Kate and Harry12, meanwhile, awaited their opportunity to go in and visit Aunt Jane. This was a thing that never could be done till near noon, because that dear lady was very deliberate in her morning habits, and always averred13 that she had never seen the sun rise except in a panorama14. She hated to be hurried in dressing15, too; for she was accustomed to say that she must have leisure to understand herself, and this was clearly an affair of time.
But she was never more charming than when, after dressing and breakfasting in seclusion16, and then vigilantly17 watching her handmaiden through the necessary dustings and arrangements, she sat at last, with her affairs in order, to await events. Every day she expected something entirely18 new to happen, and was never disappointed. For she herself always happened, if nothing else did; she could no more repeat herself than the sunrise can; and the liveliest visitor always carried away something fresher and more remarkable19 than he brought.
Her book that morning had displeased20 her, and she was boiling with indignation against its author.
“I am reading a book so dry,” she said, “it makes me cough. No wonder there was a drought last summer. It was printed then. Worcester’s Geography seems in my memory as fascinating as Shakespeare, when I look back upon it from this book. How can a man write such a thing and live?”
“Perhaps he lived by writing it,” said Kate.
“Perhaps it was the best he could do,” added the more literal Harry.
“It certainly was not the best he could do, for he might have died,—died instead of dried. O, I should like to prick21 that man with something sharp, and see if sawdust did not run out of him! Kate, ask the bookseller to let me know if he ever really dies, and then life may seem fresh again.”
“What is it?” asked Kate.
“Somebody’s memoirs,” said Aunt Jane. “Was there no man left worth writing about, that they should make a biography about this one? It is like a life of Napoleon with all the battles left out. They are conceited22 enough to put his age in the upper corner of each page too, as if anybody cared how old he was.”
“Such pretty covers!” said Kate. “It is too bad.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane. “I mean to send them back and have new leaves put in. These are so wretched, there is not a teakettle in the land so insignificant23 that it would boil over them. Don’t let us talk any more about it. Have Philip and Hope gone out upon the water?”
“Yes, dear,” said Kate. “Did Ruth tell you?”
“When did that aimless infant ever tell anything?”
“Then how did you know it?”
“If I waited for knowledge till that sweet-tempered parrot chose to tell me,” Aunt Jane went on, “I should be even more foolish than I am.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Of course I heard the boat hauled down, and of course I knew that none but lovers would go out just before a thunder-storm. Then you and Harry came in, and I knew it was the others.”
“Aunt Jane,” said Kate, “you divine everything: what a brain you have!”
“Brain! it is nothing but a collection of shreds24, like a little girl’s work-basket,—a scrap25 of blue silk and a bit of white muslin.”
“Now she is fishing for compliments,” said Kate, “and she shall have one. She was very sweet and good to Philip last night.”
“I know it,” said Aunt Jane, with a groan26. “I waked in the night and thought about it. I was awake a great deal last night. I have heard cocks crowing all my life, but I never knew what that creature could accomplish before. So I lay and thought how good and forgiving I was; it was quite distressing27.”
“Remorse?” said Kate.
“Yes, indeed. I hate to be a saint all the time. There ought to be vacations. Instead of suffering from a bad conscience, I suffer from a good one.”
“It was no merit of yours, aunt,” put in Harry. “Who was ever more agreeable and lovable than Malbone last night?”
“Lovable!” burst out Aunt Jane, who never could be managed or manipulated by anybody but Kate, and who often rebelled against Harry’s blunt assertions. “Of course he is lovable, and that is why I dislike him. His father was so before him. That is the worst of it. I never in my life saw any harm done by a villain28; I wish I could. All the mischief29 in this world is done by lovable people. Thank Heaven, nobody ever dared to call me lovable!”
“I should like to see any one dare call you anything else,—you dear, old, soft-hearted darling!” interposed Kate.
“But, aunt,” persisted Harry, “if you only knew what the mass of young men are—”
“Don’t I?” interrupted the impetuous lady. “What is there that is not known to any woman who has common sense, and eyes enough to look out of a window?”
“If you only knew,” Harry went on, “how superior Phil Malbone is, in his whole tone, to any fellow of my acquaintance.”
“Lord help the rest!” she answered. “Philip has a sort of refinement30 instead of principles, and a heart instead of a conscience,—just heart enough to keep himself happy and everybody else miserable31.”
“Do you mean to say,” asked the obstinate32 Hal, “that there is no difference between refinement and coarseness?”
“Yes, there is,” she said.
“Well, which is best?”
“Coarseness is safer by a great deal,” said Aunt Jane, “in the hands of a man like Philip. What harm can that swearing coachman do, I should like to know, in the street yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant, and I wonder they let people swear so, except, perhaps, in waste places outside the town; but that is his way of expressing himself, and he only frightens people, after all.”
“Which Philip does not,” said Hal.
“Exactly. That is the danger. He frightens nobody, not even himself, when he ought to wear a label round his neck marked ‘Dangerous,’ such as they have at other places where it is slippery and brittle33. When he is here, I keep saying to myself, ‘Too smooth, too smooth!’”
“Aunt Jane,” said Harry, gravely, “I know Malbone very well, and I never knew any man whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite.”
“Did I say he was a hypocrite?” she cried. “He is worse than that; at least, more really dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimentalists who do all the mischief; who play on their own lovely emotions, forsooth, till they wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then have nothing left but the flesh and the D. Don’t tell me!”
“Do stop, auntie,” interposed Kate, quite alarmed, “you are really worse than a coachman. You are growing very profane34 indeed.”
“I have a much harder time than any coachman, Kate,” retorted the injured lady. “Nobody tries to stop him, and you are always hushing me up.”
“Hushing you up, darling?” said Kate. “When we only spoil you by praising and quoting everything you say.”
“Only when it amuses you,” said Aunt Jane. “So long as I sit and cry my eyes out over a book, you all love me, and when I talk nonsense, you are ready to encourage it; but when I begin to utter a little sense, you all want to silence me, or else run out of the room! Yesterday I read about a newspaper somewhere, called the ‘Daily Evening Voice’; I wish you would allow me a daily morning voice.”
“I am sure we don’t,” said Aunt Jane; “I have no desire to understand you, and you never will understand me till you comprehend Philip.”
“Let us agree on one thing,” Harry said. “Surely, aunt, you know how he loves Hope?”
Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the equator, and said, gently, “I fear I do.”
“Fear?”
“Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me. I know precisely36 how he loves her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry with any degree of grace, but he unfortunately does.”
“Unfortunately?” remonstrated37 Hal, as far as ever from being satisfied. “This is really too bad. You never will do him any justice.”
“Ah?” said Aunt Jane, chilling again, “I thought I did. I observe he is very much afraid of me, and there seems to be no other reason.”
“The real trouble is,” said Harry, after a pause, “that you doubt his constancy.”
“What do you call constancy?” said she. “Kissing a woman’s picture ten years after a man has broken her heart? Philip Malbone has that kind of constancy, and so had his father before him.”
This was too much for Harry, who was making for the door in indignation, when little Ruth came in with Aunt Jane’s luncheon38, and that lady was soon absorbed in the hopeless task of keeping her handmaiden’s pretty blue and white gingham sleeve out of the butter-plate.
点击收听单词发音
1 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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2 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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3 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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4 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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5 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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6 pier | |
n.码头;桥墩,桥柱;[建]窗间壁,支柱 | |
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7 sinuous | |
adj.蜿蜒的,迂回的 | |
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8 schooners | |
n.(有两个以上桅杆的)纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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9 soothed | |
v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 );抚慰;使舒服;减轻痛苦 | |
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10 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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11 tempted | |
v.怂恿(某人)干不正当的事;冒…的险(tempt的过去分词) | |
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12 harry | |
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼 | |
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13 averred | |
v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 );证实;证明…属实;作为事实提出 | |
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14 panorama | |
n.全景,全景画,全景摄影,全景照片[装置] | |
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15 dressing | |
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料 | |
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16 seclusion | |
n.隐遁,隔离 | |
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17 vigilantly | |
adv.警觉地,警惕地 | |
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18 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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19 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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20 displeased | |
a.不快的 | |
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21 prick | |
v.刺伤,刺痛,刺孔;n.刺伤,刺痛 | |
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22 conceited | |
adj.自负的,骄傲自满的 | |
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23 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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24 shreds | |
v.撕碎,切碎( shred的第三人称单数 );用撕毁机撕毁(文件) | |
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25 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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26 groan | |
vi./n.呻吟,抱怨;(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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27 distressing | |
a.使人痛苦的 | |
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28 villain | |
n.反派演员,反面人物;恶棍;问题的起因 | |
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29 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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30 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
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31 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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32 obstinate | |
adj.顽固的,倔强的,不易屈服的,较难治愈的 | |
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33 brittle | |
adj.易碎的;脆弱的;冷淡的;(声音)尖利的 | |
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34 profane | |
adj.亵神的,亵渎的;vt.亵渎,玷污 | |
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35 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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36 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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37 remonstrated | |
v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 );告诫 | |
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38 luncheon | |
n.午宴,午餐,便宴 | |
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