The small island was very small; but, being a hump of rock in the sea, it was bigger than it looked. There was a little track among rocks and bushes, winding2 and scrambling3 up and down around the islet, so that it took you twenty minutes to do the circuit. It was more than you would have expected.
Still, it was an island. The islander moved himself, with all his books, into the commonplace six-roomed house up to which you had to scramble4 from the rocky landing-place. There were also two joined-together cottages. The old carpenter lived in one, with his wife and the lad, the widow and daughter lived in the other.
At last all was in order. The Master’s books filled two rooms. It was already autumn, Orion lifting out of the sea. And in the dark nights, the Master could see the lights on his late island, where the hotel company were entertaining guests who would advertise the new resort for honeymoon-golfers.
On his hump of rock, however, the Master was still master. He explored the crannies, the odd handbreadths of grassy5 level, the steep little cliffs where the last harebells hung, and the seeds of summer were brown above the sea, lonely and untouched. He peered down the old well. He examined the stone pen where the pig had been kept. Himself, he had a goat.
Yes, it was an island. Always, always, underneath6 among the rocks the celtic sea sucked and washed and smote7 its feathery greyness. How many different noises of the sea! deep explosions, rumblings, strange long sighs and whistling noises; then voices, real voices of people clamouring as if they were in a market, under the waters; and again, the far-off ringing of a bell, surely an actual bell! then a tremulous trilling noise, very long and alarming, and an undertone of hoarse8 gasping9.
On this island there were no human ghosts, no ghosts of any ancient race. The sea, and the spume and the wind and the weather, had washed them all out, washed them out, so there was only the sound of the sea itself, its own ghost, myriad-voiced, communing and plotting and shouting all winter long. And only the smell of the sea, with a few bristly bushes of gorse and coarse tufts of heather, among the grey, pellucid10 rocks, in the grey, more pellucid air. The coldness, the greyness, even the soft, creeping fog of the sea! and the islet of rock humped up in it all, like the last point in space.
Green star Sirius stood over the sea’s rim11. The island was a shadow. Out at sea a ship showed small lights. Below, in the rocky cove12, the row-boat and the motor-boat were safe. A light shone in the carpenter’s kitchen. That was all.
Save, of course, that the lamp was lit in the house, where the widow was preparing supper, her daughter helping13. The islander went in to his meal. Here he was no longer the Master, he was an islander again and he had peace. The old carpenter, the widow and daughter were all faithfulness itself. The old man worked while ever there was light to see, because he had a passion for work. The widow and her quiet, rather delicate daughter of thirty-three worked for the Master, because they loved looking after him, and they were infinitely14 grateful for the haven15 he provided them. But they didn’t call him “the Master”. They gave him his name: “Mr Cathcart, Sir!” softly, and reverently16. And he spoke17 back to them also softly, gently, like people far from the world, afraid to make a noise.
The island was no longer a “world”. It was a sort of refuge. The islander no longer struggled for anything. He had no need. It was as if he and his few dependents were a small flock of sea-birds alighted on this rock, as they travelled through space, and keeping together without a word. The silent mystery of travelling birds.
He spent most of his day in his study. His book was coming along. The widow’s daughter could type out his manuscript for him, she was not uneducated. It was the one strange sound on the island, the typewriter. But soon even its spattering fitted in with the sea’s noises, and the wind’s.
The months went by. The islander worked away in his study, the people of the island went quietly about their concerns. The goat had a little black kid with yellow eyes. There were mackerel in the sea. The old man went fishing in the row-boat, with the lad. When the weather was calm enough, they went off in the motor-boat to the biggest island, for the post. And they brought supplies, never a penny wasted. And the days went by, and the nights, without desire, without ennui18.
The strange stillness from all desire was a kind of wonder to the islander. He didn’t want anything. His soul at last was still in him, his spirit was like a dim-lit cave under water, where strange sea-foliage expands upon the watery19 atmosphere, and scarcely sways, and a mute fish shadowily slips in and slips away again. All still and soft and uncrying, yet alive as rooted sea-weed is alive.
The islander said to himself: “Is this happiness?” He said to himself: “I am turned into a dream. I feel nothing, or I don’t know what I feel. Yet it seems to me I am happy.”
Only he had to have something upon which his mental activity could work. So he spent long, silent hours in his study, working not very fast, nor very importantly, letting the writing spin softly from him as if it were drowsy20 gossamer21. He no longer fretted22 whether it were good or not, what he produced. He slowly, softly spun23 it like gossamer, and, if it were to melt away as gossamer in autumn melts, he would not mind. It was only the soft evanescence of gossamery24 things which now seemed to him permanent. The very mist of eternity25 was in them. Whereas stone buildings, cathedrals for example, seemed to him to howl with temporary resistance, knowing they must fall at last; the tension of their long endurance seemed to howl forth26 from them all the time.
Sometimes he went to the mainland and to the city. Then he went elegantly, dressed in the latest style, to his club. He sat in a stall at the theatre, he shopped in Bond Street. He discussed terms for publishing his book. But over his face was that gossamery look of having dropped out of the race of progress, which made the vulgar city people feel they had won it over him, and made him glad to go back to his island.
He didn’t mind if he never published his book. The years were blending into a soft mist, from which nothing obtruded27. Spring came. There was never a primrose28 on his island, but he found a winter-aconite. There were two little sprayed bushes of blackthorn, and some wind-flowers. He began to make a list of the flowers on his islet, and that was absorbing. He noted29 a wild currant bush, and watched for the elder flowers on a stunted30 little tree, then for the first yellow rags of the broom, and wild roses. Bladder campion, orchids31, stitchwort, celandine, he was prouder of them than if they had been people on his island. When he came across the golden saxifrage, so inconspicuous in a damp corner, he crouched32 over it in a trance, he knew not for how long, looking at it. Yet it was nothing to look at. As the widow’s daughter found, when he showed it her.
He had said to her, in real triumph:
“I found the golden saxifrage this morning.”
The name sounded splendid. She looked at him with fascinated brown eyes, in which was a hollow ache that frightened him a little.
“Did you, Sir? Is it a nice flower?”
He pursed his lips and tilted33 his brows.
“Well — not showy exactly. I’ll show it you if you like.”
“I should like to see it.”
She was so quiet, so wistful. But he sensed in her a persistency34 which made him uneasy. She said she was so happy: really happy. She followed him quietly, like a shadow, on the rocky track where there was never room for two people to walk side by side. He went first, and could feel her there, immediately behind him, following so submissively, gloating on him from behind.
It was a kind of pity for her which made him become her lover: though he never realized the extent of the power she had gained over him, and how SHE willed it. But the moment he had fallen, a jangling feeling came upon him, that it was all wrong. He felt a nervous dislike of her. He had not wanted it. And it seemed to him, as far as her physical self went, she had not wanted it either. It was just her will. He went away, and climbed at the risk of his neck down to a ledge35 near the sea. There he sat for hours, gazing all jangled at the sea, and saying miserably36 to himself: “We didn’t want it. We didn’t really want it.”
It was the automatism of sex that had caught him again. Not that he hated sex. He deemed it, as the Chinese do, one of the great life-mysteries. But it had become mechanical, automatic, and he wanted to escape that. Automatic sex shattered him, and filled him with a sort of death. He thought he had come through, to a new stillness of desirelessness. Perhaps beyond that, there was a new fresh delicacy37 of desire, an unentered frail38 communion of two people meeting on untrodden ground.
But be that as it might, this was not it. This was nothing new or fresh. It was automatic, and driven from the will. Even she, in her true self, hadn’t wanted it. It was automatic in her.
When he came home, very late, and saw her face white with fear and apprehension39 of his feeling against her, he pitied her, and spoke to her delicately, reassuringly40. But he kept himself remote from her.
She gave no sign. She served him with the same silence, the same hidden hunger to serve him, to be near where he was. He felt her love following him with strange, awful persistency. She claimed nothing. Yet now, when he met her bright, brown, curiously41 vacant eyes, he saw in them the mute question. The question came direct at him, with a force and a power of will he never realized.
So he succumbed42, and asked her again.
“Not,” she said, “if it will make you hate me.”
“Why should it?” he replied, nettled43. “Of course not.”
“You know I would do anything on earth for you.”
It was only afterwards, in his exasperation44, he remembered what she had said, and was more exasperated45. Why should she pretend to do this FOR HIM? Why not for herself? But in his exasperation, he drove himself deeper in. In order to achieve some sort of satisfaction, which he never did achieve, he abandoned himself to her. Everybody on the island knew. But he did not care.
Then even what desire he had left him, and he felt only shattered. He felt that only with her will had she wanted him. Now he was shattered and full of self-contempt. His island was smirched and spoiled. He had lost his place in the rare, desireless levels of Time to which he had at last arrived, and he had fallen right back. If only it had been true, delicate desire between them, and a delicate meeting on the third rare place where a man might meet a woman, when they were both true to the frail, sensitive, crocus flame of desire in them. But it had been no such thing: automatic, an act of will, not of true desire, it left him feeling humiliated46.
He went away from the islet, in spite of her mute reproach. And he wandered about the continent, vainly seeking a place where he could stay. He was out of key; he did not fit in the world any more.
There came a letter from Flora47 — her name was Flora — to say she was afraid she was going to have a child. He sat down as if he were shot, and he remained sitting. But he replied to her: “Why be afraid? If it is so, it is so, and we should rather be pleased than afraid.”
At this very moment, it happened there was an auction48 of islands. He got the maps, and studied them. And at the auction he bought, for very little money, another island. It was just a few acres of rock away in the north, on the outer fringe of the isles49. It was low, it rose out of the great ocean. There was not a building, not even a tree on it. Only northern sea-turf, a pool of rain-water, a bit of sedge, rock, and sea-birds. Nothing else. Under the weeping wet western sky.
He made a trip to visit his new possession. For several days, owing to the seas, he could not approach it. Then, in a light sea-mist, he landed, and saw it hazy50, low, stretching apparently51 a long way. But it was illusion. He walked over the wet, springy turf, and dark-grey sheep tossed away from him, spectral52, bleating53 hoarsely54. And he came to the dark pool, with the sedge. Then on in the dampness, to the grey sea sucking angrily among the rocks.
This was indeed an island.
So he went home to Flora. She looked at him with guilty fear, but also with a triumphant55 brightness in her uncanny eyes. And again he was gentle, he reassured56 her, even he wanted her again, with that curious desire that was almost like toothache. So he took her to the mainland, and they were married, since she was going to have his child.
They returned to the island. She still brought in his meals, her own along with them. She sat and ate with him. He would have it so. The widowed mother preferred to stay in the kitchen. And Flora slept in the guest-room of his house, mistress of his house.
His desire, whatever it was, died in him with nauseous finality. The child would still be months coming. His island was hateful to him, vulgar, a suburb. He himself had lost all his finer distinction. The weeks passed in a sort of prison, in humiliation57. Yet he stuck it out, till the child was born. But he was meditating58 escape. Flora did not even know.
A nurse appeared, and ate at table with them. The doctor came sometimes, and, if the sea were rough, he too had to stay. He was cheery over his whisky.
They might have been a young couple in Golders Green.
The daughter was born at last. The father looked at the baby, and felt depressed59, almost more than he could bear. The millstone was tied round his neck. But he tried not to show what he felt. And Flora did not know. She still smiled with a kind of half-witted triumph in her joy, as she got well again. Then she began again to look at him with those aching, suggestive, somehow impudent60 eyes. She adored him so.
This he could not stand. He told her that he had to go away for a time. She wept, but she thought she had got him. He told her he had settled the best part of his property on her, and wrote down for her what income it would produce. She hardly listened, only looked at him with those heavy, adoring, impudent eyes. He gave her a cheque-book, with the amount of her credit duly entered. This did arouse her interest. And he told her, if she got tired of the island, she could choose her home wherever she wished.
She followed him with those aching, persistent61 brown eyes, when he left, and he never even saw her weep.
He went straight north, to prepare his third island.
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1
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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2
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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3
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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5
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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10
pellucid
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| adj.透明的，简单的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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12
cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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14
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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17
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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18
ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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19
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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gossamery
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| adj.如蛛丝的，游丝般的，轻而软的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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obtruded
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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30
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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31
orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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32
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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persistency
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| n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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35
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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37
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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40
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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41
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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42
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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43
nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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44
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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46
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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47
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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48
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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49
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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50
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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51
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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52
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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53
bleating
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| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
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54
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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55
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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56
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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57
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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58
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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59
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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60
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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61
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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