I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter of introduction. The reader is now acquainted with me, and perhaps will condescend4 to listen to my narrative5.
I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my abundant leisure — for I am called to the Bar — coupled with much lonely listening to the twittering of sparrows, and the pattering of rain, has encouraged that disposition6. In my ‘top set’ I hear the wind howl on a winter night, when the man on the ground floor believes it is perfectly7 still weather. The dim lamps with which our Honourable8 Society (supposed to be as yet unconscious of the new discovery called Gas) make the horrors of the staircase visible, deepen the gloom which generally settles on my soul when I go home at night.
I am in the Law, but not of it. I can’t exactly make out what it means. I sit in Westminster Hall sometimes (in character) from ten to four; and when I go out of Court, I don’t know whether I am standing9 on my wig10 or my boots.
It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there were too much talk and too much law — as if some grains of truth were started overboard into a tempestuous11 sea of chaff12.
All this may make me mystical. Still, I am confident that what I am going to describe myself as having seen and heard, I actually did see and hear.
It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight in pictures. I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and written about them. I have seen all the most famous pictures in the world; my education and reading have been sufficiently13 general to possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse; and, although I might be in some doubt as to the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword, for instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I happened to meet with him.
I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course I revere14 the Royal Academy. I stand by its forty Academical articles almost as firmly as I stand by the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. I am convinced that in neither case could there be, by any rightful possibility, one article more or less.
It is now exactly three years — three years ago, this very month — since I went from Westminster to the Temple, one Thursday afternoon, in a cheap steamboat. The sky was black, when I imprudently walked on board. It began to thunder and lighten immediately afterwards, and the rain poured down in torrents15. The deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I went below; but so many passengers were there, smoking too, that I came up again, and buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the shadow of the paddle-box, stood as upright as I could, and made the best of it.
It was at this moment that I first beheld16 the terrible Being, who is the subject of my present recollections.
Standing against the funnel17, apparently18 with the intention of drying himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby man in threadbare black, and with his hands in his pockets, who fascinated me from the memorable19 instant when I caught his eye.
Where had I caught that eye before? Who was he? Why did I connect him, all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield, Alfred the Great, Gil Blas, Charles the Second, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones, the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O’Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great Plague of London? Why, when he bent20 one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near him, did my mind associate him wildly with the words, ‘Number one hundred and forty-two, Portrait of a gentleman’? Could it be that I was going mad?
I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit21 that he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield’s family. Whether he was the Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire22, or a conglomeration23 of all four, I knew not; but I was impelled24 to seize him by the throat, and charge him with being, in some fell way, connected with the Primrose25 blood. He looked up at the rain, and then — oh Heaven! — he became Saint John. He folded his arms, resigning himself to the weather, and I was frantically26 inclined to address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he had done with Sir Roger de Coverley.
The frightful27 suspicion that I was becoming deranged28, returned upon me with redoubled force. Meantime, this awful stranger, inexplicably29 linked to my distress30, stood drying himself at the funnel; and ever, as the steam rose from his clothes, diffusing31 a mist around him, I saw through the ghostly medium all the people I have mentioned, and a score more, sacred and profane32.
I am conscious of a dreadful inclination33 that stole upon me, as it thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon34, and plunge35 him over the side. But, I constrained36 myself — I know not how — to speak to him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the deck, and said:
‘What are you?’
He replied, hoarsely37, ‘A Model.’
‘A what?’ said I.
‘A Model,’ he replied. ‘I sets to the profession for a bob a-hour.’ (All through this narrative I give his own words, which are indelibly imprinted38 on my memory.)
The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite39 delight of the restoration of my confidence in my own sanity40, I cannot describe. I should have fallen on his neck, but for the consciousness of being observed by the man at the wheel.
‘You then,’ said I, shaking him so warmly by the hand, that I wrung41 the rain out of his coat-cuff, ‘are the gentleman whom I have so frequently contemplated42, in connection with a high-backed chair with a red cushion, and a table with twisted legs.’
‘I am that Model,’ he rejoined moodily43, ‘and I wish I was anything else.’
‘Say not so,’ I returned. ‘I have seen you in the society of many beautiful young women;’ as in truth I had, and always (I now remember) in the act of making the most of his legs.
‘No doubt,’ said he. ‘And you’ve seen me along with warses of flowers, and any number of table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and warious gammon.’
‘Sir?’ said I.
‘And warious gammon,’ he repeated, in a louder voice. ‘You might have seen me in armour44, too, if you had looked sharp. Blessed if I ha’n’t stood in half the suits of armour as ever came out of Pratt’s shop: and sat, for weeks together, a-eating nothing, out of half the gold and silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose out of Storrses, and Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and Davenportseseses.’
Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he would never have found an end for the last word. But, at length it rolled sullenly45 away with the thunder.
‘Pardon me,’ said I, ‘you are a well-favoured, well-made man, and yet — forgive me — I find, on examining my mind, that I associate you with — that my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short — excuse me — a kind of powerful monster.’
‘It would be a wonder if it didn’t,’ he said. ‘Do you know what my points are?’
‘No,’ said I.
‘My throat and my legs,’ said he. ‘When I don’t set for a head, I mostly sets for a throat and a pair of legs. Now, granted you was a painter, and was to work at my throat for a week together, I suppose you’d see a lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never be there at all, if you looked at me, complete, instead of only my throat. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Probably,’ said I, surveying him.
‘Why, it stands to reason,’ said the Model. ‘Work another week at my legs, and it’ll be the same thing. You’ll make ’em out as knotty46 and as knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old trees. Then, take and stick my legs and throat on to another man’s body, and you’ll make a reg’lar monster. And that’s the way the public gets their reg’lar monsters, every first Monday in May, when the Royal Academy Exhibition opens.’
‘You are a critic,’ said I, with an air of deference47.
‘I’m in an uncommon48 ill humour, if that’s it,’ rejoined the Model, with great indignation. ‘As if it warn’t bad enough for a bob a-hour, for a man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old furniter that one ’ud think the public know’d the wery nails in by this time — or to be putting on greasy49 old ‘ats and cloaks, and playing tambourines50 in the Bay o’ Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin’ according to pattern in the background, and the wines a bearing wonderful in the middle distance — or to be unpolitely kicking up his legs among a lot o’ gals51, with no reason whatever in his mind but to show ’em — as if this warn’t bad enough, I’m to go and be thrown out of employment too!’
‘Surely no!’ said I.
‘Surely yes,’ said the indignant Model. ‘BUT I’LL GROW ONE.’
The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last words, can never be effaced52 from my remembrance. My blood ran cold.
I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was resolved to grow. My breast made no response.
I ventured to implore53 him to explain his meaning. With a scornful laugh, he uttered this dark prophecy:
‘I’LL GROW ONE. AND, MARK MY WORDS, IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!’
We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his acceptance, with a trembling hand. I conclude that something supernatural happened to the steamboat, as it bore his reeking54 figure down the river; but it never got into the papers.
Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession without any vicissitudes55; never holding so much as a motion, of course. At the expiration56 of that period, I found myself making my way home to the Temple, one night, in precisely57 such another storm of thunder and lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the steamboat — except that this storm, bursting over the town at midnight, was rendered much more awful by the darkness and the hour.
As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would fall, and plough the pavement up. Every brick and stone in the place seemed to have an echo of its own for the thunder. The waterspouts were overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if they had been mountain-tops.
Mrs. Parkins, my laundress — wife of Parkins the porter, then newly dead of a dropsy — had particular instructions to place a bedroom candle and a match under the staircase lamp on my landing, in order that I might light my candle there, whenever I came home. Mrs. Parkins invariably disregarding all instructions, they were never there. Thus it happened that on this occasion I groped my way into my sitting-room58 to find the candle, and came out to light it.
What were my emotions when, underneath59 the staircase lamp, shining with wet as if he had never been dry since our last meeting, stood the mysterious Being whom I had encountered on the steamboat in a thunderstorm, two years before! His prediction rushed upon my mind, and I turned faint.
‘I said I’d do it,’ he observed, in a hollow voice, ‘and I have done it. May I come in?’
‘Misguided creature, what have you done?’ I returned.
‘I’ll let you know,’ was his reply, ‘if you’ll let me in.’
Could it be murder that he had done? And had he been so successful that he wanted to do it again, at my expense?
I hesitated.
‘May I come in?’ said he.
I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could command, and he followed me into my chambers. There, I saw that the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is commonly called a Belcher handkerchief. He slowly removed this bandage, and exposed to view a long dark beard, curling over his upper lip, twisting about the corners of his mouth, and hanging down upon his breast.
‘What is this?’ I exclaimed involuntarily, ‘and what have you become?’
‘I am the Ghost of Art!’ said he.
The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunder-storm at midnight, was appalling60 in the last degree. More dead than alive, I surveyed him in silence.
‘The German taste came up,’ said he, ‘and threw me out of bread. I am ready for the taste now.’
He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his arms, and said,
‘Severity!’
I shuddered61. It was so severe.
He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both hands on the staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. Parkins had left among my books, said:
‘Benevolence.’
I stood transfixed. The change of sentiment was entirely62 in the beard. The man might have left his face alone, or had no face.
The beard did everything.
He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of his head threw up his beard at the chin.
‘That’s death!’ said he.
He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his beard a little awry63; at the same time making it stick out before him.
‘Adoration, or a vow64 of vengeance,’ he observed.
He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulky with the upper part of his beard.
‘Romantic character,’ said he.
He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an ivy-bush. ‘Jealousy,’ said he. He gave it an ingenious twist in the air, and informed me that he was carousing65. He made it shaggy with his fingers — and it was Despair; lank66 — and it was avarice67: tossed it all kinds of ways — and it was rage. The beard did everything.
‘I am the Ghost of Art,’ said he. ‘Two bob a-day now, and more when it’s longer! Hair’s the true expression. There is no other.
I SAID I’D GROW IT, AND I’VE GROWN IT, AND IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!’
He may have tumbled down-stairs in the dark, but he never walked down or ran down. I looked over the banisters, and I was alone with the thunder.
Need I add more of my terrific fate? IT HAS haunted me ever since. It glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when MACLISE subdues68 it to his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at the British Institution, it lures69 young artists on to their destruction. Go where I will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working the passions in hair, and expressing everything by beard, pursues me. The prediction is accomplished70, and the victim has no rest.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
chambers
|
|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
situated
|
|
| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
condescend
|
|
| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
narrative
|
|
| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
honourable
|
|
| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
wig
|
|
| n.假发 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
tempestuous
|
|
| adj.狂暴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
chaff
|
|
| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
revere
|
|
| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
torrents
|
|
| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
beheld
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
funnel
|
|
| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
memorable
|
|
| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
affidavit
|
|
| n.宣誓书 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
squire
|
|
| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
conglomeration
|
|
| n.团块，聚集，混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
primrose
|
|
| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
frantically
|
|
| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
frightful
|
|
| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
deranged
|
|
| adj.疯狂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
inexplicably
|
|
| adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
diffusing
|
|
| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的现在分词 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
profane
|
|
| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
inclination
|
|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
demon
|
|
| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
plunge
|
|
| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
constrained
|
|
| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
hoarsely
|
|
| adv.嘶哑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
imprinted
|
|
| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
sanity
|
|
| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
wrung
|
|
| 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） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
moodily
|
|
| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
armour
|
|
| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
sullenly
|
|
| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
knotty
|
|
| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
deference
|
|
| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
uncommon
|
|
| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
tambourines
|
|
| n.铃鼓，手鼓( tambourine的名词复数 )；（鸣声似铃鼓的）白胸森鸠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
gals
|
|
| abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
effaced
|
|
| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
implore
|
|
| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
reeking
|
|
| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
vicissitudes
|
|
| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
expiration
|
|
| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
appalling
|
|
| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
shuddered
|
|
| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
awry
|
|
| adj.扭曲的，错的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
vow
|
|
| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
carousing
|
|
| v.痛饮，闹饮欢宴( carouse的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
lank
|
|
| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
avarice
|
|
| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
subdues
|
|
| 征服( subdue的第三人称单数 )； 克制； 制服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
lures
|
|
| 吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |