A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen; the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped5 there, and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food.
One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been tramping about the garden.
"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?"
"I think so."
"Are your lambs all right?"
"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp snow.
"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me."
John came back and spoke6 gravely. "I find those footsteps go right across the moor towards Halkett's Farm."
"Of course! George made them."
"Oh, you knew?"
"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?"
"What did he come for?"
"He sat by the fire and smoked."
"You'd better not encourage him."
"I don't."
"Be careful!—What are you laughing at?"
"That old story of the kiss!"
"It makes me mad."
"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified7 if he did. You needn't be afraid for me."
"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?"
"Rupert did a stack for me."
"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does—"
She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat tired of answering the question.
That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I wish you'd wear your wedding-ring."
"I said I wouldn't."
"It couldn't do any harm."
"It could—to me."
"You talk as if it's dirt," he said.
"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of something else. Tell me what you have been doing today."
His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness8. "You can't get round me like that."
"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that he saw her round white throat. "Why should I condescend9 to get round you, as you call it?"
"That's it!" he shouted angrily. "That's the word!" He rose and knocked his pipe against the stove. "You're too damned free with your condescension10, and I'm sick of it." He left the kitchen angrily, and two minutes later she heard the distant banging of the garden door.
She wanted to run after him, for she was afraid of the impulses of his anger. She felt a dreadful need to conciliate, for no other reason than his body's greater strength, but she let him go, and though for several days she did not see him, she had no sense of liberty. He would come back, she knew, and she found herself planning unworthy little shifts, arranging how she would manage him if he did this or that, losing her birthright of belief that man and woman could meet and traffic honestly together. They could not do it, she found, when either used base weapons: she, her guile11, or he, his strength; but if he used his strength, how could she save herself from using guile? She had to use it, and she clung fiercely to it, though she knew that, at last, it would be wrested12 from her.
In these days of his absence, there were hours when she wandered ceaselessly through the house, urged by the pride which refused allegiance to this man, tortured by her love for Zebedee and the pain she had to give him, hunted by the thought that George was making for himself a place in the circle where she kept her pensioners13. Each time that he looked at her with longing15, though she shrank, she gave her ready pity, and when he walked away into the night, her heart went after him unwillingly16. Worse than all, she knew she would not always see him as a pensioner14. Far off and indistinct, like a gallows17 seen on a distant hill, she spied the day when she might own a kind of need of him; she had to love those who loved her enough, and his strength, the very limits of his mind, would some day hold her. But she would not let these thoughts properly take shape: they were vague menaces, and they chased her through Mr. Pinderwell's sparsely-furnished rooms. She was glad that Zebedee had never been a pensioner; he had always given more than he had asked. His had not been an attitude of pleading, and she could not remember once seeing an appeal in his eyes. They had always been quick on her face and busy with herself, and her pride in him was mixed with anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled18 on the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These words she repeated many times.
But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could surely make it beautiful for fifty years.
But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew that her determination meant ultimate surrender.
He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things: they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the history of a world that went on marching.
She bent19 over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten his presence if a movement had not blocked the light.
"George, please, I can't see."
"I beg your pardon."
"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this."
"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed.
She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered20 face. "Are you still so cross?"
"I—don't know. I've been miserable21 enough," he said, but he had to smile on her.
She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before she tempted22 him to say more.
"Why?" she asked.
"You wouldn't understand."
"I might."
"How much I wanted you."
She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said softly.
"Eh?"
She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is it absurd?"
"Because you don't know me at all."
"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding23 coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I—want you." He turned sharply towards her. "I was half drunk that night."
"I wish you wouldn't talk about it."
He added abruptly24, "I've had nothing since."
Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again.
"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she nodded her applause, while he, appeased25 and daring, asked her, "Well, did you miss me?"
"Yes. A little."
"Are you glad I'm here?"
"I think so."
"When will you be sure?"
"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough."
"God knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so damned superior."
"I'm afraid that's not my fault!"
He swore under his breath. "At it again!"
"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good things for her—for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it."
They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues clicking in distress26. She wondered if he were ever going to speak.
"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over her.
"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he kissed her mouth.
She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too humble27 under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been. He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a long time she cried quietly in her chair.
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1
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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2
hovered
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| 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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memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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4
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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5
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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6
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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7
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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8
comeliness
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| n. 清秀, 美丽, 合宜 | |
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9
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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10
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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11
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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12
wrested
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| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
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13
pensioners
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| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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14
pensioner
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| n.领养老金的人 | |
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15
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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16
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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17
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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18
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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22
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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23
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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24
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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25
appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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26
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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27
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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