Anyway here came old Elijah, grinning broadly, hat in hand, his fringe of white hair blowing about his nearly bald black head. He shook Stacey’s hand vigorously.
“I shuah almos’ thought you wasn’t on that theah train, Mistuh Stacey,” he declared. “Theah didn’ seem nothin’ but babies.” And he carried Stacey’s bag across the platform to a buggy.
“Hello!” said Stacey, “you’re driving Duke! What will Mr. Carroll say to that, Elijah?”
“Well, Mistuh Stacey, suh, I jes’ had to get you home somehow. These heah Fohds at the garage, jes’ as like as not they get stuck on the Meldrun road. I wouldn’ have drove Duke ’cept foh that. It’s been rainin’ a powehful lot.”
“Haven’t they mended that road yet?” Stacey inquired, getting into the buggy.
“No, suh, not yet. You stop that, Duke, suh!” he called to the horse, who, impatient of the shafts10, was curveting sideways down the street.
Two or three people came up to the buggy and shook Stacey’s hand, and he replied to their greetings as heartily11 as he could; but he was eager to be rid of them, and felt relief when presently the town was left behind and the buggy was ploughing through the waste of red mud known as the Meldrun road. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in the seat, drawing in deep breaths of the damp chilly12 air, and letting Elijah’s words run on unchecked and unheeded.
The landscape was a sweet and pleasant one even now in winter when the oaks and the poplars were bare of leaves. The rolling brick-colored fields, planted with corn, were interspersed13 with patches of woods, where hills rose, blue with spruce and dark green with white pine. Beyond were the low friendly mountains. Log cabins were scattered about here and there, with pigs, dogs and ragged14 children playing indiscriminately before them. All the people Stacey met or passed on the road raised their hats gravely, and Stacey raised his in return. He was enough of this country, and also sufficiently15 intelligent, to have no sentimental16 northern fancies about its romantic aristocracy. He had no more illusions about the people of Pickens than about the people of Vernon. If the latter were vulgar, the former were bigoted17. There greed took on gigantic forms; here it revealed itself in petty ways. Here, as there, he thought, it was the one permanent human instinct. He did not know what labor18 conditions were now at the knitting mills; he knew what they had been six years ago, the last time he had been down, and he was skeptical19 of any change. Yet the sight of people here bothered him less than in Vernon, it seemed. That, he thought idly, was because here the inhabitants were more a part of their country, stood out less blatantly20 against the landscape, blended with it—or almost. Not because they and it were picturesque21, but because they had belonged to their country for many generations, whereas in Vernon nobody had been molded by continuous residence into harmony with anything. And Stacey reflected that only in rural New England and the South did you get this impression of harmony between landscape and people, as though they had mutually made one another. Really they were at bottom very alike, rural New England and the South, though each would have been shocked at the idea. Each with a continuous past from which it had sprung, to which it belonged. A tight, narrow, little past, but authentic22.
Stacey was roused from meditation23 by a sense that Elijah had been saying the same words a great many times, and that the words were a question.
“How’s that, Elijah?” he asked.
“I was jes’ sayin’, Mistuh Stacey, as how I reckoned you’d be wantin’ some colohed girl to cook foh you an’ make youah bed?”
“No,” said Stacey calmly, “I don’t want any one. You’ll do that, Elijah.”
The old man grew melancholy24. “Shuah, Mistuh Stacey, if you say so,” he replied sadly. “I’ll wohk myself to the bone foh you, but I jes’ don’ know if I positively25 got the time to do everythin’ jes’ right. I got a powehful lot to do, Mistuh Stacey.”
“What is it, Elijah?”
“Well, I got to look afteh Duke, suh, an’ then theah’s all that big place to see to.”
“A couple of men working on it, aren’t there?”
“Yes, suh, but that’s jes’ it. They don’ wohk ’less’n I stan’s oveh them all the time.”
“They probably don’t work if you do. I don’t want a maid, Elijah. You can hire a woman to come in and clean for a couple of hours in the morning, but I don’t want to see her.”
“Yes, suh,” said the negro, in a tone of aggrieved26 resignation. But he got over it almost at once, with quick forgetfulness, and was presently babbling27 on as before.
When at last they approached the Carroll property Stacey looked about him more attentively28, with a wistful sense of what was past, such as one might feel in reading over old letters, full of youthful affection, to some one all but forgotten now.
The house, three miles distant from the town, was low and rambling29, with deep verandahs and numerous sleeping-porches. It sat on a knoll30 among ten acres of sloping lawn and perhaps ninety of oak and pine woods; and from its front verandah one looked away, west, for miles up a narrowing valley between tree-clad mountains. “Valley Ridge,” Stacey remembered, half humorously, half painfully, Julie had tried to call the place in her boarding-school days, and had come down one Christmas vacation with heavy blue stationery31 embossed in silver with that legend; at which their father had remarked that if she ever used any of that “Princess Alice abomination” he’d get some pink paper for himself, have “The Pig Sty” engraved32 for a heading, and write letters on it to the principal of Julie’s school.
It was odd, Stacey thought, that the recollection of this trivial incident should remain in his mind as something touching33, more touching than the memory of really emotional events—his mother’s death, for instance. How things clung—the absurdest things! One could never get rid of them. They were like tattered34 cobwebs in corners.
But they had reached the end of the driveway by now, and Stacey sprang out.
After supper he sat, huddled35 in an overcoat, on the wide front verandah of the house. The low mountains, only a mile to the north, were hazy36 blue in the twilight37. Later the moon rose, and soft brightness spread over everything. Straight ahead the narrow valley took on shimmering38 pearly tints39, range after luminous40 range of mountains intersecting its sides, like filmy theatre-drops in a stage setting.
In the midst of this pale silence a sense of reposefulness came over Stacey. It did not spring from any achieved harmony. He had harmonized nothing. He had, as he was perfectly41 aware, merely bolted. And nothing that he had felt was gone. His pain at Phil’s death, his compassion42 for Catherine, his hatred43 of men, his resentment44 at this rag of a world,—all this and everything was still alive within him, but submerged beneath his isolation45. When he thought of men he still thought of them as greedy beasts of prey46; but it was possible for him now, he believed, not to see them and be one of them.
At last, when it had grown very late, he went up to the bed Elijah had made for him on a sleeping-porch, from which, too, he had the same view of the shining valley; and so fell asleep.
And now began for Stacey as solitary47 a life as that of any medieval hermit48. Every morning he went out on Duke for a fifteen- or twenty-mile ride over mountain roads and paths, returning splashed with mud and frequently drenched49 through, for the season was exceptionally rainy. And after the late cold luncheon50 which he trained Elijah to leave spread out for him, he would set off again, on foot, for the woods.
The letters that came for him he tossed unopened into the library desk, except those from his father and Catherine. Theirs he read, but hastily, and replied to them with an effort. He did not so much mind reading or even answering Mr. Carroll’s; he did so almost mechanically. But Catherine’s were different. Matter-of-fact and never touching on general ideas, they were yet, in some cool way, intimate, and certainly without the shyness that had always hampered51 Catherine in talking to Stacey. It was as though in these letters she assumed that he was real, as he felt that she was. And this was painful to him, dragging him back into the world from which he had fled. Writing to her was hard, and he was aware that his letters must be dull. But Catherine did not write often—only once every two or three weeks.
Stacey also read a letter from Julie. But Julie was a poor correspondent, writing, when positively forced to, in an odd stilted52 manner quite uncharacteristic of her pleasant self. Only this one effort came from her; but Stacey would not have minded fifty letters as unreal. The postscript53, however, did sound like Julie, and brought Stacey back for a moment to Vernon. “How did Irene know where you were when Phil was dying?” it demanded. Oh, so it was Irene who had told Julie, and Julie Catherine, that he was at Clarefield! He stared ahead of him, recalling the tragedy; then laid Julie’s letter among the others in the desk drawer.
A few people called on Stacey, and he was polite enough to them; but he never returned their visits, and soon no one troubled him further. It was a difficult matter to drive out from town through all that mud. When, rarely, he did talk with people he received an impression that they were literally54 very far off. Their voices seemed to reach him from a distance, or deadened as though through a barrier of fog. It was like conversation in a dream.
Sometimes on his rides he would get so far away or be caught in so terrific a storm that he would stay over night in some mountaineer’s cabin. On these occasions he was welcomed with a grave courtesy unmarred by apologies for what his hosts had to offer. The cabin invariably had but one room and a lean-to. Supper over, the women would go to bed, while the master of the house and Stacey smoked their pipes outside. Then the two of them would enter, undress in the dark, and lie down together. It did not irk Stacey to be with these people. They seemed apathetic55 and emotionless, and their eyes had an abstracted look.
On the other hand, if human feeling had faded in him, his long neglected fancy was waking to new life. His mind grew, like an enchanted56 wood, into a tangle57 of imaginings, that gave him sometimes a feeling of release, a lifting sense of delight. Similes58 flitted through it rapidly. A cloud shadow on a blue mountain was like a veil flung across the face of a goddess, heightening her loveliness. The sudden sound of a brook59 in the forest was like shy laughter. What was laughter? Something delicately unhuman, perhaps, an expression of the youthful buoyant relation between earth’s creatures and the earth. Biologists said that animals could not laugh. Idiotic60! It was only animals and children that could laugh. A dog laughed. Even Duke could laugh. It was true that cats could not, but this was because they were not primitive61 animals, but civilized62. Men did not laugh. They smirked63 or—or—ricanaient. Stacey could not think of the English word and indolently did not try to.
He noted64 with calm contempt this revival65 of fancifulness in himself, saying that he had reverted66 to the sentimentalism of his early life. For all along he was contemptuous of himself for his surrender. Further than this he would not look. He avoided himself as persistently67 as he avoided others.
Yet in his reading he did not turn to poetry and romance. He read Tolstoy, Samuel Butler and Thomas Hardy68. He cared, in fact, for no books that did not treat solely69 and squarely of men’s relations to one another. He would have nothing to do with men; he would read of nothing else.
Months passed, with Stacey scarcely aware of their smooth succession. He was like a man asleep, vaguely70 dreaming. But it was only a sleep, a semi-conscious state into which one sinks, however pleasantly, when tired. Even in those moments when his fancy played delightedly over some sudden glimpse of beauty he was at bottom dissatisfied—like a man struggling achingly in a dream to enfold and make real the unsubstantial vision of his mistress.
By this time April had come. The Judas trees had burned themselves out, the fresh pale green of oaks and maples71 shimmered72 against the dark green of the pines, the forests were white with dog-wood blossom, and on the lower mountain slopes masses of flame azalea made the ground beneath the trees appear on fire. Much of Stacey’s present calm came through his freedom from men; but much, too, from the silent satisfaction of his starved sense of beauty. He read less now and went on longer rides.
But his calm was insecure. Something impetuous fluttered within him, too strong for this life of fancy. Mentally he was still isolated73; physically74 he was restless, stirred tumultuously by the spring, called to union with the warm thrilling life all about him.
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1
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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repulsively
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| adv.冷淡地 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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10
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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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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skeptical
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| adj.怀疑的，多疑的 | |
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blatantly
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| ad.公开地 | |
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21
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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26
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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27
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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28
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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29
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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30
knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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31
stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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32
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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33
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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35
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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36
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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37
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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38
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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39
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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40
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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41
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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42
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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43
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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44
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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45
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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46
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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47
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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48
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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49
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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50
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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51
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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53
postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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54
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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55
apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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56
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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57
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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58
similes
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| （使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 ) | |
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59
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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60
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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61
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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62
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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63
smirked
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| v.傻笑( smirk的过去分词 ) | |
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64
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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65
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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66
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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67
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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68
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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69
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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70
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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71
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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72
shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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74
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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