第一百六十一章 第二章 主人如其宅
第二章 主人如其宅
他住在玛雷区，圣女受难街六号。这栋房子是他自己的产业。这栋房屋后来已被拆除重建，门牌号码大概也在巴黎街道门牌号码的那些革命性的变更中改变了。他占据了二楼一套古老而宽敞的房间，一边临街，一边对着花园，房间直到天花板都装饰着巨大的戈布兰和博韦挂毯，描绘着田园风光；天花板和墙裙上的图案，也以缩小的形式出现在扶手椅上。他用一张巨大的九扇科罗曼德尔漆屏风环绕着床铺。窗户上挂着长而饱满的窗帘，形成巨大而破碎的褶裥，显得非常富丽堂皇。位于他窗户正下方的花园，通过一条十二或十五级长的楼梯，与构成转角的那扇窗子相连，老先生敏捷地上下楼梯。除了与他卧室相邻的书房外，他还有一间他极为珍视的小客厅，这是一个高雅精致的幽居之所，挂着华丽的麦秆色帷幔，上面有路易十四时代，德·维冯纳先生为他的情妇，命令苦役犯在船上制造的百合花和花卉图案。吉诺曼先生是从一位凶巴巴的、活到百岁高龄的母系姨奶奶那里继承来的。他结过两次婚。他的举止介于他从未做过的廷臣和他可能做过的律师之间。他为人快活，高兴的时候也很亲热。年轻时，他是那种总被妻子欺骗，却从未被情妇欺骗的男人之一，因为他们既是世间最阴郁的丈夫，也是最迷人的情人。他是一位绘画鉴赏家。他的房间里有一幅极美的不知是谁的肖像，由约尔丹斯所作，笔触豪放，细节万千，风格纷乱而随意。吉诺曼先生的穿着既不是路易十四的式样，也不是路易十六的式样；而是督政府时期“不可理喻者”的式样。直到那时，他还自认为年轻，并且追随时尚。他的外套是轻薄的布料，有着宽大的翻领，长长的燕尾，和很大的钢制纽扣。他穿着齐膝短裤和带扣皮鞋。他总是把双手插在表袋里。他用权威的口吻说：“法国革命是一帮无赖。”
He lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6. He owned the
house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number
has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the
streets of Paris undergo. He occupied an ancient and vast apartment on
the first floor, between street and gardens, furnished to the very
ceilings with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing
pastoral scenes; the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were
repeated in miniature on the armchairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast,
nine-leaved screen of Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from
the windows, and formed great, broken folds that were very magnificent.
The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that
one of them which formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or
fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with
great agility. In addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a
boudoir of which he thought a great deal, a gallant and elegant
retreat, with magnificent hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers
and fleurs-de-lys made on the galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his
convicts by M. de Vivonne for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had
inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a
centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners were something between
those of the courtier, which he had never been, and the lawyer, which
he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In
his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their
wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same
time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in
existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a
marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed
with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a confused
and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand’s attire was not the habit of
Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables
of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and
had followed the fashions. His coat was of light-weight cloth with
voluminous revers, a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons. With
this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands
into his fobs. He said authoritatively: “The French Revolution is a
heap of blackguards.”
