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雙語·邦斯舅舅 十七、生在法蘭克福的浪子會一變而為百萬富翁的銀行家[1]

所屬教程:譯林版·邦斯舅舅

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2022年06月03日

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XVII

Gideon Brunner, father of the aforesaid Fritz, was one of the famous innkeepers of Frankfort, a tribe who make law-authorized incisions in travelers' purses with the connivance of the local bankers. An innkeeper and an honest Calvinist to boot, he had married a converted Jewess and laid the foundations of his prosperity with the money she brought him. When the Jewess died, leaving a son Fritz, twelve years of age, under the joint guardianship of his father and maternal uncle, a furrier at Leipsic, head of the firm of Virlaz and Company, Brunner senior was compelled by his brother-in-law (who was by no means as soft as his peltry) to invest little Fritz's money, a goodly quantity of current coin of the realm, with the house of Al-Sartchild. Not a penny of it was he allowed to touch. So, by way of revenge for the Israelite's pertinacity, Brunner senior married again. It was impossible, he said, to keep his huge hotel single-handed; it needed a woman's eye and hand. Gideon Brunner's second wife was an innkeeper's daughter, a very pearl, as he thought; but he had had no experience of only daughters spoiled by father and mother. The second Mme. Brunner behaved as German girls may be expected to behave when they are frivolous and wayward. She squandered her fortune, she avenged the first Mme. Brunner by making her husband as miserable a man as you could find in the compass of the free city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, where the millionaires, it is said, are about to pass a law compelling womankind to cherish and obey them alone. She was partial to all the varieties of vinegar commonly called Rhine wine in Germany; she was fond of articles Paris, of horses and dress; indeed, the one expensive taste which she had not was a liking for women. She took a dislike to little Fritz, and would perhaps have driven him mad if that young offspring of Calvinism and Judaism had not had Frankfort for his cradle and the firm of Virlaz at Leipsic for his guardian. Uncle Virlaz, however, deep in his furs, confined his guardianship to the safe-keeping of Fritz's silver marks, and left the boy to the tender mercies of this stepmother.

That hyena in woman's form was the more exasperated against the pretty child, the lovely Jewess' son, because she herself could have no children in spite of efforts worthy of a locomotive engine. A diabolical impulse prompted her to plunge her young stepson, at twenty-one years of age, into dissipations contrary to all German habits. The wicked German hoped that English horses, Rhine vinegar, and Goethe's Marguerites would ruin the Jewess' child and shorten his days; for when Fritz came of age, Uncle Virlaz had handed over a very pretty fortune to his nephew. But while roulette at Baden and elsewhere, and boon companions (Wilhelm Schwab among them) devoured the substance accumulated by Uncle Virlaz, the prodigal son himself remained by the will of Providence to point a moral to younger brothers in the free city of Frankfort; parents held him up as a warning and an awful example to their offspring to scare them into steady attendance in their cast-iron counting houses, lined with silver marks. But so far from perishing in the flower of his age, Fritz Brunner had the pleasure of laying his stepmother in one of those charming little German cemeteries, in which the Teuton indulges his unbridled passion for horticulture under the specious pretext of honoring his dead. And as the second Mme. Brunner expired while the authors of her being were yet alive, Brunner senior was obliged to bear the loss of the sums of which his wife had drained his coffers, to say nothing of other ills, which had told upon a Herculean constitution, till at the age of sixty the innkeeper had wizened and shrunk as if the famous Borgia's poison had undermined his system. For ten whole years he had supported his wife, and now he inherited nothing! The innkeeper was a second ruin of Heidelberg, repaired continually, it is true, by travelers' hotel bills, much as the remains of the castle of Heidelberg itself are repaired to sustain the enthusiasm of the tourists who flock to see so fine and well-preserved a relic of antiquity.

At Frankfort the disappointment caused as much talk as a failure. People pointed out Brunner, saying, "See what a man may come to with a bad wife that leaves him nothing and a son brought up in the French fashion."

In Italy and Germany the French nation is the root of all evil, the target for all bullets. "But the god pursuing his way——" (For the rest, see Lefranc de Pompignan's Ode.)

The wrath of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel de Hollande fell on others besides the travelers, whose bills were swelled with his resentment. When his son was utterly ruined, Gideon, regarding him as the indirect cause of all his misfortunes, refused him bread and salt, fire, lodging, and tobacco—the force of the paternal malediction in a German and an innkeeper could no farther go. Whereupon the local authorities, making no allowance for the father's misdeeds, regarded him as one of the most ill-used persons in Frankfort-on-the-Main, came to his assistance, fastened a quarrel on Fritz (une querelle d'Allemand), and expelled him from the territory of the free city. Justice in Frankfort is no whit wiser nor more humane than elsewhere, albeit the city is the seat of the German Diet. It is not often that a magistrate traces back the stream of wrongdoing and misfortune to the holder of the urn from which the first beginnings trickled forth. If Brunner forgot his son, his son's friends speedily followed the old innkeeper's example.

Ah! if the journalists, the dandies, and some few fair Parisians among the audience wondered how that German with the tragical countenance had cropped up on a first night to occupy a side box all to himself when fashionable Paris filled the house,—if these could have seen the history played out upon the stage before the prompter's box, they would have found it far more interesting than the transformation scenes of The Devil's Betrothed, though indeed it was the two hundred thousandth representation of a sublime allegory performed aforetime in Mesopotamia three thousand years before Christ was born.

Fritz betook himself on foot to Strasbourg, and there found what the prodigal son of the Bible failed to find—to wit, a friend. And herein is revealed the superiority of Alsace, where so many generous hearts beat to show Germany the beauty of a combination of Gallic wit and Teutonic solidity. Wilhelm Schwab, but lately left in possession of a hundred thousand francs by the death of both parents, opened his arms, his heart,his house, his purse to Fritz. As for describing Fritz's feelings, when dusty, down on his luck, and almost like a leper, he crossed the Rhine and found a real twenty-franc piece held out by the hand of a real friend,—that moment transcends the powers of the prose writer; Pindar alone could give it forth to humanity in Greek that should rekindle the dying warmth of friendship in the world. Put the names of Fritz and Wilheim beside those of Damon and Pythias, Castor and Pollux, Orestes and Pylades, Dubreuil and Pmejah, Schmucke and Pons, and all the names that we imagine for the two friends of Monomotapa, for La Fontaine (man of genius though he was) has made of them two disembodied spirits—they lack reality. The two new names may join the illustrious company, and with so much the more reason, since that Wilhelm who had helped to drink Fritz's inheritance now proceeded, with Fritz's assistance, to devour his own substance; smoking, needless to say, every known variety of tobacco.

The pair, strange to relate, squandered the property in the dullest, stupidest, most commonplace fashion, in Strasbourg brasseries, in the company of ballet-girls of the Strasbourg theatres, and little Alsaciennes who had not a rag of a tattered reputation left.

Every morning they would say, "We really must stop this, and make up our minds and do something or other with the money that is left."

Pooh! Fritz would retort, "just one more day, and to-morrow..." ah! to-morrow.

In the lives of Prodigal Sons, To-day is a prodigious coxcomb, but To-morrow is a very poltroon, taking fright at the big words of his predecessor. To-day is the truculent captain of old world comedy, To-morrow the clown of modern pantomime. When the two friends had reached their last thousand-franc note, they took places in the mail-coach, styled Royal, and departed for Paris, where they installed themselves in the attics of the Hotel du Rhin, in the Rue du Mail, the property of one Graff, formerly Gideon Brunner's head-waiter. Fritz found a situation as clerk in the Kellers' bank (on Graff's recommendation), with a salary of six hundred francs. And a place as book-keeper was likewise found for Wilhelm, in the business of Graff the fashionable tailor, brother of Graff of the Hotel du Rhin, who found the scantily-paid employment for the pair of prodigals, for the sake of old times, and his apprenticeship at the Hotel de Hollande. These two incidents—the recognition of a ruined man by a well-to-do friend, and a German innkeeper interesting himself in two penniless fellow-countrymen—give, no doubt, an air of improbability to the story, but truth is so much the more like fiction, since modern writers of fiction have been at such untold pains to imitate truth.

It was not long before Fritz, a clerk with six hundred francs, and Wilhelm, a book-keeper with precisely the same salary, discovered the difficulties of existence in a city so full of temptations. In 1837, the second year of their abode, Wilhelm, who possessed a pretty talent for the flute, entered Pons' orchestra, to earn a little occasional butter to put on his dry bread. As to Fritz, his only way to an increase of income lay through the display of the capacity for business inherited by a descendant of the Virlaz family. Yet, in spite of his assiduity, in spite of abilities which possibly may have stood in his way, his salary only reached the sum of two thousand francs in 1843. Penury, that divine stepmother, did for the two men all that their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood. Fritz and Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard breast and bony arms, and never discovered the good fairy lurking within, ready to yield to the caresses of genius. One thing, however, they learned thoroughly—they discovered the value of money, and vowed to clip the wings of riches if ever a second fortune should come to their door.

十七、生在法蘭克福的浪子會一變而為百萬富翁的銀行家[1]

弗列茲的父親叫作奚臺翁·勃羅納,是法蘭克福許多有名的旅館主人之一;他們都跟銀行家上下其手,在法律許可的范圍內(nèi)盤剝旅客。除此以外,他是個挺規(guī)矩的加爾文教徒,娶了一位改宗的猶太姑娘,帶過來的陪嫁便是他起家的資本。猶太女人故世的時候,弗列茲只有十二歲,由父親和舅舅共同監(jiān)護。舅舅是來比錫的一個皮貨商,維拉士公司的主人;他的性情可不像皮貨那么柔和,他要老勃羅納把小弗列茲的遺產(chǎn)存入阿爾—薩卻爾特銀行,不得動用。給舅子這個猶太辦法一氣之下,老頭兒續(xù)弦了,說沒有主婦的監(jiān)督與幫忙,他對付不了旅館。他娶了另一個旅館主人的女兒,沒結(jié)婚的時候認為她簡直十全十美,可是他對于給父母寵慣的獨養(yǎng)女兒完全沒有經(jīng)驗。第二位勃羅納太太的行為脾氣,就跟那些潑悍而輕狂的德國少女一模一樣。她把自己的錢盡量揮霍,又為了跟故世的勃羅納太太斗氣,使丈夫在家里成為法蘭克福從來未有的最痛苦的人,據(jù)說一般百萬富翁知道了竟想要市政當局訂一條法律,勒令所有的妻子只許愛丈夫一人。那女的喜歡所有的酸酒(德國人一律叫作萊茵佳釀),喜歡巴黎的商品,喜歡騎馬,喜歡裝扮;總之只要是花錢的,她都愛,就是不愛女人。她和小弗列茲結(jié)了仇;這個加爾文教與猶太教的結(jié)晶品,要不是生在法蘭克福而有萊比錫的維拉士公司做監(jiān)護,簡直會給她氣得發(fā)瘋??墒蔷S拉士舅舅一心忙著他的皮貨,除了照顧存在銀行里的遺產(chǎn)以外,讓孩子由后母擺布。

雌老虎般的后母,因為費了火車機頭那么大的勁也生不出一個孩子來,所以特別恨第一位美麗的勃羅納太太生的小天使。該死的女人存著惡毒的心,鼓勵年輕的弗列茲在二十一歲上就一反德國人的習慣,揮金如土。她希望英國的名馬,萊茵的酸酒,歌德的瑪葛麗德[2],把猶太女人的兒子和他的家私一齊毀掉;因為維拉士舅舅在外甥成年的時候給了他一筆很大的遺產(chǎn)。名勝區(qū)域的賭場,包括威廉·希華勃在內(nèi)的酒肉朋友,固然把維拉士舅舅給的錢花光了;可是上帝還有心要這青年浪子給法蘭克福的小兄弟們一個教訓:所有的家庭都拿他做壞榜樣,嚇得孩子們只能乖乖地守著裝滿馬克的鐵賬柜。弗列茲·勃羅納并沒夭折,還有福氣把后母送進公墓,那是德國人因為酷愛園藝,借了尊重死者的名目而收拾得特別美麗的。所以第二位勃羅納太太是死在丈夫之前,而老勃羅納只得損失了她在銀箱里搜刮得去的錢,白吃了好些苦,把大力士一般的體格,在六十歲上就磨得像吃了博吉亞的毒藥一樣[3]。為后妻受了十年罪而還得不到一點兒遺產(chǎn),這旅館主人便成了一座海德堡的廢墟;幸而還有旅客的賬單不斷給他修補一下,正如海德堡廢墟也老是有人修葺,使大批參觀古跡的游客不至于掃興。

法蘭克福人提到他,仿佛提到什么破產(chǎn)的新聞;大家在背后指手畫腳地說:“你瞧,娶個沒有遺產(chǎn)的潑婦,再加一個用法國辦法教養(yǎng)大的兒子,結(jié)果就是這樣!”

在意大利和德國,法國人是一切災禍的根源,一切槍彈的靶子。可是像詩人勒法郎·特·蓬比涅昂說的:“無名小子盡管出口傷人,上帝的神光早晚能照出事情的真相。”

荷蘭大旅館的主人不但在賬單上泄憤,使旅客受到影響,還認為兒子是他間接的禍水。所以當小勃羅納把產(chǎn)業(yè)敗光之后,老勃羅納就什么都不管了:面包,清水,鹽,火,屋子,煙草,概不供給;在一個開旅館的德國老子,這的確是恩斷義絕的表示。而地方當局,既不考慮做父親的錯誤在先,只覺得他是法蘭克福最不幸的人,便有心幫助他一下,無端端地跟弗列茲尋事,把他趕出自由市。法蘭克福雖是日耳曼帝國會議集會的地方,司法也不比別處更公平合理。世界上難得有什么法官會追溯罪惡與災禍的根源,去弄清楚第一次把水潑出來的時候是誰挑的水桶。既然勃羅納把兒子忘了,兒子的朋友們當然群起效尤。

那晚戲院里的新聞記者、漂亮朋友、巴黎婦女,都在奇怪哪兒來的這個神色悲壯的德國人,混在巴黎的時髦場中,孤零零地坐在月樓上看第一次上演的新戲。唉!倘若上面的故事能在這戲院演出的話,它比當晚演的《魔鬼的未婚妻》不知要有趣多少倍,雖然女人受魔鬼誘惑的故事有史以來已經(jīng)連續(xù)演到幾十萬次[4]。

弗列茲步行到斯特拉斯堡,在那兒的遭遇可比圣經(jīng)上的那個浪子幸運多了。這一點證明阿爾薩斯是了不起的,它有多少慷慨豪俠的心,讓那些德國人看看,法蘭西民族的秀氣與日耳曼民族的篤實,合在一起是多么完美[5]。威廉·希華勃才得了父母十萬法郎遺產(chǎn)。他對弗列茲張開臂抱,掏出心來,接他在家里住,拿錢給他花。弗列茲渾身灰土,潦倒不堪,差不多像害了麻風病,一朝在萊茵彼岸,從一個真心朋友手中拿到一枚二十法郎的錢的那種心境,直要詠為詩歌才能描寫,而且只有古希臘的大詩人邦達才有那種筆力,能使普天下的人聞風興起,重振那行將澌滅的友情。弗列茲與威廉兩人的名字,和達蒙與比底阿斯,加斯多與包呂克斯,奧萊斯德與比拉特,杜勃灤伊與梅耶[6],許模克與邦斯,或是你給拉·封丹寓言中那樣的朋友起的任何名字(以拉·封丹的天才,也只寫了兩個抽象的典型而沒有給他們一個血肉之體),可以并列而無愧,因為像威廉當初幫著弗列茲把家產(chǎn)蕩盡一樣,此刻弗列茲也幫著威廉抽著各種各式的煙草,把遺產(chǎn)吃光。

奇怪的是,兩個朋友的家私是在斯特拉斯堡的酒店里,跟跑龍?zhí)椎呐畱蜃雍吐暶墙宓陌査_斯姑娘糊里糊涂送掉的。

兩人每天早上都說:“咱們怎樣也該歇手了吧,拿著剩下的一點錢,該打個主意,干點兒正經(jīng)才好!”

“,今兒再玩一天吧,”弗列茲說,“明天……噢!明天一定……”

在敗家子的生活中,今天總是一個頭等吹大炮的角色,明天總是一個頭等膽怯鬼,聽了昨天的大話害怕的;今天好比古時戲劇中的牛大王,明天賽似現(xiàn)代啞劇中的小丑。用到最后一張一千法郎的鈔票時,兩個朋友搭上王家驛車到了巴黎,投奔一個在奚臺翁·勃羅納手下當過領班侍者,此刻在瑪伊街開萊茵旅館的葛拉夫。他們當下就住在旅館的閣樓上。葛拉夫把弗列茲薦入格雷兄弟銀行當職員,拿六百法郎一年薪水;又把威廉薦到他的兄弟,有名的葛拉夫裁縫那里去當會計。葛拉夫替一對浪子謀這兩個小差事,表示他并沒忘了自己是荷蘭大旅館出身。有錢朋友招留落難朋友,一個開旅館的德國人救濟兩個囊無分文的同鄉(xiāng),這兩件事也許教有些人疑心這段歷史是虛構(gòu)的;尤其因為近來的小說一意模仿事實,所以事實倒反更像小說了。

弗列茲當著六百法郎的職員,威廉當著六百法郎的會計,發(fā)覺在一個像巴黎那么需要花錢的城里過日子是不容易的。所以他們來到巴黎的第二年,在一八三七年上,威廉靠著會吹笛子,進了邦斯的樂隊,多掙幾個錢開開葷。至于弗列茲,只能憑外婆家維拉士傳給他的做買賣的本領去撈些油水。可是雖然拼命地干,法蘭克福人直到一八四三年才掙上二千法郎一年,而這還全靠他有弄錢的本領。貧窮這位圣明的后母,把兩個青年管教好了,那是他們的母親沒有能做到的;她教他們懂得節(jié)省,懂得人生,懂得世故;她以苦其心志勞其筋骨的方式給大人物(他們的童年都是艱難困苦的)受的那一套嚴厲的教育,也給他們受過了。可惜弗列茲與威廉都是庸庸碌碌的人,不肯全部接受貧窮的教訓,只想躲避她的打擊,掙脫她的擁抱,吃不消她瘦骨嶙峋的胳膊;他們不能像天才一樣逆來順受,從困苦中去打天下。可是他們總算明白了金錢的可貴,打定主意,倘使再有財神上門,一定要割掉他翅膀不讓他飛走了。

注解:

[1] 法蘭克福(德國有兩個城叫作法蘭克福,美因河上的法蘭克福比較知名,以下即簡稱法蘭克福)的金融事業(yè),在日耳曼占有重要地位,當?shù)劂y行常與東部柏林的銀行互爭雄長,故作者在此又作隱喻。

[2] 瑪葛麗德為歌德《浮士德》中人物,受浮士德誘惑而失身。

[3] 紅衣主教愷撒·博吉亞(1475—1507)為教皇亞歷山大第六子,奸詐險毒,殘暴兇橫,常以毒藥謀害同僚及政敵,為歐洲近代史上有名的陰謀家。

[4] 此二語系指《魔鬼的未婚妻》的故事在人間是最常見的,等于是最走紅的戲。同時亦影射夏娃受蛇誘惑的故事,故言“有史以來”。

[5] 斯特拉斯堡為阿爾薩斯州的首府,阿爾薩斯為德法兩國民族交流的地方,民族性兼有兩者之長。

[6] 加斯多與包呂克斯(孿生兄弟),奧萊斯德與比拉特,在希臘神話中均為以友愛著名的人物。達蒙與比底阿斯為紀元前四世紀敘拉古人,深信畢太哥爾“朋友不分財”的名言,甚至生死相共。比底阿斯以罪被判死刑,刑前歸家料理私事,以友人達蒙作為人質(zhì),直至行刑前最后一刻比底阿斯方始趕回,以此感動國王而獲赦。杜勃灤伊與梅耶為法國二名醫(yī),以交誼深厚,同死于傳染病。

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