小說的主人公弗雷德里克?莫羅出身于外省的資產階級家庭,在巴黎攻讀法律,但他醉心于藝術,并愛上了畫商阿爾努的妻子瑪麗。絕望中莫羅投入交際花羅莎奈特的懷抱,二人同居并生下一子。后幾經磨難,莫羅與畫商的妻子瑪麗再次聚首,瑪麗剪下一縷白發(fā)與之訣別。結尾處,年已半百的莫羅與老同學憶及青年時代在巴黎行樂的經歷,感慨不已。
《世界文學經典讀本:情感教育(英文版)》的副標題為“一個年輕人的故事”,作品意在探索年輕人如何在情感方面經受鍛煉,是福樓拜最富先鋒氣質的代表作,深受波德萊爾、莫泊桑、龔古爾兄弟、普魯斯特及卡夫卡等文學大師的推崇。
Volume I
002 Chapter I A Promising Pupil
012 Chapter II Damon and Pythias
019 Chapter III Sentiment and Passion
027 Chapter IV The Inexpressible She!
052 Chapter V “Love Knoweth No Laws”
094 Chapter VI Blighted Hopes
Ruined, Stripped of Everything, Undermined!
103 Chapter VII A Change of Fortune
132 Chapter VIII Frederick Entertains
174 Chapter IX The Friend of the Family
207 Chapter X At the Races
Volume II
224 Chapter XI A Dinner and a Duel
255 Chapter XII Little Louise Grows up
265 Chapter XIII Rosanette as a Lovely Turk
297 Chapter XIV The Barricade
353 Chapter XV “How Happy Could I Be with Either.”
368 Chapter XVI Unpleasant News from Rosanette
387 Chapter XVII A Strange Betrothal
421 Chapter XVIII An Auction
437 Chapter XIX A Bitter-Sweet Reunion
442 Chapter XX “Wait Till You Come to Forty Year”
Gustave Flaubert
Sentimental Education
Or the History of a Young Man
VOLUME I
N the 15th of September, 1840, about six o'clock in the morning, the Ville de Montereau, just on the point of starting, was sending forth great whirlwinds of smoke, in front of the Quai St. Bernard.
People came rushing on board in breathless haste. The traffic was obstructed by casks, cables, and baskets of linen. The sailors answered nobody. People jostled one another. Between the two paddle-boxes was piled up a heap of parcels; and the uproar was drowned in the loud hissing of the steam, which, making its way through the plates of sheet-iron, enveloped everything in a white cloud, while the bell at the prow kept ringing continuously.
At last, the vessel set out; and the two banks of the river, stocked with warehouses, timber-yards, and manufactories, opened out like two huge ribbons being unrolled.
A young man of eighteen, with long hair, holding an album under his arm, remained near the helm without moving. Through the haze he surveyed steeples, buildings of which he did not know the names; then, with a parting glance, he took in the ?le St. Louis, the Cité, N?tre Dame; and presently, as Paris disappeared from his view, he heaved a deep sigh.
Frederick Moreau, having just taken his Bachelor's degree, was returning home to Nogent-sur-Seine, where he would have to lead a languishing existence for two months, before going back to begin his legal studies. His mother had sent him, with enough to cover his expenses, to Havre to see an uncle, from whom she had expectations of his receiving an inheritance. He had returned from that place only yesterday; and he indemnified himself for not having the opportunity of spending a little time in the capital by taking the longest possible route to reach his own part of the country.
The hubbub had subsided. The passengers had all taken their places. Some of them stood warming themselves around the machinery, and the chimney spat forth with a slow, rhythmic rattle its plume of black smoke. Little drops of dew trickled over the copper plates; the deck quivered with the vibration from within; and the two paddle-wheels, rapidly turning round, lashed the water. The edges of the river were covered with sand. The vessel swept past rafts of wood which began to oscillate under the rippling of the waves, or a boat without sails in which a man sat fishing. Then the wandering haze cleared off; the sun appeared; the hill which ran along the course of the Seine to the right subsided by degrees, and another rose nearer on the opposite bank.
It was crowned with trees, which surrounded low-built houses, covered with roofs in the Italian style. They had sloping gardens divided by fresh walls, iron railings, grass-plots, hot-houses, and vases of geraniums, laid out regularly on the terraces where one could lean forward on one's elbow. More than one spectator longed, on beholding those attractive residences which looked so peaceful, to be the owner of one of them, and to dwell there till the end of his days with a good billiard-table, a sailing-boat, and a woman or some other object to dream about. The agreeable novelty of a journey by water made such outbursts natural. Already the wags on board were beginning their jokes. Many began to sing. Gaiety prevailed, and glasses of brandy were poured out.
Frederick was thinking about the apartment which he would occupy over there, on the plan of a drama, on subjects for pictures, on future passions. He found that the happiness merited by the excellence of his soul was slow in arriving. He declaimed some melancholy verses. He walked with rapid step along the deck. He went on till he reached the end at which the bell was; and, in the centre of a group of passengers and sailors, he saw a gentleman talking soft nothings to a country-woman, while fingering the gold cross which she wore over her breast. He was a jovial blade of forty with frizzled hair. His robust form was encased in a jacket of black velvet, two emeralds sparkled in his cambric shirt, and his wide, white trousers fell over odd-looking red boots of Russian leather set off with blue designs.
The presence of Frederick did not discompose him. He turned round and glanced several times at the young man with winks of enquiry. He next offered cigars to all who were standing around him. But getting tired, no doubt, of their society, he moved away from them and took a seat further up. Frederick followed him.
The conversation, at first, turned on the various kinds of tobacco, then quite naturally it glided into a discussion about women. The gentleman in the red boots gave the young man advice; he put forward theories, related anecdotes, referred to himself by way of illustration, and he gave utterance to all these things in a paternal tone, with the ingenuousness of entertaining depravity.
He was republican in his opinions. He had travelled; he was familiar with the inner life of theatres, restaurants, and newspapers, and knew all the theatrical celebrities, whom he called by their Christian names. Frederick told him confidentially about his projects; and the elder man took an encouraging view of them.
……