文档介绍：The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
The Crime of Sylvestre
Bonnard
by Anatole France
1
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
Part I--The Log
December 24, 1849.
I had put on my slippers and my dressing-gown. I wiped away a tear
with which the north wind blowing over the quay had obscured my vision.
A bright fire was leaping in the chimney of my study. Ice-crystals, shaped
like fern-leaves, were sprouting over the windowpanes and concealed
from me the Seine with its bridges and the Louvre of the Valois.
I drew up my easy-chair to the hearth, and my table-volante, and took
up so much of my place by the fire as Hamilcar deigned to allow me.
Hamilcar was lying in front of the andirons, curled up on a cushion, with
his nose between his paws. His think find fur rose and fell with his regular
breathing. At ing, he slowly slipped a glance of his agate eyes at
me from between his half-opened lids, which he closed again almost at
once, thinking to himself, "It is nothing; it is only my friend."
"Hamilcar," I said to him, as I stretched my legs--"Hamilcar,
somnolent Prince of the City of Books--thou guardian nocturnal! Like that
Divine Cat bated the impious in Heliopolis--in the night of the
bat--thou dost defend from vile nibblers those books which the
old savant acquired at the cost of his slender savings and indefatigable zeal.
Sleep, Hamilcar, softly as a sultana, in this library, that shelters thy
military virtues; for verily in thy person are united the formidable aspect
of a Tatar warrior and the slumbrous grace of a woman of the Orient.
Sleep, thou heroic and voluptuous Hamilcar, while awaiting the moonlight
hour in which the mice e forth to dance before the Acta
Sanctorum of the learned Bolandists!"
The beginning of this discourse pleased Hamilcar, who panied it
with a throat-sound like the song of a kettle on the fire. But as my voice
waxed louder, Hamilcar notified me by lowering his ears and by wrinkling
the striped skin of his brow th