第一百九十三章 第六卷 被俘
第六卷 被俘
第二个星期最后几天里，有一次，马吕斯照例坐在他的长凳上，手里拿着一本书，但两小时没有翻开一页。他忽然吃了一惊。林荫道尽头发生了一件大事。白先生和他的女儿刚刚离开了他们的坐位，女儿挽着父亲的胳臂，两人正朝着林荫道中间马吕斯坐的地方慢慢走来。马吕斯赶紧合上书，又把它打开，又逼着自己阅读。他浑身颤抖。那道灵光直向他袭来。“啊！天哪！”他想，“我连摆个姿势的时间都没有了。”可是那个白发人和那姑娘已经走近。他似乎觉得这种情况持续了一百年，同时又感觉不过是一秒钟。“他们到这儿来干什么？”他问自己。“怎么！她要在这儿经过吗？她的脚会踏在这沙路上，在这林荫道上，离我两步远的地方！”他完全不知所措，他希望自己非常英俊，希望自己拥有十字勋章。他听见他们走近的脚步轻柔而有节奏。他想象白先生正愤怒地瞪着他。“这位先生是不是要跟我说话？”他心想。他低下头；等他重新抬起头时，他们已经非常近。那姑娘走过，走过时看了他一眼。她凝视着他，带着一种沉思的温柔，使马吕斯从头到脚一阵战栗。他似乎觉得她在责备他这么久没有到她身边去，似乎在对他说：“我自己来了。”马吕斯被那充满光芒和深渊的眼睛弄得意乱情迷。
他觉得头脑发热。她向他走来了，多么快乐！还有，她那样看他！她在他看来比从前任何时候都更美。一种完全女性的和天使般的美，一种完整的美，足以使彼特拉克歌唱，使但丁跪拜。他似乎觉得自己在碧蓝的天空中自由飘浮。同时，他非常恼火，因为他的靴子上有灰尘。
他确信她刚才也看了他的靴子。
他用眼睛追随着她，直到她消失。然后他跳起来，在卢森堡公园里像疯子一样走来走去。可能有时候他独自发笑，自言自语。他接近那些乳母时是那样心不在焉，以致她们每个人都以为他爱上了自己。
他离开卢森堡公园，希望能在街上再遇到她。
他在奥德翁拱廊下遇见古费拉克，对他说：“来和我一起吃晚饭。”他们去卢梭店花了六个法郎。马吕斯吃得像头饿狼。他给了侍者六个苏的小费。吃甜点时，他对古费拉克说：“你看了报纸没有？奥德里·德·普伊拉沃发表了多好的演说啊！”
他爱得发狂。
晚饭后，他对古费拉克说：“我请你去看戏。”他们去圣马丁门剧院看弗雷德里克主演的《阿德雷客栈》。马吕斯大为开心。
同时，他又更加害羞了。走出剧院时，他不肯去看一个跨过水沟的女帽商的吊袜带，而古费拉克说：“我真想把那个女人收进我的收藏品”，几乎使他大吃一惊。
第二天，古费拉克邀请他到伏尔泰咖啡馆吃早餐。马吕斯去了，吃得甚至比前一天晚上还多。他心事重重，又十分开心。可以说他利用每个机会纵声大笑。有人向他介绍了一个外省人，他热情地拥抱了他。一群学生围着桌子坐下，谈到索邦大学讲坛上由国家付钱讲的蠢话，然后话题转到吉查尔词典和语法中的错误和遗漏。马吕斯打断讨论，大声说：“不过，拥有十字勋章还是令人愉快的！”
“这真奇怪！”古费拉克低声对让·普鲁维尔说。
“不，”普鲁维尔回答，“这很严重。”
的确严重；马吕斯正处于伟大激情开始的那种最初猛烈而迷人的时刻。
这一切只源于一瞥。
当地雷装好，当火种备好，再没有比这更简单的事了。一瞥就是火花。
他完了。马吕斯爱上了一个女人。他的命运正在进入未知。
女人的眼神就像某些轮子的组合，外表平静，实则可怕。你每天从它们旁边经过，平平安安，不受惩罚，毫无疑心。某个时刻你会忘记那东西就在那里。你来去，做梦，说话，大笑。忽然你感到被抓住了；一切都完了。轮子抓住了你，那眼神捕获了你。它抓住了你，不管在何处、以何种方式，抓住了你飘荡的某部分思想，抓住了你某次分心。你完了。你整个儿都陷进去了。一种神秘力量之链控制了你。你徒劳挣扎；再也没有人类的救助可能。你从齿轮掉到齿轮，从痛苦掉到痛苦，从折磨掉到折磨，你，你的思想，你的财富，你的未来，你的灵魂；而且，根据你是被一个邪恶的人抓住，还是被一颗崇高的心抓住，你从这部可怕的机器中逃脱时，要么被耻辱毁容，要么被激情美化。
On one of the last days of the second week, Marius was seated on his
bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book, of which he had not
turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started. An event
was taking place at the other extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his
daughter had just left their seat, and the daughter had taken her
father’s arm, and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the
alley where Marius was. Marius closed his book, then opened it again,
then forced himself to read; he trembled; the aureole was coming
straight towards him. “Ah! good Heavens!” thought he, “I shall not have
time to strike an attitude.” Still the white-haired man and the girl
advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it
was but a second. “What are they coming in this direction for?” he
asked himself. “What! She will pass here? Her feet will tread this
sand, this walk, two paces from me?” He was utterly upset, he would
have liked to be very handsome, he would have liked to own the cross.
He heard the soft and measured sound of their approaching footsteps. He
imagined that M. Leblanc was darting angry glances at him. “Is that
gentleman going to address me?” he thought to himself. He dropped his
head; when he raised it again, they were very near him. The young girl
passed, and as she passed, she glanced at him. She gazed steadily at
him, with a pensive sweetness which thrilled Marius from head to foot.
It seemed to him that she was reproaching him for having allowed so
long a time to elapse without coming as far as her, and that she was
saying to him: “I am coming myself.” Marius was dazzled by those eyes
fraught with rays and abysses.
He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how
she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had
ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine
and angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing
and Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the
azure heavens. At the same time, he was horribly vexed because there
was dust on his boots.
He thought he felt sure that she had looked at his boots too.
He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then he started up
and walked about the Luxembourg garden like a madman. It is possible
that, at times, he laughed to himself and talked aloud. He was so
dreamy when he came near the children’s nurses, that each one of them
thought him in love with her.
He quitted the Luxembourg, hoping to find her again in the street.
He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odéon, and said to
him: “Come and dine with me.” They went off to Rousseau’s and spent six
francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At
dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. “Have you read the paper? What a fine
discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!”
He was desperately in love.
After dinner, he said to Courfeyrac: “I will treat you to the play.”
They went to the Porte-Sainte-Martin to see Frédérick in _l’Auberge des
Adrets_. Marius was enormously amused.
At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging
from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was
stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac, who said: “I should like to
put that woman in my collection,” almost horrified him.
Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Café Voltaire on the
following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even more than on the
preceding evening. He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would
have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh
uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the
provinces, who was presented to him. A circle of students formed round
the table, and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which
was uttered from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation
fell upon the faults and omissions in Guicherat’s dictionaries and
grammars. Marius interrupted the discussion to exclaim: “But it is very
agreeable, all the same to have the cross!”
“That’s queer!” whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire.
“No,” responded Prouvaire, “that’s serious.”
It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and
charming hour with which grand passions begin.
A glance had wrought all this.
When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is
more simple. A glance is a spark.
It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering
the unknown.
The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are
tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every
day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything.
A moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and
come, dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all
is over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has
caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought
which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you.
You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious
forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human
succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from
agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune,
your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power
of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from
this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or
transfigured by passion.
