经典！《喀尔巴阡古堡，牛博士》让无数读者意犹未尽！(10)

These peaceable reunions, in which the youths and maidens enjoyed an honest and moderate pleasure, had never been attended by any outburst of ill-nature. Why, then, on this evening at Collaert the banker"s, did the fruit drinks seem to be transformed into heady wines, into sparkling champagne, into red-hot punches? Why, towards the middle of the evening did a sort of mysterious intoxication take possession of the guests? Why did the minuet become a jig? Why did the orchestra hurry on with its harmonies? Why did. the candles, those at the theatre, burn with unwonted refulgence? What electric current had invaded the banker"s drawingrooms? How did it happen that the couples held each other so closely, and clasped each other"s hands so convulsively, that the cavaliers seuls made themselves conspicuous by certain extraordinary steps in that pastoral, normally so grave, so solemn, so majestic, so very proper?
Alas! What Oedipus could have answered these unsolvable questions? Commissary Passaul, who was present at the party, saw the storm coming distinctly, but he could not control it or fly from it, and he felt a kind of intoxication entering his own brain. All his physical and emotional faculties increased in intensity. He was seen several times, to throw himself upon the confectionery and devour the food, as if he had just broken a long fast.