‘Otto,’ she said, ‘I have ruined all!’
‘Seraphina!’ he cried with a sob17, but did not move, partly withheld18 by his resolutions, partly struck stupid at the sight of her weariness and disorder19. Had she stood silent, they had soon been locked in an embrace. But she too had prepared herself against the interview, and must spoil the golden hour with protestations.
‘All!’ she went on, ‘I have ruined all! But, Otto, in kindness you must hear me — not justify20, but own, my faults. I have been taught so cruelly; I have had such time for thought, and see the world so changed. I have been blind, stone-blind; I have let all true good go by me, and lived on shadows. But when this dream fell, and I had betrayed you, and thought I had killed — ’ She paused. ‘I thought I had killed Gondremark,’ she said with a deep flush, ‘and I found myself alone, as you said.’
The mention of the name of Gondremark pricked21 the Princes generosity like a spur. ‘Well,’ he cried, ‘and whose fault was it but mine? It was my duty to be beside you, loved or not. But I was a skulker22 in the grain, and found it easier to desert than to oppose you. I could never learn that better part of love, to fight love’s battles. But yet the love was there. And now when this toy kingdom of ours has fallen, first of all by my demerits, and next by your inexperience, and we are here alone together, as poor as Job and merely a man and a woman — let me conjure23 you to forgive the weakness and to repose24 in the love. Do not mistake me!’ he cried, seeing her about to speak, and imposing silence with uplifted hand. ‘My love is changed; it is purged25 of any conjugal26 pretension27; it does not ask, does not hope, does not wish for a return in kind. You may forget for ever that part in which you found me so distasteful, and accept without embarrassment28 the affection of a brother.’
‘You are too generous, Otto,’ she said. ‘I know that I have forfeited29 your love. I cannot take this sacrifice. You had far better leave me. O, go away, and leave me to my fate!’
‘O no!’ said Otto; ‘we must first of all escape out of this hornet’s nest, to which I led you. My honour is engaged. I said but now we were as poor as Job; and behold30! not many miles from here I have a house of my own to which I will conduct you. Otto the Prince being down, we must try what luck remains31 to Otto the Hunter. Come, Seraphina; show that you forgive me, and let us set about this business of escape in the best spirits possible. You used to say, my dear, that, except as a husband and a prince, I was a pleasant fellow. I am neither now, and you may like my company without remorse. Come, then; it were idle to be captured. Can you still walk? Forth32, then,’ said he, and he began to lead the way.
A little below where they stood, a good-sized brook33 passed below the road, which overleapt it in a single arch. On one bank of that loquacious34 water a foot-path descended35 a green dell. Here it was rocky and stony37, and lay on the steep scarps of the ravine; here it was choked with brambles; and there, in fairy haughs, it lay for a few paces evenly on the green turf. Like a sponge, the hillside oozed38 with well-water. The burn kept growing both in force and volume; at every leap it fell with heavier plunges39 and span more widely in the pool. Great had been the labours of that stream, and great and agreeable the changes it had wrought40. It had cut through dykes41 of stubborn rock, and now, like a blowing dolphin, spouted42 through the orifice; along all its humble43 coasts, it had undermined and rafted-down the goodlier timber of the forest; and on these rough clearings it now set and tended primrose44 gardens, and planted woods of willow45, and made a favourite of the silver birch. Through all these friendly features the path, its human acolyte46, conducted our two wanderers downward, — Otto before, still pausing at the more difficult passages to lend assistance; the Princess following. From time to time, when he turned to help her, her face would lighten upon his — her eyes, half desperately47, woo him. He saw, but dared not understand. ‘She does not love me,’ he told himself, with magnanimity. ‘This is remorse or gratitude48; I were no gentleman, no, nor yet a man, if I presumed upon these pitiful concessions49.’
Some way down the glen, the stream, already grown to a good bulk of water, was rudely dammed across, and about a third of it abducted50 in a wooden trough. Gaily51 the pure water, air’s first cousin, fleeted along the rude aqueduct, whose sides and floor it had made green with grasses. The path, bearing it close company, threaded a wilderness52 of briar and wild-rose. And presently, a little in front, the brown top of a mill and the tall mill-wheel, spraying diamonds, arose in the narrows of the glen; at the same time the snoring music of the saws broke the silence.
The miller53, hearing steps, came forth to his door, and both he and Otto started.
‘Good-morning, miller,’ said the Prince. ‘You were right, it seems, and I was wrong. I give you the news, and bid you to Mittwalden. My throne has fallen — great was the fall of it! — and your good friends of the Phoenix54 bear the rule.’
The red-faced miller looked supreme55 astonishment56. ‘And your Highness?’ he gasped57.
‘My Highness is running away,’ replied Otto, ‘straight for the frontier.’
‘Leaving Grunewald?’ cried the man. ‘Your father’s son? It’s not to be permitted!’
‘Do you arrest us, friend?’ asked Otto, smiling.
‘Arrest you? I?’ exclaimed the man. ‘For what does your Highness take me? Why, sir, I make sure there is not a man in Grunewald would lay hands upon you.’
‘O, many, many,’ said the Prince; ‘but from you, who were bold with me in my greatness, I should even look for aid in my distress58.’
The miller became the colour of beetroot. ‘You may say so indeed,’ said he. ‘And meanwhile, will you and your lady step into my house.’
‘We have not time for that,’ replied the Prince; ‘but if you would oblige us with a cup of wine without here, you will give a pleasure and a service, both in one.’
The miller once more coloured to the nape. He hastened to bring forth wine in a pitcher59 and three bright crystal tumblers. ‘Your Highness must not suppose,’ he said, as he filled them, ‘that I am an habitual drinker. The time when I had the misfortune to encounter you, I was a trifle overtaken, I allow; but a more sober man than I am in my ordinary, I do not know where you are to look for; and even this glass that I drink to you (and to the lady) is quite an unusual recreation.’
The wine was drunk with due rustic60 courtesies; and then, refusing further hospitality, Otto and Seraphina once more proceeded to descend36 the glen, which now began to open and to be invaded by the taller trees.
‘I owed that man a reparation,’ said the Prince; ‘for when we met I was in the wrong and put a sore affront61 upon him. I judge by myself, perhaps; but I begin to think that no one is the better for a humiliation62.’
‘But some have to be taught so,’ she replied.
‘Well, well,’ he said, with a painful embarrassment. ‘Well, well. But let us think of safety. My miller is all very good, but I do not pin my faith to him. To follow down this stream will bring us, but after innumerable windings63, to my house. Here, up this glade64, there lies a cross-cut — the world’s end for solitude65 — the very deer scarce visit it. Are you too tired, or could you pass that way?’
‘Choose the path, Otto. I will follow you,’ she said.
‘No,’ he replied, with a singular imbecility of manner and appearance, ‘but I meant the path was rough. It lies, all the way, by glade and dingle, and the dingles are both deep and thorny66.’
‘Lead on,’ she said. ‘Are you not Otto the Hunter?’
They had now burst across a veil of underwood, and were come into a lawn among the forest, very green and innocent, and solemnly surrounded by trees. Otto paused on the margin67, looking about him with delight; then his glance returned to Seraphina, as she stood framed in that silvan pleasantness and looking at her husband with undecipherable eyes. A weakness both of the body and mind fell on him like the beginnings of sleep; the cords of his activity were relaxed, his eyes clung to her. ‘Let us rest,’ he said; and he made her sit down, and himself sat down beside her on the slope of an inconsiderable mound68.
She sat with her eyes downcast, her slim hand dabbling69 in grass, like a maid waiting for love’s summons. The sound of the wind in the forest swelled70 and sank, and drew near them with a running rush, and died away and away in the distance into fainting whispers. Nearer hand, a bird out of the deep covert71 uttered broken and anxious notes. All this seemed but a halting prelude72 to speech. To Otto it seemed as if the whole frame of nature were waiting for his words; and yet his pride kept him silent. The longer he watched that slender and pale hand plucking at the grasses, the harder and rougher grew the fight between pride and its kindly73 adversary74.
‘Seraphina,’ he said at last, ‘it is right you should know one thing: I never . . .’ He was about to say ‘doubted you,’ but was that true? And, if true, was it generous to speak of it? Silence succeeded.
‘I pray you, tell it me,’ she said; ‘tell it me, in pity.’
‘I mean only this,’ he resumed, ‘that I understand all, and do not blame you. I understand how the brave woman must look down on the weak man. I think you were wrong in some things; but I have tried to understand it, and I do. I do not need to forget or to forgive, Seraphina, for I have understood.’
‘I know what I have done,’ she said. ‘I am not so weak that I can be deceived with kind speeches. I know what I have been — I see myself. I am not worth your anger, how much less to be forgiven! In all this downfall and misery75, I see only me and you: you, as you have been always; me, as I was — me, above all! O yes, I see myself: and what can I think?’
‘Ah, then, let us reverse the parts!’ said Otto. ‘It is ourselves we cannot forgive, when we deny forgiveness to another — so a friend told me last night. On these terms, Seraphina, you see how generously I have forgiven myself. But am not I to be forgiven? Come, then, forgive yourself — and me.’
She did not answer in words, but reached out her hand to him quickly. He took it; and as the smooth fingers settled and nestled in his, love ran to and fro between them in tender and transforming currents.
‘Seraphina,’ he cried, ‘O, forget the past! Let me serve and help you; let me be your servant; it is enough for me to serve you and to be near you; let me be near you, dear — do not send me away.’ He hurried his pleading like the speech of a frightened child. ‘It is not love,’ he went on; ‘I do not ask for love; my love is enough . . .’
‘Otto!’ she said, as if in pain.
He looked up into her face. It was wrung76 with the very ecstasy77 of tenderness and anguish78; on her features, and most of all in her changed eyes, there shone the very light of love.
‘Seraphina?’ he cried aloud, and with a sudden, tuneless voice, ‘Seraphina?’
‘Look round you at this glade,’ she cried, ‘and where the leaves are coming on young trees, and the flowers begin to blossom. This is where we meet, meet for the first time; it is so much better to forget and to be born again. O what a pit there is for sins — God’s mercy, man’s oblivion!’
‘Seraphina,’ he said, ‘let it be so, indeed; let all that was be merely the abuse of dreaming; let me begin again, a stranger. I have dreamed, in a long dream, that I adored a girl unkind and beautiful; in all things my superior, but still cold, like ice. And again I dreamed, and thought she changed and melted, glowed and turned to me. And I— who had no merit but a love, slavish and unerect — lay close, and durst not move for fear of waking.’
‘Lie close,’ she said, with a deep thrill of speech.
So they spake in the spring woods; and meanwhile, in Mittwalden Rath-haus, the Republic was declared.
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收听单词发音
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1
outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2
yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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5
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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proffering
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的现在分词 ) | |
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caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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10
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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13
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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14
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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18
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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20
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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21
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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22
skulker
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| n.偷偷隐躲起来的人，偷懒的人 | |
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23
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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24
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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25
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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26
conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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27
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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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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29
forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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31
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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32
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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33
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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35
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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36
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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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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38
oozed
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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39
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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40
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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41
dykes
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| abbr.diagonal wire cutters 斜线切割机n.堤( dyke的名词复数 )；坝；堰；沟 | |
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42
spouted
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| adj.装有嘴的v.（指液体）喷出( spout的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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43
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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44
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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45
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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46
acolyte
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| n.助手，侍僧 | |
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47
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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48
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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49
concessions
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| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
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50
abducted
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| 劫持，诱拐( abduct的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（肢体等）外展 | |
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51
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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52
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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53
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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54
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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55
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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56
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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57
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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58
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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59
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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60
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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61
affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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62
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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63
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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64
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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65
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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66
thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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67
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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68
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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69
dabbling
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| v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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70
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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71
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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72
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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73
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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74
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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75
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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76
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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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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