— RUDYARD KIPLING.
WHEN Hugh awoke the morning after Lady Newhaven’s party the day was already far advanced. A hot day had succeeded to a hot night. For a few seconds he lay like one emerging from the influence of morphia, who feels his racked body still painlessly afloat on a sea of rest, but is conscious that it is drifting back to the bitter shores of pain, and who stirs neither hand nor foot for fear of hastening the touch of the encircling aching sands on which he is so soon to be cast in agony once more.
His mind cleared a little. Rachel’s grave face stood out against a dark background — a background darker surely than that of the summer night. He remembered with self-contempt the extravagant1 emotion which she had aroused in him.
“Absurd,” Hugh said to himself, with the distrust of all sudden springs of pure emotion which those who have misused2 them rarely escape. And then another remembrance, which only a sleeping draught3 had kept at bay, darted4 upon him like a panther on its prey5.
He had drawn6 the short lighter7.
He started violently, and then fell back trembling.
“Oh, my God!” he said involuntarily.
He lay still, telling himself that this dreadful nightmare would pass, would fade in the light of common day.
His servant came in noiselessly with a cup of coffee and a little sheaf of letters.
He pretended to be asleep; but when the man had gone he put out his shaking hand for the coffee and drank it.
The mist before his mind gradually lifted. Gradually, too, the horror on his face whitened to despair, as a twilight8 meadow whitens beneath the evening frost. He had drawn the short lighter. Nothing in heaven or earth could alter that fact.
He did not stop to wonder how Lord Newhaven had become aware of his own dishonour9, or at the strange weapon with which he had avenged10 himself. He went over every detail of his encounter with him in the study. His hand had been forced. He had been thrust into a vile12 position. He ought to have refused to draw. He did not agree to draw. Nevertheless he had drawn. And Hugh knew that if it had to be done again, he should again have been compelled to draw by the iron will before which his was as straw. He could not have met the scorn of those terrible half-closed eyes if he had refused.
“There was no help for it,” said Hugh, half aloud. And yet to die by his own hand within five months! It was incredible. It was preposterous13.
“I never agreed to it,” he said, passionately14.
Nevertheless he had drawn. The remembrance ever returned to lay its cold hand upon his heart, and with it came the grim conviction that if Lord Newhaven had drawn the short lighter he would have carried out the agreement to the letter. Whether it was extravagant, unchristian, whatever might have been truly said of that unholy compact, Lord Newhaven would have stood by it.
“I suppose I must stand by it, too,” said Hugh to himself, the cold sweat breaking on his forehead. “I suppose I am bound in honour to stand by it, too.”
He suffered his mind to regard the alternative.
To wrong a man as deeply as he had wronged Lord Newhaven; to tacitly accept. — That was where his mistake had been. Another man, that mahogany-faced fellow with the colonial accent, would have refused to draw, and would have knocked Lord Newhaven down and half killed him, or would have been knocked down and half killed by him. But to tacitly accept a means by which the injured man risked his life to avenge11 his honour, and then afterwards to shirk the fate which a perfectly15 even chance had thrown upon him instead of on his antagonist16! It was too mean, too despicable. Hugh’s pale cheek burned.
“I am bound,” he said slowly to himself over and over again. There was no way of escape.
Yesterday evening, with some intuition of coming peril17, he had said “I will get out.” The way of retreat had been open behind him. Now by one slight movement he was cut off from it for ever.
“I can’t get out,” said the starling, the feathers on its breast worn away with beating against the bars.
“I can’t get out,” said Hugh, coming for the first time in contact with the bars which he was to know so well, the bars of the prison that he had made with his own hands.
He looked into the future with blank eyes. He had no future now. He stared vacantly in front of him like a man who looks through his window at the wide expanse of meadow and waving wood and distant hill which has met his eye every morning of his life, and finds it — gone. It was incredible. He turned giddy. His reeling mind, shrinking back from the abyss, struck against a fixed18 point, and clutching it came violently to a standstill.
His mother!
His mother was a widow and he was her only son. If he died by his own hand it would break her heart. Hugh groaned19 and thrust the thought from him. It was too sharp. He could not stifle20 it.
His sin, not worse than that of many another man, had found him out. He had done wrong. He admitted it, but this monstrous21 judgment22 on him was out of all proportion to his offence. And like some malignant23 infectious disease retribution would fall, not on him alone, but on those nearest him, on his innocent mother and sister. It was unjust, unjust, unjust.
A very bitter look came into his face. Hugh had never so far hated any one, but now something very like hatred24 welled up in his heart against Lady Newhaven. She had lured25 him to his destruction. She had tempted26 him. This was undoubtedly27 true, though not probably the view which her guardian28 angel would take of the matter.
Among the letters which the servant had brought him he suddenly recognised that the topmost was in Lady Newhaven’s handwriting. Anger and repulsion seized him. No doubt it was the first of a series. “Why was he so altered? What had she done to offend him?” &c. &c. He knew the contents beforehand, or thought he knew them. He got up deliberately29, threw the unopened note into the empty fireplace, and put a match to it. He watched it burn.
It was his first overt30 act of rebellion against her yoke31, the first step along the nearest of the many well-worn paths that a man takes at random32 to leave a woman. It did not occur to him that Lady Newhaven might have written to him about his encounter with her husband. He knew Lord Newhaven well enough to be absolutely certain that he would mention the subject to no living creature, least of all to his wife.
“Neither will I,” he said to himself; “and as for her, I will break with her from this day forward.”
The little pink notes with the dashing twirly handwriting persisted for at week or two and then ceased.
Hugh was a man of many social engagements. His first impulse, when later in the day he remembered them, was to throw them all up and leave London. But Lord Newhaven would hear of his departure, and would smile. He decided33 to remain and to go on as if nothing had happened. When the evening came he dressed with his usual care, verified the hour of his engagement, and went out to dine with the Loftuses.
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1
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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2
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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3
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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4
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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5
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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6
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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7
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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8
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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9
dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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10
avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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11
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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12
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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13
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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14
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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15
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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16
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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17
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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18
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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19
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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20
stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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21
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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22
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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23
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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24
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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25
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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26
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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27
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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28
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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29
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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30
overt
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| adj.公开的，明显的，公然的 | |
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31
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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32
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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33
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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