第 17 节
作者:莫莫言      更新:2021-02-24 23:44      字数:6020
  archbishop; and before an assembled party; one of those priestly
  speeches which are big with vengeance and soft with honied mildness。
  The Baron de Listomere went the next day to see this implacable enemy;
  who must have imposed sundry hard conditions on him; for the baron's
  subsequent conduct showed the most entire submission to the will of
  the terrible Jesuit。
  The new bishop made over Mademoiselle Gamard's house by deed of gift
  to the Chapter of the cathedral; he gave Chapeloud's books and
  bookcases to the seminary; he presented the two disputed pictures to
  the Chapel of the Virgin; but he kept Chapeloud's portrait。 No one
  knew how to explain this almost total renunciation of Mademoiselle
  Gamard's bequest。 Monsieur de Bourbonne supposed that the bishop had
  secretly kept moneys that were invested; so as to support his rank
  with dignity in Paris; where of course he would take his seat on the
  Bishops' bench in the Upper Chamber。 It was not until the night before
  Monseigneur Troubert's departure from Tours that the sly old fox
  unearthed the hidden reason of this strange action; the deathblow
  given by the most persistent vengeance to the feeblest of victims。
  Madame de Listomere's legacy to Birotteau was contested by the Baron
  de Listomere under a pretence of undue influence!
  A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the
  rank of captain。 As a measure of ecclesiastical discipline; the curate
  of Saint…Symphorien was suspended。 His superiors judged him guilty。
  The murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler。 If Monseigneur
  Troubert had kept Mademoiselle Gamard's property he would have found
  it difficult to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure
  Birotteau。
  At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe; Bishop of Troyes; drove
  along the quay Saint…Symphorien in a post…chaise on his way to Paris
  poor Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace
  above the road。 The unhappy priest; smitten by the archbishop; was
  pale and haggard。 Grief; stamped on every feature; distorted the face
  that was once so mildly gay。 Illness had dimmed his eyes; formerly
  brightened by the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious
  ideas; with a veil which simulated thought。 It was but the skeleton of
  the old Birotteau who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but
  so content along the Cloister。 The bishop cast one look of pity and
  contempt upon his victim; then he consented to forget him; and went
  his way。
  There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a
  Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth。 In these days the Church is no
  longer a political power; and does not absorb the whole strength of
  her solitaries。 Celibacy; however; presents the inherent vice of
  concentating the faculties of man upon a single passion; egotism;
  which renders celibates either useless or mischievous。 We live at a
  period when the defect of governments is to make Man for Society
  rather than Society for Man。 There is a perpetual struggle going on
  between the Individual and the Social system which insists on using
  him; while he is endeavoring to use it to his own profit; whereas; in
  former days; man; really more free; was also more loyal to the public
  weal。 The round in which men struggle in these days has been
  insensibly widened; the soul which can grasp it as a whole will ever
  be a magnificent exception; for; as a general thing; in morals as in
  physics; impulsion loses in intensity what it gains in extension。
  Society can not be based on exceptions。 Man in the first instance was
  purely and simply; father; his heart beat warmly; concentrated in the
  one ray of Family。 Later; he lived for a clan; or a small community;
  hence the great historical devotions of Greece and Rome。 After that he
  was a man of caste or of a religion; to maintain the greatness of
  which he often proved himself sublime; but by that time the field of
  his interests became enlarged by many intellectual regions。 In our
  day; his life is attached to that of a vast country; sooner or later
  his family will be; it is predicted; the entire universe。
  Will this moral cosmopolitanism; the hope of Christian Rome; prove to
  be only a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the
  realization of a noble vision; in the Brotherhood of Man。 But; alas!
  the human machine does not have such divine proportions。 Souls that
  are vast enough to grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men
  only will never belong to either fathers of families or simple
  citizens。 Some physiologists have thought that as the brain enlarges
  the heart narrows; but they are mistaken。 The apparent egotism of men
  who bear a science; a nation; a code of laws in their bosom is the
  noblest of passions; it is; as one may say; the maternity of the
  masses; to give birth to new peoples; to produce new ideas they must
  unite within their mighty brains the breasts of woman and the force of
  God。 The history of such men as Innocent the Third and Peter the
  Great; and all great leaders of their age and nation will show; if
  need be; in the highest spheres the same vast thought of which
  Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
  Cloister of Saint…Gatien。
  ADDENDUM
  The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy。
  Birotteau; Abbe Francois                Troubert; Abbe Hyacinthe
  The Lily of the Valley                 The Member for Arcis
  Cesar Birotteau
  Villenoix; Pauline Salomon de
  Bourbonne; De                                Louis Lambert
  Madame Firmiani                         A Seaside Tragedy
  Listomere; Baronne de
  Cesar Birotteau
  The Muse of the Department
  End