By the edge of the pool two figures lingered.
“No, no, no,” Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning backwards4, turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape Gombauld’s kisses. “No, please. No.” Her raised voice had become imperative5.
Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. “Why not?” he said. “I will.”
With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. “You won’t,” she retorted. “You’ve tried to take the most unfair advantage of me.”
“Unfair advantage?” echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise.
“Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I’ve been dancing for two hours, while I’m still reeling drunk with the movement, when I’ve lost my head, when I’ve got no mind left but only a rhythmical7 body! It’s as bad as making love to someone you’ve drugged or intoxicated8.”
Gombauld laughed angrily. “Call me a White Slaver and have done with it.”
“Luckily,” said Anne, “I am now completely sobered, and if you try and kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the pool?” she added. “The night is delicious.”
For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side by side.
“What I like about the painting of Degas...” Anne began in her most detached and conversational9 tone.
“Oh, damn Degas!” Gombauld was almost shouting.
From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool’s edge. He had seen the beginning of what promised to be an endless passionate10 embracement, and at the sight he had fled. It was too much; he couldn’t stand it. In another moment, he felt, he would have burst into irrepressible tears.
Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, who was walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe.
“Hullo!” said Mr. Scogan, catching11 him by the arm; dazed and hardly conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for a moment like a somnambulist. “What’s the matter?” Mr. Scogan went on. “you look disturbed, distressed12, depressed13.”
Denis shook his head without replying.
“Worried about the cosmos14, eh?” Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. “I know the feeling,” he said. “It’s a most distressing15 symptom. ‘What’s the point of it all? All is vanity. What’s the good of continuing to function if one’s doomed16 to be snuffed out at last along with everything else?’ Yes, yes. I know exactly how you feel. It’s most distressing if one allows oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? After all, we all know that there’s no ultimate point. But what difference does that make?”
At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. “What?” he said, blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. “What?” Then breaking away he dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. “It makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, under whatever circumstances—under whatever circumstances,” he added, raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of hearing, and even if he had not been, his mind to-night was proof against all the consolations17 of philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between his teeth and resumed his meditative18 pacing. “Under any circumstances,” he repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? And is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned itself to its stinking19 conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep.
Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk pyjamas20 of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards21 on his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket22. He looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless23 eyes felt as though they had been bruised24 from behind, and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants’ quarters under the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he opened a little door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy25, and smelling of dust and old leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping with his hands. It was from this den6 that the ladder went up to the leads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his feet on the rungs; noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his head; the moonlit sky was over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air of the night. In a moment he was standing26 on the leads, gazing out over the dim, colourless landscape, looking perpendicularly27 down at the terrace seventy feet below.
Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate28 place? Was it to look at the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death—the tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. His misery29 assumed a certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wings of a kind of exaltation. It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, however foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet; the drop was sheer there and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear the narrow terrace and so crash down yet another thirty feet to the sun-baked ground below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking now down into the shadowy gulf30 below, now up towards the rare stars and the waning31 moon. He made a gesture with his hand, muttered something, he could not afterwards remember what; but the fact that he had said it aloud gave the utterance32 a peculiarly terrible significance. Then he looked down once more into the depths.
“What ARE you doing, Denis?” questioned a voice from somewhere very close behind him.
Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went over the parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly, and he was pale when, recovering himself, he turned round in the direction from which the voice had come.
“Are you ill?”
In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the tower, he saw something he had not previously33 noticed—an oblong shape. It was a mattress34, and someone was lying on it. Since that first memorable35 night on the tower, Mary had slept out every evening; it was a sort of manifestation36 of fidelity37.
“It gave me a fright,” she went on, “to wake up and see you waving your arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing?”
Denis laughed melodramatically. “What, indeed!” he said. If she hadn’t woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the tower; he was certain of that, now.
“You hadn’t got designs on me, I hope?” Mary inquired, jumping too rapidly to conclusions.
“I didn’t know you were here,” said Denis, laughing more bitterly and artificially than before.
“What IS the matter, Denis?”
He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on laughing in the same frightful38 and improbable tone.
An hour later he was reposing39 with his head on Mary’s knees, and she, with an affectionate solicitude40 that was wholly maternal41, was running her fingers through his tangled42 hair. He had told her everything, everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy43, his despair, his suicide—as it were providentially averted44 by her interposition. He had solemnly promised never to think of self-destruction again. And now his soul was floating in a sad serenity45. It was embalmed46 in the sympathy that Mary so generously poured. And it was not only in receiving sympathy that Denis found serenity and even a kind of happiness; it was also in giving it. For if he had told Mary everything about his miseries47, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearly everything, about her own.
“Poor Mary!” He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed that Ivor wasn’t precisely48 a monument of constancy.
“Well,” she concluded, “one must put a good face on it.” She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be weak. There was a silence.
“Do you think,” asked Denis hesitatingly—“do you really think that she...that Gombauld...”
“I’m sure of it,” Mary answered decisively. There was another long pause.
“You’d better go away,” advised Mary. “It’s the safest thing, and the most sensible.”
“But I’ve arranged to stay here three weeks more.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I know I am,” said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self-possession. “You can’t go on like this, can you?”
“No, I can’t go on like this,” he echoed.
Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the darkness, the church clock struck three.
“You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.”
Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended51 the creaking stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered52 to extinction53. He got into bed and fell asleep almost at once.
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1
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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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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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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pyjamas
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| n.（宽大的）睡衣裤 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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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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perpendicularly
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| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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reposing
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的现在分词 ) | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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42
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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43
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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44
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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45
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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46
embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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47
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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48
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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50
concoct
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| v.调合，制造 | |
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51
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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52
guttered
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| vt.形成沟或槽于…（gutter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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