Justine 淑女的眼泪 Chapter 17

As soon as I was fit to take a little air, my first concern was to find in the town some girl sufficiently ¹ adroit ² and intelligent to go to the Marquise's chateau ³ and find out what had taken place there since my departure. This apparently ⁴ very dangerous inquisitiveness ⁵ would without the slightest doubt have been exceedingly misplaced; but here it was not a question of mere ⁶ Curiosity. What I had earned while with the Marquise remained in my room; I had scarcely six louis about me, and I possessed ⁷ above forty at the chateau. I did not suppose the Count would be unkind enough to refuse me what was so legitimately ⁹ mine. Persuaded that, his first fury once passed, he would not wish to do me such an injustice ¹⁰, I wrote a letter calculated to touch him as deeply as possible. I was careful to conceal ¹¹ my address and I begged him to send back my old clothes together with the small sum that would be found in my chamber ¹². A lively and spirited peasant girl of twenty-five undertook to deliver my letter and promised to do her best to bring me back all the information she could garner ¹³ upon the various subjects about which I gave her to understand I needed to be enlightened. I insisted, that above all else, she hide the name of the place where I was, that she not breathe a word of me in whatever form or connection, and that she say she had taken the letter from a man who had brought it from somewhere fifteen leagues away. Jeannette left, and twenty-four hours later she came back with the reply; it still exists, I have it here, Madame, but before you read it, deign ¹⁴ to learn what had transpired ¹⁵ at the Count's chateau since I had been out of it., ,Having fallen seriously ill the very day I left, the Marquise de Bressac had been seized by frightful ¹⁶ pains and convulsions, and had died the next morning; the family had rushed to the chateau and the nephew, seemingly gripped in the greatest desolation, had declared that his aunt had been poisoned by a chambermaid who had taken flight the same day. Inquiries ¹⁷ were made, and they had the intention to put the wretch ¹⁸ to death were she to be found; as for the rest, the Count discovered that the inheritance had made him much wealthier than he had ever anticipated he would be; the Marquise's strongbox, pocketbook, and gems ¹⁹, all of them objects of which no one had known anything, put the nephew, apart from his revenues, in possession of more than six hundred thousand francs in chattels ²⁰ or cash. Behind his affected ²¹ grief, the young man had, it was said, considerable trouble concealing ²² his delight, and the relatives, convoked ²³ for the autopsy ²⁴ demanded by the Count, after having lamented ²⁵ the unhappy Marquise's fate and sworn to avenge ²⁶ her should the culprit fall into their hands, had left the young man in undisputed and peaceful possession of his villainy. Monsieur de Bressac himself had spoken to Jeannette, he had asked a number of questions to which the girl had replied with such frankness and decision that he had resolved to give her his response without pressing her further. There is the fatal letter, said Therese, handing it to Madame de Lorsange, yes, there it is, Madame, sometimes my heart has need of it and I will keep it until I die; read it, read it without shuddering ²⁷, if you can., ,Madame de Lorsange, having taken the note from our lovely adventuress' hands, read therein the following words:, , ,Madame de Lorsange returned the note to Therese; "Continue, my dear child," said she, "the man's behavior is horrifying ³⁴; to be swimming in gold and to deny her legitimate ⁸ earnings ³⁵ to a poor creature who merely did not want to commit a crime, that is a gratuitous ³⁶ infamy ³⁷ entirely ³⁸ without example.", ,Alas ³⁹! Madame, Therese continued, resuming her story, I was in tears for two days over that dreadful letter; I was far more afflicted ⁴⁰ by the thought of the horrible deed it attested ⁴¹ than by the refusal it contained. Then, I groaned ⁴², then I am guilty, here am I a second time denounced to justice for having been overly respectful of the law! So be it, I repent ⁴³ nothing, I shall never know the least remorse ⁴⁴ so long as my soul is pure, and may I never be responsible for any evil other than that of having too much heeded ⁴⁵ the equitable ⁴⁶ and virtuous ⁴⁷ sentiments which will never abandon me., ,The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。,Jamie was adroit at flattering others.杰米很会拍马屁 。