[节选]The Two Brothers

To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.



Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are

screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of

domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called

chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the

moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is

pointed by a scoffer.



To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family

and for Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too

late, the effects produced by the diminution of paternal

authority. That authority, which formerly ceased only at the

death of the father, was the sole human tribunal before which

domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves, on

special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.

However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the

function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can

take the place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never

drawn a picture that shows more plainly how essential to

European society is the indissoluble marriage bond, how fatal

the results of feminine weakness, how great the dangers

arising from selfish interests when indulged without

restraint. May a society which is based solely on the power of

wealth shudder as it sees the impotence of the law in dealing

with the workings of a system which deifies success, and

pardons every means of attaining it. May it return to the

Catholic religion, for the purification of its masses through

the inspiration of religious feeling, and by means of an

education other than that of a lay university.



In the "Scenes from Military Life" so many fine natures, so

many high and noble self-devotions will be set forth, that I

may here be allowed to point out the depraving effect of the

necessities of war upon certain minds who venture to act in

domestic life as if upon the field of battle.



You have cast a sagacious glance over the events of our own

time; its philosophy shines, in more than one bitter

reflection, through your elegant pages; you have appreciated,

more clearly than other men, the havoc wrought in the mind of

our country by the existence of four distinct political

systems. I cannot, therefore, place this history under the

protection of a more competent authority. Your name may,

perhaps, defend my work against the criticisms that are

certain to follow it,--for where is the patient who keeps

silence when the surgeon lifts the dressing from his wound?



To the pleasure of dedicating this Scene to you, is joined the

pride I feel in thus making known your friendship for one who

here subscribes himself



Your sincere admirer,



De Balzac

Paris, November, 1842.