Arrived at the lower hall, she paused again, and proposed in a whisper that we should go into the garden. As we advanced along the backward division of the hall, I saw her eyes turn distrustfully toward the door of the room in which Helena had received me. At last, my slow perceptions felt with her and understood her. Eunice’s sensitive nature recoiled2 from a chance meeting with the wretch3 who had laid waste all that had once been happy and hopeful in that harmless young life.
“Will you come with me to the part of the garden that I am fondest of?” she asked.
I offered her my arm. She led me in silence to a rustic4 seat, placed under the shade of a mulberry tree. I saw a change in her face as we sat down—a tender and beautiful change. At that moment the girl’s heart was far away from me. There was some association with this corner of the garden, on which I felt that I must not intrude5.
“I was once very happy here,” she said. “When the time of the heartache came soon after, I was afraid to look at the old tree and the bench under it. But that is all over now. I like to remember the hours that were once dear to me, and to see the place that recalls them. Do you know who I am thinking of? Don’t be afraid of distressing6 me. I never cry now.”
“My dear child, I have heard your sad story—but I can’t trust myself to speak of it.”
“Because you are so sorry for me?”
“No words can say how sorry I am!”
“But you are not angry with Philip?”
“Not angry! My poor dear, I am afraid to tell you how angry I am with him.”
“Oh, no! You mustn’t say that. If you wish to be kind to me—and I am sure you do wish it—don’t think bitterly of Philip.”
When I remember that the first feeling she roused in me was nothing worthier7 of a professing8 Christian9 than astonishment10, I drop in my own estimation to the level of a savage11. “Do you really mean,” I was base enough to ask, “that you have forgiven him?”
She said, gently: “How could I help forgiving him?”
The man who could have been blessed with such love as this, and who could have cast it away from him, can have been nothing but an idiot. On that ground—though I dared not confess it to Eunice—I forgave him, too.
“Do I surprise you?” she asked simply. “Perhaps love will bear any humiliation12. Or perhaps I am only a poor weak creature. You don’t know what a comfort it was to me to keep the few letters that I received from Philip. When I heard that he had gone away, I gave his letters the kiss that bade him good-by. That was the time, I think, when my poor bruised13 heart got used to the pain; I began to feel that there was one consolation14 still left for me—I might end in forgiving him. Why do I tell you all this? I think you must have bewitched me. Is this really the first time I have seen you?”
She put her little trembling hand into mine; I lifted it to my lips, and kissed it. Sorely was I tempted15 to own that I had pitied and loved her in her infancy16. It was almost on my lips to say: “I remember you an easily-pleased little creature, amusing yourself with the broken toys which were once the playthings of my own children.” I believe I should have said it, if I could have trusted myself to speak composedly to her. This was not to be done. Old as I was, versed17 as I was in the hard knowledge of how to keep the mask on in the hour of need, this was not to be done.
Still trying to understand that I was little better than a stranger to her, and still bent18 on finding the secret of the sympathy that united us, Eunice put a strange question to me.
“When you were young yourself,” she said, “did you know what it was to love, and to be loved—and then to lose it all?”
It is not given to many men to marry the woman who has been the object of their first love. My early life had been darkened by a sad story; never confided19 to any living creature; banished20 resolutely21 from my own thoughts. For forty years past, that part of my buried self had lain quiet in its grave—and the chance touch of an innocent hand had raised the dead, and set us face to face again! Did I know what it was to love, and to be loved, and then to lose it all? “Too well, my child; too well!”
That was all I could say to her. In the last days of my life, I shrank from speaking of it. When I had first felt that calamity22, and had felt it most keenly, I might have given an answer worthier of me, and worthier of her.
She dropped my hand, and sat by me in silence, thinking. Had I—without meaning it, God knows!—had I disappointed her?
“Did you expect me to tell my own sad story,” I said, “as frankly24 and as trustfully as you have told yours?”
“Oh, don’t think that! I know what an effort it was to you to answer me at all. Yes, indeed! I wonder whether I may ask something. The sorrow you have just told me of is not the only one—is it? You have had other troubles?”
“Many of them.”
“There are times,” she went on, “when one can’t help thinking of one’s own miserable25 self. I try to be cheerful, but those times come now and then.”
She stopped, and looked at me with a pale fear confessing itself in her face.
“You know who Selina is?” she resumed. “My friend! The only friend I had, till you came here.”
I guessed that she was speaking of the quaint26, kindly27 little woman, whose ugly surname had been hitherto the only name known to me.
“Selina has, I daresay, told you that I have been ill,” she continued, “and that I am staying in the country for the benefit of my health.”
It was plain that she had something to say to me, far more important than this, and that she was dwelling28 on trifles to gain time and courage. Hoping to help her, I dwelt on trifles, too; asking commonplace questions about the part of the country in which she was staying. She answered absently—then, little by little, impatiently. The one poor proof of kindness that I could offer, now, was to say no more.
“Do you know what a strange creature I am?” she broke out. “Shall I make you angry with me? or shall I make you laugh at me? What I have shrunk from confessing to Selina—what I dare not confess to my father—I must, and will, confess to You.”
There was a look of horror in her face that alarmed me. I drew her to me so that she could rest her head on my shoulder. My own agitation29 threatened to get the better of me. For the first time since I had seen this sweet girl, I found myself thinking of the blood that ran in her veins30, and of the nature of the mother who had borne her.
“Did you notice how I behaved upstairs?” she said. “I mean when we left my father, and came out on the landing.”
It was easily recollected31; I begged her to go on.
“Before I went downstairs,” she proceeded, “you saw me look and listen. Did you think I was afraid of meeting some person? and did you guess who it was I wanted to avoid?”
“I guessed that—and I understood you.”
“No! You are not wicked enough to understand me. Will you do me a favor? I want you to look at me.”
It was said seriously. She lifted her head for a moment, so that I could examine her face.
“Do you see anything,” she asked, “which makes you fear that I am not in my right mind?”
“Good God! how can you ask such a horrible question?”
She laid her head back on my shoulder with a sad little sigh of resignation. “I ought to have known better,” she said; “there is no such easy way out of it as that. Tell me—is there one kind of wickedness more deceitful than another? Can it be hid in a person for years together, and show itself when a time of suffering—no; I mean when a sense of injury comes? Did you ever see that, when you were master in the prison?”
I had seen it—and, after a moment’s doubt, I said I had seen it.
“Did you pity those poor wretches32?”
“Certainly! They deserved pity.”
“I am one of them!” she said. “Pity me. If Helena looks at me—if Helena speaks to me—if I only see Helena by accident—do you know what she does? She tempts33 me! Tempts me to do dreadful things! Tempts me—” The poor child threw her arms round my neck, and whispered the next fatal words in my ear.
The mother! Prepared as I was for the accursed discovery, the horror of it shook me.
She left me, and started to her feet. The inherited energy showed itself in furious protest against the inherited evil. “What does it mean?” she cried. “I’ll submit to anything. I’ll bear my hard lot patiently, if you will only tell me what it means. Where does this horrid34 transformation35 of me out of myself come from? Look at my good father. In all this world there is no man so perfect as he is. And oh, how he has taught me! there isn’t a single good thing that I have not learned from him since I was a little child. Did you ever hear him speak of my mother? You must have heard him. My mother was an angel. I could never be worthy36 of her at my best—but I have tried! I have tried! The wickedest girl in the world doesn’t have worse thoughts than the thoughts that have come to me. Since when? Since Helena—oh, how can I call her by her name as if I still loved her? Since my sister—can she be my sister, I ask myself sometimes! Since my enemy—there’s the word for her—since my enemy took Philip away from me. What does it mean? I have asked in my prayers—and have got no answer. I ask you. What does it mean? You must tell me! You shall tell me! What does it mean?”
Why did I not try to calm her? I had vainly tried to calm her—I who knew who her mother was, and what her mother had been.
At last, she had forced the sense of my duty on me. The simplest way of calming her was to put her back in the place by my side that she had left. It was useless to reason with her, it was impossible to answer her. I had my own idea of the one way in which I might charm Eunice back to her sweeter self.
“Let us talk of Philip,” I said.
The fierce flush on her face softened37, the swelling38 trouble of her bosom39 began to subside40, as that dearly-loved name passed my lips! But there was some influence left in her which resisted me.
“No,” she said; “we had better not talk of him.”
“Why not?”
“I have lost all my courage. If you speak of Philip, you will make me cry.”
I drew her nearer to me. If she had been my own child, I don’t think I could have felt for her more truly than I felt at that moment. I only looked at her; I only said:
“Cry!”
The love that was in her heart rose, and poured its tenderness into her eyes. I had longed to see the tears that would comfort her. The tears came.
There was silence between us for a while. It was possible for me to think.
In the absence of physical resemblance between parent and child, is an unfavorable influence exercised on the tendency to moral resemblance? Assuming the possibility of such a result as this, Eunice (entirely unlike her mother) must, as I concluded, have been possessed41 of qualities formed to resist, as well as of qualities doomed42 to undergo, the infection of evil. While, therefore, I resigned myself to recognize the existence of the hereditary43 maternal44 taint45, I firmly believed in the counterbalancing influences for good which had been part of the girl’s birthright. They had been derived46, perhaps, from the better qualities in her father’s nature; they had been certainly developed by the tender care, the religious vigilance, which had guarded the adopted child so lovingly in the Minister’s household; and they had served their purpose until time brought with it the change, for which the tranquil47 domestic influences were not prepared. With the great, the vital transformation, which marks the ripening48 of the girl into the woman’s maturity49 of thought and passion, a new power for Good, strong enough to resist the latent power for Evil, sprang into being, and sheltered Eunice under the supremacy50 of Love. Love ill-fated and ill-bestowed—but love that no profanation51 could stain, that no hereditary evil could conquer—the True Love that had been, and was, and would be, the guardian52 angel of Eunice’s life.
If I am asked whether I have ventured to found this opinion on what I have observed in one instance only, I reply that I have had other opportunities of investigation53, and that my conclusions are derived from experience which refers to more instances than one.
No man in his senses can doubt that physical qualities are transmitted from parents to children. But inheritance of moral qualities is less easy to trace. Here, the exploring mind finds its progress beset54 by obstacles. That those obstacles have been sometimes overcome I do not deny. Moral resemblances have been traced between parents and children. While, however, I admit this, I doubt the conclusion which sees, in inheritance of moral qualities, a positive influence exercised on moral destiny. There are inherent emotional forces in humanity to which the inherited influences must submit; they are essentially55 influences under control—influences which can be encountered and forced back. That we, who inhabit this little planet, may be the doomed creatures of fatality56, from the cradle to the grave, I am not prepared to dispute. But I absolutely refuse to believe that it is a fatality with no higher origin than can be found in our accidental obligation to our fathers and mothers.
Still absorbed in these speculations57, I was disturbed by a touch on my arm.
I looked up. Eunice’s eyes were fixed58 on a shrubbery, at some little distance from us, which closed the view of the garden on that side. I noticed that she was trembling. Nothing to alarm her was visible that I could discover. I asked what she had seen to startle her. She pointed23 to the shrubbery.
“Look again,” she said.
This time I saw a woman’s dress among the shrubs59. The woman herself appeared in a moment more. It was Helena. She carried a small portfolio60, and she approached us with a smile.
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1
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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worthier
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| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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16
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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17
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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confided
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| 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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20
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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28
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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29
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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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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31
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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32
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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33
tempts
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| v.引诱或怂恿（某人）干不正当的事( tempt的第三人称单数 )；使想要 | |
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34
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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35
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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36
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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37
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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38
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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40
subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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41
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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44
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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45
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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46
derived
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| 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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47
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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48
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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49
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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50
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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51
profanation
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| n.亵渎 | |
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52
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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53
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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54
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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55
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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56
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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57
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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58
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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59
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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60
portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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