一家人

Guy deMaupassant

和睦相處的一家人才是幸福的一家人，而在莫泊桑的短篇小說《一家人》中，一家人卻不像一家人……

I was to see my old friend, Simon Radevin,of whom I had lost sight for fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend who knows one's thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy evenings, to whom one tells one's secret love affairs, and who seems to draw out those rare, ingenious, delicate thoughts born of that sympathy that gives a sense of repose（平靜）.

For years we had scarcely been separated;we had lived, travelled, thought and dreamed together; had liked the same things, had admired the same books, understood the same authors,trembled with the same sensations, and very often laughed at the same individuals,whom we understood completely by merely exchanging a glance.

Then he married. He married, quite suddenly, a little girl from the provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How in the world could that little thin,insipidly（乏味地）fair girl,with her weak hands, her light, vacant eyes, and her clear, silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever young fellow? Can any one understand these things? No doubt he had hoped for happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of a good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all that in the transparent looks of that schoolgirl with light hair.

He had not dreamed of the fact that an active and living man grows tired of everything as soon as he understands the stupid reality, unless,indeed, he becomes so cruel that he understands nothing whatever.

What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, humorous, light-hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor（遲鈍）induced by provincial life? A man may change greatly in the course of fifteen years!

The train stopped at a small station,and as I got out of the carriage, a rather fat man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to me with open arms, exclaiming,“George!”I embraced him, but I had not recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment,“Simon! You have not grown thin!”And he replied with a laugh,“What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating and sleeping, that is my existence!”

I looked at him closely, trying to discover in that broad face the features I held so dear. His eyes alone had not changed, but I no longer saw the same expression in them, and I said to myself,“If the expression is the reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are not what they used to be formerly, those thoughts which I knew so well.”Yet his eyes were bright, full of happiness and friendship, but they had not that clear,intelligent expression which shows as much as words the brightness of the intellect.

Suddenly he said,“Here are my two eldest children.”A girl of fourteen, who was almost a woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycee, came forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice,“Are they yours?”“Of course they are,”he replied,laughing.“How many do you have?”“Five!There are three more at home,”he said this in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner,and I felt profound pity.

I got into a carriage which he drove himself,and we set off through the town, a dull, sleepy,gloomy town where nothing was moving in the streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there a shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simon returned his salute（致意）and told me the man's name;no doubt to show me that he knew all the inhabitants（居民）personally,and the thought struck me that he was thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that was an imitation of a park,and stopped in front of a turreted（有角樓的）house,which tried to look like a castle.

“That is my house,”said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it.“It is charming,”I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company phrases all ready prepared. She was no longer the light-haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a fat lady in curls and flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without intellect,without any of those things that go to make a woman. In short, she was a mother, a fat, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her children and her cook-book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall,where three children, ranged according to their height,seemed set out for review,like firemen before a mayor, and I said,“Ah! Ah! So there are the others?”Simon introduced them with pleasure,“Jean,Sophie and Gontran.”

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of an easy-chair, I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man. Madame Radevin came forward and said,“This is my grandfather and he is eighty-seven.”And then she shouted into the shaking old man's ears,“This is a friend of Simon's, papa.”The old gentleman tried to say“good-day”to me, and he muttered,“Oua, oua, oua,”and waved his hand,and I took a seat saying,“You are very kind,monsieur.”

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh,“So! You have made grandpa's acquaintance.He is a treasure,that old man;he is the delight of the children. But he is so greedy that he almost kills himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. You never saw anything so funny;you will see presently.”

I was then shown to my room, to change my dress for dinner, and hearing a great clatter（咔嗒聲）behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all the children were following me behind their father,to do me honor,no doubt.

My windows looked out across a dreary（沉寂的）, endless plain, an ocean of grass, of wheat and of oats, without a group of trees or any rising ground,a striking and melancholy（憂郁的）picture of the life which they must be leading in that house.

A bell rang. It was for dinner, and I went downstairs. Madame Radevin took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room. A footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair. He gave a greedy and curious look at the dessert,as he turned his shaking head with difficulty from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands.“You will be amused,”he said. And all the children understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of their greedy grandfather, began to laugh,while their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted at the old man,“This evening there is sweet creamed rice!”The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he trembled more violently, from head to foot,showing that he had understood and was very pleased.The dinner began.

“Just look!”Simon whispered. The old man did not like the soup,and refused to eat it;but he was obliged to do it for the good of his health,and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth,while the old man blew so energetically,so as not to swallow the soup, that it was scattered like a spray all over the table and over his neighbors.The children burst into laughter at the scene,while their father,who was also amused,said,“Is not the old man comical?”

During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him. He ate all the dishes quickly on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull them over to him with his trembling hands. They put them almost within his reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling hold on them, the pitiful appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth and of his nose as he smelt them,and he slobbered（流口水）on his table napkin with eagerness, while saying something we couldn't listen to clearly. And the whole family was highly amused at this horrible, unpleasant and offensive scene.

Then they put a tiny piece of food on his plate, and he ate with feverish gluttony（暴食）,in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the sweetened rice was brought in,he nearly had a fit,and groaned（呻吟）with greediness, and Gontran called out to him,“You have eaten too much already; you can have no more.”And they pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry;he cried and trembled more violently than ever, while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful, he made a comical noise in his throat, and a movement with his neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel（一口食物）,and when he had swallowed it, he began to stamp（跺腳）his feet,so as to get more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous old man, and said on his behalf,“Come, give him a little more rice!”But Simon replied,“Oh! No! My dear fellow, if he were to eat too much,it would harm him,at his age.”

I held my tongue, and thought over those words. Oh, ethics! Oh, logic! Oh, wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining pleasure out of regard for his health! His health!They were taking care of his life, as they said.His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family.

There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last comfort until he died?

After we had played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed;I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! And I sat at my window. Not a sound could be heard outside but the beautiful singing of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing in a low voice during the night, to make his mate relaxed,who was asleep on her eggs. And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to myself,snoring by the side of his ugly wife.