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