Now here was I with a mind sore and inflamed6. I did not clearly understand what had happened to me. I had blundered, offended, entangled7 myself; and I had no more conception than a beast in a bog8 what it was had got me, or the method or even the need of escape. The desires and passionate9 excitements, the anger and stress and strain and suspicion of the last few months had worn deep grooves11 in my brain, channels without end or issue, out of which it seemed impossible to keep my thoughts. I had done dishonorable things, told lies, abused the confidence of a friend. I kept wrestling with these intolerable facts. If some momentary12 distraction13 released me for a time, back I would fall presently before I knew what was happening, and find myself scheming once more to reverse the accomplished14, or eloquently15 restating things already intolerably overdiscussed in my mind, justifying16 the unjustifiable or avenging18 defeat. I would dream again and again of some tremendous appeal to Mary, some violent return and attack upon the situation....
One very great factor in my mental and moral distress19 was the uncertain values of nearly every aspect of the case. There is an invincible20 sense of wild rightness about passionate love that no reasoning and no training will ever altogether repudiate21; I had a persuasion22 that out of that I would presently extract a magic to excuse my deceits and treacheries and assuage23 my smarting shame. And round these deep central preoccupations were others of acute exasperation24 and hatred25 towards secondary people. There had been interventions26, judgments27 upon insufficient28 evidence, comments, and often quite justifiable17 comments, that had filled me with an extraordinary savagery29 of resentment30.
I had a persuasion, illogical but invincible, that I was still entitled to all the respect due to a man of unblemished honor. I clung fiercely to the idea that to do dishonorable things isn't necessarily to be dishonorable.... This state of mind I am describing is, I am convinced, the state of every man who has involved himself in any affair at once questionable31 and passionate. He seems free, but he is not free; he is the slave of the relentless32 paradox33 of his position.
And we were all of us more or less in deep grooves we had made for ourselves, Philip, Guy, Justin, the friends involved, and all in the measure of our grooves incapable34 of tolerance35 or sympathetic realization36. Even when we slept, the clenched37 fist of the attitudes we had assumed gave a direction to our dreams.
You see the same string of events that had produced all this system of intense preoccupations had also severed38 me from the possible resumption of those wider interests out of which our intrigue39 had taken me. I had had to leave England and all the political beginnings I had been planning, and to return to those projects now, those now impossible projects, was to fall back promptly40 into hopeless exasperation....
And then the longing41, the longing that is like a physical pain, that hunger of the heart for some one intolerably dear! The desire for a voice! The arrested habit of phrasing one's thoughts for a hearer who will listen in peace no more! From that lonely distress even rage, even the concoction42 of insult and conflict, was a refuge. From that pitiless travail43 of emptiness I was ready to turn desperately44 to any offer of excitement and distraction.
From all those things I was to escape at last unhelped, but I want you to understand particularly these phases through which I passed; it falls to many and it may fall to you to pass through such a period of darkness and malign45 obsession46. Make the groove10 only a little deeper, a little more unclimbable, make the temperament47 a little less sanguine48, and suicide stares you in the face. And things worse than suicide, that suicide of self-respect which turns men to drugs and inflammatory vices49 and the utmost outrageous50 defiance51 of the dreaming noble self that has been so despitefully used. Into these same inky pools I have dipped my feet, where other men have drowned. I understand why they drown. And my taste of misdeed and resentment has given me just an inkling of what men must feel who go to prison. I know what it is to quarrel with a world.
点击收听单词发音
1 collapse | |
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 speculative | |
adj.思索性的,暝想性的,推理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 psychology | |
n.心理,心理学,心理状态 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 scholastic | |
adj.学校的,学院的,学术上的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 pedants | |
n.卖弄学问的人,学究,书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 inflamed | |
adj.发炎的,红肿的v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 entangled | |
adj.卷入的;陷入的;被缠住的;缠在一起的v.使某人(某物/自己)缠绕,纠缠于(某物中),使某人(自己)陷入(困难或复杂的环境中)( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 groove | |
n.沟,槽;凹线,(刻出的)线条,习惯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 grooves | |
n.沟( groove的名词复数 );槽;老一套;(某种)音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 );槽;老一套;(某种)音乐节奏 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 eloquently | |
adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 justifying | |
证明…有理( justify的现在分词 ); 为…辩护; 对…作出解释; 为…辩解(或辩护) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 justifiable | |
adj.有理由的,无可非议的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 avenging | |
adj.报仇的,复仇的v.为…复仇,报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 );为…报复 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 invincible | |
adj.不可征服的,难以制服的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 repudiate | |
v.拒绝,拒付,拒绝履行 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 persuasion | |
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 assuage | |
v.缓和,减轻,镇定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 exasperation | |
n.愤慨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 interventions | |
n.介入,干涉,干预( intervention的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 judgments | |
判断( judgment的名词复数 ); 鉴定; 评价; 审判 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 insufficient | |
adj.(for,of)不足的,不够的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 savagery | |
n.野性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 resentment | |
n.怨愤,忿恨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 relentless | |
adj.残酷的,不留情的,无怜悯心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 paradox | |
n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法;自相矛盾的人(物) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 tolerance | |
n.宽容;容忍,忍受;耐药力;公差 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 realization | |
n.实现;认识到,深刻了解 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 clenched | |
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 severed | |
v.切断,断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 );断,裂 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 intrigue | |
vt.激起兴趣,迷住;vi.耍阴谋;n.阴谋,密谋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 concoction | |
n.调配(物);谎言 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 travail | |
n.阵痛;努力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 desperately | |
adv.极度渴望地,绝望地,孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 malign | |
adj.有害的;恶性的;恶意的;v.诽谤,诬蔑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 obsession | |
n.困扰,无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 sanguine | |
adj.充满希望的,乐观的,血红色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 outrageous | |
adj.无理的,令人不能容忍的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 defiance | |
n.挑战,挑衅,蔑视,违抗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |