now and again and sometimes groaning5, with clenched6 hands pressed between their knees. Their accustomed life of events was close round them, in the garden just beyond the undraped window, on the mat outside the schoolroom door, where at any moment a footstep crossing the landing might fall softly and pause, when their heads would go up in tense listening. “Rollo!” they would say, waiting for the turning of the handle, holding themselves in for the subdued7 shoutings they would utter when Mrs. Corrie appeared standing8 in the doorway9 with a finger on her lips. “Happy?” she would breathe; “working like nigger boys?” Unless Miriam looked gravely detached she would glide10 in blushing, and passionately11 caress12 them. When this happened, sighs and groanings filled the time that remained. Their nearest approach to open rebellion included a tacit appeal to her as a fellow-sufferer to throw up the stupid game. It was quite clear that they did not blame her for their sufferings and they were so much prepared to do the decent thing that her experiment of reading to them regularly at some convenient half-hour each day from a book of adventures or fairy tale, not only reconciled them to endure the morning’s
ordeal13, but filled them with a gratitude14 that astonished her and the beginnings of a personal regard for her that shook her heart. During the readings they would lose their air of well-bred detachment and would come near. They would be relaxed and silent; the girl with bent15 head and brooding defiant16 curiously17 smiling and frowning face, the boy gazing at the reader, rapturous. She would sometimes feel against each arm the pressure of a head.
She had felt instinctively18 and at once that she could not use their lesson hours as opportunities for talking at large on general ideas as she had done with the children in the Banbury Park school. Those children, the children of tradesmen most of them, could be allowed to take up the beginnings of ideas; “ideals,” the sense of modern reforms, they could be allowed to discuss anything from any point of view and take up attitudes and have opinions. The opportunity for discussion and for encouraging a definite attitude towards life was much greater in this quiet room with only the two children; but it would have been mean, Miriam felt, to take advantage of this opportunity; to be anything but strictly19 neutral and wary20 of generalisations.
It would have been so easy. Probably a really “conscientious” woman would have done it, have “influenced” them, given the girl a bias21 in the direction of some life of devotion, hospital nursing or slum missionary22 work, and have filled the boy with ideas as to the essential superiority of “Radicals.” Their minds were so soft and untouched.... It ended in a conspiracy23, they all sat masquerading, and finished their morning exhausted24 and relieved. The children knew the lessons tortured her and made her ill at ease, and they were puzzled without disapproving25. Through it all she felt their gratitude to her for not being “simple,” like Bunnikin.
2
There was to be another week-end. Again there would be the sense of being a visitor amongst other visitors; visitor was not the word; there was a French word which described the thing, “convive,” “les convives” ... people sitting easily about a table with flushed faces ... someone standing drunkenly up with eyes blazing with friendliness26 and a raised wineglass ... women and wine, the roses of Heliogabalus; but he was a Greek and dreadful in some way,
convives were Latin, Roman; fountains, water flowing over marble, white-robed strong-faced people reclining on marble couches, feasting ... taking each fair mask for what it shows itself; that was what this kind of wealthy English people did, perhaps what all wealthy people did ... the maimed, the halt, the blind, compel them to come in ... but that was after the others had refused. The thing that made you feel jolliest and strongest was to forget the maimed, to be a fair mask, to keep everything else out and be a little circle of people knowing that everything was kept out. Suppose a skeleton walked in? Offer it a glass of wine. People have no right to be skeletons, or if they are to make a fuss about it. These people would be all the brighter if they happened to have neuralgia; some strong pain or emotion made you able to do things. Taking each fair mask was a fine grown-up game. Perhaps it could be kept up to the end? Perhaps that was the meaning of the man playing cards on his death-bed. Defying God. That was what Satan did. He was brave; defying a tyrant27 ... “nothing to do but curse God and die.” Who said that? there was something silly about it; giving in, not real defiance28. It
didn’t settle anything; if the new ideas were true; the thing went on. The love of God was like the love of a mother; always forgiving you, ready to die for you, always waiting for you to be good. Why? It was mean. The things one wanted one could not have if one were just tame and good.... It is morbid29 to think about being good; better the fair mask—anything. But it did not make people happy. These people were not happy. They were not real.
3
Spring; everywhere, inside and outside the house. The spring outside had a meaning here. It came in through the windows without obstruction30 and passed into everything. At home it had sent one nearly mad with joy and anticipation31 and passed and left you looking for it for the rest of the year; in Germany it had brought music and wild joy—the secret had passed from eye to eye; all the girls had known it. At Wordsworth House it had stood far away, like a picture in a dream, something that could be seen from windows, and found for a moment in the park, but powerless to get into the house. Here it came in; you could not forget it for a
moment; and it was a background for something more wonderful than itself; something that made it wonderful; something there were no words for; voices, movements from room to room, strange food, the soft chink of Venetian glass, amber32 wine, the light drowned in wine, through the window a sharp gleam on things that reflected, day and night, into everything, even into one’s thoughts. Why was the spring suddenly so real? Why was it that you could stand as it were in a shaft34 of it all the time, feeling in your breathing, hearing in your voice the sound of the spring, the blood in your fingertips seeming like the roses that they would touch soon in the garden?
How ignorant the man was who said, “each fair mask for what it shows itself.” Life is not a mask, it is fair; the gold in one’s hair is real.
4
Friday brought an atmosphere of expectation. Mr. Kronen, an old friend of the Corries, was coming down, with a new Mrs. Kronen.
By the early afternoon the house was full of fragrance35; coming downstairs dressed for an errand in the little town two miles away, Miriam
saw the hall all pink and saffron with azaleas. Coming across the hall she found a scent36 in the air that did not come from the azaleas, a sweet familiar syrupy distillation37 ... the blaze of childhood’s garden was round her again, bright magic flowers in the sunlight, magic flowers, still there, nearer to her than ever in this happy house; she could almost hear the humming of the bees, and flung back the bead38 curtain with unseeing eyes half expecting some doorway to open on the remembered garden; the scent was overpowering ... the drawing-room was cool and silent with closed windows and drawn39 blinds; bowls of roses stood in every available place; she tiptoed about in the room gathering40 their scent.
As she opened the hall door Mrs. Corrie’s voice startled her from the dining-room.
Going into the dining-room she found her with a flushed face and excited eyes and the children dancing round her. “Another tin! One more tin!” they exclaimed, plucking at Miriam. From the billiard-room came the smell of fresh varnish41. Wiggerson was on her knees near the door.
“She’s done some stupid thing,” thought Miriam, looking at Mrs. Corrie’s excited, unconscious
face with sudden anxiety; “some womanish overdoing42 it, wanting to do too much and spoiling everything.” She felt as if she were representing Mr. Corrie.
“Will it be dry in time?” she asked, half angrily, scarcely knowing what she said and in the midst of Mrs. Corrie’s apologetic petition that she would bring a tin of oak stain back with her.
“Lordy, don’t you think so?” whispered Mrs. Corrie, only half dismayed.
Miriam had not patience to follow her as she went to survey the floor ruefully chanting, “Oh, Wiggerson, Wiggerson.”
“Anyhow I’m sure it oughtn’t to have any more on as late as when I come back,” she scolded boldly. How annoyed Mr. Corrie would be....
5
As she was going down the quiet road past the high oak garden palings of the nearest house she heard the bumping and scrabbling of a heavy body against the palings and a dog leapt into the road almost at her feet, making the dust fly. It was an Irish terrier. It smiled and barked a little, waiting, looking up into her face and up
and down the road. “It thought it knew me,” she pondered; “it mistook me for someone else.” She patted its head and went forward thinking of the joyful43 scrabbling, its headlong determination. The dog jerked back its head with a wide smile, tore down the road and came back leaping and smiling. Something disappeared from the vista44 of the roadway as the dog rushed along it nosing after scents45, looking round now and again, and now and again rushing back to greet her. It brought back the sense of the house and the strange gay life she had just left to go on her errand to the little unknown town. It wore a smart collar; it belonged to that life. People in it were never alone; when they went out there was always a dog with them. “It thinks I’m one of them.” But it liked the wild; when they came out on to the common it rushed up a sandy pathway and disappeared amongst the gorse bushes. For a while Miriam hoped it would come back and kept looking about for it; then she gave it up and went ahead with the commons drifting slowly by on either side; she wished that the action of walking were not so jerky, that the expanses on either side might pass more smoothly46 and easily by: “that’s why people
drive,” she thought; “you can only really see the country when you are not moving yourself.” Standing still for a moment she looked across the open stretch to her left and smiled at it and went on again, walking more quickly; the soft beauty that had retreated to the horizon when the dog was with her was spreading back again across the whole expanse and coming towards her; she hurried on singing softly at random47, “Scorn such a foe48 ... though I could fell thee at a blow, though I-i, cou-uld fe-ell thee-ee a-at a-a blow” ... people walking and thinking and fussing, people driving somewhere in victorias were always coming along the road, to them it was a sort of suburb, quite ordinary, the bit near home. But it was big enough to be full of waves and waves of something real, something cool and true and unchanging. Had anybody seen it, did the people who lived there know it? Did anybody know this strange thing? She almost ran; my “commons,” she said. “I know how beautiful you are; if only I knew whether you know that I know. I know, I know,” she said, “I shan’t forget you.” “True, true till death; bear it, oh wind, on thy lightning breath.”
6
The sun was very warm; before she reached the end of the long road the sandy pathways were beginning to glare. There was the river and the little bridge and the first shop just beyond it, where her purchase was to be made. Its wood-work was very bright white; it had a seaside look. She stood still on the slight ascent49 of the bridge mopping her face and preparing to represent Mrs. Corrie in the shop. Scrambling50 up the shallow bank from the common came the yellow dog. “Oh, hooray—you duck,” she breathed, patting the warm stubbly head and listening to his breathless snortings. A piano-organ broke into loud music in the little street. It was not a mysterious little town, there was nothing of the village about it. The white framed windows held things you would see in a Regent Street confectioner’s; it was a special shop for the kind of people who lived here. Miriam felt for her three and six and asked for her pound of coffee creams with a bored air, wishing she knew the dog’s name so that she could claim him familiarly. She contented51 herself with telling him to lie down in an angry whisper repeatedly, as the
creams were being weighed. He stood panting and gazing at her wagging his stump52. “’Ullo, Bushy,” said the shopwoman languidly; the dog faced round panting more loudly. “There you are, Bush,” she said, as the scales balanced, and flung the dog a chocolate wafer which he caught with a snap. Miriam gazed vaguely53 at the unfamiliar54 spectacle, angrily feeling that the shopwoman was observing her. “You’re not going to take him through the town?” said the shopwoman severely55.
“Oh, no,” said Miriam nervously56.
“He’s the worst fighter in the parish; they never bring him into the town unless it’s the groom57 sometimes.”
“Thank you,” said Miriam, taking her bag of coffee creams. “Dogs are a nuisance, aren’t they?” she added, in an emphatically sympathetic tone, getting away through the swing door almost hating the yellow body that squeezed through at her side and stood eagerly facing towards the market-place waiting for her movements.
7
She hurried up over the bridge calling to the dog without looking round, listening fearfully
for sounds of conflict with a brown collie she had caught sight of standing with head high and ears pricked59, twenty yards down the street. The piano-organ jingled60 angrily. The dog came thoughtfully trotting62 over the bridge and ambled63 off across the common—safe. He might have been killed, or killed another dog; how cruel dogs were, without knowing better. She looked to the common asking consolation64 for her beating heart. The bag of creams was safe and heavy in her hand, the dog had gone, the little town was behind, it had hurt her; it was spoiled; she would never like it. It had done nothing but remind her that she was a helpless dingy65 little governess. She toiled66 along, feeling dreadfully tired; the sounds of her boot soles on the firm, sand-powdered road mocked her, telling her she must go on. If she could be quite sure of finding a kind woman, not a hard-featured woman with black and grey hair, like the shopwoman, but kind, knowing and understanding everything, in a large print apron67 with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, living in a large cottage with a family, who would look at her and smile a quiet short certain smile, as if she had been waiting for her, and take her in and let her help and stay there
for ever, she would put down the bag of coffee creams on the edge of the common and go straight across it to her; but there would not be a woman like that here; all that the women round here would think about her would be to wonder which of the families she belonged to. If a victoria came along and in it a delicate, lonely old gentleman who had a large empty house with deep quiet rooms and a large sunny garden with high walls and wanted someone to be about there singing and happy till he died she would go. He would drive away with her and shut her up in the quiet beautiful house, protecting her and keeping people off, and she would sing all day in the garden and the house and play to him and read sometimes aloud, and he would forget he was old and ill, and they would share the great secret, dying of happiness. Die of happiness. People ought to be able to die of happiness if they were able to admit how happy they were. If they admitted it aloud they would pass straight out of their bodies, alive; unhappiness was the same as death, not suffering; but letting suffering make you unhappy—curse God and die, curse life, that was letting life beat you; letting God beat you. God did not want
that. No one admitted it. No one seemed to know anything about it. People just went on fussing.
The violent beating of her heart died down. The sun was behind her; the commons glowed. She must have been looking at them for some time because she could close her eyes and see exactly how they looked, all alive in steady colour, gleaming and fresh. The thumping68 and trilling of the distant piano-organ offered itself equally to everybody. It knew the secret and twirled and swept all the fussing away into a tune69. Quietly the clock of the church in the little town struck four. She would be late for tea. The children would have tea with Mrs. Corrie. Wiggerson would make a fresh pot for her when she got in. There would be a little tray in her quiet room, a cup and saucer, the little sprigged silk tea-cosy, the “Human Document.” It would be the beginning of the week-end. It would link her up again with the early afternoon, the rose-filled drawing-room, the excited dining-room, the smell of varnish from the billiard-room floor.
8
Mrs. Corrie and the children were dancing in a lingering patch of sunlight at the far end of the lawn as Miriam came up the drive with her chocolates. They waved and shouted to her, trumpeting70 questions through their hands. She held up the bag. “Go and have tea, you poor soul,” sang Mrs. Corrie. How excited they were. In the flower-filled hall Stokes, muttering excitedly to herself, was lighting71 the fire. The crackling of wood came from the dining-room.
Wiggerson was swishing about in the dining-room clearing away tea.
9
Sitting in her low basket chair with her dismantled72 tea-tray at her side and a picture in her mind of the new Mrs. Kronen coming down from London in the train in bright new clothes and a dust-cloak, Miriam was startled by hearing frightened footsteps rush across the landing and a frightened voice calling for Wiggerson.
“Something’s happened,” she told herself angrily, “it always does when everybody’s so excited—‘tel qui rit vendredi dimanche pleurera.’”
Opening the door she found the landing empty and quiet, the setting sun streamed across its coloured spaces, the flowers blazed as if they were standing in a garden.... Joey always went for walks if she were feeling thick and fat, she always went for a long walk; in coats with skirts to match; a costume; never a jacket with a different skirt ... the long cool passage leading away to the invisible door of Mr. Corrie’s room was full of wreathing smoke. Wiggerson rushed across the landing along the passage, followed by Mrs. Corrie, with her head up and her handkerchief to her nose and all her figure tense and angular and strong. Both had passed silently; but there were shriekings on the stairs and the children came at Miriam with cries and screams. “Rollo’ll be killed”; “Go to her”; “Go and save vem”; the children shrieked74 and leaped up and down in front of her. The boy’s white features worked as if they must dislocate; his eyes were black with terror; he wrung75 his hands. Sybil’s face, scarlet76 and shapeless and streaming with tears, blazed wrath77 at Miriam through her green eyes. “Be quiet,” Miriam said in loud tones. “I shall do nothing till you are quiet.” With a shriek73 the girl lashed78
at her with the dog-whip. “Save vem, save vem,” shrieked the boy, twisting his arms in the air. “Will you both be quiet instantly?” shouted Miriam, as the blood rose to her head, catching79 and holding the boy. Both children howled and choked; Sybil flung herself forward howling, and Miriam felt her teeth in her wrist. The smoke came pouring out of the little hidden room, coiling itself against the air of the passage like some fascinating silent inevitable80 grimace81. Wiggerson’s figure flying through it stirred it strangely, but it closed behind her and billowed horribly out towards Mrs. Corrie standing just clear of its advance with her handkerchief pressed to her face, quiet, not calling to Wiggerson, waiting where she had disappeared. Miriam could not move. Sybil’s body hung fastened to her own with entwining limbs ... “a fight in the jungle,” a tiger flung fixed82 like a leech83 against the breast of a screaming elephant ... the boy had the whip and was slashing84 at her legs through her thin dress and uttering piercing shrieks85.
10
“Stokes is an idjut,” said Mrs. Corrie, going gaily86 downstairs with the two exhausted white-faced
children followed by Wiggerson flitting along with bloodshot blinking eyes.
Stokes, sullenly88 brooding, lighting Mr. Corrie’s fire without putting back the register. What was it that made Stokes sullen87 and brooding so that the accident had happened and the smoke had come? Stokes had seen something, someone, like the fearful oncoming curving stare of the smoke. Mrs. Corrie and Wiggerson did not brood like that. They laughed and wept and snatched things out of danger. They had thin faces. Mrs. Corrie was alone, like an aspen shaking its leaves in windless air. She knew she was alone. Wiggerson ... Wiggerson was...? Making her toilet in the spring sunset Miriam saw all that time Wiggerson’s tall body hurtling about in her small pantry, quickly selecting and packing things on a tray—her eyes glancing swiftly downwards89 as her foot caught, the swift bending of her body, the rip, rip as she tore the braiding from her skirt, her intent face as she threw it from her and swept sinuously90 upright, her undisturbed hands once more at their swift work.
11
What a strange photograph ... a woman in Grecian drapery seated on a stonework chair with a small harp33 on her knees, one hand limply tweaking the strings91 of her harp; her head thrown back, her eyes, hard and bright, staring up into the sky, “Inspiration” printed in ink on the white margin92 under the photograph. It was an Englishwoman, a large stiff square body, a coil of carefully crimped hair and a curled fringe, pretending. There were people who would say, “What a pretty photograph,” and mean it ... the draperies and the attitude. How easy it was to take people in, just by acting93. Not the real people. There were real people. Where were they? That horrid94 thing could get itself on to Mrs. Corrie’s drawing-room table and sit there unbroken. All women were inspired in a way. It was true enough. But it was a secret. Men ought not to be told. They must find it out for themselves. To dress up and try to make it something to attract somebody. She was not a woman, she was a woman ... oh, curse it all. But men liked actresses. They liked being fooled.
Miriam looked closely at the photograph with
hatred95 in her eyes. Why not the stone steps and the chair and the sense of sunlight; sunlit air? That would be enough. “You get in the way of the air, you thing,” she muttered, and the woman’s helpless unconscious sandalled feet reproached her. Voices were shouting to each other on the upper landing. It was Mrs. Kronen’s photograph, of course. Miriam moved quickly away, ashamed of having stared. But it was too late; she had done a horrid thing again. She saw, as if it were in the room with her, the affair of the taking of the photograph, a cross face coming down from its pose to argue with the photographer, and then flung upwards96 again, waiting. And she had put or let someone put it, in a frame, at once on a strange drawing-room table. Perhaps her husband had put it there. But if he valued it he would hide and shelter it.... When we meet, she will know I have stared at her photograph.
Mrs. Kronen came suddenly in with Mrs. Corrie, talking in a rich deep thick voice that moved, with large intervals97, up and down a long scale and yet produced a curious effect of toneless flatness, just as if she were speaking a narrow nasal Cockney. There was a Cockney sound somewhere
in her voice. She began at once loudly praising everything in the room, hardly pausing when Miriam was introduced to her, and giving no sign of having seen her. If I were alone with her, thought Miriam, I should want to say “’Ullo, ’ow’s yourself?” and grin. It would be the only thing one could genuinely do. Mrs. Corrie almost giggled98 at the end of each of Mrs. Kronen’s exclamations99, but she was very gay and animated100 and so was Mr. Corrie when he came in with Mr. Kronen. They all went in to dinner talking and laughing loudly. And they went on laughing and joking and talking loudly against each other through dinner.
12
Mr. and Mrs. Corrie looked thin and small and very young. Once or twice they laughed at the same moment and glanced at each other. Mr. Corrie’s face was flushed. Mr. and Mrs. Kronen looked like brother and sister—only that she said South Africa as if it were a phrase in a tragic101 recitative from an oratorio102 and he as if it were something he had behind him that gave him a sort of advantage over everyone. It seemed to be all he had. They had both been in South
Africa, travelling in bullock waggons103 blinded by the fierce light and choked with sand. It seemed to linger in the curious brickish look of their complexions104 and the hard yellow of their hair. The talk about South Africa lasted all dinnertime. It seemed to interest Mr. Corrie. His eyes gleamed strangely as he talked about I.D.B.’s. Everybody at the table said, “Illicit105 dahmond bah” at least once with a little thrill of the face. Why was it illicit to buy diamonds?—strange people out there in the glare buying gleaming stones from miners and this curious feeling about it all round the table, everybody with hot glinting excited eyes—and somebody, some man, a business man who had handed round diamonds like chocolates to his friends in his box at the opera, a Stock Exchange man in a frock-coat throwing himself into the sea somewhere between England and South Africa—ah, what a pity, worried to death, with an excited head. He wanted diamonds. And when Mr. Corrie handed Mrs. Kronen a dish of fruit and said, “A banana? A bite of a barnato?” they all laughed, so comfortably. Something illicit seemed to creep into the very pictures and flow over the walls. The poor man’s body falling desperately106
into the sea. He could not endure his own excited eyes.
13
Early on Monday morning Miriam heard Mrs. Kronen singing in the bathroom. She tried not to listen and listened. The bold sound had come in through her open door when Stokes brought her breakfast tray. With it had come the smell of a downstairs breakfast, coffee, a curious fresh, sustaining odour of coffee and freshly frying rashers. There was coffee on her own tray this morning and a letter addressed to her in a bold unknown hand. She sipped107 her coffee at once and put the overwhelming letter aside on her blue coverlet. It was an overweight, something thrown in on the surface of the tide on which she had awakened108 in the soft fresh harmonies of rose and blue of her curtained room. It could wait. It had come out of the world for her; but she felt independent of it. It did not disturb her. Its overwhelming quality was in the fact that she had called it to her out of the world. It was as if she had herself addressed the large bold envelope. She left it. Her sipped coffee steered109 her into the tide of the downstairs life. There was breakfast downstairs, steaming coffee and
entrée dishes for Mr. Corrie and the Kronens, and they were all going off by the early train.
“C’est si bon,” sang Mrs. Kronen in a deep baritone, as Miriam drank her coffee; “de con-fon-dre en un, deu-eux bai-sers.” She sang it out through the quiet upstairs rooms, she met with it the bustle110 of preparation downstairs. It was a world she lived in that made her able to carry off these things without being disturbed by them, a rosy111 secret world in which she lived secure. A richness at the heart of things. She was there. She possessed112 it with her large strong brick-red and rose-white frame and her strong yellow hair. Did she, really? At any rate she wanted to suggest that she did—that that secret richness was the heart of things. She flung out boldly that it was and that she was there, but a sort of soft horrible slurring113 flatness in her voice suggested evil, as if a sort of restless acceptance of something evil was the price of her carelessness. Perhaps that was how things were. Perhaps that was part of taking each fair mask for what it shows itself. She made everyone else seem cloudy and shrivelled and dim. Miriam took up the stupendous envelope and held its solid weight in her hand as Mrs. Kronen sang on. “All right,”
she said, and smiled at it, feeling daring and strong. Its arrival would have been quite different if Mrs. Kronen had not been there; this curious powerful independent morning in the rose-blue room would not have happened in the same way without Mrs. Kronen.... Live, don’t worry.... I’ve always been worrying and bothering. I’m going to be like Mrs. Kronen; but quite different, because she hasn’t the least idea how beautiful things really are. She doesn’t know that everyone is living a beautiful strange life that has never been lived before. If she did she would not be ashamed of herself. Miriam gave a great sigh and smiled.
14
Her breakfast was a feast. Sitting back under the softly tinted114 canopy115 with the soft folds of the bed curtains hanging near on either side she stared at the bright light pouring in through the lattices. Her room was a great square of happy light ... happy, happy. She gathered up all the sadness she had ever known and flung it from her. All the dark things of the past flashed with a strange beauty as she flung them out. The light had been there all the time; but she had
known it only at moments. Now she knew what she wanted. Bright mornings, beautiful bright rooms, a wilderness116 of beauty all round her all the time—at any cost. Any life that had not these things she would refuse.... Roses in her blood and gold in her hair ... it was something belonging to them, something that made them gleam. It was her right; even if they gleamed only for her. They gleamed, she knew it. Youth, the glory of youth. So strong. She had got herself into this beautiful life, found her way to it; she would stay in it for ever, work in it, make money and when she was old, have soft, pink curtains and fragrant things to remind her, as long as she could lift her hand. No more ugliness, no more schools or mean little houses. Luxuries, beautiful gleaming things ... a secret happy life.
She smiled securely, with her eyes, the strange happy smile that had come in the brougham....
15
How strong Mrs. Kronen was.... How huge and strong she had looked standing in the hall while Mr. Corrie said cruel laughing little things about the billiard-room floor.... “She’ll
paint Madonna lilies on the table next.” ... Mrs. Kronen saying nothing, smiling more and more without moving her face, growing bigger and stronger and taller as Mr. Corrie grumbled117 and Mr. Kronen fidgeted, cross and disappointed by the hall fire and then suddenly lifting her head and singing, a great flourish of clear strong notes filling the hall and pealing118 up through the house as she swept into the drawing-room.
Singing song after song to her own loud accompaniment, great emphatic58 sweeps of song, so that everyone came and sat about in the room listening and waiting, the men staring at the back of her head as she sat at the piano. Waiting, for music—they did not know they were waiting for music, waiting for her to stop getting between them and the music. They admired her, her magnificent singing and waited, unsatisfied, in the sweetness of the lamp-lit flower-filled room that her music did not touch. She sang on and on and they all grew smaller and smaller in the great sea of sound, more and more hopelessly waiting.
16
And Mrs. Corrie had sat deep in her large chair, dead and drowned. Dead because of something she had never known. Dead in ignorance and living bravely on—her sweet thin voice rising above the gloom where she lay hid—a gloom where there were no thoughts. Nearly all women were like that, living in a gloom where there were no thoughts. If anyone could persuade her that she was alive she would do nothing but rush about and dance and sing ... how irritating that would be ... making men smile and trot61 about and look silly ... no room for ideas; except in smoking-rooms—and—laboratories.... She was a good woman; a God woman; the sweetness of her bones and her thin sweet voice of tears and laughter were of God. Everyone knew that and worshipped her. Men’s ideas were devilish; clever and mean.... Was God a woman? Was God really irritating? No one could endure God really.... Men could not.... Women were of God in some way. That is what men could never forgive; the superiority of women.... “Perhaps I can’t stand women because I’m a sort of horrid man.”
Mrs. Kronen was a sort of man too. She was not perplexed119. But she was a woman too—because she was not mean and petty and fussy120 as men are ... sitting tall and square at the piano with the square tall form of her husband standing ready to turn the pages—her strong baritone voice rolling out, “Ai-me-moi ... car ton charme-est étrange ... et-je-t’ai-me.”
17
Recalling the song as she sat back in the alcove121 of her bed motionless, keeping the brightness of her room at its first intensity122, Miriam remembered that it had brought her a moment when the flower-filled drawing-room had seemed to be lit, from within herself, a sudden light that had kept her very still and made the bowls of roses blaze with deepening colours. In her mind she had seen garden beyond garden of roses, sunlit, brighter and brighter and had made a rapturous prayer. She remembered the words ... God.... I’m not afraid of you. Look at the gardens ... and something had smiled through the lit gardens exultantly123, and Mrs. Kronen’s voice had raged through the room like a storm, “Ai-me-moi!...” and Mr. Corrie’s eyes were strange
and hard with shadows.... He knew, in some strange way men knew there were gardens everywhere, not always visible. Women did not seem to know....
The letter on her tray was a sort of response to her prayer.
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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3
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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4
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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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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9
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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10
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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11
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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12
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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13
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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14
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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15
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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16
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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17
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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18
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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19
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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20
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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21
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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22
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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23
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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24
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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25
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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26
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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27
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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28
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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29
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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30
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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31
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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32
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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33
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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34
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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35
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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36
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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37
distillation
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| n.蒸馏，蒸馏法 | |
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38
bead
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| n.念珠；(pl.)珠子项链；水珠 | |
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39
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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40
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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41
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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42
overdoing
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| v.做得过分( overdo的现在分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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43
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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44
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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45
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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46
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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47
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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48
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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49
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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50
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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51
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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52
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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53
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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54
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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55
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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56
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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57
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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58
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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59
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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60
jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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61
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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62
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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63
ambled
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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64
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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65
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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66
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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67
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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68
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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69
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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70
trumpeting
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| 大声说出或宣告（trumpet的现在分词形式） | |
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71
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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72
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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73
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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74
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
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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76
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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77
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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78
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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79
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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80
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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81
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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82
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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83
leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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84
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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85
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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86
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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87
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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88
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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89
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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90
sinuously
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| 弯曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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91
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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92
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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93
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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94
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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95
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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96
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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97
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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98
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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100
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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101
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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102
oratorio
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| n.神剧，宗教剧，清唱剧 | |
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103
waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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104
complexions
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| 肤色( complexion的名词复数 )； 面色； 局面； 性质 | |
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105
illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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106
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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107
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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108
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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109
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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110
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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111
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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112
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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113
slurring
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| 含糊地说出( slur的现在分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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114
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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115
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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116
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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117
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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118
pealing
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| v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的现在分词 ) | |
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119
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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120
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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121
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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122
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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123
exultantly
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| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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