Chapter 1 Minue

2018-04-15 作者： 外研社编译组

Chapter 1 Minue

Www.Pinwenba.Com 吧by Guy de Maupassant

Great misfortunes donot affect me very much, said John Bridelle, an old bachelor who passed for a sceptic.I have seen war at quite close quarters; I walked across corpses without any feeling of pity.The great brutal facts of nature, or of humanity, may call forth cries of horror or indignation, but do not cause us that tightening of the heart, that shudder that goes down your spine at sight of certain little heartrending episodes.

The greatest sorrow that anyone can experience is certainly the loss of a child, to a mother; and the loss of his mother, to a man. It is intense, terrible, it rends your heart and upsets your mind; but one is healed of these shocks, just as large bleeding wounds become healed.Certain meetings, certain things half perceived, or surmised, certain secret sorrows, certain tricks of fate which awake in us a whole world of painful thoughts, which suddenly unclose to us the mysterious door of moral suffering, complicated, incurable; all the deeper because they appear benign, all the more bitter because they are intangible, all the more tenacious because they appear almost factitious, leave in our souls a sort of trail of sadness, a taste of bitterness, a feeling of disenchantment, from which it takes a long time to freeourselves.

I have always present to my mind two or three things that others would surely not have noticed, but which penetrated my being like fine, sharp incurable stings.

You might not perhaps understand the emotion that I retained from these hasty impressions.I will tell you one of them.She was very old, but as lively as a young girl.It may be that my imagination alone is responsible for my emotion.

I am fifty.I was young then and studying law.I was rather sad, somewhat of a dreamer, full of a pessimistic philosophy and did not care much for noisy cafes, boisterous companions, or stupid girls.I rose early and one of my chief enjoyments was to walk alone about eight o'clock in the morning in the nursery garden of the Luxembourg.

You people never knew that nursery garden.It was like a forgotten garden of the last century, as pretty as the gentle smile of an old lady.Thick hedges divided the narrow regular paths, peaceful paths between two walls of carefully trimmed foliage.The gardener's great shears were pruning unceasingly these leafy partitions, and here and there one came across beds of flowers, lines of little trees looking like schoolboys out for a walk, companies of magnificent rose bushes, or regiments of fruit trees.

An entire corner of this charming spot was inhabited by bees.Their straw hives skillfully arranged at distances on boards had their entrances as large as the opening of a thimble turned towards the sun, and all along the paths one encountered these humming and gilded flies, the true masters of this peaceful spot, the real promenaders of these quiet paths.

I came there almost every morning.I sat down on a bench and read.Sometimes I let my book fall on my knees, to dream, to listen to the life of Paris around me, and to enjoy the infinite repose of these old fashioned hedges.

But I soon perceived that I was not the only one to frequent this spot as soon as the gates were opened, and I occasionally met face to face, at a turn in the path, a strange littleold man.

He wore shoes with silver buckles, knee breeches, a snuff colored frock coat, a lace jabot, and an outlandish gray hat with wide brim and long haired surface that might have come out of the ark.

He was thin, very thin, angular, grimacing and smiling.His bright eyes were restless beneath his eyelids which blinked continuously.He always carried in his hand a superb cane with a gold knob, which must have been for him some glorious souvenir.

This good man astonished me at first, then caused me the intensest interest.I watched him through the leafy walls, I followed him at a distance, stopping at a turn in the hedge so as not to be seen.

And one morning when he thought he was quite alone, he began to make the most remarkable motions.First he would give some little springs, then make a bow; then, with his slim legs, he would give a lively spring in the air, clapping his feet as he did so, and then turn round cleverly, skipping and frisking about in a comical manner, smiling as if he had an audience, twisting his poor little puppet like body, bowing pathetic and ridiculous little greetings into the empty air.He wasdancing.

I stood petrified with amazement, asking myself which of us was crazy, he or I.

He stopped suddenly, advanced as actors do on the stage, then bowed and retreated with gracious smiles, and kissing his hand as actors do, his trembling hand, to the two rows of trimmed bushes.

Then he continued his walk with a solemn demeanor.

After that I never lost sight of him, and each morning he began anew his outlandish exercises.

I was wildly anxious to speak to him.I decided to risk it, and one day, after greeting him, I said:

“It is a beautiful day, monsieur.”