“How well you speak now!” Will exclaimed, one such day, as she described to him in glowing terms some duchess’s house she had lately visited.
The delicate glow that rose so readily to that rich brown cheek flushed Linnet’s face once more as she answered, well pleased, “Oh yes; I had so many reasons, you see, Herr Will, for learning it!”?—?she called him Herr Will even in English still?—?it was a familiar sound, and for old times’ sake she loved it;?—?then she added, half-shamefacedly, “Andreas always said it was wiser so; I should make my best fortunes in England and America.”
Will nodded, and passed on, pretending not to catch at her half-suppressed meaning; but he knew in his own heart what her chief reason was for taking so much pains to improve her English.
They saw but little of one another, to be sure, and that little by chance; though Andreas Hausberger, at least, made no effort to keep them apart. On the contrary, if ever they met by appointment at all, ’twas at Andreas’s own special desire or invitation. The wise Wirth of St Valentin was too prudent8 a man to give way, like Franz Lindner, to pettish9 freaks of pure personal jealousy10. He noted11, indeed, that Linnet was happiest when she saw most of Will Deverill; not many things escaped that keen observer’s vision. But when Linnet was happiest she always sang best. Therefore, Andreas, being a wise and prudent man, rather threw them together now and again than otherwise. That cool head of his never allowed anything to interfere12 with the course of business; he was too sure of Linnet to be afraid of losing her. It was a voice he had married, not a living, breathing woman?—?an exquisite13 voice, with all its glorious potentialities of wealth untold14, now beginning to flow in upon him that season in London.
But to Linnet herself, struggling hard in her own soul with the love she could not repress, and would never acknowledge, it was a very great comfort that she could salve her conscience with that thought: she seldom saw Will save at Andreas’s invitation!
The next three years of the new singer’s life were years of rapid rise to fame, wealth, and honour. Signora Casalmonte grew quickly to be a universal favourite, not in London alone, but also in Berlin, Vienna, Paris. ’Twas a wonderful change, indeed, from the old days in the Zillerthal. Her name was noised abroad; crowned heads bowed down to her; Serene15 Highnesses whispered love; Archdukes brought compliments and diamond necklaces. No one mounts so fast to fame as the successful singer. She must make her reputation while she is young and beautiful. She may come from nowhere, but she steps almost at once into the front rank of society. It is so with all of them; it was so with Linnet. But to Will she was always the same old Linnet still; he thought no more of her, and he thought no less, than he had thought in those brief days of first love in the Tyrol.
At the end of Linnet’s first London season, after some weeks in Paris, when August came round, Andreas took his wife for her yearly villeggiatura to a hill-top in Switzerland. He was for ozone16 still; he believed as much as ever in the restorative value of mountain air and simple life for a vocalist. It gave tone to the larynx, he said, and tightened18 the vocal17 chords: for he had taken the trouble to read up the mechanism19 of voice production. So he carried off Linnet to an upland village perched high on the slopes behind the Lake of Thun?—?not to a great hotel or crowded pension, where she would breathe bad air, eat made French dishes, drink doubtful wine, keep very late hours, and mix with exciting company, but to a chalet nestling high beneath a clambering pinewood, among Alpine20 pastures thick with orchids21 and globe-flowers, where she might live as free and inhale22 as pure and unpolluted an atmosphere as in their own green Zillerthal. For reasons of his own, indeed, Andreas wouldn’t take her to St Valentin, lest the homesickness of the mountaineer should come over her too strong when she returned once more to London or Berlin. But he chose this lofty Bernese hamlet as the next best thing to their native vale to be found in Europe. There, for six happy weeks, Linnet drank in once more the fresh mountain breeze, blowing cool from the glaciers,?—?climbed, as of old, among alp and crag and rock and larch23 forest?—?felt the soft fresh turf rise elastic24 under her light foot as she sprang from tussock to tussock of firmer grass among the peaty sward of the hillside.
Before leaving town that summer, she had lunched once with Will at Florian’s chambers25 and mentioned to him casually26 in the course of talk the name and position of their Bernese village. Will bore it well in mind. A week or two later, as Linnet strolled by herself in a simple tweed frock and a light straw hat among the upland pastures, she saw to her surprise a very familiar figure in a grey knickerbocker suit, winding27 slowly along the path from the direction of Beatenberg. Her heart leapt up within her with joy at the sight. Ach, himmel! what was this? It was her Engl?nder, her poet! Then he had remembered where she was going; he had come after her to meet her!
Next moment, she reproached herself with a bitter reproach. The little oval Madonna, which kept its place still round her neck amid all her new magnificence, felt another hard grip on its sorely tried margin28. Oh, Dear Lady, pardon her, that her heart should so jump for a stranger and a heretic?—?which never jumped at all for her wedded29 husband.
The Church knew best! The Church knew best! For her soul’s sake, no doubt, the Herr Vicar was right?—?and dear Herr Will was a heretic. But if only they had wedded her to Herr Will instead,?—?her heart gave a great thump30?—?oh, how she would have loved him!
Though now, as things stood, of course, she could never care for him.
And with that wise resolve in her heart, and Our Lady clasped hard in her trembling hand,?—?she stepped forth31 with beaming eyes and parted lips to greet him.
Will came up, a little embarrassed. He had no intention, when he set out, of meeting Linnet thus casually. It was his design to call in due form at the chalet and ask decorously for Andreas; it made him feel like a thief in the night to have lighted, thus unawares, upon Linnet alone, without her husband’s knowledge. However, awkward circumstances will arise now and again, and we have all of us to face them. Will took her hand, a trifle abashed32, but still none the less cordially. “What, Frau Hausberger!” he cried in German?—?and Linnet winced33 at the formal name, though of course it was what he now always called her; “I didn’t expect to see you here, though I was coming to ask after . . . your husband in the village,” and he glanced down at his feet with a little nervous confusion.
“I saw you coming,” Linnet answered, in English, for she loved best to speak with her Engl?nder in his own language; “and I knew that it was you, so I came on to meet you. Isn’t it lovely here? Just like my own dear Fatherland!”
Will was hot and dusty with his long tramp from Interlaken. It was a broiling34 day. He sat down by Linnet’s side on the grassy35 slope that looks across towards the lake and the great snow-clad giants of the Bernese Oberland. That was the very first time he had been quite alone with her since she married Andreas. The very first time since those delicious mornings on the vine-draped Küchelberg. They sat there long and talked, Linnet picking tall grasses all the while with her twitching36 fingers, and pulling them into joints37, and throwing them away bit by bit, with her eyes fixed38 hard on them. After a time as they sat, and grew more at home with one another, they fell naturally into talk of the old days at St Valentin. They were both of them timid, and both self-conscious; yet in the open air, out there on that Alpine hillside, it all seemed so familiar, so homely39, so simple?—?so like those lost hours long ago in the Zillerthal?—?that by degrees their shyness and reserve wore off, and they fell to talking more easily and unrestrainedly. Once or twice Will even called her “Linnet,” tout40 court, without noticing it; but Linnet noticed it herself, and felt a thrill of strange joy, followed fast by a pang41 of intense remorse42, course through her as she sat there.
By-and-by, their talk got round by slow degrees to London. Linnet had seen one of Will’s pieces at the Duke of Edinburgh’s, in June, and admired it immensely. “How I should love to sing in something of your composing, Herr Will,” she exclaimed, with fervour. “Just for old times’ sake, you know?—?when neither of us was well-known, and when we met at St Valentin.”
Will looked down a little nervously43. “I’ve often thought,” he said, with a stifled44 sigh; “I should love to write something on purpose for you, Linnet. I know your voice and its capabilities45 so well, I’ve watched you so close?—?for your career has interested me; and I think it would inspire one, both in the lines and in the music, to know one was working for a person one?—?well . . . one knew and liked, and . . . had met before, under other circumstances.”
He looked away, and hesitated. Linnet clasped her hands in front of her between her knees, on her simple tweed frock, and stared studiously at the mountains. “Oh, that would be lovely!” she cried, pressing her fingers ecstatically. “That would be charming! that would be beautiful! I should love that I should sing in something you’d written, and, above all, in something you’d written for me, Will. I’m sure it would inspire me too?—?it would inspire both of us. I do not think you could write for anybody, or I could sing for anybody, as we could write and sing, each one of us, for one another. We should do ourselves justice then. Why don’t you try it?”
She looked deep into his eyes. Will quailed46, and felt his heart stand still within him. “There are difficulties in the way, my child,” he answered, deliberating. “You’re more or less bound to the Harmony, I think; and I’m more or less bound to the Duke of Edinburgh’s. And then, there’s Herr Hausberger to consider as well. Even if we could arrange things with our respective managers, do you think he’d be likely to fall in with our arrangements?”
Linnet seized his arm impulsively47. With these warm southern natures, such acts are natural, and mean less than with us northerners. “Oh, do try, dear Herr Will!” she exclaimed, bending forward in earnest entreaty48. “Do try if we can’t manage it. Never mind about Andreas. I’m sure he would consent, if he saw it was a good piece, and I could sing in it with spirit. And I would sing in it?—?ach, lieber Gott,?—?how well I would sing in it! You would see what I could do, then! It would be splendid, splendid!”
“But I’m afraid Willdon Blades?——”
Linnet cut him short impatiently, jerking her little curled forefinger49 with a contemptuous gesture. “What matter about Willdon Blades!” she cried. “We can easily settle him. If you and I decide to work this play together, the manager must give in: we can arrange it somehow.” And she looked at him with more conscious dignity and beauty than usual; for, simple peasant-girl as she was, and a child still at heart, she knew by this time she was also a queen of the opera. How the gommeux had crowded her salon50 in her Paris hotel; how great ladies had fought for stalls at her triumphant51 première!
“I might think about it,” Will answered, after a brief pause, half-alarmed at her eagerness. Was it not too dangerous?
But Linnet, quite sure in her own soul she was urging him from purely52 artistic53 motives54, had no such scruples55. “Do try,” she cried, laying her hand impulsively on his arm once more. “Now, promise me you’ll try! Begin to-day! I should love to see what sort of a part you’d write for me.”
Will stammered56, and hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve begun already, Linnet,” he answered, fingering the pencil-case that hung from his watch chain with ill-concealed agitation57. “I’ve been walking about for a fortnight through the mountains alone?—?Florian wanted to come, but I wouldn’t bring him with me, that I might have time for thinking; and everything I saw seemed somehow to recall . . . well, why shouldn’t I confess it??—?those days on the Küchelberg. I thought of you a great deal?—?I mean of your voice and the sort of words and chords that would be likely to suit you. I always compose best in the open air. The breeze whispers bars to me. And I’ve begun a few songs?—?just your part in the play, you know?—?words and airs together, Wagner-wise?—?that’s how I always do it. The country I passed through brought the music of itself; it all spoke to me direct?—?and I thought it would be something new to bring this breezy Alpine air to freshen the stuffy58 atmosphere of a London theatre.”
“Have you got what you’ve done with you?” Linnet inquired, with deep interest.
“It’s here in my knapsack,” Will answered, half reluctant.
“Ah, do let me see it!” And she pressed one hand to her breast with native southern vehemence59.
“It’s only in pencil, roughly scratched on bits of paper over rocks or things anyhow,” Will replied, apologetically. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to read one word of it. But, if you like, you can try,” and he pulled it forth and opened it.
For twenty minutes or more of terrestrial time Linnet sat entranced in the seventh heavens. She tried over parts of the songs, half to herself, half to Will, with many an “Oh” and an “Ach, Gott,” and was charmed and delighted with them. They were written straight at her?—?not a doubt in the world about that; and they suited her voice and manner admirably. It’s so innocent for a singer to sit on the grassy mountain sides like this, with a poet and composer close at hand to consult and talk over the work they mean to produce together. This was art, pure art; the sternest moralist could surely find nothing to object to in it Linnet didn’t even feel bound to give another hard squeeze to the poor much-battered, and hardly-used Madonna. She only sat and sang?—?with Will smiling by her side?—?there in the delicate mountain air, among the whispering pines, gazing across at the stainless60 peaks, and thrilling through to the finger tips.
“O Herr Will,” she cried at last, “how lovely it is out here?—?how high, how soft, how pure?—?how much lovelier than in London! I’ve never enjoyed anything in my life so much, since,” . . . her voice sank low?—?“since those days on the Küchelberg.”
Will leant over towards her for a moment. His heart beat hard. He laid one palm on the ground and rested on it as he looked at her. He was trembling all over. Surely, surely he must give way! For a moment he paused and debated; then he rose to his feet suddenly. “I think, Linnet,” he said, in a very serious voice, “for your sake?—?I think?—?we ought to go on and find your husband.”
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收听单词发音
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1
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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pitfall
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| n.隐患，易犯的错误；陷阱，圈套 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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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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8
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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pettish
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| adj.易怒的，使性子的 | |
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10
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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12
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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13
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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14
untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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15
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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16
ozone
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| n.臭氧，新鲜空气 | |
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vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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18
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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22
inhale
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| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
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larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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31
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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32
abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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41
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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42
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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43
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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44
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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45
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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46
quailed
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| 害怕，发抖，畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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48
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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49
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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50
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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51
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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52
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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53
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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54
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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55
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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56
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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58
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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59
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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stainless
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| adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的 | |
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