Justine 淑女的眼泪 Chapter 6

Monsieur Du Harpin let more than a month drift by, that is to say, he waited until the end of my second year with him, and waited without showing the least hint of resentment ¹ at the refusal I had given him, when one evening, having just retired ² to my room to taste a few hours of repose ³, I suddenly heard my door burst opens and there, not without terror, I saw Monsieur du Harpin and four soldiers of the watch standing ⁴ by my bed. "Perform your duty, Sirrah," said he to the men of the law, "this wretch ⁵ has stolen from me a diamond worth a thousand crowns, you will find it in her chamber ⁶ or upon her person, the fact is certain.", ,"I have robbed you, Monsieur!" said I, sore troubled and springing from my bed, "I! Great Heaven! Who knows better than you the contrary to be true! Who should be more deeply aware than you to what point I loathe ⁷ robbery and to what degree it is unthinkable I could have committed it." But du Harpin made a great uproar ⁸ to drown out my words; he continued to order perquisitions, and the miserable ⁹ ring was discovered in my mattress ¹⁰. To evidence of this strength there was nothing to reply; I was seized instantly, pinioned ¹¹, and led to prison without being able to prevail upon the authorities to listen to one word in my favor., ,The trial of an unfortunate creature who has neither influence nor protection is conducted with dispatch in a land where virtue ¹² is thought incompatible ¹³ with misery ¹⁴, where poverty is enough to convict the accused; there, an unjust prepossession causes it to be supposed that he who ought to have committed a crime did indeed commit it; sentiments are proportioned according to the guilty one's estate; and when once gold or titles are wanting to establish his innocence ¹⁵, the impossibility that he be innocent then appears self-evident., , ,I defended myself, it did no good, in vain I furnished the best material to the lawyer whom a protocol ¹⁸ of form required be given me for an instant or two; my employer accused me, the diamond had been discovered in my room; it was plain I had stolen it. When I wished to describe Monsieur du Harpin's awful traffic and prove that the misfortune that had struck me was naught ¹⁹ but the fruit of his vengeance ²⁰ and the consequence of his eagerness to be rid of a creature who, through possession of his secret, had become his master, these pleadings were interpreted as so many recriminations, and I was informed that for twenty years Monsieur du Harpin had been known as a man of integrity, incapable ²¹ of such a horror. I was transferred to the Conciergerie, where I saw myself upon the brink ²² of having to pay with my life for having refused to participate in a crime; I was shortly to perish; only a new misdeed could save me: Providence ²³ willed that Crime serve at least once as an aegis ²⁴ unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abyss which is some-day going to engulf ²⁵ judges together with their imbecility., ,I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, as celebrated ²⁶ for her beauty as for the variety and number of her villainies; she was called Dubois and, like the unlucky Therese, was on the eve of paying the capital penalty, but as to the exact form of it the judges were yet mightily ²⁷ perplexed ²⁸: having rendered herself guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselves virtually obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose her to one whence we ordinarily exempt ²⁹ our sex. This woman had become interested in me, criminally interested without doubt, since the basis of her feelings, as I learned afterward ³⁰, was her extreme desire to make a proselyte of me., ,She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心 。,The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了
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