This had never happened before. Mrs. Adams was astonished, but she conformed to the natural order of parents. She abdicated3, merely trailing clouds of futile4 protests as she descended5, also after the manner of parents. You may manage a son in love by putting the financial brakes on him; but you can do literally6 nothing with a daughter in love, because her sense of responsibility is purely7 devotional and sentimental8. She will risk a husband because she will not be obliged to support him. This is the difference, which she may discover afterwards does not exist. But she thinks it does, which comes to the same thing.
If you are a girl you cannot stir up any great[63] issue. Helen simply made those within her reach. For one thing she decided9 to wear “pink.”
“But blue is your color,” Mrs. Adams objected.
“But it is not one of my principles, mother. I am tired of blue. I have worn it all my life as a rabbit wears one kind of skin. I’m human. I can wear any color.”
And she did. She tried every shade of the rainbow that summer. She was extravagant10.
“Helen, where are your economies?” Mrs. Adams exclaimed, as if she referred to certain necessary fastenings on the feminine character.
This was a day in August, when Helen wanted yet another hat and frock.
“They were never mine; they were yours, mother,” was the unfeeling reply. “I want the dress and the hat.”
“You have had two hats this season.”
“This one then will make three.”
“Well, if this keeps up I cannot afford to send you away to school this fall,” Mrs. Adams told her.
“I don’t want to go away to school. I am tired of being just taught. I want to do my own learning,” Helen informed her.
[64]And when you consider how simple she was, this was a rather profound thing to say. The desire to chase our own knowledge is as old as Eve. But from then until now it has led to a sort of independent, sweating self-respect. We pay the highest price of all for it, as Helen was destined14 to learn—among other things. But I reckon it is worth it, if anything is worth what we pay for the experience by which life unfolds.
Mrs. Adams was not crushed by this flare15 of ingratitude16. She was simply confirmed in her suspicions.
Meanwhile Mr. Cutter, Senior, was also confirmed in his suspicions. Young George informed him early in August that he just about had enough of the university; he believed the wisest thing for him to do under the circumstances was to settle down to business. He did not name the circumstances, but by this time everybody knew what they were, including Mr. Cutter.
“You are of age—your own man; the decision rests with you,” he had said to George on this occasion, by way of washing his hands of any responsibility, after the cool-headed manner of fathers.
As a matter of fact, he was very well satisfied. Helen Adams was a good girl; pretty; she would[65] eventually inherit some property. Besides, he thought George had better settle early in life, else he might not settle at all.
“I’ve made the decision,” said George, like a man in a hurry. “With the hope of getting a raise in salary soon,” he added, with a note of financial stress in his voice.
“Oh, I guess we could manage that in case of an emergency,” his father replied in the same matter-of-fact tones.
This is the way men deal with one another, even if somewhere behind the dealing17 deathless love is at stake. And it is not the way women deal with one another. For some reason, when they settle down in their years, and recover the powers of sight according to reason, they are ready to inflict18 death on love upon the slightest provocation19.
Mrs. Adams suddenly and for no apparent cause ceased to speak to Mrs. Cutter. And Mrs. Cutter with no apparent reason began to refer to Helen as “that Adams girl.” The mother of a son is always jealous. She over-estimates him; no matter whom he chooses for a wife, she thinks he might have done better. Mrs. Cutter was free to tell anybody, and did tell quite a number, that she hoped George would marry sometime; but[66] when he did it was natural that she should wish him to choose a girl who would be equal to the position he could give her in the world. George had a future before him. He was no ordinary young man. By these sentiments she left you to infer what she thought of the “Adams girl.” If you ask me, I say she was correct in her opinion, but futilely20 so.
Mrs. Adams knew that her daughter could not do better in a worldly way than to marry this young man. But when it came to the pinch, she forgot the world and thought anxiously of Helen. She was a good mother. Her instinct, sharpened by years of living in a world where love plays havoc21 with hopes and happiness, warned her that while George might settle down in business and become eminently22 successful, she doubted if he could be domesticated23 in the strictly24 marital25 virtues26. He had too much temperament27. Perhaps this was the way she had of admitting that Helen was a trifle short on temperament, even if she did have a good singing voice. On the other hand, Helen had the awful sanity28 of seeing things as they are. She had observed this walking mind of her daughter—no wings upon which to carry illusions. How would such a woman adjust herself to a husband who might have recurrent[67] periods of adolescence29? She did not know. Therefore she regarded George with a hostile beam in her eye and quit speaking to Mrs. Cutter.
When you consider the seismic30 disturbances31 created about them by only two lovers and multiply them by all the other lovers to the uttermost parts of the earth, it is clear that there never can be any lasting33 peace in this world, though disarmament might be complete, and all nations might pass a law confirming peace and good will. For this is a natural disturbance32 beyond the diplomacy34 of diplomats35 or of confederated congresses to control. It is the perpetual insurrection of life everlasting36 in the terms of love, which are never peaceful terms.
Some time during this August, probably the latter part, Helen wore her third degree hat and the new frock. This hat lies now in an old trunk above the attic37 stairs in the house of Helen. I have seen it. A leghorn with a wide floppy38 brim, stiff, a little askew39 and out of shape, as you would be yourself if you had lain so long without so much as a breath of wind to stir you. There is a good deal of lace and ribbon on it and a wreath of wild roses. It looks funny, as a hat always does when it is long out of style, or as a love letter reads when you have been married twenty[68] years to the man who wrote it. But with all there remained something gay and confident about this hat, like the wistful smile and sweetness of a girl’s face, as no doubt there remains40 in the latter those former scriptures41 of a valorous love.
Helen was standing42 beside me when I fished up this little ghost of a hat and held it up in the warm light of the attic. “Put it on,” I exclaimed, not meaning to be irreverent.
“No; oh, no,” she said, drawing back. “It would not become me now.”
And it would not, any more than the love letter would have become the sentiments of the poor, tired, old, middle-aged43 husband who wrote it long ago.
But what I set out to tell when the former Helen’s hat intrigued44 me was that she went for a walk with George the first time she wore it. Shannon at that time was such a brief little town that you could step out of it into the open country almost at once.
They took the river road, which was not in very good repute with the guardians45 and parents of Shannon, for no better reason than that it was sanctified by the vows46 of so many lovers. But what would you have? These lovers require privacy[69] and some fairness of scenery for their business. You may involuntarily publish love on a street corner, but you cannot declare it there. Your very nature revolts at the idea. So does society. You would be arrested for staging a love scene in public. Old people are not reasonable about this. Parental47 parlor-supervision has produced more unhappy old maids than the homely48 features of these victims.
When they had come some distance along the road, George drew her arm in his, and they went on in this beatific49 silence. “Helen,” he said, “if you should say anything, what would you say?”
She looked, caught his red brown eyes smiling down at her and blushed. “Why, I was not going to say anything. I was just thinking,” she answered.
“What?” he insisted.
“How happy I am now, this moment, and—” she halted.
“Well, go on.”
“Well, just how easy it is to be happy. How little it really takes to make happiness,” she answered truthfully.
“Just you and me,” he agreed.
They went on again walking slowly.
[70]“I never loved a girl before,” he informed her, as if they had been discussing this miracle of love in open speech for hours.
She believed him. We always do believe them when they tell us this, because we need so much to keep this happiness which is founded upon the shifting sands of lovers.
“And you, my beautiful one, you do love me?” he asked, suddenly halting and swinging her in front of him.
She laid her hand upon her breast, looked at him through a mist of tears. “Is this love?” she asked, as if her hand covered leaves and blossoms and singing birds.
“Of course it is,” cried her high priest, clasping her and kissing her.
“Absolutely!”
“But, George, how can you know for certain, if you’ve never loved before?”
Sometimes I think for every woman love is an alarm bell which rings perpetually to disturb her peace. It really was a staggering question she had asked, and George staggered like a man. “You know what you feel is love, don’t you?” he evaded52.
[71]“What I feel is terror and happiness.”
“Well, that’s love for you. This is love for me,” he exclaimed, kissing her again. “And to know that you are mine entirely53, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
The conversation of lovers in fiction rarely tallies54 with what they actually say to each other in real life. I have read the dialogue of many a brilliant courtship in a novel, but never as an eavesdropper55 or observer have I known two people in love to utter a single sentence which was sensible or that even escaped absurdity56, if you repeated it along with other gossip you have to tell. And yet it is very important, this primer talk, these watching eyes of lovers who place the profoundest significance upon the most trivial act, or even the wavering of a glance between them.
I merely say this in passing, as a challenge to the reader, who may feel a trifle let down, disappointed at the above record of what took place between George and Helen on that day. What I have written is the artless truth of love, not the fabricated philosophy of love, because there is no such philosophy. Love is a state of being beyond our academic powers to expound57. It exists, it functions amazingly and that is all we know about it or ever will know about it, the passion-mongers[72] and biologists to the contrary, notwithstanding. They shed no light on this phenomenon, only upon the obvious material results. They do in truth obscure it by gratifying your desire, dear reader, to indulge vicariously in something not suitable to the proper furnishing of your elegant mind.
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1
meekest
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| adj.温顺的，驯服的( meek的最高级 ) | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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abdicated
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| 放弃（职责、权力等）( abdicate的过去式和过去分词 )； 退位，逊位 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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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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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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extorting
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| v.敲诈( extort的现在分词 )；曲解 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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futilely
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| futile（无用的）的变形； 干 | |
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havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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seismic
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| a.地震的，地震强度的 | |
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disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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diplomats
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| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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floppy
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| adj.松软的，衰弱的 | |
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askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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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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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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48
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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49
beatific
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| adj.快乐的，有福的 | |
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50
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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51
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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52
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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53
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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54
tallies
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| n.账( tally的名词复数 )；符合；（计数的）签；标签v.计算，清点( tally的第三人称单数 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
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55
eavesdropper
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| 偷听者 | |
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56
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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expound
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| v.详述；解释；阐述 | |
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