Very likely you saw it. If so, you will understand the difficulty I am confronted with in describing the place. It made a small sensation, the theater itself, apart from the Nature film. But a penned description could not convey the freshness, the quiet charm, the dignity of that interior.
The dignity was what first touched Sue. The Worm watched her sidelong as her eyes roved from the flat surfaces of pure bold color on the walls to the quietly idyllic7 scene on the stage that managed to look as if it were not a stage. She exhibited little emotion at first. Her brow was slightly furrowed8, the eyes thoughtful, the mouth set—that was all. She had gone through the difficult months of enacting9 the film at first with enthusiasm, later doggedly11. She had early lost her vision of the thing as a whole; her recollections now were of doing over and over this bit and that, of a certain youthful actor who had taken it for granted that a girl who would dress as she had to dress the character could be casually12 made love to, of interminable train rides to the outdoor “locations,” of clashes of will between Zanin and the Interstellar people—of work, quarrels, dust, money and the lack of it and a cumulative13 disillusionment. It came to her now that she had lost that early vision. More, she had forgotten the sincerity14 and the purpose of Jacob Zanin, that beneath his cold Jewish detachment he believed this thing—that the individual must be freed from conformity15 and (as he saw it) its attendant hypocrisy16 by breaking the yoke17 of the home. It must be the individual—first, last, always—-the glad, free individual—the will to live, to feel, to express.
It was the Village jargon18, done into something near a masterpiece. Sue began to see as the film unrolled before her eyes, reel by reel, that Zanin had never for a moment lost his dream. Even now, merely sitting in that steep crowded gallery waiting for the first reel of the ten, Sue knew that he had never lost it. Nor had Peter. The thought was exciting. It brought the color back to her cheeks. Her lips parted slightly. She was feeling again the enthusiasm Peter's scenario19 had roused in her at the start, but with a new intensity20. The Worm, at her side, watching every slight subtle change of that young face, forgot his own stirring news of the morning, forgot that he was Alexander H. Bates, and the expression of a man who had bcen long hungry crept into his eyes.
The Nature film, you recall, pictured an imaginary people, simple, even primitive21, untouched by what men call civilisation22. To their secluded23 island comes the ship of an explorer, suggesting by its outlines and rigging and the costumes of officers and crew, the brave days of Captain Cook, or perhaps a period half a century earlier. The indefiniteness of it was baffling and fascinating. At no point did it date! And the island was not one of those that dot the South Seas, at least the inhabitants were not savages24. They were intelligent, industrious25, gentle. But the women hunted and fished with the men. Love—or passion, at least—was recognized for the impermanent gust26 it so often is—and, as such, was respected. No woman dreamed of tying herself for life to a lover she no longer loved. Neither want nor respectability could lower her pride to that point. Fatherhood, apparently27, was not fixed28, a hint being conveyed that the men as a group were bound to contribute to the welfare of young mothers. Thus the men were perhaps less glad and free than the women; indeed there was more than a suggestion of matriarchy.... To this community, thrown by an accident on its shores, the hundred odd men from the ship brought a habit of discipline, a holy book (that was and was not the Bible), a rigid29 marriage law, a complete hard theory of morality with attached penalties, plenty of firearms, hogshead upon hogshead of strong liquor, and underlying30 everything else an aggressive acquisitiveness that showed itself in the beginning as the trading instinct and later, of course, became politics and control.
In some measure it was the old obvious outcry against the conquest of weak and simple peoples. Or the situation at the start indicated something of the sort. But the story that grew out of the situation was less obvious. Indeed, developed by Peter, with his theatrical31 skill, out of Zanin's raw anarchism, it was a drama of quality and power. Zanin had been able to make nothing more out of it than a clash of social theories. Peter had made it a clash of persons; and through the deliberate development of this clash ran, steadily32 increasing in poignancy33 and tragic34 force straight to the climax35 of assassination36, the story of a girl. Peter himself did not know how good it was. Not until he read about it in the papers (after which he became rather irritatingly complacent37 regarding it). For you will remember, Peter was crazily pursuing that girl when he wrote it. And the girl was boldly, wonderfully Sue—a level-eyed, outspoken38 young woman, confronting life; ashamed of nothing, not her body, not her soul; dreaming beautifully of freedom, of expressing herself, of living her life, vibrant39 with health, courage, joy.
The girl, you know, fell in love with a young sailor and gave herself proudly and freely. The sailor could not comprehend her, became furtive40 and jealous. They quarreled. To quiet her he was driven to brutality41. For he was a respectable man and held his reputation high. The affair became known. The men of the ship, muttering strange words about a custom called marriage, held her as bad, fell on the age-old decision that she must continue to be, bad, at their call, though furtively42. For they were all respectable men.
Then we saw the girl as an outcast, fed, for a time, secretly by the cowed bewildered tribe. We saw her as a dishonored mother, fighting the sea, the forest, the very air for sustenance43. We caught glimpses of the new community, growing into a settlement of some stability, the native men forced into the less wholesome44 labor45, then wives and daughters taken and poisoned with this strange philosophy of life. Then we saw our girl, her child toddling46 at her heels, creeping back into the society where trade and politics, hard liquor (distilled now from the native grain), that holy book of mysterious spell, the firearms and an impenetrable respectability reigned47 in apparent security over smoldering48 fires. And finally we saw the girl, not at all a penitent49, but a proud inspired creature of instinct, fan those fires until they purged50 the taint51 of sophistication from each slumbering52 native soul and drove a half-mad people at the desperate job of extermination53 and of reasserting itself as a people on the old lawlessly happy footing. They burned the hogsheads of liquor, the firearms, the heap of holy books, on one great bonfire.
I am not doing it justice. But this much will serve to recall the story.
As for Zanin's propaganda, I doubt if it cut in very deeply. Critics and public alike appeared to take it simply as a novelty, a fresh sensation as they had taken Reinhardt and the Russian Ballet. The primitiveness54 of it reached them no more clearly than the primitiveness of Wagner's operas reached them. The clergy55 stormed a bit, of course; but not because they comprehended the deeply implied anarchistic56 motive57. They were concerned over Zanin's rather unbending attitude toward a certain book. And Zanin; delighted, fed columns of controversy58 to the afternoon papers, wrote open letters to eminent59 divines, and in other ways turned the protest into a huge success of publicity60. Then a professional objector, apparently ignorant of the existence of an enticing61 and corrupting62 “Revue” across the street, haled Zanin, Silverstone and two of the Interstellar people into court on the ground that the costuming was improper63. This matter Zanin, after the newspapers had done it full justice, compromised by cutting out twenty-two feet of pictures and one printed explanation which seemed to the professional objector to justify64 child-birth out of wedlock65.
No, beyond these brief attacks of virtue66, I have never been able to see that the great city did not pulse along about as before. Broadway and Forty-second Street held their usual evening throngs67. The saloons and hotel bars took in fortunes from the flushed, sometimes furtive men that poured out between the acts of that “Revue.” Gamblers gambled, robbers robbed; the glittering hotels thrived; men bought and sold and centered on the ugly business of politics and bargained with the nameless girls that lurked68 in shadowy doorways—but furtively, of course, with an eye to respectability. And in parsonages on side streets clergymen studied the precise attitude of Paul toward the doctrine69 of Free Will or wrote (for Sunday evening) of the beautiful day that was close at hand when all men should sing in harmony and not discord70, with harp71 accompaniment.... No, I think, despite Zanin's purpose, despite Sue's blazing faith, what really triumphed was Peter Mann's instinct for a good story. It was the story that held them, and the real beauty of the pictures, and the acting10 and personal charm and sincerity of Sue Wilde.
All this, or something, held Sue herself. For it did catch her. She had thought she knew everything about the Nature film; whereas she knew everything about it but the Nature film. At first, naturally, her self-consciousness clung a little; then it fell away. She sat with an elbow on the arm of the seat, chin on hand, never once taking her eyes from the screen, hardly aware of the dense72 audience about her, no more than barely hearing the skilfully73 selected Russian music of the hidden, very competent orchestra.
There were two intermissions. During the first she tried to chat and failed. In the second, when the Worm suggested a turn in the open air she merely shook her head, without looking up. And that hungry look deepened in the Worm's eyes.
Toward the end, when the buffeted74 but unbowed young woman was fighting with the strength of inspired despair for the one decent hope left to her, the hope of personal freedom, Peter's story reached its highest point. As did Sue's acting. The girl herself, sitting up there in the gallery, head bowed, shading with a slim hand her wet eyes, leaned more and more closely against the dear whimsical friend at her side. When his groping hand found hers she clung to it as honestly as the girl on the screen would have done.
It was over. For a moment the house was in darkness and silence. This was another of Zanin's effects. Then the lights came on dimly; the concealed75 orchestra struck softly into another of those Russian things; the primitive people on the stage, you suddenly saw, were quietly going on about the simple business of their village. A girl like Sue walked on, skilfully picked out by the lighting76. The audience caught the suggestion and turned where they stood in seat-rows, aisles77 and entrances to applaud wildly. Still another Zaninesque touch!
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1
auditorium
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| n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂 | |
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orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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ushers
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| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
enacting
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的现在分词 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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12
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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17
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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scenario
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| n.剧本，脚本；概要 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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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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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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40
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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41
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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42
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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45
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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46
toddling
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| v.（幼儿等）东倒西歪地走( toddle的现在分词 )；蹒跚行走；溜达；散步 | |
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47
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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48
smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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49
penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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50
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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51
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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52
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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53
extermination
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| n.消灭，根绝 | |
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54
primitiveness
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| 原始，原始性 | |
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55
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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56
anarchistic
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| 无政府主义的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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58
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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59
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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60
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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62
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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64
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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65
wedlock
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| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
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66
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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67
throngs
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| n.人群( throng的名词复数 )v.成群，挤满( throng的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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69
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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70
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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71
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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72
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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74
buffeted
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| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
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75
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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76
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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