Chapter 3 third chapter

At one o'clock in the afternoon on the sixteenth I went to the Rue d'Antin. The shouts of the auction appraiser could be heard from the gate. The room was full of curious people. All the famous ladies from Huajie and Liuxiang were present, and several noble ladies were watching them secretly.This time, in the name of participating in the auction, they can take a closer look at those women who they have never had the opportunity to get along with. Maybe they are still secretly envious of these women's free and unrestrained life of pleasure. The Duchess F's arm bumped into Miss A; Miss A is a typical hard-working woman in today's courtesan circle; the Marchioness T is hesitating whether to buy the piece of furniture that Mrs. D has been pushing up the price; Mrs. D She is the most romantic and famous slut of our time.That Duke Y., who was rumored in Madrid to be bankrupt in Paris, and Paris to be rumored to be bankrupt in Madrid, did not even spend his annual annuity.Now he was chatting with Mrs. M while flirting with Mrs. N. Mrs. M is a witty and witty storyteller. She often wants to write down what she tells and sign her own name.The beautiful Mrs. N often walks on the Champs Elysées, wearing pink and sky blue clothes, and is driven by two tall black horses. For these two horses, Tony asked her for 10,000 francs. ... She pays for it; and lastly there is Miss R, whose self-earned status puts dowry women to shame, and those who live by love.Regardless of the cold weather, she came to buy some things, which also attracted people's attention.

①Tony: A famous horse dealer at that time. We could also cite the initials of the many people who gathered in this room, and who were so surprised even to meet them here, but I will spare them, so as not to bore the reader. I must say that everyone was in high spirits.Although many of the women were acquaintances of the deceased, they seemed to have no memory of the deceased at the moment. Everyone talked and laughed loudly, and the auction appraiser shouted hoarsely.The merchants who filled the benches in front of the auction table tried to silence everyone so that they could get on with their business, but no one paid any attention to them.Such a gathering of people of all kinds mixed together in a noisy environment has never been seen before.

I silently blended into this chaotic crowd.I was very saddened to think that this scene had taken place near the dying bedroom of this poor woman, in order to auction off her furniture to pay her debts during her lifetime.Rather than saying that I came to buy things, I might as well say that I came to see the excitement. I looked at the faces of several auctioneers, and whenever an item was called for a high price that they didn't expect, they would smile and be elated. Those who speculated on this woman's goddess career, those who made a fortune on her, those who pestered her with stamped IOUs in her dying days, and those who Whoever came after her death to collect their high-sounding bills and their dastardly high interest rates, all those gentlemen!

No wonder the ancients said that merchants and thieves believe in the same God, so true! Dresses, cashmere shawls, jewellery, all at once, incredibly quickly, but there wasn't a single thing I needed, I was waiting. Suddenly, I heard shouts: "A hardcover book, well bound, with gilt borders, titled Manon Lescaux, and written on the title page, ten francs." ① "Manon Lescaut": a famous love novel written by the 18th-century French priest Plaifu (1697-1763). There was a long period of silence, after which a person shouted: "Twelve francs." "Fifteen francs," I said.

Why should I pay this price?I don't know myself, probably because of the words written on it. "Fifteen francs," the auctioneer called again. "Thirty francs," repeated the first bidder, as if annoyed at the increase. Now it became a contest. "Thirty-five francs!" I exclaimed in the same tone. "Forty francs!" "Fifty francs!" "Sixty francs!" "One hundred francs!" I admit that if I wanted to attract attention, then I have completely achieved my goal, because this time when the scramble to increase the price, the audience was silent, and everyone looked at me, wanting to see that this guy seemed bent on getting this What kind of person is the gentleman in this book.

The tone of my last bid seemed to overwhelm my opponent, who considered it better to withdraw from the contest which had cost me ten times the original price for the book.So he bent over me, and very politely (though belatedly) said to me: "I give in, sir." At that time, no one else raised the price, so the book belonged to me. Because I was afraid that my self-esteem would arouse my stubborn temper again, and I didn't have a lot of money around me, I asked them to write down my name, put the book aside, and went downstairs.The eyewitnesses must have speculated about me, and they must have wondered to themselves what I was paying a hundred francs for a book that could be bought everywhere for ten francs. Francs, fifteen francs at the most.

An hour later, I sent for the book I had bought. On the title page are two lines of beautiful handwriting written by the book donor with a pen: Manon to Marguerite ashamed The signature below is Armand Duval. What does the word "ashamed" mean here? According to M. Armand Duval, did Manon admit that Marguerite was superior to himself both in debauchery and in inner feelings? The second, emotional explanation seemed more likely, since the first was offensive, and whatever Marguerite might think of herself, she would not have accepted. I went out again and didn't think about the book until I went to bed at night.

Of course, "Manon Lescaut" is a moving story. Although I am familiar with every plot in the story, whenever I have this book at hand, my feelings for this book always attract me. I opened the book, and the heroine portrayed by Priest Plaifu seemed to be in front of me again. This situation has been repeated almost a hundred times.The heroine was so vividly and vividly depicted that it was as if I had actually seen her.The new comparison between Manon and Marguerite added to the unexpected appeal of the book for me.This book was my relic from whom I grew more sympathetic, even fond, of the poor girl.It is true that Manon died in the desolate desert, but she died in the arms of a lover who truly loved her.After Manon died, the lover dug a tomb for her, and his tears fell on her, and he buried his heart in it.As for Marguerite, she was a sinful person like Manon, and might have been converted like Manon; but she died in rich and luxurious surroundings, as I saw.She died in the bed where she had always slept, but there was an emptiness in her heart, as if buried in a desert drier, more desolate, and more merciless than the one where Manon was buried.

I have heard from several friends who knew the circumstances of her death that Marguerite was never at her bedside to give her any real comfort during her two months of agony. I went from Manon and Marguerite to the women I had known and watched as they sang along to their almost always identical end-results. Poor woman!If it is a fault to love them, it is at least to sympathize with them.You sympathize with the blind who cannot see the sun, the deaf who cannot hear the sounds of nature, and the dumb who cannot express their thoughts with their voices; A blind man of mind, deaf of soul and dumb of conscience.These disabilities drove the unfortunate suffering woman mad, depriving her of goodness, of hearing the voice of God, of speaking the pure language of love, of faith.

Hugo portrayed Marion de Rolm; Musset created Bernardette; Alexandre Dumas shaped Fernand; ① thinkers and poets of all ages have dedicated their benevolent sympathy to courtesans.Sometimes a great man steps forward and restores them with his love and even his name.The reason why I want to emphasize this point is because among those readers who start to read my book, I am afraid that many people are ready to put this book aside, lest it is a book dedicated to defending evil and lust. And the age of the author must have made this concern even more likely.I hope these people don't think so, if it's just for this point, then please continue to read.

① Hugo, Musset and Alexandre Dumas are all famous French writers in the nineteenth century.Marion de Rolm, Bernardet and Fernand are all prostitutes in their works. I only believe in one principle: for women who have not received a "good" education, God almost always points out two roads to them, so that they can come to him by different routes: one is pain, and the other is love.Both paths are very difficult.The women walked on it with bleeding feet and cracked hands; but at the same time they left their garments of iniquity on the thorns along the way, and arrived at the end of their journey naked, and it was not necessary to come to God in this way naked. blushing. People who encounter these brave female travelers should help them and tell everyone that they have encountered these women, because in promoting this matter, it is also pointing the way. To solve this problem, we cannot simply put up two signs at the entrance of the road of life: one is a notice, which says "the road of goodness"; the other is a warning, which says "the road of evil"; say, "Choose!" and must, like Christ, point out to those tempted by circumstances the paths from the second way to the first; It's not easy to go. The purpose of Christianity's moving parable about the return of the prodigal son is to advise us to be kind and tolerant towards others.Jesus is so full of love for souls that are ravaged by lust that He loves to apply healing balm from the wound itself when He binds up their wounds.Therefore, he says to Matellina: "You will be forgiven because you love much," and this sublime act of forgiveness naturally evokes a sublime faith. ①See chapter seven, verses 44 to 48 of the Gospel of Luke in the Bible. Why should we be harsher than Christ?In order to show its strength, the world pretends to be strict, and we stubbornly accept its prejudices.Why should we discard souls bleeding from wounds like it does?From these wounds, their past sins ooze like blood from sick people.These souls are waiting for a friendly hand to bind up their wounds and heal the wounds in their hearts. I am appealing to my contemporaries, to those for whom M. Voltaire's theories, fortunately, have failed, to those who, like me, understand that the past fifteen years have been advancing by leaps and bounds.The knowledge of good and evil is established, faith is reestablished, and our reverence for the sacred is renewed.If we cannot say that the world is perfect, at least we can say that it is much improved than before.Wise men are all devoted to the same purpose, and all great wills are subordinated to the same principle: let us be good, let us be fresh, let us be true!Evil is nothing but an empty thing, we are to be proud of doing good, and above all, we must never lose faith.Do not despise those women who are neither mother nor sister nor daughter nor wife.Do not lessen respect for kindred, and tolerance for selfishness.Since Heaven prefers a penitent sinner to a hundred upright men who have never sinned, let us try to please Him, and He will bless us.On our way, let us leave our forgiveness to those who are ruined by earthly desires, and may a divine hope save them, as those old wives say when they exhort people to their cure: Even if there is no benefit, there is no harm. Of course, I want to draw great conclusions from small topics, which seems too arrogant and too bold.But everything exists in smallness, and I'm the one who believes that.Although a child is young, he is a future adult; although his head is narrow, it contains infinite thoughts; his eyes are only a little bit big, but he can see a vast world.