Andre–Louis had been silent and preoccupied3 throughout that drive. He was perturbed4 by his last interview with Mademoiselle de Kercadiou and the rash inferences which he had drawn5 as to her motives6.
“Decidedly,” he had said, “this man must be killed.”
Le Chapelier had not answered him. Almost, indeed, had the Breton shuddered7 at his compatriot’s cold-bloodedness. He had often of late thought that this fellow Moreau was hardly human. Also he had found him incomprehensibly inconsistent. When first this spadassinicide business had been proposed to him, he had been so very lofty and disdainful. Yet, having embraced it, he went about it at times with a ghoulish flippancy9 that was revolting, at times with a detachment that was more revolting still.
Their preparations were made quickly and in silence, yet without undue10 haste or other sign of nervousness on either side. In both men the same grim determination prevailed. The opponent must be killed; there could be no half-measures here. Stripped each of coat and waistcoat, shoeless and with shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, they faced each other at last, with the common resolve of paying in full the long score that stood between them. I doubt if either of them entertained a misgiving11 as to what must be the issue.
Beside them, and opposite each other, stood Le Chapelier and the young captain, alert and watchful12.
“Allez, messieurs!”
The slender, wickedly delicate blades clashed together, and after a momentary13 glizade were whirling, swift and bright as lightnings, and almost as impossible to follow with the eye. The Marquis led the attack, impetuously and vigorously, and almost at once Andre–Louis realized that he had to deal with an opponent of a very different mettle14 from those successive duellists of last week, not excluding La Motte–Royau, of terrible reputation.
Here was a man whom much and constant practice had given extraordinary speed and a technique that was almost perfect. In addition, he enjoyed over Andre–Louis physical advantages of strength and length of reach, which rendered him altogether formidable. And he was cool, too; cool and self-contained; fearless and purposeful. Would anything shake that calm, wondered Andre–Louis?
He desired the punishment to be as full as he could make it. Not content to kill the Marquis as the Marquis had killed Philippe, he desired that he should first know himself as powerless to avert15 that death as Philippe had been. Nothing less would content Andre–Louis. M. le Marquis must begin by tasting of that cup of despair. It was in the account; part of the quittance due.
As with a breaking sweep Andre–Louis parried the heavy lunge in which that first series of passes culminated16, he actually laughed — gleefully, after the fashion of a boy at a sport he loves.
That extraordinary, ill-timed laugh made M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s recovery hastier and less correctly dignified17 than it would otherwise have been. It startled and discomposed him, who had already been discomposed by the failure to get home with a lunge so beautifully timed and so truly delivered.
He, too, had realized that his opponent’s force was above anything that he could have expected, fencing-master though he might be, and on that account he had put forth18 his utmost energy to make an end at once.
More than the actual parry, the laugh by which it was accompanied seemed to make of that end no more than a beginning. And yet it was the end of something. It was the end of that absolute confidence that had hitherto inspired M. de La Tour d’Azyr. He no longer looked upon the issue as a thing forgone19. He realized that if he was to prevail in this encounter, he must go warily20 and fence as he had never fenced yet in all his life.
They settled down again; and again — on the principle this time that the soundest defence is in attack — it was the Marquis who made the game. Andre–Louis allowed him to do so, desired him to do so; desired him to spend himself and that magnificent speed of his against the greater speed that whole days of fencing in succession for nearly two years had given the master. With a beautiful, easy pressure of forte21 on foible Andre–Louis kept himself completely covered in that second bout8, which once more culminated in a lunge.
Expecting it now, Andre–Louis parried it by no more than a deflecting22 touch. At the same moment he stepped suddenly forward, right within the other’s guard, thus placing his man so completely at his mercy that, as if fascinated, the Marquis did not even attempt to recover himself.
This time Andre–Louis did not laugh: He just smiled into the dilating23 eyes of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and made no shift to use his advantage.
“Come, come, monsieur!” he bade him sharply. “Am I to run my blade through an uncovered man?” Deliberately24 he fell back, whilst his shaken opponent recovered himself at last.
M. d’Ormesson released the breath which horror had for a moment caught. Le Chapelier swore softly, muttering:
“Name of a name! It is tempting25 Providence26 to play the fool in this fashion!”
Andre–Louis observed the ashen27 pallor that now over spread the face of his opponent.
“I think you begin to realize, monsieur, what Philippe de Vilmorin must have felt that day at Gavrillac. I desired that you should first do so. Since that is accomplished28, why, here’s to make an end.”
He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his point seemed to La Tour d’Azyr to be everywhere at once, and then from a low engagement in sixte, Andre–Louis stretched forward with swift and vigorous ease to lunge in tierce. He drove his point to transfix his opponent whom a series of calculated disengages uncovered in that line. But to his amazement29 and chagrin30, La Tour d’Azyr parried the stroke; infinitely31 more to his chagrin La Tour d’Azyr parried it just too late. Had he completely parried it, all would yet have been well. But striking the blade in the last fraction of a second, the Marquis deflected32 the point from the line of his body, yet not so completely but that a couple of feet of that hard-driven steel tore through the muscles of his sword-arm.
To the seconds none of these details had been visible. All that they had seen had been a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then Andre–Louis stretched almost to the ground in an upward lunge that had pierced the Marquis’ right arm just below the shoulder.
The sword fell from the suddenly relaxed grip of La Tour d’Azyr’s fingers, which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed33, his lip in his teeth, his face white, his chest heaving, before his opponent, who had at once recovered. With the blood-tinged tip of his sword resting on the ground, Andre–Louis surveyed him grimly, as we survey the prey34 that through our own clumsiness has escaped us at the last moment.
In the Assembly and in the newspapers this might be hailed as another victory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know the extent and the bitternest of the failure.
M. d’Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.
“You are hurt!” he had cried stupidly.
“It is nothing,” said La Tour d’Azyr. “A scratch.” But his lip writhed35, and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.
D’Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen36 kerchief, which he tore quickly into strips to improvise37 a bandage.
Still Andre–Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused. He continued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm. Then at last he roused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor did he address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at once.
As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejection towards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage, they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d’Azyr and his second — which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of the encounter. The Marquis’ wounded arm was carried in a sling38 improvised39 from his companion’s sword-belt. His sky-blue coat with three collars had been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty. Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his usual self.
And now you understand how it was that he was the first to return, and that seeing him thus returning, apparently40 safe and sound, the two ladies, intent upon preventing the encounter, should have assumed that their worst fears were realized.
Mme. de Plougastel attempted to call out, but her voice refused its office. She attempted to throw open the door of her own carriage; but her fingers fumbled41 clumsily and ineffectively with the handle. And meanwhile the caleche was slowly passing, La Tour d’Azyr’s fine eyes sombrely yet intently meeting her own anguished42 gaze. And then she saw something else. M. d’Ormesson, leaning back again from the forward inclination43 of his body to join his own to his companion’s salutation of the Countess, disclosed the empty right sleeve of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s blue coat. More, the near side of the coat itself turned back from the point near the throat where it was caught together by a single button, revealed the slung44 arm beneath in its blood-sodden cambric sleeve.
Even now she feared to jump to the obvious conclusion — feared lest perhaps the Marquis, though himself wounded, might have dealt his adversary45 a deadlier wound.
She found her voice at last, and at the same moment signalled to the driver of the caleche to stop.
As it was pulled to a standstill, M. d’Ormesson alighted, and so met madame in the little space between the two carriages.
“Where is M. Moreau?” was the question with which she surprised him.
“Following at his leisure, no doubt, madame,” he answered, recovering.
“He is not hurt?”
“Unfortunately it is we who . . . ” M. d’Ormesson was beginning, when from behind him M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s voice cut in crisply:
“This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess . . . ”
He broke off, observing a vague challenge in the air with which she confronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing.
There was a vaguely46 awkward pause. And then she looked at M. d’Ormesson. Her manner changed. She offered what appeared to be an explanation of her concern for M. Moreau.
“Mademoiselle de Kercadiou is with me. The poor child has fainted.”
There was more, a deal more, she would have said just then, but for M. d’Ormesson’s presence.
Moved by a deep solicitude47 for Mademoiselle de Kertadiou, de La Tour d’Azyr sprang up despite his wound.
“I am in poor case to render assistance, madame,” he said, an apologetic smile on his pale face. “But . . . ”
With the aid of d’Ormesson, and in spite of the latter’s protestations, he got down from the caleche, which then moved on a little way, so as to leave the road clear — for another carriage that was approaching from the direction of the Bois.
And thus it happened that when a few moments later that approaching cabriolet overtook and passed the halted vehicles, Andre–Louis beheld48 a very touching49 scene. Standing1 up to obtain a better view, he saw Aline in a half-swooning condition — she was beginning to revive by now — seated in the doorway50 of the carriage, supported by Mme. de Plougastel. In an attitude of deepest concern, M. de La Tour d’Azyr, his wound notwithstanding, was bending over the girl, whilst behind him stood M. d’Ormesson and madame’s footman.
The Countess looked up and saw him as he was driven past. Her face lighted; almost it seemed to him she was about to greet him or to call him, wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of the presence there of his late antagonist51, he anticipated her by bowing frigidly52 — for his mood was frigid53, the more frigid by virtue54 of what he saw — and then resumed his seat with eyes that looked deliberately ahead.
Could anything more completely have confirmed him in his conviction that it was on M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s account that Aline had come to plead with him that morning? For what his eyes had seen, of course, was a lady overcome with emotion at the sight of blood of her dear friend, and that same dear friend restoring her with assurances that his hurt was very far from mortal. Later, much later, he was to blame his own perverse55 stupidity. Almost is he too severe in his self-condemnation. For how else could he have interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptions being what they were?
That which he had already been suspecting, he now accounted proven to him. Aline had been wanting in candour on the subject of her feelings towards M. de La Tour d’Azyr. It was, he supposed, a woman’s way to be secretive in such matters, and he must not blame her. Nor could he blame her in his heart for having succumbed56 to the singular charm of such a man as the Marquis — for not even his hostility57 could blind him to M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s attractions. That she had succumbed was betrayed, he thought, by the weakness that had overtaken her upon seeing him wounded.
“My God!” he cried aloud. “What must she have suffered, then, if I had killed him as I intended!”
If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won his consent to the thing she asked. If only she had told him what now he saw, that she loved M. de La Tour d’Azyr, instead of leaving him to assume her only regard for the Marquis to be based on unworthy worldly ambition, he would at once have yielded.
He fetched a sigh, and breathed a prayer for forgiveness to the shade of Vilmorin.
“It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide,” he said.
“What do you mean?” wondered Le Chapelier.
“That in this business I must relinquish58 all hope of recommencing.”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
corps
|
|
| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
preoccupied
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
perturbed
|
|
| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
motives
|
|
| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
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： |
|
|
|
|
8
bout
|
|
| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
flippancy
|
|
| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
undue
|
|
| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
misgiving
|
|
| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
watchful
|
|
| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
mettle
|
|
| n.勇气，精神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
avert
|
|
| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
culminated
|
|
| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
forgone
|
|
| v.没有也行，放弃( forgo的过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
warily
|
|
| adv.留心地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
forte
|
|
| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
deflecting
|
|
| （使）偏斜， （使）偏离， （使）转向( deflect的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
dilating
|
|
| v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
tempting
|
|
| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
providence
|
|
| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
ashen
|
|
| adj.灰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
chagrin
|
|
| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
deflected
|
|
| 偏离的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
disarmed
|
|
| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
writhed
|
|
| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
improvise
|
|
| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
sling
|
|
| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
improvised
|
|
| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
fumbled
|
|
| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
anguished
|
|
| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
inclination
|
|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
slung
|
|
| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
adversary
|
|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
solicitude
|
|
| n.焦虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
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： |
|
|
|
|
49
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
antagonist
|
|
| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
frigidly
|
|
| adv.寒冷地；冷漠地；冷淡地；呆板地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
53
frigid
|
|
| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
perverse
|
|
| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
succumbed
|
|
| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
hostility
|
|
| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
relinquish
|
|
| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |