【国外英文文学】茶花女.doc

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1、【国外英文文学茶花女】卡米尔(La Dame Aux Camilias)大仲马 (大仲马)第一章在我看来，除非一个人花了很长时间研究人，否则不可能创造出人物，就像只有认真掌握一种语言才能说一门语言一样。我还不够大，无法发明，只满足于叙述，我恳求读者相信故事的真实性，故事中的所有角色，除了女主人公，都还活着。我所收集的大部分事实的目击者都在巴黎，如果我的证词不够充分，我可能会请他们证实我的说法。而且，由于某种特殊情况，只有我一个人可以写这些东西，因为只有我一个人能够给出最后的细节，否则不可能使这个故事既有趣又完整。这就是我知道这些细节的方式。1847 年 3 月 12 日，我在拉菲特街看到一张巨

2、大的黄色标语牌，宣布出售家具和古玩。出售是由于所有者的死亡而发生的。没有提到业主的名字，但拍卖会将于 16 日 12 日至 5 日在 Rue dAntin 9 号举行。标语牌进一步宣布，房间和家具可以在 13 日和 14 日看到。我一直很喜欢好奇心，我下定决心，即使不买一些，也一定不要错过这个机会，无论如何都要看看它们。第二天，我在 9 点拜访了 Rue dAntin。天色尚早，来访者已然不少，有男有女，女人们虽一身羊绒天鹅绒，马车已等候在门口，却惊愕地注视着，钦佩他们在他们面前看到的奢华。我很快就发现了这种惊讶和钦佩的原因，因为在开始稍微仔细地检查一下之后，我毫不费力地发现我在一个有佣人的房

3、子里。现在，如果说社会上的女人有什么想看的东西（那里有社会上的女人），那就是那些马车日复一日溅起自己马车的女人的家，她们和她们一样，与他们，在歌剧院和意大利人那里都有包厢，他们在巴黎炫耀他们的美丽、他们的钻石和他们的丑闻。这个人已经死了，所以即使是最贤惠的女人也能进入她的卧室。死亡已经净化了这个华丽肮脏居所的空气，如果还需要更多借口，他们有一个借口，他们只是来做买卖，他们不知道是谁做的。他们已经看过布告牌，他们希望看到布告牌上宣布的内容，并事先做出选择。还有什么比这更自然的呢？然而，尽管如此，在所有这些美丽的事物中，他们还是忍不住要寻找这个妓女生活的痕迹，无疑，他们听说过一些足够奇怪的故事。不

4、幸的是，这个谜随着女神一起消失了，尽管他们尽了一切努力，但他们只发现了自主人去世后出售的东西，而没有发现她生前出售的东西。至于其他，有很多东西值得买。家具很棒。有紫檀木和布尔木的橱柜和桌子，塞夫尔花瓶和中国花瓶，萨克斯小雕像，缎子，天鹅绒，花边；什么都不缺。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

5、 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 womans extravagance seemed to be seen at its height.On a large table against the wall

6、, 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

7、 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 womans dressing-room, I amused myself with examining every detail, and I discovered that these magnificently chiselled objects bore different initials and different c

8、oronets. 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 courtesans first death.世界上还

9、有什么比晚年的罪恶更可悲的吗，尤其是女人？她没有保留尊严，没有引起任何兴趣。永远的悔改，不是对所遵循的邪恶方式的悔改，而是对流产的计划的悔改，对白花的钱的悔改，是一个人所能遇到的最令人悲伤的事情。我认识一位曾经是“同性恋”的老妇人，她与过去的唯一联系是一个几乎和她自己一样漂亮的女儿。这个可怜的人，她的母亲从来没有对她说过，“你是我的孩子”，除了命令她像她自己滋养她的青春一样滋养她的晚年，这个可怜的人被称为路易丝，她顺从了她的母亲，毫不犹豫地抛弃了自己。意志，没有激情，没有乐趣，因为她会从事任何其他可能教给她的职业。The constant sight of dissipation, preco

10、cious 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 ho

11、ur, 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

12、, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its expression of innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like a figure of Resignation.One day the girls 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

13、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

14、 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

15、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

16、 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

17、 it. The mother still lives; how? God knows.This 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 watch

18、ing 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 d

19、ead?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 any extent, sir.But the sale will cover it?And m

20、ore 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 perfe

21、ctly 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

22、 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

23、never dared to despise a woman at first sight.Chapter 2The sale was to take place on the 16th. A days interval had been left between the visiting days and the sale, in order to give time for taking down the hangings, curtains, etc. I had just returned from abroad. It was natural that I had not heard

24、 of Marguerites death among the pieces of news which ones 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 the

25、y 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 everybodys life goes on as if the incident had never occurred, without so much as a tear.Nowadays, at twenty-five, tears have

26、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 Marguerites belongings, that instinctive ind

27、ulgence, 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

28、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

29、 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 Marg

30、uerites 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,

31、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 rapid

32、ly 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

33、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 f

34、olds 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, t

35、wo 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

36、 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

37、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 Marguerites face the virginal, almost childlike expression, which characterized it,

38、 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

39、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

40、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 cam

41、ellias 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 habitues of the theatres to which she most often went. She was never seen with any flowers but camellias. At

42、 the florists, Madame Barjons, 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 themsel

43、ves boasted of it; so that all seemed equally pleased with one another. Nevertheless, for about three years, after a visit to Bagnees, 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, ent

44、irely to her own satisfaction.This is what I was told on the subject. In the spring of 1847 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 w

45、as 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 Marguerites 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, cau

46、ght sight of Marguerite at a turn 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 wi

47、th her maid, and not being in any fear of compromising herself, granted the dukes request. Some people who knew her, happening to be at Bagneres, took upon themselves to explain Mademoiselle Gautiers true position to the duke. It was a blow to the old man, for the resemblance with his daughter was e

48、nded 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 sacrif

49、ice 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 fatigu