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chapter 9
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O
F the Raycie family, which prevailed so powerfully in the New York of the ’forties, only one of the name survived in my boyhood, half a century later. Like so many of the descendants of the proud little Colonial society, the Raycies had totally vanished, forgotten by everyone but a few old ladies, one or two genealogists and the sexton of Trinity Church, who kept the record of their graves.
The Raycie blood was of course still to be traced in various allied1 families: Kents, Huzzards, Cosbys and many others, proud to claim cousinship with a “Signer,” but already indifferent or incurious as to the fate of his progeny2. These old New
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 Yorkers, who lived so well and spent their money so liberally, vanished like a pinch of dust when they disappeared from their pews and their dinner-tables.
If I happen to have been familiar with the name since my youth, it is chiefly because its one survivor3 was a distant cousin of my mother’s, whom she sometimes took me to see on days when she thought I was likely to be good because I had been promised a treat for the morrow.
Old Miss Alethea Raycie lived in a house I had always heard spoken of as “Cousin Ebenezer’s.” It had evidently, in its day, been an admired specimen5 of domestic architecture; but was now regarded as the hideous6 though venerable relic7 of a bygone age. Miss Raycie, being crippled by rheumatism8, sat above stairs in a large cold room, meagrely furnished with beadwork tables, rosewood étagères
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 and portraits of pale sad-looking people in odd clothes. She herself was large and saturnine10, with a battlemented black lace cap, and so deaf that she seemed a survival of forgotten days, a Rosetta Stone to which the clue was lost. Even to my mother, nursed in that vanished tradition, and knowing instinctively11 to whom Miss Raycie alluded12 when she spoke4 of Mary Adeline, Sarah Anne or Uncle Doctor, intercourse13 with her was difficult and languishing14, and my juvenile15 interruptions were oftener encouraged than reproved.
In the course of one of these visits my eye, listlessly roaming, singled out among the pallid16 portraits a three-crayon drawing of a little girl with a large forehead and dark eyes, dressed in a plaid frock and embroidered17 pantalettes, and sitting on a grass-bank. I pulled my mother’s sleeve
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 to ask who she was, and my mother answered: “Ah, that was poor little Louisa Raycie, who died of a decline. How old was little Louisa when she died, Cousin Alethea?”
To batter18 this simple question into Cousin Alethea’s brain was the affair of ten laborious19 minutes; and when the job was done, and Miss Raycie, with an air of mysterious displeasure, had dropped a deep “Eleven,” my mother was too exhausted20 to continue. So she turned to me to add, with one of the private smiles we kept for each other: “It was the poor child who would have inherited the Raycie Gallery.” But to a little boy of my age this item of information lacked interest, nor did I understand my mother’s surreptitious amusement.
This far-off scene suddenly came back to me last year, when, on one of my in
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frequent visits to New York, I went to dine with my old friend, the banker, John Selwyn, and came to an astonished stand before the mantelpiece in his new library.
“Hallo!” I said, looking up at the picture above the chimney.
My host squared his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, and affected21 the air of modesty22 which people think it proper to assume when their possessions are admired. “The Macrino d’Alba? Y—yes ... it was the only thing I managed to capture out of the Raycie collection.”
“The only thing? Well——”
“Ah, but you should have seen the Mantegna; and the Giotto; and the Piero della Francesca—hang it, one of the most beautiful Piero della Francescas in the world.... A girl in profile, with her hair in a pearl net, against a background of columbines; that went back to Europe
{136}
—the National Gallery, I believe. And the Carpaccio, the most exquisite23 little St. George ... that went to California ... Lord!” He sat down with the sigh of a hungry man turned away from a groaning24 board. “Well, it nearly broke me buying this!” he murmured, as if at least that fact were some consolation25.
I was turning over my early memories in quest of a clue to what he spoke of as the Raycie collection, in a tone which implied that he was alluding26 to objects familiar to all art-lovers.
Suddenly: “They weren’t poor little Louisa’s pictures, by any chance?” I asked, remembering my mother’s cryptic27 smile.
Selwyn looked at me perplexedly. “Who the deuce is poor little Louisa?” And, without waiting for my answer, he went on: “They were that fool Netta
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 Cosby’s until a year ago—and she never even knew it.”
We looked at each other interrogatively, my friend perplexed28 at my ignorance, and I now absorbed in trying to run down the genealogy29 of Netta Cosby. I did so finally. “Netta Cosby—you don’t mean Netta Kent, the one who married Jim Cosby?”
“That’s it. They were cousins of the Raycies’, and she inherited the pictures.”
I continued to ponder. “I wanted awfully30 to marry her, the year I left Harvard,” I said presently, more to myself than to my hearer.
“Well, if you had you’d have annexed31 a prize fool; and one of the most beautiful collections of Italian Primitives32 in the world.”
“In the world?”
“Well—you wait till you see them; if you haven’t already. And I seem to make
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 out that you haven’t—that you can’t have. How long have you been in Japan? Four years? I thought so. Well, it was only last winter that Netta found out.”
“Found out what?”
“What there was in old Alethea Raycie’s attic33. You must remember the old Miss Raycie who lived in that hideous house in Tenth Street when we were children. She was a cousin of your mother’s, wasn’t she? Well, the old fool lived there for nearly half a century, with five millions’ worth of pictures shut up in the attic over her head. It seems they’d been there ever since the death of a poor young Raycie who collected them in Italy years and years ago. I don’t know much about the story; I never was strong on genealogy, and the Raycies have always been rather dim to me. They were everybody’s cousins, of course; but as far as one can
{139}
 make out that seems to have been their principal if not their only function. Oh—and I suppose the Raycie Building was called after them; only they didn’t build it!
“But there was this one young fellow—I wish I could find out more about him. All that Netta seems to know (or to care, for that matter) is that when he was very young—barely out of college—he was sent to Italy by his father to buy Old Masters—in the ’forties, it must have been—and came back with this extraordinary, this unbelievable collection ... a boy of that age!... and was disinherited by the old gentleman for bringing home such rubbish. The young fellow and his wife died ever so many years ago, both of them. It seems he was so laughed at for buying such pictures that they went away and lived like hermits34 in the depths of the country. There were some funny spectral35
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 portraits of them that old Alethea had up in her bedroom. Netta showed me one of them the last time I went to see her: a pathetic drawing of the only child, an anæmic little girl with a big forehead. Jove, but that must have been your little Louisa!”
I nodded. “In a plaid frock and embroidered pantalettes?”
“Yes, something of the sort. Well, when Louisa and her parents died, I suppose the pictures went to old Miss Raycie. At any rate, at some time or other—and it must have been longer ago than you or I can remember—the old lady inherited them with the Tenth Street house; and when she died, three or four years ago, her relations found she’d never even been upstairs to look at them.”
“Well——?”
“Well, she died intestate, and Netta
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 Kent—Netta Cosby—turned out to be the next of kin9. There wasn’t much to be got out of the estate (or so they thought) and, as the Cosbys are always hard up, the house in Tenth Street had to be sold, and the pictures were very nearly sent off to the auction36 room with all the rest of the stuff. But nobody supposed they would bring anything, and the auctioneer said that if you tried to sell pictures with carpets and bedding and kitchen furniture it always depreciated37 the whole thing; and so, as the Cosbys had some bare walls to cover, they sent for the lot—there were about thirty—and decided38 to have them cleaned and hang them up. ‘After all,’ Netta said, ‘as well as I can make out through the cobwebs, some of them look like rather jolly copies of early Italian things.’ But as she was short of cash she decided to clean them at home instead of
{142}
 sending them to an expert; and one day, while she was operating on this very one before you, with her sleeves rolled up, the man called who always does call on such occasions; the man who knows. In the given case, it was a quiet fellow connected with the Louvre, who’d brought her a letter from Paris, and whom she’d invited to one of her stupid dinners. He was announced, and she thought it would be a joke to let him see what she was doing; she has pretty arms, you may remember. So he was asked into the dining-room, where he found her with a pail of hot water and soap-suds, and this laid out on the table; and the first thing he did was to grab her pretty arm so tight that it was black and blue, while he shouted out: ‘God in heaven! Not hot water!’”
My friend leaned back with a sigh of mingled39 resentment40 and satisfaction, and
{143}
 we sat silently looking up at the lovely “Adoration” above the mantelpiece.
“That’s how I got it a little cheaper—most of the old varnish41 was gone for good. But luckily for her it was the first picture she had attacked; and as for the others—you must see them, that’s all I can say.... Wait; I’ve got the catalogue somewhere about....”
He began to rummage42 for it, and I asked, remembering how nearly I had married Netta Kent: “Do you mean to say she didn’t keep a single one of them?”
“Oh, yes—in the shape of pearls and Rolls-Royces. And you’ve seen their new house in Fifth Avenue?” He ended with a grin of irony43: “The best of the joke is that Jim was just thinking of divorcing her when the pictures were discovered.”
“Poor little Louisa!” I sighed.
THE END

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1 allied iLtys     
adj.协约国的;同盟国的
参考例句:
  • Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
  • Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。
2 progeny ZB5yF     
n.后代,子孙;结果
参考例句:
  • His numerous progeny are scattered all over the country.他为数众多的后代散布在全国各地。
  • He was surrounded by his numerous progeny.众多的子孙簇拥着他。
3 survivor hrIw8     
n.生存者,残存者,幸存者
参考例句:
  • The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
  • There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。
4 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
5 specimen Xvtwm     
n.样本,标本
参考例句:
  • You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
  • This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。
6 hideous 65KyC     
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的
参考例句:
  • The whole experience had been like some hideous nightmare.整个经历就像一场可怕的噩梦。
  • They're not like dogs,they're hideous brutes.它们不像狗,是丑陋的畜牲。
7 relic 4V2xd     
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物
参考例句:
  • This stone axe is a relic of ancient times.这石斧是古代的遗物。
  • He found himself thinking of the man as a relic from the past.他把这个男人看成是过去时代的人物。
8 rheumatism hDnyl     
n.风湿病
参考例句:
  • The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
  • The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。
9 kin 22Zxv     
n.家族,亲属,血缘关系;adj.亲属关系的,同类的
参考例句:
  • He comes of good kin.他出身好。
  • She has gone to live with her husband's kin.她住到丈夫的亲戚家里去了。
10 saturnine rhGyi     
adj.忧郁的,沉默寡言的,阴沉的,感染铅毒的
参考例句:
  • The saturnine faces of the judges.法官们那阴沉的脸色。
  • He had a rather forbidding,saturnine manner.他的举止相当乖戾阴郁。
11 instinctively 2qezD2     
adv.本能地
参考例句:
  • As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近,她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 alluded 69f7a8b0f2e374aaf5d0965af46948e7     
提及,暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • In your remarks you alluded to a certain sinister design. 在你的谈话中,你提到了某个阴谋。
  • She also alluded to her rival's past marital troubles. 她还影射了对手过去的婚姻问题。
13 intercourse NbMzU     
n.性交;交流,交往,交际
参考例句:
  • The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
  • There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。
14 languishing vpCz2c     
a. 衰弱下去的
参考例句:
  • He is languishing for home. 他苦思家乡。
  • How long will she go on languishing for her red-haired boy? 为想见到她的红头发的儿子,她还将为此烦恼多久呢?
15 juvenile OkEy2     
n.青少年,少年读物;adj.青少年的,幼稚的
参考例句:
  • For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人,他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
  • Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。
16 pallid qSFzw     
adj.苍白的,呆板的
参考例句:
  • The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face.月亮从云朵后面钻出来,照着尸体那张苍白的脸。
  • His dry pallid face often looked gaunt.他那张干瘪苍白的脸常常显得憔悴。
17 embroidered StqztZ     
adj.绣花的
参考例句:
  • She embroidered flowers on the cushion covers. 她在这些靠垫套上绣了花。
  • She embroidered flowers on the front of the dress. 她在连衣裙的正面绣花。
18 batter QuazN     
v.接连重击;磨损;n.牛奶面糊;击球员
参考例句:
  • The batter skied to the center fielder.击球手打出一个高飞球到中外野手。
  • Put a small quantity of sugar into the batter.在面糊里放少量的糖。
19 laborious VxoyD     
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅
参考例句:
  • They had the laborious task of cutting down the huge tree.他们接受了伐大树的艰苦工作。
  • Ants and bees are laborious insects.蚂蚁与蜜蜂是勤劳的昆虫。
20 exhausted 7taz4r     
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的
参考例句:
  • It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长,到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
  • Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。
21 affected TzUzg0     
adj.不自然的,假装的
参考例句:
  • She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
  • His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。
22 modesty REmxo     
n.谦逊,虚心,端庄,稳重,羞怯,朴素
参考例句:
  • Industry and modesty are the chief factors of his success.勤奋和谦虚是他成功的主要因素。
  • As conceit makes one lag behind,so modesty helps one make progress.骄傲使人落后,谦虚使人进步。
23 exquisite zhez1     
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的
参考例句:
  • I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
  • I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。
24 groaning groaning     
adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式
参考例句:
  • She's always groaning on about how much she has to do. 她总抱怨自己干很多活儿。
  • The wounded man lay there groaning, with no one to help him. 受伤者躺在那里呻吟着,无人救助。
25 consolation WpbzC     
n.安慰,慰问
参考例句:
  • The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
  • This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。
26 alluding ac37fbbc50fb32efa49891d205aa5a0a     
提及,暗指( allude的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • He didn't mention your name but I was sure he was alluding to you. 他没提你的名字,但是我确信他是暗指你的。
  • But in fact I was alluding to my physical deficiencies. 可我实在是为自己的容貌寒心。
27 cryptic yyDxu     
adj.秘密的,神秘的,含义模糊的
参考例句:
  • She made a cryptic comment about how the film mirrored her life.她隐晦地表示说这部电影是她人生的写照。
  • The new insurance policy is written without cryptic or mysterious terms.新的保险单在编写时没有隐秘条款或秘密条款。
28 perplexed A3Rz0     
adj.不知所措的
参考例句:
  • The farmer felt the cow,went away,returned,sorely perplexed,always afraid of being cheated.那农民摸摸那头牛,走了又回来,犹豫不决,总怕上当受骗。
  • The child was perplexed by the intricate plot of the story.这孩子被那头绪纷繁的故事弄得迷惑不解。
29 genealogy p6Ay4     
n.家系,宗谱
参考例句:
  • He had sat and repeated his family's genealogy to her,twenty minutes of nonstop names.他坐下又给她细数了一遍他家族的家谱,20分钟内说出了一连串的名字。
  • He was proficient in all questions of genealogy.他非常精通所有家谱的问题。
30 awfully MPkym     
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地
参考例句:
  • Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
  • I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。
31 annexed ca83f28e6402c883ed613e9ee0580f48     
[法] 附加的,附属的
参考例句:
  • Germany annexed Austria in 1938. 1938年德国吞并了奥地利。
  • The outlying villages were formally annexed by the town last year. 那些偏远的村庄于去年正式被并入该镇。
32 primitives 9e1458cd0f9b5cb89abeeed7490f1446     
原始人(primitive的复数形式)
参考例句:
  • Almost all operators work only with primitives. 几乎所有运算符都只能操作“主类型”(Primitives)。
  • The anthropology of the future will not be concerned above all else with primitives. 未来的人类学不会以原始人为主要的研究对象。
33 attic Hv4zZ     
n.顶楼,屋顶室
参考例句:
  • Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
  • What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理?
34 hermits 878e9ed8ce97a52b2b0c8664ad4bd37c     
(尤指早期基督教的)隐居修道士,隐士,遁世者( hermit的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • In the ancient China,hermits usually lived in hamlets. 在古代中国,隐士们通常都住在小村子里。
  • Some Buddhist monks live in solitude as hermits. 有些和尚在僻静处隐居。
35 spectral fvbwg     
adj.幽灵的,鬼魂的
参考例句:
  • At times he seems rather ordinary.At other times ethereal,perhaps even spectral.有时他好像很正常,有时又难以捉摸,甚至像个幽灵。
  • She is compelling,spectral fascinating,an unforgettably unique performer.她极具吸引力,清幽如鬼魅,令人着迷,令人难忘,是个独具特色的演员。
36 auction 3uVzy     
n.拍卖;拍卖会;vt.拍卖
参考例句:
  • They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
  • They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。
37 depreciated 053c238029b04d162051791be7db5dc4     
v.贬值,跌价,减价( depreciate的过去式和过去分词 );贬低,蔑视,轻视
参考例句:
  • Fixed assets are fully depreciated. 折旧足额。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • Shares in the company have depreciated. 该公司的股票已经贬值。 来自辞典例句
38 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
39 mingled fdf34efd22095ed7e00f43ccc823abdf     
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系]
参考例句:
  • The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
  • The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候,这一男一女就开始交往了。
40 resentment 4sgyv     
n.怨愤,忿恨
参考例句:
  • All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
  • She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。
41 varnish ni3w7     
n.清漆;v.上清漆;粉饰
参考例句:
  • He tried to varnish over the facts,but it was useless.他想粉饰事实,但那是徒劳的。
  • He applied varnish to the table.他给那张桌子涂上清漆。
42 rummage dCJzb     
v./n.翻寻,仔细检查
参考例句:
  • He had a good rummage inside the sofa.他把沙发内部彻底搜寻了一翻。
  • The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles.老太太开始在口袋里摸索,找她的眼镜。
43 irony P4WyZ     
n.反语,冷嘲;具有讽刺意味的事,嘲弄
参考例句:
  • She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
  • In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。


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