“I hate the name of Solwicz,” she told him the first time he came to her house, “especially from you. And you must call me Berthe, not Bertha.” In spite of her obvious lack of means, she had a few friends of rare quality, and yet he did not meet them. On her table that first day, he picked up a little book of poems, the leader of which was entitled We Are Free. Peter had read it a few weeks before and given it a quality of appreciation1 that was seldom called in these days. Just now he noted2 that the volume was affectionately inscribed3 to her from the author, Moritz Abel. She spoke4 of him and of the group of young master workmen to which he belonged. Then she read the poem, as they stood together. It was a moment of honor to the poet. Peter had turned pale, and the little room was hushed about them, as if Warsaw were suddenly stilled.
“You see what they are doing,” she said. “There is a new race of artists in Russia. They have passed the emotions—-”
“This poem was due in the world,” Peter said. “But it is still an age ahead of the crowd.”
“That's what makes it so hard for them—for him. He does not like that. He would like to talk to all men straight. Moritz Abel—the name will not be forgotten. He is like the others of the new race. They are terrible in their calm. They have passed the emotions. They are free. Other artists in Europe or America repress the emotions. That is but the beginning of the mastery. When they are as great as this group of young men, they will show the spirit of the thing, not the emotion of it. Emotions are red. This is pure white, don't you see?”
For three days Warsaw had been upheaved in excitement. On the afternoon that the messenger from Lonegan brought the news of the cablegram, Berthe and Peter were planning an excursion into the country for the next day. She watched him closely as he read, and was sensitive enough to realize the importance of the message, before he spoke.... He found her gray eyes upon him. She chose her own way to break the tension:
“The country is heaven, no doubt about that. One must die to get there. Also one must live just so. Even when I was little, something always happened—just as we were planning to set out for the country.”
He showed her the message, but had hardly heard her words. His discovery of this slender solitary5 red-lipped girl and what it meant, was rarely clear at this moment. She had awakened6 him plane by plane, awakened his passion and his mercy and his intuition.
“Tell me again what you said about the country. I was away for a minute.”
“It is hard to think of a little excursion to the fields—with such a holiday ahead, as you are called upon.”
“I wasn't thinking of that either, Berthe, but of you.”
“Of course, you will go?”
“Doubtless.”
“I was only talking foolishly, about our little excursion. One's own wants are so pitifully unimportant now.”
“I had hardly expected personally to encounter a war,” he remarked and added smilingly, “The fact is, I hadn't thought of meeting a woman like you.”
“I don't believe you're as cold-blooded as you try to seem, Peter.”
“I have fought all my life to be cold-blooded.”
She never forgot that. “I wonder why men do it?”
“It's the cultivation7, perhaps, of that which Americans love best of all—”
“What?”
“Nerve.”
“We of Poland dare to be emotional,” she said.
“You are an older people. You know how.”
“One needs only to be one's self.”
Peter smiled. “Sometimes I dare actually to be honest with you. Even Lonegan and I take no such liberties together.”
“It isn't a matter of courage,” she said. “You would dare anything. I know your quiet, deadly kind of courage. That's the first thing I felt about you.”
It was like Mowbray not to acknowledge that such a thing had been said.
“I came to you asleep. I wonder if I should always have remained asleep?”
“Your words are pretty, Peter. It makes me sad that you are going away.”
“You remember that company of soldiers that passed us yesterday as we walked? I had seen many such groups before—great shocky-haired fellows who ate and drank disgustingly. But yesterday you made me see that their blood is redder than the Little Father's—that empires ripen9 and go to seed only on a grander scale than turnips10.” Her eyes were gleaming.
“We who are so wise, who have mastered ourselves, should be very good to the peasants—and not take what they have and kill them in wars.”
“Did I lead you to believe in any way that I felt myself mastered?” he asked quickly.
She touched his arm. “I was talking of the Fatherland,” she answered.
He had met this intensity11 of hers before. Her scorn was neither hot nor cold, but electric. So often when words failed her, Peter fancied himself lost in some superb wilderness12... Her own gray tone was in the room to-day—her gray eyes and black hair that made the shadows seem gray; her face that no night could hide from him. Sometimes his glance was held to her lips—as one turns to the firelight. Passion there—or was it the higher thing, compassion13? There was bend and give to the black cloth she wore, as to the inflections of her voice. She could forget herself. That was the first and the inexhaustible charm.
It is true that she was very poor. This room which had become his sanctuary14 in Warsaw was in a humble15 house of a common quarter. She laughed at this, and at her many hours of work each day, for which the return was meager16. There was the sweetest pathos17 to him in her little purse, and her pride in these matters was a thing of royalty18.
“My father earned the right to be poor,” she once said.
It seemed to him that her father was mentioned in the moments most memorable19... She was at the window now, her hand lifting the shade. The light of the gray day shone through her fingers—a long, fragile hand that trembled.
“Shall we walk somewhere, or must you go to your office, Peter?”
“I won't, just yet. Yes, let's go outside.”
They felt they must climb, a bit of suffocation20 in their hearts. Until to-day there had been invariable stimulus21 for Mowbray in the age of all things, even in the dusty, narrow, lower streets, but his smiling, easy countenance22 was a lie that he disliked now. It pinched him cruelly to leave her, and there was small amelioration in anything that the war might bring. She would give him sympathy and zeal23 and honor for the work and through all the lonely days, but what a lack would be of that swift directness of purpose, the deeper seeing, the glad capacity for higher heroism24 which he had found only in her presence. They crossed the riverward corner of the Square, where they had met. He tried to tell her how she had seemed that first day.
“I cannot understand,” she replied. “Especially that day when I first saw you, I had nothing.”
Now they ascended25 the terraces that commanded the Vistula. The rocky turf of the footpath26, smoothed by the tread of forgotten generations (but still whispering to her of those who had passed on); the crumbling27 masonry28 of the retaining walls, gray with the pallor of the years; and afar the curving, dust-swept farmlands, which had mothered a thousand harvests, now moved with strange planting of peasant-soldiers. Mobilization business everywhere, drilling of the half-equipped, a singing excitement of parting, recruiting—no time for the actual misery29.
They stood in the very frown of the fortress30 at sunset. A column of raw infantry31 came swinging out and started the descent. A moment afterward32 the roar of a folk-song came up in a gust8. It was as if the underworld suddenly had been cratered33.
“When they sing like that, and I think of what they shall soon be called upon to do—I can hardly endure it!” she whispered.... They stood with backs against the wall, as the tail of the column moved past. “Look at that weary one—so spent and sick—yet trying to sing—”
They were in the silence again. Across the river, against the red background, they watched another column of foot-soldiers moving like a procession of ants erect34; and beyond, on the dim plain, a field battery, just replenished35 to war footing, was toiling36 with tired beasts and untried pieces. Mowbray thought of the human meat being herded37 in Austria for those great rakish guns, as the infantry below was being trained for distant slaughter38 arenas39.
“Do speak, Peter,” she whispered.
He turned to find her white face looking up to him and very close. They were alone.
“You won't mind if I think about myself this once?” he asked.
“Please do.”
“I only want to say that, if you'll stay where you are, I'll come back from this stuff—I was going to say, dead or alive.”
“Do you mean I am to stay in Warsaw?” she asked.
“No—not that exactly. I mean if you will stay where you are in regard to me——”
Tears filled her eyes. He would have known it even if they had not shone through the dusk, because his fingers felt the tremor40 in her arms. She tried to speak, but finished, “How utterly41 silly words are!”
The face of young Mowbray was strange with emotion, pale but brilliant-eyed, his long features bending to her. She was utter receptivity. Neither knew until afterward how rare and perfect was this moment.
“Anyway—we understand. We understand, Berthe.”
“...As for Berthe,” she said slowly, as they walked back, “her heart will stay where you have put it, Peter. That's out of her power to change. But the rest—I can't tell, yet——”
It was as if a finger had crossed Mowbray's face laterally42 under the eyes and across his nostrils43, leaving a gray welt.
“I know you belong to the moderns,” he said, after a moment. “We men belong to the ancients. We want a woman to wait and weep while we go off to the wars.”
“We understand,” she kept repeating.... “And now, before you go, come home with me and let me make you a cup of tea—just a cup of tea—before you go.”
He went with her, and, when his tea-cup was finished, he happened to look into the bottom.
“What do you see?” she asked quickly, taking the cup.
“M-m-m,” said Mowbray.
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收听单词发音
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1
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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2
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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3
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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4
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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5
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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6
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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7
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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9
ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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10
turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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11
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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12
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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13
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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14
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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15
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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16
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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17
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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18
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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20
suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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21
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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22
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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23
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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24
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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25
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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27
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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28
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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29
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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30
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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31
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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32
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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33
cratered
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| adj.有坑洞的，多坑的v.火山口( crater的过去分词 )；弹坑等 | |
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34
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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35
replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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36
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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37
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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38
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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39
arenas
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| 表演场地( arena的名词复数 )； 竞技场； 活动或斗争的场所或场面； 圆形运动场 | |
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40
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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41
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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42
laterally
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| ad.横向地；侧面地；旁边地 | |
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43
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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