These facts were as nothing, however, in presence of his quick and strong impression that his pale, nervous, smiling, clean-shaven host had undergone since their last meeting some extraordinary process of refinement7. He had been ill, unmistakably, and the effects of a plunge8 into plain clean living, where any fineness had remained, were often startling, sometimes almost charming. But independently of this, and for a much longer time, some principle of intelligence, some art of life, would discernibly have worked in him. Remembered from college years and from those two or three luckless and faithless ones of the Law School as constitutionally common, as consistently and thereby9 doubtless even rather powerfully coarse, clever only for uncouth10 and questionable11 things, he yet presented himself now as if he had suddenly and mysteriously been educated. There was a charm in his wide, “drawn12,” convalescent smile, in the way his fine fingers — had he anything like fine fingers of old? — played, and just fidgeted, over the prompt and perhaps a trifle incoherent offer of cigars, cordials, ashtrays13, over the question of his visitor’s hat, stick, fur coat, general best accommodation and ease; and how the deuce, accordingly, had charm, for coming out so on top, Mark wondered, “squared” the other old elements? For the short interval14 so to have dealt with him what force had it turned on, what patented process, of the portentous15 New York order in which there were so many, had it skilfully16 applied17? Were these the things New York did when you just gave her all her head, and that he himself then had perhaps too complacently18 missed? Strange almost to the point of putting him positively19 off at first — quite as an exhibition of the uncanny — this sense of Newton’s having all the while neither missed nor muffed anything, and having, as with an eye to the coup20 de th???¢tre to come, lowered one’s expectations, at the start, to that abject21 pitch. It might have been taken verily for an act of bad faith — really for such a rare stroke of subtlety22 as could scarce have been achieved by a straight or natural aim.
So much as this at least came and went in Monteith’s agitated23 mind; the oddest intensity24 of apprehension25, admiration26, mystification, which the high north-light of the March afternoon and the quite splendidly vulgar appeal of fifty overdone27 decorative28 effects somehow fostered and sharpened. Everything had already gone, however, the next moment, for wasn’t the man he had come so much too intelligently himself to patronise absolutely bowling29 him over with the extraordinary speech: “See here, you know — you must be ill, or have had a bad shock, or some beastly upset: are you very sure you ought to have come out?” Yes, he after an instant believed his ears; coarse common Newton Winch, whom he had called on because he could, as a gentleman, after all afford to, coarse common Newton Winch, who had had troubles and been epidemically poisoned, lamentably30 sick, who bore in his face and in the very tension, quite exactly the “charm,” of his manner, the traces of his late ordeal31, and, for that matter, of scarce completed gallant32 emergence33 — this astonishing ex-comrade was simply writing himself at a stroke (into our friend’s excited imagination at all events) the most distinguished34 of men. Oh, he was going to be interesting, if Florence Ash had been going to be; but Mark felt how, under the law of a lively present difference, that would be as an effect of one’s having one’s self thoroughly35 rallied. He knew within the minute that the tears stood in his eyes; he stared through them at his friend with a sharp “Why, how do you know? How can you?” To which he added before Winch could speak: “I met your charming sister-in-law a couple of hours since — at luncheon36, at the Pocahontas; and heard from her that you were badly laid up and had spoken of me. So I came to minister to you.”
The object of this design hovered37 there again, considerably38 restless, shifting from foot to foot, changing his place, beginning and giving up motions, striking matches for a fresh cigarette, offering them again, redundantly39, to his guest and then not lighting40 himself — but all the while with the smile of another creature than the creature known to Mark; all the while with the history of something that had happened to him ever so handsomely shining out. Mark was conscious within himself from this time on of two quite distinct processes of notation41 — that of his practically instant surrender to the consequences of the act of perception in his host of which the two women trained suppos-ably in the art of pleasing had been altogether incapable42; and that of some other condition on Newton’s part that left his own poor power of divination43 nothing less than shamed. This last was signally the case on the former’s saying, ever so responsively, almost radiantly, in answer to his account of how he happened to come: “Oh then it’s very interesting!” That was the astonishing note, after what he had been through: neither Mrs. Folliott nor Florence Ash had so much as hinted or breathed to him that he might have incurred44 that praise. No wonder therefore he was now taken — with this fresh party’s instant suspicion and imputation45 of it; though it was indeed for some minutes next as if each tried to see which could accuse the other of the greater miracle of penetration46. Mark was so struck, in a word, with the extraordinarily47 straight guess Winch had had there in reserve for him that, other quick impressions helping48, there was nothing for him but to bring out, himself: “There must be, my dear man, something rather wonderful the matter with you!” The quite more intensely and more irresistibly49 drawn grin, the quite unmistakably deeper consciousness in the dark, wide eye, that accompanied the not quite immediate50 answer to which remark he was afterward51 to remember. “How do you know that — or why do you think it?” “Because there must be — for you to see! I shouldn’t have expected it.”
“Then you take me for a damned fool?” laughed wonderful Newton Winch.
点击收听单词发音
1 imputed | |
v.把(错误等)归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2 semblance | |
n.外貌,外表 | |
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3 amplitudes | |
振幅( amplitude的名词复数 ); 广大; (智力的)幅度; 充足 | |
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4 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
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5 costliest | |
adj.昂贵的( costly的最高级 );代价高的;引起困难的;造成损失的 | |
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6 depredations | |
n.劫掠,毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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7 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
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8 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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9 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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10 uncouth | |
adj.无教养的,粗鲁的 | |
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11 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
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12 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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13 ashtrays | |
烟灰缸( ashtray的名词复数 ) | |
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14 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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15 portentous | |
adj.不祥的,可怕的,装腔作势的 | |
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16 skilfully | |
adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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17 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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18 complacently | |
adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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19 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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20 coup | |
n.政变;突然而成功的行动 | |
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21 abject | |
adj.极可怜的,卑屈的 | |
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22 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
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23 agitated | |
adj.被鼓动的,不安的 | |
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24 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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25 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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26 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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27 overdone | |
v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 );太夸张;把…煮得太久;(工作等)过度 | |
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28 decorative | |
adj.装饰的,可作装饰的 | |
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29 bowling | |
n.保龄球运动 | |
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30 lamentably | |
adv.哀伤地,拙劣地 | |
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31 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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32 gallant | |
adj.英勇的,豪侠的;(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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33 emergence | |
n.浮现,显现,出现,(植物)突出体 | |
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34 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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35 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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36 luncheon | |
n.午宴,午餐,便宴 | |
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37 hovered | |
鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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38 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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39 redundantly | |
多余地,冗余地 | |
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40 lighting | |
n.照明,光线的明暗,舞台灯光 | |
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41 notation | |
n.记号法,表示法,注释;[计算机]记法 | |
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42 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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43 divination | |
n.占卜,预测 | |
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44 incurred | |
[医]招致的,遭受的; incur的过去式 | |
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45 imputation | |
n.归罪,责难 | |
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46 penetration | |
n.穿透,穿人,渗透 | |
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47 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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48 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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49 irresistibly | |
adv.无法抵抗地,不能自持地;极为诱惑人地 | |
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50 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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51 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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