Ihr lerntet alle nicht tanzen, wie man tanzen muss — uber euch hinweg tanzen!
Nietzsche
The school year had ebbed1; the ceremonies that attended its conclusion were over. A few days beforehand, the fifth-form boarders, under the tutelage of a couple of governesses, drove off early in the morning to the distant university. On the outward journey the candidates were thoughtful and subdued2; but as they returned home, in the late afternoon, their spirits were not to be kept within seemly bounds. They laughed, sang, and rollicked about inside the wagonette, Miss Zielinski weakly protesting unheard — were so rowdy that the driver pushed his cigar-stump to the corner of his mouth, to be able to smile at ease, and flicked3 his old horse into a canter. For the public examination had proved as anticipated, child’s play, compared with what the class had been through at Dr Pughson’s hands; and its accompanying details were of an agreeable nature: the weather was not too hot; the examination-hall was light and airy; through the flung-back windows trees and flowering shrubs4 looked in; the students were watched over by a handsome Trinity man, who laid his straw hat on the desk before him.
Then came the annual concert, at which none of the performers broke down; Speech Day, when the body of a big hall was crowded with relatives and friends, and when so many white, blue-beribboned frocks were massed together on the platform, that this looked like a great bed of blue and white flowers; and, finally, trunks were brought out from boxrooms and strewn through the floors, and upper-form girls emptied cupboards and drawers into them for the last time.
On the evening before the general dispersion, Laura, Cupid, and M. P. walked the well-known paths of the garden once again. While the two elder girls were more loquacious5 than their wont6, Laura was quieter. She had never wholly recovered her humour since the day of the history-examination; and she still could not look back, with composure, on the jeopardy7 in which she had placed herself one little turn of the wheel in the wrong direction, and the end of her schooldays would have been shame and disgrace.— And just as her discovery of God’s stratagem8 had damped her religious ardour, so her antipathy9 to the means she had been obliged to employ had left a feeling of enmity in her, towards the school and everything connected with it: she had counted the hours till she could turn her back on it altogether. None the less, now that the time had come there was a kind of ache in her at having to say good-bye; for it was in her nature to let go unwillingly10 of things, places and people once known. Besides, glad as she felt to have done with learning, she was unclear what was to come next. The idea of life at home attracted her as little as ever — Mother had even begun to hint as well that she would now be expected to instruct her young brothers. Hence, her parting was effected with very mixed feelings; she did not know in the least where she really belonged, or under what conditions she would be happy; she was conscious only of a mild sorrow at having to take leave of the shelter of years.
Her two companions had no such doubts and regrets; for them the past was already dead and gone; their talk was all of the future, so soon to become the present. They forecast this, mapping it out for themselves with the iron belief in their power to do so, which is the hall-mark of youth.
Laura, walking at their side, listened to their words with the deepest interest, and with the reverence11 she had learned to extend to all opinions save her own.
M. P. proposed to return to Melbourne at the end of the vacation; for she was going on to Trinity, where she intended to take one degree after another. She hesitated only whether it was to be in medicine or arts.
“Oogh! . . . to cut off people’s legs!” ejaculated Laura. “M. P., how awful.”
“Oh, one soon gets used to that, child.— But I think, on the whole, I should prefer to take up teaching. Then I shall probably be able to have a school of my own some day.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you got Sandy’s place here,” said Laura, who was assured that M. P.‘s massy intellect would open all doors.
“Who knows?” answered Mary, and set her lips in a determined12 fashion of her own. “Stranger things have happened.”
Cupid, less enamoured of continual discipline, intended to be a writer. “My cousin says I’ve got the stuff in me. And he’s a journalist and ought to know.”
“I should rather think he ought.”
“Well, I mean to have a shot at it.”
“And you, Laura?” M. P. asked suavely13.
“Me?— Oh, goodness knows!”
“Close as usual, Infant.”
“No, really not, Cupid.”
“Well, you’ll soon have to make up your mind to something now. You’re nearly sixteen.— Why not go on working for your B.A.?”
“No thanks! I’ve had enough of that here.” And Laura’s thoughts waved their hands, as it were, to the receding14 figure of Oliver Cromwell.
“Be a teacher, then.”
“M.P.! I never want to hear a date or add up a column of figures again.”
“Laura!”
“It’s the solemn truth. I’m fed up with all those blessed things.”
“Fancy not having a single wish!”
“Wish? . . . oh, I’ve tons of wishes. First I want to be with Evvy again. And then, I want to see things — yes, that most of all. Hundreds and thousands of things. People, and places, and what they eat, and how they dress, and China, and Japan . . . just tons.”
“You’ll have to hook a millionaire for that, my dear.”
“And perhaps you’ll write a book about your travels for us stay-at-homes.”
“Gracious! I shouldn’t know how to begin. But you’ll send me all you write — all YOUR books — won’t you, Cupid? And, M. P., you’ll let me come and see you get your degrees — every single one.”
With these and similar promises the three girls parted. They never met again. For a time they exchanged letters regularly, many-sheeted letters, full of familiar, personal detail. Then the detail ceased, the pages grew fewer in number, the time-gap longer. Letters in turn gave place to mere15 notes and postcards, scribbled16 in violent haste, at wide intervals17. And ultimately even these ceased; and the great silence of separation was unbroken. Nor were the promises redeemed18: there came to Laura neither gifts of books nor calls to be present at academic robings. Within six months of leaving school, M. P. married and settled down in her native township; and thereafter she was forced to adjust the rate of her progress to the steps of halting little feet. Cupid went a-governessing, and spent the best years of her life in the obscurity of the bush.
And Laura? . . . In Laura’s case, no kindly19 Atropos snipped20 the thread of her aspirations21: these, large, vague, extemporary, one and all achieved fulfilment; then withered22 off to make room for more. But this, the future still securely hid from her. She went out from school with the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg23, which fitted into none of the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience she was richer by, had, in the process of equipping her for life, merely seemed to disclose her unfitness. She could not then know that, even for the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found; seeming unfitness prove to be only another aspect of a peculiar24 and special fitness. But, of the after years, and what they brought her, it is not the purport25 of this little book to tell. It is enough to say: many a day came and went before she grasped that, oftentimes, just those mortals who feel cramped26 and unsure in the conduct of everyday life, will find themselves to rights, with astounding27 ease, in that freer, more spacious28 world where no practical considerations hamper29, and where the creatures that inhabit dance to their tune30: the world where are stored up men’s best thoughts, the hopes, and fancies; where the shadow is the substance, and the multitude of business pales before the dream.
In the meantime, however, the exodus31 of the fifty-five turned the College upside-down.
Early the following morning Laura made her final preparations for departure. This, alas32! was not to be on so imposing33 a scale as the departures of her schoolfellows. They, under special escort, would have a cab apiece, and would drive off with flying handkerchiefs and all their luggage piled high in front. Whereas Laura’s box had gone by van: for she and Pin, who was in Melbourne on a visit, were to spend a couple of days at Godmother’s before starting up-country. Even her farewells, which she had often rehearsed to herself with dramatic emphasis, went off without eclat34. Except for Miss Chapman, the governesses were absent when the moment came, and Miss Chapman’s mind was so full of other things that she went on giving orders while she was shaking hands.
But Laura was not destined35 to leave the walls, within the shadow of which she had learned so much, as tamely as all this. There was still a surprise in waiting for her. As she whisked about the corridors in search of Mrs. Gurley, she met two girls, one of whom said: “I say, Laura Rambotham, you’re fetched. Your pretty sister’s come for you.”
“My . . . who?” gaped36 Laura.
“Your sister. By gum, there’s a nose for you — and those whopping eyes! You’ll have to play second fiddle37 to THAT, all your days, my dear.”
On entering the reception-room Laura tried hard to see Pin with the eyes of a stranger. Pin rose from her chair — awkwardly, of course, for there were other people present, and Laura’s violent stare was disconcerting in the extreme: it made Pin believe her hat was crooked38, or that she had a black speck39 on her nose. As for Laura, she could see no great change in her sister; the freckles40 were certainly paler, and the features were perhaps beginning to emerge a little, from the cushiony fat in which they were bedded; but that was all. Still, if outsiders, girls in particular, were struck by it . . .
A keener stab than this — really, she did not grudge41 Pin being pretty: it was only the newness of the thing that hurt — a keener stab was it that, though she had ordered Pin repeatedly, and with all the stress she was master of, to come in a wagonette to fetch her, so that she might at least drive away like the other girls; in spite of this, the little nincompoop had after all arrived on foot. Godmother had said the idea of driving was stuff and nonsense — a quite unnecessary expense. Pin, of course, had meekly42 given in; and thus Laura’s last brave attempt to be comfortably like her companions came to naught43. She went out of the school in the same odd and undignified fashion in which she had lived there.
The wrangle44 caused by Pin’s chicken-heartedness lasted the sisters down the garden-path, across the road, and over into the precincts of a large, public park. Only when they were some distance through this, did Laura wake to what was happening to her. Then, it came over her with a rush: she was free, absolutely free; she might do any mortal thing she chose.
As a beginning she stopped short.
“Hold on, Pin . . . take this,” she said, giving her sister the heavy leather bag they were carrying in turns to the tramway. Pin obediently held out her hand, in its little white cotton glove.
“And my hat.”
“What are you going to do, Laura?”
“You’ll see.”
“You’ll get sunstroke!”
“Fiddles!— it’s quite shady. Here’re my gloves.— Now, Pin, you follow your nose and you’ll find me — WHERE you find me!”
“Oh, what ARE you going to do, Laura?” cried Pin, in anxiety.
“I’m going to have a good run,” said Laura; and tightened45 her hair-ribbon.
“Oh, but you can’t run in the street! You’re too big. People’ll see you.”
“Think I care?— If you’d been years only doing what you were allowed to, I guess you’d want to do something you weren’t allowed to, too.— Good-bye!”
She was off, had darted46 away into the leaden heat of the December morning, like an arrow from its bow, her head bent47, her arms close to her sides, fleet-footed as a spaniel: Pin was faced by the swift and rhythmic48 upturning of her heels. There were not many people abroad at this early hour, but the few there were, stood still and looked in amazement49 after the half-grown girl in white, whose thick black plait of hair sawed up and down as she ran; and a man with mop and bucket, who was washing statues, stopped his work and whistled, and winked50 at Pin as she passed.
Cross and confused Pin trudged51 after her sister, Laura’s hat and gloves in one hand, the leather bag in the other.
Right down the central avenue ran Laura, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the area of her movements decreasing as she ran, till she appeared to be almost motionless, and not much larger than a figure in the background of a picture. Then came a sudden bend in the long, straight path. She shot round it, and was lost to sight.
The End
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ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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jeopardy
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| n.危险；危难 | |
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stratagem
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| n.诡计，计谋 | |
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antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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suavely
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receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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snipped
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| v.剪( snip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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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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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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31
exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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32
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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eclat
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| n.显赫之成功，荣誉 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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38
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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40
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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42
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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43
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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44
wrangle
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| vi.争吵 | |
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45
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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46
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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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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48
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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49
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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50
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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51
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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