Beyond them she could see the river. It always held a note of peace for her. Rivers and lakes had the power to speak to her. She loved their calm quietude, though she had seen lakes lashed1 to fury by the wind. But it was a different kind of anger from the anger of the sea. The cruelty of the sea hurt her—its restlessness, its turmoil2, its never-ceasing demand for lives. Even when it was quiet it was treacherous3. Its smiling surface was nothing but a lure4, for it held terrible secrets in its heart.
But the quiet of the river always soothed5 her. She knew it in all its moods—under grey skies, and under blue skies, in the crimson6 and purple of sunset, in the amber7 grey and rose of dawn. She knew it at the full flood of its waters, and at ebbing8 tide. In all its moods she loved it, and she loved her house, yet she felt that she could not stay there much longer.
With the end of October she would go away to Italy for the winter. Everything here reminded her of Paul. She did not want to forget him, yet the sight of the streets in which they had walked together, the hotels at which they had dined, the theatres to which they had been, only served to emphasize her present loneliness.
Christopher was the only person who, till to-day, had known of her unhappiness. Ever since he first knew her, when she was ten and he was two-and-twenty, she had come to him with her joys and griefs. There was a curious faculty9 for sympathy in Christopher. It made him the popular barrister he was, especially with women. It was easy to tell him things. Had he been a priest he would undoubtedly10 have been much sought in confession11. He had heard many stories, both sordid12 and pitiful. Somehow he seemed always able to separate the sin from the sinner. One knew instinctively13 that he had no scorn for the latter, any more than a doctor scorns a patient who comes to him with a disease to be cured. He had, too, been instrumental in preventing several divorces, and in giving men convicted of theft a second chance without the stigma14 of prison attaching to them. And curiously15 enough he had never been disappointed in those for whom he had pleaded for leniency16. There was nothing weak about Christopher. There had been certain cases he had refused to accept—cases in which he knew the guilt17 to be a fact, and in which justice could only be avoided by a direct wandering from the truth, even though he knew that by one of his impassioned speeches he could most probably have saved the victim from the law, and have established a great reputation for himself. In spite of his sympathy, he took a strangely impersonal18 view of things in general, and his sympathy, though very real, was never allowed to bias19 his judgment20.
He agreed fully21 with Paul’s decision that he and Sara should not meet, and he offered a silent sympathy which Sara found very comforting. After she had once told him about the parting she had not again spoken directly of it. She could not talk of it. She could only try to live her life as best she might in the hope that one day....
But that day seemed very far off and dim.
And in his studio Paul was working with a grim, dogged determination. And every week he wrote cheerful letters to his mother, in one of which he had just said that his marriage was postponed22 for a time; and he never for a moment let her guess the trick fate had played him.
And so September passed, and it drew on towards the middle of October.
点击收听单词发音
1 lashed | |
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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2 turmoil | |
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱 | |
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3 treacherous | |
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的 | |
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4 lure | |
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引 | |
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5 soothed | |
v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 );抚慰;使舒服;减轻痛苦 | |
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6 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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7 amber | |
n.琥珀;琥珀色;adj.琥珀制的 | |
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8 ebbing | |
(指潮水)退( ebb的现在分词 ); 落; 减少; 衰落 | |
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9 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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10 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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11 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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12 sordid | |
adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
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13 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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14 stigma | |
n.耻辱,污名;(花的)柱头 | |
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15 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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16 leniency | |
n.宽大(不严厉) | |
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17 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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18 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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19 bias | |
n.偏见,偏心,偏袒;vt.使有偏见 | |
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20 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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21 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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22 postponed | |
vt.& vi.延期,缓办,(使)延迟vt.把…放在次要地位;[语]把…放在后面(或句尾)vi.(疟疾等)延缓发作(或复发) | |
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