“I saw Bertha to-day,” he said, forcing the opening at last.
“You still see her then.”
“Yes. I married her this afternoon.”
“You what? What do you mean?”
“What I say, my dear. I married her.”
“You mean you??” She put an imaginary ring on her finger.
“Yes. I married her at the Mairie.”
Anastasya looked blankly into him, as though he contained cheerless stretches where no living thing could grow.
“You mean to say you’ve done that!”
“Yes; I have.”
“Why?”
Tarr stopped a moment.
“Well, the alleged2 reason was that she is enceinte.”
“But—whose is the child?”
“Kreisler’s, she says.”
The statement, she saw, was genuine. He was telling her what he had been doing. They both immediately retired3 into themselves, she to distance and stow away their former dialogue and consider the meaning of this new fact; he to wait, his hand near his mouth holding a pipe, until she should have collected herself. But he began speaking first:
“Things are exactly the same as before. I was bound to do that. I had allowed her to consider herself engaged a year ago, and had to keep to that. I have merely gone back a year into the past and fulfilled a pledge, and now return to you. All is in perfect order.”
“All is not in perfect order. It is Kreisler’s child to begin with, you say?”
“Yes, but it would be very mean to use that fact to justify4 one in escaping from an obligation.”
“That is sentimentality.”
“Sentimentality! Sentimentality! Cannot we, you and I, afford to give Bertha that? Sentimentality! What an absurd word that is with its fierce use in our poor modern hands! What does it mean? Has life become such an affair of economic calculation that men are too timid to allow themselves any complicated pleasures? Where there is abundance you can afford waste. Sentimentality is a cry on a level with the Simple Life! The ideal of perfect success is an ideal belonging to the same sort of individual as the inventor of Equal Rights of Man and Perfectibility. Sentimentality is a privilege. It is a luxury that the crowd does not feel itself equal to, once it begins to think about it. Besides, it is different in different hands.”
“That may be true as regards sentimentality in general. But in this case you have been guilty of a popular softness?”
“No. Listen. I will explain something to you You said a moment ago that it was Kreisler’s child. Well, that is my security! That enables me to commit this folly5, without too great danger. It is an[317] earnest of the altruistic6 origin of the action not being forgotten!”
“But that—to return to your words—is surely a very mean calculation?”
“Therefore it takes the softness out of the generous action it is allied7 to?”
“No. It takes its raison d’être away altogether. It leaves it merely a stupid and unnecessary fact. It cancels the generosity8, but leaves the fact—your marriage.”
“But the fact itself is altered by that!”
“In what way? You are now married to Bertha?”
“Yes, but what does that mean? I married Bertha this afternoon, and here I am punctually and as usual with you this evening?”
“But the fact of your having married Bertha this afternoon will prevent your making any one else your wife in the future. Supposing I had a child by you—not by Kreisler—it would be impossible to legitimatize9 him. The thing is of no importance in itself. But you have given Kreisler’s child what you should have kept for your own! What’s the good of giving your sex over into the hands of a swanky expert, as you describe it, if you continue to act on your own initiative? I throw up my job. Gar?on, l’addition!”
But a move to the café opposite satisfied her as a demonstration10. Tarr was sure of her, and remained passive. She extorted11 a promise from him: to conduct no more obscure diplomacies in the future.
Bertha and Tarr took a flat in the Boulevard Port Royal, not far from the Jardin des Plantes. They gave a party to which Fr?ulein Lipmann and a good many other people came. He maintained the rule of four to seven, roughly, for Bertha, with the utmost punctiliousness12. Anastasya and Bertha did not meet.
Bertha’s child came, and absorbed her energies for upwards13 of a year. It bore some resemblance to Tarr. Tarr’s afternoon visits became less frequent.[318] He lived now publicly with his illicit14 and splendid bride.
Two years after the birth of the child, Bertha divorced Tarr. She then married an eye-doctor, and lived with a brooding severity in his company and that of her only child.
Tarr and Anastasya did not marry. They had no children. Tarr, however, had three children by a lady of the name of Rose Fawcett, who consoled him eventually for the splendours of his “perfect woman.” But yet beyond the dim though solid figure of Rose Fawcett, another rises. This one represents the swing-back of the pendulum15 once more to the swagger side. The cheerless and stodgy16 absurdity17 of Rose Fawcett required the painted, fine and inquiring face of Prism Dirkes.
THE END
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
hovered
|
|
| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
alleged
|
|
| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
justify
|
|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
altruistic
|
|
| adj.无私的，为他人着想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
allied
|
|
| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
generosity
|
|
| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
legitimatize
|
|
| v.使合法化，立为嫡嗣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
demonstration
|
|
| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
extorted
|
|
| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
punctiliousness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
13
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
illicit
|
|
| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
pendulum
|
|
| n.摆，钟摆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
stodgy
|
|
| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
absurdity
|
|
| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |