In the ancient town of Caen, in the Silver Lion, the Rev. Isaac Dixie that evening made himself partially6 understood, and altogether comfortable. He had an excellent dinner, and partook, moderately of course, of the very best vintage in the crypt of that venerable inn. Why should he not? Was he not making harmless holiday, and guilty of no extravagance; for had not Mr. Cleve Verney buckled7 a long purse to his girdle, and told him to dip his fingers in it as often and as deep as he pleased? And if he undertook the task — trod out Cleve Verney’s corn, surely it was no business of his to call for a muzzle8, and deny himself his heart’s content.
In that exquisite9 moonlight, having had his cup of coffee, the Rev. Isaac Dixie made a loitering promenade10: everything was bewitching — a little wonderful, he fancied — a little strange — from his shadow, that looked so sharp on the white road, to the gothic fronts and gables of old carved houses, emitting ruddy glimmerings from diamond casemates high in air, and half-melting in the deep liquid sky, gleaming with stars over his head.
All was perfectly12 French in language and costume: not a note of the familiar English accent mingled13 in the foreign hum of life. He was quite at his ease. To all censorious eyes he walked invisible; and, shall I tell it? Why not? For in truth, if his bishop14, who abhors15 that narcotic16, and who, I am sure, never reads novels, and therefore cannot read it here, learns nothing of it, the telling can hurt nobody. He smoked three great cheroots, mild and fragrant17, that evening, in the ancient streets of Caen, and returned to his inn, odorous of that perfume.
It would have been altogether a delicious excursion, had there not been a suspense18 and an anxiety to trouble the divine. The Rev. Isaac Dixie regretted now that he had not asked Cleve to define his object. He suspected, but did not know its nature. He had no idea how obstinately19 and amazingly the problem would recur20 to his mind, and how serious would grow his qualms21 as the hour of revelation drew near.
The same moon is shining over the ancient streets of Caen, and over smoke-canopied Verney House, and over the quaint22 and lonely Chateau de Cresseron. In a tapestried23 room in this old French house candles were burning, the window open, and Margaret Fanshawe sitting at it, and looking out on the moonlit woods and waters, and breathing the still air, that was this night soft as summer, in the raptures24 of a strange dream: a dream no more; the uncertainty25 is over, and all her griefs. No longer is she one of that forlorn race that hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery26. She is not born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, but translated. Is it so? Alas27! alas! the angelic voice has not yet proclaimed “that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” These words are for the glorified28, who have passed the gates of death.
In this bliss29, as in all that pertains30 to love, reason has small share. The heart rejoices as the birds sing. A great suspense — the greatest care that visits the young heart — has ended in a blessed certainty, and in so far the state resembles heaven; but, as in all mortal happiness, there mingles31 in this also a sadness like distant music.
Old Sir Booth Fanshawe is away on one of his mysterious journeys, and cannot return for three or four days, at soonest. I do not know whether things are beginning to look brighter with Sir Booth, or whether his affairs are being “managed” into utter ruin. Meanwhile, the evil spirit has departed from the house, and the spirit of music has come, music with yet a cadence32 of sadness in it.
This fair, quaint landscape, and beautiful moonlight! Who ever looks on such a scene that does not feel a melancholy33 mingling34 in his delight?
“The moon shines bright:— in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cresid lay that night. In such a night
Stood Dido, with a willow35 in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.”
Thus, in the visions of the Seer who lies in Stratford-on-Avon, moonlight and love and melancholy are related; and so it is, and will be, to the end of time, till mortal love is no more, and sadness ends, and the moon is changed to blood, and all things are made new.
And now over the moonlit water, through the boughs36 of the old trees, the still night air is thrilled with a sweet contralto — a homely37 song — the echo of childish days and the nursery. Poor Milly! her maid who died so early, whose lover was a young sailor, far away, used to sing it for her in the summer evenings, when they sat down under the hawthorns38, on Winnockhough, looking toward the sea, though the sea was many a mile away:—
“As Eve went forth39 from Paradise,
She, weeping, bore away
One flower that, reared, in tears and sighs,
Is growing to this day.
“Where’er the children of the fall
Are toiling40 to this hour,
It blooms for each, it blooms for all,
And Love we call this flower.
“Red roses of the bygone year
Are mingled with the mould,
And other roses will appear
Where they grew pale and old.
“But where it grew, no other grows,
No bloom restores the sere41;
So this resembles not the rose,
And knows no other year.
“So, welcome, when thy bloom is red,
The glory of thy light;
And welcome when thy bloom is shed,
The long sleep of my night.”
And now the song is ended, and, listening, nature seems to sigh; and looking toward the old chateau, the front next you is in shadow, the window is open, and within you see two ladies. The elder is standing42 by the girl, who sits still at the open window, looking up into the face of her old friend — the old friend who has known, in the early days of romance, what love is, for whom now “the bloom is shed, and mingling with the mould,” but who remembers sadly the blush and glory of its light that died five-and-thirty years ago upon Canadian snows.
Gently the old lady takes her hand, and sits beside her girlish kinswoman, and lays her other hand over that, and smiles with a strange look of affection, and admiration43, and immeasurable compassion44, that somehow seems to translate her, it is so sad and angelic. I cannot hear what she is saying, but the young lady looks up, and kisses her thin cheek, and lays her head upon her old shoulder.
Behind, high over the steep roofs and pinnacles45, and those glimmering11 weather-vanes, that seem sometimes to melt quite away, hangs the moon, unclouded — meet emblem46 of a pure love — no longer crossed by the sorrows of true love’s course — Dian the Chaste47, with her sad, pure, and beautifully misleading light — alas! the emblem, also, of mutation48.
In a few concise49 and somewhat dry sentences, as old prison stones bear the records which thin hands, long since turned to dust, have carved, the world’s corridors and corners bear the tracings of others that were busy two thousand years ago; and the inscriptions50 that tell the trite51 story of human fears and sadness, cut sharp and deep in the rock, tell simply and briefly52 how Death was the King of Terrors, and the shortness of Life the bitter wonder, and black Care the companion of the wayfarers53 who marched by the same route to the same goal, so long ago. These gigantic griefs and horrors are all in a nutshell. A few words tell them. Their terror is in their truth. There is no use in expanding them: they are sublimely54 simple. Among the shadowy men and women that people these pages, I see them everywhere — plots too big and complicated to be got, by any compression, within the few pages and narrow covers of the book of their lives: Care, in her old black weeds, and Death, with stealthy foot and blow like thunder.
Twelve months had come and gone for ever since the Reverend Isaac Dixie made that little trip to Caen, every month bringing his portion of blossom, fruit, or blight55 to every mortal. All had gone well and gloriously in this Verney Peerage matter.
The death of the late Honourable56 Arthur Verney was proved; and the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, as next heir, having complied with the proper forms, duly succeeded to the ancient peerage of the Verneys. So the dream was accomplished57 more splendidly, perhaps, than if the prize had come earlier, for the estates were in such condition as they had never attained58 to since the great rebellion; and if Viscount Verney was not among the more potent59 of his peers, the fault was not in the peerage and its belongings60.
I don’t know that Lord Verney was on the whole a happier man than the Honourable Kiffyn had been. He had become somewhat more exacting61; his pride pronounced itself more implacably; men felt it more, because he was really formidable. Whatever the Viscount in the box might be, the drag he drove was heavy, and men more alert in getting out of his way than they would, perhaps, had he been a better whip.
He had at length his heart’s desire; but still there was something wanting. He was not quite where he ought to be. With his boroughs62, and his command of one county, and potent influence in another, he ought to have been decidedly a greater man. He could not complain of being slighted. The minister saw him when he chose; he was listened to, and in all respects courteously63 endured. But there was something unsatisfactory. He was not telling, as he had expected. Perhaps he had no very clear conceptions to impress. He had misgivings64, too, that secretly depressed65 and irritated him. He saw Twyndle’s eye wander wildly, and caught him yawning stealthily into his hand, while he was giving him his view of the affair of the “the Matilda Briggs,” and the right of search. He had seen Foljambe, of the Treasury66, suddenly laugh at something he thought was particularly wise, while unfolding to that gentleman, in the drawing-room, after dinner, his ideas about local loans, in aid of agriculture. Foljambe did not laugh outright67. It was only a tremulous qualm of a second, and he was solemn again, and rather abashed68. Lord Verney paused, and looked for a second, with stern inquiry69 in his face, and then proceeded politely. But Lord Verney never thought or spoke70 well of Foljambe again; and often reviewed what he had said, in secret, to try and make out where the absurdity71 lay, and was shy of ventilating that particular plan again, and sometimes suspected that it was the boroughs and the county, and not Kiffyn Lord Verney, that were listened to.
As the organ of self-esteem is the region of our chief consolations72 and irritations73 (and its condition regulates temper), this undivulged mortification74, you may be sure, did not make Lord Verney, into whose ruminations was ever trickling75, through a secret duct, this fine stream of distilled76 gall77, brighter in spirits, or happier in temper.
Oh! vanity of human wishes! Not that the things we wish for are not in themselves pleasant, but that we forget that, as in nature every substance has its peculiar78 animalcule and infestings, so every blessing79 has, too minute to be seen at a distance, but quite inseparable, its parasite80 troubles.
Cleve Verney, too, who stood so near the throne, was he happy? The shadow of care was cast upon him. He had grown an anxious man. “Verney’s looking awfully81 thin, don’t you think, and seedy? and he’s always writing long letters, and rather cross,” was the criticism of one of his club friends. “Been going a little too fast, I dare say.”
Honest Tom Sedley thought it was this pending82 peerage business, and the suspense; and reported to his friend the confident talk of the town on the subject. But when the question was settled, with a brilliant facility, his good humour did not recover. There was still the same cloud over his friend, and Tom began to fear that Cleve had got into some very bad scrape, probably with the Hebrew community.
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1
sate
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| v.使充分满足 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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15
abhors
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| v.憎恶( abhor的第三人称单数 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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narcotic
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| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
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17
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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18
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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19
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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21
qualms
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| n.不安；内疚 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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23
tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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25
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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26
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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27
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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28
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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29
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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30
pertains
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| 关于( pertain的第三人称单数 )； 有关； 存在； 适用 | |
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31
mingles
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| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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32
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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33
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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34
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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35
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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36
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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37
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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38
hawthorns
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| n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
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39
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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40
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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41
sere
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| adj.干枯的；n.演替系列 | |
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42
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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43
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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44
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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45
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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46
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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47
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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mutation
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| n.变化，变异，转变 | |
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49
concise
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| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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50
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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sublimely
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| 高尚地，卓越地 | |
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blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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58
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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boroughs
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| （尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇 | |
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courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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66
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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70
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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71
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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irritations
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| n.激怒( irritation的名词复数 )；恼怒；生气；令人恼火的事 | |
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mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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75
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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76
distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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77
gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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parasite
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| n.寄生虫；寄生菌；食客 | |
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81
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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82
pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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