Gabriel was at his supper, a sorry meal enough, when the letter came to him from Rilchester. He had been in a desperate mood all day, nor had he slept the previous night, with dark doubts fluttering through his brain like bats through a ruin. Why had not Joan returned? At the dim and half-desolate station, Gabriel had watched, waiting and waiting as each night train came in. He had spent the next day in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and by the river, hanging a haggard face over the stone parapet, too sick at heart to eat. How often had defeat smitten2 hope down into the dust! Ever and again he had wandered back to the hot, dusty by-street, hoping to find that Joan had returned.
When Gabriel looked at the letter that the dirty servant tossed onto the table, he flushed like a boy, and his heavy, sleepless3 eyes grew bright. The writing was Judith’s. Visions of green woods and golden meadows flashed up before him like romance, the warm scent4 of a woman’s hair, the memory of her pale face and shadowy eyes. Judith! How he loved that name! Were not all truth and beauty built therein, purity and pity, the divine tenderness that makes earth heaven?
He tore open the envelope and read the letter, leaning forward a little towards the window, his hands trembling markedly:
“My dearest Brother [it began],—At last I am able to write to you after all these months of silence and distress5. Oh, strange fate, that in finding a woman fainting on the road to Rilchester I should find my brother!”
The letter, warm and fragrant6 with the love of a good woman, went on to tell how Joan and Judith had come together after Joan’s flight from Zeus Gildersedge’s death-bed. The outpourings of hours of solitary7 yearning8 seemed to flow in the eager and impassioned words. Of Joan, Judith wrote with a fervor9 that brought a strange smile to Gabriel’s face:
“Now I can understand your love, brother, and your strong heroism10 in defying society for a woman’s sake. This dear Joan is blood of my blood, heart of my heart. In two days we have become as sisters. Ah, Gabriel, I would trust her, even if she had come to me from the gate of hell. But methinks she is more like Beatrice out of paradise.”
From such sisterly exultation11 Judith digressed to speak of John Strong:
“Father has aged12 since the autumn. He is whiter and stoops a little, and his eyes look tired. Poor father! he has always been a hard man, but I believe the ice is broken about his heart. Would to God he would be less proud! And yet I love this pride of his when he faces the prattlers here like a Brutus, and frowns back those he does not trust.
“Moreover, I am convinced that father has changed his opinions greatly, though he says but little. That woman—pardon me, Gabriel, for I hate her—has been brazening it about like any countess. That she is none too honest I would stake my soul. We of Gabingly and Saltire are like border barons13 locked in a death feud14. Maltravers. Have you ever heard the name from Ophelia’s lips? Father has hinted that he has had his suspicions aroused by some casual circumstances that have been brought to his notice. Would to Heaven he would be more frank with me!
“Now, Gabriel, my own brother, let me plead with you as a sister. Joan must remain here; I have my reasons, and a woman’s wit is worth more than a lawyer’s tongue. As for yourself, stay in London till I bid you come.
“Joan is well. See, I enclose a short letter from her. Also a little money out of my allowance. Use it, dear Gabriel, and God bless you!
“Pardon the vagueness of all this; I write in great haste.
“Judith.”
Gabriel sat there in the twilight15 with the letters and bank-notes laid upon his knee. From without came the sound of a woman singing, singing in one of the dim and narrow rooms below his window. To Gabriel it seemed for the moment as the voice of some aspiring16 spirit climbing from the squalor of life into the more splendid land of dreams. It was but a poor, struggling child of art who sang, mocking with her melody the coarse cares of a loveless world.
He took Joan’s letter and read it as through a mist, halting often as though to hold and possess each word.
“Dear Heart [it ran],—Judith, your sister, will have told you all; how we two have come together and how she has helped me. I had dreamed of noble women in the past, and now I have found one of my own flesh and blood and crown and all. Judith is wonderful; were she a queen, I could die for her as easily as I could fall asleep.
“Of my father I need write nothing, save that he is dead.
“Oh, my own, I stretch out my arms to you, and my heart is full. Yet must I stay here in exile, even as you must wait for what God shall give to us. I have great joy and faith in Judith, for like an angel she seems to press the clouds back from the world.
“Gabriel, good-night. There is a spirit in me that bids me hope.”
The man sat a long while in the silent room, while the night came down and the gloom increased. Out of the dusk, under the shadow of fruit-trees, within beck of a red rose, Gabriel beheld17 two women standing18, fair women whose faces seemed to cleanse19 the world. Horror and despair seemed to faint away like black waters ebbing20 from before their feet. For in either hand there was a lamp, golden-tongued and stately, Faith out of Heaven.
The singing had ceased in the room below, and over the myriad21 roofs rose the solemn arch of the moon. Gabriel watched it climb the sky, till it seemed to hang like a mighty22 halo behind the iron cross of a church.
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1
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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2
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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3
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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4
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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5
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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6
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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7
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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8
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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9
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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10
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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11
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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12
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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13
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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14
feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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15
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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16
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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17
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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18
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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19
cleanse
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| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
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20
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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21
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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22
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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