But this morning found his brain singularly sluggish2: thoughts would not come; or if they showed themselves at all, it was only to peer mischievously3 at him round some distant corner which, when turned, discovered only an empty impasse4.
Distressed5, he tamped6 down his pipe, ran long fingers through his hair, and wrapped himself in clouds of smoke. Then a breath of cool, sweet air fanned his cheek, and he looked round in sharp annoyance7. It was like that fool maid to leave the windows open and freeze him to death! And truly enough, they were both wide open from top to bottom; though, for all that, he wasn't freezing. And outside there was a bright crimson8 border of potted geraniums on the iron-railed balcony. He hadn't noticed them before; Madame Duprat must have set them out before he was up. Curious whim9 of hers! Curious weather!
Disliking inconsistencies, he stopped in one of the windows to investigate these unseasonable phenomena10.
In one corner of the back-yard a dilapidated bundle of fur and bones, conforming in general with a sardonic11 Post-Impressionist's candid12 opinion of a tom-cat, lay blinking lazily in a patch of warm yellow sunlight.
In the next back-yard a ridiculous young person in bare-legs, blue denim13 overalls14 and a small red sweater, was industriously15 turning up the earth with a six-inch trowel, and chanting cheerfully to himself an improvisation16 in honour of his garden that was to be.
At an open window across the way a public-spirited and extremely pretty young woman appeared with a towel pinned round her shoulders and let down her hair, a shimmering17 cascade18 of gold for the sun's rays to wanton with and, incidentally, to dry.
Somewhere at a distance a cracked old piano-organ was romping19 and giggling20 rapturously through the syncopated measures of Tin Pan Alley's latest "rag."
A vision drifted before Matthias' eyes, of the green slopes of Tanglewood, the white chateau21 on its windy headland, the ineffable22 blue of the Sound beyond....
Incredulous, he turned to consult his calendar: the day was Wednesday, the seventeenth of April.
It was true, then: almost without his knowledge the bleak23 and barren Winter had worn away and Spring had stolen upon Town, flaunting24, extravagant25, shy and seductive, irresistible26 Spring....
For a little Matthias held back in doubt, with reluctant thoughts of his work. Then—all in a breath—he caught up hat and stick, slammed the door behind him, and blundered forth27 to fulfill28 his destiny....
She was seated on a bench, in a retired29 spot sheltered from the breeze, open to the sun, when Matthias, having swung round the upper reservoir, came at full stride down the West Drive, his blood romping, his eyes aglow30, warm colour in his face: for the first time in half a year feeling himself again, Matthias the lover of the open skies divorced from Matthias of the midnight lamp and the scored and intricate manuscripts—that Matthias whom the world rejected.
At a word, her companion rose and moved to intercept31 him; and at the sound of his name, Matthias paused, wondering who she could be, this strange, sweet-faced woman, plainly dressed.
"Yes?" he said, lifting his hat. "I am Mr. Matthias—yes—"
"Mrs. Marbridge would like to speak to you."
His gaze veered32 quickly in the direction indicated by her brief nod. He saw Venetia waiting, and immediately went to her, in his surprise forgetful of the woman who had accosted33 him. This last moved slowly in the other direction and sat down out of earshot.
"This is awfully34 good of you, Venetia," he said, bending over her hand. "I didn't see you, of course—was thinking of something else—"
"But I was thinking of you," she said. "I've been wanting to see you for a long time, Jack35."
"Surely Helena could have told you where to find me...."
"I knew we'd run across one another, somehow, somewhere, sometime—today or tomorrow, without fail. So I was content to do without the offices of Helena. Do sit down. I want so much to talk to you."
"Most completely yours to command," he said lightly, and took the place beside her.
But his heart was on his lips and in his eyes, and Venetia was far from blind.
"Then tell me about yourself," she asked. "It's been so long since I've had any news!"
"Is it possible? I should have imagined my doting36 aunt—"
She interrupted with a slight, negative smile and shake of her head: "Helena doesn't approve of me, you know, and of late there has been a decided37 coolness between the families. I'm afraid George fell out with Vincent for some reason—not too hard to guess, perhaps."
He looked away, colouring with embarrassment38.
"So," she pursued evenly—"about yourself: are you married yet?"
Matthias started, laughed frankly39. "You didn't know about that, either?... Well, it's true even Helena couldn't have told you much, for I told her nothing.... No, I'm neither married, nor like to be."
"She was so very sweet and pretty—"
"Joan was wholly charming," he agreed gravely, "but—well, I fancy it was inevitable40. We were lucky enough to be obliged to endure a separation of some weeks before, instead of after, marriage; and so we had time to think. At least, she must have foreseen the mistake we were on the point of making, for the break was her own doing—not mine."
"You think it would have been a mistake?"
"Oh, unquestionably. I confess I'd not have known it, probably, until too late, if she hadn't made me think when she threw me over. I hope it doesn't sound caddish—but I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief when I got back from California and found she'd cleared out without leaving me a line."
"I think I understand. And did you never hear from her?"
"Not from—by accident, of her. She was predestined for the stage—I can see that clearly now, though I objected then. She was offered a chance during my absence, jumped at it, and made a sort of a half-way hit in a very successful sketch41 which, oddly enough, I happened to have written—under a pseudonym42. It had been kicking round my agent's office for a year; he didn't believe in it any more than I did; and I disbelieved in it hard enough to be ashamed to put my own name to it. That's often the way with a fellow's work; one always believes in the cripples, you know.... Well, some actor chanced to get hold of the 'script one day, fell in love with it and put it on with Joan as his leading woman. If it had been anybody else's sketch, I'd never have known what became of her, probably. As it was, I knew nothing until I got back from the Coast.... I believe they got married very shortly after it was produced; and now they're playing it all over the country. Odd, isn't it?"
"Very," Venetia smiled. "And so your heart wasn't broken?"
He shook his head and laughed: "No!"
But a spasm43 of pain shot through his eyes and deceived the woman a little longer.
"And what have you been doing?" she pursued, meaning to distract him. "I mean, your work?"
He shrugged44. "Oh, I've had an average luckless year. To begin with, Rideout fell down on his production of 'The Jade45 God'—the only time it ever had a chance to get over—and a man named Algerson bought his contract and put it on at his stock theatre in Los Angeles. That's why I went out there—to see it butchered."
"It failed?"
"Extravagantly46!"
"But didn't you once have a great deal of confidence in it?"
"Every play is a valuable property until it's produced," he answered, smiling. "This one was killed by its production. Nothing was right: it needed scenery, and what they gave it had served a decade in stock; it needed actors, and what actors were accidentally permitted to get into the cast got the wrong r?les; finally, it needed intelligent stage direction, and that was supplied by the star, whose idea of a good play is one in which he speaks everybody's lines and his own. Then they rewrote most of the best scenes and botched them horribly."
"You couldn't stop them?"
"When I attempted to interfere47, I was told civilly to go to the devil. Under my contract, I could have stopped them: but that meant suing out an injunction, which in turn meant putting up a bond, and—I didn't have the money."
"I'm so sorry, Jack!"
"Oh, it's all in the game. I learned something, at least. But the greatest harm it did me was to sap the faith of managers here. One man—Wylie—who was under contract to produce my 'Tomorrow's People,' paid me on January first a forfeit48 of five hundred dollars rather than run the risk after 'The Jade God.'"
"And so you lost both plays?"
"Oh, no; I still have 'Tomorrow's People,' and only a short time ago signed up with a manager who isn't afraid of his shadow. We'll put it on next Autumn."
"And you believe in that, too?"
"I know it will go," Matthias asserted with level confidence. "It's only a question of intelligence at the producing end—and I've arranged to get that."
"And meanwhile—you've been working?"
"Oh"—he spread out his hands—"one doesn't stop, you know. It's too interesting!"
And then he laughed again. "But, you see, you flatter a fellow into talking his head off about himself! Forgive me, and let me do a little cross-examining. How are you? And what have you been doing? You—you know, Venetia—you're looking more exquisitely49 pretty than ever!"
And so she was—more strangely lovely than ever in all the long span of their friendship: with a deeper radiance in her face, a clearer, more translucent50 pallor, in her eyes a splendour that lent new dignity to their violet-shadowed mystery.
"I'm glad of that," she said quietly. She folded listless hands in her lap, her eyes seeking distances. "I'm going to be very happy ... I think...."
He looked up sharply.
That she wasn't happy now, he could well understand: that Marbridge was behaving badly was something rather too broadly published by the very publicity51 of his methods. Marriage had not been permitted to interfere—at least, not after his return from Europe—with the ordinary tenor52 of his bachelor ways. Matthias himself had seen him not infrequently in theatres and restaurants, but only once in company with Venetia—most often he had been dancing attendance upon a Mrs. Cardrow: she who had given her lips to Matthias, thinking him Marbridge, that long-ago night at Tanglewood. She was said to be stage-struck; and Marbridge was rumoured53 to be deeply, though quietly, involved in the financing of certain theatrical54 enterprises.
Surely, then, Venetia must know what everybody knew, and be unhappy in that knowledge.
But now she was so calmly confident that she was "going to be happy"!
He wondered if she were contemplating55 divorce....
And then in a flash he understood. That woman who had stopped him was not of Venetia's caste; if he guessed not wildly, she was a nurse. And Venetia afoot instead of in her limousine56....
She turned her eyes to his, smiling with a certain diffident, sweet sedateness57. "You didn't know, Jack?"
He shook his head, looking quickly away.
"But you've guessed?"
"Yes," he replied in a low voice.
Her hand fell lightly over his for a single instant. "Then be glad for me, Jack," she begged gently. "It's—it's compensation."
"I understand," he said, "and I'm truly very glad. It's kind of you to—to tell me, Venetia."
"It changes everything," she said pensively58: "all my world is changed, and I am a new strange woman, seeing it with new eyes. I have learned so much—and in so short a time—I can hardly believe it. To think, it's not a year since that time at Tanglewood—!"
"Please!" he begged.
"Oh, I didn't mean to hurt you, Jack. But it's that I wanted to talk to you about. You won't mind, when you understand, as I have learned to understand.... I tell you, I'm altogether another woman. Marriage is like learning to live in a foreign land, but motherhood is another world. I find it difficult to realize Venetia of a year ago: she's like some strange creature I once knew but never quite understood. And yet, little as I understood her, I can make excuses for her: I know her impulses were not bad. I know, better than she knew ... she loved you, Jack."
"You must not say that, Venetia!"
"But it's true, my dear, most true," she insisted in her voice of gentle magic. "The rest ... was just madness, the sort of madness that some men have the power to—to kindle59 in women. It's a deadly power, very terrible, and they—who have it—use it as carelessly as children playing with matches and gunpowder—"
"Oh, I understand, Venetia, I understand! Don't—"
"No—let me tell you. I've got to, Jack. I've had this so long in my heart to tell you!... You must be patient with me, this once, and listen.... You must know that I loved you then when I—ran to you—threw myself into your arms—made you ask me to marry you and promised I would and—and thought that I was safe from him because of my promise. But I didn't know myself—nor him. He seemed able to make his will my law so easily—so strangely!... Even when I ran away with him, I knew that happiness could never come of it.... It was just the madness ... I couldn't help myself ... I just could not help myself.... And then—ah, but I have paid for my madness—many times over!..."
For the moment he couldn't trust himself to speak. The woman bent60 forward to gain a glimpse of his half-averted face, and searched it anxiously with her haunted eyes.
"You do understand, Jack?... You forgive?..."
"There isn't any question of forgiveness," he said. "And I always understood—half-way. You know that—you must have known it, or you couldn't have said—what you have—to me."
The woman laughed a little, tender, broken laugh.
"I am so glad!" she said softly. "Perhaps it's wrong.... But you've made me a little happier. I have needed so desperately61 someone to confess to—someone on whose sympathy I could count. And—Jack—the only one in the world was you.... You—you've helped."
She rose, holding out both hands to him, and as he took them and held them tight he saw that her lovely eyes were wide and dim with tears.
"You've proved my faith in you," she said—"my gentle man—my knight62 sans peur et sans reproche!"
He bent his head to her hands, but before his lips could touch them, very gently she drew them away, and turned and left him.
Bareheaded and wondering, for a long time he stood staring at the spot where, in company with the nurse, she had disappeared.
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收听单词发音
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1
groove
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| n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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mischievously
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| adv.有害地；淘气地 | |
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impasse
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| n.僵局；死路 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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tamped
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| v.捣固( tamp的过去式和过去分词 )；填充；（用炮泥）封炮眼口；夯实 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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denim
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| n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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industriously
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improvisation
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| n.即席演奏(或演唱)；即兴创作 | |
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17
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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19
romping
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| adj.嬉戏喧闹的，乱蹦乱闹的v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的现在分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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20
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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23
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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25
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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intercept
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| vt.拦截，截住，截击 | |
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32
veered
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| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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33
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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doting
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| adj.溺爱的，宠爱的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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41
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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42
pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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43
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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44
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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45
jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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46
extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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47
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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48
forfeit
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| vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物 | |
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49
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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50
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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51
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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52
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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53
rumoured
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| adj.谣传的；传说的；风 | |
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54
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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55
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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56
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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57
sedateness
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| n.安详，镇静 | |
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pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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59
kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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60
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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61
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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62
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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