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The Lily of the Valley



by Honore de Balzac



Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley







DEDICATION



  To Monsieur J。 B。 Nacquart;

  Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine。



  Dear DoctorHere is one of the most carefully hewn stones in the

  second course of the foundation of a literary edifice which I have

  slowly and laboriously constructed。 I wish to inscribe your name

  upon it; as much to thank the man whose science once saved me as

  to honor the friend of my daily life。





De Balzac。









THE LILY OF THE VALLEY











ENVOI



  Felix de Vandenesse to Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville:



  I yield to your wishes。 It is the privilege of the women whom we

  love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore

  the ordinary rules of common…sense。 To smooth the frown upon their

  brow; to soften the pout upon their lips; what obstacles we

  miraculously overcome! We shed our blood; we risk our future!



  You exact the history of my past life; here it is。 But remember

  this; Natalie; in obeying you I crush under foot a reluctance

  hitherto unconquerable。 Why are you jealous of the sudden reveries

  which overtake me in the midst of our happiness? Why show the

  pretty anger of a petted woman when silence grasps me? Could you

  not play upon the contradictions of my character without inquiring

  into the causes of them? Are there secrets in your heart which

  seek absolution through a knowledge of mine? Ah! Natalie; you have

  guessed mine; and it is better you should know the whole truth。

  Yes; my life is shadowed by a phantom; a word evokes it; it hovers

  vaguely above me and about me; within my soul are solemn memories;

  buried in its depths like those marine productions seen in calmest

  weather and which the storms of ocean cast in fragments on the

  shore。



  The mental labor which the expression of ideas necessitates has

  revived the old; old feelings which give me so much pain when they

  come suddenly; and if in this confession of my past they break 

  forth in a way that wounds you; remember that you threatened to

  punish me if I did not obey your wishes; and do not; therefore;

  punish my obedience。 I would that this; my confidence; might

  increase your love。



Until we meet;



Felix。









CHAPTER I



TWO CHILDHOODS



To what genius fed on tears shall we some day owe that most touching

of all elegies;the tale of tortures borne silently by souls whose

tender roots find stony ground in the domestic soil; whose earliest

buds are torn apart by rancorous hands; whose flowers are touched by

frost at the moment of their blossoming? What poet will sing the

sorrows of the child whose lips must suck a bitter breast; whose

smiles are checked by the cruel fire of a stern eye? The tale that

tells of such poor hearts; oppressed by beings placed about them to

promote the development of their natures; would contain the true

history of my childhood。



What vanity could I have wounded;I a child new…born? What moral or

physical infirmity caused by mother's coldness? Was I the child of

duty; whose birth is a mere chance; or was I one whose very life was a

reproach? Put to nurse in the country and forgotten by my family for

over three years; I was treated with such indifference on my return to

the parental roof that even the servants pitied me。 I do not know to

what feeling or happy accident I owed my rescue from this first

neglect; as a child I was ignorant of it; as a man I have not

discovered it。 Far from easing my lot; my brother and my two sisters

found amusement in making me suffer。 The compact in virtue of which

children hide each other's peccadilloes; and which early teaches them

the principles of honor; was null and void in my case; more than that;

I was often punished for my brother's faults; without being allowed to

prove the injustice。 The fawning spirit which seems instinctive in

children taught my brother and sisters to join in the persecutions to

which I was subjected; and thus keep in the good graces of a mother

whom they feared as much as I。 Was this partly the effect of a

childish love of imitation; was it from a need of testing their

powers; or was it simply through lack of pity? Perhaps these causes

united to deprive me of the sweets of fraternal intercourse。



Disinherited of all affection; I could love nothing; yet nature had

made me loving。 Is there an angel who garners the sighs of feeling

hearts rebuffed incessantly? If in many such hearts the crushed

feelings turn to hatred; in mine they condensed and hollowed a depth

from which; in after years; they gushed forth upon my life。 In many

characters the habit of trembling relaxes the fibres and begets fear;

and fear ends in submission; hence; a weakness which emasculates a

man; and makes him more or less a slave。 But in my case these

perpetual tortures led to the development of a certain strength; which

increased through exercise and predisposed my spirit to the habit of

moral resistance。 Always in expectation of some new griefas the

martyrs expected some fresh blowmy whole being expressed; I doubt

not; a sullen resignation which smothered the grace and gaiety of

childhood; and gave me an appearance of idiocy which seemed to justify

my mother's threatening prophecies。 The certainty of injustice

prematurely roused my pridethat fruit of reasonand thus; no doubt;

checked the evil tendencies which an education like mine encouraged。



Though my mother neglected me I was sometimes the object of her

solicitude; she occasionally spoke of my education and seemed desirous

of attending to it herself。 Cold chills ran through me at such times

when I thought of the torture a daily intercourse with her would

inflict upon me。 I blessed the neglect in which I lived; and rejoiced

that I could stay alone in the garden and play with the pebbles and

watch the insects and gaze into the blueness of the sky。 Though my

loneliness naturally led me to reverie; my liking for contemplation

was first aroused by an incident which will give you an idea of my

early troubles。 So little notice was taken of me that the governess

occasionally forgot to send me to bed。 One evening I was peacefully

crouching under a fig…tree; watching a star with that passion of

curiosity which takes possession of a child's mind; and to which my

precocious melancholy gave a sort of sentimental intuition。 My sisters

were playing about and laughing; I heard their distant chatter like an

accompaniment to my thoughts。 After a while the noise ceased and

darkness fell。 My mother happened to notice my absence。 To escape

blame; our governess; a terrible Mademoiselle Caroline; worked upon my

mother's fears;told her I had a horror of my home and would long ago

have run away if she had not watched me; that I was not stupid but

sullen; and that in all her experience of children she had never known

one of so bad a disposition as mine。 She pretended to search for me。 I

answered as soon as I was called; and she came to the fig…tree; where

she very well knew I was。 〃What are you doing there?〃 she asked。

〃Watching a star。〃 〃You were not watching a star;〃 said my mother; who

was listening on her balcony; 〃children of your age know nothing of

astronomy。〃 〃Ah; madame;〃 cried Mademoiselle Caroline; 〃he has opened

the faucet of the reservoir; the garden is inundated!〃 Then there was

a general excitement。 The fact was that my sisters had amused

themselves by turning the cock to see the water flow; but a sudden

spurt wet them all over and frightened them so much that they ran away

without closing it。 Accused and convicted of this piece of mischief

and told that I lied when I denied it; I was severely punished。 Worse

than all; I was jeered at for my pretended love of the stars and

forbidden to stay in the garden after dark。



Such tyrannical restrains inten

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