Tristrem sniffed13 the fog with a sensation of that morbid14 pleasure which girls in their teens and women in travail15 experience when they crave16 and obtain repulsive17 food. Had he not hungered for it himself? and did she not breathe it too?
The journey from Euston Square to the hotel in Jermyn Street at which he proposed to put up, was to him a confusion of impatience18 and anticipation19. He was sure of finding a cablegram from Mrs. Raritan's attorney, and was it not possible that he might see Viola that very night? In Jermyn Street, however, no message awaited him. Under the diligent20 supervision21 of a waiter who had the look and presence of a bishop22 he managed later to eat some dinner. But the evening was a blank: he passed it twirling his thumbs, dumbly irritated, incapable23 of action, and perplexed24 as he had never been before.
The next morning his Odyssey25 began. He cabled to Mr. Meggs, and saw the clerk put beneath the message the cabalistic letters A. P. And then, in an attempt to frighten Time, he had his measure taken in Saville Row and his hair cut in Bond Street. But in vain—the day dragged as though its wheels were clogged26. By noon he had exhausted27 every possible resource. Another, perhaps, might have beguiled28 the tedium29 with drink, or cultivated what Balzac has called the gastronomy30 of the eye, and which consists in idling in the streets. But unfortunately for Tristrem, he was none other than himself. The mere31 smell of liquor was distasteful to him, and he was too nervous to be actively32 inactive. Moreover, as in September there are never more than four million people in London, his chance of encountering an acquaintance was slight. Those that he possessed33 were among the absent ten thousand. They were in the country, among the mountains, at the seaside, on the Continent—anywhere, in fact, except in the neighborhood of Pall34 Mall. And even had it been otherwise, Tristrem was not in a mood to suffer entertainment. He had not the slightest wish to be amused. Wagner might have come to Covent Garden from the grave to conduct Parsifal in person and Tristrem would not have so much as bought a stall. He wanted Miss Raritan's address, and until he got it a comet that bridged the horizon would have left him incurious as the dead.
On the morrow, with his coffee, there came to him a yellow envelope. The message was brief, though not precisely36 to the point "Uninformed of Mrs. Raritan's address," it ran, and the signature was Meggs.
For the first time it occurred to Tristrem that Fate was conspiring37 against him. It had been idiocy38 on his part to leave New York before he had obtained the address; and now that he was in London, it would be irrational39 to write to any of her friends—the Wainwarings, for instance—and hope to get it. He knew the Wainwarings just well enough to attend a reception if they gave one, and a slighter acquaintance than that it were idle to describe.
Other friends the girl had in plenty, but to Tristrem they were little more than shadows. There seemed to be no one to whom he could turn. Indeed he was sorely perplexed. Since the hour in which he learned that his father and Viola's were not the same he had been possessed of but one thought—to see her and kneel at her feet; and in the haste he had not shown the slightest forethought—he had been too feverishly40 energetic to so much as wait till he got her address; and now in the helter-skelter he had run into a cul-de-sac where he could absolutely do nothing except sit and bite his thumb. The enforced inactivity was torturesome as suspense41. In his restlessness he determined42 to retrace43 his steps; he would return to New York, he told himself, learn of her whereabouts, and start afresh. Already he began to calculate the number of days which that course of action would necessitate44, and then suddenly, as he saw himself once more on Fifth Avenue, he bethought him of Alphabet Jones. What man was there that commanded larger sources of social information than he? He would cable to him at once, and on the morrow he would have the address.
The morrow dawned, and succeeding morrows—a week went by, and still no word from Jones. A second week passed, and when a third was drawing to a close and Tristrem, outwearied and enervated45, had secured a berth46 on a returning steamer, at last the answer came—an answer in four words—"Brown Shipley, Founders47' Court." That was all, but to Tristrem, in his over-wrought condition, they were as barbs48 of flame. "My own bankers!" he cried; "oh, thrice triple fool! why did I not think of them before?" He was so annoyed at his stupidity that on his way to the city his irritation49 counterbalanced the satisfaction which the message brought. "Three whole weeks have I waited," he kept telling himself—"three whole weeks! H'm! Jones might better have written. No, I might better have shown some common-sense. Three whole weeks!"
He was out of the cab before it had fairly stopped, and breathless when he reached the desk of the clerk whose duty it was to receive and forward the letters of those who banked with the house.
"I want Mrs. Raritan's address," he said—"Mrs. R. F. Raritan, please."
The clerk fumbled50 a moment over some papers. "Care of Munroe, Rue6 Scribe," he answered.
"Thank God!" Tristrem exclaimed; "and thank you. Send my letters there also."
That evening he started for Paris, and the next morning he was asking in the Rue Scribe the same question which he had asked the previous afternoon in Founders' Court. There he learned that Mrs. Raritan had sent word, the day before, that all letters should be held for her until further notice. She had been stopping with her daughter at the H?tel du Rhin, but whether or not she was still there the clerk did not know. The Rue Scribe is not far from the Place Vend51?me, in which the H?tel du Rhin is situated52, and it took Tristrem a little less than five minutes to get there. The concierge53 was lounging in her cubby-hole.
"Madame Raritan?" Tristrem began.
"Partie, m'sieu, partie d'puis hier—"
And then from Tristrem new questions came thick and fast. The concierge, encouraged by what is known as a white piece, and of which the value is five francs in current coin, became very communicative. Disentangled from layers of voluble digression, the kernel54 of her information amounted to this: Mrs. Raritan and her daughter had taken the Orient Express the day before. On the subject of their destination she declared herself ignorant. Suppositions she had in plenty, but actual knowledge none, and she took evident pleasure in losing herself in extravagant55 conjectures56. "Bien le bonjour," she said when Tristrem, passably disheartened, turned to leave—"Bien le bonjour, m'sieu; si j'ose m'exprimer ainsi."
The Orient Express, as Tristrem knew, goes through Southern Germany into Austria, thence down to Buda-Pest and on to Constantinople. That Viola and her mother had any intention of going farther than Vienna was a thing which he declined to consider. On the way to Vienna was Stuttgart and Munich. In Munich there was Wagner every other night. In Stuttgart there was a conservatory57 of music, and at Vienna was not the Opera world-renowned? "They have gone to one of those three cities," he told himself. "Viola must have determined to relinquish58 the Italian school for the German. H'm," he mused35, "I'll soon put a stop to that. As to finding her, all I have to do is go to the police. They keep an eye on strangers to some purpose. Let me see—I can get to Stuttgart by to-morrow noon. If she is not there I will go to Munich. I rather like the idea of a stroll on the Maximilien Strasse. It would be odd if I met her in the street. Well, if she isn't in Munich she is sure to be in Vienna." And as he entered the Grand H?tel he smiled anew in dreams forecast.
Tristrem carried out his programme to the end. But not in Stuttgart, not in Munich, nor in Vienna either, could he obtain the slightest intelligence of her. In the latter city he was overtaken by a low fever, which detained him for a month, and from which he arose enfeebled but with clearer mind. He wrote to Viola two letters, and two also to her mother. One of each he sent to the Rue Scribe, the others to Founders' Court. When ten days went by, and no answer came, he understood for the first time what the fable59 of Tantalus might mean, and that of Sisyphus too. He wrote at length to his grandfather, describing his Odyssey, his perplexities, and asking advice. He even wrote to Jones—though much more guardedly, of course—thanking him for his cable, and inquiring in a post-scriptum whether he had heard anything further on the subject of the Raritans' whereabouts. These letters were barely despatched when he was visited by a luminous60 thought. The idea that Viola intended to relinquish Italian music for that of Wagner had never seemed to him other than an incongruity61. "Idiot that I am!" he exclaimed; "she came abroad to study at Milan, and there is where she is. She must have left the Orient Express at Munich and gone straight down through the Tyrol." And in the visitation of this comforting thought Tantalus and Sisyphus went back into the night from which they had come; in their place came again the blue-eyed divinity whose name is Hope.
It is not an easy journey, nor a comfortable one, from Vienna to Milan, but Hope aiding, it can be accomplished62 without loss of life or reason. And Hope aided Tristrem to his destination, and there disappeared. In all Milan no intelligence of Viola could be obtained. He wrote again to her. The result was the same. "I am as one accursed," he thought, and that night he saw himself in dream stopping passers in the street, asking them with lifted hat had they seen a girl wonderfully fair, with amber63 eyes. He asked the question in French, in German, in Italian, according to the nationality of those he encountered, and once, to a little old woman, he spoke64 in a jargon65 of his own invention. But she laughed, and seemed to understand, and gave him the address of a lupanar.
He idled awhile in Milan, and then went to Florence, and to Rome, and to Naples, crossing over, even, to Palermo; and then retracing66 his steps, he visited the smaller cities and outlying, unfrequented towns. Something there was which kept telling him that she was near at hand, waiting, like the enchanted67 princess, for his coming. And he hunted and searched, outwearied at times, and refreshed again by resuscitations of hope, and intussusceptions of her presence. But in the search his nights were white. It was rare for him to get any sleep before the dawn had come.
Early in spring he reached Milan again. He had written from Bergamo to the Rue Scribe, asking that his letters should be forwarded to that place, and among the communications that were given him on his arrival was a cablegram from New York. Come back, it ran; she is here. It was from his grandfather, Dirck Van Norden, and as Tristrem read it he trembled from head to foot. It was on a Tuesday that this occurred, and he reflected that he would just about be able to get to Havre in time for the Saturday steamer. An hour later he was in the train bound for Desenzano, from which place he proposed to go by boat to Riva, and thence up to Munich, where he could catch the Orient Express on its returning trip to France.
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1
striated
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| adj.有纵线，条纹的 | |
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acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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rehabilitation
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| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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7
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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10
resounds
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的第三人称单数 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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11
pusillanimous
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| adj.懦弱的，胆怯的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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13
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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14
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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travail
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| n.阵痛；努力 | |
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crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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18
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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26
clogged
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| （使）阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 )； 淤滞 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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28
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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29
tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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gastronomy
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| n.美食法；美食学 | |
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31
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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35
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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36
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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37
conspiring
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| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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38
idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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40
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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41
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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43
retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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44
necessitate
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| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
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45
enervated
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| adj.衰弱的，无力的v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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48
barbs
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| n.（箭头、鱼钩等的）倒钩( barb的名词复数 )；带刺的话；毕露的锋芒；钩状毛 | |
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49
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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50
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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51
vend
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| v.公开表明观点，出售，贩卖 | |
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52
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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53
concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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54
kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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55
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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56
conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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57
conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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58
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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59
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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60
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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61
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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62
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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64
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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65
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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66
retracing
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| v.折回( retrace的现在分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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67
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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