From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals1 marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath with a spot of the most intricate colour. The light fell either upon the smooth, grey back of a pebble2, or, the shell of a snail3 with its brown, circular veins4, or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such intensity5 of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one expected them to burst and disappear. Instead, the drop was left in a second silver grey once more, and the light now settled upon the flesh of a leaf, revealing the branching thread of fibre beneath the surface, and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green spaces beneath the dome6 of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens in July.
The figures of these men and women straggled past the flower-bed with a curiously7 irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue butterflies who crossed the turf in zig-zag flights from bed to bed. The man was about six inches in front of the woman, strolling carelessly, while she bore on with greater purpose, only turning her head now and then to see that the children were not too far behind. The man kept this distance in front of the woman purposely, though perhaps unconsciously, for he wished to go on with his thoughts.
“Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily,” he thought. “We sat somewhere over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot afternoon. How the dragonfly kept circling round us: how clearly I see the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle8 at the toe. All the time I spoke9 I saw her shoe and when it moved impatiently I knew without looking up what she was going to say: the whole of her seemed to be in her shoe. And my love, my desire, were in the dragonfly; for some reason I thought that if it settled there, on that leaf, the broad one with the red flower in the middle of it, if the dragonfly settled on the leaf she would say “Yes” at once. But the dragonfly went round and round: it never settled anywhere — of course not, happily not, or I shouldn’t be walking here with Eleanor and the children — Tell me, Eleanor. D’you ever think of the past?”
“Why do you ask, Simon?”
“Because I’ve been thinking of the past. I’ve been thinking of Lily, the woman I might have married . . . Well, why are you silent? Do you mind my thinking of the past?”
“Why should I mind, Simon? Doesn’t one always think of the past, in a garden with men and women lying under the trees? Aren’t they one’s past, all that remains10 of it, those men and women, those ghosts lying under the trees . . . one’s happiness, one’s reality?”
“For me, a square silver shoe buckle and a dragonfly —”
“For me, a kiss. Imagine six little girls sitting before their easels twenty years ago, down by the side of a lake, painting the water-lilies, the first red water-lilies I’d ever seen. And suddenly a kiss, there on the back of my neck. And my hand shook all the afternoon so that I couldn’t paint. I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would allow myself to think of the kiss for five minutes only — it was so precious — the kiss of an old grey-haired woman with a wart11 on her nose, the mother of all my kisses all my life. Come, Caroline, come, Hubert.”
They walked on the past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast12, and soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent13 as the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling irregular patches.
In the oval flower bed the snail, whose shelled had been stained red, blue, and yellow for the space of two minutes or so, now appeared to be moving very slightly in its shell, and next began to labour over the crumbs14 of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over them. It appeared to have a definite goal in front of it, differing in this respect from the singular high stepping angular green insect who attempted to cross in front of it, and waited for a second with its antenna15 trembling as if in deliberation, and then stepped off as rapidly and strangely in the opposite direction. Brown cliffs with deep green lakes in the hollows, flat, blade-like trees that waved from root to tip, round boulders16 of grey stone, vast crumpled17 surfaces of a thin crackling texture18 — all these objects lay across the snail’s progress between one stalk and another to his goal. Before he had decided19 whether to circumvent20 the arched tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came past the bed the feet of other human beings.
This time they were both men. The younger of the two wore an expression of perhaps unnatural21 calm; he raised his eyes and fixed22 them very steadily23 in front of him while his companion spoke, and directly his companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them at all. The elder man had a curiously uneven24 and shaky method of walking, jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly25, rather in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting outside a house; but in the man these gestures were irresolute26 and pointless. He talked almost incessantly27; he smiled to himself and again began to talk, as if the smile had been an answer. He was talking about spirits — the spirits of the dead, who, according to him, were even now telling him all sorts of odd things about their experiences in Heaven.
“Heaven was known to the ancients as Thessaly, William, and now, with this war, the spirit matter is rolling between the hills like thunder.” He paused, seemed to listen, smiled, jerked his head and continued:——
“You have a small electric battery and a piece of rubber to insulate the wire — isolate28? — insulate? — well, we’ll skip the details, no good going into details that wouldn’t be understood — and in short the little machine stands in any convenient position by the head of the bed, we will say, on a neat mahogany stand. All arrangements being properly fixed by workmen under my direction, the widow applies her ear and summons the spirit by sign as agreed. Women! Widows! Women in black ——”
Here he seemed to have caught sight of a woman’s dress in the distance, which in the shade looked a purple black. He took off his hat, placed his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and gesticulating feverishly29. But William caught him by the sleeve and touched a flower with the tip of his walking-stick in order to divert the old man’s attention. After looking at it for a moment in some confusion the old man bent30 his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice speaking from it, for he began talking about the forests of Uruguay which he had visited hundreds of years ago in company with the most beautiful young woman in Europe. He could be heard murmuring about forests of Uruguay blanketed with the wax petals of tropical roses, nightingales, sea beaches, mermaids31, and women drowned at sea, as he suffered himself to be moved on by William, upon whose face the look of stoical patience grew slowly deeper and deeper.
Following his steps so closely as to be slightly puzzled by his gestures came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout32 and ponderous33, the other rosy34 cheeked and nimble. Like most people of their station they were frankly35 fascinated by any signs of eccentricity36 betokening37 a disordered brain, especially in the well-to-do; but they were too far off to be certain whether the gestures were merely eccentric or genuinely mad. After they had scrutinised the old man’s back in silence for a moment and given each other a queer, sly look, they went on energetically piecing together their very complicated dialogue:
“Nell, Bert, Lot, Cess, Phil, Pa, he says, I says, she says, I says, I says, I says ——”
“My Bert, Sis, Bill, Grandad, the old man, sugar, Sugar, flour, kippers, greens, Sugar, sugar, sugar.”
The ponderous woman looked through the pattern of falling words at the flowers standing38 cool, firm, and upright in the earth, with a curious expression. She saw them as a sleeper39 waking from a heavy sleep sees a brass40 candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar41 way, and closes his eyes and opens them, and seeing the brass candlestick again, finally starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers. So the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was saying. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top part of her body slowly backwards42 and forwards, looking at the flowers. Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea.
The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined43 him finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of the butterfly, though fully44 grown, are motionless in the sun.
“Lucky it isn’t Friday,” he observed.
“Why? D’you believe in luck?”
“They make you pay sixpence on Friday.”
“What’s sixpence anyway? Isn’t it worth sixpence?”
“What’s ‘it’— what do you mean by ‘it’?”
“O, anything — I mean — you know what I mean.”
Long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in toneless and monotonous45 voices. The couple stood still on the edge of the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down into the soft earth. The action and the fact that his hand rested on the top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way, as these short insignificant46 words also expressed something, words with short wings for their heavy body of meaning, inadequate47 to carry them far and thus alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them, and were to their inexperienced touch so massive; but who knows (so they thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth) what precipices48 aren’t concealed49 in them, or what slopes of ice don’t shine in the sun on the other side? Who knows? Who has ever seen this before? Even when she wondered what sort of tea they gave you at Kew, he felt that something loomed50 up behind her words, and stood vast and solid behind them; and the mist very slowly rose and uncovered — O, Heavens, what were those shapes? — little white tables, and waitresses who looked first at her and then at him; and there was a bill that he would pay with a real two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to her; even to him it began to seem real; and then — but it was too exciting to stand and think any longer, and he pulled the parasol out of the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find the place where one had tea with other people, like other people.
“Come along, Trissie; it’s time we had our tea.”
“Wherever DOES one have one’s tea?” she asked with the oddest thrill of excitement in her voice, looking vaguely51 round and letting herself be drawn52 on down the grass path, trailing her parasol, turning her head this way and that way, forgetting her tea, wishing to go down there and then down there, remembering orchids53 and cranes among wild flowers, a Chinese pagoda54 and a crimson55 crested56 bird; but he bore her on.
Thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless movement passed the flower-bed and were enveloped57 in layer after layer of green blue vapour, in which at first their bodies had substance and a dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved in the green-blue atmosphere. How hot it was! So hot that even the thrush chose to hop58, like a mechanical bird, in the shadow of the flowers, with long pauses between one movement and the next; instead of rambling59 vaguely the white butterflies danced one above another, making with their white shifting flakes60 the outline of a shattered marble column above the tallest flowers the glass roofs of the palm house shone as if a whole market full of shiny green umbrellas had opened in the sun; and in the drone of the aeroplane the voice of the summer sky murmured its fierce soul. Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these colours, men, women, and children were spotted61 for a second upon the horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with red and blue. It seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down in the heat motionless and lay huddled62 upon the ground, but their voices went wavering from them as if they were flames lolling from the thick waxen bodies of candles. Voices. Yes, voices. Wordless voices, breaking the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear; like a vast nest of Chinese boxes all of wrought63 steel turning ceaselessly one within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried aloud and the petals of myriads64 of flowers flashed their colours into the air.
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1
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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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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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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wart
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| n.疣，肉赘；瑕疵 | |
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abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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antenna
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| n.触角，触须；天线 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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circumvent
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| vt.环绕，包围；对…用计取胜，智胜 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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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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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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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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mermaids
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| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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betokening
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的现在分词 ) | |
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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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sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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pagoda
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| n.宝塔（尤指印度和远东的多层宝塔），（印度教或佛教的）塔式庙宇 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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56
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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