八喜电子书 > 文学名著电子书 > 雨果 悲惨世界 英文版2 >

第11部分

雨果 悲惨世界 英文版2-第11部分

小说: 雨果 悲惨世界 英文版2 字数: 每页4000字

按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!



n the weariness of their first slumber; at the moment when they were falling sound asleep and beginning to get warm; to rouse themselves; to rise and to go and pray in an ice…cold and gloomy chapel; with their knees on the stones。
  On certain days each of these beings in turn had to remain for twelve successive hours in a kneeling posture; or prostrate; with face upon the pavement; and arms outstretched in the form of a cross。
  The others were men; these were women。
  What had those men done?
  They had stolen; violated; pillaged; murdered; assassinated。
  They were bandits; counterfeiters; poisoners; incendiaries; murderers; parricides。
  What had these women done?
  They had done nothing whatever。
  On the one hand; highway robbery; fraud; deceit; violence; sensuality; homicide; all sorts of sacrilege; every variety of crime; on the other; one thing only; innocence。
  Perfect innocence; almost caught up into heaven in a mysterious assumption; attached to the earth by virtue; already possessing something of heaven through holiness。
  On the one hand; confidences over crimes; which are exchanged in whispers; on the other; the confession of faults made aloud。 And what crimes!
  And what faults!
  On the one hand; miasms; on the other; an ineffable perfume。 On the one hand; a moral pest; guarded from sight; penned up under the range of cannon; and literally devouring its plague…stricken victims; on the other; the chaste flame of all souls on the same hearth。 There; darkness; here; the shadow; but a shadow filled with gleams of light; and of gleams full of radiance。
  Two strongholds of slavery; but in the first; deliverance possible; a legal limit always in sight; and then; escape。
  In the second; perpetuity; the sole hope; at the distant extremity of the future; that faint light of liberty which men call death。
  In the first; men are bound only with chains; in the other; chained by faith。
  What flowed from the first?
  An immense curse; the gnashing of teeth; hatred; desperate viciousness; a cry of rage against human society; a sarcasm against heaven。
  What results flowed from the second?
  Blessings and love。
  And in these two places; so similar yet so unlike; these two species of beings who were so very unlike; were undergoing the same work; expiation。
  Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the former; that personal expiation; the expiation for one's self。
  But he did not understand that of these last; that of creatures without reproach and without stain; and he trembled as he asked himself: The expiation of what?
  What expiation?
  A voice within his conscience replied:
  〃The most divine of human generosities; the expiation for others。〃
  Here all personal theory is withheld; we are only the narrator; we place ourselves at Jean Valjean's point of view; and we translate his impressions。
  Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation; the highest possible pitch of virtue; the innocence which pardons men their faults; and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to; torture accepted; punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned; for the sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity swallowed up in the love of God; but even there preserving its distinct and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery of those who are punished and the smile of those who are repensed。
  And he remembered that he had dared to murmur!
  Often; in the middle of the night; he rose to listen to the grateful song of those innocent creatures weighed down with severities; and the blood ran cold in his veins at the thought that those who were justly chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy; and that he; wretch that he was; had shaken his fist at God。
  There was one striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply; like a warning whisper from Providence itself:
  the scaling of that wall; the passing of those barriers; the adventure accepted even at the risk of death; the painful and difficult ascent; all those efforts even; which he had made to escape from that other place of expiation; he had made in order to gain entrance into this one。
  Was this a symbol of his destiny?
  This house was a prison likewise and bore a melancholy resemblance to that other one whence he had fled; and yet he had never conceived an idea of anything similar。
  Again he beheld gratings; bolts; iron barsto guard whom?
  Angels。
  These lofty walls which he had seen around tigers; he now beheld once more around lambs。
  This was a place of expiation; and not of punishment; and yet; it was still more austere; more gloomy; and more pitiless than the other。
  These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts。 A cold; harsh wind; that wind which had chilled his youth; traversed the barred and padlocked grating of the vultures; a still harsher and more biting breeze blew in the cage of these doves。
  Why?
  When he thought on these things; all that was within him was lost in amazement before this mystery of sublimity。
  In these meditations; his pride vanished。
  He scrutinized his own heart in all manner of ways; he felt his pettiness; and many a time he wept。
  All that had entered into his life for the last six months had led him back towards the Bishop's holy injunctions; Cosette through love; the convent through humility。
  Sometimes at eventide; in the twilight; at an hour when the garden was deserted; he could be seen on his knees in the middle of the walk which skirted the chapel; in front of the window through which he had gazed on the night of his arrival; and turned towards the spot where; as he knew; the sister was making reparation; prostrated in prayer。 Thus he prayed as he knelt before the sister。
  It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God。
  Everything that surrounded him; that peaceful garden; those fragrant flowers; those children who uttered joyous cries; those grave and simple women; that silent cloister; slowly permeated him; and little by little; his soul became pounded of silence like the cloister; of perfume like the flowers; of simplicity like the women; of joy like the children。
  And then he reflected that these had been two houses of God which had received him in succession at two critical moments in his life:
  the first; when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him; the second; at a moment when human society had again set out in pursuit of him; and when the galleys were again yawning; and that; had it not been for the first; he should have relapsed into crime; and had it not been for the second; into torment。
  His whole heart melted in gratitude; and he loved more and more。
  Many years passed in this manner; Cosette was growing up。
  'The end of Volume II。 〃Cosette〃' 


BOOK FIRST。PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM
CHAPTER I 
  PARVULUS
  Paris has a child; and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the sparrow; the child is called the gamin。
  Couple these two ideas which contain; the one all the furnace; the other all the dawn; strike these two sparks together; Paris; childhood; there leaps out from them a little being。
  Homuncio; Plautus would say。
  This little being is joyous。
  He has not food every day; and he goes to the play every evening; if he sees good。
  He has no shirt on his body; no shoes on his feet; no roof over his head; he is like the flies of heaven; who have none of these things。 He is from seven to thirteen years of age; he lives in bands; roams the streets; lodges in the open air; wears an old pair of trousers of his father's; which descend below his heels; an old hat of some other father; which descends below his ears; a single suspender of yellow listing; he runs; lies in wait; rummages about; wastes time; blackens pipes; swears like a convict; haunts the wine…shop; knows thieves; calls gay women thou; talks slang; sings obscene songs; and has no evil in his heart。 This is because he has in his heart a pearl; innocence; and pearls are not to be dissolved in mud。
  So long as man is in his childhood; God wills that he shall be innocent。
  If one were to ask that enormous city:
  〃What is this?〃 she would reply: 〃It is my little one。〃


BOOK FIRST。PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM
CHAPTER II 
  SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS
   The gaminthe street Arabof Paris is the dwarf of the giant。
  Let us not exaggerate; this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt; but; in that case; he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes; but then they have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging; and he loves it; for he finds his mother there; but he prefers the street; because there he finds liberty。
  He has his own games; his own bits of mischief; whose foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar metaphors:
  to be dead is to eat dandelions by the root; his own occupations; calling hackney…coaches; letting down carriage…steps; establishing means of transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains; which he calls making the bridge of arts; crying discourses pronounced by the authorities in favor of the French people; cleaning out the cracks in the pavement; he has his own coinage; which is posed of all the little morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets。 This curious money; which receives the name of loquesragshas an invariable and well…regulated currency in this little Bohemia of children。
  ly; he has his own fauna; which he observes attentively in the corners; the lady…bird; the death's…head plant…louse; the daddy…long…legs; 〃the devil;〃 a black insect; which menaces by twisting about its tail armed with two horns。
  He has his fabulous monster; which has scales under its belly; but is not a lizard; which has pustules on its back; but is not a toad; which inhabits the nooks of old lime…kilns and wells that have run dry; which is black; hairy; sticky; which crawls sometimes slowly; sometimes rapidly; which has no cry; but which has a look; and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it; he calls this monster 〃the deaf thing。〃
  The search for

返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 0 0

你可能喜欢的