In spite of the lateness of the season, and Will’s preoccupation, that visit to the Dolomites turned out a complete success. Rue1 was in excellent spirits; Florian was in fine form; Nature smiled compliance2, as he consummately3 phrased it?—?in other words, the weather was lovely, the mountains clear of cloud, the horses fresh, and the roads (for Austria) in very good order. Their capacious carriage held its party of five comfortably,?—?for Rue, with her wonted wisdom, had consulted Mrs Grundy’s feelings by inviting4 an old Indian colonel and his wife, whose acquaintance she had picked up at the Erzherzog Johann, to accompany them on their trip, and chaperon the expedition. Rue herself enjoyed those four days immensely. She had lots of long talks with Will on the hillsides, and she noticed Will spoke5 much?—?though always in an abstract and highly impersonal6 way?—?of the human heart, its doubts and its difficulties. He was thinking of Linnet, who engaged his thoughts much during that enforced absence; but Rue imagined he was thinking of himself and her, and was glad accordingly. She was growing very fond of her English poet. She hoped and half-believed he in turn was growing fond of her.
As for Will, now he was away from Linnet for awhile, he began to think much more seriously than he had ever thought before of the nature of his relations with her, and the end to which they were inevitably7 leading him. As long as Linnet was near, as long as he could hold her hand in his, and look deep into her eyes, and hear that wonderful voice of hers carolling out some sweet song for his ear alone among the clambering vineyards,?—?why, he could think of nothing else but the passing joy and delight of her immediate8 presence. Imperceptibly, and half-unconsciously to himself, she had grown very dear to him. But now that he was away from her, and alone with Rue, he began to realise how much he longed to be once more by her side?—?how little he was prepared to do without her, how deeply she had entwined herself into his inmost being. Again and again the question presented itself to his mind, “When I go back to Meran, on what footing shall I stand with her? If I find it so hard to run away for four days, how shall I ever run away from her for ever and ever?”
Besides, during those few happy weeks at Meran, Linnet had begun to reveal herself to him as another person. He was catching9 faint glimpses now of the profounder depths of that deeply artistic10, though as yet almost wholly undeveloped, character. The books he had read to her she understood so fast; the things he had told her she caught at so readily; the change to new scenes seemed so soon to quicken and stimulate11 all her latent faculties12. Had not Nature said of her, as of Wordsworth’s country lass, “She shall be mine and I will make A lady of my own”? For that she was a lady indeed had been forcing itself every day more and more plainly upon Will’s mind, as he walked and talked with her. At Innsbruck, he had thought more than once to himself, “How could one dream in a world where there are women like Rue, of tying oneself for life to this sweet-voiced alp-girl?” Among the Dolomites, three weeks later, he asked himself rather, “How could one ever be content with mere13 brightness and sunniness like that charming Rue’s, in a world which holds women so tender, so true, and so passionate14 as Linnet?”
Slowly, bit by bit, he began to wonder how he could muster15 up courage to tear himself away again?—?and, if he did, for how long he could manage to keep away from her? And then, as he debated, there arose in his mind the profounder question of justice or injustice16 to Linnet. Was it right of him so deeply to engage her affections, unless he meant by it something real, something sure, something definite? She loved him so well that to leave her now would surely break her heart for her. What end could there be to this serious complication save the end he had so strenuously17 denied to Florian?
On the very last evening of their drive through those great bare unearthly peaks that look down upon Botzen, Florian came into Will’s room for an evening gossip. They sat up long over the smouldering embers of a fragrant19 pinewood fire. There’s nothing more confidential20 than young men’s confabulations over a smouldering hearth21 in the small hours of the morning. The two friends talked?—?and talked, and talked, and talked?—?till at last Will was moved to make a clean breast of his feelings in the matter to Florian. He put his dilemma22 neatly23. He acknowledged he was going just where Florian had said he would go. “I pointed24 out the noose25 to you,” the epicurean philosopher observed, with bland26 self-satisfaction, “and you’ve run your neck right into it. Instead of playing with her like a doll as a sensible man would have done, you’ve simply gone ahead and lost your heart outright27 to her. Foolish, foolish, exceedingly foolish; but, just what I expected from you. I said from the very first, ‘Now mark my words, Deverill, as sure as eggs is eggs, you’ll end by marrying her.’?”
“I don’t say I’ll marry her now,” Will replied, somewhat sheepishly. “How can I, indeed? I’ve got nothing to marry on. I find it hard enough work to keep body and soul together for myself in London, without thinking of an engagement to keep somebody else’s into the bargain.”
“Then what do you mean to do?” Florian inquired, with sound common-sense. “If you don’t mean to marry her, and you don’t mean to harm her, and you can’t go away from her, and you can’t afford to stop with her,?—?why, what possible new term are you going to introduce into human relations and the English language to cover your ways with her?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know,” Will answered, in a somewhat hopeless and helpless voice, piling the embers together in the centre as he spoke, just to keep them alight for some minutes longer. “There’s the rub. I admit it. Nobody feels it more than I do. But I don’t see any possible kind of way out of it. I’ve been thinking to myself?—?or perhaps half-thinking?—?I might manage it like this, if Linnet would assent28 to it. We might get married first?——”
Florian raised one warning hand, and nodded his shapely head up and down two or three times solemnly. “I told you so,” he interposed, in a tone of most mitigated29 and mournful triumph. “There we get at it at last. You have said the word. I was sure ’twould come to that. Marry, marry, marry!”
“And then,” Will went on, with a very shamefaced air, never heeding30 his comment, “what’s enough for one’s enough for two, they say?—?or very nearly. I thought we might live in lodgings31 quite quietly for awhile, somewhere cheap, in London?——”
“Not live,” Florian corrected gravely, with another sage32 nod of that sapient33 head; “lurk, linger, vegetate34. A very sad end! A most dismal35 downfall! I see it all: Surrey side, thirty shillings a week; cold mutton for dinner; bread and cheese for lunch; an ill-furnished parlour, a sloppy36-faced slavey! I know the sort of thing. Pah! My gorge37 rises at it!”
“And then, I could get Linnet’s voice trained and prepared for the stage,” Will continued, perusing38 his boots, “and work very hard myself to keep us both alive till she could come out in public. In a year or two, I feel sure, if I watched her close and saw her capabilities39, I could write and compose some good piece of my own to suit her exactly. With me to make the songs, and Linnet to interpret them, I believe, sooner or later, we ought easily to earn a very good livelihood40. But it’d be a hard pull first; I don’t conceal41 that from myself. We’d have a struggle for life, though in the end, I feel sure, we’d live it down and conquer.”
Florian lighted a cigarette and watched the thin blue smoke curl upward, languidly. “Love’s young dream!” he mused42 to himself with a placid43 smile of superior wisdom. “I know the style of old. Bread and cheese and kisses! Very charming, very charming! Chorus hymeneal of the most approved pattern. So odd, so interesting! I’ve often asked myself what it is in the world that leads otherwise sensible and intelligent fellows to make wrecks44 of their lives in this incredible way?—?and all for the sake of somebody else’s daughter! Why this insane desire to relieve some other man of his natural responsibilities? I account for it in my own mind on evolutionary45 principles. Marriage, it seems to me, is an irrational46 and incomprehensible civilised instinct, by which the individual sacrifices himself on the shrine47 of duty for the benefit of the species. Have you ever heard of the lemmings?”
“The lemmings!” Will repeated, unable to conceive the connection in Florian’s mind between two such totally dissimilar and unrelated subjects. “Not those little brown animals like rats or marmots they have in Norway?”
“Precisely,” Florian answered, waving his cigarette airily. “Those little brown animals like rats or marmots they have in Norway. You put it like a dictionary. Well, every year or two, you know, an irresistible48 desire seizes on many myriads49 of those misguided rodents50 at once, to march straight to the sea in a body together, plunge51 boldly into the water, and swim out in a straight line, without rhyme or reason, till they can swim no farther but drown themselves by cartloads. What’s the origin of this swarmery? It’s only an instinct which keeps down the number of the lemmings, and so acts as a check against over-population. A beautiful and ingenious provision of Nature they call it!” and Florian smiled sweetly. “I’ve always thought,” he went on, puffing52 a contemptuous ring of smoke from his pursed-up lips, “that marriage among mankind was a very similar instinct. It’s death to the individual?—?mental and moral death; but it ensures at least a due continuance of the species. The wise man doesn’t marry; he knows too well for that; he stands by and looks on; but he leaves no descendants, and his wisdom dies with him. Whereas the foolish burden themselves with a wife and family, and become thereby53 the perpetuators of their race in future. It’s a wonderful dispensation; I admire it?—?at a distance!”
“But you said you’d marry yourself,” Will objected, “if you met the right person; and, to tell you the truth, Florian, I fancied you’d been rather markedly attentive54 to Rue for the last few weeks or so.”
Florian stroked a smooth small chin with five meditative55 fingers. “That’s quite another matter,” he answered, in a self-satisfied tone. “Circumstances, it has been well remarked by an anonymous56 thinker, alter cases. If an Oriental potentate57 in all his glory were to order me to flop58 down on my marrow-bones before him and kiss his imperial foot as an act of pure homage59, I should take my proud stand as a British subject, and promptly60 decline so degrading a ceremony. But if he offered me a thousand pounds down to comply with his wishes, I would give the polite request my most earnest consideration. If he made it ten thousand, I would almost certainly accede61; and if he went to half-a-million, which is a fortune for life, well, no gentleman on earth could dream of disputing the question any further with him. Just so, I say, with marriage. If a lady desires me, without due cause assigned, to become her abject62 slave, and serve her alone for a lifetime, I will politely but firmly answer, ‘No, thank you.’ If she confers upon me, incidentally, a modest competence63, I shall perpend for a moment, and murmur64, ‘Well, possibly.’ But if she renders me independent and comfortable for life, with a chance of surrounding myself with books, pictures, music, without a moment’s hesitation65 I shall answer, ‘Like a bird,’ to her. Slavery, in short, though in itself disagreeable, may be mitigated or altogether outweighed66 by concomitant advantages.”
“Florian,” Will said, earnestly, “I don’t know what you mean. You speak a foreign language to me. If I felt like that, I could never bring myself to marry any woman. If I married at all, I must do it for the sake of the girl I loved?—?and to make her happy.”
Florian gazed at him compassionately67. “Quixotic,” he answered low, shaking his sculpturesque head once or twice with a face of solemn warning. “Quixotic, exceedingly! The pure lemming instinct; they will rush into it! It’s the moth68 and the candle again: dazzle, buzz, and flutter,?—?and pom! pom! pom!?—?in a second, you’re caught, and sizzled hot in the flame, and reduced to ashes. That’s how it’ll be with you, my dear fellow: you’ll go back to Meran and, by Jingo, to-morrow, you’ll go straight up the hill, and ask the cow-girl to marry you.”
“I think I will,” the poet answered, taking up his candlestick with a sigh to leave the room. “I think I will, Florian. I’ll fight it out to the bitter end, sloppy slavey and all, on your threatened south side, in those dingy69 lodgings.” And he took himself off with a hurried nod to his bland companion.
Florian rose, and closed the door behind the poet softly. He had played his cards well, remarkably70 well, that evening. If he wanted to drive Will into proposing to Linnet, he had gone the right way to effect his object. “And I,” he thought to himself with a contented71 smile, “will stand a fair chance with Rue, without fear of a rival, when once he’s gone off and got well married to his cow-girl. It’ll be interesting to ask them to a nice little dinner, from their Surrey side garret, at our snug72 small den18 in Park Lane or South Kensington. Park Lane’s the most fashionable, but South Kensington’s the pleasantest:
In Cromwell Road did Florian Wood,
A stately pleasure dome73 decree.
Such a palace of art as it will be, too! I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, Horatio!?—?Botticellis, Della Robbias, Elzevirs, Stradivariuses! William Morris on the floor! Lewis Day on the ceiling! It rises like an exhalation, all beautiful to behold74! Such things might I do?—?with Rue’s seven hundred thousand!”
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收听单词发音
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1
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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consummately
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| adv.完成地，至上地 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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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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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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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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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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heeding
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的现在分词 ) | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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sapient
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| adj.有见识的，有智慧的 | |
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vegetate
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| v.无所事事地过活 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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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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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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50
rodents
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| n.啮齿目动物( rodent的名词复数 ) | |
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51
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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52
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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potentate
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| n.统治者；君主 | |
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flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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accede
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| v.应允，同意 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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outweighed
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的过去式和过去分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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compassionately
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| adv.表示怜悯地，有同情心地 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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