Still, the deck of the yacht was a pleasant refuge from the heat on shore, and his wife’s profile, serenely11 projected against the changing blue, lay on his retina like a cool hand on the nerves. He had never been more impressed by the kind of absoluteness that lifted her beauty above the transient effects of other women, making the most harmonious12 face seem an accidental collocation of features.
The ladies who directly suggested this comparison were of a kind accustomed to take similar risks with more gratifying results. Mrs. Armiger had in fact long been the triumphant13 alternative of those who couldn’t “see” Alexa Glennard’s looks; and Mrs. Touchett’s claims to consideration were founded on that distribution of effects which is the wonder of those who admire a highly cultivated country. The third lady of the trio which Glennard’s fancy had put to such unflattering uses, was bound by circumstances to support the claims of the other two. This was Mrs. Dresham, the wife of the editor of the Radiator14. Mrs. Dresham was a lady who had rescued herself from social obscurity by assuming the role of her husband’s exponent15 and interpreter; and Dresham’s leisure being devoted16 to the cultivation17 of remarkable18 women, his wife’s attitude committed her to the public celebration of their remarkableness19. For the conceivable tedium20 of this duty, Mrs. Dresham was repaid by the fact that there were people who took her for a remarkable woman; and who in turn probably purchased similar distinction with the small change of her reflected importance. As to the other ladies of the party, they were simply the wives of some of the men—the kind of women who expect to be talked to collectively and to have their questions left unanswered.
Mrs. Armiger, the latest embodiment of Dresham’s instinct for the remarkable, was an innocent beauty who for years had distilled21 dulness among a set of people now self-condemned by their inability to appreciate her. Under Dresham’s tutelage she had developed into a “thoughtful woman,” who read his leaders in the Radiator and bought the books he recommended. When a new novel appeared, people wanted to know what Mrs. Armiger thought of it; and a young gentleman who had made a trip in Touraine had recently inscribed22 to her the wide-margined result of his explorations.
Glennard, leaning back with his head against the rail and a slit23 of fugitive24 blue between his half-closed lids, vaguely25 wished she wouldn’t spoil the afternoon by making people talk; though he reduced his annoyance26 to the minimum by not listening to what was said, there remained a latent irritation27 against the general futility28 of words.
His wife’s gift of silence seemed to him the most vivid commentary on the clumsiness of speech as a means of intercourse29, and his eyes had turned to her in renewed appreciation30 of this finer faculty31 when Mrs. Armiger’s voice abruptly32 brought home to him the underrated potentialities of language.
“You’ve read them, of course, Mrs. Glennard?” he heard her ask; and, in reply to Alexa’s vague interrogation—“Why, the ‘Aubyn Letters’—it’s the only book people are talking of this week.”
Mrs. Dresham immediately saw her advantage. “You haven’t read them? How very extraordinary! As Mrs. Armiger says, the book’s in the air; one breathes it in like the influenza34.”
Glennard sat motionless, watching his wife.
“Perhaps it hasn’t reached the suburbs yet,” she said, with her unruffled smile.
“Oh, do let me come to you, then!” Mrs. Touchett cried; “anything for a change of air! I’m positively35 sick of the book and I can’t put it down. Can’t you sail us beyond its reach, Mr. Flamel?”
Flamel shook his head. “Not even with this breeze. Literature travels faster than steam nowadays. And the worst of it is that we can’t any of us give up reading; it’s as insidious36 as a vice37 and as tiresome38 as a virtue39.”
“I believe it is a vice, almost, to read such a book as the ‘Letters,’” said Mrs. Touchett. “It’s the woman’s soul, absolutely torn up by the roots—her whole self laid bare; and to a man who evidently didn’t care; who couldn’t have cared. I don’t mean to read another line; it’s too much like listening at a keyhole.”
“But if she wanted it published?”
“Wanted it? How do we know she did?”
“Why, I heard she’d left the letters to the man—whoever he is—with directions that they should be published after his death—”
“I don’t believe it,” Mrs. Touchett declared.
“He’s dead then, is he?” one of the men asked.
“Why, you don’t suppose if he were alive he could ever hold up his head again, with these letters being read by everybody?” Mrs. Touchett protested. “It must have been horrible enough to know they’d been written to him; but to publish them! No man could have done it and no woman could have told him to—”
“Oh, come, come,” Dresham judicially40 interposed; “after all, they’re not love-letters.”
“No—that’s the worst of it; they’re unloved letters,” Mrs. Touchett retorted.
“Then, obviously, she needn’t have written them; whereas the man, poor devil, could hardly help receiving them.”
“Perhaps he counted on the public to save him the trouble of reading them,” said young Hartly, who was in the cynical41 stage.
Mrs. Armiger turned her reproachful loveliness to Dresham. “From the way you defend him, I believe you know who he is.”
Everyone looked at Dresham, and his wife smiled with the superior air of the woman who is in her husband’s professional secrets. Dresham shrugged42 his shoulders.
“What have I said to defend him?”
“You called him a poor devil—you pitied him.”
“A man who could let Margaret Aubyn write to him in that way? Of course I pity him.”
“Then you must know who he is,” cried Mrs. Armiger, with a triumphant air of penetration43.
Hartly and Flamel laughed and Dresham shook his head. “No one knows; not even the publishers; so they tell me at least.”
“So they tell you to tell us,” Hartly astutely44 amended45; and Mrs. Armiger added, with the appearance of carrying the argument a point farther, “But even if he’s dead and she’s dead, somebody must have given the letters to the publishers.”
“Oh, I’m not with you there,” said Dresham, easily. “Those letters belonged to the public.”
“How can any letters belong to the public that weren’t written to the public?” Mrs. Touchett interposed.
“Well, these were, in a sense. A personality as big as Margaret Aubyn’s belongs to the world. Such a mind is part of the general fund of thought. It’s the penalty of greatness—one becomes a monument historique. Posterity48 pays the cost of keeping one up, but on condition that one is always open to the public.”
“Who was he?” another voice inquired.
“Who was he? Oh, nobody, I fancy—the letter-box, the slit in the wall through which the letters passed to posterity....”
“But she never meant them for posterity!”
“A woman shouldn’t write such letters if she doesn’t mean them to be published....”
“She shouldn’t write them to such a man!” Mrs. Touchett scornfully corrected.
“I never keep letters,” said Mrs. Armiger, under the obvious impression that she was contributing a valuable point to the discussion.
There was a general laugh, and Flamel, who had not spoken, said, lazily, “You women are too incurably51 subjective52. I venture to say that most men would see in those letters merely their immense literary value, their significance as documents. The personal side doesn’t count where there’s so much else.”
“Oh, we all know you haven’t any principles,” Mrs. Armiger declared; and Alexa Glennard, lifting an indolent smile, said: “I shall never write you a love-letter, Mr. Flamel.”
Glennard moved away impatiently. Such talk was as tedious as the buzzing of gnats53. He wondered why his wife had wanted to drag him on such a senseless expedition.... He hated Flamel’s crowd—and what business had Flamel himself to interfere54 in that way, standing55 up for the publication of the letters as though Glennard needed his defence?...
Glennard turned his head and saw that Flamel had drawn56 a seat to Alexa’s elbow and was speaking to her in a low tone. The other groups had scattered57, straying in twos along the deck. It came over Glennard that he should never again be able to see Flamel speaking to his wife without the sense of sick mistrust that now loosened his joints58....
Alexa, the next morning, over their early breakfast, surprised her husband by an unexpected request.
“Will you bring me those letters from town?” she asked.
“What letters?” he said, putting down his cup. He felt himself as helplessly vulnerable as a man who is lunged at in the dark.
“Mrs. Aubyn’s. The book they were all talking about yesterday.”
Glennard, carefully measuring his second cup of tea, said, with deliberation, “I didn’t know you cared about that sort of thing.”
She was, in fact, not a great reader, and a new book seldom reached her till it was, so to speak, on the home stretch; but she replied, with a gentle tenacity59, “I think it would interest me because I read her life last year.”
“Her life? Where did you get that?”
“Someone lent it to me when it came out—Mr. Flamel, I think.”
His first impulse was to exclaim, “Why the devil do you borrow books of Flamel? I can buy you all you want—” but he felt himself irresistibly60 forced into an attitude of smiling compliance61. “Flamel always has the newest books going, hasn’t he? You must be careful, by the way, about returning what he lends you. He’s rather crotchety about his library.”
“Oh, I’m always very careful,” she said, with a touch of competence62 that struck him; and she added, as he caught up his hat: “Don’t forget the letters.”
Why had she asked for the book? Was her sudden wish to see it the result of some hint of Flamel’s? The thought turned Glennard sick, but he preserved sufficient lucidity63 to tell himself, a moment later, that his last hope of self-control would be lost if he yielded to the temptation of seeing a hidden purpose in everything she said and did. How much Flamel guessed, he had no means of divining; nor could he predicate, from what he knew of the man, to what use his inferences might be put. The very qualities that had made Flamel a useful adviser64 made him the most dangerous of accomplices65. Glennard felt himself agrope among alien forces that his own act had set in motion....
Alexa was a woman of few requirements; but her wishes, even in trifles, had a definiteness that distinguished66 them from the fluid impulses of her kind. He knew that, having once asked for the book, she would not forget it; and he put aside, as an ineffectual expedient67, his momentary68 idea of applying for it at the circulating library and telling her that all the copies were out. If the book was to be bought it had better be bought at once. He left his office earlier than usual and turned in at the first book-shop on his way to the train. The show-window was stacked with conspicuously69 lettered volumes. “Margaret Aubyn” flashed back at him in endless repetition. He plunged70 into the shop and came on a counter where the name reiterated71 itself on row after row of bindings. It seemed to have driven the rest of literature to the back shelves. He caught up a copy, tossing the money to an astonished clerk who pursued him to the door with the unheeded offer to wrap up the volumes.
In the street he was seized with a sudden apprehension72. What if he were to meet Flamel? The thought was intolerable. He called a cab and drove straight to the station where, amid the palm-leaf fans of a perspiring73 crowd, he waited a long half-hour for his train to start.
He had thrust a volume in either pocket and in the train he dared not draw them out; but the detested74 words leaped at him from the folds of the evening paper. The air seemed full of Margaret Aubyn’s name. The motion of the train set it dancing up and down on the page of a magazine that a man in front of him was reading....
At the door he was told that Mrs. Glennard was still out, and he went upstairs to his room and dragged the books from his pocket. They lay on the table before him like live things that he feared to touch.... At length he opened the first volume. A familiar letter sprang out at him, each word quickened by its glaring garb75 of type. The little broken phrases fled across the page like wounded animals in the open.... It was a horrible sight.... A battue of helpless things driven savagely76 out of shelter. He had not known it would be like this....
He understood now that, at the moment of selling the letters, he had viewed the transaction solely77 as it affected78 himself: as an unfortunate blemish79 on an otherwise presentable record. He had scarcely considered the act in relation to Margaret Aubyn; for death, if it hallows, also makes innocuous. Glennard’s God was a god of the living, of the immediate33, the actual, the tangible80; all his days he had lived in the presence of that god, heedless of the divinities who, below the surface of our deeds and passions, silently forge the fatal weapons of the dead.
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1
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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remarkableness
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| 异常 | |
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tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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influenza
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| n.流行性感冒，流感 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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judicially
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| 依法判决地，公平地 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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astutely
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| adv.敏锐地；精明地；敏捷地；伶俐地 | |
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Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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deduction
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| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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exonerates
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| n.免罪，免除( exonerate的名词复数 )v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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incurably
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| ad.治不好地 | |
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subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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gnats
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| n.叮人小虫( gnat的名词复数 ) | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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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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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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accomplices
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| 从犯，帮凶，同谋( accomplice的名词复数 ) | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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blemish
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| v.损害；玷污；瑕疵，缺点 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
参考例句： |
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