We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish ’twere done!
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.
— MATTHEW ARNOLD.
IT was Sunday morning. The night was sinking out of the sky to lean faint unto death upon the bosom1 of the earth. The great forms of the trees, felt rather than seen, were darkness made visible. Among the night of high elms round Warpington a single yellow light burned in an upper window. It had been burning all night. And now, as the night waned2, the little light waned with it. At last, it was suddenly blown out.
Hester came to the window and looked out. There was light, but there was no dawn as yet. In the grey sky over the grey land the morning star, alone and splendid, kept watch in the east.
She sat down and leaned her brow against the pane4. She did not know that it was aching. She did not know that she was cold, exhausted5, so exhausted that the morning star in the outer heaven and the morning star in her soul were to her the same. They stooped together, they merged6 into one great light, heralding7 a perfect day presently to be.
The night was over, and that other long night of travail8 and patience and faith, and strong rowing in darkness against the stream, was over, too, at last — at last. The book was finished.
The tears fell slowly from Hester’s eyes on to her clasped hands, those blessed tears which no human hand shall ever intervene to wipe away.
To some of us Christ comes in the dawn of the spiritual life walking upon the troubled waves of art. And we recognise Him, and would fain go to meet Him. But our companions and our own fears dissuade9 us. They say it is only a spirit, and that Christ does not walk on water, that the land whither we are rowing is the place He has Himself appointed for us to meet Him. So our little faith keeps us in the boat, or fails us in the waves of that wind-swept sea.
It seemed to Hester as if once, long ago, shrinking and shivering, she had stood in despair upon the shore of a great sea, and had heard a voice from the other side say, “Come over.” She had stopped her ears, she had tried not to go. She had shrunk back a hundred times from the cold touch of the water that each time she essayed let her trembling foot through it. And now, after an interminable interval10, after she had trusted and doubted, had fallen and been sustained, had met the wind and the rain, after she had sunk in despair, and risen again, she knew not how, now at length a great wave — the last — had cast her up half-drowned upon the shore. A miracle had happened. She had reached the other side, and was lying in a great peace after the storm upon the solemn shore under a great white star.
Hester sat motionless. The star paled and paled before the coming of a greater than he. Across the pause which God has set ‘twixt night and day came the first word of the robin11. It reached Hester’s ear as from another world, a world that had been left behind. The fragmentary notes floated up to her from an immeasurable distance like scattered12 bubbles through deep water.
The day was coming. God’s creatures of tree and field and hill took form. Man’s creature, the little stout13 church in their midst, thrust once more its plebeian14 outline against God’s sky. Dim shapes moved athwart the vacancy15 of the meadows. Voices called through the grey. Close against the eaves a secret was twittered, was passed from beak16 to beak. In the nursery below a little twitter of waking children broke the stillness of the house.
But Hester did not hear it. She had fallen into a deep sleep in the low window-seat, with her pale forehead against the pane; a sleep so deep that even the alarum of the baby did not rouse her, nor the entrance of Emma with the hot water.
“James,” said Mrs. Gresley, an hour later, as she and her husband returned through the white mist from early celebration, “Hester was not there. I thought she had promised to come.”
“She had.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Perhaps she is not well,” said Mr. Gresley, closing the churchyard gate into the garden.
Mrs. Gresley’s heart swelled17 with a sense of injustice18. She had often been unwell, often in feeble health before the birth of her children, but had she ever pleaded ill-health as an excuse for absenting herself from one of the many services which her husband held to be the mainspring of the religious life?
“I do not think she can be very unwell. She is standing19 by the magnolia now,” she said, her lip quivering, and withdrawing her hand from her husband’s arm. She almost hated the slight graceful20 figure, which was not of her world, which was, as she thought, coming between her and her husband.
“I will speak seriously to her,” said Mr. Gresley, dejectedly, who recollected21 that he had “spoken seriously” to Hester many times at his wife’s instigation without visible result. And as he went alone to meet his sister he prayed earnestly that he might be given the right word to say to her.
A ray of sunlight, faint as an echo, stole through the lingering mist, parting it on either hand, and fell on Hester.
Hester, standing in a white gown under the the veiled trees in a glade23 of silver and trembling opal, which surely mortal foot had never trod, seemed infinitely24 removed from him. Dimly he felt that she was at one with this mysterious morning world, and that he, the owner, was an alien and a trespasser25 in his own garden.
But a glimpse of his cucumber frames in the background reassured26 him. He advanced with a firmer step, as one among allies.
Hester did not hear him.
She was gazing with an absorption that shut out all other sights and sounds at the solitary27 blossom on the magnolia tree. Yesterday it had been a bud. But to-day the great almond white petals28 which guarded it, overlapping29 each other so jealously, had opened wide, and the perfect flower, keeping nothing back, had laid bare all its pure white soul before its God.
As Mr. Gresley stopped beside her, Hester turned her little pinched ravaged30 face towards him and smiled. Something of the passionate31 self-surrender of the flower was reflected in her eyes.
“Dear Hester,” he said, seeing only the wan3 drawn32 face. “Are you ill?”
“Yes. No. I don’t think so,” said Hester tremulously, recalled suddenly to herself. She looked hastily about her. The world of dew and silver had deserted33 her, had broken like an iridescent34 bubble at a touch. The magnolia withdrew itself. Hester found herself suddenly transplanted into the prose of life, emphasised by a long clerical coat, and a bed of Brussels sprouts35.
“I missed you,” said Mr. Gresley with emphasis.
“Where? When?” Hester’s eyes had lost their fixed36 look, and stared vacantly at him.
Mr. Gresley tried to subdue37 his rising annoyance38.
Hester was acting39, pretending not to understand, and he saw through it.
“At God’s altar,” he said gravely, the priest getting the upper hand of the man.
“Have you not found me, there?” said Hester below her breath, but so low that fortunately her brother did not catch the words, and was spared their profanity.
“I will appeal to her better feelings,” he said to himself. “They must be there if I can only touch them.”
He did not know that in order to touch the better feelings of our fellow creatures we must be able to reach up to them, or by reason of our low stature40 we may succeed only in appealing to the lowest in them in spite of our tip-toe good intentions. Is that why such appeals too often meet with bitter sarcasm41 and indignation?
But fortunately a robust42 belief in the assiduities of the devil as the cause of all failures, and a conviction that whoso opposed Mr. Gresley opposed the Deity43, supported and blindfolded44 the young Vicar in emergencies of this kind.
He spoke22 earnestly and at length to his sister. He waved aside her timid excuse that she had overslept herself after a sleepless45 night, and had finished dressing46 but the moment before he found her in the garden. He entreated47 her to put aside such insincerity as unworthy of her. He reminded her of the long months she had spent at Warpington with its peculiar48 spiritual opportunities; that he should be to blame if he did not press upon her the first importance of the religious life, the ever-present love of God, and the means of approaching Him through the sacraments. He entreated her to join her prayers with his that she might be saved from the worship of her own talent which had shut out the worship of God, from this dreadful indifference49 to holy things, and the impatience50 of all religious teaching which he grieved to see in her.
He spoke well, the earnest blind would be leader endeavouring to guide her to the ditch from which he knew not how she had emerged, passionately51 distressed52 at the opposition53 he met with as he would have drawn her lovingly towards it.
The tears were in Hester’s eyes, but the eyes themselves were as flint seen through water. She stifled54 many fierce and cruel impulses to speak as plainly as he did, to tell him that it was not religion that was abhorrent55 to her, but the form in which he presented it to her, and that the sin against the Holy Ghost was disbelief, like his in the religion of others. But when have such words availed anything? When have they been believed? Hester had a sharp tongue, and she was slowly learning to beware of it as her worst enemy. She laid down many weapons before she trusted herself to speak.
“It is good of you to care what becomes of me,” she said gently, but her voice was cold. “I am sorry you regard me as you do. But from your point of view you were right to speak — as — as you have done. I value the affection that prompted it.”
“She can’t meet me fairly,” said Mr. Gresley to himself, with sudden anger at the meanness of such tactics. “They say she is so clever, and she can’t refute a word I say. She appears to yield and then defies me. She always puts me off like that.”
The sun had vanquished56 the mist, and in the brilliant light the two figures moved silently side by side back to the house, one with something very like rage in his heart, the rage that in bygone days found expression in stake and faggot.
Perhaps the heaviest trouble which Hester was ever called upon to bear had its mysterious beginnings on that morning of opal and gossamer57 when the magnolia opened.
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1
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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waned
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| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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3
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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4
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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5
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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6
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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7
heralding
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| v.预示( herald的现在分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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8
travail
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| n.阵痛；努力 | |
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9
dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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10
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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11
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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12
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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14
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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15
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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16
beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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17
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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18
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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19
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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20
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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21
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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23
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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24
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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25
trespasser
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| n.侵犯者；违反者 | |
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26
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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27
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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28
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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29
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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30
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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31
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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32
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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33
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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34
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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35
sprouts
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| n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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36
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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37
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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38
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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39
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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40
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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41
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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42
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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43
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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44
blindfolded
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| v.（尤指用布）挡住（某人）的视线( blindfold的过去式 )；蒙住（某人）的眼睛；使不理解；蒙骗 | |
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45
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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46
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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47
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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49
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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50
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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51
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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52
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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53
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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54
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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55
abhorrent
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| adj.可恶的，可恨的，讨厌的 | |
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56
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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57
gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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