The secret of his visits to Bertha and interminable liaison1 was that he really never had meant to leave her at all, he reflected. He had not meant to leave her altogether. He was just playing. Or rather, a long debt of disgraceful behaviour was accumulating, that he knew would have to be met. It was deliberately2 increased by him, because he knew he would not repudiate3 it. But it would have been absurd not to try to escape.
To-day he must break the fact to Bertha that he could no longer regard himself as responsible. He was faced with the necessity, for the first time, of seriously bargaining. The debt was not to be repudiated4, but he must tell her that he only had himself to pay with, and that he had been seized by somebody else.
He passed through her iron gateway5 with a final stealth, although making his boots sound loudly on the gravel6. It was like entering a vault7, the trees looked like weeds; the meaning or taste of everything,[305] of course, had died. The concierge8 looked like a new one.
He had bought a flower for his buttonhole. He kept smelling it as he approached the house.
During the last week or so he had got into the habit of writing his letters at Bertha’s, to fill up the time. Occasionally he would do a drawing of her (a thing he had never done formerly) to vary the monotony. This time there would be no letter-writing. This visit would be more like the old ones.
“Come in, Sorbert,” she said, on opening the door. It was emphasizing the fact of the formality of the terms on which they at present met. Any prerogative9 of past and more familiar times was proudly rejected.
There was the same depressed10 atmosphere as the day before, and the days preceding that. She appeared stale, somehow deteriorated11 and shabby, her worth decreased, and extremely pitiable. Her “reserve” (a natural result of the new equivocal circumstances) removed her to a distance, as it seemed; it also shut her up in herself, in an unhealthy, dreary12, and faded atmosphere.
She was shut up with a mass of reserves and secrets, new and old. She seemed sitting on them in rather dismal13 hen-like fashion, waiting to be asked to come out of herself and reveal something. It was a corpse14 among other things that she was sitting on, as Kreisler was one of her secrets. Mournfully reproachful, she kept guard over her secrets, a store of bric-à-brac that had gone out of fashion and were getting musty in a neglected shop.
Their meetings sometimes were made painful by activity on Bertha’s part. An attempt at penetration15 to an intimacy16 once possessed17 can be more indecent than the same action on the part of a stranger.
This time he was greeted with long mournful glances. He felt she had thought of what she should say. This interview meant a great deal to her. His friendship meant more to her now than ever. The[306] abject18 little room seemed to be thrust forward to awaken19 his memories and ask for pity. An intense atmosphere of Teutonic suicide permeated20 everything. He could not move an eyelid21 or a muscle without wounding or slighting something. It was like being in a dark kitchen at night, where you know at every step you will put your foot on a beetle22. It had a still closer analogy to this in the disgust he felt for these too naked and familiar things he was treading on. He scowled23 at Beethoven, who scowled back at him like a reflection in a mirror. It was the fate of both of them to haunt this room. The Mona Lisa was there, and the Breton sabots and jars. She might have a change of scenery sometimes! He felt unreasonably24 that she must have left things in the same place to reproduce a former mood in him. His photograph was prominent on her writing-table; she seemed to say (with a sort of sickly idiocy), “You see, he is faithful to me!”
She preceded him to her sitting-room25. As he looked at her back he thought of her as taking a set number of paces, then turning round abruptly26, confronting him. From a typical and similar enervation27 of the will to that which was at the bottom of his troubles, he could hardly stop himself from putting his arm round her waist while they stood for a moment close to each other. He did not wish to do this as a response to any resuscitating28 desire. It was only because it was the one thing he must not do. To throw himself into the abyss of perplexity he had just escaped from tempted29 him. The dykes30 and simulations of conduct were perpetually threatened by his neurasthenia in this way. He kept his hands in his pockets, however.
When they had reached the room, she turned round, as he had half imagined, and caught hold of his hands.
“Sorbert, Sorbert!”
The words were said separately, each emphatic31 in significance. The second was a repetition only of the first. She seemed calling him by his name to[307] conjure32 back his self again. Her face was a strained and anxious mask.
“What is it, Bertha?”
“I don’t know!”
She dropped his hands, drooped33 her head to the right and turned away.
She sat down; he sat down opposite her.
“Anything new?” he asked.
“Anything new? Yes!” She gazed at him with an insistent34 meaning.
He concluded this was just over-emphasis, with nothing behind it; or, rather, everything.
“Well, I have something new as well!”
“Have you, Sorbert?”
“First of all, how have my visits struck you lately? What explanation have you found for them?”
“Oh, none. Why find an explanation? Why do you ask?”
“I thought I would explain.”
“Well?”
“My explanation to myself was that I did not want to leave you brusquely, and I thought a blurred35 interlude of this sort would do no harm to either of us. Our loves could die in each other’s arms.”
She stared with incredulous fixity at the floor, her spirit seeming to be arched like a swan and to be gazing down hypnotically.
“The real reason was simply that, being very fond of you, I could not make up my mind to give you up. I claim that my visits were not frivolous36.”
“Well?”
“I would have married you, if you had considered that advisable.”
“Yes? And??”
“I find it very difficult to say the rest.”
“What is difficult?”
“Well, I still like you very much. Yesterday I met a woman. I love her too. I can’t help that. What must I do?”
Bertha turned a slightly stormier white.
[308]
“Who is she?”
“You know her. She is Anastasya Vasek.”
The news struck through something else, and, inside, her ego37 shrank to an almost wizened38 being. It seemed glad of the protection the cocoon39, the something, afforded her.
“You did not—find out what my news was.”
“I didn’t. Have you anything??”
“Yes. I am enceinte.”
He thought about this in a clumsy, incredulous way. It was a Roland for his Oliver! She was going to have a baby! With what regularity40 he was countered! This event rose up in opposition41 to the night he had just spent, his new promises and hopes of swagger sex in the future. He was beaten.
“Whose child is it?”
“Kreisler’s.”
“There you are!” he thought.
He got up and stepped over to her with a bright relieved look in his face.
“Poor little girl! That’s a bad business. But don’t worry about it. We can get married and it can always pass as mine—if we do it quickly enough.”
She looked up at him obliquely42 and sharply, with suspicion grown a habit. When she saw the pleasant, assured expression, she saw that at last things had turned. Sorbert was denying reality! He was ending with miracles, against himself. Her instinct had always told her that generosity43 would not be wasted!
She did not tell him of the actual circumstances under which the child had come. That would have weakened her happiness and her case.
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收听单词发音
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1
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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2
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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3
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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5
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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9
prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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11
deteriorated
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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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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14
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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16
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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17
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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19
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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20
permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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eyelid
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| n.眼睑，眼皮 | |
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22
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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23
scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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enervation
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| n.无活力，衰弱 | |
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28
resuscitating
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的现在分词 ) | |
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29
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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30
dykes
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| abbr.diagonal wire cutters 斜线切割机n.堤( dyke的名词复数 )；坝；堰；沟 | |
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31
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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32
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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33
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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35
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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36
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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37
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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38
wizened
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| adj.凋谢的；枯槁的 | |
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39
cocoon
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| n.茧 | |
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40
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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41
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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42
obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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43
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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