We were eighteen days travelling to Riolama, on the last two making little progress, on account of continuous rain, which made us miserable1 beyond description. Fortunately the dogs had found, and Nuflo had succeeded in killing2, a great ant-eater, so that we were well supplied with excellent, strength-giving flesh. We were among the Riolama mountains at last, and Rima kept with us, apparently3 expecting great things. I expected nothing, for reasons to be stated by and by. My belief was that the only important thing that could happen to us would be starvation.
The afternoon of the last day was spent in skirting the foot of a very long mountain, crowned at its southern extremity4 with a huge, rocky mass resembling the head of a stone sphinx above its long, couchant body, and at its highest part about a thousand feet above the surrounding level. It was late in the day, raining fast again, yet the old man still toiled5 on, contrary to his usual practice, which was to spend the last daylight hours in gathering6 firewood and in constructing a shelter. At length, when we were nearly under the peak, he began to ascend7. The rise in this place was gentle, and the vegetation, chiefly composed of dwarf8 thorn trees rooted in the clefts9 of the rock, scarcely impeded11 our progress; yet Nuflo moved obliquely12, as if he found the ascent13 difficult, pausing frequently to take breath and look round him. Then we came to a deep, ravine-like cleft10 in the side of the mountain, which became deeper and narrower above us, but below it broadened out to a valley; its steep sides as we looked down were clothed with dense14, thorny15 vegetation, and from the bottom rose to our ears the dull sound of a hidden torrent16. Along the border of this ravine Nuflo began toiling17 upwards18, and finally brought us out upon a stony19 plateau on the mountain-side. Here he paused and, turning and regarding us with a look as of satisfied malice20 in his eyes, remarked that we were at our journey’s end, and he trusted the sight of that barren mountain-side would compensate21 us for all the discomforts22 we had suffered during the last eighteen days.
I heard him with indifference23. I had already recognized the place from his own exact description of it, and I now saw all that I had looked to see — a big, barren hill. But Rima, what had she expected that her face wore that blank look of surprise and pain? “Is this the place where mother appeared to you?” she suddenly cried. “The very place — this! This!” Then she added: “The cave where you tended her — where is it?”
“Over there,” he said, pointing across the plateau, which was partially24 overgrown with dwarf trees and bushes, and ended at a wall of rock, almost vertical25 and about forty feet high.
Going to this precipice26, we saw no cave until Nuflo had cut away two or three tangled27 bushes, revealing an opening behind, about half as high and twice as wide as the door of an ordinary dwelling-house.
The next thing was to make a torch, and aided by its light we groped our way in and explored the interior. The cave, we found, was about fifty feet long, narrowing to a mere28 hole at the extremity; but the anterior29 portion formed an oblong chamber30, very lofty, with a dry floor. Leaving our torch burning, we set to work cutting bushes to supply ourselves with wood enough to last us all night. Nuflo, poor old man, loved a big fire dearly; a big fire and fat meat to eat (the ranker its flavour, the better he liked it) were to him the greatest blessings31 that man could wish for. In me also the prospect32 of a cheerful blaze put a new heart, and I worked with a will in the rain, which increased in the end to a blinding downpour.
By the time I dragged my last load in, Nuflo had got his fire well alight, and was heaping on wood in a most lavish33 way. “No fear of burning our house down tonight,” he remarked, with a chuckle34 — the first sound of that description he had emitted for a long time.
After we had satisfied our hunger, and had smoked one or two cigarettes, the unaccustomed warmth, and dryness, and the firelight affected35 us with drowsiness36, and I had probably been nodding for some time; but starting at last and opening my eyes, I missed Rima. The old man appeared to be asleep, although still in a sitting posture37 close to the fire. I rose and hurried out, drawing my cloak close around me to protect me from the rain; but what was my surprise on emerging from the cave to feel a dry, bracing38 wind in my face and to see the desert spread out for leagues before me in the brilliant white light of a full moon! The rain had apparently long ceased, and only a few thin white clouds appeared moving swiftly over the wide blue expanse of heaven. It was a welcome change, but the shock of surprise and pleasure was instantly succeeded by the maddening fear that Rima was lost to me. She was nowhere in sight beneath, and running to the end of the little plateau to get free of the thorn trees, I turned my eyes towards the summit, and there, at some distance above me, caught sight of her standing39 motionless and gazing upwards. I quickly made my way to her side, calling to her as I approached; but she only half turned to cast a look at me and did not reply.
“Rima,” I said, “why have you come here? Are you actually thinking of climbing the mountain at this hour of the night?” “Yes — why not?” she returned, moving one or two steps from me.
“Rima — sweet Rima, will you listen to me?”
“Now? Oh, no — why do you ask that? Did I not listen to you in the wood before we started, and you also promised to do what I wished? See, the rain is over and the moon shines brightly. Why should I wait? Perhaps from the summit I shall see my people’s country. Are we not near it now?”
“Oh, Rima, what do you expect to see? Listen — you must listen, for I know best. From that summit you would see nothing but a vast dim desert, mountain and forest, mountain and forest, where you might wander for years, or until you perished of hunger or fever, or were slain40 by some beast of prey41 or by savage42 men; but oh, Rima, never, never, never would you find your people, for they exist not. You have seen the false water of the mirage43 on the savannah, when the sun shines bright and hot; and if one were to follow it one would at last fall down and perish, with never a cool drop to moisten one’s parched44 lips. And your hope, Rima — this hope to find your people which has brought you all the way to Riolama — is a mirage, a delusion45, which will lead to destruction if you will not abandon it.”
She turned to face me with flashing eyes. “You know best!” she exclaimed. “You know best and tell me that! Never until this moment have you spoken falsely. Oh, why have you said such things to me — named after this place, Riolama? Am I also like that false water you speak of — no divine Rima, no sweet Rima? My mother, had she no mother, no mother’s mother? I remember her, at Voa, before she died, and this hand seems real — like yours; you have asked to hold it. But it is not he that speaks to me — not one that showed me the whole world on Ytaioa. Ah, you have wrapped yourself in a stolen cloak, only you have left your old grey beard behind! Go back to the cave and look for it, and leave me to seek my people alone!”
Once more, as on that day in the forest when she prevented me from killing the serpent, and as on the occasion of her meeting with Nuflo after we had been together on Ytaioa, she appeared transformed and instinct with intense resentment47 — a beautiful human wasp48, and every word a sting.
“Rima,” I cried, “you are cruelly unjust to say such words to me. If you know that I have never deceived you before, give me a little credit now. You are no delusion — no mirage, but Rima, like no other being on earth. So perfectly49 truthful50 and pure I cannot be, but rather than mislead you with falsehoods I would drop down and die on this rock, and lose you and the sweet light that shines on us for ever.”
As she listened to my words, spoken with passion, she grew pale and clasped her hands. “What have I said? What have I said?” She spoke46 in a low voice charged with pain, and all at once she came nearer, and with a low, sobbing52 cry sank down at my feet, uttering, as on the occasion of finding me lost at night in the forest near her home, tender, sorrowful expressions in her own mysterious language. But before I could take her in my arms she rose again quickly to her feet and moved away a little space from me.
“Oh no, no, it cannot be that you know best!” she began again. “But I know that you have never sought to deceive me. And now, because I falsely accused you, I cannot go there without you” — pointing to the summit — “but must stand still and listen to all you have to say.”
“You know, Rima, that your grandfather has now told me your history — how he found your mother at this place, and took her to Voa, where you were born; but of your mother’s people he knows nothing, and therefore he can now take you no further.”
“Ah, you think that! He says that now; but he deceived me all these years, and if he lied to me in the past, can he not still lie, affirming that he knows nothing of my people, even as he affirmed that he knew not Riolama?”
“He tells lies and he tells truth, Rima, and one can be distinguished53 from the other. He spoke truthfully at last, and brought us to this place, beyond which he cannot lead you.”
“You are right; I must go alone.”
“Not so, Rima, for where you go, there we must go; only you will lead and we follow, believing only that our quest will end in disappointment, if not in death.”
“Believe that and yet follow! Oh no! Why did he consent to lead me so far for nothing?”
“Do you forget that you compelled him? You know what he believes; and he is old and looks with fear at death, remembering his evil deeds, and is convinced that only through your intercession and your mother’s he can escape from perdition. Consider, Rima, he could not refuse, to make you more angry and so deprive himself of his only hope.”
My words seemed to trouble her, but very soon she spoke again with renewed animation54. “If my people exist, why must it be disappointment and perhaps death? He does not know; but she came to him here — did she not? The others are not here, but perhaps not far off. Come, let us go to the summit together to see from it the desert beneath us — mountain and forest, mountain and forest. Somewhere there! You said that I had knowledge of distant things. And shall I not know which mountain — which forest?”
“Alas! no, Rima; there is a limit to your far-seeing; and even if that faculty55 were as great as you imagine, it would avail you nothing, for there is no mountain, no forest, in whose shadow your people dwell.”
For a while she was silent, but her eyes and clasping fingers were restless and showed her agitation56. She seemed to be searching in the depths of her mind for some argument to oppose to my assertions. Then in a low, almost despondent57 voice, with something of reproach in it, she said: “Have we come so far to go back again? You were not Nuflo to need my intercession, yet you came too.”
“Where you are, there I must be — you have said it yourself. Besides, when we started I had some hope of finding your people. Now I know better, having heard Nuflo’s story. Now I know that your hope is a vain one.”
“Why? Why? Was she not found here — mother? Where, then, are the others?”
“Yes, she was found here, alone. You must remember all the things she spoke to you before she died. Did she ever speak to you of her people — speak of them as if they existed, and would be glad to receive you among them some day?”
“No. Why did she not speak of that? Do you know — can you tell me?”
“I can guess the reason, Rima. It is very sad — so sad that it is hard to tell it. When Nuflo tended her in the cave and was ready to worship her and do everything she wished, and conversed58 with her by signs, she showed no wish to return to her people. And when he offered her, in a way she understood, to take her to a distant place, where she would be among strange beings, among others like Nuflo, she readily consented, and painfully performed that long journey to Voa. Would you, Rima, have acted thus — would you have gone so far away from your beloved people, never to return, never to hear of them or speak to them again? Oh no, you could not; nor would she if her people had been in existence. But she knew that she had survived them, that some great calamity59 had fallen upon and destroyed them. They were few in number, perhaps, and surrounded on every side by hostile tribes, and had no weapons, and made no war. They had been preserved because they inhabited a place apart, some deep valley perhaps, guarded on all sides by lofty mountains and impenetrable forests and marshes60; but at last the cruel savages61 broke into this retreat and hunted them down, destroying all except a few fugitives62, who escaped singly like your mother, and fled away to hide in some distant solitude63.”
The anxious expression on her face deepened as she listened to one of anguish64 and despair; and then, almost before I concluded, she suddenly lifted her hands to her head, uttering a low, sobbing cry, and would have fallen on the rock had I not caught her quickly in my arms. Once more in my arms — against my breast, her proper place! But now all that bright life seemed gone out of her; her head fell on my shoulder, and there was no motion in her except at intervals65 a slight shudder66 in her frame accompanied by a low, gasping67 sob51. In a little while the sobs68 ceased, the eyes were closed, the face still and deathly white, and with a terrible anxiety in my heart I carried her down to the cave.
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1
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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32
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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drowsiness
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| n.睡意；嗜睡 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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46
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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48
wasp
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| n.黄蜂，蚂蜂 | |
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49
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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50
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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51
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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52
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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53
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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54
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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55
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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56
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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57
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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58
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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59
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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60
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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63
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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65
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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66
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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