“I fell in love on the beach,” said Rosemary.
“Who with?”
“First with a whole lot of people who looked nice. Then with one man.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Just a little. Very handsome. With reddish hair.” She was eating, ravenously4. “He’s married though — it’s usually the way.”
Her mother was her best friend and had put every last possibility into the guiding of her, not so rare a thing in the theatrical5 profession, but rather special in that Mrs. Elsie Speers was not recompensing herself for a defeat of her own. She had no personal bitterness or resentments6 about life — twice satisfactorily married and twice widowed, her cheerful stoicism had each time deepened. One of her husbands had been a cavalry7 officer and one an army doctor, and they both left something to her that she tried to present intact to Rosemary. By not sparing Rosemary she had made her hard — by not sparing her own labor8 and devotion she had cultivated an idealism in Rosemary, which at present was directed toward herself and saw the world through her eyes. So that while Rosemary was a “simple” child she was protected by a double sheath of her mother’s armor and her own — she had a mature distrust of the trivial, the facile and the vulgar. However, with Rosemary’s sudden success in pictures Mrs. Speers felt that it was time she were spiritually weaned; it would please rather than pain her if this somewhat bouncing, breathless and exigent idealism would focus on something except herself.
“Then you like it here?” she asked.
“It might be fun if we knew those people. There were some other people, but they weren’t nice. They recognized me — no matter where we go everybody’s seen ‘Daddy’s Girl.’”
Mrs. Speers waited for the glow of egotism to subside9; then she said in a matter-of-fact way: “That reminds me, when are you going to see Earl Brady?”
“I thought we might go this afternoon — if you’re rested.”
“You go — I’m not going.”
“We’ll wait till to-morrow then.”
“I want you to go alone. It’s only a short way — it isn’t as if you didn’t speak French.”
“Mother — aren’t there some things I don’t have to do?”
“Oh, well then go later — but some day before we leave.”
“All right, Mother.”
After lunch they were both overwhelmed by the sudden flatness that comes over American travellers in quiet foreign places. No stimuli10 worked upon them, no voices called them from without, no fragments of their own thoughts came suddenly from the minds of others, and missing the clamor of Empire they felt that life was not continuing here.
“Let’s only stay three days, Mother,” Rosemary said when they were back in their rooms. Outside a light wind blew the heat around, straining it through the trees and sending little hot gusts11 through the shutters12.
“How about the man you fell in love with on the beach?”
“I don’t love anybody but you, Mother, darling.”
Rosemary stopped in the lobby and spoke13 to Gausse père about trains. The concierge14, lounging in light-brown khaki by the desk, stared at her rigidly15, then suddenly remembered the manners of his métier. She took the bus and rode with a pair of obsequious16 waiters to the station, embarrassed by their deferential17 silence, wanting to urge them: “Go on, talk, enjoy yourselves. It doesn’t bother me.”
The first-class compartment18 was stifling19; the vivid advertising20 cards of the railroad companies — The Pont du Gard at Arles, the Amphitheatre at Orange, winter sports at Chamonix — were fresher than the long motionless sea outside. Unlike American trains that were absorbed in an intense destiny of their own, and scornful of people on another world less swift and breathless, this train was part of the country through which it passed. Its breath stirred the dust from the palm leaves, the cinders21 mingled22 with the dry dung in the gardens. Rosemary was sure she could lean from the window and pull flowers with her hand.
A dozen cabbies slept in their hacks23 outside the Cannes station. Over on the promenade24 the Casino, the smart shops, and the great hotels turned blank iron masks to the summer sea. It was unbelievable that there could ever have been a “season,” and Rosemary, half in the grip of fashion, became a little self- conscious, as though she were displaying an unhealthy taste for the moribund25; as though people were wondering why she was here in the lull26 between the gaiety of last winter and next winter, while up north the true world thundered by.
As she came out of a drug store with a bottle of cocoanut oil, a woman, whom she recognized as Mrs. Diver, crossed her path with arms full of sofa cushions, and went to a car parked down the street. A long, low black dog barked at her, a dozing27 chauffeur28 woke with a start. She sat in the car, her lovely face set, controlled, her eyes brave and watchful29, looking straight ahead toward nothing. Her dress was bright red and her brown legs were bare. She had thick, dark, gold hair like a chow’s.
With half an hour to wait for her train Rosemary sat down in the Café des Alliés on the Croisette, where the trees made a green twilight30 over the tables and an orchestra wooed an imaginary public of cosmopolites with the Nice Carnival31 Song and last year’s American tune32. She had bought Le Temps and The Saturday Evening Post for her mother, and as she drank her citronade she opened the latter at the memoirs33 of a Russian princess, finding the dim conventions of the nineties realer and nearer than the headlines of the French paper. It was the same feeling that had oppressed her at the hotel — accustomed to seeing the starkest34 grotesqueries of a continent heavily underlined as comedy or tragedy, untrained to the task of separating out the essential for herself, she now began to feel that French life was empty and stale. This feeling was surcharged by listening to the sad tunes35 of the orchestra, reminiscent of the melancholy37 music played for acrobats38 in vaudeville39. She was glad to go back to Gausse’s Hotel.
Her shoulders were too burned to swim with the next day, so she and her mother hired a car — after much haggling40, for Rosemary had formed her valuations of money in France — and drove along the Riviera, the delta41 of many rivers. The chauffeur, a Russian Czar of the period of Ivan the Terrible, was a self-appointed guide, and the resplendent names — Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo — began to glow through their torpid42 camouflage43, whispering of old kings come here to dine or die, of rajahs tossing Buddha’s eyes to English ballerinas, of Russian princes turning the weeks into Baltic twilights in the lost caviare days. Most of all, there was the scent36 of the Russians along the coast — their closed book shops and grocery stores. Ten years ago, when the season ended in April, the doors of the Orthodox Church were locked, and the sweet champagnes they favored were put away until their return. “We’ll be back next season,” they said, but this was premature44, for they were never coming back any more.
It was pleasant to drive back to the hotel in the late afternoon, above a sea as mysteriously colored as the agates45 and cornelians of childhood, green as green milk, blue as laundry water, wine dark. It was pleasant to pass people eating outside their doors, and to hear the fierce mechanical pianos behind the vines of country estaminets. When they turned off the Corniche d’Or and down to Gausse’s Hotel through the darkening banks of trees, set one behind another in many greens, the moon already hovered46 over the ruins of the aqueducts . . . .
Somewhere in the hills behind the hotel there was a dance, and Rosemary listened to the music through the ghostly moonshine of her mosquito net, realizing that there was gaiety too somewhere about, and she thought of the nice people on the beach. She thought she might meet them in the morning, but they obviously formed a self- sufficient little group, and once their umbrellas, bamboo rugs, dogs, and children were set out in place the part of the plage was literally47 fenced in. She resolved in any case not to spend her last two mornings with the other ones.
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1
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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6
resentments
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| （因受虐待而）愤恨，不满，怨恨( resentment的名词复数 ) | |
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7
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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stimuli
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| n.刺激（物） | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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13
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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14
concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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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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hacks
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| 黑客 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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moribund
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| adj.即将结束的，垂死的 | |
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lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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27
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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31
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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starkest
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| （指区别）明显的( stark的最高级 )； 完全的； 了无修饰的； 僵硬的 | |
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35
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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36
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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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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38
acrobats
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| n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人 | |
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39
vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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40
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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41
delta
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| n.（流的）角洲 | |
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42
torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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43
camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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44
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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45
agates
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| n.玛瑙( agate的名词复数 )；玛瑙制（或装有玛瑙的）工具； （小孩玩的）玛瑙纹玩具弹子；5。5磅铅字 | |
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46
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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47
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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