As he descended15 the street of the Bergères, on the side opposite Duroc Hill, he suddenly noticed the mildness of the air. Just here the road winds downward between walls of limestone16, where the49 roots of tiny oak-trees find a difficult foothold. Here M. Bergeret was sheltered from the wind, and in the eye of the December sun which filtered down on him in a half-hearted, rayless fashion, he still murmured, but more softly: Patrio vocat agmina sistro. Doubtless Cleopatra had fled from Actium to Egypt, but still it was through the fleet of Octavius and Agrippa which tried to stop her passage.
Allured17 by the sweetness of air and sun, M. Bergeret sat down by the side of the road, on one of the blocks which had been quarried18 out of the mountain years ago, and which were now covered with a coating of black moss19. Through the delicate tracery of the branches overhead he noticed the lilac hue20 of the sky, streaked21 here and there with smoke trails. Thus to plunge22 in lonely reverie filled his soul with peaceful sadness.
In attacking Agrippa’s galleys23 which blocked their way, he reflected, Antony and Cleopatra had but one object, and that was to clear a passage. It was this precise feat24 that Cleopatra, who raised the blockade of her sixty ships, succeeded in accomplishing. Seated in the cutting, M. Bergeret enjoyed the harmless elation25 of settling the fate of the world on the far-famed waves of Acarnania. Then, as he happened to throw a glance three paces in front of him, he caught sight of an old man50 who was sitting on a heap of dead leaves on the other side of the road and leaning against the grey wall. It was scarcely possible to distinguish between this wild figure and its surroundings, for his face, his beard and his rags were exactly the colour of the stones and the leaves. He was slowly scraping a piece of wood with an old knife-blade ground thin on the millstone of the years.
“Good-day to you, sir,” said the old fellow. “The sun is pretty. And I’ll tell you what’s more—it isn’t going to rain.”
M. Bergeret recognised the man: it was Pied d’Alouette, the tramp whom M. Roquincourt, the magistrate26, had wrongly implicated27 in the murder that took place in Queen Marguerite’s house and whom he had imprisoned28 for six months in the vague hope that unforeseen charges would be laid at his door. This he did, either because he thought that the longer the imprisonment29 continued the more justifiable30 it would seem, or merely through spite against a simpleton who had misled the officers of the law. M. Bergeret, who always had a fellow-feeling for the oppressed, answered Pied d’Alouette in a kindly31 style that reflected the old fellow’s good-will.
“Good-day, friend,” said he. “I see that you know all the pleasant nooks. This hillside is warm and well sheltered.”
51 There was a moment’s silence, and then Pied d’Alouette answered:
“I know better spots than this. But they are far away from here. One mustn’t be afraid of a walk. Feet are all right. Shoes aren’t. I can’t wear good shoes because they’re strange to my feet. I only rip them up, when they give me sound ones.”
And raising his foot from the cushion of dead leaves, he pointed32 to his big toe sticking out, wrapped in wads of linen33, through the slits34 in the leather of his boot.
Relapsing into silence once more, he began to polish the piece of hard wood.
M. Bergeret soon returned to his own thoughts.
Pallentem morte futura. Agrippa’s galleys could not bar the way to Antony’s purple-sailed trireme. This time, at least, the dove escaped the vulture.
But hereupon Pied d’Alouette began again:
“They have taken away my knife!”
“Who have?”
Lifting his arm, the tramp waved it in the direction of the town and gave no other answer. Yet he was following the course of his own slow thought, for presently he said:
“They never gave it back to me.”
He sat on in solemn silence, powerless to express the ideas that revolved35 in his darkened52 mind. His knife and his pipe were the only possessions he had in the world. It was with his knife that he cut the lump of hard bread and the bacon rind they gave him at farm-house doors, food which his toothless gums would not bite; it was with his knife that he chopped up cigar-ends to stuff them into his pipe; it was with his knife that he scraped out the rotten bits in fruit and with it he managed to drag out from the dung-heaps things good to eat. It was with his knife that he shaped his walking-sticks and cut down branches to make a bed of leaves for himself in the woods at night. With his knife he carved boats out of oak-bark for the little boys, and dolls out of deal for the little girls. His knife was the tool with which he practised all the arts of life, the most skilled, as well as the most homely36, everyday ones. Always famished37 and often full of ingenuity38, he not only supplied his own wants, but also made dainty reed fountains which were much admired in the town.
For, although the man would not work, he was yet a jack39 of all trades. When he came out of prison nothing would induce them to restore his knife to him; they kept it in the record office. And so he went on tramp once more, but now weaponless, stripped, weaker than a child, wretched wherever he went. He wept over his loss: tiny53 tear-drops came, that scorched40 his bloodshot eyes without overflowing41. Then, as he went out of the town, his courage returned, for in the corner of a milestone42 he came upon an old knife-blade. Now he had cut a strong beechen handle for it in the woods of the Bergères, and was fitting it on with skilful43 hands.
The idea of his knife suggested his pipe to him. He said:
“They let me keep my pipe.”
Drawing from the woollen bag which he wore against his breast, a kind of black, sticky thimble, he showed the bowl of a pipe without the fragment of a stem.
“My poor fellow,” said M. Bergeret, “you don’t look at all like a great criminal. How do you manage to get put in gaol44 so often?”
Pied d’Alouette had not acquired the dialogue habit and he had no notion of how to carry on a conversation. Although he had a kind of deep intelligence, it took him some time to grasp the sense of the words addressed to him. It was practice that he lacked and at first, therefore, he made no attempt to answer M. Bergeret, who sat tracing lines with the point of his stick in the white dust of the road. But at last Pied d’Alouette said:
“I don’t do any wrong things. Then I am punished for other things.”
54 At length he seemed able to talk connectedly, with but few breaks.
“Do you mean to say that they put you in prison for doing nothing wrong?”
“I know the people who do the wrong things, but I should do myself harm if I blabbed.”
“You are trying to make me peach. Do you know Judge Roquincourt?”
“I know him a little. He’s rather stern, isn’t he?”
“Judge Roquincourt, he is a good talker. I never heard anyone speak so well and so quickly. A body hasn’t time to understand him. A body can’t answer. There isn’t anybody who speaks one half as well.”
“He kept you in solitary46 confinement47 for long months and yet you bear him no grudge48. What a humble49 example of mercy and long-suffering.”
Pied d’Alouette resumed the polishing of his knife-handle. As the work progressed, he became quieter and seemed to recover his peace of mind. Suddenly he demanded:
“Do you know a man called Corbon?”
“Who is he, this Corbon?”
It was too difficult to explain. Pied d’Alouette waved his arm in a vague semicircle that covered55 a quarter of the horizon. Yet his mind was busy with the man he had just mentioned, for again he repeated:
“Corbon.”
“Pied d’Alouette,” said M. Bergeret, “they say you are a queer sort of vagabond and that, even when you are in absolute want, you never steal anything. Yet you live with evil-doers and you are the friend of murderers.”
Pied d’Alouette answered:
“There are some who think one thing and others who think another. But if I myself thought of doing wrong, I should dig a hole under a tree on Duroc Hill and bury my knife at the bottom of the hole. Then I should pound down the earth on top of it with my feet. For when people have the notion of doing wrong, it’s the knife that leads them on. It’s also pride which leads them on. As for me, I lost my pride when I was a lad, for men, women and children in my own parts all made fun of me.”
“And have you never had wicked, violent thoughts?”
“Sometimes, when I came upon women alone on the roads, for the fancy I had for them. But that’s all over now.”
“And that fancy never comes back to you?”
“Time and again it does.”
56 “Pied d’Alouette, you love liberty and you are free. You live without toil50. I call you a happy man.”
“There are some happy folks. But not me.”
“Where are these happy folks, then?”
“At the farms.”
M. Bergeret rose and slipping a ten-sou piece into Pied d’Alouette’s hand, said:
“So you fancy, Pied d’Alouette, that happiness is to be found under a roof, by the chimney-corner, or on a feather-bed. I thought you had more sense.”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
uneven
|
|
| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
rhythmic
|
|
| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
versatile
|
|
| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
appreciation
|
|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
martial
|
|
| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
rhetoric
|
|
| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
tavern
|
|
| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
pomposity
|
|
| n.浮华；虚夸；炫耀；自负 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
mellowed
|
|
| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
frenzied
|
|
| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
limestone
|
|
| n.石灰石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
allured
|
|
| 诱引，吸引( allure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
quarried
|
|
| v.从采石场采得( quarry的过去式和过去分词 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
moss
|
|
| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hue
|
|
| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
streaked
|
|
| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
plunge
|
|
| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
galleys
|
|
| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
feat
|
|
| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
elation
|
|
| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
magistrate
|
|
| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
implicated
|
|
| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
imprisoned
|
|
| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
imprisonment
|
|
| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
justifiable
|
|
| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
slits
|
|
| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
revolved
|
|
| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
homely
|
|
| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
famished
|
|
| adj.饥饿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
ingenuity
|
|
| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
jack
|
|
| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
scorched
|
|
| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
overflowing
|
|
| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
milestone
|
|
| n.里程碑；划时代的事件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
skilful
|
|
| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
gaol
|
|
| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
herd
|
|
| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
confinement
|
|
| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
grudge
|
|
| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |