Step into one of the tortuous alleys, and you see this abomination of desolation even more distinctly, under the pitiless all-exposing glare of an Italian sky. The blotchy20 walls rise so high into the air to right and left, that they make the narrow lane gloomy even at midday; and yet, the light pours down obliquely21 upon the decaying plaster with so fierce a power that every rent and gap and dirt-stain stands out distinctly, crying in vain to the squalid tenants22 in the dens19 within to repair its unutterable dilapidation23. Beneath, the little slippery pavement consists of herringbone courses of sharp stones; overhead, from ropes fastened across the street, lines of rags and tatters flutter idly in the wind, proving (what Hiram was otherwise inclined to doubt) that people at Rome do sometimes ostensibly wash their garments, or at least damp them. Dark gloomy shops line either side; shops windowless and doorless, entered and closed by shutters24, and just rendered visible by the feeble lamp that serves a double duty as lightener of the general darkness, and taper25 to the tiny painted shrine26 of the wooden Madonna. A world of hungry ragged men, hungry dirty slatternly women, hungry children playing in the gutter27, hungry priests pervading28 the very atmosphere—that on a closer view was Rome as it appeared to Hiram Winthrop.
To be sure, there was a little more of it. Up towards the Corso and Piazza29 del Popolo, there was a gaunt, modern Haussmannised quarter, the Rome of the strangers—cleaner by a fraction, whiter by a great deal, less odorous by a trifle, but still to Hiram Winthrop utterly30 flat, stale, and unprofitable. The one Rome was ugly, if picturesque4; the other Rome was modern, and not even ugly.
Work at Seguin's studio was also to Hiram a wretched mockery of an artistic31 training. The more he saw of the French painter, the more he disliked him: and what was worse, the dislike was plainly mutual32. For Audouin's sake, because Audouin had wished it, Hiram went on working feebly at historical pictures which he hated and could never possibly care for; but he panted to be free from the wretched bondage33 at once and for ever. Two years after his arrival in Rome, where he was now living upon the little capital he had derived34 from the sale of the deacon's farm, Hiram determined35, on Audouin's strenuous36 advice, by letter delivered, to send a tentative painting to Paris for the Salon37. Seguin watched it once or twice in the course of its completion, but he only shrugged38 his lean shoulders ominously39, and muttered incomprehensible military oaths to himself, which he had picked up half a century before from his father, the ex-corporal. (On the strength of that early connection with the army, Seguin, in spite of his shrivelled frame, still affected40 a certain swaggering military air and bearing upon many occasions.) When it was finished, he looked at it a trifle contemptuously, and then murmured: 'Good. That will finish him. After that——-' An ugly grimace41 did duty for the rest of the sentence.
Still, Hiram sent it in, as Audouin had desired of him; and in due time received the formal intimation from the constituted authorities of the Salon that his picture had been rejected. He knew it would be, and yet he felt the disappointment bitterly. Sitting alone in his room that evening (for he would not let even Colin share his sorrow) he brooded gloomily by himself, and began to reflect seriously that after all his whole life had been one long and wretched failure. There was no denying it, he had made a common but a fatal error; he had mistaken the desire to paint for the power of painting. He saw it all quite clearly now, and from that moment his whole career seemed in his eyes to be utterly dwarfed42 and spoiled and blighted43.
There was only one part of each of those four years of misery44 at Rome that Hiram could ever afterwards look back upon with real pleasure. Once every summer, he and Colin started off together for a month's relaxation45 in the Tyrol or Switzerland. On those trips, Hiram forgot all the rest of his life altogether, and lived for thirty clear days in a primitive46 paradise. His sketch47-book went always with him, and he even ventured to try his hand upon a landscape or two in oils, now that he was well out of the way of Seguin's chilly48 magisterial49 interference. Colin Churchill always praised them warmly: 'But then Colin, you know' (Hiram said to himself). 'is always such a generous enthusiastic fellow. He has such a keen artistic eye himself, of course, that he positively50 reads beauty into the weakest efforts of any other beginner. Still, I do feel that I can put my soul into drawing these rocks and mountains, which I never can do in painting a dressed-up model in an artificial posture51, and pretending that I think she's really Cleopatra. If one had the genuine Cleopatra to paint, now, exactly as she threw herself naturally down upon her own Egyptian sofa, why that might possibly be quite another matter. But, even so, Cleopatra could never have moved me half so much as the gloss52 on the chestnuts53 and the shimmer54 of the cloud-light on the beautiful purple water down below there.'
Sometimes, too, Hiram took Colin with him out into the Campagna; not that he loved the Campagna—there was an odour of Rome about it; but still at least it was a sort of country, and to Hiram Winthrop that was everything. One day, in his fourth year in Italy, he was sitting on a spring afternoon with Colin beside the arches of a broken aqueduct in that great moorland, which he had been using as the foreground for a little water-colour. He had finished his sketch, and was holding it at different angles before him, when Colin suddenly broke the silence by saying warmly: 'Some day, Winthrop, I'm sure you must sell them.'
Hiram shook his head despondently55. 'No, no, Churchill,' he answered with a half-angry wave of his disengaged hand. 'Even while I was at Seguin's, I knew I could never do anything worth looking at, and since I took this little studio myself, I feel sure of it. It's only your kindness that makes you think otherwise.'
Colin took the sketch from him for a moment and eyed it carefully. 'My dear fellow,' he said at last, 'believe me, you're mistaken. Just look at that! Why, Winthrop, I tell you candidly56, I'm certain there's genius in it.'
Hiram smiled bitterly. 'No, no, not genius, I assure you,' he answered with a sigh, 'but only the longing57 for it. You have genius, I have nothing more than aspiration58.'
Yet in his own heart, when Colin once more declared he was mistaken, Hiram Winthrop, looking at that delicate sketch, did almost for the moment pluck up courage again, and agree with his friend that if only the public would but smile upon him, he, too, might really do something worth the looking at.
He went home, indeed, almost elated, after so many months of silent dejection, by that new-born hope. When he reached their rooms in the alley14 (for Colin, in his desire to save, still stood by him, in spite of altered fortunes) he found a large official envelope of French pattern lying casually59 upon the table. He knew it at once; it bore the official seal of the Académie Fran?aise. He tore open the letter hastily. Was it possible that this time they might really have hung him? What did it say? Let him see... A stereotyped60 form.... 'Regret to announce to you.... great claims upon their attention.... compelled to refuse admission to the painting submitted to their consideration by M. Winthrop.'
Hiram let the letter drop out of his hands without a word. For the third time, then, his picture had been rejected for the Paris Salon!
A day or iwo later, the agent to whom he always confided61 his works for the necessary arrangements, wrote to him with florid French politeness on the subject of its final disposal. Last year he had been able to give Monsieur but forty francs for his picture, while the year before he had felt himself justified62 in paying sixty. Unfortunately, neither of these pictures had yet been sold; Monsieur's touch evidently did not satisfy the exacting63 Parisian public. This year, he regretted to tell Monsieur, he would be unable to offer him anything for the picture itself; but he would take back the frame at an inestimable depreciation64 on the original figure. He trusted to merit Monsieur's honoured commands upon future occasions.
Those four pounds were all the money Hiram had yet earned, in four years, by the practice of his profession; and the remains65 of the deacon's patrimony66 would hardly now suffice to carry him through another winter.
But then, that winter, Gwen was coming.
If it had not been for the remote hope of still seeing Gwen before he left Rome for ever, Hiram was inclined to think the only bed he would have slept in, that dreary, weary, disappointing night, was the bed of the Tiber.
点击收听单词发音
1 sordid | |
adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
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2 mounds | |
土堆,土丘( mound的名词复数 ); 一大堆 | |
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3 stunted | |
adj.矮小的;发育迟缓的 | |
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4 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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5 monasteries | |
修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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6 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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7 crouches | |
n.蹲着的姿势( crouch的名词复数 )v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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8 humbly | |
adv. 恭顺地,谦卑地 | |
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9 mouldering | |
v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 );腐烂,崩塌 | |
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10 dingy | |
adj.昏暗的,肮脏的 | |
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11 labyrinth | |
n.迷宫;难解的事物;迷路 | |
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12 tortuous | |
adj.弯弯曲曲的,蜿蜒的 | |
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13 alleys | |
胡同,小巷( alley的名词复数 ); 小径 | |
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14 alley | |
n.小巷,胡同;小径,小路 | |
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15 reeking | |
v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 );散发臭气;发出难闻的气味 (of sth);明显带有(令人不快或生疑的跡象) | |
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16 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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17 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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18 pestilence | |
n.瘟疫 | |
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19 dens | |
n.牙齿,齿状部分;兽窝( den的名词复数 );窝点;休息室;书斋 | |
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20 blotchy | |
adj.有斑点的,有污渍的;斑污 | |
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21 obliquely | |
adv.斜; 倾斜; 间接; 不光明正大 | |
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22 tenants | |
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者 | |
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23 dilapidation | |
n.倒塌;毁坏 | |
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24 shutters | |
百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 ); (照相机的)快门 | |
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25 taper | |
n.小蜡烛,尖细,渐弱;adj.尖细的;v.逐渐变小 | |
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26 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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27 gutter | |
n.沟,街沟,水槽,檐槽,贫民窟 | |
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28 pervading | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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29 piazza | |
n.广场;走廊 | |
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30 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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31 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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32 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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33 bondage | |
n.奴役,束缚 | |
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34 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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35 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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36 strenuous | |
adj.奋发的,使劲的;紧张的;热烈的,狂热的 | |
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37 salon | |
n.[法]沙龙;客厅;营业性的高级服务室 | |
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38 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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39 ominously | |
adv.恶兆地,不吉利地;预示地 | |
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40 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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41 grimace | |
v.做鬼脸,面部歪扭 | |
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42 dwarfed | |
vt.(使)显得矮小(dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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43 blighted | |
adj.枯萎的,摧毁的 | |
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44 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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45 relaxation | |
n.松弛,放松;休息;消遣;娱乐 | |
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46 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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47 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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48 chilly | |
adj.凉快的,寒冷的 | |
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49 magisterial | |
adj.威风的,有权威的;adv.威严地 | |
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50 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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51 posture | |
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势 | |
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52 gloss | |
n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰 | |
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53 chestnuts | |
n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 );栗色;栗树;栗色马 | |
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54 shimmer | |
v./n.发微光,发闪光;微光 | |
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55 despondently | |
adv.沮丧地,意志消沉地 | |
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56 candidly | |
adv.坦率地,直率而诚恳地 | |
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57 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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58 aspiration | |
n.志向,志趣抱负;渴望;(语)送气音;吸出 | |
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59 casually | |
adv.漠不关心地,无动于衷地,不负责任地 | |
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60 stereotyped | |
adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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61 confided | |
v.吐露(秘密,心事等)( confide的过去式和过去分词 );(向某人)吐露(隐私、秘密等) | |
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62 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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63 exacting | |
adj.苛求的,要求严格的 | |
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64 depreciation | |
n.价值低落,贬值,蔑视,贬低 | |
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65 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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66 patrimony | |
n.世袭财产,继承物 | |
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