Sun V

The man was hopelessly in love with her. She saw his broad, rather short red face gazing up at her fixedly²: till his wife turned too to look, then he picked up his glass and tossed the wine down his throat. The wife stared long at the figures on the balcony. She was handsome and rather gloomy, and surely older than he, with that great difference that lies between a rather overwhelming, superior woman over forty, and her more irresponsible husband of thirty-five or so. It seemed like the difference of a whole generation. “He is my generation,” thought Juliet, “and she is Maurice’s generation.” Juliet was not yet thirty.

The peasant in his white cotton trousers and pale pink shirt, and battered³ old straw hat, was attractive, so clean, and full of the cleanliness of health. He was stout⁴ and broad, and seemed shortish, but his flesh was full of vitality⁵, as if he were always about to spring up into movement, to work, even, as she had seen him with the child, to play. He was the type of Italian peasant that wants to make an offering of himself, passionately⁶ wants to make an offering of himself, of his powerful flesh and thudding blood-stroke. But he was also completely a peasant, in that he would wait for the woman to make the move. He would hang round in a long, consuming passivity of desire, hoping, hoping for the woman to come for him. But he would never try to advance to her: never. She would have to make the advance. Only he would hang round, within reach.

Feeling her look at him, he flung off his old straw hat, showing his round, close-cropped brown head, and reached out with a large brown-red hand for the great loaf, from which he broke a piece and started chewing with bulging⁷ cheek. He knew she was looking at him. And she had such power over him, the hot inarticulate animal, with such a hot, massive blood-stream down his great veins⁸! He was hot through with countless⁹ suns, and mindless as noon. And shy with a violent, farouche shyness, that would wait for her with consuming wanting, but would never, never move towards her.

With him, it would be like bathing in another kind of sunshine, heavy and big and perspiring¹⁰: and afterwards one would forget. Personally, he would not exist. It would be just a bath of warm, powerful life — then separating and forgetting. Then again, the procreative bath, like sun.

But would that not be good! She was so tired of personal contacts, and having to talk with the man afterwards. With that healthy creature, one would just go satisfied away, afterwards. As she sat there, she felt the life streaming from him to her, and her to him. She knew by his movements he felt her even more than she felt him. It was almost a definite pain of consciousness in the body of each of them, and each sat as if distracted, watched by a keen-eyed spouse¹¹, possessor.

And Juliet thought: Why shouldn’t I go to him! Why shouldn’t I bear his child? It would be like bearing a child to the unconscious sun and the unconscious earth, a child like a fruit. — And the flower of her womb radiated. It did not care about sentiment or possession. It wanted man-dew only, utterly¹² improvident¹³. But her heart was clouded with fear. She dare not! She dare not! If only the man would find some way! But he would not. He would only hover¹⁴ and wait, hover in endless desire, waiting for her to cross the gully. And she dare not, she dare not. And he would hang round.

“You are not afraid of people seeing you when you take your sun-baths?” said her husband, turning round and looking across at the peasants. The saturnine¹⁵ wife over the gully, turned also to stare at the Villa¹⁶. It was a kind of battle.

“No! One needn’t be seen. Will you do it too? Will you take the sun-baths?” said Juliet to him.

“Why — er — yes! I think I should like to, while I am here.”

There was a gleam in his eyes, a desperate kind of courage of desire to taste this new fruit, this woman with rosy¹⁷, sun-ripening breasts tilting¹⁸ within her wrapper. And she thought of him with his blanched¹⁹, etiolated little city figure, walking in the sun in the desperation of a husband’s rights. And her mind swooned again. The strange, branded little fellow, the good citizen, branded like a criminal in the naked eye of the sun. How he would hate exposing himself!

And the flower of her womb went dizzy, dizzy. She knew she would take him. She knew she would bear his child. She knew it was for him, the branded little city man, that her womb was open radiating like a lotus, like the purple spread of a daisy anemone²⁰, dark at the core. She knew she would not go across to the peasant; she had not enough courage, she was not free enough. And she knew the peasant would never come for her, he had the dogged passivity of the earth, and would wait, wait, only putting himself in her sight, again and again, lingering across her vision, with the persistency²¹ of animal yearning²².

She had seen the flushed blood in the peasant’s burnt face, and felt the jetting, sudden blue heat pouring over her from his kindled²³ eyes, and the rousing of his big penis against his body — for her, surging for her. Yet she would never come to him — she daren’t, she daren’t, so much was against her. And the little etiolated body of her husband, city-branded, would possess her, and his little, frantic²⁴ penis would beget²⁵ another child in her. She could not help it. She was bound to the vast, fixed¹ wheel of circumstance, and there was no Perseus in the universe to cut the bonds.

1 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

2 fixedly   

adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地

参考例句：

• He stared fixedly at the woman in white. 他一直凝视着那穿白衣裳的女人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground. 绝大部分的人都不闹不动，呆呆地望着地面。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

3 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

5 vitality   

n.活力，生命力，效力

参考例句：

• He came back from his holiday bursting with vitality and good health.他度假归来之后，身强体壮，充满活力。
• He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。

6 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

7 bulging   

膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱

参考例句：

• Her pockets were bulging with presents. 她的口袋里装满了礼物。
• Conscious of the bulging red folder, Nim told her,"Ask if it's important." 尼姆想到那个鼓鼓囊囊的红色文件夹便告诉她：“问问是不是重要的事。”

8 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

10 perspiring   

v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He had been working hard and was perspiring profusely. 他一直在努力干活，身上大汗淋漓的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. 于是他们就“痛痛快快地比一比”了，结果比得两个人气喘吁吁、汗流浃背。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

11 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

12 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

13 improvident   

adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的

参考例句：

• Her improvident speech at the meeting has set a stone rolling.她在会上的发言缺乏远见，已产生严重后果。
• He must bear the consequences of his improvident action.他必须对自己挥霍浪费所造成的后果负责。

14 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

15 saturnine   

adj.忧郁的，沉默寡言的，阴沉的，感染铅毒的

参考例句：

• The saturnine faces of the judges.法官们那阴沉的脸色。
• He had a rather forbidding,saturnine manner.他的举止相当乖戾阴郁。

16 villa   

n.别墅，城郊小屋

参考例句：

• We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
• We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。

17 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

18 tilting   

倾斜，倾卸

参考例句：

• For some reason he thinks everyone is out to get him, but he's really just tilting at windmills. 不知为什么他觉得每个人都想害他，但其实他不过是在庸人自扰。
• So let us stop bickering within our ranks.Stop tilting at windmills. 所以，让我们结束内部间的争吵吧！再也不要去做同风车作战的蠢事了。

19 blanched   

v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮

参考例句：

• The girl blanched with fear when she saw the bear coming. 那女孩见熊（向她）走来，吓得脸都白了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Their faces blanched in terror. 他们的脸因恐惧而吓得发白。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 anemone   

n.海葵

参考例句：

• Do you want this anemone to sting you?你想让这个海葵刺疼你吗？
• The bodies of the hydra and sea anemone can produce buds.水螅和海葵的身体能产生芽。

21 persistency   

n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数)

参考例句：

• I was nettled by her persistency. 我被她的固执惹恼了。
• We should stick to and develop the heritage of persistency. 我们应坚持和发扬坚忍不拔的传统。

22 yearning   

a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的

参考例句：

• a yearning for a quiet life 对宁静生活的向往
• He felt a great yearning after his old job. 他对过去的工作有一种强烈的渴想。

23 kindled   

（使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光

参考例句：

• We watched as the fire slowly kindled. 我们看着火慢慢地燃烧起来。
• The teacher's praise kindled a spark of hope inside her. 老师的赞扬激起了她内心的希望。

24 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

25 beget   

v.引起；产生

参考例句：

• Dragons beget dragons,phoenixes beget phoenixes.龙生龙，凤生凤。
• Economic tensions beget political ones.经济紧张导致政治紧张。