THE MONOLOGUE GIRL’S STORY

It was after the show that there were four of us sitting at the round table in the back room of The Dutchman’s on Third avenue. It’s a pretty good place, that self-same back room, and the big steins of beer are pretty good, too, with a heaping plate of pretzels always on the side and a sandwich to be had by pressing the button.
There was Al Fostell, the German comedian¹, who ought to have been in the legitimate² long ago; Harry³ Ferguson, famous for his impersonation of Happy Hooligan; Harry’s wife, Lulu Beeson, the Star of Texas, and so great a dancer that she has a Richard K. Fox medal about as long as her arm, which any beskirted performer can get by beating her at the soft shoe buck⁴; and one other, whom I shall simply designate as The Girl, because, even though she plays a star part in this, she doesn’t want to be known to the general public.
The Girl was brilliant, versatile⁵ and clever. She took it into her head to become a dancer once, and among other things she learned the fandango. She went to Mexico with a troupe⁶ and danced that famous measure in a way that made them cheer her to the echo. She played faro bank and won enough to keep her in clothes for a year.
The talk had drifted on marriage and Fostell started things.
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“I have been married a good many years, more than I care to tell,” he said, “and I have been trying to induce my daughter to call me uncle so they won’t get on to me. I claim that a performer’s domestic life can be just as pure and happy as that of a business man. I agree that there is a lot of immorality⁸ in the profession, but you’ll always find a lot of outsiders helping⁹ things along. There are times when we seem to be targets for the whole world to shoot at.”
“In my opinion,” put in Ferguson, “the performers who are in the business to make a living on their merits are for the most part decent people whose lives are an open book. The women of the chorus of the big shows on Broadway—the kind who haven’t a line to speak and who couldn’t speak it if they had—are responsible in the main for all of these sweeping¹⁰ charges of immorality. Our children are born in the shadow of the theatre, and a great part of their lives are spent in the green rooms and dressing¹¹ rooms. We try to do the best we can by them and bring them up properly.”
Then The Girl, who can tell stories and sing in a most charming way, and who for that reason has a salary that is worth considering, broke in:
“You men with wives sit back and talk of morality and all that sort of thing and you don’t know what it means. You two are lucky because you have married good women who look after your interests and bring your children up as best they can under the circumstances. You only see things from the viewpoint of the male animal, who is used to being waited on and catered¹² to. The average man says, ‘I am handsome,’ ‘I am great,’ ‘I am distinguished,’ or ‘I am the real
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 one,’ as the case may be. He sees a girl whose appearance catches his fancy and straightway he must have her. He likes her and that settles it. It makes no difference whether or not she likes him—her feelings are not to be considered. He is the one. If his passion is a strong one he pursues her to the finish and hounds her. If she still holds out he becomes actuated by a motive¹³ of revenge and so he sets out to try to injure her, to prevent her from making a living that she may feel the pinch of poverty. He uses all the influence at his command to crush and humiliate¹⁴ her, and then he taunts¹⁵ her.
“Boys, I’ve been through the mill and I know what I’m talking about. I’m a kid no longer, and I wouldn’t marry the best man on earth, nor tie myself up to him for either a definite or an indefinite length of time. No double acts for me, but monologues¹⁶ from now on until I get my 23.
“Let me tell you something you never heard before.
“One night I went down to the Battery and sat on the sea wall there for hours looking at the water smashing away at the rocks. It was moonlight and almost bright enough to read a paper. I had enough to think of while I was sitting there and I thought it, too. I know what it is to have a whirring sound in your brain, for I had it then. I was trying to get up enough courage to throw myself overboard, for I really wanted to die. I had seen all of life and of men that I wanted and had enough. I had been driven by a man from the place where I lived to the jumping-off spot as coldly, and calmly, and deliberately¹⁷ as a drover would direct the course of a steer¹⁸ to the abattoir¹⁹. He had made living impossible for me.
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“Those noises in my head had reached that stage where they were like the sound of the L road trains going past your windows at night when you’re trying to sleep, but the stronger they grew the less they annoyed me, and the idea came to me that if I wished hard enough death would come very easy.
“You know that old act of mine where I used to imitate a woman who had gone insane from grief at being abandoned by her lover? You know what a hit it always made. Well, it’s nothing like the real thing. Heart-breaking grief in its highest form is quiet. It doesn’t want the limelight or stage center, but a dark corner and seclusion²¹. It wants to be left alone.
“The next thing I remember was someone saying to me ‘Come out of here; what are you trying to do—drown yourself?’
“And there I was in the water up to my waist with a policeman holding me by the arm. He turned me around so that I faced the wall again and we walked back to where he helped me up. Then he took me, all dripping and so cold that I had no feeling at all, to the station house, where I was charged, under a most absurd law, with attempted suicide. They were humane²² enough to send for an ambulance and I was taken to the hospital and fixed²³ up so I could appear in court the next morning. The man was there—the man with his sneering²⁴ smile and his air of well-fed comfort. He had come down to look me over. He probably wanted to see the girl who had refused nearly everything that money could get, simply because she was not for sale and couldn’t be bought like a new scarf or a hat of the latest mode. He also wanted to parade his prosperity before my misery²⁵, probably that before anything else.
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 Even he must have pitied me because of my position, and he edged over to where I was and whispered:
“‘It isn’t too late yet, and I want to help you.’
“‘You mean that you want to get me out of here?’ I asked.
“‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘I want to get you out.’
“‘Well, if I were you,’ I told him, ‘I wouldn’t take any chances because if I get out of here and you ever speak to me again I will do the very best I can to kill you.’
“He shrank back as if he had been stung, and so great was his terror that I almost laughed at him. Then he turned and walked away.
“That is the curtain of my story. I could begin at the beginning and make it a long one, but what’s the use? I could make a romance of it, or even a tragedy, and now that I am my sane²⁰ self I could even make it a comedy. I could go over the list of things he promised me and what he promised to do for me, and you would think he had all the wealth of the Bank of England at his back, but his mind ran in a groove²⁶ so narrow and his manner was so offensive that the only thing that kept him in the human being class was the fact that his nostrils²⁷ were not shaped like those of a swine, and that instead of grunting²⁸ he used language that was fairly intelligible²⁹. But for once he was toppled from his self-built pedestal and he crashed down in the wreck³⁰ of his own self-conceit. Men like that make the world seem immoral⁷ and immoral in fact, and a few such as he would degrade the noblest profession in the world. Egotists and atheists, believing in nothing save self, they taint³¹ a community like a plague.
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“Bring us some more beer, Billy, for I’m going home. I’m tired and dead to the world.”
“I wouldn’t like to be the man you hated,” said Ferguson.
“My boy, I can neither hate nor love, I am simply numb³². I have had seven proposals of marriage, both in the profession and out of it, but there was nothing doing. I am absolutely emotionless. I ask no favors on account of my sex and I owe my allegiance to no man. But I am watching my tormentor³³ growing gradually old. I see him once in a while, you know, and I am keeping track of him. It’s my one joy in life. The gray has come into his hair and it is turning white and the wrinkles are spreading themselves over his face like avenging³⁴ fingers. I know he is not really happy, although he pretends to be, and some day, in some luxurious³⁵ apartment, he’ll lie dying. A million dollars will not give him one more breath nor would a hundred millions add one more day to his existence, and when he is very close to that gate which always opens inward and from which there is no retreat and I really know that he is going, then I will laugh; not the kind of a laugh you know, boys, but the kind of a laugh that follows a soul across the border line of death and which keeps echoing for ages.”
“Did you ever play the part of Ophelia?” I asked.
“No, but I could.”
And we all believed her.

1 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

2 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

3 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

4 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

5 versatile   

adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的

参考例句：

• A versatile person is often good at a number of different things.多才多艺的人通常擅长许多种不同的事情。
• He had been one of the game's most versatile athletes.他是这项运动中技术最全面的运动员之一。

6 troupe   

n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团

参考例句：

• The art troupe is always on the move in frontier guards.文工团常年在边防部队流动。
• The troupe produced a new play last night.剧团昨晚上演了一部新剧。

7 immoral   

adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的

参考例句：

• She was questioned about his immoral conduct toward her.她被询问过有关他对她的不道德行为的情况。
• It is my belief that nuclear weapons are immoral.我相信使核武器是不邪恶的。

8 immorality   

n. 不道德, 无道义

参考例句：

• All the churchmen have preached against immorality. 所有牧师都讲道反对不道德的行为。
• Where the European sees immorality and lawlessness, strict law rules in reality. 在欧洲人视为不道德和无规则的地方，事实上都盛行着一种严格的规则。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

11 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

12 catered   

提供饮食及服务( cater的过去式和过去分词 )； 满足需要，适合

参考例句：

• We catered for forty but only twenty came. 我们准备了40客饭菜，但只来了20个人。
• They catered for everyone regardless of social rank. 他们为所有人服务而不计较其社会地位。

13 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

14 humiliate   

v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace

参考例句：

• What right had they to bully and humiliate people like this?凭什么把人欺侮到这个地步呢？
• They pay me empty compliments which only humiliate me.他们虚情假意地恭维我，这只能使我感到羞辱。

15 taunts   

嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He had to endure the racist taunts of the crowd. 他不得不忍受那群人种族歧视的奚落。
• He had to endure the taunts of his successful rival. 他不得不忍受成功了的对手的讥笑。

16 monologues   

n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏

参考例句：

• That film combines real testimonials with monologues read by actors. 电影中既有真人讲的真事，也有演员的独白。 来自互联网
• Her monologues may help her make sense of her day. 她的独白可以帮助她让她一天的感觉。 来自互联网

17 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

18 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

19 abattoir   

n.屠宰场，角斗场

参考例句：

• The sheep were driven to the local abattoir.羊被赶到当地的屠宰场。
• It was surreal meeting her at the abattoir.竟然会在屠宰场里遇见她，真离奇。

20 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

21 seclusion   

n.隐遁，隔离

参考例句：

• She liked to sunbathe in the seclusion of her own garden.她喜欢在自己僻静的花园里晒日光浴。
• I live very much in seclusion these days.这些天我过着几乎与世隔绝的生活。

22 humane   

adj.人道的，富有同情心的

参考例句：

• Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗？
• Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。

23 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

24 sneering   

嘲笑的，轻蔑的

参考例句：

• "What are you sneering at?" “你冷笑什么？” 来自子夜部分
• The old sorceress slunk in with a sneering smile. 老女巫鬼鬼崇崇地走进来，冷冷一笑。

25 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

26 groove   

n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯

参考例句：

• They're happy to stay in the same old groove.他们乐于墨守成规。
• The cupboard door slides open along the groove.食橱门沿槽移开。

27 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

28 grunting   

咕哝的，呼噜的

参考例句：

• He pulled harder on the rope, grunting with the effort. 他边用力边哼声，使出更大的力气拉绳子。
• Pigs were grunting and squealing in the yard. 猪在院子里哼哼地叫个不停。

29 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

30 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

31 taint   

n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染

参考例句：

• Everything possible should be done to free them from the economic taint.应尽可能把他们从经济的腐蚀中解脱出来。
• Moral taint has spread among young people.道德的败坏在年轻人之间蔓延。

32 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

33 tormentor   

n. 使苦痛之人, 使苦恼之物, 侧幕 =tormenter

参考例句：

• He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. 他既是拷打者，又是保护者；既是审问者，又是朋友。 来自英汉文学
• The tormentor enlarged the engagement garment. 折磨者加大了订婚服装。

34 avenging   

adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复

参考例句：

• He has devoted the past five years to avenging his daughter's death. 他过去5年一心报丧女之仇。 来自辞典例句
• His disfigured face was like some avenging nemesis of gargoyle design. 他那张破了相的脸，活象面目狰狞的复仇之神。 来自辞典例句

35 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。