In other realms her mansion4, her beautiful mansion, would have been called a castle, or even a palace, so high was the wall, crowned with pink tiles, that enclosed and protected it from evil. The common gaze was warded5 from the door by a grove6 of thorns and trees, through which an avenue curved a long way round from the house to the big gate. The gate was of knotted oak, but it had been painted and grained most cleverly to represent some other fabulous7 wood. There was this inscription8 upon it: NO HAWKERS, NO CIRCULARS, NO GRATUITIES9. Everybody knew the princess had not got any of these things, but it was because they also knew the mansion had no throne in it that people sneered10, really—but how unreasonable11; you might just[102] as well grumble12 at a chime that hadn’t got a clock! As the princess herself remarked—“What is a throne without highmindedness!”—hinting, of course, at certain people whom I dare not name. Behind the mansion lay a wondrous13 garden, like the princess herself above everything in beauty. A very private bower14 was in the midst of it, guarded with corridors of shaven yew15 and a half-circle hedge of arbutus and holly16. A slim river flowed, not by dispensation, but by accident, through the bower, and the bed and bank of it, screened by cypresses17, had been lined, not by accident but by design—so strange are the workings of destiny—with tiles and elegant steps for a bathing pool. Here the princess, when the blazon18 of the sun was enticing19, used to take off her robes of silk and her garments of linen20 and walk about the turf of the bower around the squinancy tree before slipping into the dark velvet21 water.
One day when she stepped out from the pool she discovered a lot of crimson22 flower petals23 clinging to her white skin. “How beautiful they are,” she cried, picking up her mirror, “and where do they come from?” As soon as convenient she enquired24 upon this matter of her Lord Chancellor25, a man named Smith who had got on very well in life but was a bit of a smudge.
“Crimson petals in the bath!”
“Yes, they have floated down with the stream.”
“How disgusting! Very! I’ll make instant enquiries!”
He searched and he searched—he was very thorough was Smith—but though his researches took no end of[103] time, and he issued a bulky dossier commanding all and sundry26 to attach the defiant27 person of the miscreant28 or miscreants29 who had defiled30 the princess’s bath stream or pool with refuse detritus31 or scum, offering, too, rewards for information leading to his, her or their detection, conviction, and ultimate damnation, they availed him not. The princess continued to bathe and to emerge joyfully32 from the stream covered with petals and looking as wonderful as a crimson leopard33. She caught some of the petals with a silver net; she dried them upon the sunlight and hid them in the lining34 of her bed, for they were full of acrid35 but pleasing odours. So she herself early one morning walked abroad, early indeed, and passed along the river until she came to the field adjoining the mansion. Very sweet and strange the world seemed in the quiet after dawn. She stopped beside a half-used rick to look about her; there was a rush of surprised wings behind the stack and a thousand starlings fled up into the air. She heard their wings beating the air until they had crossed the river and dropped gradually into an elm tree like a black shower. Then she perceived a tall tree shining with crimson blooms and long dark boughs36 bending low upon the river. Near it a tiny red cottage stood in the field like a painted box, surrounded by green triangular37 bushes. It was a respectable looking cottage, named River View. On her approach the door suddenly opened, and a youth with a towel, just that and nothing more, emerged. He took flying rejoicing leaps towards the flaming tree, sprung upon its lowest limb and flung himself into the stream. He glided38 there[104] like a rod of ivory, but a crimson shower fell from the quivering tree and veiled the pleasing boy until he climbed out upon the opposite bank and stood covered, like a leopard, with splendid crimson scars. The princess dared peer no longer; she retraced39 her steps, musing40 homewards to breakfast, and was rude to Smith because he was such a fool not to have discovered the young man who lived next door under the mysterious tree.
At the earliest opportunity she left a card at River View. Narcissus was the subject’s name, and in due time he came to dinner, and they had green grapes and black figs41, nuts like sweet wax and wine like melted amethysts42. The princess loved him so much that he visited her very often and stayed very late. He was only a poet and she a princess, so she could not possibly marry him although this was what she very quickly longed to do; but as she was only a princess, and he a poet clinking his golden spurs, he did not want to be married to her. He had thick curling locks of hair red as copper43, the mild eyes of a child, and a voice that could outsing a thousand delightful44 birds. When she heard his soft laughter in the dim delaying eve he grew strange and alluring45 to the princess. She knew it was because he was so beautiful that everybody loved him and wanted to win and keep him, but he had no inclination46 for anything but his art—which was to express himself. That was very sad for the princess; to be able to retain nothing of him but his poems, his fading images, while he himself eluded47 her as the wind eludes48 all detaining arms,[105] forest and feather, briar and down of a bird. He did not seem to be a man at all but just a fairy image that slipped from her arms, gone, like brief music in the moonlight, before she was aware.
When he fell sick she watched by his bed.
All he would answer was: “I dream of loving you, and I love dreaming of you, but how can I tell if I love you?”
“Ask the fox in your brake, the hart upon your mountain. I can never know if you love me.”
“The same wind blows in desert as in grove.”
“You do not love at all.”
“Words are vain, princess, but when I die, put these white hands like flowers about my heart; if I dream the unsleeping dream I will tell you there.”
“My beloved,” she said, “if you die I will put upon your grave a shrine52 of silver, and in it an ark of gold jewelled with green garnets and pink sapphires53. My spirit should dwell in it alone and wait for you; until you came back again I could not live.”
The poet died.
The princess was wild with grief, but she commanded her Lord Chancellor and he arranged magnificent obsequies. The shrine of silver and the ark of jewelled gold were ordered, a grave dug in a new[106] planted garden more wonderful than the princess’s bower, and a To Let bill appeared in the window of River View. At last Narcissus, with great pomp, was buried, the shrine and the ark of gold were clapped down upon him, and the princess in blackest robes was led away weeping on the arm of Smith—Smith was wonderful.
The sun that evening did not set—it mildly died out of the sky. Darkness came into the meadows, the fogs came out of them and hovered54 over the river and the familiar night sounds began. The princess sat in the mansion with a lonely heart from which all hopes were receding55; no, not receding, she could see only the emptiness from which all her hopes had gone.
At midnight the spirit of Narcissus in its cerecloth rose up out of the grave, frail56 as a reed; rose out of its grave and stood in the cloudy moonlight beside the shrine and the glittering ark. He tapped upon the jewels with his fingers but there was no sound came from it, no fire, no voice. “O holy love,” sighed the ghost, “it is true what I feared, it is true, alas57, it is true!” And lifting again his vague arm he crossed out the inscription on his tomb and wrote there instead with a grey and crumbling58 finger his last poem:
Pride and grief in your heart,
Love and grief in mine.
Then he crept away until he came to the bower in the princess’s garden. It was all silent and cold; the moon was touching59 with brief beam the paps of the plaster[107] Diana. The ghost laid himself down to rest for ever beneath the squinancy tree, to rest and to wait; he wanted to forestall60 time’s inscrutable awards. He sank slowly into the earth as a knot of foam61 slips through the beach of the seashore. Deep down he rested and waited.
Day after day, month after month, the constant princess went to her new grove of lamentation62. The grave garden was magnificent with holy flowers, the shrine polished and glistening63, the inscription crisp and clear—the ghost’s erasure64 being vain for mortal eyes. In the ark she knew her spirit brooded and yearned65, she fancied she could see its tiny flame behind the garnets and sapphires, and in a way this gave her happiness. Meanwhile her own once happy bower was left to neglect. The bolt rusted66 in its gate, the shrubs67 rioted, tree trunks were crusted with oozy68 fungus69, their boughs cracked to decay, the rose fell rotten, and toads70 and vermin lurked71 in the desolation of the glades72. ’Twas pitiful; ’twas as if the heart of the princess had left its pleasant bower and had indeed gone to live in her costly73 shrine.
In the course of time she was forced to go away on business of state and travelled for many months; on her return the face of the Lord Chancellor was gloomy with misery74. The golden ark had been stolen. Alarm and chagrin75 filled the princess. She went to the grave. It too had now grown weedy and looked forlorn. It was as if her own heart had been stolen away from her. “Oh,” she moaned, “what does it matter!” and, turning away, went home to her bower.[108] There, among that sad sight, she saw a strange new tree almost in bloom. She gave orders for the pool to be cleansed76 and the bower restored to its former beauty. This was done, and on a bright day when the blazon of the sun was kind she went into the bower again, flung her black robes from her, and slipped like a rod of ivory into the velvet water. There were no blooms to gather now, though she searched with her silver net, but as she walked from the pool her long hair caught in the boughs of the strange tall squinancy tree, and in the disentangling it showered upon her beautiful crimson blooms that as they fell lingered upon her hips77, her sweet shoulders, and kissed her shining knees.
点击收听单词发音
1 barbarians | |
n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 );外国人;粗野的人;无教养的人 | |
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2 indignities | |
n.侮辱,轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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3 heed | |
v.注意,留意;n.注意,留心 | |
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4 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
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5 warded | |
有锁孔的,有钥匙榫槽的 | |
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6 grove | |
n.林子,小树林,园林 | |
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7 fabulous | |
adj.极好的;极为巨大的;寓言中的,传说中的 | |
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8 inscription | |
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文 | |
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9 gratuities | |
n.报酬( gratuity的名词复数 );小账;小费;养老金 | |
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10 sneered | |
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11 unreasonable | |
adj.不讲道理的,不合情理的,过度的 | |
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12 grumble | |
vi.抱怨;咕哝;n.抱怨,牢骚;咕哝,隆隆声 | |
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13 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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14 bower | |
n.凉亭,树荫下凉快之处;闺房;v.荫蔽 | |
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15 yew | |
n.紫杉属树木 | |
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16 holly | |
n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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17 cypresses | |
n.柏属植物,柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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18 blazon | |
n.纹章,装饰;精确描绘;v.广布;宣布 | |
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19 enticing | |
adj.迷人的;诱人的 | |
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20 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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21 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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22 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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23 petals | |
n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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24 enquired | |
打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 ); 询问; 问问题; 查问 | |
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25 chancellor | |
n.(英)大臣;法官;(德、奥)总理;大学校长 | |
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26 sundry | |
adj.各式各样的,种种的 | |
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27 defiant | |
adj.无礼的,挑战的 | |
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28 miscreant | |
n.恶棍 | |
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29 miscreants | |
n.恶棍,歹徒( miscreant的名词复数 ) | |
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30 defiled | |
v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 );污染;弄脏;纵列行进 | |
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31 detritus | |
n.碎石 | |
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32 joyfully | |
adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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33 leopard | |
n.豹 | |
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34 lining | |
n.衬里,衬料 | |
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35 acrid | |
adj.辛辣的,尖刻的,刻薄的 | |
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36 boughs | |
大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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37 triangular | |
adj.三角(形)的,三者间的 | |
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38 glided | |
v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
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39 retraced | |
v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 );回忆;回顾;追溯 | |
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40 musing | |
n. 沉思,冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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41 figs | |
figures 数字,图形,外形 | |
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42 amethysts | |
n.紫蓝色宝石( amethyst的名词复数 );紫晶;紫水晶;紫色 | |
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43 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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44 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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45 alluring | |
adj.吸引人的,迷人的 | |
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46 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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47 eluded | |
v.(尤指机敏地)避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 );逃避;躲避;使达不到 | |
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48 eludes | |
v.(尤指机敏地)避开( elude的第三人称单数 );逃避;躲避;使达不到 | |
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49 caressing | |
爱抚的,表现爱情的,亲切的 | |
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50 arrogant | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的 | |
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51 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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52 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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53 sapphires | |
n.蓝宝石,钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 );蔚蓝色 | |
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54 hovered | |
鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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55 receding | |
v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 );向后倾斜;自原处后退或避开别人的注视;尤指问题 | |
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56 frail | |
adj.身体虚弱的;易损坏的 | |
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57 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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58 crumbling | |
adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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59 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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60 forestall | |
vt.抢在…之前采取行动;预先阻止 | |
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61 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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62 lamentation | |
n.悲叹,哀悼 | |
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63 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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64 erasure | |
n.擦掉,删去;删掉的词;消音;抹音 | |
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65 yearned | |
渴望,切盼,向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66 rusted | |
v.(使)生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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68 oozy | |
adj.软泥的 | |
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69 fungus | |
n.真菌,真菌类植物 | |
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70 toads | |
n.蟾蜍,癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 ) | |
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71 lurked | |
vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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72 glades | |
n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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73 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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74 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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75 chagrin | |
n.懊恼;气愤;委屈 | |
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76 cleansed | |
弄干净,清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77 hips | |
abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯,耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 );[建筑学]屋脊;臀围(尺寸);臀部…的 | |
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