The bride was not visible. Wully had guarded her carefully, even from a minute alone with his mother, ever since he had arranged her wedding. He told his mother now that Chirstie had consented, she was worried about what her father would say when he heard about it. And because it was so soon after her mother’s death. Isobel McLaughlin reassured10 her. The wedding was the best possible solution of the situation. Let them just leave Chirstie’s father to her! She comforted the girl earnestly, being distressed11 by her face. She hoped in her heart that the marriage would put an end to the girl’s newly developed and stubborn depression. She couldn’t understand why now that the guests were arriving, the bride should still seem just terrified. No less word described her condition. Isobel McLaughlin could do nothing but leave her with Wully. In his room, where he sat holding her close against him, every time she said, “I can’t do this, Wully! I won’t!” he kissed her again, powerfully. She must go through with it now, he whispered to her. Even the minister was waiting for them now.
He led her forth12, at last, into the parlor13. She was wearing the white dress her mother had made for her the summer before, which Mrs. McLaughlin had ironed that day, and freshened with her daughter Mary’s cherry-colored ribbons. Wully, harassed14 by the trivial necessity for respectable[72] garments, was wearing the suit his mother had made for his brother John to wear to college in the fall. It didn’t fit Wully altogether, but then, it scarcely fitted John at all. In a space in the midst of their unsuspecting kinsmen15 they stood, the bride as pale as death, the groom16 nervously17 hiding his fear that at the critical minute his bride might altogether reject him.
He kept watching her covertly18 as the minister tried the patience of man and God by the length of his prayer. He tried to stand near enough her to support her. When the invocations ceased, everyone in the room lifted his head—except the bride. The minister explained interminably the nature of holy matrimony. He exhorted19 the pair to mutual20 faithfulness. Wully felt her tremble.
“Will you have this man to be your husband?” he asked at length.
She kept silent. She couldn’t raise her head. Wully felt his heart beginning to beat furiously. She was going to refuse him, in spite of all he had done.
There was an awful moment. The room seemed to be hushed and waiting. It was terrible, the length of that moment of silence. At last he spoke21 forth simply.
“You wouldn’t think she would. But she will. Won’t you, Chirstie?”
Those standing22 near heard his words, and as the outraged23 divine whispered sternly, “Answer!” he bent24 down and kissed her.
[73]She looked around like one in a nightmare. Her lips moved. The minister accepted the sign. He proceeded with the ceremony. The smile which Wully’s words had occasioned spread from those standing nearest even to those who were looking in at the windows—those who pretended to be leaving room for the rest, but were really thinking of their unsuitable bare feet.
The minister had made them man and wife.
The crowd gathered around them. The squire gave Chirstie a resounding25 smack26 on her cheek. Girls were pressing around her, the roomful was gathering27 near her. But she swayed, and fell against her husband, and fainted quite away.
Of course that fainting was altogether the smartest feature of the hurried wedding. Not many hard-working prairie women had bodies which permitted such gentility. It was a distinguished28 thing to do. The women who saw it forgot for a while to comment on the strange appearance of the bride, which they understood more fully5 later. At the time it seemed no more than a proper honor to pay Jeannie McNair’s memory. When she was herself again, Wully found a place for her out of doors. Planks29 laid on boxes and chairs made seats for supper out there where the smoke defended them, and since there was no back for her to lean against, she having just fainted and all, it was only proper that Wully’s arm do its duty around her. And it was necessary that it give her little strengthening messages, while inside the more zealous[74] young things danced to the fiddle3 that was not Allen’s. Out in the warm starlight and the smoke, the older guests talked to the bride and groom.
Aunt Libby joined them again, when by chance they were for a moment alone.
“Tell me again what it was Peter said, Wully!” she begged.
He felt Chirstie shrinking against him.
“He told me in the morning that he had decided30 to go this time for sure. I told him he was foolish. And I rode over again to give him some advice in the evening.”
Chirstie’s hand stirred nervously within his, and he held it more firmly.
“And did he not say where he was going?”
“He only said west.”
“That’s all he said in his note!” She sighed broken-heartedly. “It’s a strange thing he wouldn’t heed31 you, Wully!”
Wully gritted32 his teeth. “He certainly heeded33 me that time!” he thought grimly to himself. He had already told his aunt those nicely dovetailing lies half a dozen times, and each time he had felt them crushing his wife. He wished his aunt would go away and leave them in peace. After all, her cursed Peter hadn’t got a taste of what he deserved!
Finally the wedding was over. Time, however it drags, must eventually pass. They had driven away together, after he had changed John’s good clothes for a fresh hickory shirt and jeans, leaving[75] Dod at the McLaughlins’. They had had twenty-four hours of the unfathomable luxury of unhindered intimacy34. The baby sister was asleep. It was bedtime again.
The new family sat down for prayers. Not that Wully was a man deeply religious. But, as far as he knew, daily family prayers was one of the things a decent man does for his family. They had read that morning, according to custom, the first chapter of Genesis, and that had been most satisfactory, even quite personally interesting now, all about male and female created He them. It had come over Wully with a chuckle35 that divine commands have seldom been as satisfactory to humans as that first one was. And now, in the evening, he had read the first chapter of the New Testament36. He resented that. He wouldn’t have read it if he had remembered what was in it. That story of Mary’s humiliation37 might seem ever so slightly to reflect upon his wife. And that right he denied even to the Word of God.
They were sitting together on the doorstep, and his lips were not far from her ear.
“Yon was a strange man, now, Chirstie!” he began.
“What man?”
“That Joseph in Matthew. I fear he hadn’t very good sense.”
“Why, Wully! And him a man in the Bible!”
“I don’t care! He didn’t know much! He didn’t know enough to take his own lassie till an[76] angel told him! A man like that! He was daft. Or else——”
“I wonder at you, Wully! Or else what?”
“I doubt the lassie wasn’t really bonnie. Not like mine!”
A deeper embrace. More kisses.
“Oh, Wully!”
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收听单词发音
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1
glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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kerosene
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| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
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fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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maudlin
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| adj.感情脆弱的，爱哭的 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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kinsmen
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| n.家属，亲属( kinsman的名词复数 ) | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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covertly
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| adv.偷偷摸摸地 | |
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exhorted
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| v.劝告，劝说( exhort的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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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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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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gritted
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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33
heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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