chapter 3

The unaccountable gray eyes of John Smiley Vanton looked straight at his mother as she talked to him. They saved her a good deal. In a way they offset¹ the black hair and the snub nose which made him so strongly resemble, outwardly at least, his father. And there was something wonderfully cool and strong, to the mother, in the grayness of those boyish eyes. Granite² colour.

“You aren’t telling me everything, mother,” said the boy.

She admitted it. In extenuation³ she promised that when he was older he should know the rest.

“You see, John, it really isn’t all mine to tell. If your father were dead it would be different. But there are some things which it is his right to tell you, and to be the only one to tell you, while he lives. Suppose he were to come back in a month or a year; then he could take it up with you himself, and that would be much fairer.”

He considered this and approved it.

“I ought to tell you this,” his mother added, “there is nothing that dishonours⁴ your father in what I have not told.”

“You know it all?” he asked. “Everything there is to tell?”

“I know all that there is to know,” she assured him, gravely.

[237]With this he was satisfied. They then spoke⁵ about his sister Keturah, who was two years younger. “You’d better,” John told his mother, “tell her just what you’ve told me. She’ll hear it, anyway. Guy and Mermaid⁶ are only ten and six and don’t matter much. I’ll talk to Guy.”

The masterful assumption of responsibility toward his younger brother pleased Mary Vanton. She checked an impulse to fold him to her. She offered her hand instead and he shook it, manifestly proud to conclude a compact of equals.

Keturah Vanton listened to her mother’s explanation silently. Tears stood in her eyes, but her anxiety seemed to be mostly for her mother. She asked her no questions but kissed her with fervour. Ten-year-old Guy heard what his older brother told him with the incuriosity of a person engaged in an intensive task of teaching a new dog old tricks.

“Play dead, Dick,” he commanded. Dick obeyed by rising hastily and loping away. At which six-year-old Mermaid burst out crying as if her heart would break. For some time afterward⁷ she appeared to entertain the appalling⁸ notion that her father had disappeared rather than play dead.

Mary Vanton lost no time in settling her house in Blue Port and taking her family over to the beach. She and her husband had what was by no means the most expensive house on that sand barrier separating[238] bay and ocean, though it had always seemed to both of them the most comfortable. It fronted squarely on the ocean, bulwarked and protected by a tall and grassy⁹ line of dunes¹⁰. There were a half dozen bedrooms and, on the ground floor, two immense living rooms with fireplaces. The house was constructed with unusual care and was habitable even in winter. And it gave, to the everlasting¹¹ joy of those whose home it was, on the veritable sea. For the eternal Atlantic, the “Western Ocean” of sailors, is a breeding ground of men. A cleanser and sweetener of continents and islands, the ocean of storms and the ocean of victories, at once the world’s greatest highway and the last, the perpetual frontier. A sight nowhere transcended¹²!

Mary Vanton often looked upon it. It renewed in her the sense of wonder, the sense of mystery, the feeling of hope, without which the soul is extinguished, without which the very heart of life dies.

1 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

2 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

3 extenuation   

n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细

参考例句：

• Miss Glover could allow no extenuation of her crime. 格洛弗小姐是不允许袒护罪过的。 来自辞典例句
• It was a comfort to him, this extenuation. 这借口对他是种安慰。 来自辞典例句

4 dishonours   

不名誉( dishonour的名词复数 )； 耻辱； 丢脸； 丢脸的人或事

参考例句：

• He who does not honour his wife,dishonours himself. 不尊重妻子的人，自己也不被尊重。
• Whoever stands by the roadway cheering for Queen Victoria dishonours Ireland. 不管谁站在路上为维多利亚女王欢呼，谁就会给爱尔兰带来羞辱。

5 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 mermaid   

n.美人鱼

参考例句：

• How popular would that girl be with the only mermaid mom!和人鱼妈妈在一起，那个女孩会有多受欢迎！
• The little mermaid wasn't happy because she didn't want to wait.小美人鱼不太高兴，因为她等不及了。

7 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

8 appalling   

adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions.恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• Nothing can extenuate such appalling behaviour.这种骇人听闻的行径罪无可恕。

9 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

10 dunes   

沙丘( dune的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The boy galloped over the dunes barefoot. 那男孩光着脚在沙丘间飞跑。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat. 将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

11 everlasting   

adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的

参考例句：

• These tyres are advertised as being everlasting.广告上说轮胎持久耐用。
• He believes in everlasting life after death.他相信死后有不朽的生命。

12 transcended   

超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过…

参考例句：

• He wanted assurance that he had transcended what was inherently ambiguous. 他要证明，他已经超越了本来就是混淆不清的事情。
• It transcended site to speak to universal human concerns. 它超越了场所的局限，表达了人类共同的心声。