OLD STEPHEN descended1 the two white steps, shutting the black door with the brazen2 door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he gave a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot hand clouded it. He crossed the street with his eyes bent3 upon the ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully away, when he felt a touch upon his arm.
It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment - the touch that could calm the wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand of the sublimest4 love and patience could abate5 the raging of the sea - yet it was a woman's hand too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though withered6 by time, on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned. She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, had country mud upon her shoes, and was newly come from a journey. The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted noise of the streets; the spare shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the heavy umbrella, and little basket; the loose long-fingered gloves, to which her hands were unused; all bespoke7 an old woman from the country, in her plain holiday clothes, come into Coketown on an expedition of rare occurrence. Remarking this at a glance, with the quick observation of his class, Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive8 face - his face, which, like the faces of many of his order, by dint9 of long working with eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious10 noise, had acquired the concentrated look with which we are familiar in the countenances11 of the deaf - the better to hear what she asked him.
'Pray, sir,' said the old woman, 'didn't I see you come out of that gentleman's house?' pointing back to Mr. Bounderby's. 'I believe it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in following?'
'Yes, missus,' returned Stephen, 'it were me.'
'Have you - you'll excuse an old woman's curiosity - have you seen the gentleman?'
'Yes, missus.'
'And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, outspoken12, and hearty13?' As she straightened her own figure, and held up her head in adapting her action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old woman before, and had not quite liked her.
'O yes,' he returned, observing her more attentively14, 'he were all that.'
'And healthy,' said the old woman, 'as the fresh wind?'
'Yes,' returned Stephen. 'He were ett'n and drinking - as large and as loud as a Hummobee.'
'Thank you!' said the old woman, with infinite content. 'Thank you!'
He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed of some old woman like her.
She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to her humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it not? To which she answered 'Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!' Then he said, she came from the country, he saw? To which she answered in the affirmative.
'By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by Parliamentary this morning, and I'm going back the same forty mile this afternoon. I walked nine mile to the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the road to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back to-night. That's pretty well, sir, at my age!' said the chatty old woman, her eye brightening with exultation16.
''Deed 'tis. Don't do't too often, missus.'
'No, no. Once a year,' she answered, shaking her head. 'I spend my savings17 so, once every year. I come regular, to tramp about the streets, and see the gentlemen.'
'Only to see 'em?' returned Stephen.
'That's enough for me,' she replied, with great earnestness and interest of manner. 'I ask no more! I have been standing18 about, on this side of the way, to see that gentleman,' turning her head back towards Mr. Bounderby's again, 'come out. But, he's late this year, and I have not seen him. You came out instead. Now, if I am obliged to go back without a glimpse of him - I only want a glimpse - well! I have seen you, and you have seen him, and I must make that do.' Saying this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his features in her mind, and her eye was not so bright as it had been.
With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all submission19 to the patricians20 of Coketown, this seemed so extraordinary a source of interest to take so much trouble about, that it perplexed21 him. But they were passing the church now, and as his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace.
He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his telling her where he worked, the old woman became a more singular old woman than before.
'An't you happy?' she asked him.
'Why - there's awmost nobbody but has their troubles, missus.' He answered evasively, because the old woman appeared to take it for granted that he would be very happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the old woman had lived so long, and could count upon his having so little, why so much the better for her, and none the worse for him.
'Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you mean?' she said.
'Times. Just now and then,' he answered, slightly.
'But, working under such a gentleman, they don't follow you to the Factory?'
No, no; they didn't follow him there, said Stephen. All correct there. Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard claims almost as magnificent of late years.)
They were now in the black by-road near the place, and the Hands were crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman was delighted with the very bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she said, and sounded grand!
She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to shake hands with her before going in, how long he had worked there?
'A dozen year,' he told her.
'I must kiss the hand,' said she, 'that has worked in this fine factory for a dozen year!' And she lifted it, though he would have prevented her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her simplicity22, surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic action there was a something neither out of time nor place: a something which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as serious, or done with such a natural and touching23 air.
He had been at his loom24 full half an hour, thinking about this old woman, when, having occasion to move round the loom for its adjustment, he glanced through a window which was in his corner, and saw her still looking up at the pile of building, lost in admiration25. Heedless of the smoke and mud and wet, and of her two long journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum that issued from its many stories were proud music to her.
She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery26, and scarcely heard above its crash and rattle27. Long before then his thoughts had gone back to the dreary28 room above the little shop, and to the shameful29 figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart.
Machinery slackened; throbbing30 feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. The bell again; the glare of light and heat dispelled31; the factories, looming32 heavy in the black wet night - their tall chimneys rising up into the air like competing Towers of Babel.
He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had walked with her a little way; but he had his new misfortune on him, in which no one else could give him a moment's relief, and, for the sake of it, and because he knew himself to want that softening33 of his anger which no voice but hers could effect, he felt he might so far disregard what she had said as to wait for her again. He waited, but she had eluded34 him. She was gone. On no other night in the year could he so ill have spared her patient face.
O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a home and dread15 to go to it, through such a cause. He ate and drank, for he was exhausted35 - but he little knew or cared what; and he wandered about in the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and brooding and brooding.
No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael had taken great pity on him years ago, and to her alone he had opened his closed heart all this time, on the subject of his miseries37; and he knew very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take him. He thought of the home he might at that moment have been seeking with pleasure and pride; of the different man he might have been that night; of the lightness then in his now heavy- laden38 breast; of the then restored honour, self-respect, and tranquillity39 all torn to pieces. He thought of the waste of the best part of his life, of the change it made in his character for the worse every day, of the dreadful nature of his existence, bound hand and foot, to a dead woman, and tormented40 by a demon41 in her shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were first brought together in these circumstances, how mature now, how soon to grow old. He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry, how many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she had contentedly42 pursued her own lone36 quiet path - for him - and how he had sometimes seen a shade of melancholy43 on her blessed face, that smote44 him with remorse45 and despair. He set the picture of her up, beside the infamous46 image of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole earthly course of one so gentle, good, and self-denying, was subjugate47 to such a wretch48 as that!
Filled with these thoughts - so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris49 round every misty50 light turn red - he went home for shelter.
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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sublimest
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| 伟大的( sublime的最高级 )； 令人赞叹的； 极端的； 不顾后果的 | |
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abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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bespoke
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| adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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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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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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patricians
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| n.（古罗马的）统治阶层成员( patrician的名词复数 )；贵族，显贵 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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dispelled
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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45
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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47
subjugate
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| v.征服；抑制 | |
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48
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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49
iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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