I turned to the window and became as rigid, facing Justin. He was standing6 on the terrace, staring at us, with a face that looked stupid and inexpressive and—very white. The sky behind him, appropriately enough, was full of the tattered7 inky onset8 of a thunderstorm. So we remained for a lengthy9 second perhaps, a trite10 tableau11 vivant. We two seemed to hang helplessly upon Justin, and he was the first of us to move.
He made a queer, incomplete gesture with one hand, as if he wanted to undo12 the top button of his waistcoat and then thought better of it. He came very slowly into the room. When he spoke13 his voice had neither rage nor denunciation in it. It was simply conversational14. "I felt this was going on," he said. And then to his wife with the note of one who remarks dispassionately on a peculiar15 situation. "Yet somehow it seemed wrong and unnatural16 to think such a thing of you."
His face took on something of the vexed17 look of a child who struggles with a difficult task. "Do you mind," he said to me, "will you go?"
I took a moment for my reply. "No," I said. "Since you know at last—— There are things to be said."
"No," said Mary, suddenly. "Go! Let me talk to him."
"No," I said, "my place is here beside you."
He seemed not to hear me. His eyes were fixed18 on Mary. He seemed to think he had dismissed me, and that I was no longer there. His mind was not concerned about me, but about her. He spoke as though what he said had been in his mind, and no doubt it had been in his mind, for many days. "I didn't deserve this," he said to her. "I've tried to make your life as you wanted your life. It's astonishing to find—I haven't. You gave no sign. I suppose I ought to have felt all this happening, but it comes upon me surprisingly. I don't know what I'm to do." He became aware of me again. "And you!" he said. "What am I to do? To think that you—while I have been treating her like some sacred thing...."
The color was creeping back into his face. Indignation had come into his voice, the first yellow lights of rising jealousy19 showed in his eyes.
"Stephen," I heard Mary say, "will you leave me to talk to my husband?"
"There is only one thing to do," I said. "What is the need of talking? We two are lovers, Justin." I spoke to both of them. "We two must go out into the world, go out now together. This marriage of yours—it's no marriage, no real marriage...."
I think I said that. I seem to remember saying that; perhaps with other phrases that I have forgotten. But my memory of what we said and did, which is so photographically clear of these earlier passages that I believe I can answer for every gesture and nearly every word that I have set down, becomes suddenly turbid20. The high tension of our first confrontation21 was giving place to a flood of emotional impulse. We all became eager to talk, to impose interpretations22 and justifications23 upon our situation. We all three became divided between our partial attention to one another and our urgent necessity to keep hold of our points of view. That I think is the common tragedy of almost all human conflicts, that rapid breakdown24 from the first cool apprehension25 of an issue to heat, confusion, and insistence26. I do not know if indeed we raised our voices, but my memory has an effect of raised voices, and when at last I went out of the house it seemed to me that the men-servants in the hall were as hushed as beasts before a thunderstorm, and all of them quite fully27 aware of the tremendous catastrophe28 that had come to Martens. And moreover, as I recalled afterwards with astonishment29, I went past them and out into the driving rain unprotected, and not one of them stirred a serviceable hand....
What was it we said? I have a vivid sense of declaring not once only but several times that Mary and I were husband and wife "in the sight of God." I was full of the idea that now she must inevitably30 be mine. I must have spoken to Justin at times as if he had come merely to confirm my view of the long dispute there had been between us. For a while my mind resisted his extraordinary attitude that the matter lay between him and Mary, that I was in some way an interloper. It seemed to me there was nothing for it now but that Mary should stand by my side and face Justin with the world behind him. I remember my confused sense that presently she and I would have to go straight out of Martens. And she was wearing a tea-gown, easy and open, and the flimsiest of slippers31. Any packing, any change of clothing, struck me as an incredible anti-climax. I had visions of our going forth32, hand in hand. Outside was the soughing of a coming storm, a chill wind drove a tumult33 of leaves along the terrace, the door slammed and yawned open again, and then came the rain. Justin, I remember, still talking, closed the door. I tried to think how I could get to the station five miles away, and then what we could do in London. We should seem rather odd visitors to an hotel—without luggage. All this was behind my valiant34 demand that she should come with me, and come now.
And then my mind was lanced by the thin edge of realization35 that she did not intend to come now, and that Justin was resolved she should not do so. After the first shock of finding herself discovered she had stood pale but uncowed before her bureau, with her eyes rather on him than on me. Her hands, I think, were behind her upon the edge of the writing flap, and she was a little leaning upon them. She had the watchful36 alert expression of one who faces an unanticipated but by no means overwhelming situation. She cast a remark to me. "But I do not want to come with you," she said. "I have told you I do not want to come with you." All her mind seemed concentrated upon what she should do with Justin. "You must send him away," he was saying. "It's an abominable37 thing. It must stop. How can you dream it should go on?"
"But you said when you married me I should be free, I should own myself! You gave me this house——"
"What! To disgrace myself!"
I was moved to intervene.
"You must choose between us, Mary," I cried. "It is impossible you should stay here! You cannot stay here."
She turned upon me, a creature at bay. "Why shouldn't I stay here? Why must I choose between two men? I want neither of you. I want myself. I'm not a thing. I'm a human being. I'm not your thing, Justin—nor yours, Stephen. Yet you want to quarrel over me—like two dogs over a bone. I am going to stay here—in my house! It's my house. I made it. Every room of it is full of me. Here I am!"
She stood there making this magnificently extravagant38 claim; her eyes blazing blue, her hair a little dishevelled with a strand39 across her cheek.
Both I and Justin spoke together, and then turned in helpless anger upon one another. I remember that with the clumsiest of weak gestures he bade me begone from the house, and that I with a now rather deflated40 rhetoric41 answered I would go only with Mary at my side. And there she stood, less like a desperate rebel against the most fundamental social relations than an indignant princess, and demanded of us and high heaven, "Why should I be fought for? Why should I be fought for?"
And then abruptly42 she gathered her skirts in her hand and advanced. "Open that door, Stephen," she said, and was gone with a silken whirl and rustle43 from our presence.
We were left regarding one another with blank expressions.
Her departure had torn the substance out of our dispute. For the moment we found ourselves left with a new situation for which there is as yet no tradition of behavior. We had become actors in that new human comedy that is just beginning in the world, that comedy in which men still dispute the possession and the manner of the possession of woman according to the ancient rules, while they on their side are determining ever more definitely that they will not be possessed44....
We had little to say to one another,—mere echoes and endorsements45 of our recent declarations. "She must come to me," said I. And he, "I will save her from that at any cost."
That was the gist46 of our confrontation, and then I turned about and walked along the gallery towards the entrance, with Justin following me slowly. I was full of the wrath47 of baffled heroics; I turned towards him with something of a gesture. Down the perspective of the white and empty gallery he appeared small and perplexed48. The panes49 of the tall French windows were slashed50 with rain....
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1
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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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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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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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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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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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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undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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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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conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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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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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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justifications
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| 正当的理由，辩解的理由( justification的名词复数 ) | |
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breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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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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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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deflated
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| adj. 灰心丧气的 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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43
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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45
endorsements
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| n.背书( endorsement的名词复数 )；（驾驶执照上的）违章记录；（公开的）赞同；（通常为名人在广告中对某一产品的）宣传 | |
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46
gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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47
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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48
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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50
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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