“Stop,” said Colin, “it is not my fault if he has not done his duty to his children; I have no right to bear the penalty. He has cast the vilest14 imputations upon me—”
“Hush15, hush, I beg of you,” said the clergyman, “my excellent young friend—”
Colin laughed in spite of himself. “If I am your excellent friend,” he said, “why do you not procure16 me admission to tell my own story? Why should the sight of me distress your sorrowing father? I am not an ogre, nor an enemy, but his son’s friend; and up to this day, I need not remind you,” said{323} the young man with a rising colour, “the only protector, along with my friend Lauderdale, whom his daughter has had. I do not say that he may not have natural objections to give her to a poor man,” said Colin, with natural pride; “but, at all events, he has no reason to hurry her away by stealth, as if I had not a right to be told why our engagement is interrupted so summarily. I will do nothing to distress Alice,” the young man went on, involuntarily lingering by the door, which was not entirely17 closed; “but I protest against being treated like a villain18 or an adventurer—”
“Hush, hush, hush,” cried the unlucky peacemaker, putting out his hand to close the unfastened door; and before he could do so, Mr. Meredith appeared on the threshold, flushed and furious. “What are you else, sir, I should like to know,” cried the angry British father, “to drag an unprotected girl into such an entanglement19 without even a pretence20 of consulting her friends; to take advantage of a deathbed for your detestable fortune-hunting schemes? Don’t answer me, sir! Have you a penny of your own? have you anything to live on? That’s the question. If it was not for other considerations, I’d indict21 you. I’d charge you with conspiracy22; and even now, if you come here to disturb my poor girl——. But I promise you, you shall see her no more,” the angry man continued. “Go, sir, and let me hear no more of you. She has a protector now.”
Colin stood a moment without speaking after Mr. Meredith has disappeared, closing the door violently after him.
“I have not come to distress Alice,” said the young man. He had to repeat it to himself to keep down the hot blood that was burning in his veins23; and as for the unfortunate clergyman, who was the immediate24 cause of all this, he kept his position by the door in a state of mind far from enviable, sorry for the young man, and ashamed of the old one, and making inarticulate efforts to speak and mediate25 between them. But the conference did not last very long outside the closed door. Though it did not fortunately occur to Colin that it was the interference of his present companion which had originated this scene, the young man did not feel the insult the less from the deprecatory half-sympathy offered to him. “It is a mistake—it is a mistake,” said the clergyman, “Mr. Meredith will discover his error. I said I thought you were imprudent, and indeed wrong; but I have never suspected you of interested motives—never since my first interview with the young lady;—but think of her sufferings, my dear young friend; think of her,” said the mediator27, who{324} was driven to his wits’ end. As for Colin, he calmed himself down a little by means of pacing about the corridor—the common resource of men in trouble.
“Poor Alice,” he said, “if I did not think of her, do you think I should have stood quietly to be insulted? But look here—the abuse of such a man can do no harm to me, but he may kill her. If I could see her it might do some good.—Impossible? Do you suppose I mean to see her clandestinely28, or to run away with her, perhaps? I mean,” said Colin, with youthful sternness, “that if I were permitted to see her I might be able to reconcile her a little to what is inevitable29. Of course he is her father. I wish her father were a chimney-sweep instead;—but it is she I have to think of. Will you try to get me permission to see her?—only for ten minutes, if you like—in your presence, if that is necessary; but I must say one word to her before she is carried away.”
“Yes, yes, it is very natural—very natural,” said the peace-maker; “I will do all I can for you. Be here at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning; the poor dear young lady must have rest after her agitation30. Don’t be afraid; I am not a man to deceive you; they do not leave till the afternoon for Civita Vecchia. You shall see her; I think I can promise that. I will take the responsibility on myself.”
Thus ended Colin’s attempt to bring back the Signorina, as he said. In the morning he had reached the hotel long before the hour mentioned, in case of an earlier departure; but everything was quiet there, and the young man hovered31 about, looking up at the windows, and wondering which might be the one which inclosed his little love, with sentiments more entirely lover-like than he had ever experienced before. But, when the hour of his appointment came, and he hurried into the hotel, he was met by the indignant clergyman, who felt his own honour compromised, and was wroth beyond measure. Mr. Meredith had left Rome at dawn of day, certainly not for Civita Vecchia, leaving no message for any one. He had pretended, after hot resistance, to yield to the kind-hearted priest’s petition, that the lovers might say farewell to each other, and this was the way he had taken of balking32 them. It was now the author of the original mischief33 who felt himself insulted and scorned, and his resentment34 and indignation were louder than Colin’s, whose mind at first lost itself in schemes of following, and vain attempts to ascertain35 the route the party had taken. Lauderdale, coming anxious but steady to the scene of action half an hour after{325}wards, found his friend absorbed in this inquiry36, and balancing all the chances between the road by Perugia and the road by Orvieto, with the full intention of going off in pursuit.
It was then his careful guardian37’s turn to interfere26. He led the youth away, and pointed38 out to him the utter vanity of such an undertaking39. Not distance or uncertainty40 of road, but her father’s will, which was likely to be made all the more rigorous by pursuit, parted Alice from her young protector and bridegroom; and if he followed her to the end of the world, this obstacle would still remain as unremoveable as ever. Though he was hot-headed and young, and moved by excitement, and indignation, and pity, to a height of passion which his love for Alice by itself would never have produced, Colin still could not help being reasonable, and he saw the truth of what was said to him. At the same time, it was not natural that the shock which was so great and sudden should be got over in a moment. He felt himself insulted and outraged41, in the first place; and the other side of the question was almost equally mortifying42; for he knew the relief that would be felt by all his friends when the sudden end of his unwelcome project was made known to them. The Ramore household had given a kind of passive acquiescence43 in what seemed inevitable—but Colin was aware they would all be very glad at home when the failure was known—and it was a failure, howsoever the tale might be told. Thus the original disappointment was aggravated44 by stings of apprehended45 ridicule46 and jocular sympathy, for to no living soul, not even to his mother, would Colin have confessed how great a share in his original decision Alice’s helpless and friendless position had, nor the sense of loss and bondage47 with which he had often in his secret heart regarded the premature48 and imprudent marriage which he had lived to hear stigmatised as the scheme of a fortune-hunter. It was thus that the very generosity49 of his intentions gave an additional sting at once to the insult and the sympathy. After a day or two, his thoughts of Alice as the first person to be considered, and the deep sense of the terrible calamity50 it was to her, yielded a little to those thoughts of himself and all the humiliating accompaniments of a change so unlooked for. During this period his temper became, even by Lauderdale, unbearable51; and he threw aside everything he was doing, and took to silence and solitary52 rambles53, in utter disgust with the shortsightedness and injustice54 of the world.
But after that unhappy interval it has to be confessed that{326} the skies suddenly cleared for Colin. The first symptom of revival55 that happened to him came to pass on a starry56, lovely May night, when he had plunged57 into the darkness of the lonely quarter about the Colosseum alone, and in a state of mind to which an encounter with the robbers supposed to haunt these silent places would have been highly beneficial. But it chanced that Colin raised his moody58 eyes to the sky, suddenly and without any premeditation, and saw the moon struggling up through a maze59 of soft white clouds, parting them with her hands as they threw themselves into baffling airy masses always in her way; and suddenly, without a moment of preface, a face—the face—the image of the veiled woman, who was not Alice, and to whom he had bidden farewell, gleamed out once more through the clouds, and looked Colin in the eyes, thrilling him through and through with a guilty astonishment60. The moment after was the hardest of all Colin’s struggle; and he rushed home after it tingling61 all over with self-contempt and burning indignation, and plunged into a torrent62 of talk when he found his friend, by way of forgetting himself, which struck Lauderdale with the utmost surprise. But next day Colin felt himself somehow comforted without knowing how; and then he took to thinking of his life, and work which now, even for the sake of Alice, if nothing else, he must pursue with determined63 energy; and then it seemed to him as if every moment was lost that kept him away from home. Was it for Alice? Was it that he might offer her again the perfected mind and settled existence to which his labours were to lead him? He said so to himself as he made his plans; but yet unawares a vision of deeper eyes came gleaming upon him out of the clouds. And it was with the half-conscious thrill of another existence, a feeling as of new and sweeter air in the sails, and a widening ocean under the keel, that Colin rose up after all those varying changes of sentiment were over, and set his face to the north once more.
“It’s awfu’ strange to think it’s the last time,” said Lauderdale, as they stood together on the Pincian Hill, and watched the glowing colours of the Roman sunset. “It’s little likely that you and me will ever see St. Peter yonder start up black into the sun like that, another time in our lives. It’s grander than a’ their illuminations, though it’s more like another kind of spirit than an angel. And this is Rome! I dinna seem ever to have realized the thought before. It’s awfu’ living and life-like, callant, but it’s the graves we’ll mind it by. I’m no meaning kings and C?sars. I’m meaning them that come and{327} never return. Testaccio’s hidden out of sight, and the cypress64 trees,” said the philosopher; “but there’s mony an eye that will never lose sight of them even at the other end of the world. I might have been going my ways with an awfu’ different heart, if it hadna been for the mercy of God.”
“Then you thought I should die?” said Colin, to whom, in the stir of his young life, and the words were solemn and strange to say; “and God is merciful—yet Meredith is lying yonder, though not me.”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, and then there was a long pause. “I’m no offering ony explanation,” said the philosopher. “It’s a question between a man and his Maker—spirit to spirit. It’s an awfu’ mystery to us, but it maun be made clear and satisfying to them that go away. For me, I’ll praise God,” he said abruptly65, with a harsh ring in his voice; and Colin for the first time knew assuredly that his faithful guardian had thought nothing better than to bring him here to die. They went into the church on the hill, where the nuns66 were singing their sweet vespers, as they descended67 for the last time through the dusky avenues, listening as they went to the bells ringing the Ave Maria over all the crowded town; and there came upon Colin and his friend in different degrees that compunction of happiness which is the soul of thanksgiving. Others,—how many!—have stood speechless in dumb submission68 on that same spot and found no thanks to say; and it was thus that Colin, after all the events that made these four months so important in his life, entered upon a new period of his history, and took his farewell of Rome.
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1
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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2
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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8
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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9
persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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12
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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14
vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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15
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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16
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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17
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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entanglement
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| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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indict
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| v.起诉，控告，指控 | |
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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23
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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24
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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mediate
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| vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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clandestinely
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| adv.秘密地，暗中地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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31
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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32
balking
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| n.慢行，阻行v.畏缩不前，犹豫( balk的现在分词 )；（指马）不肯跑 | |
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33
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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40
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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41
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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42
mortifying
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| adj.抑制的，苦修的v.使受辱( mortify的现在分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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43
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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44
aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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45
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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46
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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47
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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48
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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49
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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50
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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51
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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52
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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53
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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54
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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55
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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56
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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57
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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58
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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60
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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61
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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62
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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64
cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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66
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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67
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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