WHEN I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the road-way, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying, ‘I am hungry and thirsty!’
‘Does he know they are dead?’ asked one of another.
‘I don’t know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled2 against their teeth, and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and thirsty.’ That was all I had to say about it.
The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked around me; and I smelt4 vinegar, and what I know to be camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel5 of smoking vinegar on the ground near me; and then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I couldn’t help it.
I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur6 of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, ‘My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity7 Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.’ Then the ring split in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously8.
‘He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just dead too,’ said Mr. Hawkyard.
‘Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,’ said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me. ‘I have undertaken a slight — a very slight — trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of mere10 honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.’
The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much more favourable11 than their opinion of me.
‘He shall be taught,’ said Mr. Hawkyard, ‘(O, yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate12 infection.’ The ring widened considerably13. ‘What is to be done with him?’
He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save ‘Farm-house.’ There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew afterwards to be ‘Hoghton Towers.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Hawkyard. ‘I think that sounds promising14; I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a ward3, for a night or two, you say?’
It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was he who replied, Yes! It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed15 room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress16 to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me; and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared and disinfected in a variety of ways.
When all this was done, — I don’t know in how many days or how few, but it matters not, — Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close to it, and said, ‘Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That’ll do. How do you feel?’
I told him that I didn’t feel cold, and didn’t feel hungry, and didn’t feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better not say much — in fact, you had better be very careful not to say anything — about what your parents died of, or they might not like to take you in. Behave well, and I’ll put you to school; O, yes! I’ll put you to school, though I’m not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the Lord, George; and I have been a good servant to him, I have, these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.’
What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination17 or congregation, every member of which held forth18 to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that day in the ward, that the farmer’s cart was waiting for me at the street corner. I was not slow to get into it; for it was the first ride I ever had in my life.
It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted; and, meanwhile, I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was; but I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury father and mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the ward superseded19 those questions.
The jolting20 of the cart on a loose stony21 road awoke me; and I found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by- road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, and by some rugged22 outbuildings that had once been fortified23, and passing under a ruined gateway24 we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers: which I looked at like a stupid savage25, seeing no specially26 in, seeing no antiquity27 in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent28 cause of all ruin that I knew, — poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls29 pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels30, drying in the sunlight, could be goodly porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had done, according to my ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows, passing over that airy height on the bright spring day, were not something in the nature of frowns, — sordid31, afraid, unadmiring, — a small brute32 to shudder33 at.
To that time I had never had the faintest impression of duty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar-steps into the street, and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate34 a mangy young dog or wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse35 with myself. I had been solitary36 often enough, but nothing better.
Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner that day, in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young vampire37.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
severely
|
|
| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
rattled
|
|
| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
ward
|
|
| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
smelt
|
|
| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
vessel
|
|
| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
verity
|
|
| n.真实性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
copiously
|
|
| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
ravening
|
|
| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
favourable
|
|
| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
disseminate
|
|
| v.散布；传播 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
considerably
|
|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
promising
|
|
| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
whitewashed
|
|
| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
mattress
|
|
| n.床垫，床褥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
denomination
|
|
| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
superseded
|
|
| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
jolting
|
|
| adj.令人震惊的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
stony
|
|
| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
rugged
|
|
| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
fortified
|
|
| adj. 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
gateway
|
|
| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
specially
|
|
| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
antiquity
|
|
| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
potent
|
|
| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
fowls
|
|
| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
sordid
|
|
| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
brute
|
|
| n.野兽，兽性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
shudder
|
|
| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
animate
|
|
| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
converse
|
|
| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
vampire
|
|
| n.吸血鬼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |