He was indeed to learn on arrival to what he had been committed; but that was for a while so much a part of his first general impression that the particular truth took time to detach itself, the first general impression demanding verily all his faculties1 of response. He almost felt for a day or two the victim of a practical joke, a gross abuse of confidence. He had presented himself with the moderate amount of flutter involved in a sense of due preparation; but he had then found that, however primed with prefaces and prompted with hints, he hadn’t been prepared at all. How COULD he be, he asked himself, for anything so foreign to his experience, so alien to his proper world, so little to be preconceived in the sharp north light of the newest impressionism, and yet so recognised after all in the event, so noted2 and tasted and assimilated? It was a case he would scarce have known how to describe — could doubtless have described best with a full clean brush, supplemented by a play of gesture; for it was always his habit to see an occasion, of whatever kind, primarily as a picture, so that he might get it, as he was wont3 to say, so that he might keep it, well together. He had been treated of a sudden, in this adventure, to one of the sweetest fairest coolest impressions of his life — one moreover visibly complete and homogeneous from the start. Oh it was THERE, if that was all one wanted of a thing! It was so “there” that, as had befallen him in Italy, in Spain, confronted at last, in dusky side-chapel or rich museum, with great things dreamed of or with greater ones unexpectedly presented, he had held his breath for fear of breaking the spell; had almost, from the quick impulse to respect, to prolong, lowered his voice and moved on tiptoe. Supreme5 beauty suddenly revealed is apt to strike us as a possible illusion playing with our desire — instant freedom with it to strike us as a possible rashness.
This fortunately, however — and the more so as his freedom for the time quite left him — didn’t prevent his hostess, the evening of his advent4 and while the vision was new, from being exactly as queer and rare and IMPAYABLE, as improbable, as impossible, as delightful6 at the eight o’clock dinner — she appeared to keep these immense hours — as she had overwhelmingly been at the five o’clock tea. She was in the most natural way in the world one of the oddest apparitions7, but that the particular means to such an end COULD be natural was an inference difficult to make. He failed in fact to make it for a couple of days; but then — though then only — he made it with confidence. By this time indeed he was sure of everything, luckily including himself. If we compare his impression, with slight extravagance, to some of the greatest he had ever received, this is simply because the image before him was so rounded and stamped. It expressed with pure perfection, it exhausted8 its character. It was so absolutely and so unconsciously what it was. He had been floated by the strangest of chances out of the rushing stream into a clear still backwater — a deep and quiet pool in which objects were sharply mirrored. He had hitherto in life known nothing that was old except a few statues and pictures; but here everything was old, was immemorial, and nothing so much so as the very freshness itself. Vaguely9 to have supposed there were such nooks in the world had done little enough, he now saw, to temper the glare of their opposites. It was the fine touches that counted, and these had to be seen to be believed.
Miss Wenham, fifty-five years of age and unappeasably timid, unaccountably strange, had, on her reduced scale, an almost Gothic grotesqueness10; but the final effect of one’s sense of it was an amenity11 that accompanied one’s steps like wafted12 gratitude13. More flurried, more spasmodic, more apologetic, more completely at a loss at one moment and more precipitately14 abounding16 at another, he had never before in all his days seen any maiden17 lady; yet for no maiden lady he had ever seen had he so promptly18 conceived a private enthusiasm. Her eyes protruded19, her chin receded20 and her nose carried on in conversation a queer little independent motion. She wore on the top of her head an upright circular cap that made her resemble a caryatid disburdened, and on other parts of her person strange combinations of colours, stuffs, shapes, of metal, mineral and plant. The tones of her voice rose and fell, her facial convulsions, whether tending — one could scarce make out — to expression or REpression21, succeeded each other by a law of their own; she was embarrassed at nothing and at everything, frightened at everything and at nothing, and she approached objects, subjects, the simplest questions and answers and the whole material of intercourse22, either with the indirectness of terror or with the violence of despair. These things, none the less, her refinements23 of oddity and intensities24 of custom, her betrayal at once of conventions and simplicities25, of ease and of agony, her roundabout retarded26 suggestions and perceptions, still permitted her to strike her guest as irresistibly27 charming. He didn’t know what to call it; she was a fruit of time. She had a queer distinction. She had been expensively produced and there would be a good deal more of her to come.
The result of the whole quality of her welcome, at any rate, was that the first evening, in his room, before going to bed, he relieved his mind in a letter to Addie, which, if space allowed us to embody28 it in our text, would usefully perform the office of a “plate.” It would enable us to present ourselves as profusely29 illustrated30. But the process of reproduction, as we say, costs. He wished his friend to know how grandly their affair turned out. She had put him in the way of something absolutely special — an old house untouched, untouchable, indescribable, an old corner such as one didn’t believe existed, and the holy calm of which made the chatter31 of studios, the smell of paint, the slang of critics, the whole sense and sound of Paris, come back as so many signs of a huge monkey-cage. He moved about, restless, while he wrote; he lighted cigarettes and, nervous and suddenly scrupulous32, put them out again; the night was mild and one of the windows of his large high room, which stood over the garden, was up. He lost himself in the things about him, in the type of the room, the last century with not a chair moved, not a point stretched. He hung over the objects and ornaments33, blissfully few and adorably good, perfect pieces all, and never one, for a change, French. The scene was as rare as some fine old print with the best bits down in the corners. Old books and old pictures, allusions34 remembered and aspects conjectured35, reappeared to him; he knew not what anxious islanders had been trying for in their backward hunt for the homely36. But the homely at Flickerbridge was all style, even as style at the same time was mere37 honesty. The larger, the smaller past — he scarce knew which to call it — was at all events so hushed to sleep round him as he wrote that he had almost a bad conscience about having come. How one might love it, but how one might spoil it! To look at it too hard was positively38 to make it conscious, and to make it conscious was positively to wake it up. Its only safety, of a truth, was to be left still to sleep — to sleep in its large fair chambers39 and under its high clean canopies40.
He added thus restlessly a line to his letter, maundered round the room again, noted and fingered something else, and then, dropping on the old flowered sofa, sustained by the tight cubes of its cushions, yielded afresh to the cigarette, hesitated, stared, wrote a few words more. He wanted Addie to know, that was what he most felt, unless he perhaps felt, more how much she herself would want to. Yes, what he supremely41 saw was all that Addie would make of it. Up to his neck in it there he fairly turned cold at the sense of suppressed opportunity, of the outrage42 of privation that his correspondent would retrospectively and, as he even divined with a vague shudder43, almost vindictively44 nurse. Well, what had happened was that the acquaintance had been kept for her, like a packet enveloped46 and sealed for delivery, till her attention was free. He saw her there, heard her and felt her — felt how she would feel and how she would, as she usually said, “rave.” Some of her young compatriots called it “yell,” and in the reference itself, alas47! illustrated their meaning. She would understand the place at any rate, down to the ground; there wasn’t the slightest doubt of that. Her sense of it would be exactly like his own, and he could see, in anticipation48, just the terms of recognition and rapture49 in which she would abound15. He knew just what she would call quaint45, just what she would call bland50, just what she would call weird51, just what she would call wild. She would take it all in with an intelligence much more fitted than his own, in fact, to deal with what he supposed he must regard as its literary relations. She would have read the long-winded obsolete52 memoirs53 and novels that both the figures and the setting ought clearly to remind one of; she would know about the past generations — the lumbering54 country magnates and their turbaned wives and round-eyed daughters, who, in other days, had treated the ruddy sturdy tradeless town, — the solid square houses and wide walled gardens, the streets to-day all grass and gossip, as the scene of a local “season.” She would have warrant for the assemblies, dinners, deep potations; for the smoked sconces in the dusky parlours; for the long muddy century of family coaches, “holsters,” highwaymen. She would put a finger in short, just as he had done, on the vital spot — the rich humility55 of the whole thing, the fact that neither Flickerbridge in general nor Miss Wenham in particular, nor anything nor any one concerned, had a suspicion of their characters and their merit. Addie and he would have to come to let in light.
He let it in then, little by little, before going to bed, through the eight or ten pages he addressed to her; assured her that it was the happiest case in the world, a little picture — yet full of “style” too — absolutely composed and transmitted, with tradition, and tradition only, in every stroke, tradition still noiselessly breathing and visibly flushing, marking strange hours in the tall mahogany clocks that were never wound up and that yet audibly ticked on. All the elements, he was sure he should see, would hang together with a charm, presenting his hostess — a strange iridescent56 fish for the glazed57 exposure of an aquarium58 — as afloat in her native medium. He left his letter open on the table, but, looking it over next morning, felt of a sudden indisposed to send it. He would keep it to add more, for there would be more to know; yet when three days had elapsed he still had not sent it. He sent instead, after delay, a much briefer report, which he was moved to make different and, for some reason, less vivid. Meanwhile he learned from Miss Wenham how Addie had introduced him. It took time to arrive with her at that point, but after the Rubicon was crossed they went far afield.
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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grotesqueness
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amenity
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| n.pl.生活福利设施，文娱康乐场所；（不可数）愉快，适意 | |
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wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；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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repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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intensities
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| n.强烈( intensity的名词复数 )；（感情的）强烈程度；强度；烈度 | |
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simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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retarded
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| a.智力迟钝的，智力发育迟缓的 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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40
canopies
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| （宝座或床等上面的）华盖( canopy的名词复数 )； （飞行器上的）座舱罩； 任何悬于上空的覆盖物； 森林中天棚似的树荫 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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vindictively
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| adv.恶毒地；报复地 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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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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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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49
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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51
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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52
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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53
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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55
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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56
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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aquarium
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| n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸 | |
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