In November Harry1 Bellamy, tall, broad, and brisk, came down from his Northern city to spend four days. His intention was to settle a matter that had been hanging fire since he and Sally Carrol had met in Asheville, North Carolina, in midsummer. The settlement took only a quiet afternoon and an evening in front of a glowing open fire, for Harry Bellamy had everything she wanted; and, beside, she loved him — loved him with that side of her she kept especially for loving. Sally Carrol had several rather clearly defined sides.
On his last afternoon they walked, and she found their steps tending half-unconsciously toward one of her favorite haunts, the cemetery2. When it came in sight, gray-white and golden-green under the cheerful late sun, she paused, irresolute3, by the iron gate.
“Are you mournful by nature, Harry?” she asked with a faint smile.
“Mournful?” Not I.”
“Then let’s go in here. It depresses some folks, but I like it.”
They passed through the gateway4 and followed a path that led through a wavy5 valley of graves — dusty-gray and mouldy for the fifties; quaintly6 carved with flowers and jars for the seventies; ornate and hideous7 for the nineties, with fat marble cherubs8 lying in sodden9 sleep on stone pillows, and great impossible growths of nameless granite10 flowers.
Occasionally they saw a kneeling figure with tributary11 flowers, but over most of the graves lay silence and withered12 leaves with only the fragrance13 that their own shadowy memories could waken in living minds.
They reached the top of a hill where they were fronted by a tall, round head-stone, freckled14 with dark spots of damp and half grown over with vines.
“Margery Lee,” she read; “1844-1873. Wasn’t she nice? She died when she was twenty-nine. Dear Margery Lee,” she added softly. “Can’t you see her, Harry?”
“Yes, Sally Carrol.”
He felt a little hand insert itself into his.
“She was dark, I think; and she always wore her hair with a ribbon in it, and gorgeous hoop-skirts of Alice blue and old rose.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, she was sweet, Harry! And she was the sort of girl born to stand on a wide, pillared porch and welcome folks in. I think perhaps a lot of men went away to war meanin’ to come back to her; but maybe none of ’em ever did.”
He stooped down close to the stone, hunting for any record of marriage.
“There’s nothing here to show.”
“Of course not. How could there be anything there better than just ‘Margery Lee,’ and that eloquent15 date?”
She drew close to him and an unexpected lump came into his throat as her yellow hair brushed his cheek.
“You see how she was, don’t you Harry?”
“I see,” he agreed gently. “I see through your precious eyes. You’re beautiful now, so I know she must have been.”
Silent and close they stood, and he could feel her shoulders trembling a little. An ambling16 breeze swept up the hill and stirred the brim of her floppidy hat.
“Let’s go down there!”
She was pointing to a flat stretch on the other side of the hill where along the green turf were a thousand grayish-white crosses stretching in endless, ordered rows like the stacked arms of a battalion17.
“Those are the Confederate dead,” said Sally Carrol simply.
They walked along and read the inscriptions18, always only a name and a date, sometimes quite indecipherable.
“The last row is the saddest — see, ‘way over there. Every cross has just a date on it and the word ‘Unknown.’”
She looked at him and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I can’t tell you how real it is to me, darling — if you don’t know.”
“How you feel about it is beautiful to me.”
“No, no, it’s not me, it’s them — that old time that I’ve tried to have live in me. These were just men, unimportant evidently or they wouldn’t have been ‘unknown’; but they died for the most beautiful thing in the world — the dead South. You see,” she continued, her voice still husky, her eyes glistening19 with tears, “people have these dreams they fasten onto things, and I’ve always grown up with that dream. It was so easy because it was all dead and there weren’t any disillusions20 comin’ to me. I’ve tried in a way to live up to those past standards of noblesse oblige — there’s just the last remnants of it, you know, like the roses of an old garden dying all round us — streaks21 of strange courtliness and chivalry22 in some of these boys an’ stories I used to hear from a Confederate soldier who lived next door, and a few old darkies. Oh, Harry, there was something, there was something! I couldn’t ever make you understand but it was there.”
“I understand,” he assured her again quietly.
Sally Carol smiled and dried her eyes on the tip of a handkerchief protruding23 from his breast pocket.
“You don’t feel depressed24, do you, lover? Even when I cry I’m happy here, and I get a sort of strength from it.”
Hand in hand they turned and walked slowly away. Finding soft grass she drew him down to a seat beside her with their backs against the remnants of a low broken wall.
“Wish those three old women would clear out,” he complained. “I want to kiss you, Sally Carrol.”
“Me, too.”
They waited impatiently for the three bent25 figures to move off, and then she kissed him until the sky seemed to fade out and all her smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy26 of eternal seconds.
Afterward27 they walked slowly back together, while on the corners twilight28 played at somnolent29 black-and-white checkers with the end of day.
“You’ll be up about mid-January,” he said, “and you’ve got to stay a month at least. It’ll be slick. There’s a winter carnival30 on, and if you’ve never really seen snow it’ll be like fairy-land to you. There’ll be skating and skiing and tobogganing and sleigh-riding, and all sorts of torchlight parades on snow-shoes. They haven’t had one for years, so they’re gong to make it a knock-out.”
“Will I be cold, Harry?” she asked suddenly.
“You certainly won’t. You may freeze your nose, but you won’t be shivery cold. It’s hard and dry, you know.”
“I guess I’m a summer child. I don’t like any cold I’ve ever seen.”
She broke off and they were both silent for a minute.
“Sally Carol,” he said very slowly, “what do you say to — March?”
“I say I love you.”
“March?”
“March, Harry.”
收听单词发音 |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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cherubs
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| 小天使，胖娃娃( cherub的名词复数 ) | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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ambling
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的现在分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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disillusions
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| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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somnolent
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| adj.想睡的，催眠的；adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地 | |
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carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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