（卡爾維諾《未來千年文學備忘錄》中曾提到這篇小說。這裡的應該是定稿的英譯本，譯者不詳。電子文本來自Project Gutenberg，原網址為.gutenberg./etext/23060）
THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE
By Honoré De Balzac
TO A LORD
1845
I--GILLETTE
On a cold December m in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing was somewhat of the thi, was walking to and fro before a gateway in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and dowreet before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not veo the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first time, easy of access though she may be; but after a suffitly long interval of hesitatio last crossed the threshold and inquired of an old woman, who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, whether Master Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, the young ma slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly e to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work--Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de Medici took Rubens into favor.
The young ma deeply stirred by aion that must thrill the hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their first love of art, they e into the presence of a master or stand before a masterpiece. For all humaiments there is a time of early blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so resemble love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is about to enter on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and disaster, of vague expectations and real disappois.
Those who have missed this experien the early days of light purses; who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of a master ahe throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in their inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their work an indefinable quality will be lag, a something iroke of the brush, a mysterious element that oetry. The swaggerers, so puffed up by self-ceit that they are fident over-soon of their success, ever be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this point of view, if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, the stranger oaircase might be allowed to have something in him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidehe early timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, even as pretty women lose it as they make progress is of coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes as triumph succeeds to triumph, and modesty is, perhaps, distrust of itself.
The poor neophyte was so overe by the sciousness of his own presumption and insignifice, that it began to look as if he was hardly likely to pee into the studio of the paio whom we owe the wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate ropitious; an old man came up the staircase. From the quaint e of this newer, his collar of magnifit lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, the first arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or a friend of the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing to allow the visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. Perhaps he might hope to find the good natu