Chapter 17

Frida had played high and yet she had won the game of life; that dangerous game which most women playing single-handed are bound to lose. She had won, [Pg 355] but whether by apathy¹ or care, by skill or divine chance, he could not tell. As to himself he was very certain; when he might have won her he did not care to win, now that he had lost her he would always care. That was just his way.

Alone in the little hotel that looked over the harbor, left to the tyrannous company of his own thoughts, he made a desperate effort to understand her, to accept her point of view, to be, as she was, comprehensive and generous and just.

He believed every word she had ever said to him, for she was truth itself; he believed her when she said that she had loved him, that she loved him still. Of course she loved him; but how?

They say that passion in a pure woman is first lit at the light of the ideal, and burns downward from spirit to earth. But Frida's had shot up full-flamed from the dark, kindled² at the hot heart of nature, thence it had taken to itself wings and flown to the ideal; and for its insatiable longing³ there was no ideal but the whole. Other women before Frida had loved the world too well; but for them the world meant nothing but their own part and place in it. For Frida it meant nothing short of the divine cosmos⁴. Impossible to fix her part and place in it; the woman was so merged⁵ with the object of her desire. He, Maurice Durant, was as she had said a part of that world, but he was not the whole; he was not even the half, that half which for most women is more than the whole. From the first he had been to her the symbol of a reality greater than himself; she loved not him, but the world in him. And thus her love, like his own art, had missed the touch of greatness. It was neither the joy nor the tragedy of her life, but its one illuminating⁶ [Pg 356] episode; or, rather, it was the lyrical prologue⁷ to the grand drama of existence.

He did her justice. It was not that she was changeable or capricious, or that her love was weak; on the contrary, its very nature was to grow out of all bounds of sex and mood and circumstance. Its progress had been from Maurice Durant outward; from Maurice, as the innermost kernel⁸ and heart of the world, to the dim verge⁹, the uttermost margin¹⁰ of the world; and that by a million radiating paths. It was not that she left Maurice behind her, for all those million paths led back to him, the man was the center of her universe; but then the center is infinitely¹¹ small compared with the circumference¹². He saw himself diminished to a mathematical point in this cosmopolitan's cosmos. For Frida he had ceased to have any objective existence, he was an intellectual quantity, what the Colonel would have called an abstraction. There was nothing for him to do but to accept the transcendent position.

Thus, through all the tension of his soul, his intellect still struggled for comprehension.

Meanwhile, from his window looking over the white-walled harbor, he could see the Windward with all her sails spread, outward bound.

He watched her till there was nothing to be seen but her flying sails, till the sails were one white wing on a dim violet sea, till the white wing was a gray dot, indistinct on the margin of the world.

1 apathy   

n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡

参考例句：

• He was sunk in apathy after his failure.他失败后心恢意冷。
• She heard the story with apathy.她听了这个故事无动于衷。

2 kindled   

（使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光

参考例句：

• We watched as the fire slowly kindled. 我们看着火慢慢地燃烧起来。
• The teacher's praise kindled a spark of hope inside her. 老师的赞扬激起了她内心的希望。

3 longing   

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。

4 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

5 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

6 illuminating   

a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的

参考例句：

• We didn't find the examples he used particularly illuminating. 我们觉得他采用的那些例证启发性不是特别大。
• I found his talk most illuminating. 我觉得他的话很有启发性。

7 prologue   

n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕

参考例句：

• A poor wedding is a prologue to misery.不幸的婚姻是痛苦的开始。
• The prologue to the novel is written in the form of a newspaper account.这本小说的序言是以报纸报道的形式写的。

8 kernel   

n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心

参考例句：

• The kernel of his problem is lack of money.他的问题的核心是缺钱。
• The nutshell includes the kernel.果壳裹住果仁。

9 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

10 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

11 infinitely   

adv.无限地，无穷地

参考例句：

• There is an infinitely bright future ahead of us.我们有无限光明的前途。
• The universe is infinitely large.宇宙是无限大的。

12 circumference   

n.圆周，周长，圆周线

参考例句：

• It's a mile round the circumference of the field.运动场周长一英里。
• The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate.圆的直径与圆周有相互关系。