Justine 淑女的眼泪 Chapter 39

"Therese," said the Count, bidding me be seated, "I shall not very often repeat such exercises with you, your person is useful for other purposes; but it was of the highest importance I acquaint you with my tastes and the manner in which you will expire in this house should you betray me one of these days, should you be unlucky enough to let yourself be suborned by the woman in whose society you are going to be placed., ,"That woman belongs to me, Therese, she is my wife and that title is doubtless the most baleful she could have, since it obliges her to lend herself to the bizarre passion whereof you have been a recent victim; do not suppose it is vengeance ¹ that prompts me to treat her thus, scorn, or any sentiment of hostility ² or hatred ³; it is merely a question of passion. Nothing equals the pleasure I experience upon shedding her blood... I go mad when it flows; I have never enjoyed this woman in any other fashion. Three years have gone by since I married her, and for three years she has been regularly exposed every four days to the treatment you have undergone. Her youth (she is not yet twenty), the special care given her, all this keeps her aright; and as the reservoir is replenished ⁴ at the same rate it is tapped, she has been in fairly good health since the regime began. Our relations being what they are, you perfectly ⁵ well appreciate why I can neither allow her to go out nor to receive visitors. And so I represent her as insane and her mother, the only living member of her family, who resides in a chateau ⁶ six leagues from here, is so firmly convinced of her derangement ⁷ that she dares not even come to see her. Not infrequently the Countess implores ⁸ my mercy, there is nothing she omits to do in order to soften ⁹ me; but I doubt whether she shall ever succeed. My lust ¹⁰ decreed her fate, it is immutable ¹¹, she will go on in this fashion so long as she is able; while she lives she will want nothing and as I am incredibly fond of what can be drained from her living body, I will keep her alive as long as possible; when finally she can stand it no more, well, tush, Nature will take its course. She's my fourth; I'll soon have a fifth. Nothing disturbs me less than to lose a wife. There are so many women about, and it is so pleasant to change., ,"In any event, Therese, your task is to look after her. Her blood is let once every ninety-six hours; she loses two bowls of it each time and nowadays no longer faints, having got accustomed to it. Her prostration ¹² lasts twenty-four hours; she is bedridden one day out of every four, but during the remaining three she gets on tolerably well. But you may easily understand this life displeases ¹³ her; at the outset there was nothing she would not try to deliver herself from it, nothing she did not undertake to acquaint her mother with her real situation: she seduced ¹⁴ two of her maid-servants whose maneuvers ¹⁵ were detected early enough to defeat their success: she was the cause of these two unhappy creatures' ruin, today she repents ¹⁶ what she did and, recognizing the irremediable character of her destiny, she is co-operating cheerfully and has promised not to make confederates of the help I hire to care for her. But this secret and what becomes of those who conspire ¹⁷ to betray me, these matters, Therese, oblige me to put no one in her neighborhood but persons who, like yourself, have been impressed; and thus inquiries ¹⁸ are avoided. Not having carried you off from anyone's house, not having to render an account of you to anyone at all, nothing stands in the way of my punishing you, if you deserve to be, in a manner which, although you will be deprived of mortal breath, cannot nevertheless expose me to interrogations or embroil ¹⁹ me in any unpleasantnesses. As of the present moment you inhabit the world no longer, since the least impulse of my will can cause you to disappear from it. What can you expect at my hands? Happiness if you behave properly, death if you seek to play me false. Were these alternatives not so clear, were they not so few, I would ask for your response; but in your present situation we can dispense ²⁰ with questions and answers. I have you, Therese, and hence you must obey me.... Let us go to my wife's apartment.", , ,"Be seated," the Count said to her, "I permit you to listen to me thus. Here at last we have a maid for you, Madame," he continued, "and I trust you will remember what has befallen the others and that you will not try to plunge ²⁴ this one into an identical misfortune."#p#分页标题#e#, ,"It would be useless," I said, full eager to be of help to this poor woman and wishing to disguise my designs, "yes, Madame, I dare certify ²⁵ in your presence that it would be to no purpose, you will not speak one word to me I shall not report immediately to his Lordship, and I shall certainly not jeopardize ²⁶ my life in order to serve you.", ,For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。,There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意 。