Chapter 8

 EVERYTHING in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, if he would, and everything in all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but herself could be, — this was Adelina.

 

I will not expatiate¹ upon her beauty; I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now: she is ever present to me in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and good.

 

When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In the first day? in the first week? in the first month? Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail?

 

Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me now to have been very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy or pride, or comfort, mingled² with my pain.

 

But later on, — say, a year later on, — when I made another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. That other discovery was —

 

These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, when imprisoned³ here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have withered⁴ away. That discovery was that she loved me.

 

She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may have over-valued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion⁵ which she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom, according to the light of the world’s dark lanterns, and loved me for that; she may — she must — have confused the borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure, original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it.

 

Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in my lady’s eyes as if I had been some domesticated⁶ creature of another kind. But they could not put me farther from her than I put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. They could not put me, by millions of fathoms⁷, half so low beneath her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and left her to find herself, in the zenith of her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty⁸, plodding⁹ me.

 

No! Worldliness should not enter here at any cost. If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try to keep it out from this sacred place!

 

But there was something daring in her broad, generous character, that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and patiently addressed. And many and many a bitter night (O, I found I could cry for reasons not purely¹⁰ physical, at this pass of my life!) I took my course.

 

My lady had, in our first interview, unconsciously overstated the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle; and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic; bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon.

 

I resolved to bring these two together.

1 expatiate   

v.细说，详述

参考例句：

• The tendency to expatiate and make much of local advantages was Western.喜欢唠唠叨叨、夸张本地优点的脾气是西部特有的。
• My present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks.现在我并不打算絮絮不休地描述我的散步。

2 mingled   

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。

3 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

4 withered   

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

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

5 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

6 domesticated   

adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He is thoroughly domesticated and cooks a delicious chicken casserole. 他精于家务，烹制的砂锅炖小鸡非常可口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The donkey is a domesticated form of the African wild ass. 驴是非洲野驴的一种已驯化的品种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 fathoms   

英寻( fathom的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The harbour is four fathoms deep. 港深为四英寻。
• One bait was down forty fathoms. 有个鱼饵下沉到四十英寻的深处。

8 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

9 plodding   

a.proceeding in a slow or dull way

参考例句：

• They're still plodding along with their investigation. 他们仍然在不厌其烦地进行调查。
• He is plodding on with negotiations. 他正缓慢艰难地进行着谈判。

10 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。