Susan Henchard's daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived7 as soon as possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being missed. The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her and walked with her in a delicate poise8 between love and friendship--that period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain.
She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and contemplated9 her fate as if it were written on the top of the church-tower hard by. "Yes," she said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat: "HE is the second man of that story she told me!"
All this time Henchard's smouldering sentiments towards Lucetta had been fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of the case. He was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt a pitying warmth which had been almost chilled out of him by reflection, was, when now qualified10 with a slight inaccessibility11 and a more matured beauty, the very being to make him satisfied with life. Day after day proved to him, by her silence, that it was no use to think of bringing her round by holding aloof12; so he gave in, and called upon her again, Elizabeth-Jane being absent.
He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness, his strong, warm gaze upon her--like the sun beside the moon in comparison with Farfrae's modest look-and with something of a hail-fellow bearing, as, indeed, was not unnatural13. But she seemed so transubstantiated by her change of position, and held out her hand to him in such cool friendship, that he became deferential14, and sat down with a perceptible loss of power. He understood but little of fashion in dress, yet enough to feel himself inadequate15 in appearance beside her whom he had hitherto been dreaming of as almost his property. She said something very polite about his being good enough to call. This caused him to recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face, losing his awe16.
"Why, of course I have called, Lucetta," he said. "What does that nonsense mean? You know I couldn't have helped myself if I had wished--that is, if I had any kindness at all. I've called to say that I am ready, as soon as custom will permit, to give you my name in return for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of yourself and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or month, with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it would be seemly: you know more of these things than I."
"It is full early yet," she said evasively.
"Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again, that after what had happened between us it was my duty not to let any unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights. Still, I wouldn't call in a hurry, because--well, you can guess how this money you've come into made me feel." His voice slowly fell; he was conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not observable in the street. He looked about the room at the novel hangings and ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.
"Upon my life I didn't know such furniture as this could be bought in Casterbridge," he said.
"Nor can it be " said she. "Nor will it till fifty years more of civilization have passed over the town. It took a waggon17 and four horses to get it here."
"H'm. It looks as if you were living on capital."
"O no, I am not."
"So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my beaming towards you rather awkward."
"Why?"
An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one. "Well," he went on, "there's nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will become it more." He turned to her with congratulatory admiration18 so fervid19 that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so well.
"I am greatly obliged to you for all that," said she, rather with an air of speaking ritual. The stint20 of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and Henchard showed chagrin21 at once-nobody was more quick to show that than he.
"You may be obliged or not for't. Though the things I say may not have the polish of what you've lately learnt to expect for the first time in your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta."
"That's rather a rude way of speaking to me," pouted22 Lucetta, with stormy eyes.
"Not at all!" replied Henchard hotly. "But there, there, I don't wish to quarrel with 'ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey23 enemies, and you ought to be thankful."
"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife's return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!"
"Yes, it is," he said. "But it is not by what is, in this life, but by what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to accept me--for your own good name's sake. What is known in your native Jersey may get known here."
"How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!"
"Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?"
For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet she was backward. "For the present let things be," she said with some embarrassment24. "Treat me as an acquaintance, and I'll treat you as one. Time will--" She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap for awhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into speech if they were not minded for it.
"That's the way the wind blows, is it?" he said at last grimly, nodding an affirmative to his own thoughts.
A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few instants. It was produced by the passing of a load of newly trussed hay from the country, in a waggon marked with Farfrae's name. Beside it rode Farfrae himself on horseback. Lucetta's face became--as a woman's face becomes when the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an apparition25.
A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and the secret of her inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henchard in estimating her tone was looking down so plumb-straight that he did not note the warm consciousness upon Lucetta's face.
"I shouldn't have thought it--I shouldn't have thought it of women!" he said emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himself into activity; while Lucetta was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of the truth that she asked him to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples she insisted upon paring one for him.
He would not take it. "No, no; such is not for me," he said drily, and moved to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her.
"You came to live in Casterbridge entirely26 on my account," he said. "Yet now you are here you won't have anything to say to my offer!"
He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa and jumped up again in a fit of desperation. "I WILL love him!" she cried passionately27; "as for HIM-he's hot-tempered and stern, and it would be madness to bind28 myself to him knowing that. I won't be a slave to the past-I'll love where I choose!"
Yet having decided29 to break away from Henchard one might have supposed her capable of aiming higher than Farfrae. But Lucetta reasoned nothing: she feared hard words from the people with whom she had been earlier associated; she had no relatives left; and with native lightness of heart took kindly30 to what fate offered.
Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between her two lovers from the crystalline sphere of a straightforward31 mind, did not fail to perceive that her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae became more desperately32 enamoured of her friend every day. On Farfrae's side it was the unforced passion of youth. On Henchard's the artificially stimulated33 coveting34 of maturer age.
The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness35 to her existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half dissipated by her sense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had pricked36 her finger they were as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she herself had been seriously sick or in danger they uttered a conventional word of sympathy at the news, and forgot all about it immediately. But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of hers also caused her some filial grief; she could not help asking what she had done to be neglected so, after the professions of solicitude37 he had made. As regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that it was quite natural. What was she beside Lucetta?--as one of the "meaner beauties of the night," when the moon had risen in the skies.
She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as familiar with the wreck38 of each day's wishes as with the diurnal39 setting of the sun. If her earthly career had taught her few book philosophies it had at least well practised her in this. Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions. Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So she viewed with an approach to equanimity40 the new cancelled days when Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwishedfor thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
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1
supersession
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| 取代，废弃； 代谢 | |
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2
trepidation
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| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
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3
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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4
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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5
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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6
protean
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| adj.反复无常的；变化自如的 | |
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7
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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8
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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9
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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10
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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11
inaccessibility
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| n. 难接近, 难达到, 难达成 | |
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12
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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14
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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15
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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16
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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17
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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18
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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19
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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20
stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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21
chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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22
pouted
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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26
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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28
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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29
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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30
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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31
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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32
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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33
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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34
coveting
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| v.贪求，觊觎( covet的现在分词 ) | |
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35
obliviousness
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36
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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37
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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38
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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39
diurnal
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| adj.白天的，每日的 | |
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40
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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