You will learn soon enough as you grow to be a man that beneath the respectable assumptions of our social life there is an endless intricate world of subterfuge8 and hidden and perverted9 passion,—for all passion that wears a mask is perversion—and that thousands of people of our sort are hiding and shamming10 about their desires, their gratifications, their true relationships. I do not mean the open offenders11, for they are mostly honest and gallant12 people, but the men and women who sin in the shadows, the people who are not clean and scandalous, but immoral13 and respectable. This underworld is not for us. I wish that I who have looked into it could in some way inoculate14 you now against the repetition of my misadventure. We Strattons are daylight men, and if I work now for widened facilities of divorce, for an organized freedom and independence of women, and greater breadth of toleration, it is because I know in my own person the degradations15, the falsity, the bitterness, that can lurk16 beneath the inflexible17 pretentions of the established code to-day.
And I want to tell you too of something altogether unforeseen that happened to us, and that was this, that from the day that passion carried us and we became in the narrower sense of the word lovers, all the wider interests we had in common, our political intentions, our impersonal18 schemes, began to pass out of our intercourse19. Our situation closed upon us like a trap and hid the sky. Something more intense had our attention by the feet, and we used our wings no more. I do not think that we even had the real happiness and beauty and delight of one another. Because, I tell you, there is no light upon kiss or embrace that is not done with pride. I do not know why it should be so, but people of our race and quality are a little ashamed of mere20 gratification in love. Always we seem in my memory to have been whispering with flushed cheeks, and discussing interminably—situation. Had something betrayed us, might something betray, was this or that sufficiently21 cunning? Had we perhaps left a footmark or failed to burn a note, was the second footman who was detailed22 as my valet even now pausing astonished in the brushing of my clothes with our crumpled23 secret in his hand? Between myself and the clear vision of this world about me this infernal net-work of precautions spread like a veil.
And it was not only a matter of concealments but of positive deceptions24. The figure of Justin comes back to me. It is a curious thing that in spite of our bitter antagonism25 and the savage26 jealousy27 we were to feel for one another, there has always been, and there remains28 now in my thought of him, a certain liking29, a regret at our opposition30, a quality of friendliness31. His broad face, which the common impression and the caricaturist make so powerful and eagle-like, is really not a brutal32 or heavy face at all. It is no doubt aquiline33, after the fashion of an eagle-owl, the mouth and chin broad and the eyes very far apart, but there is a minute puckering34 of the brows which combines with that queer streak35 of brown discoloration that runs across his cheek and into the white of his eyes, to give something faintly plaintive36 and pitiful to his expression, an effect enhanced by the dark softness of his eyes. They are gentle eyes; it is absurd to suppose them the eyes of a violently forceful man. And indeed they do not belie37 Justin. It is not by vehemence38 or pressure that his wealth and power have been attained39; it is by the sheer detailed abundance of his mind. In that queer big brain of his there is something of the calculating boy and not a little of the chess champion; he has a kind of financial gift, he must be rich, and grows richer. What else is there for him to do? How many times have I not tried to glance carelessly at his face and scrutinize40 that look in his eyes, and ask myself was that his usual look, or was it lit by an instinctive41 jealousy? Did he perhaps begin to suspect? I had become a persistent42 visitor in the house, he might well be jealous of such minor43 favors as she showed me, for with him she talked but little and shared no thoughts. His manner with her was tinctured by an habituated despair. They were extraordinarily44 polite and friendly with one another....
I tried a hundred sophistications of my treachery to him. I assured myself that a modern woman is mistress and owner of herself; no chattel45, and so forth46. But he did not think so, and neither she nor I were behaving as though we thought so. In innumerable little things we were doing our best tacitly to reassure47 him. And so you see me shaking hands with this man, affecting an interest in his topics and affairs, staying in his house, eating his food and drinking his wine, that I might be the nearer to his wife. It is not the first time that has been done in the world, there are esoteric codes to justify48 all I did; I perceive there are types of men to whom such relationships are attractive by the very reason of their illicit49 excitement. But we Strattons are honest people, there is no secretive passion in our blood; this is no game for us; never you risk the playing of it, little son, big son as you will be when you read this story. Perhaps, but I hope indeed not, this may reach you too late to be a warning, come to you in mid-situation. Go through with it then, inheritor of mine, and keep as clean as you can, follow the warped50 honor that is still left to you—and if you can, come out of the tangle5....
It is not only Justin haunts the memories of that furtive time, but Rachel More. I see her still as she was then, a straight, white-dressed girl with big brown eyes that regarded me now with perplexity, now with a faint dismay. I still went over to see her, and my manner had changed. I had nothing to say to her now and everything to hide. Everything between us hung arrested, and nothing could occur to make an end.
I told Mary I must cease my visits to the Mores51. I tried to make her feel my own sense of an accumulating cruelty to Rachel. "But it explains away so much," she said. "If you stop going there—everyone will talk. Everything will swing round—and point here."
"Rachel!" I protested.
"No," she said, overbearing me, "you must keep on going to Ridinghanger. You must. You must."...
For a long time I had said nothing to Mary of the burthen these pretences52 were to me; it had seemed a monstrous53 ingratitude54 to find the slightest flaw in the passionate55 love and intimacy56 she had given me. But at last the divergence57 of our purposes became manifest to us both. A time came when we perceived it clearly and discussed it openly. I have still a vivid recollection of a golden October day when we had met at the edge of the plantation58 that overlooks Bearshill. She had come through the gardens into the pine-wood, and I had jumped the rusty59 banked stream that runs down the Bearshill valley, and clambered the barbed wire fence. I came up the steep bank and through a fringe of furze to where she stood in the shade; I kissed her hand, and discovered mine had been torn open by one of the thorns of the wire and was dripping blood. "Mind my dress," she said, and we laughed as we kissed with my arm held aloof60.
We sat down side by side upon the warm pine needles that carpeted the sand, and she made a mothering fuss about my petty wound, and bound it in my handkerchief. We looked together across the steep gorge61 at the blue ridge62 of trees beyond. "Anyone," she said, "might have seen us this minute."
"I never thought," I said, and moved a foot away from her.
"It's too late if they have," said she, pulling me back to her. "Over beyond there, that must be Hindhead. Someone with a telescope——!"
"That's less credible," I said. And it occurred to me that the grey stretch of downland beyond must be the ridge to the west of Ridinghanger.
"I wish," I said, "it didn't matter. I wish I could come and go and fear nobody—and spend long hours with you—oh! at our ease."
"Now," she said, "we spend short hours. I wonder if I would like—— It's no good, Stephen, letting ourselves think of things that can't be. Here we are. Kiss that hand, my lover, there, just between wrist and thumb—the little hollow. Yes, exactly there."
But thoughts had been set going in my mind. "Why," I said presently, "should you always speak of things that can't be? Why should we take all this as if it were all that there could be? I want long hours. I want you to shine all the day through on my life. Now, dear, it's as if the sun was shown ever and again, and then put back behind an eclipse. I come to you half-blinded, I go away unsatisfied. All the world is dark in between, and little phantom63 yous float over it."
She rested her cheek on her hand and looked at me gravely.
"You are hard to satisfy, brother heart," she said.
"I live in snatches of brightness and all the rest of life is waiting and thinking and waiting."
"What else is there? Haven't we the brightness?"
"I want you," I said. "I want you altogether."
"After so much?"
"I want the more. Mary, I want you to come away with me. No, listen! this life—don't think I'm not full of the beauty, the happiness, the wonder—— But it's a suspense64. It doesn't go on. It's just a dawn, dear, a splendid dawn, a glory of color and brightness and freshness and hope, and—no sun rises. I want the day. Everything else has stopped with me and stopped with[Pg 163] you. I do nothing with my politics now,—I pretend. I have no plans in life except plans for meeting you and again meeting you. I want to go on, I want to go on with you and take up work and the world again—you beside me. I want you to come out of all this life—out of all this immense wealthy emptiness of yours——"
"Stop," she said, "and listen to me, Stephen."
She paused with her lips pressed together, her brows a little knit.
"I won't," she said slowly. "I am going on like this. I and you are going to be lovers—just as we are lovers now—secret lovers. And I am going to help you in all your projects, hold your party together—for you will have a party—my house shall be its centre——"
"But Justin——"
"He takes no interest in politics. He will do what pleases me."
I took some time before I answered. "You don't understand how men feel," I said.
She waited for what else I had to say. I lay prone65, and gathered together and shaped and reshaped a little heap of pine needles. "You see—— I can't do it. I want you."
She gripped a handful of my hair, and tugged66 hard between each word. "Haven't you got me?" she asked between her teeth. "What more could you have?"
"I want you openly."
She folded her arms beneath her. "No," she said.
"It's the trouble of the deceit?" she asked.
"It's—the deceit."
"We can stop all that," she said.
I looked up at her face enquiringly.
"By having no more to hide," she said, with her eyes full of tears. "If it's nothing to you——"
"It's everything to me," I said. "It's overwhelming me. Oh Mary, heart of my life, my dear, come out of this! Come with me, come and be my wife, make a clean thing of it! Let me take you away, and then let me marry you. I know it's asking you—to come to a sort of poverty——"
But Mary's blue eyes were alight with anger. "Isn't it a clean thing now, Stephen?" she was crying. "Do you mean that you and I aren't clean now? Will you never understand?"
"Oh clean," I answered, "clean as Eve in the garden. But can we keep clean? Won't the shadow of our falsehoods darken at all? Come out of it while we are still clean. Come with me. Justin will divorce you. We can stay abroad and marry and come back."
Mary was kneeling up now with her hands upon her knees.
"Come back to what?" she cried. "Parliament?—after that? You boy! you sentimentalist! you—you duffer! Do you think I'd let you do it for your own sake even? Do you think I want you—spoilt? We should come back to mope outside of things, we should come back to fret68 our lives out. I won't do it, Stephen, I won't do it. End this if you like, break our hearts and throw them away and go on without them, but to turn all our lives into a scandal, to give ourselves over to the mean and the malicious69, a prey70 to old women—and you damned out of everything! A man partly forgiven! A man who went wrong for a woman! No!"
She sprang lightly to her feet and stood over me as I knelt before her. "And I came here to be made love to, Stephen! I came here to be loved! And you talk that nonsense! You remind me of everything—wretched!"
She lifted up her hands and then struck down with them, a gesture of infinite impatience71. Her face as she bent72 to me was alive with a friendly anger, her eyes suddenly dark. "You duffer!" she repeated....
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1
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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10
shamming
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| 假装，冒充( sham的现在分词 ) | |
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offenders
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| n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物） | |
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12
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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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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14
inoculate
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| v.给...接种，给...注射疫苗 | |
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15
degradations
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| 堕落( degradation的名词复数 )； 下降； 陵削； 毁坏 | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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17
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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18
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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19
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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22
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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24
deceptions
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| 欺骗( deception的名词复数 )； 骗术，诡计 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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34
puckering
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的现在分词 )；小褶纹；小褶皱 | |
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35
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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36
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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belie
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| v.掩饰，证明为假 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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40
scrutinize
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| n.详细检查，细读 | |
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41
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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42
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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43
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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chattel
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| n.动产；奴隶 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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47
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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48
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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49
illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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50
warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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51
mores
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| n.风俗，习惯，民德，道德观念 | |
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52
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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53
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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54
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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55
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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56
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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57
divergence
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| n.分歧，岔开 | |
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58
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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59
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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61
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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62
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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63
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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64
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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65
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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66
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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68
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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69
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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70
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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71
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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72
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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