"De Balzac, Honore - Modeste Mignon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

"I am sure I can't think how they can live there," some one would say
as he paced the villa lawn,--perhaps to assist Vilquin in getting rid
of his tenant.

"What do you suppose they live on? they haven't any means of earning
money."

"I am told the old woman has gone blind."

"Is Mademoiselle Mignon still pretty? Dear me, how dashing she used to
be! Well, she hasn't any horses now."

Most young girls on hearing these spiteful and silly speeches, born of
an envy that now rushed, peevish and drivelling, to avenge the past,
would have felt the blood mount to their foreheads; others would have
wept; some would have undergone spasms of anger; but Modeste smiled,
as we smile at the theatre while watching the actors. Her pride could
not descend so low as the level of such speeches.

The other event was more serious than these mercenary meannesses.
Bettina Caroline died in the arms of her younger sister, who had
nursed her with the devotion of girlhood, and the curiosity of an
untainted imagination. In the silence of long nights the sisters
exchanged many a confidence. With what dramatic interest was poor
Bettina invested in the eyes of the innocent Modeste? Bettina knew
love through sorrow only, and she was dying of it. Among young girls
every man, scoundrel though he be, is still a lover. Passion is the
one thing absolutely real in the things of life, and it insists on its
supremacy. Charles d'Estourny, gambler, criminal, and debauchee,
remained in the memory of the sisters, the elegant Parisian of the
fetes of Havre, the admired of the womenkind. Bettina believed she had
carried him off from the coquettish Madame Vilquin, and to Modeste he
was her sister's happy lover. Such adoration in young girls is
stronger than all social condemnations. To Bettina's thinking, justice
had been deceived; if not, how could it have sentenced a man who had
loved her for six months?--loved her to distraction in the hidden
retreat to which he had taken her,--that he might, we may add, be at
liberty to go his own way. Thus the dying girl inoculated her sister
with love. Together they talked of the great drama which imagination
enhances; and Bettina carried with her to the grave her sister's
ignorance, leaving her, if not informed, at least thirsting for
information.

Nevertheless, remorse had set its fangs too sharply in Bettina's heart
not to force her to warn her sister. In the midst of her own
confessions she had preached duty and implicit obedience to Modeste.
On the evening of her death she implored her to remember the tears
that soaked her pillow, and not to imitate a conduct which even
suffering could not expiate. Bettina accused herself of bringing a
curse upon the family, and died in despair at being unable to obtain