Chapter 145 The sixth female fugitive (10)

She also liked to talk about Prince de Agrigent and M. de Bréaudé, but for another reason.The title of Prince de Agrigent was inherited from the family of Aragon, but their domain was in Poitou. As for his estate, at least the estate where he lived at the time, it was not his family. It belonged to his mother's ex-husband's family. This estate is located between Madanville and Gelmont, almost the same distance from the two places.That is why Hilbert spoke of him and M. de Bréaude as of his neighbors in the country, who reminded her of the provinces where she had once lived.In fact, part of what she said did not correspond to the truth, because she had met M. Bréaudé in Paris through the Countess Morais, although this gentleman was an old friend of her father.As for talking about the fun it gave her when she was in the outskirts of Pineville, that was probably what she really felt.For some, being trendy is like a good drink with a little health-enhancing substance.For example, Hilbert is interested in a certain elegant lady, because this lady has an attractive collection of books and paintings by Naquier ③, and my old girlfriend will not go to the National Library and the Louvre. These are drawn.I can imagine that, in Hilbert's eyes, Donsonville had a greater attraction to M. de Agrigent than to Madame Sasras or Madame Goubil, although the two Madame is closer to Donsonville.

-------- ① Aragon family: Aragon is a province in northern Spain and became an independent kingdom in the 10th century AD. ② Poitou: the name of the old province in western France. ③ Nakie (1685-1766), a French painter. "Ah! poor Babal, poor Gerry-Gerry," said Madame de Guermantes, "they are both in much worse health than Dillet, and I'm afraid neither of them will live long." gone." After reading my article, M. de Guermantes complimented me, but with reservations.He said that the shortcoming of the article is that the writing style is a bit old-fashioned and rigid, "using some exaggerations and metaphors, which is quite like Chateaubriand's outdated prose", but he praised me for "finding something to do" : "I'm advocating that people do something with their hands. I don't like useless people. They are all conceited or dysphoric. Stupid scum!"

Hilbert, who had picked up the manners of high society extremely quickly, declared how proud she would be to be able to tell people that she was a friend of a writer. "You think, how can I not say that I am very glad and honored to have known you." "Wouldn't you like to go to the Opera Comique with us tomorrow?" the Duchess asked me, and I think I saw her for the first time in that downstairs box, which seemed to me to be like the old Reids. ①'s underwater kingdom is equally unattainable.But I replied in a mournful voice: "No, I'm not going to the theater, one of my dear friends has died." I said this with tears in my eyes, and a certain joy in my heart, It was the first time I felt that way about her death, and since then I've started writing to people about the sad things that happened to me not long ago, and at the same time I've started not feeling sad anymore.

-------- ①Huang Ruiides: The daughter of Huang Rui, the sea god in Greek mythology. After Gilberte left, Mrs. de Gelmont said to me: "You didn't understand my gesture, I told you not to mention Swann." Seeing my apology, she said: "But I completely understand You; I almost said his name myself, and I had just had time to get it back, and it was very frightening, but I stopped in time, you know, Bazin, it's very uncomfortable," she said to her husband, trying to repay it. To lessen my fault, it seems that I fell under the influence of a common and irresistible natural inclination. "What can I do?" said the duke. "Since these sketches remind you of Swann, tell them to put them back upstairs. If you don't think of Swann, you won't mention him."

The next day I received two congratulatory letters, one of which was from Madame Goubier, a lady at Combray whom I had not seen for many years, and who, even at Combray, I have spoken to her less than three times.It turned out that some reading room had sent her the newspaper Le Figaro.The thing is often like this, when something happens in our life that can arouse a little reaction, we will get news from some people, these people are extremely distant from us, and the memories left by us are already very old, so They seem very far away from us, especially in terms of emotional depth.A middle school classmate you've forgotten (although he's had plenty of chances to pop up in your head) texts you out of the blue, not out of the blue, of course.Bullock did not write to me, and I would have liked to know what he thought of my article.He had actually read the article, and later admitted to me that he had, but only as a result of a backlash.It happened like this: a few years later he himself wrote an article in Le Figaro, and immediately wanted to inform me of the great event.What had been his prerogative in the past now happened to him, and the jealousy that had driven him to pretend he didn't know I had published the article dissipated, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart, and he talked to me. I don't think he would have liked to hear me talk about his article in the same way. "I know you have written an article," said he, "but at the time I thought it better not to mention it to you, for fear of offending you, for one should not talk to friends about embarrassing things that happen to them, And it is of course disgraceful to write in a newspaper called the bayonet and the holy water brush, the fiveo'clock, and the holy water vat." His character remained the same, and his writing was less pretentious than before, as Some writers broke away from the flashy and pretentious style after they changed from writing symbolic poems to writing serial novels.

-------- ①The bayonet and the holy water brush refer to the army and the church, the fiv team and the church service, and the reactionary and boring newspapers that provide after-dinner conversation. In order to relieve my melancholy from Bullock's silence, I read Madame Goupil's letter again; it is very plain.Although the letters of the nobles cannot be without some entertainment and politeness, between the opening "Sir" and the ending "with high regards", there can be a few cheers and admiration, like a few bouquets of flowers. The son sent a rich aroma over the fence.And the customs of the bourgeoisie make it impossible for the text of the letter to come up with such a cover as "your deserved success" or at most "your glorious achievements".Those sisters-in-law who faithfully follow their teachings, tightly tied in their corsets, are reserved and reserved, and if they write to you "My deepest thoughts" in your unfortunate or happy moments, they think they are It's been exhausted. "Mother's regards" is a superlative greeting, and you rarely get this level of affection.In addition to Mme. Goupil's letter, I received another letter, signed by Sanilon, whose name was unknown to me.The handwriting is popular and the language is quite interesting.I can't find out who wrote it, and I'm sorry.

On the third morning my heart was filled with joy, because Bergott admired my article so much that he read it not without envy.But after a while my joy vanished.In fact, Bergotte never wrote me a word, I just asked myself if he would like my article, and I was afraid that he would not like it.The question I asked myself was answered by Mme. de Forcheville, who said that Bergott had admired my article very much, and considered it a masterpiece.But I was sleeping when she said this: it was a dream.The questions we ask ourselves are always answered in complex terms and with several characters present, but the answers are fruitless.

As for Mademoiselle de Forcheville, I cannot help feeling sad whenever I think of her.What?She is Swann's daughter?How much Swann wanted to see her at the Gelmontes' house, but they refused to receive her, and then they took the initiative to find her, because the passage of time has made everything new before our eyes, and it has lasted for a long time according to what others have said about them. During this period, we have also undergone radical changes, and our preferences are quite different from those in the past.Swann sometimes hugged his daughter to his chest, kissed her and said to her: "Dear child, I am so blessed to have a daughter like you; when I am dead, if anyone still mentions your poor father It must have just been mentioned to you, and only because of you." Swann timidly and worriedly hoped that he would survive death, and he pinned his hopes on his daughter. He was wrong, like an old banker, this A banker thought to himself when he made a will for a young, well-behaved dancer whom he supported: He was only a good friend of hers but she would always remember him.She behaves well, but secretly flirts with the old banker's friends who she has a crush on. Of course, she does it behind her back. On the surface, she is beyond reproach. After the death of that kind old man, she will wear mourning for him, In her heart, she felt relieved to be free from him. She not only spent his cash, but also enjoyed his property and the car he left her. She would have the original owner's initials erased from all places, because the name Make her feel a little ashamed.She never misses the giver when she enjoys her bequest.The paternal fantasies are perhaps no more realistic than the banker's fantasies; many daughters see their fathers only as old men who will leave them estates.Hilbert's appearance in a salon, instead of causing people to talk about her father, deprived people of the opportunity to talk about him, which was already becoming rarer and rarer.Even when it comes to the words he said, the gifts he gave, people gradually got used to not mentioning his name, so that the girl who should have restored his posthumous image to youth and even immortality, unexpectedly accelerated And accomplished the deeds of death and oblivion.

Hilbert accomplished the feat of forgetting day by day, not only for Swann: she also hastened my forgetting of Albertine.During the hours when I mistook her for another girl, she aroused in me lust, and thus my desire for happiness, and in the act of lust, something that had not so long been haunting me Thoughts of grief and pain fled my mind, taking with it a train of Albertine's memories that might have been fragmented and precarious.If there are many memories associated with her that have kept me deploring her death, this deploration has in turn strengthened my remembrance of her.The change in my state of mind was probably secretly brewing day by day by the continual disintegration of forgetting, but its completion was so sudden and total that it gave me the feeling that I remember the day I first had This feeling, the feeling of emptiness, the feeling that a whole field of associations in my mind has become blank, is what a person would feel if an artery in his brain had been strained and suddenly ruptured one day so that he had lost part of his memory or was paralyzed.

-------- ①I no longer love Albertine.On some days at most, when the weather outside changes or awakens our senses and reconnects us with the real world, I think of her and feel infinitely sad.I am suffering for a love that is no more, as an amputee feels his amputated leg ache when the weather changes. ——Author's note. After my pain and all the other emotions that went with it disappeared, my whole being seemed to shrink, as we often feel when we are suddenly cured of a disease that once occupied a large part of our lives.The reason why love cannot be eternal is probably because memories cannot always be true, because life is the continuous renewal of cells.But for memory, this update is delayed by our attention, which for a period of time intercepts and fixes things that should change.Grief is like lust for a woman, the more you think about it the more you exaggerate it, and being busy and ascetic makes it easier to forget.

The lapse of time gradually leads to forgetting (although in me it is the distraction of attention—meaning my love for Mademoiselle d'Ebocheville—that makes forgetting suddenly real and obvious), and because of the reaction, forgetting also It will not fail to bring about profound changes in our concept of time.There are visual errors in space and visual errors in time.For example, I have had a desire for a long time in my heart, to work, to make up for lost time, to change my life, or rather to start a life. This faint desire has always existed in my heart, so that I have the illusion that I have always Still so young; but on the other hand, recalling the succession of events in my life--and in my soul--in the months preceding Albertine's death, for when a man has changed so much he thinks himself It's been a long time--it used to seem to me that the months were much longer than a year, and now so much is forgotten, as if some gap separates me from recent events, so that they are Like it happened a long time ago, now that I've had what people call "time" to forget them.Fragments and irregular forgettings interspersed in my memory - like a thick fog over the ocean that obscures the marks of surrounding things - disturbed and destroyed my sense of temporal distance, shortening in some places, shortening in others. Elongated, so that the time distance between me and things feels sometimes much closer and sometimes farther than it actually is.Because there will be no trace of my love for Albertine in the future time that I have not yet experienced and do not know, just as there will be no trace of my love for my grandmother in the past time that I have just passed. , which forms successive stages. After a certain period of time, the things that existed in the previous stage disappeared in the latter stage. Therefore, I feel that my life is a kind of empty thing, it is so empty. Lacking a unified and continuous self to serve as a pillar, its past so long, its future so superfluous, that death can end it here and then without concluding, like a French history lesson in rhetoric , can end at any stage at will, up to the Revolution of 1830, or until the Revolution of 1848 or the fall of the Second Empire, all according to the syllabus or the whim of the professor. Perhaps, at that time, I was tired and sad not so much because I had loved in vain someone I was forgetting, but because I began to enjoy hanging out with new acquaintances, with full-fledged society people, and with ordinary friends of the Guermantes family. , and these people themselves are so boring.I found that the girl I once loved was only a pale memory, and I found myself once again wasting time in meaningless social activities, and I let a group of tenacious parasites take over my life. Perhaps the former discovery would be nothing compared to the fact that they are now irrelevant to our experience and experience, and we try to please them with the nagging, melancholy and courtship of old age. It makes me talk to masturbation even more.The newcomer who could easily lead a life without Albertine had appeared to me, since I spoke of her at Madame de Guermantes's house with a pathetic tone and without much pain in my heart.These new Is should have a different name from the previous one, they are indifferent to my love, so I have always been afraid of their coming: I was afraid before when I was talking about Gilberte, when her father said that if I go to Oceania I would hate to come back; I was afraid again recently, after reading a memoir, which I felt wrenchingly sad, by a mediocre author who wrote that he was passionately in love with a woman in his youth, but that life separated them and When he was old and met this woman again, he did not feel the joy of reunion, nor did he have the desire to see her again.But this new man, while bringing me oblivion, took away almost all my pain and made it possible for me to find peace. This being so terrible and so benevolent is none other than the many whom fate has prepared for us as substitutes. One of the "I", fate is like a wise and decisive doctor - only wise can be more decisive - it does not listen to our entreaties, ignores our opposition, and passes the "I" who has been hurt too badly. The operation replaced it in due course and replaced it with a new "I".This replacement work, which God of fate performs every once in a while, seems to renew with old fabrics, but we don't pay attention, unless the old "I" has a painful heart, a strange and rough body, one day We are surprised to find that this old "I" no longer exists, and we are also surprised to find that we have become another person who sees the pain of his former life as someone else's pain and can feel compassion Come talk about it because you can't feel it.Even our past sufferings seem irrelevant because we only vaguely remember them.Likewise, the nightmares we have at night can be horrific, but we wake up in the morning as a different person, and we hardly care that the previous night we ran away in terror at the assassins. The new self undoubtedly retained some connection with the old self, like a bereaved friend who does not mourn the misfortune, but who nevertheless talks of it to those present with appropriate sorrow, and from time to time Back to the widower's room where he was entrusted to receive relatives and friends, where the latter continued to sob and sob.I cried like this when I myself became, for a while, Albertine's former life friend again.But I'm gradually entering a new role entirely.Our affection for others fades not because they die, but because we ourselves die.Albertine had nothing to blame her friend.Whoever stole her friend's name was nothing more than her friend's heir.People can only be faithful to those they remember, and they can only keep memories of those they know.As the new self grew up under the shadow of the old, it often heard the old talk of Albertine; through the old, through the narratives it gleaned from him, the new thought I knew Albertine, had a feeling for her. I fell in love with her; but this was only an indirect tenderness. With regard to Albertine at that time, oblivion was still at work perhaps more rapidly in another person, and, by chain reaction, I soon became aware of a new development of oblivion in me (this It is the second stage of my memory, the stage before the final forgetting), and this person is Andrei.Some six months after the conversation between her and me which I have recounted, we had another conversation, and indeed I cannot help seeing the oblivion of Albertine as its cause, if not its sole or chief cause. The reason, at least the decisive and necessary reason, was that what she said to me in this conversation was very different from the first one.I remember it was in my room, when I liked to have half-carnal relations with her, because my love for this group of young girls, which at first had a communal character, regained that quality, and for a long time they had been Shared my love, only for a short time, that is, in the months before and after Albertine's death, it was united with Albertine alone. We had another reason for our conversation in my room, which enabled me to time this conversation with extreme precision.The reason for this was that I couldn't be anywhere else in the apartment except my room because it was Mom's visiting day.At first, my mother was a little hesitant about going to Mrs. Sasra's house.But as this lady is in the habit of inviting you, even at Combray, with uninteresting guests, Mamma is sure she will not have a good time there, so she decides to go home early instead of Miss anything interesting.She came back on time, and she didn't regret it. The people she met at Mrs. Sasra's house were all disgusting people, and Mrs. Sasra's voice already made her restrained. The guests speak in this special voice, which Mom calls "Wednesday Voice".Besides, Mama liked her quite a lot and sympathized with her misfortune, which was caused by a series of absurd acts of her father who was ruined by a certain Duchess, and the family's decline forced her to live almost in seclusion for many years. Bray, who sometimes goes to stay with her cousin in Paris for a few weeks, only makes "recreational trips" every 10 years. I remember that my mother went to visit Princess Palma the day before. I couldn’t resist my repeated requests for several months, and the princess kept asking her to go. The princess never visited relatives or friends, and usually people made appointments to visit her.Since it was inconvenient for her to come to the house due to social etiquette, she insisted on asking my mother to visit her.When the mother came home, her face was full of displeasure. "It was a mistake for me to follow your advice," she said to me. "Princess Palma barely greeted me, then went on to chat with the ladies, ignoring me completely. After 10 minutes, I saw her." She got up and went away without speaking to me, and she did not shake my hand. I was very unhappy; but when I came out, I met the Duchess de Guermantes at the door, and she was very kind, and she talked to me for a long time about you. How could you think of speaking of Albertine in her presence! She told me that you told her that the girl's death had caused you grief (I did say this to the Duchess, but I hardly remember it, And I didn't pay much attention to it when I said it. But the most casual people tend to pay special attention to the words we accidentally say, which are natural to us, but arouse their great curiosity). I will never go to Palma again The princess is gone, you told me to do something stupid." Andrei came to see me the next day, my mother's visit day.She didn't have much time, because she had to go to Yoshissel, and she wanted to have dinner with him. "I know she has a lot of flaws, but she is my best friend and my favorite person after all," she told me.She even seemed a little apprehensive lest I propose to dine with them both.She is always greedy to take her friends as her own, and the presence of a third person like me who knows her too well will prevent her from confessing her heart and thus preventing her from enjoying the perfect pleasure when she is with friends. I was not in the room when she came; she was waiting for me, and I was going across the little parlour to meet her, when I heard a voice and knew there were other visitors.Desperate to see Andrei in my room, and not knowing who the other visitor was (who apparently did not know Andrei, since the servants had placed him in another room), I stopped at the door of the small parlour. I listened for a while; my visitor was talking, and he was not alone; he was talking to a woman: "Oh, my dear, that's in my heart!" he murmured, quoting Armand Sylvester's verse. "Yes, you will always be my darling, though you have treated me like this: As the dead sleep in the bosom of the earth, Extinct feelings should be buried deep in the heart, The memorial treasured by the heart also has its ashes, Do not touch the sacred remains with your hands. It's a bit corny, but how well written!There is also the following song, which should have been read to you on the first day I saw you: You will make them cry, beautiful and lovely children... What, you haven't read the poem? ...all naughty lads, future masculine men, Has given away his youthful fantasies, Hanging on your bright and charming eyelashes. Ah, at one point I thought it was okay to say: His first night here, I cast my arrogance to the sky, I said to him, 'You will love me, Love me forever. ' I slept soundly in his arms. " Curious to know the woman to whom this flood of verse was dedicated, I pushed open the door, disregarding the possibility of delaying my urgent meeting with Andrei for a moment.It turned out that M. de Charlus was reading these verses to a soldier, whom I recognized at a glance as Morel, who was about to undergo thirteen days of training before serving.At that time, he and Mr. de Charlus were no longer as warm as they used to be, but he still asked to see him occasionally because of something.Mr. de Charlus has always been quite masculine in love, but there are also times of lingering.Moreover, as early as childhood, in order to really understand and appreciate the poet's works, he had to imagine that those lines were not addressed to a capricious beauty but to a young man.I walked away as quickly as possible, although I felt that it was a great satisfaction for de Charlus to meet Morel, because it would temporarily give him the illusion of being married again.And in him, the artyness of the queens and the fashion of the servants are both. My memory of Albertine had become so fragmented that it could no longer cause me sorrow, but served only as a bridge to a new desire, like a chord for a change of movement.And because I am still faithful to Albertine, all sensual desires of the occasion have been ruled out, because I even think that even if a miracle happens and Albertine returns to me, I will not be with Andrea as I am now. so happy.André could tell me more about Albertine than she ever told me herself, and although my emotional and physical affection for Albertine had faded away, she was still in my mind. is still a mystery.The desire to know her whole life was now stronger than the desire to have her by her side.Because the former has never been slightly less.On the other hand, the idea that she might have had a love relationship with a woman now only makes me want to have a relationship with that woman too.As I stroked Andrea, I told her how I felt.She said with a half-smile: "Oh! Is that so? But you are a man, so together we cannot do what Albertine and I have done together." At this moment she did not think at all how to put the matter to rest. The words are consistent with what she said a few months ago.Then, perhaps she wanted to stimulate my passions (I had told her before, in order to get her out of my mind, that I would very much like to have sex with a woman who had been involved with Albertine) or to increase my sorrow, Perhaps thinking that this would dispel my sense of superiority in front of her, which she might have thought I had, since I thought I was the only one who had such a relationship with Albertine, she said again: "Ah! Spent many wonderful moments together, she was so tender and passionate. Besides, she didn't just like to have fun with me. She met a beautiful Morrel named Morel at the Verdurins'. Boy, two people understand each other at once. He is in charge - of course, with her permission, he can also enjoy it himself. He only likes to find the kind of young girls who don't know the world, and when he leads them astray, he leaves them. Never mind—he is responsible for seducing the fisherman girls on the distant beach, and the young laundresses, because these girls can fall in love with a guy, but they will not allow a girl to take the initiative to approach them. After the hooked girl is completely under his control , he took her to a very safe place, and gave her to Albertine. For fear of losing Morel, and morel was involved in good things, the girl was always at her mercy, but she lost him in the end, because he always One is afraid of the consequences caused by things, and the other thinks that one or two games are enough, and often leaves a false address and then runs away. I believe that during the period of living in your house, she suppressed this lust and turned this kind of pleasure The fun is postponed day by day. Besides, she is so attached to you that she cannot help being scrupled. No doubt she will revert to her old ways when you leave you. But I think she has resumed her crazy behavior after leaving you. Lust, but remorse a hundred times afterwards. She expects you to save her and marry her. In fact, she also feels that this is a sinful and crazy act. I often wonder if she caused a suicide in a family because of her behavior. Just wanted to die. I should tell you frankly. When she first came to live with you, she didn't give up all the fun with me. Some days it almost became a need for her. The need was so strong that once, in the At your house, she asked me to sleep with her for a while before she would part with me. We were unlucky that time, and we were almost caught. She took advantage of Françoise to go shopping while you were not at home. She turned all the lights out so it took a while to find the light button when you came back and opened the door with the key, she left her own door open. We heard you coming upstairs and I was just in time to straighten my clothes Go downstairs. In fact, there is no need to worry at all, because something happened, you forgot the key and had to ring the doorbell. But we were still scared. In order to cover up the embarrassment, the two of them pretended to be afraid of the smell of the mountain plum blossoms, but they were actually On the contrary, we like the scent of this flower very much. I took the opportunity to turn my head away from you when you brought back a long branch of mountain plum, so that you could not see my panic, but I said to you clumsily and absurdly, Fran Sauise may have gone back upstairs, she could have opened the door for you, and a second ago I lied that we had just returned from a walk, andSaid that Françoise hadn't come downstairs when we got home (which is true).Unfortunately we turned off the light - we thought you had the key - and were afraid you'd see us turn it on when you came upstairs, at least, we hesitated too long.Albertine could not close her eyes for three nights because of this, always afraid that you would be suspicious and ask Françoise why she did not turn on the light before she left.It must be confessed that Albertine was terribly afraid of you; sometimes she thought you were cunning and cruel, and hated her in her heart.Three days later, she saw that you were still very calm, and knew that you did not ask Françoise anything, so she could sleep.But she never had anything to do with me again, perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of remorse, because she thought she loved you deeply, or she loved someone else.In any case, since then, she would blush whenever people mentioned the plum blossom in front of her, and she would touch her face with her hands, trying not to let people see her blushing. " Some misfortunes, like some happinesses, come too late, and lose in our hearts the importance they might have had.Such was the misfortune that André's horrific revelations brought upon me.Even if bad news would have made us sad, in the question-and-answer diversion of conversation these news fly past us without lingering before we receive them ourselves, because we are preoccupied with answering, or Because we want to please the people present, we change the original self, become another person, or in the new cycle we are not tortured by warmth and pain for a short time, but once this short-term magic is broken, we The love and pain that was shed to enter this new cycle will come back.If the force of these emotions overwhelms everything, we can only drift absent-mindedly into that new world that will not last long, and we will not become another person there, because we are too true to our pain; Communicate with minds that are not on the sidelines.However, of late, the words concerning Albertine were like poisons that had evaporated and were no longer poisonous.The distance between me and her is too far away; like a walker who sees a hazy crescent in the sky in the afternoon and says to himself, is this the case of the huge moon?I also said to myself, "What! Is the truth of something I'm so desperately seeking and so afraid of knowing just a few words out of a conversation! I can't even think it through because I'm not alone!" Besides, I was really not prepared for this, and I was exhausted with Andrey.To be honest, such a fact, I wish I had more energy to face it; it is still external to me, because I have not yet found a place for it in my heart.People always hope that the truth will be revealed to us through new signals, rather than through a sentence, a sentence similar to what we have repeated to ourselves countless times.Habits of thought sometimes prevent us from experiencing reality, making us "immune" to reality, making it appear that reality is still thought.There is no thought that does not contain a refutation of itself, no word that does not contain its own opposite. At any rate, if Andrei is telling the truth, here is the whole useless truth about my mistress, who is no longer alive, but is now rising from the shadows, before we are no longer alive. When the truth is needed, the truth comes out.于是（兴许想到自己现在爱着的人，想到在她身上也会发生同样的事，因为那个已被忘却的人，我们是不会再把她放在心上的），我们感到悲凉。我们对自己说：“但愿活着的这一位能理解这一切。但愿她能明白，一旦她死了我会弄清楚所有她瞒着我的事！”然而这不是成了循环论证吗！如果我能让阿尔贝蒂娜死而复生，那么同时我就是让安德烈什么也不对我透露。这与那句千古不变的话“当我不再爱您的时候您会明白的！”几乎是同一回事，这句话是那么中肯又那么荒谬，因为确实，当人们不再爱的时候就能得到很多，不过那时得到多少对我们已无关紧要了。这两者甚至完全是一回事。当您与一个您已不爱的女人重逢时，如果她把一切都告诉您，那是因为她其实已不是原来的她，或者您已不是往日的您：恋爱着的人已不复存在。在这方面死亡也留下了痕迹，它使一切变得容易，使一切变得多余。我的这番思考是以下面的假设为出发点的，即假设安德烈是诚实的——这并非不可能——而且，她对我以诚相见是因为她现在和我保持着关系（即阿尔贝蒂娜早期和我在圣安德烈教堂有过的那种关系）。她对我说真话还由于她现在不用惧怕阿尔贝蒂娜了，因为对于我们，人死后不久其真实性也随之消逝，几年后，他们就象被废黜的宗教的神灵，人们可以毫无畏惧地触犯这些神灵，因为大家不再相信它们的存在。然而安德烈不再相信阿尔贝蒂娜的真实性也可能产生另一种后果，那就是她可以毫无顾忌地编造谎言污蔑自己过去的所谓同谋（一如她毫无顾忌地泄露她曾答应保守秘密的事实真相）。倘若由于某种原因，她以为我现在生活得心满意足，趾高气扬，便有心让我难受，那么这种畏惧的消失究竟是促使她向我说出实情呢还是促使她对我撒谎呢？或许她对我心怀恼怒（这种恼怒在她看到我遭到不幸、得不到安慰时曾暂时消除），因为我和阿尔贝蒂娜有过关系，因为她可能羡妒我——以为我以此而自诩比她得宠——享有一种她未曾得到、甚至未敢企望的优待。出于同样的忌妒心，她对气色很好并且自知气色好的人总是感到恼怒，我常见她对这些人说他们看上去象得了重病，并且为了气他们，她还说自己身体很好，即使在她病得极其厉害时也始终这样宣称，直到临死前她变得超然物外，才不再因幸福的人们身体好自己却不久于人世而心烦了。但这是很久以后的事。也许她是莫名其妙地恼我，就象从前她恨过一位年轻人，此人在体育方面无事不懂，对其他事则一窍不通，我们是在巴尔贝克遇到他的，后来他和拉谢尔同居，安德烈对他竭尽造谣中伤之能事，甚至巴不得自己被指控犯了诬告罪，那样她就可以在众人面前一口咬定他父亲于过许多见不得人的事，而他却无法证明这是捏造。也许她对我的恼恨在她看到我那么忧伤时曾一度平息，现在只是重新抬头罢了。的确，即使是她恨之入骨的人——她两眼喷着怒火发誓要让他们名誉扫地，要杀死他们，要让他们下大狱，哪怕提供假证词也在所不顾——只要她得知这些人心情悲伤，受到侮辱，她就不再对他们存丝毫恶意，反而准备为他们排忧解难。因为她本质上并不坏，如果说她深一层的而不是表面的性格与人们起初根据她的体贴入微而作的判断相反，并不是殷勤和善，而是忌妒、骄傲，那么她的第三重也是更深一层的性格则倾向于善良和对他人的爱，这是她真正的本性，不过没有得到充分的体现而已。人们处于某一种状况时都渴望改善这种状况，但由于新的状况还只是一种意愿，他们不明白首要的条件是与前一种状况决裂——就象神经衰弱症患者或嗜吗啡者很想治好病，却又不愿除掉嗜好或戒掉吗啡；又象那些留恋社交生活的笃信宗教者或酷爱艺术的人，他们希望清静，却又以为清静并不意味着完全放弃他们先前的生活——同样，安德烈愿意爱所有的人，但条件是先要能做到不把人们想象成得意扬扬的样子，为此她就必须先轻侮他们。她不懂得，即使对自高自大的人也应该去爱，要用仁爱之心去克服他们的傲气，而不是用更厉害的傲气。这是因为她象有些病人，这些人想用来治好疾病的办法其实正是拖长疾病的办法。他们喜欢这些办法，但一旦抛弃了这些办法，便立即不再喜欢了。人就是这样，想学游泳，却又想留一只脚在岸上。 关于我在巴尔贝克两度小住时遇到的那个喜爱体育的年轻人，维尔迪兰夫妇的侄子，这里必须提前附带谈一谈。在安德烈来访后不久（过一会儿我还要谈到这次来访），发生了几件给人印象颇深的事。首先是这位年轻人与安德烈订了婚并娶了她（也许是出于对阿尔贝蒂娜的怀念，我当时不知道他曾经爱过阿尔贝蒂娜），拉谢尔为此悲痛欲绝，他却毫不理会。其时（亦即在我前面谈到的那次造访后几个月）安德烈已不再说他是一个无耻之徒了，后来我发觉她以前之所以称他无耻之徒正是因为她发疯似地爱上了他，但又以为他不愿意要她。还有一件事更令人震惊。这位青年推出了几个独幕喜剧，布景和服装都是他设计的，这些短剧在当代艺术领域里引起的一场革命至少可以与俄罗斯芭蕾完成的革命相提并论。简而言之，最有权威的评论家都认为他的作品了不起，堪称天才之作，我现在也这么认为，这就证实了拉谢尔从前对他的看法，着实令我吃惊。在巴尔贝克认识他的人都以为他只注意与他交往的人衣服剪裁是否高雅，以为他把全部时间都用来玩纸牌、看赛马、打高尔夫球或马球，他们还知道他在班上一直是个又懒又笨的学生，甚至读中学时还被校方开除过（为了给父母找麻烦，他去一家大妓院住了两个月，就是德·夏吕斯先生以为在那儿见到过莫雷尔的那家妓院），他们想他的作品也许出自安德烈之手，是安德烈出于对他的爱把荣誉让给了他，或者更大的可能是他出钱让某个有才华而又贫困潦倒的职业作家替他写作，反正他腰缠万贯，以往的大肆挥霍只是九牛拔一毛而已（这群阔人——他们并未因为和贵族交往而变得文雅些，对何谓艺术家毫无概念，在他们眼里艺术家就是在小姐的订婚仪式上被叫来背几段独白，演完后立即在隔壁客厅里悄悄得几个赏钱的那种演员，或是一名画师，他们把刚结婚还没生孩子的女儿带到这种画师家里摆姿势，让他画像，因为这时她还显得很好看——往往以为上流社会那些写书、作曲或绘画的人都花钱让别人为他们代劳，为的是得一个作者的名声，就象有些人花钱为自己谋一个议员的席位）。但是所有这些估计都错了；那个年轻人确实是这些令人赞叹的剧作的作者。我得知此事后，不得不在各种猜想之间犹豫不定。要么在很长一段时间里，他确实象看上去那样是个迟笨的粗鲁之人，尔后某个生理上的突变唤醒了他身上处于混沌状态的天才，就象林中的睡美人突然苏醒了一样；要么当他还在修辞班捣蛋闹事，当他中学会考屡屡受挫，当他在巴尔贝克赌博损失惨重，当他害怕和维尔迪兰姑妈那个小圈子的忠实成员一道上“有轨”因为他们的衣著太难看时，他已经是个天资不凡的人，只不过他漫不经心把天才消耗在沸腾的青春激情里，或者甚至也可能那时他已经意识到自己的才能，而他之所以是班上最后一名，是因为当老师重复着关于西塞罗的陈词滥调时，他却在读兰波或歌德的作品。诚然，我在巴尔贝克遇见他时，没有任何迹象能让人想到后一种假设，当时在我看来他唯一关心的是套车的马是否象样，以及鸡尾酒会准备得如何。但这一不同看法并不是不可驳斥的。他可能很爱虚荣，这与天才并非不能相容，他力图用他知道在他生活的那个社会最能令人倾倒的方式来显示他的才智，而这最好的方式决不是向人们证明他对《亲和力》①有精辟的了解，而恰恰是会驾驭四匹马套的车。再说我不能肯定，即使在他成了那些独树一帜的艺术精品的作者以后，他会很愿意在他扬名的剧院以外的场所与那些未着无尾常礼服的人，比如早先小圈子的忠实成员们打招呼，这并不说明他愚蠢，而是说明他有虚荣心，甚至有一定的务实头脑，一定的洞察力，善于使自己的虚荣心适应蠢人的思想方法，因为他需要得到这些人的敬重，而在这些人眼里，一套常礼服要比一个思想家的目光更有光彩。谁知道，从外表看，一个有才华的人，或者一个并无才华却喜爱精神产品的人，比如我，给某个在里夫贝尔，在巴尔贝克旅馆，或是在巴尔贝克海堤上碰到他的人留下的印象会不会也象个十足的狂妄自大的笨蛋呢？何况对奥克达夫来说，艺术大概是某种内在的、存在于他自己心灵深处的东西，因此他大概根本没想到和别人谈论它，不象圣卢，艺术在其心目中的地位相当于套车的马在奥克达夫心目中的地位。奥克达夫是有可能热衷于赌博，而且据说一直保留着这个嗜好。不过，尽管对凡德伊那部不知名的作品的崇拜——这种崇拜使这部作品得以再生——来自蒙舒凡一个十分暧昧的阶层，但想到那些可能是我们时代最超凡脱俗的作品不是出自中学优等生会考的参加者之手，也不是出自受过典范的、经院式的、布洛依②家族式的教育的人之手，而是一个出入赛马骑师过磅处和大酒吧的人所著，我仍然感到震惊。不管怎样，那时在巴尔贝克，驱使我想认识那个年轻人的原因和驱使阿尔贝蒂娜及其女友们阻止我结识他的原因都与这个年轻人本人的价值无关，这原因只能揭示“知识界人士”（以我为代表）与社交界人物（以那群少女为代表）之间在对一个交际场人物（那个年轻的高尔夫球手）的评价问题上永存的误解。我丝毫未预感到他有才华，他在我眼里的地位——类似过去布拉当夫人所具有的地位——在于他是我的女友们的朋友，不管她们嘴上怎么说，而且他比我更属于他们那一伙。另一方面，从阿尔贝蒂娜和安德烈身上可以看出社交界没有能力对精神产品作出正确的评价，她们在这方面素来喜欢注重假象，因此她们俩不仅有可能认为我愚蠢，竟对这么个笨蛋感兴趣，而且尤其会惊奇地想，高尔夫球手就高尔夫球手吧，我怎么偏偏选中这个最最不可取的人。要是我愿意结交希尔贝，德·贝勒弗尔倒也情有可原，这个小伙子除了会打高尔夫球还很健谈，而且得过一张中学优等生会考奖状，诗也写得不坏（其实他比谁都蠢）。如果我的目的是为“写一本书”而“练习人物描写”，那么居伊·索穆瓦（此人完全是个疯子，曾诱拐两名少女）至少是个古怪的人，可以引起我的“兴趣”。这两位，人家可能“允许”我与之交朋友，可那一位，在他身上我能找到什么吸引人的地方？他是“粗鲁之辈”、“愚笨之辈”的典型。 -------- ①《亲和力》，歌德的长篇小说。 ②布洛依，法国一古老的名门望族。