Moreover, since his fall from grace in Philadelphia he had come to think that never again, perhaps, could he hope to become socially acceptable in the sense in which the so-called best society of a city interprets the phrase; and pondering over this at odd moments, he realized that his future allies in all probability would not be among the rich and socially important—the clannish6, snobbish7 elements of society—but among the beginners and financially strong men who had come or were coming up from the bottom, and who had no social hopes whatsoever8. There were many such. If through luck and effort he became sufficiently9 powerful financially he might then hope to dictate10 to society. Individualistic and even anarchistic11 in character, and without a shred12 of true democracy, yet temperamentally he was in sympathy with the mass more than he was with the class, and he understood the mass better. Perhaps this, in a way, will explain his desire to connect himself with a personality so naive13 and strange as Peter Laughlin. He had annexed14 him as a surgeon selects a special knife or instrument for an operation, and, shrewd as old Laughlin was, he was destined15 to be no more than a tool in Cowperwood’s strong hands, a mere16 hustling17 messenger, content to take orders from this swiftest of moving brains. For the present Cowperwood was satisfied to do business under the firm name of Peter Laughlin & Co.—as a matter of fact, he preferred it; for he could thus keep himself sufficiently inconspicuous to avoid undue18 attention, and gradually work out one or two coups19 by which he hoped to firmly fix himself in the financial future of Chicago.
As the most essential preliminary to the social as well as the financial establishment of himself and Aileen in Chicago, Harper Steger, Cowperwood’s lawyer, was doing his best all this while to ingratiate himself in the confidence of Mrs. Cowperwood, who had no faith in lawyers any more than she had in her recalcitrant20 husband. She was now a tall, severe, and rather plain woman, but still bearing the marks of the former passive charm that had once interested Cowperwood. Notable crows’-feet had come about the corners of her nose, mouth, and eyes. She had a remote, censorious, subdued21, self-righteous, and even injured air.
The cat-like Steger, who had all the graceful22 contemplative air of a prowling Tom, was just the person to deal with her. A more suavely23 cunning and opportunistic soul never was. His motto might well have been, speak softly and step lightly.
“My dear Mrs. Cowperwood,” he argued, seated in her modest West Philadelphia parlor24 one spring afternoon, “I need not tell you what a remarkable25 man your husband is, nor how useless it is to combat him. Admitting all his faults—and we can agree, if you please, that they are many”—Mrs. Cowperwood stirred with irritation—“still it is not worth while to attempt to hold him to a strict account. You know”—and Mr. Steger opened his thin, artistic26 hands in a deprecatory way—“what sort of a man Mr. Cowperwood is, and whether he can be coerced27 or not. He is not an ordinary man, Mrs. Cowperwood. No man could have gone through what he has and be where he is to-day, and be an average man. If you take my advice you will let him go his way. Grant him a divorce. He is willing, even anxious to make a definite provision for you and your children. He will, I am sure, look liberally after their future. But he is becoming very irritable28 over your unwillingness29 to give him a legal separation, and unless you do I am very much afraid that the whole matter will be thrown into the courts. If, before it comes to that, I could effect an arrangement agreeable to you, I would be much pleased. As you know, I have been greatly grieved by the whole course of your recent affairs. I am intensely sorry that things are as they are.”
Mr. Steger lifted his eyes in a very pained, deprecatory way. He regretted deeply the shifty currents of this troubled world.
Mrs. Cowperwood for perhaps the fifteenth or twentieth time heard him to the end in patience. Cowperwood would not return. Steger was as much her friend as any other lawyer would be. Besides, he was socially agreeable to her. Despite his Machiavellian30 profession, she half believed him. He went over, tactfully, a score of additional points. Finally, on the twenty-first visit, and with seemingly great distress31, he told her that her husband had decided32 to break with her financially, to pay no more bills, and do nothing until his responsibility had been fixed by the courts, and that he, Steger, was about to retire from the case. Mrs. Cowperwood felt that she must yield; she named her ultimatum33. If he would fix two hundred thousand dollars on her and the children (this was Cowperwood’s own suggestion) and later on do something commercially for their only son, Frank, junior, she would let him go. She disliked to do it. She knew that it meant the triumph of Aileen Butler, such as it was. But, after all, that wretched creature had been properly disgraced in Philadelphia. It was not likely she could ever raise her head socially anywhere any more. She agreed to file a plea which Steger would draw up for her, and by that oily gentleman’s machinations it was finally wormed through the local court in the most secret manner imaginable. The merest item in three of the Philadelphia papers some six weeks later reported that a divorce had been granted. When Mrs. Cowperwood read it she wondered greatly that so little attention had been attracted by it. She had feared a much more extended comment. She little knew the cat-like prowlings, legal and journalistic, of her husband’s interesting counsel. When Cowperwood read it on one of his visits to Chicago he heaved a sigh of relief. At last it was really true. Now he could make Aileen his wife. He telegraphed her an enigmatic message of congratulation. When Aileen read it she thrilled from head to foot. Now, shortly, she would become the legal bride of Frank Algernon Cowperwood, the newly enfranchised34 Chicago financier, and then—
“Oh,” she said, in her Philadelphia home, when she read it, “isn’t that splendid! Now I’ll be Mrs. Cowperwood. Oh, dear!”
Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood number one, thinking over her husband’s liaison35, failure, imprisonment36, pyrotechnic operations at the time of the Jay Cooke failure, and his present financial ascendancy37, wondered at the mystery of life. There must be a God. The Bible said so. Her husband, evil though he was, could not be utterly38 bad, for he had made ample provision for her, and the children liked him. Certainly, at the time of the criminal prosecution39 he was no worse than some others who had gone free. Yet he had been convicted, and she was sorry for that and had always been. He was an able and ruthless man. She hardly knew what to think. The one person she really did blame was the wretched, vain, empty-headed, ungodly Aileen Butler, who had been his seductress and was probably now to be his wife. God would punish her, no doubt. He must. So she went to church on Sundays and tried to believe, come what might, that all was for the best.
点击收听单词发音
1 incisive | |
adj.敏锐的,机敏的,锋利的,切入的 | |
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2 apprehensive | |
adj.担心的,恐惧的,善于领会的 | |
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3 psychology | |
n.心理,心理学,心理状态 | |
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4 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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5 suppliant | |
adj.哀恳的;n.恳求者,哀求者 | |
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6 clannish | |
adj.排他的,门户之见的 | |
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7 snobbish | |
adj.势利的,谄上欺下的 | |
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8 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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9 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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10 dictate | |
v.口授;(使)听写;指令,指示,命令 | |
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11 anarchistic | |
无政府主义的 | |
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12 shred | |
v.撕成碎片,变成碎片;n.碎布条,细片,些少 | |
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13 naive | |
adj.幼稚的,轻信的;天真的 | |
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14 annexed | |
[法] 附加的,附属的 | |
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15 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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16 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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17 hustling | |
催促(hustle的现在分词形式) | |
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18 undue | |
adj.过分的;不适当的;未到期的 | |
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19 coups | |
n.意外而成功的行动( coup的名词复数 );政变;努力办到难办的事 | |
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20 recalcitrant | |
adj.倔强的 | |
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21 subdued | |
adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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22 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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23 suavely | |
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24 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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25 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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26 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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27 coerced | |
v.迫使做( coerce的过去式和过去分词 );强迫;(以武力、惩罚、威胁等手段)控制;支配 | |
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28 irritable | |
adj.急躁的;过敏的;易怒的 | |
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29 unwillingness | |
n. 不愿意,不情愿 | |
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30 machiavellian | |
adj.权谋的,狡诈的 | |
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31 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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32 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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33 ultimatum | |
n.最后通牒 | |
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34 enfranchised | |
v.给予选举权( enfranchise的过去式和过去分词 );(从奴隶制中)解放 | |
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35 liaison | |
n.联系,(未婚男女间的)暖昧关系,私通 | |
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36 imprisonment | |
n.关押,监禁,坐牢 | |
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37 ascendancy | |
n.统治权,支配力量 | |
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38 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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39 prosecution | |
n.起诉,告发,检举,执行,经营 | |
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