【英文原著类】Gambara(刚巴拉).pdf

Gambara
Gambara
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring
1
Gambara
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Marquis de Belloy
It was sitting by the fire, in a mysterious and magnificent retreat,--now
a thing of the past but surviving in our memory,-- whence our eyes
commanded a view of Paris from the heights of Belleville to those of
Belleville, from Montmartre to the triumphal Arc de l'Etoile, that one
morning, refreshed by tea, amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and
die like rockets from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you
tossed to my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann,--that casket of
unrecognized gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to
hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat them, playing
on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the stress of divine inspiration,
believing that he is expressing celestial music to his bewildered listeners.
It was you who created GAMBARA; I have only clothed him. Let me
render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, regretting only that you do
not yourself take up the pen at a time when gentlemen ought to wield it as
well as the sword, if they are to save their country. You may neglect
yourself, but you owe your talents to us.
2
Gambara
GAMBARA
New Year's Day of 1831 was pouring out its packets of sugared
almonds, four o'clock was striking, there was a mob in the Palais-Royal,
and the eating-houses were beginning to fill. At this moment a coupe drew
up at the /perron/ and a young man stepped out; a man of haughty
appearance, and no doubt a foreigner; otherwise he would not have
displayed the aristocratic /chasseur/ who attended him in a plumed hat, nor
the coat of arms which the heroes of July still attacked.
This gentleman went into the Palais-Royal, and followed the crowd
round the galleries, unamazed at the slowness to which the throng of
loungers reduced his pace; he seemed accustomed to the stately step whic