CHAPTER XX FATE

One day, M. Sartine sent Marie to call at a house on the highroad that leads across the Morne Parnasse. Her business was to shew some lace to a Spanish lady, Se?ora Vigil, and to sell it if possible.

The Se?ora had come to Martinique by chance; she had taken this house—the Chateau¹ Principe—by chance, and yesterday she had entered M. Sartine’s shop by chance to buy some lace. She might just as easily have gone to the shop of M. Custine, or to the Fleur d’Avril, or to the Bon Marché, but chance—whose other name is Fate—led her into the shop of M. Sartine.

Marie, who had sold the whole quantity of lace to the Se?ora, was returning to St. Pierre well pleased and in high spirits. It was her sixteenth birthday and it had brought her the pleasantest surprise in the world.

Finotte, Dodotte, Florine, Honorine, all her girl friends and acquaintances, had remembered the day; each had brought a little present, a trifle, less than a trifle, a box of sea shells blazing with colour, a scarf, a string of beads—the brazier across the way and the baker², had remembered her; they did not bring presents, but they called out good wishes as she passed. Her aunt gave her the rarest thing she ever gave to anyone—a smile. She had not known that any of these people had cared for her till this morning, when her birthday made them speak.131 And she had told no one of her birthday, or only one girl, Finotte—she must have spread the news.

Then, she had been entrusted³ with the lace selling by M. Sartine, a most important business, in which she had succeeded. The Se?ora had spoken kindly⁵ to her, asked her her age, and discovering that it was her birthday, had given her a little old-fashioned cross wrought⁶ in silver and with the blessed Saviour⁷ upon it. “It has been blessed by the Archbishop of Santa Cruz,” said the Se?ora, “and whilst you keep it nothing evil can hurt you.”

It had been a wonderful morning. The sun was full in the sky as she came along the road past the Jardin des Plantes. The gates were open, they were always open, rusty⁸ and gone to decay; she could see in through the great arch of twilight⁹ made by the trees. In there amidst the palms and great tropical trees a bird was singing, calling, filling the echoes with its golden, flute-like notes. It was a siffleur de montagne. She paused and looked in. The great garden, once carefully tended, had gone to decay, the lianas hung like ropes between the trees; palmiste and tree fern, cedar¹⁰ and locust¹¹, all were roped and tangled¹² by the lianas, the scent¹³ of vanilla¹⁴ came on the air from the green gloom, vanilla, and green orange, wet mould, the sad odour of decaying leaves.

It was a wonderful and mysterious place, the Jardin des Plantes; laid out when Versailles was filled with courtiers, beautiful when Josephine, not yet an empress, walked its paths, nothing dreaming of Napoleon or her fate; long gone to decay and given over now to Nature, who was slowly taking it back to herself.

Marie, when she passed the gates, always looked in fascinated and half frightened at the silent riot of trees and shrubs¹⁵; but to-day it seemed less gloomy; the voice of the bird seemed to fill it with light.

132 “Marie! Marie! Marie! Bonjour, Marie—Marie de Morne Rouge¹⁶,” sang the bird. She made a lovely picture as she stood in the sunlit road, listening with a half smile to the liquid golden notes of the siffleur de montagne.

“Marie! Marie! Marie! Bonjour, Marie—Marie de Morne Rouge.”

Then she sighed, turned, and passed on her way. It was as though the old garden where lovers had walked in days gone by had told her something, just as the old street of the Precipice¹⁷ had told her something. But what the garden told her was far less understandable; something new and strange and sad had spoken in the voice of the bird, in the silence of the green gloom. It was as though she had seen the vision of some lovely country, unattainable, a moment glimpsed, and then gone forever.

But she came through the Place du Fort and across the bridge spanning the Rivière Roxelane.

The washerwomen below were busy; she could hear their voices and their laughter; the Rue¹⁸ Victor Hugo was filled with people; she knew many of them, sister porteuses, shop-keepers, idlers, and gave them good-day as she passed.

The crowd was thinner as she drew near the little Place de la Fontaine, and she could see the water of the fountain like a diamond flower in the sunshine. As she was crossing the Place she saw a figure in white clothes coming towards her. Her eye, keen and trained to observation, noted¹⁹ at once that this was some stranger to St. Pierre, some man from the foreign ships, no Creole.

As she passed him, she looked him straight in the face, frankly²⁰, just as she looked everyone in the face, man or woman; his eyes met her eyes full, lit up, and—she had passed on.

133 The crowd was around her, but she did not see it. Someone had spoken to her without words; she had spoken to someone. The world for a moment seemed empty of people, containing only herself and that mysterious someone. She scarcely remembered his face except that it was dark, and vaguely²¹ good-looking; but the eyes held her soul. He had spoken to her as a man speaks to a woman with a glance; that was nothing compared with the fact that she had spoken to him. It was as though something dumb in her, something of which she had never suspected the existence, had awoken from sleep, escaped from darkness, spoken in a strange language, and then sank back to darkness, leaving her bewildered and astonished.

For a moment as she went on her way the vision of the Jardin des Plantes rose before her, and the voice of the siffleur de montagne followed her: “Marie! Marie! Marie! Marie de Morne Rouge.” The old love-haunted garden and the bird seemed trying to tell her something—something impossible to understand, something beyond all sadness sad, and beyond all beauty beautiful.

Then, drowning out everything, as though some belfry in the sky had flung open, came the sound of bells; it was the carillon of the cathedral that rings twice daily, silver bells and golden bells, tenor²² and alto, answered by a thousand singing echoes from high wood and harbour, street and place, floating up to the blue sky, floating out over the blue sea.

“Marie, Marie de Morne Rouge—Bonjour, Marie—Little porteuse, child of the sun, listen to us, the bells, listen to us, the echoes—we are speaking the language he spoke⁴, birds and echoes, bells and flowers, soul of woman and soul of man, one language only have they.”

“Marie de Morne Rouge—Marie.”

1 chateau   

n.城堡，别墅

参考例句：

• The house was modelled on a French chateau.这房子是模仿一座法国大别墅建造的。
• The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn.那府第便径自腾起大火燃烧下去。

2 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

3 entrusted   

v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He entrusted the task to his nephew. 他把这任务托付给了他的侄儿。
• She was entrusted with the direction of the project. 她受委托负责这项计划。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

6 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

7 saviour   

n.拯救者，救星

参考例句：

• I saw myself as the saviour of my country.我幻想自己为国家的救星。
• The people clearly saw her as their saviour.人们显然把她看成了救星。

8 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

9 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

10 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

11 locust   

n.蝗虫；洋槐，刺槐

参考例句：

• A locust is a kind of destructive insect.蝗虫是一种害虫。
• This illustration shows a vertical section through the locust.本图所示为蝗虫的纵剖面。

12 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

13 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

14 vanilla   

n.香子兰，香草

参考例句：

• He used to love milk flavoured with vanilla.他过去常爱喝带香草味的牛奶。
• I added a dollop of vanilla ice-cream to the pie.我在馅饼里加了一块香草冰激凌。

15 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

16 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

17 precipice   

n.悬崖，危急的处境

参考例句：

• The hut hung half over the edge of the precipice.那间小屋有一半悬在峭壁边上。
• A slight carelessness on this precipice could cost a man his life.在这悬崖上稍一疏忽就会使人丧生。

18 rue   

n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔

参考例句：

• You'll rue having failed in the examination.你会悔恨考试失败。
• You're going to rue this the longest day that you live.你要终身悔恨不尽呢。

19 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

20 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

21 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

22 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。