“It doesn’t live an instant. My dear woman, look at him!”
She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. “I assure you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?” she immediately added.
“In answer to the letter?” I had made up my mind. “Nothing.”
“And to his uncle?”
“And to the boy himself?”
I was wonderful. “Nothing.”
She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her detached hand. “Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom—”
“To kiss me? No!” I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified13 and indignant.
This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a little distinct. What I look back at with amazement14 is the situation I accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was under a charm, apparently15, that could smooth away the extent and the far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps my conceit16, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my own. I learned something—at first, certainly—that had not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered17 life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was consideration—and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap—not designed, but deep—to my imagination, to my delicacy18, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little trouble—they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate—but even this with a dim disconnectedness—as to how the rough future (for all futures19 are rough!) would handle them and might bruise20 them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees21, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness—that hush22 in which something gathers or crouches23. The change was actually like the spring of a beast.
In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement24, a small interval25 alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, as the light faded—or rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees—I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil26 and justified27; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion28, my quiet good sense and general high propriety29, I was giving pleasure—if he ever thought of it!—to the person to whose pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I could, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable30 young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign.
It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts that, as I don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more than that—I only asked that he should know; and the only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. That was exactly present to me—by which I mean the face was—when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations31 and coming into view of the house. What arrested me on the spot—and with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed for—was the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!—but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora32 had conducted me. This tower was one of a pair—square, incongruous, crenelated structures—that were distinguished33, for some reason, though I could see little difference, as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of the house and were probably architectural absurdities34, redeemed35 in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious36, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity37, from a romantic revival38 that was already a respectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could all profit in a degree, especially when they loomed39 through the dusk, by the grandeur40 of their actual battlements; yet it was not at such an elevation41 that the figure I had so often invoked42 seemed most in place.
It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight43, I remember, two distinct gasps44 of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person I had precipitately45 supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that I can hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately46 bred; and the figure that faced me was—a few more seconds assured me—as little anyone else I knew as it was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in Harley Street—I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the strangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of its appearance, become a solitude47. To me at least, making my statement here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, the whole feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took in—what I did take in—all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. That’s how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity48 who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense.
The great question, or one of these, is, afterward49, I know, with regard to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, that I could see, in there having been in the house—and for how long, above all?—a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I just bridled50 a little with the sense that my office demanded that there should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this visitant, at all events—and there was a touch of the strange freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat—seemed to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny51 through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the angles, the one away from the house, very erect52, as it struck me, and with both hands on the ledge53. So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, he slowly changed his place—passed, looking at me hard all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the sharpest sense that during this transit54 he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed55 me. He turned away; that was all I knew.
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1
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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2
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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3
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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4
interdict
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| v.限制；禁止；n.正式禁止；禁令 | |
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5
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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6
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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7
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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8
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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9
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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10
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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11
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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12
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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13
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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14
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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15
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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16
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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17
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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18
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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19
futures
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| n.期货，期货交易 | |
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20
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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21
grandees
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| n.贵族，大公，显贵者( grandee的名词复数 ) | |
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22
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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23
crouches
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| n.蹲着的姿势( crouch的名词复数 )v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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25
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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26
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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27
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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28
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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29
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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30
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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31
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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32
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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33
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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34
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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35
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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36
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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37
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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38
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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39
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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40
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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41
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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42
invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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43
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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44
gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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45
precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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46
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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47
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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48
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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49
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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50
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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51
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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52
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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53
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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54
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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55
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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