文档介绍：Louis Lambert
Louis Lambert
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring
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Louis Lambert
DEDICATION
"Et nunc et semper dilectoe dicatum."
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Louis Lambert
LOUIS LAMBERT
Louis Lambert was born at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois,
where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intended that
his son should eed him; but his precocious bent for study modified the
paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wife adored Louis, their
only child, and never contradicted him in anything.
At the age of five Louis had begun by reading the Old and New
Testaments; and these two Books, including so many books, had sealed his
fate. Could that childish imagination understand the mystical depths of the
Scriptures? Could it so early follow the flight of the Holy Spirit across the
worlds? Or was it merely attracted by the romantic touches which abound
in those Oriental poems! Our narrative will answer these questions to
some readers.
One thing resulted from this first reading of the Bible: Louis went all
over Montoire begging for books, and he obtained them by those winning
ways peculiar to children, which no one can resist. While devoting himself
to these studies under no sort of guidance, he reached the age of ten.
At that period substitutes for the army were scarce; rich families
secured them long beforehand to have them ready when the lots were
drawn. The poor tanner's modest fortune did not allow of their purchasing
a substitute for their son, and they saw no means allowed by law for
evading the conscription but that of making him a priest; so, in 1807, they
sent him to his maternal uncle, the parish priest of Mer, another small
town on the Loire, not far from Blois. This arrangement at once satisfied
Louis' passion for knowledge, and his parents' wish not to expose him to
the dreadful chances of war; and, indeed, his taste for study and
precocious intelligence gave grounds for hoping that he