姐,51。。。
轻松的小说阅读环境
Site Manager
双城记英文版 - Part 2 Chapter XIII. MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN
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。
  Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook.Yes, it took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he must have died of two.Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!— always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it.Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on its own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his way—tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “The earth and the fullness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.”Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to finances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to finances private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated before by mankind—always excepting superior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt.A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body- women waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, the Farmer-General— howsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social morality was at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day.For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business—if that could have been anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time—and has been since—to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur—forming a goodly half of the polite company— would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world—which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of mother—there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty.The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the half- dozen had become members of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spot—thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about “the Centre of Truth:” holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truth—which did not need much demonstration—but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on—and it did a world of good which never became manifest.But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away.Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate “frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheel—the axe was a rarity—Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of Our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven—which may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never troubled it.Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and wave of the hand on another, time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen no more.The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out.“I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “to the Devil!”With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs.He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation: then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one.Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could.With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed though the streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles.“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out.A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.”“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes.”The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!”The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.He took out his purse.“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses? See! Give him that.”He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!”He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?”“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling. “How do they call you?”“They call me Defarge.”“Of what trade?”“Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.”“Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?”Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broken some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! Who threw that?”He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.“You dogs,” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: “I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels.”So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word, “Go on!”He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer- General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and hidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball—when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadiness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their courses.
或许您还会喜欢:
贵族之家
作者:佚名
章节:47 人气:0
摘要:在俄罗斯文学史上,伊万-谢尔盖耶维奇-屠格涅夫(一八一八——一八八三)占有一席光荣的位置。而在他的全部文学作品中,长篇小说又具有特殊重要意义。屠格涅夫是俄罗斯和世界文学现实主义长篇小说的奠基者之一,他的长篇小说给他带来了世界声誉。他的六部长篇小说有一个共同的中心主题:与作家同时代的俄罗斯进步知识分子的历史命运。屠格涅夫既是这些知识分子的编年史作者,又是他们的歌手和裁判者。 [点击阅读]
赫塔米勒短篇集
作者:佚名
章节:3 人气:0
摘要:1他已经死了。也许他还活着。人可以默默无闻地活着。我知道他再也不来了。每当铁皮咯吱作响的时候,每当我看见白色的树皮或者看见某人手中拿着一块手帕的时候,我就会浮想连翩,我就会想起我没有看见的某种事物。也许我应该想那些映入我的眼帘的事物,但是我不敢想。谁能告诉我必须想多久才能牢记那幕惨剧呢?怎样做才能从我的脑海中抹去对它的记忆呢?我不知道我应该看外部世界的白树皮还是应该潜沉于内心世界之中。 [点击阅读]
达芬奇密码
作者:佚名
章节:114 人气:0
摘要:郇山隐修会是一个确实存在的组织,是一个成立于1099年的欧洲秘密社团。1975年巴黎国家图书馆发现了被称作“秘密卷宗”的羊皮纸文献,才知道包皮括艾撒克·牛顿爵士、波担切利、维克多·雨果和列昂纳多·达·芬奇等众多人物均为郇山隐修会成员。人们所知的“天主事工会”是一个梵帝冈教派——一个极度虔诚的罗马天主教派。 [点击阅读]
远大前程
作者:佚名
章节:60 人气:0
摘要:1993年暑假后,我接到上海的老朋友吴钧陶先生来信,说南京译林出版社章祖德先生请他译狄更斯的《远大前程》,万一他没有时间,还请他代为找一位译者。吴先生正忙于孙大雨先生的作品编校,而且上海的一些译者手头都有任务,所以他请我译这部作品。我虽然在英语专业从事英美文学的教学和研究工作一辈子,但还没有正正式式地译过一本世界名著。我大部分精力花在中美文化的比较,以及向国外介绍中国文化方面。 [点击阅读]
迷茫的女郎
作者:佚名
章节:7 人气:0
摘要:1去年春天,三泽顺子刚从东京的一所女子大学毕业,就立刻进了R报社工作了。当时,在入社考试时,有关人员问她希望到哪个部去,她回答说,想到社会部。有关人员看了她的履历表说:“你的英语不错嘛!”是的,三泽顺子毕业的那所女子大学,英语教学是相当有名气的。然而,后来顺子没有能到社会部去,却被分配在R报社的资料调查部。和顺子同时考入报社的女性还有事业部的一个,校阅部的一个。 [点击阅读]
追风筝的人
作者:佚名
章节:24 人气:0
摘要:卡勒德·胡赛尼(KhaledHosseini),1965年生于喀布尔,后随父亲逃往美国。胡赛尼毕业于加州大学圣地亚哥医学系,现居加州执业。《追风筝的人》是他的第一本小说,因书中角色*刻画生动,故事情节震撼感人,出版后大获好评,获得各项新人奖,并跃居全美各大畅销排行榜,目前已由梦工厂改拍成电影。 [点击阅读]
透明的遗书
作者:佚名
章节:12 人气:0
摘要:好像睡着了,尽管只是短暂的时间,感到“咯噔”一下小小的震动,醒了过来,西村裕一条件反射般站了起来,急忙朝车门方向走去。“咯噔”一声响过以后,不到二十秒钟将抵达Y车站。但站起身来,立即发觉窗外的景色与往常不同。只见一片广阔的河滩,电车临近铁桥,从脚下传来“轰隆、轰隆”重重的金属声。西村苦笑了一下,心想习惯这东西实在太可怕了。 [点击阅读]
通灵女
作者:佚名
章节:7 人气:0
摘要:1十岁的香樱里还不懂得“烦躁”这个词,所以,她不知道该用什么词来形容那种萦绕心头的感觉,只能认为“烦死了”。是从什么时候开始的?她自己也记不清楚了。虽然并非一天二十四小时都如此,但是,每天早晨起床时、吃饭时、上学时,那种“萦绕心头”的感觉总是挥之不去。每当这时候,母亲对待香樱里的惟一方法,就是说她,“什么呀,睡迷糊了吗?”香樱里自己也想:是呀,是睡迷糊了吧。 [点击阅读]
采果集
作者:佚名
章节:9 人气:0
摘要:吴笛译1如果你吩咐,我就把我的果实采满一筐又一筐,送到你的庭院,尽管有的已经掉落,有的还未成熟。因为这个季节身背丰盈果实的重负,浓荫下不时传来牧童哀怨的笛声。如果你吩咐,我就去河上扬帆启程。三月风躁动不安,把倦怠的波浪搅得满腹怨言。果园已结出全部果实,在这令人疲乏的黄昏时分,从你岸边的屋里传来你在夕阳中的呼唤。 [点击阅读]
金粉之谜
作者:佚名
章节:16 人气:0
摘要:一、夜访侦探夜晚,拉乌尔看完了戏,回到自己家里。在前厅的穿衣镜前面,他站了一会儿,自我欣赏了一番:优美的身躯,宽阔的肩膀,高挺的胸脯,健壮的肌肉,配上一套高级衣料制做的西服,真是一表人材。前厅不大,陈设挺考究。可以清楚地看出,这是单身汉居住的公寓套间,家具精美,起居恬适。住在这里,准是一个重视生活享受、又很富裕的人。每天晚上,拉乌尔都喜欢坐在工作间宽大的坐椅里,抽上一支香烟,闭目养神。 [点击阅读]
金色的机遇
作者:佚名
章节:12 人气:0
摘要:乔治。邓达斯仁立在伦敦街头沉思。在他的周围,卖苦力的与赚大钱的像是席卷而来的潮水一样汹涌流动。此刻,乔治衣冠楚楚,裤线笔直,根本没有注意到他们。他正忙着考虑下一步的行动。刚刚发生了一件事情!用社会下层的说法,乔治与他富有的舅舅(即利德贝特。吉林公司的艾尔弗雷德。利德贝特)“吵了一架”。准确他说,这嘲争吵”完全是利德贝特先生单方面的。那些言辞就像是愤怒的溪流从他的嘴里源源不断奔涌而来。 [点击阅读]
铁皮鼓
作者:佚名
章节:46 人气:0
摘要:供词:本人系疗养与护理院的居住者①。我的护理员在观察我,他几乎每时每刻都监视着我;因为门上有个窥视孔,我的护理员的眼睛是那种棕色的,它不可能看透蓝眼睛的我——①本书主人公,自述者奥斯卡-马策拉特,因被指控为一件人命案的嫌疑犯而被“强制送入”疗养与护理院(疯人院的委婉称谓)进行观察。本书的脚注皆为译注。因此,我的护理员根本不可能是我的敌人。我已经喜欢上他了。 [点击阅读]
Copyright© 2006-2019. All Rights Reserved.