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chapter 5
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Dick Hand at forty-two had, as has been said, a tremendous reputation and an equally tremendous dissatisfaction. The one had no perceptible relation to the other. Of the one the world was thoroughly1 aware, of the other it was not. His dissatisfaction was known to Richard Hand alone.

There were times when it swayed him absolutely, When it “came over him,” and he could not get away from it. He could not have told you what it was,[241] really; for sometimes he felt it to be one thing, sometimes another. Now it was an immense discontent with all he had done or was doing, now it was an unreasonable2 irritation3 with life itself.

Everything, he found at such times, was worthless.

One day, in a fit of absolute disgust, he went to a specialist. He had no expectation that the man could help him, but he had got where he must do something.

He had expected to be shown into a darkened room where a fellow more or less dressed for a part would take his hand gravely, as if performing a rite4, and then, retreating to the distance and becoming semi-invisible, would intone questions in a ceremonial voice while the conversation was written down on the wax tablets of a silently travelling phonograph.

But the office was as unlike that as possible, and so was the specialist.

A bright room with a sort of sun-parlour on the south side, a place of wicker furniture and cretonnes, with books and magazines lying about and tobacco on the table. With his eyeglasses and a sober seriousness of face when in repose5, the man who received him was hardly distinguishable from a business man of comfortable habit, moderately large affairs, and fairly frequent preoccupations. They shook hands; the specialist offered Mr. Hand a cigarette and took one himself.

“Let’s come out here,” he said, indicating the sun-parlour.[242] “It’s pleasanter and the chairs are better to lounge in.”

They disposed themselves and puffed6 away for a moment or two.

“I’ve come to see if you can help me,” explained Dick Hand, rather desperately7. The other nodded.

“I get fairly sick of—existence,” Dick went on. “I’m restless and rottenly dissatisfied, and I don’t know why. Nothing seems to mean anything. I have these spells, and they are commoner than they used to be.”

“Tell me all about yourself,” suggested the other. “Only what you call to mind and only what you care to tell.”

Dick hesitated. “I thought,” he said, “that you people asked questions—to get at certain things hidden from us of whom you ask them.”

“Well, we do that,” admitted the specialist. “But it usually is better to hear a man’s own story first. After we have got the things a man readily recalls, comes the problem of getting at the things he doesn’t recall.”

“I suppose the idea is the relief afforded by making a clean breast of things,” hazarded Dick.

“Not entirely8. It goes beyond that. It aims at relieving unsuspected pressures. There’s a sort of an analogy in a physical injury, such as a fracture. The man who has the fracture knows that something is[243] wrong, he suffers intense pain, but he doesn’t know that a bone is broken, or, if he does, he doesn’t know just where, nor how to set it. And he suffers too much to be able to find out.”

“Well, there’s certainly a fracture somewhere in my life,” said Dick Hand, grimly. “And I suffer. And I don’t know where it is or how to set it.”

After a little pause he entered upon his story. It was when he had entirely finished and sat silent that the specialist spoke9 again.

“You say you were once in love?”

“It was the only time I ever was in love,” replied Richard Hand. “She was two years younger than I. We more or less grew up together. We were both in our twenties when she refused me for good and all. She was already in love with another man and she was married to him a little later.”

“You use the past tense. Is she dead?”

“No, she isn’t. She is alive and has four children. Her husband has disappeared lately, left her and the children. By the way, he would make a case for you! If you could cure him I’d say you could cure anybody.”

“It isn’t we who cure,” explained the other man patiently. “We no more cure a man than does the surgeon who sets a broken bone. We just try, like him, to get things straightened out so they can cure themselves. Tell me about her husband, who has disappeared.”

Dick recounted Guy Vanton’s story. It was a long[244] recital10 but the specialist seemed interested. At the end Dick asked: “What do you make of it?”

“It is a bad case,” thoughtfully, “but it isn’t hopeless. It might even come out all right. I’m afraid not, though. If she—if his wife could not straighten things out for him there isn’t much likelihood that anybody else can. She must be a very fine woman. And they genuinely loved each other. No doubt of that. Love—and children. They are the ultimate satisfaction of most men and women, but not of all. I imagine that he is an exception to the general rule. There was something else that he hadn’t got. Perhaps he will find it.”

“A fine woman.... Love—and children ... the ultimate satisfaction.” The words struck something in Richard Hand. He looked up suddenly and spoke in a harsh voice:

“I suppose if I had got her and if—if they were my children...?”

The adviser11 looked at him gravely.

“I think there is no doubt about it,” he answered.

They sat there in the gathering12 twilight13 for some time in a silence fraught14 with the pain of a deep revelation. Richard Hand struggled with the thing that stood revealed to him and within him. After a while he said, in words that seemed to choke him: “But what shall I do? What—what can I do—about it—now?”

“Look the thing full in the face, as you are doing now, and conquer it,” the other counselled.

[245]After a pause he went on to explain: “You love her, you have always loved her. And because you love her you will love her children, as a part of her. As long as you suppressed your love for her, as long as you refused to acknowledge it even to yourself, so long it continued to punish you in other ways. It did not so act upon you as to prevent you doing good work and profiting by it; but when you had done great work and had profited by it this suppressed longing15 stepped in and robbed you of the reward you had earned by destroying all the beauty and meaning of life for you, by turning your victories to ashes in your mouth, by making everything you were doing or had done or might do, pointless and futile16. For you the final satisfaction would have lain exclusively in doing all these things for her.

“Why haven’t you done them for her? Why don’t you? You can. You can make her yours and her children your own. I’m not, of course, suggesting anything disgraceful or dishonourable. I am suggesting that you look the truth in the face like an honest man—though you haven’t been intentionally17 dishonest with yourself. Outward conventions are responsible for most of the ingrowing minds. Look the truth in the face like an honest man and fight the good fight like a brave man.

“Say to yourself—you won’t have to say it to her—just this: ‘I love her; I have always loved her. I always shall. I have done everything I have done for[246] her, always, though I didn’t perhaps know it, and certainly did not admit it. It isn’t wrong to recognize it and it’s not wrong to admit it to myself; it’s merely a piece of honesty, and it’s an outlet18 for what would otherwise be suppressed and denied until it fouled19 and poisoned my whole life. At the same time this thing must be kept under control, just as any outlet must be controlled. I mustn’t let it, in its flow, do damage as great as it would in its stagnation—and a worse. I must be as honest as the day about it and as strong as I am honest.’”

It was quite dark. The two sat there motionless for a while. Then Richard Hand got up and came toward the other man, offering him his hand.

“Thank you,” he said, and his voice was boyish and alive. “I think you have shown me a way out—if I am strong enough to take it and hold to it. I—I think I shall go and visit her—and find out.”

The adviser gripped his hand and shook it warmly.

“Go, by all means,” he declared. “Nothing is gained by denial of the truth; nothing is gained by suppression. Everything worth winning is won by fighting, and there is no impulse in us which cannot be bitted and bridled20 and curbed21 and made to serve us for a righteous end.”

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 thoroughly sgmz0J     
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地
参考例句:
  • The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
  • The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。
2 unreasonable tjLwm     
adj.不讲道理的,不合情理的,过度的
参考例句:
  • I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
  • They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。
3 irritation la9zf     
n.激怒,恼怒,生气
参考例句:
  • He could not hide his irritation that he had not been invited.他无法掩饰因未被邀请而生的气恼。
  • Barbicane said nothing,but his silence covered serious irritation.巴比康什么也不说,但是他的沉默里潜伏着阴郁的怒火。
4 rite yCmzq     
n.典礼,惯例,习俗
参考例句:
  • This festival descends from a religious rite.这个节日起源于宗教仪式。
  • Most traditional societies have transition rites at puberty.大多数传统社会都为青春期的孩子举行成人礼。
5 repose KVGxQ     
v.(使)休息;n.安息
参考例句:
  • Don't disturb her repose.不要打扰她休息。
  • Her mouth seemed always to be smiling,even in repose.她的嘴角似乎总是挂着微笑,即使在睡眠时也是这样。
6 puffed 72b91de7f5a5b3f6bdcac0d30e24f8ca     
adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧
参考例句:
  • He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟,狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了,便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
7 desperately cu7znp     
adv.极度渴望地,绝望地,孤注一掷地
参考例句:
  • He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
  • He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。
8 entirely entirely     
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
  • His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
9 spoke XryyC     
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。
10 recital kAjzI     
n.朗诵,独奏会,独唱会
参考例句:
  • She is going to give a piano recital.她即将举行钢琴独奏会。
  • I had their total attention during the thirty-five minutes that my recital took.在我叙述的35分钟内,他们完全被我吸引了。
11 adviser HznziU     
n.劝告者,顾问
参考例句:
  • They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
  • Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。
12 gathering ChmxZ     
n.集会,聚会,聚集
参考例句:
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
13 twilight gKizf     
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期
参考例句:
  • Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
  • Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。
14 fraught gfpzp     
adj.充满…的,伴有(危险等)的;忧虑的
参考例句:
  • The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions.未来数月将充满重大的决定。
  • There's no need to look so fraught!用不着那么愁眉苦脸的!
15 longing 98bzd     
n.(for)渴望
参考例句:
  • Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
  • His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。
16 futile vfTz2     
adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的
参考例句:
  • They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败,他们全部被杀,无一幸免。
  • Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。
17 intentionally 7qOzFn     
ad.故意地,有意地
参考例句:
  • I didn't say it intentionally. 我是无心说的。
  • The local authority ruled that he had made himself intentionally homeless and was therefore not entitled to be rehoused. 当地政府裁定他是有意居无定所,因此没有资格再获得提供住房。
18 outlet ZJFxG     
n.出口/路;销路;批发商店;通风口;发泄
参考例句:
  • The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
  • Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。
19 fouled e3aea4b0e24d5219b3ee13ab76c137ae     
v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 );弄脏;击球出界;(通常用废物)弄脏
参考例句:
  • Blue suit and reddish-brown socks!He had fouled up again. 蓝衣服和红褐色短袜!他又搞错了。
  • The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories. 整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
20 bridled f4fc5a2dd438a2bb7c3f6663cfac7d22     
给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 ); 控制; 昂首表示轻蔑(或怨忿等); 动怒,生气
参考例句:
  • She bridled at the suggestion that she was lying. 她对暗示她在说谎的言论嗤之以鼻。
  • He bridled his horse. 他给他的马套上笼头。
21 curbed a923d4d9800d8ccbc8b2319f1a1fdc2b     
v.限制,克制,抑制( curb的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • Advertising aimed at children should be curbed. 针对儿童的广告应受到限制。 来自辞典例句
  • Inflation needs to be curbed in Russia. 俄罗斯需要抑制通货膨胀。 来自辞典例句


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