Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
1Nous eussions vainement tenté d’empêcher l’infortuné de blasphémer ainsi. Un des malheurs des anges des ténèbres est de ne jamais voir la lumière, même quand ils en sont environnés. Celui-ci n’aurait pas compris nos paroles. En ce moment, le pas rapide de plusieurs chevaux retentit au milieu du silence, le chien aboya, la voix grondeuse du sergent lui répondit ; des cavaliers descendirent, frappèrent à la porte, et le bruit s’éleva tout à coup avec la violence d’une détonation inattendue. Les deux proscrits, les deux poètes tombèrent sur terre de toute la hauteur qui nous sépare des cieux. Le douloureux brisement de cette chute courut comme un autre sang dans leurs veines, mais en sifflant, en y roulant des pointes acérées et cuisantes. Pour eux, la douleur fut en quelque sorte une commotion électrique. La lourde et sonore démarche d’un homme d’armes dont l’épée, dont la cuirasse et les éperons produisaient un cliquetis ferrugineux retentit dans l’escalier ; puis un soldat se montra bientôt devant l’étranger surpris.
2— Nous pouvons rentrer à Florence, dit cet homme dont la grosse voix parut douce en prononçant des mots italiens. — Que dis-tu ? demanda le grand vieillard. — Les blancs triomphent ! — Ne te trompes-tu pas ? reprit le poète. — Non, cher Dante ! répondit le soldat dont la voix guerrière exprima les frissonnements des batailles et les joies de la victoire. — À Florence ! à Florence ! Ô ma Florence ! cria vivement Dante Alighieri qui se dressa sur ses pieds, regarda dans les airs, crut voir l’Italie, et devint gigantesque. — Et moi ! quand serai-je dans le ciel ? dit Godefroid qui restait un genou en terre devant le poète immortel, comme un ange en face du sanctuaire. — Viens à Florence ! lui dit Dante d’un son de voix compatissant. Va ! quand tu verras ses amoureux paysages du haut de Fiesolè, tu te croiras au paradis.
3Le soldat se mit à sourire. Pour la première, pour la seule fois peut-être, la sombre et terrible figure de Dante respira une joie ; ses yeux et son front exprimaient les peintures de bonheur qu’il a si magnifiquement prodiguées dans son Paradis. Il lui semblait peut-être entendre la voix de Béatrix. En ce moment, le pas léger d’une femme et le frémissement d’une robe retentirent dans le silence. L’aurore jetait alors ses premières clartés. La belle comtesse Mahaut entra, courut à Godefroid. — Viens, mon enfant, mon fils ! il m’est maintenant permis de t’avouer ! Ta naissance est reconnue, tes droits sont sous la protection du roi de France, et tu trouveras un paradis dans le cœur de ta mère. — Je reconnais la voix du ciel, cria l’enfant ravi. Ce cri réveilla Dante qui regarda le jeune homme enlacé dans les bras de la comtesse ; il les salua par un regard et laissa son compagnon d’étude sur le sein maternel.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1“The Shade uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from the lowest circle, the deepest in the immensity of suffering, to the more peaceful zone near the surface on which we were standing. This worst torment of all had appealed to all the rest. The turmoil was swelled THE EXILES 851 by the roar of a-sea of fire which formed a bass to the terrific harmony of endless millions of suffering souls. ‘Then suddenly the Shade took flight through the doleful city, and down to its place at the very bottom of Hell; but as suddenly it came up again, turned, soared through the endless circles in every direction, as a vulture, confined for the first time in a cage, exhausts itself in vain efforts. The Shade was free to do this; he could wander through the zones of Hell icy, fetid, or scorching without enduring their pangs; he glided into that vastness as a sunbeam makes its way into the deepest dark. ** “God has not condemned him to any torment,’ said the Master, ‘but not one of the souls you have seen suffering their various punishments would exchange his anguish for the hope that is consuming this soul.’
2‘‘And just then the Shade came back to us, brought thither by an irresistible force which condemned him to parch on the verge of Hell. My divine Guide, guessing my curiosity, touched the unhappy Shade with his palm-_ branch. He, who was perhaps trying to measure the age of sorrow that divided him from that ever-vanishing ‘Tomorrow,’ started and gave a look full of all the tears he had already shed. ‘**You would know my woe?’ said he sadly. ‘Oh, I love to tell it. I am here, Teresa is above; that is all. On earth we were happy, we were always together. When I saw my loved Teresa Donati for the first time, she was ten years old. We loved each other even then, not knowing what love meant. Our lives were one; I[ turned pale if she were pale, I was happy in her joy; we gave ourselves up to the pleasure of thinking and feeling together; and we learned what love was, each through the other. We were 852 BALZAC’S WORKS wedded at Cremona; ‘we never saw each other’s lips but decked with the pearls of a smile; our eyes always shone; our hair, like our desires, flowed together; our heads were always bent over one book when we read, our feet walked in equal step. Life was one long kiss, our home was a nest. ‘‘*One day, for the first time, Teresa turned pale and said, ‘‘I am in pain!’’—And I was not in pain!
3‘‘‘She never rose again. I saw her sweet face change, her golden hair fade—and I did not die! She smiled to hide her sufferings, but I could read them in her blue eyes, — of which I could interpret the slightest trembling. ‘‘Honorino, I love you!”’ said she, at the very moment when her lips turned white, and she was clasping my hand still in hers when death chilled them. Sol killed myself that she might not lie alone in her sepulchral bed, under her marble sheet. Teresa is above, and I am here. I could not bear to leave her, but God has divided us. Why, then, did He unite us on earth? He is jealous! Paradise was no doubt so much the fairer on the day when Teresa entered in. ‘“*Do you see her? She is sad in her bliss; she is parted from me! Paradise must be a desert to her.’ ‘‘“Master,’ said I with tears, for 1 thought of my love, ‘when this one shall desire Paradise for God’s sake alone, shall he not be delivered?’ And the Father of Poets mildly bowed his head in sign of assent. ‘‘We departed, cleaving the air, and making no more noise than the birds that pass overhead sometimes when we lie in the shade of a tree. It would have been vain to try to check the-hapless Shade in his blasphemy. It is one of the griefs of the angels of darkness that they can never see the ght even when they are surrounded by it. He would not have understood us.”’ THE EXILES 853
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
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