I have in my possession a quantity of manuscript, in Elias’s crabbed9 handwriting, which gives a deep and clear, though fragmentary, insight into the life he led after his marriage. It is in the form of a long, turbulent, and often hysterical10 letter, addressed by him, under circumstances which will in due time be explained, to Christine—a letter, however, which was never sent—and it bears date February, 1885. I have already made one or two quotations11 from it. I shall avail myself freely of it in the present chapter.
About the relations between himself and Tillie, Elias writes, “there is not much to be said. Our relations were perfectly12 amicable13, but perfectly superficial. Man and wife in name, in reality we were simply good friends; scarcely that, indeed; scarcely more than friendly acquaintances. She was invariably bright, cheerful, amiable14, unselfish. I tried to do my duty by her, as I conceived it; to be always kind to her, and to seize every opportunity that I saw to afford her pleasure, or to spare her annoyance15. I dare say this was not enough. I dare say she deserved better of me than she got; that I ought to have striven to be her husband in a more genuine and vital sense of the word. But I did not; and if, in this way, I sinned against her, it was at least an unintentional sin, a sin of omission16, and one which she remained unaware17 of. I was egotistical and self-centered, as it is my nature to be. She was not at all exacting18. If I would listen to her when she talked, and admire her dresses, and enjoy her playing, and take her to the theater or to parties, she was quite contented20. She neither asked, nor appeared to expect, any thing further. So that, though we saw each other every day, and were together a good deal of the time, we were as far as possible from being intimate. Our real, innermost selves never approached each other. In fact, she and my uncle were much more intimate than she and I. He was always having her to sit with him in his study, where he would talk to her of the subjects that interested him, or get her to read aloud to him, or to act as his amanuensis, and write under his dictation. She thought my uncle was a ‘perfectly adorable old man’; and he called her ‘the light of his declining years.’
“I, meanwhile, lived my own life, such as it was, in silence. But it was not much of a life. It was not especially enjoyable, and it was altogether valueless. I produced nothing, accomplished21 nothing, was of no earthly use or benefit to anybody in the world—except a sort of convenient appendage22 to my wife. My favorite occupation—the only one that I cared any thing about—consisted in getting away by myself, and reading. My studio was my castle. Once inside it, with the door closed behind me, I was sure of not being disturbed. I, had forsworn my painting, as I fancied, for good and all. I had got utterly23 discouraged about it, had lost all zest25 in it, had vowed26 never to return to it. But up here in my studio I had a lot of books; and here for hours I would sit at the window, reading. My appetite for reading had recently become voracious27, insatiable. I can’t convey to you an idea of how dependent I was upon my books. They were the world in which I lived, moved, had my being. Away from them, I kept thinking about them, longing28 to get back to them. Not that I derived29 so much pleasure from them, but simply that I was unhappy unless I had them. They were to me, I suppose, in my dead-and-alive condition, something like what his drug is to an opium-eater—not so harmful, of course, but just as indispensable: a stimulant30, which I could not do without. What the books were, doesn’t matter. All sorts, from the latest sensational31 novel, or wildest exposition of spiritualism, up to Milton and the Bible. Yet, perhaps, I ought to give you the names of some of these books, for some of them produced a very deep and vivid impression upon me, and no doubt contributed more or less to my subsequent state of mind—helped, I mean, to bring it on. Well, I reread Wilhelm Meister; and I read for the first time Rousseau’s Confessions33, de Musset’s La Confession32 d’un Enfant du Siècle, and Browning’s Inn Album and The Ring and the Book, besides many of his shorter poems. I mention these five particularly, because they were the ones that had really strong effects. They stirred me; pierced to my heart, and hurt me; where other books merely interested or amused me. What I mean is, they appealed to my emotions, where other books merely appealed to my intelligence. Especially Browning. When I read Browning, the exhilaration was almost physical. It was like breathing some vivifying atmosphere, like drinking some powerful elixir35. It made me glow and tingle36 through and through. It was as though the very inmost quick of my spirit had been touched, and made to throb37 and thrill. I had never supposed, I would never have believed, that any book could possibly have exerted such a profound and irresistible38 influence over the reader. My sensation was like an acute pain, that yet somehow verged39 toward—not pleasure—something deeper and better than pleasure. No music, not even Beethoven’s or Wagner’s, ever moved me, ever carried me away, as these poems of Browning’s did. They literally transfixed me, magnetized me, like the spell of a magician. The reason was, of course, partly because the poetry is in itself so great; so intense, so penetrating41, so vibrant42 with the living truth, so warm with human blood and passion; and I don’t believe that any man could read it understandingly without being affected43 by it very much as I was. But the reason was also partly personal. In The Ring and the Book I found expressed, in clear, straightforward44 language, all those deep, strenuous45 emotions which I myself had experienced in my love of you, which had always groped and struggled for expression, but which to me had always been inexpressible—yearnings which I had felt with all their force and ardor48, which I had labored49 hard to speak, but which I had never been able to speak, any more than as if I had been dumb; which, pent up in my heart, and straining for an outlet51, had sought one by means of broken syllables52, glances, caresses53. In The Ring and the Book I found them expressed; found my own unutterable secrets uttered. Oh, if only when you and I were together I had had The Ring and the Book to read aloud to you from! Then, perhaps, I could have made you feel how deeply, utterly, I loved you. In the Inn Album, too, another chapter of my own story was told, more of my own secrets were laid bare. The material conditions, the circumstances, the accidentals, to be sure, were totally different; but the essentials seemed to me the same. A man had irretrievably wronged a woman—a noble, beautiful woman, who loved him and trusted him. A lover had acted basely toward his sweetheart. And there, also, I found an expression for my remorse and my despair. But now I am anticipating. For the present these thoughts had not come to me—the thought of you, and of what had been between you and me, and of how I had wronged you. I mean to say, they had come to me after a fashion; now and then, spasmodically, by fits and starts; but they had not pierced more than skin-deep, and they had not taken fast hold. They had come and gone. Later on, they came and staid—like coals burning in my heart. For the present, I did a great deal of reading and scarcely any thinking. Sometimes, it is true, instead of reading, I would sit still, looking out of the window, and carrying on a certain mental process which might perhaps have been called thinking: but it was the sort of thinking known as mooning. I mean it was vague, listless, purposeless; it had no vigor54, no point; and it bore no result. You, and our love, and the misery55 I had caused you, were the subjects of it, yes; but it was like thinking in a fog. It had not grown intense and clear. It had not crystallized. It awoke in my breast a sort of sluggish56, languid melancholy57, instead of the pain that I ought to have felt, and by and by did feel—and feel now, and so long as I live shall feel. Whatever there is in me that is not wholly bad and callous58, what I suppose would be called my better nature, was just preparing to wake up; and these were the dull, premonitory throes. I was just beginning to come to myself, out of a long lethargy. My remorse was just beginning to kindle59. It had not yet sprung into the white-hot continuous fire that it has since become.”
In another place he says: “As I write to you now, what I am trying hard to do, is to get at close quarters with the real, bare truth; to look straight and steadily60 at it; and to tell you, as clearly and as calmly as I can, what I see. But the truth is so deep and subtle, though so unmistakable; and I am so unused to writing; and it is so hard for me to keep down my feelings, that I can’t seem to find the right words. After I have written a sentence, when I come to read it over, it seems almost as though I might as well not have written at all. What I write does not express half clearly, or fully61, or forcibly enough what is in my mind. So I can’t help fearing that you may not understand. Yet my desire that you shall understand is so strong, I am so serious, so much in earnest, I can hardly believe it possible that my words can entirely62 fail to show you what I mean. If they should do so, if in this letter I do fail to make you understand, then I will say this: the only purpose that I have left in life will be defeated. That is the only object that I care to live for: to make you understand. Oh, I beg of you, try to understand. I have no right to ask you to do any thing, to expect any kindness, any common mercy even, from you: and yet I do ask, I implore63 you to read this letter through, and to try to understand what I am trying to express. Not a single line is written which I do not feel in the bottom of my heart. I am striving honestly, with all my might, to strip my soul naked before you. And when what I write seems feeble or obscure, please endeavor to pierce through to the meaning and the feeling of it. You have a kind and pitiful heart; and if a human being, no matter how low or base, called out to you in great pain to stoop and do a little thing—a little, easy thing—to soothe64 and relieve him, I know you would do it. Well, that is the way I call out to you now, and beg you to read and try to understand my letter. As I write, I feel like a dumb man, his heart big and sore with something that presses desperately65 to be spoken, laboring66 to speak. Well, what I want to make you understand is this. Very slowly and gradually, by imperceptible degrees, a great change was coming over me, was being wrought67 in me. This change was really nothing but a return to health, mental and moral health. Ever since that night on which we were to have been married, I had been mentally and morally sick—in an unhealthy, unnatural68 state. My moral nature, and many of my mental faculties69, had lain torpid70 and inactive, as if deadened—had not performed their functions. Well, health was now slowly returning to them, health and vitality71. The depths of my spirit—it is a canting phrase, but it expresses exactly what I mean—the depths of my spirit, which had long lain stagnant72, were being stirred. I had always comprehended, as a mere34 intellectual proposition, how much you must have suffered. It was obvious. Dull and half stupefied as I was, I could not help comprehending that. It was like two-and-two-make-four. But the comprehension had got no further than my brain. It had not touched my heart, and made it shudder73 with horror, and burn with remorse, for my own baseness, and for the agony that I had inflicted74 upon you, as it has done since. I had comprehended, but I had not felt it. My love of you had been struck dead; and my imagination—or whatever the faculty75 is, which causes us to sympathize with another’s pain—was failing to act. So I had gone about the daily affairs of my life, in no wise troubled or affected by the fact, which I was perfectly aware of, that you, at the same time, in solitude76, were suffering the worst sorrow possible in the world—yes, absolutely the worst; I know it. I had gone about, and got what apology for enjoyment77, what vulgar amusement, I could, out of life; had eaten, drunken, talked, laughed, read, smoked, paid calls, listened to music, all precisely78 as though you did not exist, never had existed; and finally I had become engaged and married; and all the while I knew what hopeless, speechless anguish79 you were enduring, thanks to me; I knew it, but did not care. Now and then I would think of it; but so dead was my heart, the thought never aroused a single throe of pain in it. I thought of it on the night of my wedding. In the midst of the dancing, in the midst of the loud, romping80 merriment, I thought: ‘What is she doing at this moment?’ But it was nothing like sympathy or self-reproach, that prompted me. It was a sense of the curious incongruity81. I shrugged82 my shoulders, said to myself that I could not help it, and went on dancing. This will show you how low I had sunken, how callous I had become; and you may imagine how I despise myself, how I hate and abhor83 myself, as I recall it now. Oh, my God! my God!—Christine, for God’s sake, when you read this, don’t harden against me, because of it, and refuse to read any more. Don’t stop reading. For God’s sake, in mercy to me, go on reading to the end. Don’t close your ears against me, and refuse to listen. The only alleviation84 of my torments85 that I have, is the hope that you will read this letter through, and understand how I have repented86.... Well, as I say, this state of being was now slowly, gradually, changing. Not a day passed now but I would think of you, and of every thing that had been between you and me, from the beginning to the end; and now these thoughts did arouse pains in my heart—vague pains, that I did not understand—dull pains, such as one feels in sleep, or while under the influence of an opiate—but still, certainly, pain. As I said before, I was only just beginning to come to myself. My realization87 of what I had done, of what you had suffered, of what I had made you suffer, had not yet crystallized. My love had not yet waked up. My remorse had not yet got really afire. But all of a sudden, one day, the complete change came. The change was precipitated88.
“It was a Friday afternoon late in February, a year ago—dark, rainy, warmish. My wife had gone to the rehearsal89 at Steinway Hall. I had agreed to meet her in the lobby, at the end, and bring her home. All day long, that day, I had done nothing but mope. I had sat at my studio window looking out into the gray, wet park, or up into the heavy, inky clouds, and giving myself over to the blues90—thinking that there was the world, full of interests and activities, the same world that I had used to find so pleasant, and in which I had hoped to work and to be of service, the same world quite unaltered; and that yet, somehow, unchanged as it appeared to be, it had changed totally for me, had lost all its flavor for me, all its attraction for me; the light, the spirit, had died out of it. I got no pleasure from it. I was of no use in it. I was so much inert91, obstructive stuff and lumber92. Then, why did I continue to exist? Neither useful nor happy, what excuse for being had I? Why should I not at once be annihilated93 and done away with? etc., etc. This was the strain that my mind had been running in all day long. Then, toward five o’clock, I put on my hat and walked around to Steinway Hall to wait for Tillie. It was singular, and even now I can not account for it by any ordinary theory, that, as I stood there in the lobby waiting, while the audience, mostly women, passed out, I was conscious of a strange trembling of the heart, such as one feels in anticipation94 of some momentous95 event, such as usually accompanies what we call a presentiment96—a presentiment that something portentous97 for our good or for our evil is about to happen. I could not understand it at all. I could not imagine what it was caused by. And yet, notwithstanding, I could not subdue98 it. It went on from moment to moment getting more intense; troubling me, perplexing me. I concluded that it must be the wind-up and climax99 of my blues, just as a dull, dark day sometimes winds up and reaches its climax in a thunder-storm. I said to myself, ‘You have not felt any thing like this for nearly a year. This is the sort of thing you used to feel when you were in love—after you had rung Christine’s door-bell, while you were waiting and chafing100 for the door to be opened.’ Meantime the audience were pouring out past me, laughing, chatting, greeting their acquaintances, putting up their umbrellas; and I was keeping a look-out for my wife. When, all of a sudden, my heart, which had been trembling in the way I have described, all of a sudden it gave a great, terrible leap, and then stood stock still; and I could not breathe nor move, but was literally petrified101, rooted to the spot, and felt a fearful pain begin to burn in my breast. For I saw—I saw you. Oh, my God! I saw you come out of the hall, and move slowly through the lobby, passing within almost a yard of me, so that I could have stretched out my hand and touched you, so that, if I had whispered your name, you would have heard me, and saw you go down the stairs and disappear in the street. I stood there with wide, staring eyes and parted lips, like a man turned to stone. How shall I ever disentangle, and put before you in some sort of consecutive102 order, the great crowd of thoughts and emotions that suddenly, and all at the same time, broke loose in my heart and brain? In that brief interval—it could not have been more than a minute altogether—I lived through almost every thing that I have lived through since. It was all compressed into that minute. I shall try hard to give you some sort of an account of it, to make it as clear and as comprehensible as I can. But I know that, however hard I try, I shall only be able to give you a very meager103 and faint conception. If I could only see you, and speak to you—if for one moment I could kneel down at your feet, and touch your hand, and look into your face, and utter one long, deep sigh—oh, I should feel then as though I had in some degree expressed what was, and has been ever since, in my heart and mind. Sometimes, when I have listened to certain pieces of music, I have felt that in them was the expression for my unspeakable emotions. I have felt this about some of Chopin’s impromptus105 and nocturnes—that if I could somehow make you hear them, you would somehow understand. Do you know the Impromptu104 in C-sharp minor106? That sometimes seems to express almost perfectly my grief and passion and remorse and hopeless longing. But—but to touch your hand, and look into your eyes, and sob107 at your feet—I would be willing to die at the end of one minute spent that way. But see—see how I am compelled to sit here, away from you, and realize that never, never, so long as I live, shall I be allowed to approach you, or speak to you. Can you imagine the agony it is, to yearn46 with your whole soul to speak one word to a woman; to have your whole soul and heart and mind burdened with something that burns like fire, and will never cease burning until you have emptied soul and heart and mind at her feet; and to know that she is scarcely a mile distant from you, in the same city with you; and yet to know that if she were dead she would not be further removed from you, it could not be more impossible for you ever to approach her, ever to speak with her? Can you imagine that? Oh, sometimes I can not believe it—believe that facts can be so inexorable. Sometimes it seems against nature that a man’s whole strength, whole life, can be concentrated in one single wish, and yet the fulfillment of that wish be absolutely beyond hope. It is too stupendous, too monstrous108. Oh, to think! To think that at this very moment you, your own living self, are almost within reach of my voice! It would not take half an hour to bring me to your side. And once there, once in your actual presence—Oh, my God! This unceasing agony would be ended, this unutterable agony would be uttered. We two should be together once again—you and I. Oh, the joy, the joy, to sob out all our grief together, and soothe each other’s pain! And yet, if I were at the other extremity109 of the earth, or if you were dead, it could not be more impossible, I could not be more hopeless. Christine!
“But there! I am losing control of myself, crying out and raving110 in my despair. But what I have set myself to do, is to keep perfectly calm, and, by the aid of all my forces, to try to give you a clear statement of what I have been through. If I ever succeed in making you realize how thoroughly111 I have understood your pain, how completely I have appreciated the enormity of my own conduct, and how bitterly I have repented it, I shall be almost happy, and I shall have discharged a duty toward you—the only duty that I have a right any more to owe you.
“Well, now, I tell you that in that one minute—in the time that elapsed from the instant I first caught sight of you, down to the instant when you disappeared in the street below—in that minute, with intensity112 proportionate to the rapidity, I lived through nearly every thing that I have lived through since. All my vivid realization of how utterly base I myself had been, and of your unspeakable agony, caused by me, your despair, your humiliation113; all my remorse, my yearning47 to atone114 for what could never be atoned115 for, to repair the irreparable wrong that I had done; all my sense of what I had wantonly flung away, and lost beyond recovery; all my despair; in a word, all my love—love that had lain stunned116, as I supposed dead, but now suddenly had come to, never to let me rest any more: these, and much else that I shall not attempt to reduce to words, these were what sprang upon me all at once, shaking my soul to its foundations, and holding me rigid117, horrified118, in their grasp. Oh, help me to find an expression for what strains so hard to be spoken. I have just read over what I have written. It sounds vague, cold, formal. If I had left the paper blank, it would have done about as well. What I have written conveys only the weak echo of what I want to say, of what I feel. I stood there in the lobby of Steinway Hall; and I watched you pass under my eyes; and I saw how pale you were, how large and dark and sorrowful your eyes were; and suddenly I knew, I understood, how I, my very self, had made you suffer, you whom I loved, and how never, never, no matter how long I might live, could I in any way do any thing to soothe you, to comfort you, to make up to you for the suffering I had caused you; I knew and understood all this; and my heart went out to you, bounding and burning with a thousand fierce emotions, with an anguish of remorse and love—oh, my sweet, injured lady beautiful, frail119 Christine!—and now, now when I try to give you some faint idea of it, I am as helpless to do so, as if I were trying to scream out in a nightmare, and my voice failed me, and my tongue clove120 to the roof of my mouth. What if I had trampled121 down all conventional restraints, and then and there, in spite of the crowd, in spite of every thing, had rushed forward and stopped you, and thrown myself upon the ground before you, abasing122 myself at your feet, and just moaned out loud—letting it all burst forth123 in one good, deep, satisfying sob? My heart throbs124 hard at the thought. Yet, of course, I had no right to do it. If I had done it, I should only have relieved myself, at the cost of paining you—you whom, God knows, I have already pained enough.. . . Oh, well, I must try to do my best with pen and ink. Well, as I say, I stood there, breathing heavily, at last, after many months of death, at last alive, I stood there like that, when—when my wife came up, and took my arm, and demanded, startled by my appearance, what the matter was. My wife! And I had just seen you; and my soul was full of you, you whom I had wronged and lost! And here was my wife, taking my arm, speaking to me, emphasizing the antithesis125. The past and the present! What I had given up, and what I had got in place of it! After my glimpse of you, the reality—Tillie! Oh, it was as though a starving man had just seen bread, smelled meat, and then, looking into his own hand, had found a stone there. She took my arm; and I turned her question as best I could; and I led her home. Conceive how, as I walked home from Steinway Hall this Friday afternoon, the ghost of a certain other Friday afternoon bore me company. One Friday afternoon, only a little more than a year earlier, in December, 1882, you had gone with me there, to hear the Damnation of Faust. Do you remember? You had sat at my side, close at my side. You had looked into my eyes, had touched my arm, had spoken to me. The sweetness of the rose that you wore in your bosom126, had filled my nostrils127. For one instant, one delirious128 instant, your breath, your very breath, had fallen upon my cheek! You had allowed me to wrap you in your cloak, when you felt a draught—in the fur circular you used to wear; I remember the faint perfume that always clung to it. We were so intimate, so confidential129, you and I! You were happy. And I loved you; and I had the possibility of winning your love open before me. And now! God, to think that the possibility which that afternoon held safe in store for me, had been used and wasted! To think that by no remaining possibility it could ever be won back! Every thing was destroyed. I myself, by my own voluntary act, had destroyed every thing—even hope. Well, well, my wife and I walked home. My brain and my heart were burning. Chaos130 was let loose in them. I wanted to scream out, to beat my breast, to rend131 my garments. But I had, instead, to put on an indifferent face, exchange commonplaces with her, take her home; and, it being Sabbath by this time, had to join in the praying and the Scripture-reading, and all that. Of course, I was eager, wild, to get away, by myself. But I had to sit it out with the family—my wife, her mother, my uncle—till ten o’clock that night. I was pretty nearly beside myself. But at last I escaped, and got into my studio. There is no use my writing about that night, the night I passed alone up here in my studio—alone with you; for, so intense was my thought of you, you were all but palpable at my side. I had given you back, as I supposed, all your letters—every keepsake I had to connect me with the past. But this night, as the reward of much ransacking132, I found in the drawer of my desk the very first note you had ever written me, the one in which you said you would go with me to the exhibition. Do you remember? How we walked up and down the galleries? And how you leaned upon my arm? And the little red bonnet133 that you wore? And how, afterward134, we went to Delmonico’s? That little note, ever since, has been the most precious of all my possessions. Your own hand traced these letters! Your own breath fell upon this paper! What effect it had upon me that night, I shall not attempt to tell you. Think of this: it still kept a faint trace of its fragrance135—of the sweet smell it had had, when you first sent it to me. That that should have remained, that immaterial, evanescent perfume! That that should have outlasted136 the rest! No; there is no use of my writing a line about that night. I should only be incoherent, if I tried. All I will say is this: if you had cared about revenge, and had witnessed my suffering that night, you would have been satisfied.”
Still elsewhere, he goes on as follows: “Christine, what I want to say to you is very simple. I don’t understand why I should have so much difficulty in saying it, why every attempt I make at saying it should be such a wretched failure. I suppose it is because, when I bring my mind to bear upon it, when I look it squarely in the face, it appalls137 me so, I get so excited, my feelings get so wrought up, that I lose the self-command which a man must retain, in order to express himself clearly and fully with his pen. It is as if, instead of saying what I have to say, fluently and directly, I were to falter139, and stammer140, and gasp141 forth inarticulate, unmeaning sounds. If only the impossible were not impossible; if only the hopeless were not hopeless; if for one minute I could stand in your presence; alone with you, and look into your eyes, and touch your hand, and speak one word to you—just call you by your name, Christine!—or, no, not even do that, not even speak, but simply stand there silent, and look at you: then, I feel sure that somehow you would understand, and then I could find something like peace. You would understand by instinct, by intuition, what my mind and heart are full of. If such a meeting might only come to pass! But I do not delude142 myself. I know that it never can come to pass—never, not if we go on living in the same city for fifty years. Constant and intense as my longing to see you is, fiercely as my heart beats at the thought of meeting you, I know that I might as well long to see, think of meeting, one who is dead. I am a married man, and have no right to seek to see you. But even if I were not a married man, you, whose scorn and hatred143 of me must be bottomless, you would spurn144 me, you would refuse, shuddering145, to look at me, or to listen to me. I know it. Even if you ever, in your holy goodness and mercy, can forgive me in some degree for what I have done, I know you never can forgive me enough to let me approach you, to let me speak to you by word of mouth. The mere idea of meeting me, I suppose, must always be full of horror for you. I can never atone for the wrong I have done you. I can never even tell you of my remorse, and beseech146 your forgiveness, except by writing. So I write, begging you, in charity, to read and to try and get my meaning. If it were not for the hope that you will read this letter through, I believe my agony would drive me mad. This hope is the only thing that mitigates147 it, and makes it bearable.
“Well, then, here is the simple truth, told as simply as, by my utmost effort, I can tell it. For a period of some months, I had been in a condition which you must let me compare roughly to somnambulism—a sort of daze148, a dull, half-waking trance. While in that condition, a great number of my mental and moral faculties had lain absolutely dormant—just as much so, as if I had not possessed149 them. From that unconscious fit into which I fell on the night of our wedding, I had never perfectly recovered. My body had recovered, yes, and a part of my mind—the every-day, working part. But the rest of my mind, the better part of it, had never emerged from the coma150 which it sank into then. And during this period, I want to say, I do not think I was, in the ordinary sense, responsible for what I did. I was mentally responsible: that is, I knew what I was doing, and I chose to do it. But I was not exactly morally responsible, because morally I was blind. My moral sense—my heart and conscience, I mean, were in a state of suspended animation151; and I acted without their guidance. I don’t say this with a view to excusing myself. I say it, because I honestly believe that it is true, and because, to some extent, it accounts for my otherwise unaccountable way of acting19. Well, let me call it somnambulism. Then, on that Friday afternoon, when I so unexpectedly caught sight of you in the lobby of Steinway Hall, there, at that instant, all of a sudden, I woke up; I came to my senses, in heart and mind was my complete self again. And awaking in this way, getting my moral eyes opened, my moral faculties into running order, I then for the first time, saw, realized, understood, what, while in that irresponsible, somnambulistic state, I had done. Dumfoundered, aghast, I saw the ruin I had wrought—ruin of your life, your world, and of mine—total, hopeless ruin. I have read of a man who dearly loved his wife, and who, one night, in his sleep, got up and murdered her. When he awoke next morning, and found her lying dead beside him, and made the horrible discovery that he himself had done it—well, he must have felt a little as I felt after I had seen you that day at Steinway Hall. And the worst of it—the aspect of it which was most unbearable152, most infuriating—was this knowledge, that loomed153 up before me, as big and as unalterable as a mountain of granite154: the knowledge that what I had done could never be undone155; that the desolation to which I had reduced our world, could never be repaired; that, no matter how bitter my remorse was, no matter how poignant157 my regret, I could never atone for the wrong I had committed, never could win back again the treasure I had thrown away. It was a mountain of granite, I say, against which, frantically158, with all my puny160 strength, I dashed myself; thereby161 making no impression, but falling back, bruised162, stunned, disheartened. My knowledge now of your suffering, my knowledge of how I had made you suffer, and that, though my whole life yearned163 toward you with tenderness, love, contrition164, unutterable, I never in all my life could do the slightest, smallest thing toward making amends165 to you, toward soothing166 the pain, healing the wounds, that I had inflicted upon you—upon you, my pale, sweet lady—oh, I ask you to imagine how heavily that knowledge weighed upon my spirit, how sharp its clutch was, how it would never let me rest, never allow me a moment of forgetfulness, but clung constantly and grimly, a monster with which it would be futile167 for me to hope to struggle. That last meeting between us, when you came here to my studio, to this very room, to the room I am writing in now, and I here, in my uncle’s presence, threw you down and trampled upon you, and allowed him to lead you away, crushed and bleeding—that last meeting, when I still had it in my power to spare you all that shame and sorrow, to take you in my arms, and quiet all your pain, and kiss away all your fear, and to keep you—keep you for myself—oh, you may imagine how my memory of that meeting, my realization of how I had hurt and humiliated168 you, my recognition of the wasted possibilities it had held, would not out of my heart, but abode169 there all the time, eating into it like acid. The walls and ceiling of the room, which had been witnesses of that last meeting, seemed eternally to be crying it out at me. When I looked at the floor, it was as if I saw a blood-stain there where you had stood. Oh, to think that there for one long minute you did really stand, you yourself, within arm’s-reach of me; and I might have put out my hand, and touched you, and taken hold of you, and kept you to me forever, but did not! To think that I let you go; and you went; and I did not call you back! Oh, God, if I had only come to my senses soon enough to have called you back! But no, no; you went; and there was an end of it all. Love, happiness, hope, all went out with you. I drove you out. I drove them out. Christine, for every single pain that I inflicted upon you at that meeting, I ask you to believe, I have never ceased to pay with the acutest anguish that I am capable of feeling. That spot on my floor where you stood—ah, God, how many thousand times have I kissed it since! Ah, God, if there were only some power in earth or heaven that could bring you back there, make you stand there, again, for just one minute more! And it was I—I, whose soul goes out to you with an immensity of love that I can not find words for—— I, who would give all the rest of my life for the privilege of caressing170 and comforting you for a single instant—I, whose place it was to shield you and protect you—I myself, who drove you awray from here, heart-broken, never to return. Oh, my beautiful, pale darling! Christine, lost, lost forever! Here am I, my heart bursting with the desire to be, in some way, of some sort of service to you; and there are you, needing perhaps some little service: and yet if we were upon different planets, it could not be more impossible for me ever to lift my finger in your aid! Oh, I say, it is infuriating. It is too much. Oh, if I could tear open my breast, and let you look in, and see!—see the love, the remorse, the despair, that are stirring in perpetual fever there.. . . Oh, the misery I caused you! The long, hateful days that you had to drag through afterward, while I was amusing myself, dining out, learning to dance, getting engaged and married! Far and wide, as far as your eye could see, the world, which had been a fair and fragrant171 garden in your sight, had crumbled172 suddenly to a bleak173 waste of dust and ashes. The hand that you loved had dealt you a blow worse than a death-blow. You had entrusted174 your happiness to me, and I had betrayed my trust; had taken it, and deliberately175 dashed it to the ground, and shattered it beyond possibility of mending. My frail, beautiful lady. Yes, if I had stabbed you with a knife, I should not have been so brutal176, so base, so cruel; your pain would not have been so great; I should have less to reproach myself with to-day. Yes, I know it.”
But, the reader may curiously177 ask, how about his theology? his belief that it had been the act of heaven? This question he touches upon only incidentally, and disposes of briefly178: “In the light of my resuscitated179 love, the mere remembrance of that blasphemous180 delusion181 filled me with loathing182 for myself—made me shudder, and draw back, sickened. It was a monstrous lie. I can not bring myself to write about it.” And on another page, he says: “My superstition was the dragon, whose breath poisoned our joy, withered183 our world, burned out our hearts. The dragon was killed at last, but too late—after its ravages184 had been accomplished, after it had done its worst.”
I may seize this opportunity, also, to request that if Elias is not always so scrupulous185 about his syntax and rhetoric186 as one might wish, the reader will charitably pardon him, in view of the high degree of mental excitement under which he is manifestly laboring.
“Well,” he continues, “after this reawakening, what of my life? Externally my life went on precisely as before. I was married. I had married of my own free will. I knew that, however detestable my marriage might now have become to me, I was bound in all honor and decency187 not to do any thing that could make my wife unhappy. I had already done mischief188 enough in the world. I must not, if I could help it, do any more. I must keep my secret. Though all the forces of my body and soul were sucked up and concentrated in that one fierce secret, as they were, I must not let it appear. So, the relations between my wife and myself went on precisely as before; and I tried to be a good husband to her, and to give her what pleasure, and spare her what pain, I could. The same theaters, dinners, parties; the same talk about dresses, the same piano playing. Sometimes, even while, with as much nonchalance189 of manner as I could master, I was listening to her prattle190, my secret would be burning so hot in my breast, it was a wonder to me that she did not guess it, or suspect it—that she did not feel it. Sometimes, even while I was directly speaking to her, answering some question that she had asked me, or what not, my heart was being wrung191 by such strong emotions, it seemed as though she could not help but divine them. It was hard work, keeping this constant guard over myself, wearing this mask. But, of course, I was in duty bound to wear it. The relief was immense when I could get away by myself, and let it drop off. Away by myself, I could, any how, be myself—lead my own life, without dissembling.
“My own life—what was it like? Well, outwardly it was a life of silence and inaction. My real life was an inward life—lived in my own heart. My heart was like a furnace. Shut up there, my love, my remorse, my despair at the past, my hopelessness of the future, a hundred nameless, restless, futile fears and longings192, burned steadily all day long from day to day. Sometimes one emotion would be paramount193, sometimes another. Sometimes memory would take possession of me; and, seated at my studio window, with my one relic194 of you clasped in my hand, I would go back, and live over again all that had passed between us, from the day when I first saw you, down to the day when, in this same room, I had put you from me. Do you remember that day—the day I first saw you? Do you remember our first speech together? And how awkward I was? and embarrassed? Do you remember the night of the party—New Year’s Eve— when the heel of your slipper195 broke off? And how jealous I was? And how angry you got with me? And how you scolded me? And then—in the carriage, going home? Do you remember your birthday? and mine? The silk handkerchief you embroidered196 for me with my initials? The concerts we used to go to together? and the little suppers afterward? The books we read together? Detmold? The Portrait of a Lady? The poems you were so fond of? The letters we used to write to each other, even when we were going to see each other the very same day?... Or, perhaps, instead of sitting still here at my studio window, I would leave the house, and go for a walk in the old places—the places that were associated with our love, and now for me were sorrowfully consecrated197 by it. I would walk up Eighth Avenue, over the ground that I had used to cover every time I went to see you; would cross the great circle at Fifty-ninth Street; would come within eye-shot of your door, look up at your window, recall the time when I had had right of entrance, wonder what you were doing now; would enter the park, and even seek out our pine-trees, and stay for a while there in their shadow—there, where—! Do you remember? You may imagine whether this was bitter-sweet. To go back to the time when you had been mine, wholly mine, and live over all the rapture198 of that time, in all its minute, intimate details; and then, with an infinite hunger for you gnawing199 in my heart, to return to the present, look into the future, and realize that I, by my own act, had let you go, had lost you forever! You may imagine with what woe200 and fury, deep and frantic159, and yet dumb, I would recall and repeat to myself that verse of Rossetti’s poetry: ‘Could we be so now?’ And there was the truth, the relentless201 truth, for me to confront, and reconcile myself to, if I could: ‘Not if all beneath heaven’s pall138 lay dead but I and thou, could we be so now!’ The truth which, as I said, was like a mountain of granite, separating you and me. Oh, but at other times I could not believe that the truth was the truth. It was too cruel. It was incredible. It must be some hideous202 hallucination—some nightmare, that I should sooner or later wake up from. I could not believe that it was in the possible order of nature for a man and a woman to have loved each other as you and I had loved each other, and yet to have become so utterly lost to each other as it now seemed that we were; for two human lives to have been so perfectly fused together, blended together like two colors upon my palette, and yet afterward to have become so completely rent asunder203. I could not believe it possible for my soul to yearn toward you and thirst for you constantly, as it did, and yet be debarred forever from any sort of communion with you. It seemed as though somehow, sometime, somewhere, we must come together—you and I once more!—and all our sorrow be swept away by the great joy of our reunion. Oh, Christine, if it might be so! If only it might be so! At these moments my imagination would break the bonds of reason and fly off in daydreams204, long, delicious flights of fancy, visiting wondrous205 air castles where you and I dwelt together—only shortly to drop back upon the awful reality. The reality: I married, and all your love for me, your priceless love for me, by my fault, turned to horror and hatred. And yet, in spite of the reality, in the very teeth of it, I would think: ‘Well, what if my wife should die?’ As long as I am telling you the truth, I may as well tell you the whole truth, no matter how bad it may make you think I am. Yes, I would say: ‘What if my wife should die?’ And then I would repeat to myself what you had once said about that very same verse of Rossetti’s poetry: ‘I can’t understand why it should be so absolutely hopeless. If they really were all alone together, and she saw how dreadfully he had suffered, I don’t understand how she could help forgiving him and loving him again.’ And then, for an instant my heart would bound with something like hope. But only for an instant. As soon as my reason could make itself heard, I would acknowledge that I had sinned too much ever to expect forgiveness from you. No, it would be past human nature.... At still other times my uppermost feeling would be simply an intense desire to see you—not for any special purpose, not with a view to speaking to you—simply a craving206 for the sight of your face. I felt that if I could only look upon you for an instant, catch one brief glimpse of you, I should have something to remember and cherish, something for my heart to feed upon, which was feeding upon itself. It would be an agony.
“I knew that. The mere thought of it was that. But it would also be the nearest approach to a joy that I could expect. So, in the hope that I might see you, I would stand for hours on the corner of your street, in the snow, in the rain, in the hot sun or cold wind, watching the door of your house, waiting for you to pass in or out—very much as, in the old times, I would watch the door of a house where I knew that you were visiting, and wait to join you at your exit. (Do you remember? And how surprised you always used to be?) But I was always disappointed. I never once saw you. I would walk, also, in those quarters of the city where ladies throng207 to do their shopping; always searching for one face in the crowd, but never finding it. And I haunted regularly the rehearsals208 at Steinway Hall and at the Academy of Music, closely watching the audience as it passed out, always hoping that my experience of that afternoon in February might be repeated, invariably getting my labor50 for my pains. Where did you keep yourself? Oh, sometimes I felt that I positively209 could not live without a sight of you. I was starving for a sight of you. Only to see you for one little moment! Only to feed my heart with one brief glimpse of you! That did not seem such a greedy or unreasonable210 desire. It could do you no harm, provided I were careful not to be seen, as well as to see; and I meant to be careful about that. It could do no living creature harm; and to me—oh, to me it would be like a drop of water to a man consumed by thirst. Then my wish would become the father of my thought. I would say:
“‘Surely, if I go out now, and scour24 the city, visiting every spot that in any possibility she may visit—the shops, the park, Fourteenth Street, Twenty-third Street—surely, at some point our paths will cross each other, and I shall see her.’ Well, I would go out. I would give my thought a trial. I would walk the streets till I was fagged out and foot-sore. I would come back home, with a heart sick for hope deferred211.... What fears tormented212 me all this time, you will surely be able to conceive for yourself. How could I know but that you might have died? One morning at the breakfast-table my uncle glanced up from his newspaper, and, looking very queerly at me, said, ‘Here, Elias, here’s news for you. An old friend of yours is dead.’ With a horrible, sick heart-leap, I thought: ‘Ah, she is dead.’ With as indifferent an air as I could put on, I asked, ‘Who?’ He handed me the paper, pointing to the death notices. It cost me all my strength to look; but I looked. Yes; there I saw your name, Redwood. With the courage of despair, I read the notice. ‘No; it was not you; it was your father. But how could I know—what assurance had I—that you had not died, too, without my chancing to learn of it? The thought that you might have, got to be a fixed40 idea in my brain. There was no way by which I could find out. I knew nobody to whom I could apply for information. But at last, one day, by accident, in looking through a newspaper, I again caught sight of your name, Redwood. Ah, how the sight of it made my temples throb! I read that you had been appointed a teacher in the Normal College. So, my doubts on the score of your death were set at rest. It may seem strange to you that I should care so much whether you live or die, since already you are as far and as hopelessly removed from me, as if you were dead; yet the thought that you may die is the blackest of all thoughts to me. I don’t know why it is, but I feel that so long as you remain in it, the world will not be quite a blank wilderness213 to me. There is still some warmth, some beauty, in the light of day, which would go out utterly if you were to die. So long as you live, I want to live. It seems as though there were something to live for; though I can’t tell what. But if you were to die—oh, God! if she were to die! I pray God to put an end to my life at once. Oh, don’t die, Christine. Oh, to think that if you were to die, I might not hear of it, and might go on living! To think that I can do nothing to make life worth living for you! Nothing to protect you from the danger of death! To think that if you were lying on a sick bed, and I knew it, I could do nothing to soothe you, to nurse you back to health! Oh, Christine! Oh, God grant that at least we may both live until I have finished this letter, and you have read it! I must not die, you must not die, until I have finished, and you have read, this letter.... Once in a great while, once in six or eight weeks, or even seldomer, I would dream about you. These dreams were the one luxury of my life, being, as they were, the one means of escape from my life; reversing, as they did, the real truth of my life. Every night, when I lay down to sleep, I would think to myself:
“‘Perhaps to-night I shall dream of her. She will come to me in my dream.’ These dreams always annihilated the recent past, and carried me back to our happy days. You were mine again, with me again. All was as it had been. My lost treasure was for a brief space restored to me. The great joy that I experienced in these dreams, I can not describe. It was boundless214, unspeakable. Of course, to wake up in the morning, and realize that it had only been a dream, was hard. To wake up, and look around me, and see the walls of mv bedroom, the view from my window, and breathe the air, and listen to the sounds, of the morning, all quite unchanged, just as they had used to be in the old time; and then to think how completely all the rest was changed—changed beyond possibility of retrieval—you and your love lost to me forever—that was hard enough. It was like a famished215 man dreaming of food, and waking up to find a stone in his hand. And yet—and yet, so great was the rapture of them, while they lasted, my dreams were worth purchasing at almost any price; certainly, at the price of the pain of waking. To see you, to speak to you, to touch you; to be spoken to, and touched, by you; to hold your little, soft, warm hand in mine, to hear the music of your laughter, to breath the fragrance that the air caught from your presence, to gaze into the depths of your eyes, even though in a dream—it was better than nothing, wasn’t it? Better than never, dreaming or waking, to see you at all. So, as I say, every night I would hope to dream of you—notwithstanding the thought that perhaps I had no right to dream of you, that you perhaps would begrudge216 me the possession of you, even in my dreams; but, as I say, my hope was rewarded very seldom—not oftener than once in every six or eight weeks. This was strange, seeing that you absorbed my mind constantly, all day long, every day.
“I believe I called my life purposeless and hopeless; but it was not exactly this. One purpose and one hope, each forlorn enough, I clung to. They furnished the only light that I could see, as I looked forward into the future. The same hope and purpose that animate217 me now, as I write. I purposed and I hoped, sometime, by some means, to let you know—to let you know what I have been trying to let you know by all this writing; how thoroughly I had appreciated my own brutality218 and baseness, how intensely I had realized your suffering, and how my heart was devoured219 by remorse, despair, and love. This desire to let you know, was the one constant desire that never left me. It was like an extreme thirst, that would not let me rest till I had satisfied it. I could not understand it. Even now I do not understand it. What good could it do either you or me? No good to you, surely; for the most that you can possibly care about, in regard to me, is to be let alone, and allowed to forget me. And what good to me? Would it give you back to me? Would it allay220 my remorse? Not unless it could undo156 the past, and blot221 out the pain I had caused you. Would it rekindle222 your love? I might as well expect, by my touch, to raise the dead, as ever, by any means, to rekindle your love. Would it even win for me your forgiveness? I knew that it was not within the capacity of human nature, ever really, from the bottom of the heart, without a reservation, to forgive such wrong as I had done to you. This was what my reason said; and yet, despite all this, I felt—and still feel, and can not help feeling—that somehow I ought to let you know, that it was only right to let you know. I longed to let you know. That is the substance of it. I longed to let you know; and my longing defied my reason, just as hunger defies reason. If I could only let you know, it seemed as though both you and I should then be able to find something like peace and repose223. My soul ached to unbosom itself before you; and all reasoning to the contrary notwithstanding, my instincts told me that you, as well as I myself, would be happier—at least, less unhappy—afterward. It was as though I had something big and heavy in my heart, that pressed to be got out; that would strain and rack my heart until it was got out; and that could only be got out by letting you know. I suppose this is always the way, when a man’s heart is full of conscious guilt224. But how to let you know? Oh, my impulses answered at once. They said: ‘Seek her out. Kneel down before her. Look into her face. Touch her hand. Give it vent—let it all burst forth—in one good, long, satisfying sob! Then, she will understand. She will understand what is too deep, too passionate225, for any speech. Her heart and yours will be at rest. This anguish will be relieved.’ Oh, how my temples throbbed226, how my breath quickened, how my whole spirit thrilled, as I allowed myself to shape that thought. You, my frail darling, whom I had hurt so! You, my sweet rose-lady, whom I had torn, and crushed, and made to bleed! Christine, pale, sad Christine! To spend one moment weeping at your feet, trying a little to soothe and comfort and console you, to atone a little for the sorrow I had caused you, to pour out my love and my remorse before you! Oh, good God! But of course, of course, I knew that I might as well hope to speak with one who was dead. I, a married man, had no right, even in my own secret thoughts, to wish for such a meeting between you and me. And you, despising me, you would fly from me, you would never permit me to draw near to you. And yet, it is so hard to reconcile one’s self to the truth, even when one can have no doubt about it, I would go on hoping, in spite of the hopelessness, in spite of the fact that I had no right to hope—hoping that somehow the impossible might come to pass. But at the same time, I would think: ‘How else? Is there any other way?’ Necessarily, it occurred to me to write. But the idea of writing was repugnant. I never could tell the half of what I had to tell by writing; and then, what assurance had I that you would read my letter? (What assurance have I, even now?) So, for the time being, I put the plan of writing out of my head; and went back, and asked again: ‘How else?’ Was there no possible method by which I could let you know what weighed so heavily, so heavily, upon my mind? Sometimes the most absurd notions would seize hold of me, with all the force of realities. For a little while, this would become not merely a theory, as of a thing conceivable, but a conviction, as of a thing actual; that, thinking of you as constantly and as intently as I did, by some occult means in nature, my spirit was enabled to transcend227 the limitations of space and matter, and to reach yours, and to communicate with it. For hours at a stretch, I would sit here at my studio window, harboring this delicious fancy: that now, at this very moment, by the operation of some subtle psychic228 force, you were receiving the message which my heart was sending you. I had read of such things in wonder-tales, even in serious pseudoscientific treatises229. Why might there not be something in them? But, as I have said, only for a little while could a fancy like this hold its place. In a little while my common-sense would assert itself, and bring the dismal230 truth looming231 up again stark232 before me. All of a sudden, one day, I thought of my painting. It made my pulse leap. It seemed like an inspiration. I would paint a picture which—if you saw it; and if I sent it to the exhibition, you would very likely see it—which would tell you the whole story. In a fever of impatience233 to get the picture begun, and without having stopped to determine what the picture was to be, I procured234 canvas, paints, brushes. Then I paused, and asked: ‘But what shall I paint?’ It did not require much thinking, to make the futility235 of the whole design clear to me. Unless I could tear my heart out, and paint it, with all the fierce passions fermenting236 in it, I might as well not paint any thing at all. Now, at last, you see, I have returned to my former plan of writing. I have done so, in despair of any other means, and because it is no longer possible for me to hold back. I have held back until I am tired out, worn out. I have been writing at this letter, from time to time, during the past fortnight. To-day is Friday, February 13th. I have much left to say. As soon as it is finished, I shall send it to you.”
“As soon as it is finished!” It was never finished. Events now supervened, which interrupted it, and prevented its completion. Those events, it will be my business, in the concluding chapters of this story, to relate.
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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superstition
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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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seduced
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remorse
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inevitable
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crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hysterical
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quotations
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perfectly
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amicable
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amiable
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annoyance
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omission
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unaware
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exacting
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acting
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contented
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accomplished
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appendage
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23
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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24
scour
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| v.搜索；擦，洗，腹泻，冲刷 | |
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25
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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26
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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27
voracious
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| adj.狼吞虎咽的，贪婪的 | |
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28
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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29
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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30
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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31
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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32
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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33
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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34
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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35
elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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36
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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37
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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38
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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39
verged
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| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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40
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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41
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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42
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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43
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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44
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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45
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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46
yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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47
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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48
ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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49
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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50
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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51
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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52
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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53
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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54
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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55
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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56
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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57
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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58
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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59
kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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60
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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61
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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62
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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63
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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64
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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65
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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66
laboring
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|
| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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67
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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68
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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69
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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70
torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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71
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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72
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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73
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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74
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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76
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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77
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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78
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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79
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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80
romping
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| adj.嬉戏喧闹的，乱蹦乱闹的v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的现在分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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81
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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82
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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83
abhor
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| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
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84
alleviation
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| n. 减轻，缓和，解痛物 | |
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85
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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86
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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88
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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89
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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90
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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91
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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92
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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93
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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94
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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95
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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96
presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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97
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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98
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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99
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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100
chafing
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| n.皮肤发炎v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的现在分词 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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101
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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102
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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103
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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104
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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105
impromptus
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| n.即兴曲( impromptu的名词复数 ) | |
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106
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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107
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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108
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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109
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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110
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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111
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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112
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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113
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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114
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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115
atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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116
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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117
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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118
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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119
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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120
clove
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| n.丁香味 | |
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121
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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122
abasing
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| 使谦卑( abase的现在分词 )； 使感到羞耻； 使降低（地位、身份等）； 降下 | |
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123
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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124
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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125
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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126
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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127
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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128
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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129
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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130
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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131
rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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132
ransacking
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的现在分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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133
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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134
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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135
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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136
outlasted
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| v.比…长久，比…活得长( outlast的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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137
appalls
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的第三人称单数 ) | |
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138
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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139
falter
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| vi.(嗓音)颤抖，结巴地说；犹豫；蹒跚 | |
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140
stammer
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| n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说 | |
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141
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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142
delude
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| vt.欺骗；哄骗 | |
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143
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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144
spurn
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| v.拒绝，摈弃；n.轻视的拒绝；踢开 | |
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145
shuddering
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|
| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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146
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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147
mitigates
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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148
daze
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| v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏 | |
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149
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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150
coma
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| n.昏迷，昏迷状态 | |
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151
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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152
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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153
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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154
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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155
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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156
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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157
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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158
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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159
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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160
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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161
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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162
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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163
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
contrition
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| n.悔罪，痛悔 | |
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165
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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166
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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167
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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168
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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169
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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170
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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171
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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172
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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173
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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174
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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175
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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176
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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177
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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178
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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179
resuscitated
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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180
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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181
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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182
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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183
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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184
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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185
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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186
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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187
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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188
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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189
nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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190
prattle
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| n.闲谈；v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话；发出连续而无意义的声音 | |
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191
wrung
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| 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） | |
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192
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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193
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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194
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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195
slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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196
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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197
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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198
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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199
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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200
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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201
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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202
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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203
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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204
daydreams
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| n.白日梦( daydream的名词复数 )v.想入非非，空想( daydream的第三人称单数 ) | |
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205
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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206
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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207
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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208
rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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209
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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210
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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211
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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212
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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213
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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214
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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215
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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216
begrudge
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| vt.吝啬，羡慕 | |
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217
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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218
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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219
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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220
allay
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| v.消除，减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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221
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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222
rekindle
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| v.使再振作；再点火 | |
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223
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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224
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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225
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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226
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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227
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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228
psychic
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| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
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229
treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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230
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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231
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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232
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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233
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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234
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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235
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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236
fermenting
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的现在分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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