In the afternoon I wrote to Rachel. I had not written to her for three days, and even now I told her nothing of my meeting with Mary. I had not written partly because I could not decide whether I should tell her of that or not; in the end I tried to hide it from her. It seemed a little thing in regard to her, a thing that could not hurt her, a thing as detached from her life and as inconsecutive as a dream in my head.
Three days later I reached Milan, a day before the formal opening of the Peace Congress. But I found a telegram had come that morning to the Poste Restante to banish5 all thought of my pacific mission from my mind. It came from Paris and its blue ribbon of text ran:
"Come back at once to London. Justin has been told of our meeting and is resolved upon divorce. Will do all in my power to explain and avert6 but feel you should know at once."
There are some things so monstrously7 destructive to all we hold dear that for a time it is impossible to believe them. I remember now that as I read that amazing communication through—at the first reading it was a little difficult to understand because the Italian operator had guessed at one or two of the words, no real sense of its meaning came to me. That followed sluggishly8. I felt as one might feel when one opens some offensive anonymous9 letter or hears some preposterous10 threat.
"What nonsense!" I said, faint-heartedly. I stood for a time at my bedroom window trying to shake this fact altogether off my mind. But it stayed, and became more and more real. Suddenly with a start I perceived it was real. I had to do things forthwith.
I rang the bell and asked for an Orario. "I shan't want these rooms. I have to go back to England," I said. "Yes,—I have had bad news." ...
点击收听单词发音
1 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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2 pervaded | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3 vestige | |
n.痕迹,遗迹,残余 | |
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4 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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5 banish | |
vt.放逐,驱逐;消除,排除 | |
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6 avert | |
v.防止,避免;转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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7 monstrously | |
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8 sluggishly | |
adv.懒惰地;缓慢地 | |
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9 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
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10 preposterous | |
adj.荒谬的,可笑的 | |
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