the formidable circles of his flight, and has suddenly swooped down upon his prey like a flash of lightning, and holds it panting in his talons.She began to murmur in a low voice,--"Finish! finish! the last blow!" and she drew her head down in terror between her shoulders, like the lamb awaiting the blow of the butcher's axe."So I inspire you with horror?" he said at length.She made no reply."Do I inspire you with horror?" he repeated.Her lips contracted, as though with a smile."Yes," said she, "the headsman scoffs at the condemned. Here he has been pursuing me, threatening me, terrifying me for months!Had it not been for him, my God, how happy it should have been!It was he who cast me into this abyss! Oh heavens!it was he who killed him!my phoebus!"Here, bursting into sobs, and raising her eyes to the priest,--"Oh! wretch, who are you?What have I done to you? Do you then, hate me so?Alas! what have you against me?""I love thee!" cried the priest.Her tears suddenly ceased, she gazed at him with the look of an idiot.He had fallen on his knees and was devouring her with eyes of flame."Dost thou understand?I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder.He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul."Both remained silent for several minutes, crushed beneath the weight of their emotions; he maddened, she stupefied."Listen," said the priest at last, and a singular calm had come over him; "you shall know all I am about to tell you that which I have hitherto hardly dared to say to myself, when furtively interrogating my conscience at those deep hours of the night when it is so dark that it seems as though God no longer saw us.Listen.Before I knew you, young girl, I was happy.""So was I!" she sighed feebly."Do not interrupt me.Yes, I was happy, at least I believed myself to be so.I was pure, my soul was filled with limpid light.No head was raised more proudly and more radiantly than mine.priests consulted me on chastity; doctors, on doctrines.Yes, science was all in all to me; it was a sister to me, and a sister sufficed.Not but that with age other ideas came to me.More than once my flesh had been moved as a woman's form passed by.That force of sex and blood which, in the madness of youth, I had imagined that I had stifled forever had, more than once, convulsively raised the chain of iron vows which bind me, a miserable wretch, to the cold stones of the altar.But fasting, prayer, study, the mortifications of the cloister, rendered my soul mistress of my body once more, and then I avoided women.Moreover, I had but to open a book, and all the impure mists of my brain vanished before the splendors of science.In a few moments, I felt the gross things of earth flee far away, and I found myself once more calm, quieted, and serene, in the presence of the tranquil radiance of eternal truth.As long as the demon sent to attack me only vague shadows of women who passed occasionally before my eyes in church, in the streets, in the fields, and who hardly recurred to my dreams, I easily vanquished him.Alas!if the victory has not remained with me, it is the fault of God, who has not created man and the demon of equal force.Listen.One day--Here the priest paused, and the prisoner heard sighs of anguish break from his breast with a sound of the death rattle.He resumed,--"One day I was leaning on the window of my cell.What book was I reading then?Oh! all that is a whirlwind in my head.I was reading.The window opened upon a Square.I heard a sound of tambourine and music.Annoyed at being thus disturbed in my revery, I glanced into the Square.What I beheld, others saw beside myself, and yet it was not a spectacle made for human eyes.There, in the middle of the pavement,--it was midday, the sun was shining brightly,--a creature was dancing.A creature so beautiful that God would have preferred her to the Virgin and have chosen her for his mother and have wished to be born of her if she had been in existence when he was made man!Her eyes were black and splendid; in the midst of her black locks, some hairs through which the sun shone glistened like threads of gold.Her feet disappeared in their movements like the spokes of a rapidly turning wheel.Around her head, in her black tresses, there were disks of metal, which glittered in the sun, and formed a coronet of stars on her brow.Her dress thick set with spangles, blue, and dotted with a thousand sparks, gleamed like a summer night.Her brown, supple arms twined and untwined around her waist, like two scarfs.The form of her body was surprisingly beautiful. Oh! what a resplendent figure stood out, like something luminous even in the sunlight!Alas, young girl, it was thou! Surprised, intoxicated, charmed, I allowed myself to gaze upon thee.I looked so long that I suddenly shuddered with terror; I felt that fate was seizing hold of me."The priest paused for a moment, overcome with emotion. Then he continued,--"Already half fascinated, I tried to cling fast to something and hold myself back from falling.I recalled the snares which Satan had already set for me.The creature before my eyes possessed that superhuman beauty which can come only from heaven or hell.It was no simple girl made with a little of our earth, and dimly lighted within by the vacillating ray of a woman's soul.It was an angel! but of shadows and flame, and not of light.At the moment when I was meditating thus, I beheld beside you a goat, a beast of witches, which smiled as it gazed at me.The midday sun gave him golden horns.Then I perceived the snare of the demon, and I no longer doubted that you had come from hell and that you had come thence for my perdition.I believed it."Here the priest looked the prisoner full in the face, and added, coldly,--"I believe it still.Nevertheless, the charm operated little by little; your dancing whirled through my brain; I felt the mysterious spell working within me.All that should have awakened was lulled to sleep; and like those who die in the snow, I felt pleasure in allowing this sleep to draw on.All at once, you began to sing.What could I do, unhappy wretch?Your song was still more charming than your dancing. I tried to flee.Impossible.I was nailed, rooted to the spot.It seemed to me that the marble of the pavement had risen to my knees.I was forced to remain until the end. My feet were like ice, my head was on fire.At last you took pity on me, you ceased to sing, you disappeared.The reflection of the dazzling vision, the reverberation of the enchanting music disappeared by degrees from my eyes and my ears. Then I fell back into the embrasure of the window, more rigid, more feeble than a statue torn from its base.The vesper bell roused me.I drew myself up; I fled; but alas! something within me had fallen never to rise again, something had come upon me from which I could not flee."He made another pause and went on,--"Yes, dating from that day, there was within me a man whom I did not know.I tried to make use of all my remedies. The cloister, the altar, work, books,--follies!Oh, how hollow does science sound when one in despair dashes against it a head full of passions!Do you know, young girl, what I saw thenceforth between my book and me?You, your shade, the image of the luminous apparition which had one day crossed the space before me.But this image had no longer the same color; it was sombre, funereal, gloomy as the black circle which long pursues the vision of the imprudent man who has gazed intently at the sun."Unable to rid myself of it, since I heard your song humming ever in my head, beheld your feet dancing always on my breviary, felt even at night, in my dreams, your form in contact with my own, I desired to see you again, to touch you, to know who you were, to see whether I should really find you like the ideal image which I had retained of you, to shatter my dream, perchance, with reality.At all events, I hoped that a new impression would efface the first, and the first had become insupportable.I sought you.I saw you once more.Calamity!When I had seen you twice, I wanted to see you a thousand times, I wanted to see you always. Then--how stop myself on that slope of hell?--then I no longer belonged to myself.The other end of the thread which the demon had attached to my wings he had fastened to his foot.I became vagrant and wandering like yourself. I waited for you under porches, I stood on the lookout for you at the street corners, I watched for you from the summit of my tower.Every evening I returned to myself more charmed, more despairing, more bewitched, more lost!
或许您还会喜欢:
局外人
作者:佚名
章节:28 人气:2
摘要:人道主义思想加缪的思想,其核心就是人道主义,人的尊严问题,一直是缠绕着他的创作、生活和政治斗争的根本问题。《西西弗斯神话》和《局外人》构成了加缪文学创作的母题,包含着加缪未来作品的核心问题。书中,西西弗斯的幸福假设的提出,其本质动机,不在荒诞,荒诞既不能告诉我们幸福,也不能告诉我们不幸,之所以加缪假设西西弗斯是幸福的,是因为他认为只有幸福的生活才符合人的尊严,被责为永罚,却幸福,这绝对是一种反抗, [点击阅读]
广岛之恋
作者:佚名
章节:11 人气:2
摘要:一九五七年夏天,八月,广岛。一个三十岁左右的法国女子在这座城市里。她是来参加拍摄一部关于和平的影片,她在影片中扮演一个角色。故事发生在这个法国女人回国的前夕。她在其中扮演角色的这部影片实际上已近完成。只剩下一组镜头要拍摄。就在她回法国的前夕,这个在影片中始终未提及名字的法国女人——这个无名妇女——将遇到一个日本人(工程师或建筑师),他们之间产生了一段过眼云烟的恋情。 [点击阅读]
康复的家庭
作者:佚名
章节:10 人气:2
摘要:二月中旬的一天早晨,我看见起居室门背面贴着一张画卡——这是我们家祝贺生日的习惯方式——祝贺妻子的生日。这张贺卡是长子张贴的,画面上两个身穿同样颜色的服装、个子一般高的小姑娘正在给黄色和蓝色的大朵鲜花浇水。花朵和少女上都用罗马字母写着母亲的名字UKARI——这是长子对母亲的特殊称呼。对于不知内情的人来说,这首先就有点不可思议。长子出生的时候,脑部发育不正常。 [点击阅读]
怪钟
作者:佚名
章节:30 人气:2
摘要:九月九日的下午,一如平常的下午,没有两样。任何人对于那天即将发生的不幸,毫无一丝预感。(除了一人例外,那就是住在威尔布朗姆胡同四十七号的巴克太太,她对于预感特别有一套,每次她心头觉得一阵怪异之后,总要将那种不安的感觉,详详细细地描述一番。但是巴克太太住在四十七号,离开十九号甚远,那儿会发生什么事,与她无干,所以她觉得似乎没有必要去做什么预感)。“加文狄希秘书打字社”社长K-玛汀戴小姐。 [点击阅读]
星球大战前传2:克隆人的进攻
作者:佚名
章节:26 人气:2
摘要:他沉浸在眼前的场景中。一切都那么宁静,那么安谧,又那么……平常。这才是他一直盼望的生活,亲朋好友团聚——他深信,眼前正是那幅画面,尽管惟一能认出的面孔是疼爱自己的母亲。生活本该如此:充满温馨、亲情、欢笑、恬静。这是他魂牵梦索的生活,是他无时无刻不在祈盼的生活:体味暖人的笑容,分享惬意的交谈,轻拍亲人的肩头。但最令他神往的是母亲脸上绽出的微笑。此时此刻,他深爱着的母亲无比幸福,她已不再是奴隶。 [点击阅读]
暮光之城1:暮色
作者:佚名
章节:23 人气:2
摘要:序幕我从未多想我将如何死去,虽然在过去的几个月我有足够的理由去思考这个问题,但是即使我有想过,也从未想到死亡将如此地降临。我屏息静气地望着房间的另一头,远远地凝视着猎人那深邃的眼眸,而他则以愉快的目光回应我。这无疑是一个不错的死法,死在别人——我钟爱的人的家里。甚至可以说轰轰烈烈。这应该算是死得其所。我知道如果我没有来福克斯的话,此刻也就不必面对死亡。但是,尽管我害怕,也不会后悔当初的决定。 [点击阅读]
暮光之城2:新月
作者:佚名
章节:25 人气:2
摘要:我百分之九十九点九地确定我是在做梦。我之所以如此确信的理由是:第一,我正站在一束明亮的阳光下——那种令人目眩的,明净的太阳从未照耀在我的新家乡——华盛顿州的福克斯镇上,这里常年笼罩在如烟似雾的绵绵细雨之中;第二,我正注视着玛丽祖母,奶奶至今去世已经有六年多了,因此,这一确凿的证据足以证明我是在做梦。奶奶没有发生很大的变化;她的脸庞还是我记忆中的模样。 [点击阅读]
暮光之城4:破晓
作者:佚名
章节:41 人气:2
摘要:童年不是从出生到某一个年龄为止;也不是某一个特定的年纪孩子长大了,抛开幼稚童年的国度里,没有人会死去EdnaSt.VincentMillay前言我拥有比一般人多得多的濒临死亡的经历;这并不是一件你真正会习惯的事。这似乎有些奇怪,我又一次不可避免地面对着死亡。好像注定逃不开这一宿命,每一次我都成功逃开了,但是它又一次次地回到我身边。然而,这一次的似乎与众不同。 [点击阅读]
最后的星期集
作者:佚名
章节:7 人气:2
摘要:我完整地得到了你我深知你已经属于我,我从未想到应该确定你赠予的价值。你也不提这样的要求。日复一日,夜复一夜,你倒空你的花篮,我瞟一眼,随手扔进库房,次日没有一点儿印象。你的赠予融和着新春枝叶的嫩绿和秋夜圆月的清辉。你以黑发的水浪淹没我的双足,你说:“我的赠予不足以纳你王国的赋税,贫女子我再无可赠的东西。”说话间,泪水模糊了你的明眸。 [点击阅读]
火车
作者:佚名
章节:29 人气:2
摘要:冒着火的车子,用来载生前做过恶事的亡灵前往地狱。电车离开绫濑车站时才开始下的雨,半是冰冻的寒雨。怪不得一早起来左膝盖就疼得难受。本间俊介走到第一节车厢中间,右手抓着扶手,左手撑着收起来的雨伞,站在靠门的位置上。尖锐的伞头抵着地板,权充拐杖。他眺望着车窗外。平常日子的下午三点,常磐线的车厢内很空,若想坐下,空位倒是很多。 [点击阅读]
猫知道
作者:佚名
章节:8 人气:2
摘要:第一章“再把地图拿来给我看一看,悦子。”站在拐角处向左右两侧张望的哥哥说。我从提包皮中取出一张已经被翻看得满是皱纹的纸片。“说得倒轻巧,很不容易!牧村这家伙画的地图,怎么这么差劲!”哥哥一边嘟嚷着,一边用手背抹去额头顶的汗。就在这时,右边路程走过来一个人。这是一个穿着淡青色衬衫。夹着一半公文包皮的青年男子。 [点击阅读]
生的定义
作者:佚名
章节:15 人气:2
摘要:我现在正准备在世田谷市民大学讲演的讲演稿。主办单位指定的讲演内容是这样的:希望我把三年前在小樽召开的全北海道残疾儿童福利大会上讲的话继续讲下去。上次大会的讲演记录,业已以“为了和不可能‘亲切’相待的人斗争下去”为题出版发行了。于是我就把该文章重新读了一遍,考虑如何接着往下讲。(该文载《核之大火与“人的”呼声》一书,岩波书店出版。 [点击阅读]
Copyright© 2006-2019. All Rights Reserved.