我生来是日内瓦人，我的家族是那个共和国最显赫的家族之一。我的祖先多年来一直担任参议员和执政官，我的父亲也曾以荣誉和声誉担任过好几个公职。所有认识他的人都因他的正直和对公务孜孜不倦的投入而敬重他。他年轻时在国家的政务中终日忙碌；种种境遇使他未能及早成婚，直到晚年他才做了丈夫，成了家。
由于他结婚的境况正能说明他的品格，我忍不住要将此事道来。他最亲密的朋友中有一位商人，本来家业兴旺，却因连连厄运陷入贫困。这人名叫博福特，生性骄傲，不肯屈就，无法忍受在曾经以地位和阔绰闻名的故国，于贫贱和湮没中度日。于是他还清了债务，方式极尽体面，随后带着女儿退居卢塞恩城，在那儿默默无闻、凄苦地生活。我父亲对博福特怀有最真挚的友情，对他落得这般境地退隐深感悲恸。他痛惜朋友那种虚假的骄傲，竟致使他做出如此有负于二人情谊的举动。他立刻设法寻访博福特，希望凭自己的信用和接济劝他重振家业。
博福特已采取有效措施隐匿行踪，我父亲花了十个月才探明他的住处。发现之后他欣喜若狂，急忙赶到那所房子，它坐落在罗伊斯河附近一条陋巷里。可他一进门，迎他的只有苦难与绝望。博福特从破产中仅存下很小一笔钱，但足以维持数月生计，其间他指望在商行里谋份体面差事。于是这间隙便在闲散中度过；一旦有空反刍心事，他的悲愁便愈发深沉、溃烂，终至牢牢缠住心神，三个月后他卧病在床，无力动弹。
他女儿极尽温柔地照料他，却绝望地看到那点钱迅速见底，此外别无生计指望。但卡罗琳·博福特心性非同寻常，勇气随逆境高涨。她接些缝纫活；编草辫；用各种法子勉强挣得仅够活命的零钱。
这样过了几个月。她父亲愈发糟糕；她更全副心思服侍；进项却越来越少；第十个月，父亲死在她怀里，留她孤身一人，沦为乞丐。这最后一击将她击垮，她跪在博福特棺旁痛哭，正逢我父亲进屋。他像守护神般来到这可怜姑娘面前，姑娘托身于他；葬过友人后，他带她回日内瓦，托付给一位亲戚照拂。两年后，卡罗琳成了他的妻子。
我父母年龄相差颇大，但这似乎只令他们以更深的挚爱相系。我父亲心地正直，有种正义感，必要先高度认可方能强烈去爱。或许早年间他曾因迟觉所爱者不配而吃过苦，故更看重经考验的品德。他对我母亲流露的依恋中带着感恩与敬慕，全然不同于老来的溺爱，因那源于对她德行的崇敬，及一丝想要补偿她所受悲苦的心意——这却使他待她之举平添难以言表的优雅。万事皆让她称心、便利。他竭力护她，如园丁护娇客，避一切厉风，围以能悦其柔善之心的一切。她历经磨难，健康乃至一向平和的心神都已动摇。婚前的两年里，我父亲渐渐卸去所有公职；成婚后他们即刻寻往意大利宜人之地，借这奇境之游换景换趣，以养她虚弱之身。
从意大利他们游了德国和法国。我，他们的长女，生于那不勒斯，襁褓中便随他们漂泊。多年里我是独苗。他们彼此情深，却似从爱之矿中汲之不竭，尽倾于我。母亲温柔的抚抱、父亲望我时慈悦的微笑，是我最初的记忆。我是他们的玩物、偶像，且更胜——他们的孩子，上天赐予的无辜弱小者，教养向善、未来祸福皆系于他们对我尽责与否。深明对这生命所负之责，兼以二人心中活跃的柔情，可想我婴孩时的每时每刻虽受耐心、慈善、克己之教，却如被丝绳轻引，于我尽是连连欢娱。
许久我是他们唯一的牵挂。母亲极想要个女儿，我却始终是独生。我约五岁时，他们越出意大利边境漫游，在科莫湖畔住了一周。他们心善，常进穷人的茅舍。对我母亲，这不止是责任；是必需，是热忱——念及自身曾受苦、曾被济——轮到她做受难者的守护天使。一日散步，谷坳里一间穷棚惹他们注意，分外凄清，周遭半裸孩童显出极端的贫寒。某日父亲独往米兰，母亲带我探了这处。她见一农夫与妻，劳碌躬身，正分少得可怜的饭食给五个饿孩。其中一女远比其他更引母亲注目。她似出别脉。余四子黑眼粗野小流浪；这孩瘦而极白。发如最亮活金，虽衣陋，犹戴尊冠。额清阔，蓝眸无云，唇与面廓极显敏感甜美，人见皆觉异类，天降之灵，貌含仙印。
农妇见母亲惊羡盯这可爱女，急道其史。非己女，乃米兰贵族女。母为德人，产时殁。婴交此善人哺；彼时他们尚宽裕。成婚未久，长子女刚生。孩父乃怀意大利古荣之意大利人——_schiavi ognor frementi_ 中一员，力谋国自由。终成国弱之牺牲。死或仍囚奥狱未知。产充公；孩成孤丐。留养父母处，陋居盛放，艳比暗荆间园玫瑰。
父亲自米兰归，见别墅厅中一孩伴我戏，美胜画中天使——似自目流光，形动轻逾山羚。异象旋明。得父许，母说动乡保舍其托。他们爱这甜孤。她如在祝福，但天赐强护却留贫缺，于她不公。他们问村牧师，遂伊丽莎白·拉文扎入我父母家——胜姐之亲——我诸事诸乐中美丽被爱之伴。
人人爱伊丽莎白。众对她的热恋近恭，我同享间成我骄我悦。迎她入户前夜，母戏言：“给维克多备了俏礼——明儿给他。”翌日她以伊丽莎白为诺赠，我孩气认真，字解母言，视伊为吾——吾护、爱、惜。凡赞她，我受如赞己物。我们互唤表亲。无词无语能状她于我之系——胜姐，盖至死唯我。
I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most
distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years
counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public
situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who
knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public
business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the
affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his
marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a
husband and the father of a family.
As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot
refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a
merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous
mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a
proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty
and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been
distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts,
therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his
daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in
wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and
was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances.
He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct
so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in
endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin
the world again through his credit and assistance.
Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten
months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery,
he hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the
Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort
had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but
it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in
the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a
merchant’s house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction;
his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for
reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that at the end
of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.
His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw
with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that
there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort
possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support
her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw and
by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to
support life.
Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time
was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence
decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving
her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt
by Beaufort’s coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the
chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who
committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he
conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a
relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but
this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted
affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind
which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love
strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the
late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set
a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and
worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the
doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her
virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing
her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace
to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes
and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is
sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her
with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and
benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto
constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During
the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had
gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after
their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change
of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders,
as a restorative for her weakened frame.
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born
at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained
for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each
other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very
mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and
my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my
first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something
better—their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on
them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in
their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled
their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed
towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit
of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during
every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity,
and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but
one train of enjoyment to me.
For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a
daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five
years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they
passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent
disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my
mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a
passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been
relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the
afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale
attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number
of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst
shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother,
accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife,
hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to
five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far
above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were
dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her
hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her
clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was
clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of
her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold
her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent,
and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.
The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and
admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was
not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a
German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with
these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been
long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their
charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory
of Italy—one among the _schiavi ognor frementi,_ who exerted
himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its
weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria
was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and
a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude
abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles.
When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of
our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed
to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter
than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his
permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their
charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed
a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty
and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They
consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza
became the inmate of my parents’ house—my more than
sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and
my pleasures.
Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential
attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my
pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to
my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my
Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she
presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish
seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth
as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on
her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other
familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body
forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than
sister, since till death she was to be mine only.
