Even at Wootton Mandeville, the boy had somehow suspected, in his vague inarticulate fashion (for the English agricultural class has no tongue in which to express itself), that he too had artistic7 taste and power. When he heard the vicar talking to his friends about paintings or engravings, he recognised that he could understand and appreciate all that the vicar said; nay8, more: on two or three occasions he had even boldly ventured to conceive that he saw certain things in certain pictures which the vicar, in his cold, dry, formal fashion, with his coldly critical folding eyeglass, could never have dreamt of or imagined. In his heart of hearts, even then, the boy somehow half-knew that the vicar saw what the vicar was capable of seeing in each work, but that he, Colin Churchill the pageboy, penetrated9 into the very inmost feeling and meaning of the original artist. So much, in his inarticulate way, the boy had sometimes surprised himself by dimly fancying; but as he had no language in which to speak such things, even to himself, and only slowly learnt that language afterwards, he didn't formulate10 his ideas in his own head for a single minute, allowing them merely to rest there in the inchoate12 form of shapeless feeling.
Now, at Exeter, however, all this was quite altered. In the aisles13 of the great cathedral, looking up at the many-coloured saints in the windows, and listening to the long notes of the booming organ, Colin Churchill's soul awoke and knew itself. The gift that was in him was not one to be used for himself alone, a mere11 knack14 of painting pictures to decorate the bare walls of his bedroom, or of making clay images for little Minna to stick upon the fisherman's wooden mantelshelf: it was a talent admired and recognised of other people, and to be employed for the noble and useful purposes of carving pine-apple posts for walnut bedsteads or conventional scrolls16 for fashionable chimneypieces. To such great heights did emancipated17 Colin Churchill now aspire18. Even his master allowed him to see that he thought well of him. The boy was given tools to work with, and instructed in the use of them; and he learnt how to employ them so fast that the master openly expressed his surprise and satisfaction. In a very few weeks Colin was fairly through the first stage of learning, and was set to produce bits of scroll15 work from his own design, for a wainscoted room in the house of a resident canon.
For seven months Colin went on at his wood-carving with unalloyed delight, and wrote every week to tell Minna how much he liked the work, and what beautiful wooden things he would now be able to make her. But at the end of those seven months, as luck would have it (whether good luck or ill luck the future must say), Colin chanced to fall in one day with a strange companion. One afternoon a heavy-looking Italian workman dropped casually19 into the workshop where Colin Churchill was busy carving. The boy was cutting the leaves of a honeysuckle spray from life for a long moulding. The Italian watched him closely for a while, and then he said in his liquid English: 'Zat is good. You can carve, mai boy. You must come and see me at mai place. I wawrk for Smeez and Whatgood.'
Colin turned round, blushing with pleasure, and looked at the Italian. He couldn't tell why, but somehow in his heart instinctively20, he felt more proud of that workman's simple expression of satisfaction at his work than he had felt even when the vicar told him, in his stiff, condescending21, depreciatory22 manner, that there was 'some merit in the bas-relief and drawings.' Smith and Whatgood were stonecutters in the town, who did a large trade in tombstones and 'monumental statuary.' No doubt the Italian was one of their artistic hands, and Colin took his praise with a flush of sympathetic pleasure. It was handicraftsman speaking critically and appreciatively of handicraftsman.
'What's your name, sir?' he asked the man, politely.
'You could not pronounce it,' answered the Italian, smiling and showing his two fine rows of pure white teeth: 'Giuseppe Cicolari. You cannot pronounce it.'
'Giuseppe Cicolari,' the boy repeated slowly, with the precise intonation23 the Italian had given it, for he had the gift of vocal24 imitation, like all men of Celtic blood (and the Dorsetshire peasant is mainly Celtic). 'Giuseppe Cicolari! a pretty name. Da you carve figures for Smith and Whatgood?'
'I am zair sculptor25,' the Italian replied, proudly. 'I carve for zem. I carve ze afflicted26 widow, in ze classical costume, who bends under ze weeping willow27 above ze oorn containing ze ashes of her decease husband. You have seen ze afflicted widow? Ha, I carve her. She is expensive. And I carve ze basso-rilievo of Hope, gazing toward ze sky, in expectation of ze glorious resurrection. I carve also busts29; I carve ornamental30 figures. Come and see me. You are a good workman. I will show you mai carvings31.'
Colin liked the Italian at first sight: there was a pride in his calling about him which he hadn't yet seen in English workmen—a certain consciousness of artistic worth that pleased and interested him. So the next Saturday evening, when they left off work early, he went round to see Cicolari. The Italian smiled again warmly, as soon as he saw the boy coming. 'So you have come,' he said, in his slow English. 'Zat is well. If you will be artist, you must watch ozzer artist. Ze art does not come of himself, it is learnt.' And he took Colin round to see his works of statuary.
There was one little statuette among the others, a small figure of Bacchus, ordered from the clay by a Plymouth shipowner, that pleased Colin's fancy especially. It wasn't remotely like the Thorwaldsen at Wootton; that he felt intuitively; it was a mere clever, laughing, merry figure, executed with some native facility, but with very little real delicacy32 or depth of feeling. Still, Colin liked it, and singled it out at once amongst all the mass of afflicted widows and weeping children as a real genuine living human figure. The Italian was charmed at his selection. 'Ah, yes,' he said; 'zat is good. You have choosed right. Zat is ze best of ze collection. I wawrk at zat from life. It is from ze model.' And he showed all his teeth again in his satisfaction.
Colin took a little of Cicolari's moist clay up in his hand and began roughly moulding it into the general shape of the little Bacchus. He did it almost without thinking of what he was doing, and talking all the time, or listening to the Italian's constant babble33; and Cicolari, with a little disdainful smile playing round the corners of his full lips, made no outward comment, but only waited, with a complacent34 sense of superiority, to see what the English boy would make of his Bacchus. Colin worked away at the familiar clay, and seemed to delight in the sudden return to that plastic and responsive material. For the first time since he had been at Begg's wood-carving works, it sudddenly struck him that clay was an infinitely35 finer and more manageable medium than that solid, soulless, intractable wood. Soon, he threw himself unconsciously into the task of moulding, and worked away silently, listening to Cicolari's brief curt36 criticisms of men and things, for hour after hour. In the delight of finding himself once more expending37 his energies upon his proper material (for who can doubt that Colin Churchill was a born sculptor?) he forgot the time—nay, he forgot time and space both, and saw and felt nothing on earth but the artistic joy of beautiful workmanship. Cicolari stood by gossiping, but said never a word about the boy's Bacchus. At first, indeed (though he had admired Colin's wood-work), he expected to see a grotesque38 failure. Next, as the work grew slowly under the boy's hands, he made up his mind that he would produce a mere stiff, lifeless, wooden copy. But by-and-by, as Colin added touch after touch with his quick deft39 fingers, the Italian's contempt passed into surprise, and his surprise into wonder and admiration40. At last, when the boy had finished his rough sketch41 of the head to his own satisfaction, Cicolari gasped42 a little, open-mouthed, and then said slowly: 'You have wawrked in ze clay before, mai friend?'
Colin nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'just to amuse myself, don't ee see? Only just copyin the figures at the vicarage.'
The Italian put his head on one side, and then on another, and looked critically at the copy of the Bacchus. Of course it was only a raw adumbration43, as yet, of the head and bust28, but he saw quite enough to know at a glance that it was the work of a born sculptor. The vicar had half guessed as much in his dilettante44 hesitating way; but the workman, who knew what modelling was, saw it indubitably at once in that moist Bacchus. 'Mai friend,' he said decisively, through his closed teeth, 'you must not stop at ze wood-carving. You must go to Rome and be a sculptor. Yes. To Rome. To Rome. You must go to Rome and be a sculptor.'
The man said it with just a tinge45 of jealousy46 in his tone, for he saw that Colin Churchill could not only copy but could also improve upon his Bacchus. Still, he said it so heartily47 and earnestly, that Colin, now well awakened48 from his absorbing pursuit, laughed a boyish laugh of mingled49 amusement and exultation50. 'To Rome!' he cried gaily51. 'To Rome! Why, Mr. Cicolari, that's where all the pictures are, by Raffael and Michael Angelo and them that I used to see at the vicarage. Rome! why isn't that the capital of Italy?' For he put together naively52 the two facts about Rome which he had yet gathered: the one from the vicar's study, and the other from the meagre little geography book in use at the Wootton national school.
'Ze capital of Italy!' cried the Italian contemptuously. 'Yes, mai friend, it is ze capital of Italy. And it is somesing more zan zat. I tell you, it is ze capital of art.'
Colin Churchill was old enough now to understand the meaning of those words; and from that day onward53, he never ceased to remember that the goal of all his final endeavours must be to reach Rome, the capital of art, and then learn to be a sculptor.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
emancipation
|
|
| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
despondently
|
|
| adv.沮丧地，意志消沉地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
whatsoever
|
|
| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
carving
|
|
| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
walnut
|
|
| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
nay
|
|
| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
penetrated
|
|
| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
formulate
|
|
| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
inchoate
|
|
| adj.才开始的，初期的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
aisles
|
|
| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
knack
|
|
| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
scroll
|
|
| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
scrolls
|
|
| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
emancipated
|
|
| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
aspire
|
|
| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
instinctively
|
|
| adv.本能地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
condescending
|
|
| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
depreciatory
|
|
| adj.贬值的，蔑视的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
intonation
|
|
| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
vocal
|
|
| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
sculptor
|
|
| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
afflicted
|
|
| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
willow
|
|
| n.柳树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
bust
|
|
| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
busts
|
|
| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
ornamental
|
|
| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
carvings
|
|
| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
delicacy
|
|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
babble
|
|
| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
complacent
|
|
| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
curt
|
|
| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
expending
|
|
| v.花费( expend的现在分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
deft
|
|
| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
sketch
|
|
| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
gasped
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
adumbration
|
|
| n.预示，预兆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
44
dilettante
|
|
| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
tinge
|
|
| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
heartily
|
|
| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
exultation
|
|
| n.狂喜，得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
gaily
|
|
| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
naively
|
|
| adv. 天真地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
onward
|
|
| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |