CHAPTER II

HE came through the town and up the Grand Rue¹.

When he reached the ramparts he took a seat, despite the nipping east wind.

He looked at his watch.

Just about this hour every day it was the custom of Madame de Warens and her niece to take a walk on the ramparts.

It seemed the only fixed² thing, except meals, in their desolate³ lives, this walk every day on the ramparts.

Hellier would meet them there. It was a sort of tacit appointment. No person, unless they were curiously⁴ blind, could fail to see that it was a rendezvous⁵. The women came and the young man came and walked with them up and down on this desolate place for half an hour or so, talked about everything and nothing, returning to the hotel where he left them, perhaps not to see them again till the following day.

This afternoon they were late. Hellier looked at his watch again, it was ten minutes past the time of the usual meeting. He was rising to return, with a desolate feeling at the heart, when, far off, coming towards him, he saw the figure of a girl. It was Mademoiselle Lefarge, and she was alone!

“My aunt was afraid of the east wind,” said the girl. “I came because I thought you possibly might be here and waiting for us; we have got so into the habit of meeting you that really it was like an appointment—your society in this desolate place has become quite one of our pleasures,” she said, “and it is bad to keep a friend who has given one pleasure waiting in the cold east wind.”

This was plunging⁶ into the middle of things; she spoke⁷ with the slightest foreign accent, and Hellier, an Englishman used to the convention-bound female, could not find words, or thoughts, to reply to her with for a moment.

It was not an awkward silence. They paused for a moment and looked over the rampart wall at the peaceful country, just tinged⁸ by the early spring, trees and fields, belfries and far-off hamlets, all under a sky sad coloured and beautiful, like that sky which dwells for ever over the “Avenue near Middleharnis.”

As they gazed, without speaking, the man was telling the woman that he loved her, and the woman was telling the man that she cared for him.

It came quite naturally, when he took her hand and held it.

“I have wanted to tell you for a long time,” he said.

She sighed, but she let him hold her hand.

Then she said, as if in answer to some question.

“It can never be.”

“I love you,” he said, speaking in a plain, matter-of-fact tone, that would have told little to a stander-by of the passion that was consuming him. “You have come into my life suddenly, and if I lose you, if you leave me, I will be for ever desolate—dear friend.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“It can never be.”

There was a fatality⁹, a hopelessness in her voice, that told him that these words were no idle woman’s words. It could never be. Never could he hold her in his arms as his own, never possess her. Paradise lay before him, yet he could never enter in.

“Why?”

“Come,” said she, “and I will show you.”

1 rue   

n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔

参考例句：

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

2 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

3 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

4 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

5 rendezvous   

n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇

参考例句：

• She made the rendezvous with only minutes to spare.她还差几分钟时才来赴约。
• I have a rendezvous with Peter at a restaurant on the harbour.我和彼得在海港的一个餐馆有个约会。

6 plunging   

adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• War broke out again, plunging the people into misery and suffering. 战祸复发，生灵涂炭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He is plunging into an abyss of despair. 他陷入了绝望的深渊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

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

8 tinged   

v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• memories tinged with sadness 略带悲伤的往事
• white petals tinged with blue 略带蓝色的白花瓣

9 fatality   

n.不幸，灾祸，天命

参考例句：

• She struggle against fatality in vain.她徒然奋斗反抗宿命。
• He began to have a growing sense of fatality.他开始有一种越来越强烈的宿命感。