He had been puzzled by the way that Catherine carried herself; her attitude at this sentimental1 crisis seemed to him unnaturally2 passive.
She had not spoken to him again after that scene in the library, the day before his interview with Morris; and a week had elapsed without making any change in her manner.
There was nothing in it that appealed for pity, and he was even a little disappointed at her not giving him an opportunity to make up for his harshness by some manifestation4 of liberality which should operate as a compensation.
He thought a little of offering to take her for a tour in Europe; but he was determined5 to do this only in case she should seem mutely to reproach him.
He had an idea that she would display a talent for mute reproaches, and he was surprised at not finding himself exposed to these silent batteries.
She said nothing, either tacitly or explicitly6, and as she was never very talkative, there was now no especial eloquence7 in her reserve.
And poor Catherine was not sulky--a style of behaviour for which she had too little histrionic talent; she was simply very patient.
Of course she was thinking over her situation, and she was apparently8 doing so in a deliberate and unimpassioned manner, with a view of making the best of it.
"She will do as I have bidden her," said the Doctor, and he made the further reflexion that his daughter was not a woman of a great spirit.
I know not whether he had hoped for a little more resistance for the sake of a little more entertainment; but he said to himself, as he had said before, that though it might have its momentary9 alarms, paternity was, after all, not an exciting vocation10.
Catherine, meanwhile, had made a discovery of a very different sort; it had become vivid to her that there was a great excitement in trying to be a good daughter.
She had an entirely11 new feeling, which may be described as a state of expectant suspense12 about her own actions.
She watched herself as she would have watched another person, and wondered what she would do.
It was as if this other person, who was both herself and not herself, had suddenly sprung into being, inspiring her with a natural curiosity as to the performance of untested functions.
"I am glad I have such a good daughter," said her father, kissing her, after the lapse3 of several days.
"I am trying to be good," she answered, turning away, with a conscience not altogether clear.
"If there is anything you would like to say to me, you know you must not hesitate.
You needn't feel obliged to be so quiet.
I shouldn't care that Mr. Townsend should be a frequent topic of conversation, but whenever you have anything particular to say about him I shall be very glad to hear it."
"Thank you," said Catherine; "I have nothing particular at present."
He never asked her whether she had seen Morris again, because he was sure that if this had been the case she would tell him.
She had, in fact, not seen him, she had only written him a long letter.
The letter at least was long for her; and, it may be added, that it was long for Morris; it consisted of five pages, in a remarkably13 neat and handsome hand.
Catherine's handwriting was beautiful, and she was even a little proud of it; she was extremely fond of copying, and possessed14 volumes of extracts which testified to this accomplishment15; volumes which she had exhibited one day to her lover, when the bliss16 of feeling that she was important in his eyes was exceptionally keen. She told Morris in writing that her father had expressed the wish that she should not see him again, and that she begged he would not come to the house until she should have "made up her mind."
Morris replied with a passionate17 epistle, in which he asked to what, in Heaven's name, she wished to make up her mind.
Had not her mind been made up two weeks before, and could it be possible that she entertained the idea of throwing him off?
Did she mean to break down at the very beginning of their ordeal18, after all the promises of fidelity19 she had both given and extracted?
And he gave an account of his own interview with her father--an account not identical at all points with that offered in these pages.
"He was terribly violent," Morris wrote; "but you know my self-control.
I have need of it all when I remember that I have it in my power to break in upon your cruel captivity20."
Catherine sent him, in answer to this, a note of three lines.
"I am in great trouble; do not doubt of my affection, but let me wait a little and think."
The idea of a struggle with her father, of setting up her will against his own, was heavy on her soul, and it kept her formally submissive, as a great physical weight keeps us motionless.
It never entered into her mind to throw her lover off; but from the first she tried to assure herself that there would be a peaceful way out of their difficulty.
The assurance was vague, for it contained no element of positive conviction that her father would change his mind.
She only had an idea that if she should be very good, the situation would in some mysterious manner improve.
To be good, she must be patient, respectful, abstain21 from judging her father too harshly, and from committing any act of open defiance22.
He was perhaps right, after all, to think as he did; by which Catherine meant not in the least that his judgement of Morris's motives23 in seeking to marry her was perhaps a just one, but that it was probably natural and proper that conscientious24 parents should be suspicious and even unjust.
There were probably people in the world as bad as her father supposed Morris to be, and if there were the slightest chance of Morris being one of these sinister25 persons, the Doctor was right in taking it into account.
Of course he could not know what she knew, how the purest love and truth were seated in the young man's eyes; but Heaven, in its time, might appoint a way of bringing him to such knowledge.
Catherine expected a good deal of Heaven, and referred to the skies the initiative, as the French say, in dealing26 with her dilemma27.
She could not imagine herself imparting any kind of knowledge to her father, there was something superior even in his injustice28 and absolute in his mistakes.
But she could at least be good, and if she were only good enough, Heaven would invent some way of reconciling all things--the dignity of her father's errors and the sweetness of her own confidence, the strict performance of her filial duties and the enjoyment29 of Morris Townsend's affection.
Poor Catherine would have been glad to regard Mrs. Penniman as an illuminating30 agent, a part which this lady herself indeed was but imperfectly prepared to play.
Mrs. Penniman took too much satisfaction in the sentimental shadows of this little drama to have, for the moment, any great interest in dissipating them.
She wished the plot to thicken, and the advice that she gave her niece tended, in her own imagination, to produce this result.
It was rather incoherent counsel, and from one day to another it contradicted itself; but it was pervaded31 by an earnest desire that Catherine should do something striking.
"You must ACT, my dear; in your situation the great thing is to act," said Mrs. Penniman, who found her niece altogether beneath her opportunities.
Mrs. Penniman's real hope was that the girl would make a secret marriage, at which she should officiate as brideswoman or duenna.
She had a vision of this ceremony being performed in some subterranean32 chapel-- subterranean chapels33 in New York were not frequent, but Mrs. Penniman's imagination was not chilled by trifles--and of the guilty couple--she liked to think of poor Catherine and her suitor as the guilty couple--being shuffled34 away in a fast-whirling vehicle to some obscure lodging35 in the suburbs, where she would pay them (in a thick veil) clandestine36 visits, where they would endure a period of romantic privation, and where ultimately, after she should have been their earthly providence37, their intercessor, their advocate, and their medium of communication with the world, they should be reconciled to her brother in an artistic38 tableau39, in which she herself should be somehow the central figure.
She hesitated as yet to recommend this course to Catherine, but she attempted to draw an attractive picture of it to Morris Townsend.
She was in daily communication with the young man, whom she kept informed by letters of the state of affairs in Washington Square.
As he had been banished40, as she said, from the house, she no longer saw him; but she ended by writing to him that she longed for an interview.
This interview could take place only on neutral ground, and she bethought herself greatly before selecting a place of meeting.
She had an inclination41 for Greenwood Cemetery42, but she gave it up as too distant; she could not absent herself for so long, as she said, without exciting suspicion.
Then she thought of the Battery, but that was rather cold and windy, besides one's being exposed to intrusion from the Irish emigrants43 who at this point alight, with large appetites, in the New World and at last she fixed44 upon an oyster45 saloon in the Seventh Avenue, kept by a negro--an establishment of which she knew nothing save that she had noticed it in passing.
She made an appointment with Morris Townsend to meet him there, and she went to the tryst46 at dusk, enveloped47 in an impenetrable veil.
He kept her waiting for half an hour--he had almost the whole width of the city to traverse--but she liked to wait, it seemed to intensify48 the situation.
She ordered a cup of tea, which proved excessively bad, and this gave her a sense that she was suffering in a romantic cause.
When Morris at last arrived, they sat together for half an hour in the duskiest corner of a back shop; and it is hardly too much to say that this was the happiest half-hour that Mrs. Penniman had known for years.
The situation was really thrilling, and it scarcely seemed to her a false note when her companion asked for an oyster stew49, and proceeded to consume it before her eyes.
Morris, indeed, needed all the satisfaction that stewed50 oysters51 could give him, for it may be intimated to the reader that he regarded Mrs. Penniman in the light of a fifth wheel to his coach.
He was in a state of irritation52 natural to a gentleman of fine parts who had been snubbed in a benevolent53 attempt to confer a distinction upon a young woman of inferior characteristics, and the insinuating54 sympathy of this somewhat desiccated matron appeared to offer him no practical relief.
He thought her a humbug55, and he judged of humbugs56 with a good deal of confidence.
He had listened and made himself agreeable to her at first, in order to get a footing in Washington Square; and at present he needed all his self-command to be decently civil.
It would have gratified him to tell her that she was a fantastic old woman, and that he should like to put her into an omnibus and send her home.
We know, however, that Morris possessed the virtue57 of self-control, and he had, moreover, the constant habit of seeking to be agreeable; so that, although Mrs. Penniman's demeanour only exasperated58 his already unquiet nerves, he listened to her with a sombre deference59 in which she found much to admire.
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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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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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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manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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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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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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clandestine
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| adj.秘密的，暗中从事的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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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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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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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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oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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tryst
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| n.约会；v.与…幽会 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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49
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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50
stewed
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| adj.焦虑不安的，烂醉的v.炖( stew的过去式和过去分词 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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52
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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53
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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humbugs
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| 欺骗( humbug的名词复数 )； 虚伪； 骗子； 薄荷硬糖 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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