A Lurid1 Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
Clym's grief became mitigated3 by wearing itself out. His strength returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity4 and gloom, the tints5 of health and the pallor of death, mingled6 weirdly7 in his face. He was now unnaturally8 silent upon all of the past that related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking of it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to bring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank into taciturnity.
One evening when he was thus standing2 in the garden, abstractedly spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of the house and came up to him.
"Christian9, isn't it?" said Clym. "I am glad you have found me out. I shall soon want you to go to BloomsEnd and assist me in putting the house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?"
"Yes, Mister Clym."
"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?"
"Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell 'ee of something else which is quite different from what we have lately had in the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of a girl, which was born punctually at one o'clock at noon, or a few minutes more or less; and 'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have kept 'em there since they came into their money."
"And she is getting on well, you say?"
"Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't a boy--that's what they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that."
"Christian, now listen to me."
"Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright."
"Did you see my mother the day before she died?"
"No, I did not."
Yeobright's face expressed disappointment.
"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died."
Clym's look lighted up. "That's nearer still to my meaning," he said.
"Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going to see him, Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.'"
"See whom?"
"See you. She was going to your house, you understand."
Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. "Why did you never mention this?" he said. "Are you sure it was my house she was coming to?"
"O yes. I didn't mention it because I've never zeed you lately. And as she didn't get there it was all nought10, and nothing to tell."
"And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing, Christian, I am very anxious to know."
"Yes, Mister Clym. She didn't say it to me, though I think she did to one here and there."
"Do you know one person to whom she spoke11 of it?"
"There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention my name to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made me feel so low that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days. He was standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--"
"Yes, when was that?"
"Last summer, in my dream."
"Pooh! Who's the man?"
"Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the evening before she set out to see you. I hadn't gone home from work when he came up to the gate."
"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before," said Clym anxiously. "I wonder why he has not come to tell me?"
"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know you wanted him."
"Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to speak to him."
"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian, looking dubiously12 round at the declining light; "but as to night-time, never is such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright."
"Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him tomorrow, if you can."
Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening Christian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day, and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work," said Yeobright. "Don't come again till you have found him."
The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which, with the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all preparations for his removal thither13; but it had become necessary that he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator14 to his mother's little property; for which purpose he decided15 to pass the next night on the premises16.
He journeyed onward17, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk of one who has been awakened18 from a stupefying sleep. It was early afternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place, the tone of the hour, were precisely19 those of many such occasions in days gone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. The garden gate was locked and the shutters20 were closed, just as he himself had left them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked the gate, and found that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again. When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about his task of overhauling21 the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia's reception, until such time as he might be in a position to carry out his long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the alterations22 which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern ideas. The gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the door panel and the Miraculous23 Draught24 of Fishes on the base; his grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the spotted25 china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea trays; the hanging fountain with the brass26 tap--whither would these venerable articles have to be banished27?
He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water, and he placed them out upon the ledge28, that they might be taken away. While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel29 without, and somebody knocked at the door.
Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
"Good morning," said the reddleman. "Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?"
Yeobright looked upon the ground. "Then you have not seen Christian or any of the Egdon folks?" he said.
"No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here the day before I left."
"And you have heard nothing?"
"Nothing."
"My mother is--dead."
"Dead!" said Venn mechanically.
"Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine."
Venn regarded him, and then said, "If I didn't see your face I could never believe your words. Have you been ill?"
"I had an illness."
"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed to say that she was going to begin a new life."
"And what seemed came true."
"You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein30 of talk than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too soon."
"Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to see you."
He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle together. "There's the cold fireplace, you see," said Clym. "When that halfburnt log and those cinders31 were alight she was alive! Little has been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail32."
"How came she to die?" said Venn.
Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and continued: "After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an indisposition to me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something, but I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what my mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked with her a long time, I think?"
"I talked with her more than half an hour."
"About me?"
"Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on the heath. Without question she was coming to see you."
"But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me? There's the mystery."
"Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee."
"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say, when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!"
"What I know is that she didn't blame you at all. She blamed herself for what had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own lips."
"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the same time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her? My mother was no impulsive33 woman who changed her opinion every hour without reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different stories in close succession?"
"I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make friends."
"If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this incomprehensible thing!...Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--what we might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And this mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?"
No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness of sorrow to the fluctuation34 of carking incertitude35.
He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for him in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return again the next day; and when he retired36 to rest in the deserted37 place it was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts. How to discover a solution to this riddle38 of death seemed a query39 of more importance than highest problems of the living. There was housed in his memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered the hovel where Clym's mother lay. The round eyes, eager gaze, the piping voice which enunciated40 the words, had operated like stilettos on his brain.
A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning41 new particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child's mind after the lapse42 of six weeks, not for facts which the child had seen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature beyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel is blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was nothing else left to do; after that he would allow the enigma43 to drop into the abyss of undiscoverable things.
It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once arose. He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which merged44 in heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the path branched into three like a broad arrow. The road to the right led to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track led to Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part of Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining into the latter path Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness45, familiar enough to most people, and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he thought of it as a thing of singular significance.
When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the boy he sought, he found that the inmates46 were not yet astir. But in upland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift and easy. There no dense47 partition of yawns and toilets divides humanity by night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper windowsill, which he could reach with his walking stick; and in three or four minutes the woman came down.
It was not till this moment that Clym recollected48 her to be the person who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the insuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been ailing49 again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had been pressed into Eustacia's service at the bonfire, attributed his indispositions to Eustacia's influence as a witch. It was one of those sentiments which lurk50 like moles51 underneath52 the visible surface of manners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia's entreaty53 to the captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute54 Susan for the pricking55 in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had done.
Yeobright overcame his repugnance56, for Susan had at least borne his mother no ill-will. He asked kindly57 for the boy; but her manner did not improve.
"I wish to see him," continued Yeobright, with some hesitation58, "to ask him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than what he has previously59 told."
She regarded him in a peculiar60 and criticizing manner. To anybody but a half-blind man it would have said, "You want another of the knocks which have already laid you so low."
She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and continued, "Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to mind."
"You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot day?" said Clym.
"No," said the boy.
"And what she said to you?"
The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut. Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want more of what had stung him so deeply.
"She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?"
"No; she was coming away."
"That can't be."
"Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too."
"Then where did you first see her?"
"At your house."
"Attend, and speak the truth!" said Clym sternly.
"Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first."
Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not embellish61 her face; it seemed to mean, "Something sinister62 is coming!"
"What did she do at my house?"
"She went and sat under the trees at the Devil's Bellows63."
"Good God! this is all news to me!"
"You never told me this before?" said Susan.
"No, Mother; because I didn't like to tell 'ee I had been so far. I was picking blackhearts, and went further than I meant."
"What did she do then?" said Yeobright.
"Looked at a man who came up and went into your house."
"That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand."
"No; 'twas not you. 'Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know."
"Now tell me what happened next."
"The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black hair looked out of the side window at her."
The boy's mother turned to Clym and said, "This is something you didn't expect?"
Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. "Go on, go on," he said hoarsely64 to the boy.
"And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and I, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much, because she couldn't blow her breath."
"O!" murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. "Let's have more," he said.
"She couldn't talk much, and she couldn't walk; and her face was, O so queer!"
"How was her face?"
"Like yours is now."
The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld65 him colourless, in a cold sweat. "Isn't there meaning in it?" she said stealthily. "What do you think of her now?"
"Silence!" said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, "And then you left her to die?"
"No," said the woman, quickly and angrily. "He did not leave her to die! She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook66 her says what's not true."
"Trouble no more about that," answered Clym, with a quivering mouth. "What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of God!--what does it mean?"
The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
"He said so," answered the mother, "and Johnny's a Godfearing boy and tells no lies."
"'Cast off by my son!' No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so! But by your son's, your son's--May all murderesses get the torment67 they deserve!"
With these words Yeobright went forth68 from the little dwelling69. The pupils of his eyes, fixed70 steadfastly71 on blankness, were vaguely72 lit with an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or less imaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were possible to his mood. But they were not possible to his situation. Instead of there being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a masculine shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable73 countenance74 of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets75 of centuries, reduced to insignificance76 by its seamed and antique features the wildest turmoil77 of a single man.
收听单词发音 |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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weirdly
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| 古怪地 | |
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unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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administrator
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| n.经营管理者，行政官员 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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overhauling
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| n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越 | |
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alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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fluctuation
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| n.(物价的)波动，涨落；周期性变动；脉动 | |
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incertitude
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| n.疑惑，不确定 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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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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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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enunciated
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| v.（清晰地）发音( enunciate的过去式和过去分词 )；确切地说明 | |
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gleaning
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| n.拾落穗，拾遗，落穗v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的现在分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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chilliness
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| n.寒冷，寒意，严寒 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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moles
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| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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embellish
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| v.装饰，布置；给…添加细节，润饰 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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forsook
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| forsake的过去式 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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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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steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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onsets
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| 攻击，袭击（onset的复数形式） | |
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insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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