Disillusions5 she did have. She discovered that in the afternoon, office routine stretches to the grave. She discovered that an office is as full of cliques6 and scandals as a Gopher Prairie She discovered that most of the women in the government bureaus lived unhealthfully, dining on snatches in their crammed7 apartments. But she also discovered that business women may have friendships and enmities as frankly8 as men and may revel9 in a bliss10 which no housewife attains11 — a free Sunday. It did not appear that the Great World needed her inspiration, but she felt that her letters, her contact with the anxieties of men and women all over the country, were a part of vast affairs, not confined to Main Street and a kitchen but linked with Paris, Bangkok, Madrid.
She perceived that she could do office work without losing any of the putative12 feminine virtue13 of domesticity; that cooking and cleaning, when divested14 of the fussing of an Aunt Bessie, take but a tenth of the time which, in a Gopher Prairie, it is but decent to devote to them.
Not to have to apologize for her thoughts to the Jolly Seventeen, not to have to report to Kennicott at the end of the day all that she had done or might do, was a relief which made up for the office weariness. She felt that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a human being.
II
Washington gave her all the graciousness in which she had had faith: white columns seen across leafy parks, spacious15 avenues, twisty alleys16. Daily she passed a dark square house with a hint of magnolias and a courtyard behind it, and a tall curtained second-story window through which a woman was always peering. The woman was mystery, romance, a story which told itself differently every day; now she was a murderess, now the neglected wife of an ambassador. It was mystery which Carol had most lacked in Gopher Prairie, where every house was open to view, where every person was but too easy to meet, where there were no secret gates opening upon moors18 over which one might walk by moss-deadened paths to strange high adventures in an ancient garden.
As she flitted up Sixteenth Street after a Kreisler recital19, given late in the afternoon for the government clerks, as the lamps kindled20 in spheres of soft fire, as the breeze flowed into the street, fresh as prairie winds and kindlier, as she glanced up the elm alley17 of Massachusetts Avenue, as she was rested by the integrity of the Scottish Rite21 Temple, she loved the city as she loved no one save Hugh. She encountered negro shanties22 turned into studios, with orange curtains and pots of mignonette; marble houses on New Hampshire Avenue, with butlers and limousines23; and men who looked like fictional24 explorers and aviators25. Her days were swift, and she knew that in her folly26 of running away she had found the courage to be wise.
She had a dispiriting first month of hunting lodgings27 in the crowded city. She had to roost in a hall-room in a moldy28 mansion29 conducted by an indignant decayed gentlewoman, and leave Hugh to the care of a doubtful nurse. But later she made a home.
III
Her first acquaintances were the members of the Tincomb Methodist Church, a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin had given her a letter to an earnest woman with eye-glasses, plaid silk waist, and a belief in Bible Classes, who introduced her to the Pastor30 and the Nicer Members of Tincomb. Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a transplanted and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church- members had come from Gopher Prairies. The church was their society and their standard; they went to Sunday service, Sunday School, Christian31 Endeavor, missionary32 lectures, church suppers, precisely33 as they had at home; they agreed that ambassadors and flippant newspapermen and infidel scientists of the bureaus were equally wicked and to be avoided; and by cleaving34 to Tincomb Church they kept their ideals from all contamination.
They welcomed Carol, asked about her husband, gave her advice regarding colic in babies, passed her the gingerbread and scalloped potatoes at church suppers, and in general made her very unhappy and lonely, so that she wondered if she might not enlist35 in the militant36 suffrage37 organization and be allowed to go to jail.
Always she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have perceived in New York or London) a thick streak38 of Main Street. The cautious dullness of a Gopher Prairie appeared in boarding-houses where ladylike bureau-clerks gossiped to polite young army officers about the movies; a thousand Sam Clarks and a few Widow Bogarts were to be identified in the Sunday motor procession, in theater parties, and at the dinners of State Societies, to which the emigres from Texas or Michigan surged that they might confirm themselves in the faith that their several Gopher Prairies were notoriously “a whole lot peppier and chummier than this stuck-up East.”
But she found a Washington which did not cleave39 to Main Street.
Guy Pollock wrote to a cousin, a temporary army captain, a confiding40 and buoyant lad who took Carol to tea-dances, and laughed, as she had always wanted some one to laugh, about nothing in particular. The captain introduced her to the secretary of a congressman41, a cynical42 young widow with many acquaintances in the navy. Through her Carol met commanders and majors, newspapermen, chemists and geographers43 and fiscal44 experts from the bureaus, and a teacher who was a familiar of the militant suffrage headquarters. The teacher took her to headquarters. Carol never became a prominent suffragist. Indeed her only recognized position was as an able addresser of envelopes. But she was casually45 adopted by this family of friendly women who, when they were not being mobbed or arrested, took dancing lessons or went picnicking up the Chesapeake Canal or talked about the politics of the American Federation46 of Labor47.
With the congressman’s secretary and the teacher Carol leased a small flat. Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had, though it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She herself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were walks with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly Washington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the flat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly. It was not at all the “artist’s studio” of which, because of its persistence48 in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of them were in offices all day, and thought more in card-catalogues or statistics than in mass and color. But they played, very simply, and they saw no reason why anything which exists cannot also be acknowledged.
She was sometimes shocked quite as she had shocked Gopher Prairie by these girls with their cigarettes and elfish knowledge. When they were most eager about soviets49 or canoeing, she listened, longed to have some special learning which would distinguish her, and sighed that her adventure had come so late. Kennicott and Main Street had drained her self-reliance; the presence of Hugh made her feel temporary. Some day — oh, she’d have to take him back to open fields and the right to climb about hay-lofts.
But the fact that she could never be eminent50 among these scoffing51 enthusiasts52 did not keep her from being proud of them, from defending them in imaginary conversations with Kennicott, who grunted53 (she could hear his voice), “They’re simply a bunch of wild impractical54 theorists sittin’ round chewing the rag,” and “I haven’t got the time to chase after a lot of these fool fads55; I’m too busy putting aside a stake for our old age.”
Most of the men who came to the flat, whether they were army officers or radicals56 who hated the army, had the easy gentleness, the acceptance of women without embarrassed banter57, for which she had longed in Gopher Prairie. Yet they seemed to be as efficient as the Sam Clarks. She concluded that it was because they were of secure reputation, not hemmed58 in by the fire of provincial59 jealousies60. Kennicott had asserted that the villager’s lack of courtesy is due to his poverty. “We’re no millionaire dudes,” he boasted. Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts, and organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four thousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations61, six thousand or more, and Sam had eight.
Nor could she upon inquiry learn that many of this reckless race died in the poorhouse. That institution is reserved for men like Kennicott who, after devoting fifty years to “putting aside a stake,” incontinently invest the stake in spurious oil- stocks.
IV
She was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing Gopher Prairie as unduly62 tedious and slatternly. She found the same faith not only in girls escaped from domesticity but also in demure63 old ladies who, tragically64 deprived of esteemed65 husbands and huge old houses, yet managed to make a very comfortable thing of it by living in small flats and having time to read.
But she also learned that by comparison Gopher Prairie was a model of daring color, clever planning, and frenzied66 intellectuality. From her teacher-housemate she had a sardonic67 description of a Middlewestern railroad-division town, of the same size as Gopher Prairie but devoid68 of lawns and trees, a town where the tracks sprawled69 along the cinder-scabbed Main Street, and the railroad shops, dripping soot70 from eaves and doorway71, rolled out smoke in greasy72 coils.
Other towns she came to know by anecdote73: a prairie village where the wind blew all day long, and the mud was two feet thick in spring, and in summer the flying sand scarred new- painted houses and dust covered the few flowers set out in pots. New England mill-towns with the hands living in rows of cottages like blocks of lava74. A rich farming-center in New Jersey75, off the railroad, furiously pious76, ruled by old men, unbelievably ignorant old men, sitting about the grocery talking of James G. Blaine. A Southern town, full of the magnolias and white columns which Carol had accepted as proof of romance, but hating the negroes, obsequious77 to the Old Families. A Western mining-settlement like a tumor78. A booming semi-city with parks and clever architects, visited by famous pianists and unctuous79 lecturers, but irritable80 from a struggle between union labor and the manufacturers’ association, so that in even the gayest of the new houses there was a ceaseless and intimidating81 heresy-hunt.
V
The chart which plots Carol’s progress is not easy to read. The lines are broken and uncertain of direction; often instead of rising they sink in wavering scrawls82; and the colors are watery83 blue and pink and the dim gray of rubbed pencil marks. A few lines are traceable.
Unhappy women are given to protecting their sensitiveness by cynical gossip, by whining84, by high-church and new-thought religions, or by a fog of vagueness. Carol had hidden in none of these refuges from reality, but she, who was tender and merry, had been made timorous85 by Gopher Prairie. Even her flight had been but the temporary courage of panic. The thing she gained in Washington was not information about office-systems and labor unions but renewed courage, that amiable86 contempt called poise87. Her glimpse of tasks involving millions of people and a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to its actual pettiness. She could never again be quite so awed88 by the power with which she herself had endowed the Vidas and Blaussers and Bogarts.
From her work and from her association with women who had organized suffrage associations in hostile cities, or had defended political prisoners, she caught something of an impersonal89 attitude; saw that she had been as touchily90 personal as Maud Dyer.
And why, she began to ask, did she rage at individuals? Not individuals but institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict91 the disciples92 who the most generously serve them. They insinuate93 their tyranny under a hundred guises94 and pompous95 names, such as Polite Society, the Family, the Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White Race; and the only defense96 against them, Carol beheld97, is unembittered laughter.
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1
armistice
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| n.休战，停战协定 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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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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disillusions
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| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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cliques
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| n.小集团，小圈子，派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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12
putative
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| adj.假定的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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shanties
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| n.简陋的小木屋( shanty的名词复数 )；铁皮棚屋；船工号子；船歌 | |
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limousines
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| n.豪华轿车( limousine的名词复数 )；（往返机场接送旅客的）中型客车，小型公共汽车 | |
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fictional
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| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
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aviators
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| 飞机驾驶员，飞行员( aviator的名词复数 ) | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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moldy
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| adj.发霉的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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33
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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cleaving
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的现在分词 ) | |
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35
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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38
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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39
cleave
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| v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋 | |
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confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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42
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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43
geographers
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| 地理学家( geographer的名词复数 ) | |
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44
fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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48
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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49
soviets
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| 苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式） | |
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50
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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51
scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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53
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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54
impractical
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| adj.不现实的，不实用的，不切实际的 | |
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fads
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| n.一时的流行，一时的风尚( fad的名词复数 ) | |
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radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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57
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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61
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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62
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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63
demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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64
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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65
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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66
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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70
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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73
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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74
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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75
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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76
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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78
tumor
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| n.（肿）瘤，肿块(英)tumour | |
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79
unctuous
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| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
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80
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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81
intimidating
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| vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词) | |
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82
scrawls
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| 潦草的笔迹( scrawl的名词复数 ) | |
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83
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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84
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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85
timorous
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| adj.胆怯的，胆小的 | |
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86
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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87
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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88
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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90
touchily
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| adv.易动气地；过分敏感地；小心眼地；难以取悦地 | |
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91
afflict
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| vt.使身体或精神受痛苦，折磨 | |
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92
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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93
insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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94
guises
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| n.外观，伪装( guise的名词复数 )v.外观，伪装( guise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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95
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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96
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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97
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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