“Oh, Felix,” she said, putting her head against his breast, “do you love me?”
“Of course I love you! Don’t you know it?”
“I suppose so. But—all this—I’ve felt separated from you. I’ve felt—I don’t know what—I suppose it was what my father said—that this was just going to be him and my mother all over again....”
“He said that!”
“No, that isn’t what he said. But that’s what it made me feel. Felix, we aren’t going to stop loving one another now, are we?”
“Of course not. But what was it your father did say?”
“Nothing—only he spoke2 of how many distinguished3 friends we had, and—I knew he meant it all satirically—and that you had the makings of a successful man in you, if they were properly brought out by an ambitious wife—meaning me. And I felt as though—as though—Felix, I don’t want to behave to you as my mother did to my father....”
“What do you mean?” he asked quietly, still petting her like a child.
“You know, they were married very young, and he gave up business for the ministry4 after they were married, and we were very poor until my brothers left school and commenced to make money—and I think she never forgave him for that. And I’ve always—”
“Can’t we live our own life and love, Rose-Ann, without 211letting it get mixed up with our fathers and mothers?” Felix asked sadly.
Rose-Ann rubbed from her face the last vestige5 of her tears. “That’s why I didn’t want father to come to see us,” she said. “In-laws always mess things up, don’t they?”
“Even when they are the nicest people in the world, like your father.”
“Felix—I’m so glad to be back with you again—I feel as though I had been away from you, somehow. I don’t like it.”
“Don’t go away again, Rose-Ann-dear.”
“I won’t.” She pressed her head closer against his breast. “I’ll never go away again.”
Again the storm had passed, leaving Felix again wondering how it could have arisen. Some of the things they had said to each other were really incredible. How hard and hostile they had been to each other! And—quarrelling over Phyllis! Why, the whole thing was absurd, the product of fevered imaginations.... Why had they both been so willing to indulge those grotesque6 fantasies about Phyllis and Howard Morgan?... And then, what of Rose-Ann’s freakish accusation7 against him—for that was what it amounted to!—of being in love with Phyllis? Phyllis, whom he had seen but once in his life, and that on the occasion of his own marriage! Had Rose-Ann really been jealous? It was too extravagantly8 farcical.
But oughtn’t they discuss these things, and settle them, once and for all? Wasn’t that what their mutual9 candour was for, to expose and kill these silly doubts and fears and suspicions? Or—did talking about such things only give them new vitality10? Were these things too senseless to talk about?
“I love you, Felix.”
“I love you, Rose-Ann.”
There was a true magic, it seemed, in words like those! They brought happiness ... and forgetfulness....
“Darling....”
“Yes....”
212“Did we have a quarrel?”
“I don’t know—did we?”
“Yes—but what was it about?”
“I can’t remember!”
“Neither can I!”
2
Yet Felix could not quite understand the turn of affairs which followed the brief and dynamic intrusion of Rose-Ann’s father into their domestic life. Rose-Ann had changed. The most obvious manifestation12 of that change was the complete abandonment of all her social plans.
She had intended to give a number of parties to her “bourgeois friends” that spring; but they were never given; and when Felix asked why, she only shook her head and said,
“You know you don’t like parties, Felix.”
Felix was quite aware that he did not like parties. But he had definitely assessed that dislike as a species of cowardice13, which he must get over. Just because he did not like parties was the very reason why he should try to learn to like them. Other people liked parties; and he wanted to become as other people are. He had surrendered himself to Rose-Ann’s guidance. He trusted her as a mentor14. He had worn evening clothes, learned to carve and serve a roast of beef, talked desperately15 about nothing to people whose names he could not remember, because she wanted him to. He had braced16 himself to endure the worst that the social life had to offer; he would do whatever she demanded. And now suddenly she had ceased to demand anything! There was a tremendous relief in this relaxation17; but it left him puzzled and brooding.
“I understood,” he said to her hesitatingly one day, “that you had undertaken to civilize18 me. Have you given up the task as hopeless?”
“But I don’t want to civilize you, Felix!” she protested.
“I thought you did want to,” he said.
“I’m sorry you thought that,” she said.
“An artist,” she said.
He laughed. “That is too easy,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at him with incredulous wide-open eyes and parted lips.
“Rose-Ann, I’ve always been an artist. That’s the trouble with me. I don’t say I’ve been a good artist. I’ve nothing to show for my art-ing except a barrelful of youthful poems, an unfinished novel that I burned up before I came to Chicago, and a few fantastic fragments of impossible plays. But I’ve been an artist all the same, and I’ll tell you why I’m sure of it. There are two kinds of people in the world—artists and human beings. I’ve never been a human being; so I must have been an artist. And I don’t want to be any longer!”
“But Felix!” she said.
“And I thought you were going to help me,” he said.
“To stop being an artist?” she cried, starting up as though a dreadful accusation had been flung at her.
“To be a human being,” he said, laughingly.
She looked at him with eyes of alarm.
“I can’t think you mean it!” she said.
“Perhaps I don’t.... It’s hard to tell what one really does mean,” he said, discouraged. “I don’t mean that I shan’t keep on trying to write plays—if that’s what you are afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Only, Felix—”
“Yes?”
“You must do what you want to do; not what you think I want you to do!”
“Because,” she said, “I think we’ve been going on a wrong basis. I’ve—done things to you I didn’t intend. I’m sorry.... And from now on I’m going to—let you alone.”
He laughed. “All right!” he said.
214
3
He thought he knew what she meant. Not in vain had dozens of novels been written in which the young wife subtly corrupts22 her artist husband into prosperous mediocrity. So that was what Rose-Ann was afraid of! She did not know that the artist chooses his wife in the profound unconscious hope of being led down from the perilous23 icy heights of lonely poetic24 ecstasy25 into the green valleys of everyday human life....
That Rose-Ann wanted him to dwell with her here in these green valleys he did not doubt. She wanted him to be successful. But she did not want to be blamed for his success!
He could understand that.
Well, he would take the responsibility upon himself.
He would become what, in her secret heart, and in spite of all her protestations, she really wanted him to be.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
perturbed
|
|
| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
ministry
|
|
| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
vestige
|
|
| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
accusation
|
|
| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
extravagantly
|
|
| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
vitality
|
|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
manifestation
|
|
| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
cowardice
|
|
| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
mentor
|
|
| n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
braced
|
|
| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
relaxation
|
|
| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
civilize
|
|
| vt.使文明，使开化 (=civilise) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
civilized
|
|
| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
heresy
|
|
| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
cryptic
|
|
| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
corrupts
|
|
| （使）败坏( corrupt的第三人称单数 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
perilous
|
|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |