It is immoral1 in a man to believe more than he can spontaneously receive as being congenial to his mental and moral nature.
—Newman, Eighteen Propositions of Liberalism (1828)
I hold it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp2 in divers3 tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
—Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850)
He put on his most formal self as he came down to the hall. Mrs. Endicott stood at the door to her office, her mouth already open to speak. But Charles, with a briskly polite “I thank you, ma’m” was past her and into the night before she could complete her question; or notice his frock coat lacked a button.
He walked blindly away through a new downpour of rain. He noticed it no more than where he was going. His greatest desire was darkness, invisibility, oblivion in which to regain4 calm. But he plunged5, without realizing it, into that morally dark quarter of Exeter I described earlier. Like most morally dark places it was full of light and life: of shops and taverns6, of people sheltering from the rain in doorways7. He took an abrupt8 downhill street towards the river Exe. Rows of scum-bered steps passed either side of a choked central gutter9. But it was quiet. At the bottom a small redstone church, built on the corner, came into sight; and Charles suddenly felt the need for sanctuary10. He pushed on a small door, so low that he had to stoop to enter. Steps rose to the level of the church floor, which was above the street entrance. A young curate stood at the top of these steps, turning down a last lamp and surprised at this late visit.
“I was about to lock up, sir.”
“May I ask to be allowed to pray for a few minutes?”
The curate reversed the extinguishing process and scruti-nized the late customer for a long moment. A gentleman.
“My house is just across the way. I am awaited. If you would be so kind as to lock up for me and bring me the key.” Charles bowed, and the curate came down beside him. “It is the bishop11. In my opinion the house of God should always be open. But our plate is so valuable. Such times we live in.”
Thus Charles found himself alone in the church. He heard the curate’s footsteps cross the street; and then he locked the old door from the inside and mounted the steps to the church. It smelled of new paint. The one gaslight dimly illumined fresh gilding12; but massive Gothic arches of a som-ber red showed that the church was very old. Charles seated himself halfway13 down the main aisle14 and stared through the roodscreen at the crucifix over the altar. Then he got to his knees and whispered the Lord’s Prayer, his rigid15 hands clenched16 over the prayer-ledge17 in front of him.
The dark silence and emptiness welled back once the ritual words were said. He began to compose a special prayer for his circumstances: “Forgive me, O Lord, for my selfishness. Forgive me for breaking Thy laws. Forgive me my dishonor, forgive me my unchastity. Forgive me my dissatisfaction with myself, forgive me my lack of faith in Thy wisdom and charity. Forgive and advise me, O Lord in my travail18 ...” but then, by means of one of those miserable19 puns made by a distracted subconscious20, Sarah’s face rose before him, tear-stained, agonized21, with all the features of a Mater Dolorosa by Grunewald he had seen in Colmar, Coblenz, Cologne ... he could not remember. For a few absurd seconds his mind ran after the forgotten town, it began with a C ... he got off his knees and sat back in his pew. How empty the church was, how silent. He stared at the crucifix; but instead of Christ’s face, he saw only Sarah’s. He tried to recommence his prayer. But it was hopeless. He knew it was not heard. He began abruptly22 to cry.
In all but a very few Victorian atheists (that militant23 elite24 led by Bradlaugh) and agnostics there was a profound sense of exclusion25, of a gift withdrawn26. Among friends of like persuasion27 they might make fun of the follies28 of the Church, of its sectarian squabbles, its luxurious29 bishops30 and intriguing31 canons, its absentee rectors* and underpaid curates, its anti-quated theology and all the rest; but Christ remained, a terrible anomaly in reason. He could not be for them what he is to so many of us today, a completely secularized figure, a man called Jesus of Nazareth with a brilliant gift for metaphor32, for creating a personal mythology33, for acting34 on his beliefs. All the rest of the world believed in his divinity; and thus his reproach came stronger to the unbeliever. Be-tween the cruelties of our own age and our guilt35 we have erected36 a vast edifice37 of government-administered welfare and aid; charity is fully38 organized. But the Victorians lived much closer to that cruelty; the intelligent and sensitive felt far more personally responsible; and it was thus all the harder, in hard times, to reject the universal symbol of compassion39.
[* But who can blame them when their superiors set such an ex-ample? The curate referred a moment ago to “the bishop”—and this particular bishop, the famous Dr. Phillpotts of Exeter (then with all of Devon and Cornwall under his care), is a case in point. He spent the last ten years of his life in “a comfortable accommodation” at Torquay and was said not to have darkened his cathedral’s doors once during that final decade. He was a superb prince of the Anglican Church—every inch a pugnacious40 reactionary41; and did not die till two years after the year we are in.]
Deep in his heart Charles did not wish to be an agnostic. Because he had never needed faith, he had quite happily learned to do without it; and his reason, his knowledge of Lyell and Darwin, had told him he was right to do without its dogma. Yet here he was, not weeping for Sarah, but for his own inability to speak to God. He knew, in that dark church, that the wires were down. No communication was possible.
There was a loud clack in the silence. He turned round, hastily touching42 his eyes with his sleeve. But whoever had tried to enter apparently43 accepted that the church was now closed; it was as if a rejected part of Charles himself had walked away. He stood up and began to pace up and down the aisle between the pews, his hands behind his back. Worn names and dates, last fossil remains44 of other lives, stared illegibly45 at him from the gravestones embedded46 in the floor. Perhaps the pacing up and down those stones, the slight sense of blasphemy47 he had in doing it, perhaps his previous mo-ments of despair, but something did finally bring calm and a kind of clarity back to him. A dialogue began to form, between his better and his worse self—or perhaps between him and that spreadeagled figure in the shadows at the church’s end.
Where shall I begin?
Begin with what you have done, my friend. And stop wishing you had not done it.
I did not do it. I was led to do it.
What led you to do it?
I was deceived.
What intent lay behind the deception48?
I do not know.
But you must judge.
If she had truly loved me she could not have let me go.
If she had truly loved you, could she have continued to deceive?
She gave me no choice. She said herself that marriage between us was impossible.
What reason did she give?
Our difference in social position.
A noble cause.
Then Ernestina. I have given her my solemn promise.
It is already broken.
I will mend it.
With love? Or with guilt?
It does not matter which. A vow49 is sacred.
If it does not matter which, a vow cannot be sacred.
My duty is clear.
Charles, Charles, I have read that thought in the cruelest eyes. Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good.
She wished me to go. I could see it in her eyes—a contempt.
Shall I tell you what Contempt is doing at this moment? She is weeping her heart out.
I cannot go back.
Do you think water can wash that blood from your loins?
I cannot go back.
Did you have to meet her again in the Undercliff? Did you have to stop this night in Exeter? Did you have to go to her room? Let her hand rest on yours? Did you—
I admit these things! I have sinned. But I was fallen into her snare50.
Then why are you now free of her?
There was no answer from Charles. He sat again in his pew. He locked his fingers with a white violence, as if he would break his knuckles51, staring, staring into the darkness. But the other voice would not let him be.
My friend, perhaps there is one thing she loves more than
you. And what you do not understand is that because she truly loves you she must give you the thing she loves more. I will tell you why she weeps: because you lack the courage to give her back her gift.
What right had she to set me on the rack?
What right had you to be born? To breathe? To be rich?
I do but render unto Caesar—
Or unto Mr. Freeman?
That is a base accusation52.
And unto me? Is this your tribute? These nails you ham-mer through my palms?
With the greatest respect—Ernestina also has palms.
Then let us take one and read it. I see no happiness. She knows she is not truly loved. She is deceived. Not once, but again and again, each day of marriage.
Charles put his arms on the ledge in front of him and buried his head in them. He felt caught in a dilemma53 that was also a current of indecision: it was almost palpable, not passive but active, driving him forwards into a future it, not he, would choose.
My poor Charles, search your heart—you thought when you came to this city, did you not, to prove to yourself you were not yet in the prison of your future. But escape is not one act, my friend. It is no more achieved by that than you could reach Jerusalem from here by one small step. Each day, Charles, each hour, it has to be taken again. Each minute the nail waits to be hammered in. You know your choice. You stay in prison, what your time calls duty, honor, self-respect, and you are comfortably safe. Or you are free and crucified. Your only companions the stones, the thorns, the turning backs; the silence of cities, and their hate.
I am weak.
But ashamed of your weakness.
What good could my strength bring to the world?
No answer came. But something made Charles rise from his pew and go to the roodscreen. He looked through one of its wooden windows at the Cross above the altar; and then, after a hesitation55, stepped through the central door and past the choir56 stalls to the steps to the altar table. The light at the other end of the church penetrated57 but feebly there. He could barely make out the features of the Christ, yet a mysterious empathy invaded him. He saw himself hanging there . . . not, to be sure, with any of the nobility and universality of Jesus, but crucified.
And yet not on the Cross—on something else. He had thought sometimes of Sarah in a way that might suggest he saw himself crucified on her; but such blasphemy, both reli-gious and real, was not in his mind. Rather she seemed there beside him, as it were awaiting the marriage service; yet with another end in view. For a moment he could not seize it—and then it came.
To uncrucify!
In a sudden flash of illumination Charles saw the right purpose of Christianity; it was not to celebrate this barbarous image, not to maintain it on high because there was a useful profit—the redemption of sins—to be derived58 from so doing, but to bring about a world in which the hanging man could be descended59, could be seen not with the rictus of agony on his face, but the smiling peace of a victory brought about by, and in, living men and women.
He seemed as he stood there to see all his age, its tumultu-ous life, its iron certainties and rigid conventions, its re-pressed emotion and facetious60 humor, its cautious science and incautious religion, its corrupt61 politics and immutable62 castes, as the great hidden enemy of all his deepest yearnings. That was what had deceived him; and it was totally without love or freedom . . . but also without thought, without intention, without malice63, because the deception was in its very nature; and it was not human, but a machine. That was the vicious circle that haunted him; that was the failure, the weakness, the cancer, the vital flaw that had brought him to what he was: more an indecision than a reality, more a dream than a man, more a silence than a word, a bone than an action. And fossils!
He had become, while still alive, as if dead.
It was like coming to a bottomless brink64.
And something else: a strange sense he had had, ever since entering that church—and not particular to it, but a pre-sentiment he always had upon entering empty churches—that he was not alone. A whole dense65 congregation of others stood behind him. He turned and looked back into the nave66.
Silent, empty pews.
And Charles thought: if they were truly dead, if there were no afterlife, what should I care of their view of me? They would not know, they could not judge.
Then he made the great leap: They do not know, they can-not judge.
Now what he was throwing off haunted, and profoundly damaged, his age. It is stated very clearly by Tennyson in the fiftieth poem of In Memoriam. Listen:
Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness67 that we dread68?
Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence69 for his blame,
See with clear eye some hidden shame
And I be lessen’d in his love?
I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great Death;
The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’.
Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all.
There must be wisdom with great Death; the dead shall look me thro’ and thro’. Charles’s whole being rose up against those two foul70 propositions; against this macabre71 desire to go backwards72 into the future, mesmerized73 eyes on one’s dead fathers instead of on one’s unborn sons. It was as if his previous belief in the ghostly presence of the past had con-demned him, without his ever realizing it, to a life in the grave.
Though this may seem like a leap into atheism74, it was not so; it did not diminish Christ in Charles’s eyes. Rather it made Him come alive, it uncrucified Him, if not completely, then at least partially75. Charles walked slowly back into the nave, turning his back on the indifferent wooden carving76. But not on Jesus. He began again to pace up and down, his eyes on the paving stones. What he saw now was like a glimpse of another world: a new reality, a new causality, a new creation. A cascade77 of concrete visions—if you like, another chapter from his hypothetical autobiography—poured through his mind. At a similar high-flying moment you may recall that Mrs. Poulteney had descended, in three ticks of her marble and ormolu drawing-room clock, from eternal salvation78 to Lady Cotton. And I would be hiding the truth if I did not reveal that at this moment Charles thought of his uncle. He would not blame on Sir Robert a broken marriage and an alliance unworthy of the family; but his uncle would blame himself. Another scene leaped unbidden into his mind: Lady Bella faced with Sarah. Miraculous79 to relate, he saw who would come out with more dignity; for Ernestina would fight with Lady Bella’s weapons, and Sarah ... those eyes— how they would swallow snubs and insults! Comprehend them in silence! Make them dwindle80 into mere54 specks81 of smut in an azure82 sky!
And dressing83 Sarah! Taking her to Paris, to Florence, to Rome!
This is clearly not the moment to bring in a comparison with St. Paul on the road to Damascus. But Charles was stopped—alas, with his back to the altar once more—and there was a kind of radiance in his face. It may simply have been that from the gaslight by the steps; he has not translated the nobler but abstract reasons that had coursed through his mind very attractively. But I hope you will believe that Sarah on his arm in the Uffizi did stand, however banally84, for the pure essence of cruel but necessary (if we are to survive— and yes, still today) freedom.
He turned then and went back to his pew; and did some-thing very irrational85, since he knelt and prayed, though very briefly86. Then he went down the aisle, pulled down the wire till the gaslight was a pale will-o’-the-wisp, and left the church.
收听单词发音 |
1
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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2
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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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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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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travail
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| n.阵痛；努力 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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elite
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| n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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28
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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29
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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30
bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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31
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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32
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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34
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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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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36
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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pugnacious
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| adj.好斗的 | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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illegibly
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| adv.难读地，暧昧地 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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48
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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50
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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51
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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52
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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55
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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56
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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57
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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58
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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59
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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60
facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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61
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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63
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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vileness
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| n.讨厌，卑劣 | |
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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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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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macabre
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| adj.骇人的，可怖的 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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mesmerized
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| v.使入迷( mesmerize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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84
banally
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| 平凡地，陈腐地 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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