In the wire-work screen, before many of the shrines, hung offerings of roses and other flowers, some wilted20 and withered21, some fresh with that morning's dew, some that never bloomed and never faded,—being artificial. I wonder that they do not plant rose-trees and all kinds of fragrant22 and flowering shrubs23 under the shrines, and twine24 and wreathe them all around, so that the Virgin may dwell within a bower25 of perpetual freshness; at least put flower-pots, with living plants, into the niche12. There are many things in the customs of these people that might be made very beautiful, if the sense of beauty were as much alive now as it must have been when these customs were first imagined and adopted.
I must not forget, among these little descriptive items, the spectacle of women and girls bearing huge bundles of twigs26 and shrubs, or grass, with scarlet27 poppies and blue flowers intermixed; the bundles sometimes so huge as almost to hide the woman's figure from head to heel, so that she looked like a locomotive mass of verdure and flowers; sometimes reaching only half-way down her back, so as to show the crooked28 knife slung29 behind, with which she had been reaping this strange harvest-sheaf. A Pre-Raphaelite painter—the one, for instance, who painted the heap of autumnal leaves, which we saw at the Manchester Exhibition—would find an admirable subject in one of these girls, stepping with a free, erect30, and graceful31 carriage, her burden on her head; and the miscellaneous herbage and flowers would give him all the scope he could desire for minute and various delineation32 of nature.
The country houses which we passed had sometimes open galleries or arcades33 on the second story and above, where the inhabitants might perform their domestic labor5 in the shade and in the air. The houses were often ancient, and most picturesquely35 time-stained, the plaster dropping in spots from the old brickwork; others were tinted36 of pleasant and cheerful lines; some were frescoed37 with designs in arabesques38, or with imaginary windows; some had escutcheons of arms painted on the front. Wherever there was a pigeon-house, a flight of doves were represented as flying into the holes, doubtless for the invitation and encouragement of the real birds.
Once or twice I saw a bush stuck up before the door of what seemed to be a wine-shop. If so, it is the ancient custom, so long disused in England, and alluded39 to in the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." Several times we saw grass spread to dry on the road, covering half the track, and concluded it to have been cut by the roadside for the winter forage40 of his ass6 by some poor peasant, or peasant's wife, who had no grass land, except the margin41 of the public way.
A beautiful feature of the scene to-day, as the preceding day, were the vines growing on fig-trees (?) [This interrogation-mark must mean that Mr. Hawthorne was not sure they were fig-trees.—ED.], and often wreathed in rich festoons from one tree to another, by and by to be hung with clusters of purple grapes. I suspect the vine is a pleasanter object of sight under this mode of culture than it can be in countries where it produces a more precious wine, and therefore is trained more artificially. Nothing can be more picturesque34 than the spectacle of an old grapevine, with almost a trunk of its own, clinging round its tree, imprisoning42 within its strong embrace the friend that supported its tender infancy43, converting the tree wholly to its own selfish ends, as seemingly flexible natures are apt to do, stretching out its innumerable arms on every bough44, and allowing hardly a leaf to sprout45 except its own. I must not yet quit this hasty sketch46, without throwing in, both in the early morning, and later in the forenoon, the mist that dreamed among the hills, and which, now that I have called it mist, I feel almost more inclined to call light, being so quietly cheerful with the sunshine through it. Put in, now and then, a castle on a hilltop; a rough ravine, a smiling valley; a mountain stream, with a far wider bed than it at present needs, and a stone bridge across it, with ancient and massive arches;—and I shall say no more, except that all these particulars, and many better ones which escape me, made up a very pleasant whole.
At about noon we drove into the village of Incisa, and alighted at the albergo where we were to lunch. It was a gloomy old house, as much like my idea of an Etruscan tomb as anything else that I can compare it to. We passed into a wide and lofty entrance-hall, paved with stone, and vaulted47 with a roof of intersecting arches, supported by heavy columns of stuccoed-brick, the whole as sombre and dingy48 as can well be. This entrance-hall is not merely the passageway into the inn, but is likewise the carriage-house, into which our vettura is wheeled; and it has, on one side, the stable, odorous with the litter of horses and cattle, and on the other the kitchen, and a common sitting-room49. A narrow stone staircase leads from it to the dining-room, and chambers50 above, which are paved with brick, and adorned51 with rude frescos instead of paper-hangings. We look out of the windows, and step into a little iron-railed balcony, before the principal window, and observe the scene in the village street. The street is narrow, and nothing can exceed the tall, grim ugliness of the village houses, many of them four stories high, contiguous all along, and paved quite across; so that nature is as completely shut out from the precincts of this little town as from the heart of the widest city. The walls of the houses are plastered, gray, dilapidated; the windows small, some of them drearily52 closed with wooden shutters53, others flung wide open, and with women's heads protruding54, others merely frescoed, for a show of light and air. It would be a hideous55 street to look at in a rainy day, or when no human life pervaded56 it. Now it has vivacity57 enough to keep it cheerful. People lounge round the door of the albergo, and watch the horses as they drink from a stone trough, which is built against the wall of the house, and filled with the unseen gush58 of a spring.
At first there is a shade entirely59 across the street, and all the within-doors of the village empties itself there, and keeps up a babblement60 that seems quite disproportioned even to the multitude of tongues that make it. So many words are not spoken in a New England village in a whole year as here in this single day. People talk about nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and laugh at nothing as if it were all excellent joke.
As the hot noon sunshine encroaches on our side of the street, it grows a little more quiet. The loungers now confine themselves to the shady margin (growing narrower and narrower) of the other side, where, directly opposite the albergo, there are two cafes and a wine-shop, "vendita di pane61, vino, ed altri generi," all in a row with benches before them. The benchers joke with the women passing by, and are joked with back again. The sun still eats away the shadow inch by inch, beating down with such intensity62 that finally everybody disappears except a few passers-by.
Doubtless the village snatches this half-hour for its siesta63. There is a song, however, inside one of the cafes, with a burden in which several voices join. A girl goes through the street, sheltered under her great bundle of freshly cut grass. By and by the song ceases, and two young peasants come out of the cafe, a little affected64 by liquor, in their shirt-sleeves and bare feet, with their trousers tucked up. They resume their song in the street, and dance along, one's arm around his fellow's neck, his own waist grasped by the other's arm. They whirl one another quite round about, and come down upon their feet. Meeting a village maid coming quietly along, they dance up and intercept65 her for a moment, but give way to her sobriety of aspect. They pass on, and the shadow soon begins to spread from one side of the street, which presently fills again, and becomes once more, for its size, the noisiest place I ever knew.
We had quite a tolerable dinner at this ugly inn, where many preceding travellers had written their condemnatory66 judgments67, as well as a few their favorable ones, in pencil on the walls of the dining-room.
点击收听单词发音
1 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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2 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
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3 browse | |
vi.随意翻阅,浏览;(牛、羊等)吃草 | |
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4 laborers | |
n.体力劳动者,工人( laborer的名词复数 );(熟练工人的)辅助工 | |
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5 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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6 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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7 sociably | |
adv.成群地 | |
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8 embroidering | |
v.(在织物上)绣花( embroider的现在分词 );刺绣;对…加以渲染(或修饰);给…添枝加叶 | |
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9 shrines | |
圣地,圣坛,神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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10 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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11 fresco | |
n.壁画;vt.作壁画于 | |
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12 niche | |
n.壁龛;合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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13 niches | |
壁龛( niche的名词复数 ); 合适的位置[工作等]; (产品的)商机; 生态位(一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位) | |
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14 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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15 wayfarer | |
n.旅人 | |
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16 incense | |
v.激怒;n.香,焚香时的烟,香气 | |
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17 regale | |
v.取悦,款待 | |
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18 consecrated | |
adj.神圣的,被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣,给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 );奉献 | |
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19 fragrance | |
n.芬芳,香味,香气 | |
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20 wilted | |
(使)凋谢,枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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22 fragrant | |
adj.芬香的,馥郁的,愉快的 | |
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23 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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24 twine | |
v.搓,织,编饰;(使)缠绕 | |
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25 bower | |
n.凉亭,树荫下凉快之处;闺房;v.荫蔽 | |
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26 twigs | |
细枝,嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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27 scarlet | |
n.深红色,绯红色,红衣;adj.绯红色的 | |
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28 crooked | |
adj.弯曲的;不诚实的,狡猾的,不正当的 | |
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29 slung | |
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
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30 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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31 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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32 delineation | |
n.记述;描写 | |
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33 arcades | |
n.商场( arcade的名词复数 );拱形走道(两旁有商店或娱乐设施);连拱廊;拱形建筑物 | |
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34 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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35 picturesquely | |
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36 tinted | |
adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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37 frescoed | |
壁画( fresco的名词复数 ); 温壁画技法,湿壁画 | |
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38 arabesques | |
n.阿拉伯式花饰( arabesque的名词复数 );错综图饰;阿拉伯图案;阿拉贝斯克芭蕾舞姿(独脚站立,手前伸,另一脚一手向后伸) | |
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39 alluded | |
提及,暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40 forage | |
n.(牛马的)饲料,粮草;v.搜寻,翻寻 | |
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41 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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42 imprisoning | |
v.下狱,监禁( imprison的现在分词 ) | |
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43 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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44 bough | |
n.大树枝,主枝 | |
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45 sprout | |
n.芽,萌芽;vt.使发芽,摘去芽;vi.长芽,抽条 | |
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46 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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47 vaulted | |
adj.拱状的 | |
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48 dingy | |
adj.昏暗的,肮脏的 | |
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49 sitting-room | |
n.(BrE)客厅,起居室 | |
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50 chambers | |
n.房间( chamber的名词复数 );(议会的)议院;卧室;会议厅 | |
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51 adorned | |
[计]被修饰的 | |
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52 drearily | |
沉寂地,厌倦地,可怕地 | |
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53 shutters | |
百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 ); (照相机的)快门 | |
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54 protruding | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的现在分词 );凸 | |
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55 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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56 pervaded | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57 vivacity | |
n.快活,活泼,精神充沛 | |
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58 gush | |
v.喷,涌;滔滔不绝(说话);n.喷,涌流;迸发 | |
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59 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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60 babblement | |
模糊不清的言语,胡说,潺潺声 | |
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61 pane | |
n.窗格玻璃,长方块 | |
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62 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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63 siesta | |
n.午睡 | |
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64 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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65 intercept | |
vt.拦截,截住,截击 | |
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66 condemnatory | |
adj. 非难的,处罚的 | |
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67 judgments | |
判断( judgment的名词复数 ); 鉴定; 评价; 审判 | |
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