When they came back to Sunday Street the honeymoon did not end. Contrariwise, it seemed to wax fuller in the freedom of the old ways. Even sweeter than the sense of passionate8 holiday was the taking up of a common life together, the daily sharing of food and work and rest, the doing of things he had done a hundred times before, but never like this. Thyrza’s little cottage had been hung with new curtains, and some unknown hand—which afterwards unexpectedly proved to be Nell’s—had filled it with flowers on the evening of their return. Bunches of primroses9, violets and bluebells10 stuffed the vases in bedroom and parlour, and the soft fugitive11 scent of April banks mixed with the scent of lath and plaster which haunts old cottages, and the more spicy12, powdery smells of the shop.
The days were warm and drowsy13, and the fields lay in a muffle14 of sunshine, their distances all blurred15 with heat. Round every farm the orchards16 rolled in pink-stained clouds of bloom, and the young wheat was green as a rainy sunset. The wind that brought the mutter of the guns, brought also the bleating17 of lambs from the pastures; scents18 seemed to hang and brood on the air, or drift slowly from the woods—scents of standing19 water and budding thorn, of hazel leaves hot in the sun, and [146] soft mixed fragrances20 of gorse and fern, of cows, of baking earth, of currant bushes in cottage gardens....
Towards evening Tom and Thyrza usually closed the shop, and came out—either for a stroll up to Worge to see his family, or for some more adventurous21 excursion to Brownbread Street, or Furnacefield, or up to the North Road and the straggle of old Dallington. They had one or two quite long walks, for a new enterprise had kindled22 in them both, and for the first time there was mystery and allure23 in some shaky signpost at the throws, or a little lane creeping off secretly. One day they walked as far as Brightling, past the obelisk24, through the shuttling dimness of Pipers Wood and up Twelve Oaks Hill by strange farms to the sudden clump25 of Brightling among the trees. They went into the churchyard where the yews26 spread shadows nearly as dark as their own blackness and strange white peacocks perched on the tombstones, with shrill27, unnatural28 cries. There was also a huge cone-shaped object, built of damp stones and thickly grown with moss29, and Thyrza unaccountably took fright at this, and the peacocks, and the shadows and the trees, and walked for most of the way home with her head under Tom’s coat.
He did not often think of when this time should end, of the day that crept nearer and nearer to him over drowsing twilights and magical, green sunrises. He knew that a month hence all this delight would be a memory, that between him and the spurge-thickening fields of May would lie all the life of ugly adventure into which fate had pitched him—and Thyrza would come to him only on scraps30 of paper, in puffs31 of scent, in fugitive dreams, in a passing light in some other girl’s eyes.... But he was too simple and too happy to let thoughts of the future spoil the present, besides, his habit of disregarding the future now stood his friend. He would not see the [147] clover in bloom, but saw it in the green—deep, rippling32, gleaming, like the sea—he would miss the hay, but now he could see the buttercups under the moon, so yellow that they seemed to paint the sky and turn the moon to honey; Thyrza might in a month’s time be a memory, belong to phantasy, but now she was a woman solid and close, his woman, the maker33 of his home, the maker of himself anew.... Once his mother had borne him, and now it seemed as if this woman had borne him again, into a new experience, a new happiness, a new wonder—so perfect and complete that sometimes he almost felt as if it did not matter whether he held it for ever or for a day.

点击
收听单词发音

1
faltered
![]() |
|
(嗓音)颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 ); 支吾其词; 蹒跚; 摇晃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2
honeymoon
![]() |
|
n.蜜月(假期);vi.度蜜月 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3
presage
![]() |
|
n.预感,不祥感;v.预示 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4
scent
![]() |
|
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5
bind
![]() |
|
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6
enchantment
![]() |
|
n.迷惑,妖术,魅力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7
ecstasy
![]() |
|
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8
passionate
![]() |
|
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9
primroses
![]() |
|
n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 );淡黄色;追求享乐(招至恶果) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10
bluebells
![]() |
|
n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11
fugitive
![]() |
|
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12
spicy
![]() |
|
adj.加香料的;辛辣的,有风味的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13
drowsy
![]() |
|
adj.昏昏欲睡的,令人发困的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14
muffle
![]() |
|
v.围裹;抑制;发低沉的声音 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15
blurred
![]() |
|
v.(使)变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 );(使)难以区分;模模糊糊;迷离 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16
orchards
![]() |
|
(通常指围起来的)果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17
bleating
![]() |
|
v.(羊,小牛)叫( bleat的现在分词 );哭诉;发出羊叫似的声音;轻声诉说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18
scents
![]() |
|
n.香水( scent的名词复数 );气味;(动物的)臭迹;(尤指狗的)嗅觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19
standing
![]() |
|
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20
fragrances
![]() |
|
n.芳香,香味( fragrance的名词复数 );香水 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21
adventurous
![]() |
|
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22
kindled
![]() |
|
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23
allure
![]() |
|
n.诱惑力,魅力;vt.诱惑,引诱,吸引 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24
obelisk
![]() |
|
n.方尖塔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25
clump
![]() |
|
n.树丛,草丛;vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26
yews
![]() |
|
n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27
shrill
![]() |
|
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28
unnatural
![]() |
|
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29
moss
![]() |
|
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30
scraps
![]() |
|
油渣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31
puffs
![]() |
|
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32
rippling
![]() |
|
起涟漪的,潺潺流水般声音的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33
maker
![]() |
|
n.制造者,制造商 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |