有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER VIIIMonseigneur in the Country
A BEAUTIFUL landscape, with the corn bright in it, but notabundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been,patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarsevegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as onthe men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendencytowards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--dejecteddisposition to give up, and wither away.
Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which mighthave been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and twopostilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenanceof Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his highbreeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned by anexternal circumstance beyond his control--the setting sun giveup, and wither away give up, and wither away.
The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriagewhen it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped incrimson. `It will die out,' said Monsieur the Marquis,glancing at his hands, `directly.'
In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment.
When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and thecarriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud ofdust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquisgoing down together, there was no glow left when the drag wastaken off.
But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a littlevillage at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and risebeyond it, a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase,and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round uponall these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquislooked, with the air of one who was coming near home.
The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery,poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relay ofpost+horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. Ithad its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many ofthem were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions andthe like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washingleaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earththat could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor,were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for thechurch, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, wereto be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemninscription in the little village, until the wonder was, thatthere was any village left unswallowed.
Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men andwomen, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Lifeon the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the littlevillage under die mill; or captivity and Death in the dominantprison on the crag.
Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of hispostilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their headsin the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies,Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at theposting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and thepeasants suspended their operations to look at him. He lookedat them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow surefiling down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to makethe meagerness of Frenchmen an English superstition whichshould survive the truth through the best part of a hundredyears.
Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive facesthat drooped before him, as the like of himself had droopedbefore Monseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, thatthese faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group.
`Bring me hither that fellow!' said the Marquis to thecourier.
The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellowsclosed round to look and listen, in the manner of the peopleat the Paris fountain.
`I passed you on the road?'
`Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed onthe road.'
`Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?'
`Monseigneur, it is true.
`What did you look at, so fixedly?'
`Monseigneur, I looked at the man.'
He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointedunder the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under thecarriage. #p#副标题#e#`Mat man, pig? And why look there?'
`Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe thedrag.'
`Who?' demanded the traveller.
`Monseigneur, the man.'
`May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call theman? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who washe?'
`Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of thecountry. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him.'
`Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?'
`With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it,Monseigneur. His head hanging over--like this!'
He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back,with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down;then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.
`what was he like?'
`Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered withdust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!'
The picture produced an immense sensation in the littlecrowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes,looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether hehad any spectre on his conscience.
`Truly, you did well,' said the Marquis, felicitouslysensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, `to see athief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouthof yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle!'
Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxingfunctionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousnessto assist at this examination, and had held the examined bythe drapery of his arm in an official manner.
`Bah! Go aside!' said Monsieur Gabelle.
`Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in yourvillage to-night, and be sure that his business is honest,Gabelle.'
`Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to yourorders.'
`Did he run away, fellow?--here is that Accursed?'
The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his bluecap. Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauledhim out, and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis.
`Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?'
`Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side,head first, as a person plunges into the river.'
`See to it, Gabelle. Go on!'
The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still amongthe wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly thatthey were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had verylittle else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. #p#副标题#e#The burst with which the carriage started out of the villageand up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness ofthe hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging andlumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summernight. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circlingabout them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points tothe lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; thecourier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dim distance.
At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burialground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour onit; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperiencedrustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life--isown life, maybe--or it was dreadfully spare and thin.
To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had longbeen growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman waskneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her,rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage-door.
`It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition.'
With an exclamation of impatience, but with his Un+changeableface, Monseigneur looked out.
`How, then! What is it? Always petitions!'
`Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, theforester.'
`What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with youpeople. He cannot pay something?'
`He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.'
`Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?'
`Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a littleheap of poor grass.'
`Well?'
`Monseigneur,, there are so many little heaps of par grass?'
`Again, well?'
She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one ofpassionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knottedhands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on thecarriage-door--tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been ahuman breast, and could be expected to feel the appealingtouch.
`Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! Myhusband died of want; so many die of want; so many more willdie of want.'
`Again, well? Can I feed them?'
`Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. Mypetition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband'sname, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise,the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be foundwhen I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under someother heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, theyincrease so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur!
Monseigneur!'
The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage hadbroken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened thepace, she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escortedby the Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two ofdistance that remained between him and his chateau.
The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, androse, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged,and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom themender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which hewas nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, aslong as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear nomore, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled inlittle casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, andmore stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the skyinstead of having been extinguished.
The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of manyoverhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time;and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, ashis carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau wasopened to him.
`Monsieur Charles, whom I expect: is he arrived fromEngland?'
`Monseigneur, not yet.' |