More especially is this the case with regard to the women, who, already gifted by nature with keener perceptions, and prematurely8 ripened9 in what may be termed a tropical atmosphere of passion, develop an almost supernatural power of clairvoyance10, which enables them with incredible celerity to unravel11 hitherto undisclosed secrets by means only of intuitive deductions12.
“The astounding13 vividness of their impressions” (again to quote Liszt on the subject) “rarely fails to communicate itself like wildfire to the hearers. As by the contagion14 of a deadly poison, the mere15 touch of the gypsy fortune-teller is often sufficient to affect them with the sensation of an electric shock or vibration16.
“A few apt reflections strewed17 about in conversation, casual exclamations18 of apparent simplicity19, some primitive20 rhymes and verses accentuated21 by passion, so to say hammered into relief like the raised figures on a medal—such are the means which suffice to stir up in an audience whatever elements may be there existing of secret wrath22, of latent rebellion, of characters bent23 but not broken, of affections discouraged but not despairing.
GYPSY MOTHER AND CHILD.
“The gypsy woman, herself well acquainted with all the signs and workings of passion, distinguishes à coup24 d’?il the cause of the sallow cheek and the fevered eye of such another woman; she can feel instinctively25 whether the hand from which she is expected to decipher a fate be stretched towards her with the hasty gesture of hope or with the hesitation26 of fear. Without difficulty she reads in disdainfully{263} curled lips or ominously27 drawn28 brows whether the youth before her be chafing29 under a yoke30 or planning revenge; whether he craves31 love or has already lost it. She can further distinguish at a glance the delusive32 presumption33 of youth and beauty—the false security of possession which thinks to defy misfortune. She knows the annihilating34 blows of fate and the vulnerability of the human heart too well not to mistrust the smile of over-conscious happiness, and prophesy35 misfortune to those who refuse to believe in the instability of the future.
“She cannot be called a hypocrite, for she herself has faith in her own diagnosis36; believing that each man carries within him the germ of his own fate, she is convinced that sooner or later her prognostics must be fulfilled. Her only care is therefore to clothe her predictions in a form which, easily captivating the imagination, and thereby37 impressed on the memory, will spring again to life, along with the image of the prophetess, whenever the latent emotions she has detected, having reached their culminating point, bring about the success or the catastrophe38 foreseen from the investigation39 of a hand and a heart.
“After all, why should we wonder that the secrets of the future can be deciphered by one so intimately acquainted with the inmost folds of the human soul, and the workings of different passions confined in the human breast like so many caged lions or torpid40 slumbering41 reptiles42?
“Passion always accompanied by a powerful sympathetic instinct quickly divines the presence of a kindred passion. Apt to decipher the symptoms inevitably43 betrayed in voice and gesture, and skilled to read in that mystic book whose characters are so plainly impressed on the leaves of a physiognomy which, betraying where it would fain conceal44, becomes the more impressive in proportion as the heart within is agitated45 by tumultuous throbbings, the gypsy fortune-teller knows full well with whom she has to deal, and can justly estimate what sort of characters are those who seek her counsel.”
It is, I think, Balzac who has said, “Si le passé a laissé des traces, il est à croire que l’avenir possède des racines;” and on the principle that every man is master of his own fate, there is, after all, no reason why these roots, invisible to the rest of the world, should not be perceptible to such as have made of this subject the study of a lifetime. Why should not the seer be able to proclaim the fruits to be reaped from the recognition of germs which already exist?
The enlightened folk who sweepingly46 condemn47 the fortune-teller{264} as a liar48 and cheat are probably no less mistaken than witless rustics49, who blindly believe in her as an infallible oracle50. Should not precisely51 the superior enlightenment of which we boast be argument for, rather than against, the fortune-teller? Why, if phrenology and graphology are permitted to take rank as acknowledged sciences, should not the gypsy woman’s power of divination52 be equally allowed to count as a shrewd deciphering of character, coupled with logical deductions as to the events likely to be evoked53 by the passions she has recognized, when brought into combination with a given set of circumstances?
Ignorant people, surprised at the detection of secrets which they had believed to be securely locked up in their own breasts, and not understanding the process by which such conclusions were reached, are ready to attribute the fortune-teller’s power of divination to supernatural agency, which opinion is strengthened and confirmed by the romantic conditions of the gypsy’s existence, and the cabalistic glamour54 with which she contrives55 to invest herself.
But is not, in truth, this delicate and subtle perception in itself a secret and undeniable power—a sudden inspiration, a positive intuition of what will be from the rapid unveiling of what already is? And here, again, Liszt is probably right in asserting this gift of prophecy, so universally ascribed to the gypsies in all countries, to be a too deeply rooted belief in the minds of the people not to have some rational ground for its existence.
There is no doubt that the gypsy fortune-tellers in Transylvania exercise considerable influence on their Saxon and Roumanian neighbors, and it is a paradoxical fact that the self-same people who regard the Tziganes as undoubted thieves, liars58, and cheats in all the common transactions of daily life, do not hesitate to confide59 in them blindly for charmed medicines and love-potions, and are ready to attribute to them unerring power in deciphering the mysteries of the future.
The Saxon peasant will, it is true, often drive away the fortune-teller with blows and curses from his door, but his wife will as often secretly beckon60 her in again by the back entrance, in order to be consulted as to the illness of the cows, or beg from her a remedy against the fever.
Wonderful potions and salves, composed of the fat of bears, dogs, snakes, and snails61, along with the oil of rain-worms, the bodies of spiders and midges, rubbed into a paste, are concocted62 by these cunning{265} bohemians, who thus sometimes contrive56 to make thrice as much money out of the carcass of a dead dog as another can realize from the sale of a healthy pig or calf63. There is not a village in Transylvania which cannot boast of one or more such fortune-tellers, and living in the suburbs of each town are many old women who make an easy and comfortable livelihood64 out of the credulity of their fellow-creatures.
It has also been asserted that both Roumanian and Saxon mothers whose sickly infants are believed to be suffering from the effects of the evil eye, are often in the habit of giving the child to be nursed for a period of nine days to some Tzigane woman supposed to have power to undo57 the spell.
For my own part, I have seldom had inclination65 to confide the deciphering of my fate to one of these wandering sibyls, and can therefore only affirm that on the solitary66 occasion when, half in jest, I chose to interrogate67 the future, I was favored with a piece of intelligence so startling and improbable as could only be received with a laugh of derision; yet before many days had elapsed this startling and improbable event had actually come to pass, and the gypsy’s prophecy was accomplished68 in the most unlooked-for manner.
Chance, probably, or coincidence, most people will say; and indeed I do not myself see how it could have been anything but the veriest coincidence. I merely state this fact as it occurred, and without attempting to draw any general conclusions from the isolated69 instance within my own personal range of observation.
点击收听单词发音
1 deteriorating | |
恶化,变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 ) | |
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2 premature | |
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的 | |
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3 dotage | |
n.年老体衰;年老昏聩 | |
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4 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
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5 ravages | |
劫掠后的残迹,破坏的结果,毁坏后的残迹 | |
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6 bestowing | |
砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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7 penetration | |
n.穿透,穿人,渗透 | |
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8 prematurely | |
adv.过早地,贸然地 | |
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9 ripened | |
v.成熟,使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10 clairvoyance | |
n.超人的洞察力 | |
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11 unravel | |
v.弄清楚(秘密);拆开,解开,松开 | |
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12 deductions | |
扣除( deduction的名词复数 ); 结论; 扣除的量; 推演 | |
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13 astounding | |
adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊,使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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14 contagion | |
n.(通过接触的疾病)传染;蔓延 | |
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15 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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16 vibration | |
n.颤动,振动;摆动 | |
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17 strewed | |
v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 );散落于;点缀;撒满 | |
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18 exclamations | |
n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 );感叹;感叹语;感叹词 | |
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19 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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20 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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21 accentuated | |
v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 );使突出;使恶化;加重音符号于 | |
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22 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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23 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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24 coup | |
n.政变;突然而成功的行动 | |
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25 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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26 hesitation | |
n.犹豫,踌躇 | |
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27 ominously | |
adv.恶兆地,不吉利地;预示地 | |
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28 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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29 chafing | |
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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30 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
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31 craves | |
渴望,热望( crave的第三人称单数 ); 恳求,请求 | |
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32 delusive | |
adj.欺骗的,妄想的 | |
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33 presumption | |
n.推测,可能性,冒昧,放肆,[法律]推定 | |
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34 annihilating | |
v.(彻底)消灭( annihilate的现在分词 );使无效;废止;彻底击溃 | |
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35 prophesy | |
v.预言;预示 | |
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36 diagnosis | |
n.诊断,诊断结果,调查分析,判断 | |
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37 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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38 catastrophe | |
n.大灾难,大祸 | |
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39 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
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40 torpid | |
adj.麻痹的,麻木的,迟钝的 | |
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41 slumbering | |
微睡,睡眠(slumber的现在分词形式) | |
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42 reptiles | |
n.爬行动物,爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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43 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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44 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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45 agitated | |
adj.被鼓动的,不安的 | |
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46 sweepingly | |
adv.扫荡地 | |
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47 condemn | |
vt.谴责,指责;宣判(罪犯),判刑 | |
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48 liar | |
n.说谎的人 | |
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49 rustics | |
n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 );粗野的;不雅的;用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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50 oracle | |
n.神谕,神谕处,预言 | |
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51 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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52 divination | |
n.占卜,预测 | |
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53 evoked | |
[医]诱发的 | |
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54 glamour | |
n.魔力,魅力;vt.迷住 | |
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55 contrives | |
(不顾困难地)促成某事( contrive的第三人称单数 ); 巧妙地策划,精巧地制造(如机器); 设法做到 | |
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56 contrive | |
vt.谋划,策划;设法做到;设计,想出 | |
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57 undo | |
vt.解开,松开;取消,撤销 | |
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58 liars | |
说谎者( liar的名词复数 ) | |
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59 confide | |
v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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60 beckon | |
v.(以点头或打手势)向...示意,召唤 | |
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61 snails | |
n.蜗牛;迟钝的人;蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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62 concocted | |
v.将(尤指通常不相配合的)成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 );调制;编造;捏造 | |
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63 calf | |
n.小牛,犊,幼仔,小牛皮 | |
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64 livelihood | |
n.生计,谋生之道 | |
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65 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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66 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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67 interrogate | |
vt.讯问,审问,盘问 | |
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68 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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69 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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