"You've no idea what the valley of the Clyde is now. You can't have. It's filled with girls, and they come into it every morning by train to huge stations specially4 built for them, and they make the most ghastly things for killing5 other girls' lovers all day, and they go back by train at night. Only some of them work all night. I had to leave my own works to organise6 the canteen of a new filling factory. Five thousand girls in that factory. It's frightfully dangerous. They have to wear special clothing. They have to take off every stitch from their bodies in one room, and run in their innocence9 and nothing else to another room where the special clothing is. That's the only way to prevent the whole place being blown up one beautiful day. But five thousand of them! You can't imagine it. You'd like to, G.J., but you can't. However, I didn't stay there very long. I wanted to go back to my own place. I was adored at my own place. Of course the men adored me. They used to fight about me sometimes. Terrific men. Nothing ever made me happier than that, or so happy. But the girls were more interesting. Two thousand of them there. You'd never guess it, because they were hidden in thickets10 of machinery11. But see them rush out endlessly to the canteen for tea! All sorts. Lots of devils and cats. Some lovely creatures, heavenly creatures, as fine as a queen. They adored me too. They didn't at first, some of them. But they soon tumbled to it that I was the modern woman, and that they'd never seen me before, and it was a great discovery. Absurdly easy to raise yourself to be the idol12 of a crowd that fancies itself canny13! Incredibly easy! I used to take their part against the works-manager as often as I could; he was a fiend; he hated me; but then I was a fiend, too, and I hated him more. I used often to come on at six in the morning, when they did, and 'sign on'. It isn't really signing on now at all; there's a clock dial and a whole machine for catching14 you out. They loved to see me doing that. And I worked the lathes15 sometimes, just for a bit, just to show that I wasn't ashamed to work. Etc.... All that sentimental16 twaddle. It pleased them. And if any really vigorous-minded girl had dared to say it was sentimental twaddle, there would have been a [188] crucifixion or something of the sort in the cloak-rooms. The mob's always the same. But what pleased them far more than anything was me knowing them by their Christian17 names. Not all, of course; still, hundreds of them. Marvellous feats18 of memorising I did! I used to go about muttering under my breath: 'Winnie, wart19 on left hand, Winnie, wart on left hand, wart on left hand, Winnie.' You see? And I've sworn at them—not often; it wouldn't do, naturally. But there was scarcely a woman there that I couldn't simply blast in two seconds if I felt like it. On the other hand, I assure you I could be very tender. I was surprised how tender I could be, now and then, in my little office. They'd tell me anything—sounds sentimental, but they would—and some of them had no more notion that there's such a thing on earth as propriety20 than a monkey has. I thought I knew everything before I went to the Clyde valley. Well, I didn't." Concepcion looked at G.J. "You know you're very innocent, G.J., compared to me."
"I should hope so!" said G.J., impenetrably.
"What do you think of it all?" she demanded in a fresh tone, leaning a little towards him.
He replied: "I'm impressed."
He was, in fact, very profoundly impressed; but he had to illustrate21 the hardness in himself which she had revealed to him. (He wondered whether the members of the Lechford Committee really did credit him with having dethroned a couple of chairmen. The idea was new to his modesty22. Perhaps he had been underestimating his own weight on the committee. No doubt he [189] had.) All constraint23 was now dissipated between Concepcion and himself. They were behaving to each other as though their intimacy24 had never been interrupted for a single week. She amazed him, sitting there in the purple stockings and the affronting25 gown, and he admired. Her material achievement alone was prodigious26. He pictured her as she rose in the winter dark and in the summer dawn to go to the works and wrestle27 with so much incalculable human nature and so many complex questions of organisation28, day after day, week after week, month after month, for nearly eighteen months. She had kept it up; that was the point. She had shown what she was made of, and what she was made of was unquestionably marvellous.
He would have liked to know about various things to which she had made no reference. Did she live in a frowsy lodging-house near the great works? What kind of food did she get? What did she do with her evenings and her Sundays? Was she bored? Was she miserable29 or exultant30? Had she acquaintances, external interests; or did she immerse herself completely, inclusively, in the huge, smoking, whirring, foul31, perilous32 hell which she had described? The contemplation of the horror of the hell gave him—and her, too, he thought—a curious feeling which was not unpleasurable. It had savour. He would not, however, inquire from her concerning details. He preferred, on reflection, to keep the details mysterious, as mysterious as her individuality and as the impression of her worn eyes. The setting of mystery in his mind suited her.
He said: "But of course your relations with those girls were artificial, after all."
"No, they weren't. I tell you the girls were perfectly33 open; there wasn't the slightest artificiality."
"Yes, but were you open, to them? Did you ever tell them anything about yourself, for instance?"
"Oh, no!"
"Did they ever ask you to?"
"No! They wouldn't have thought of doing so."
"That's what I call artificiality. By the way, how have you been ruined? Who ruined you? Was it the hated works-manager?" There had been no change in his tone; he spoke34 with the utmost detachment.
"I was coming to that," answered Concepcion, apparently35 with a detachment equal to his. "Last week but one in one of the shops there was a girl standing36 in front of a machine, with her back to it. About twenty-two—you must see her in your mind—about twenty-two, nice chestnut37 hair. Cap over it, of course—that's the rule. Khaki overalls38 and trousers. Rather high-heeled patent-leather boots—they fancy themselves, thank God!—and a bit of lace showing out of the khaki at the neck. Red cheeks; she was fairly new to the works. Do you see her? She meant to be one of the devils. Earning two pounds a week nearly, and eagerly spending it all. Fully8 awake to all the possibilities of her body. I was in the shop. I said something to her, and she didn't hear at first—the noise of some of the shops is shattering. I went close to [191] her and repeated it. She laughed out of mere39 vivacity40, and threw back her head as people do when they laugh. The machine behind her must have caught some hair that wasn't under her cap. All her hair was dragged from under the cap, and in no time all her hair was torn out and the whole of her scalp ripped clean off. In a second or two I got her on to a trolley—I did it—and threw an overall over her and ran her to the dressing-station, close to the main office entrance. There was a car there. One of the directors was just driving off. I stopped him. It wasn't a case for our dressing-station. In three minutes I had her at the hospital—three minutes. The car was soaked in blood. But she didn't lose consciousness, that child didn't. She's dead now. She's buried. Her body that she meant to use so profusely41 for her own delights is squeezed up in the little black box in the dark and the silence, down below where the spring can't get at it.... I had no sleep for two nights. On the second day a doctor at the hospital said that I must take at least three months' holiday. He said I'd had a nervous breakdown42. I didn't know I had, and I don't know now. I said I wouldn't take any holiday, and that nothing would induce me to."
"Because I'd sworn, absolutely sworn to myself, to stick that job till the war was over. You understand, I'd sworn it. Well, they wouldn't let me on to the works. And yesterday one of the directors brought me up to town himself. He was very kind, in his Clyde way. Now you understand what I mean when I say I'm ruined. I'm ruined with myself, you see. I didn't stick it. I couldn't. But there were twenty or thirty girls who saw the accident. They're sticking it."
"Yes," he said in a voice soft and moved, "I understand." And while he spoke thus aloud, though his emotion was genuine, and his desire to comfort and sustain her genuine, and his admiration43 for her genuine, he thought to himself: "How theatrically44 she told it! Every effect was studied, nearly every word. Well, she can't help it. But does she imagine I can't see that all the casualness was deliberately45 part of the effect?"
She lit a cigarette and leaned her half-draped elbows on the tea-table, and curved her ringed fingers, which had withstood time and fatigue46 much better than her face; and then she reclined again on the chaise-longue, on her back, and sent up smoke perpendicularly47, and through the smoke seemed to be trying to decipher the enigmas48 of the ceiling. G.J. rose and stood over her in silence. At last she went on:
"The work those girls do is excruciating, hellish, and they don't realise it. That's the worst of it. They'll never be the same again. They're ruining their health, and, what's more important, their looks. You can see them changing under your eyes. Ours was the best factory on the Clyde, and the conditions were unspeakable, in spite of canteens, and rest-rooms, and libraries, and sanitation49, and all this damned 'welfare'. Fancy a girl chained up for twelve hours every day to a thundering, whizzing, iron machine that never gets tired. The machine's just as fresh at six o'clock at night as it was at six o'clock in the morning, and just as anxious to maim50 her if she doesn't look out for herself—more anxious. The whole thing's still going on; they're at it now, this very minute. You're interested in a factory, aren't you, G.J.?"
"The Reveille Company, or some such name."
"Yes."
"Making tons of money, I hear."
"Yes."
"You're a profiteer, G.J."
"Ever go and look at your factory?"
"No."
"Any nice young girls working there?"
"I don't know."
"If there are, are they decently treated?"
"Don't know that, either."
"Why don't you go and see?"
"It's no business of mine."
"Yes, it is. Aren't you making yourself glorious as a philanthropist out of the thing?"
"I tell you it's no business of mine," he insisted evenly. "I couldn't do anything if I went. I've no status."
"Rotten system."
"Possibly. But systems can't be altered like that. Systems alter themselves, and they aren't in a hurry about it. This system isn't new, though it's new to you."
"You people in London don't know what work is."
"And what about your Clyde strikes?" G.J. retorted.
"Well, all that's settled now," said Concepcion rather uneasily, like a champion who foresees a fight but lacks confidence.
"Yes, but—" G.J. suddenly altered his tone to the persuasive53: "You must know all about those strikes. What was the real cause? We don't understand them here."
"If you really want to know—nerves," she said earnestly and triumphantly54.
"Nerves?"
"Overwork. No rest. No change. Everlasting55 punishment. The one incomprehensible thing to me is that the whole of Glasgow didn't go on strike and stay out for ever."
"There's just as much overwork in London as there is on the Clyde."
"There's a lot more talking—Parliament, Cabinet, Committees. You should hear what they say about it in Glasgow."
"Con," he said kindly56, "you don't suspect it, but you're childish. It's the job of one part of London to talk. If that part of London didn't talk your tribes on the Clyde couldn't work, because they wouldn't know what to do, nor how to do it. Talking has to come before working, and let me tell you it's more difficult, and it's more killing, because it's more responsible. Excuse this common sense made easy for beginners, but you brought it on yourself."
She frowned. "And what do you do? Do you talk or work?" She smiled.
"I'll tell you this!" said he, smiling candidly57 and benevolently58. "It took me a dickens of a time really to put myself into anything that meant steady effort. I'd lost the habit. Natural enough, and I'm not going into sackcloth about it. However, I'm improving. I'm going to take on the secretaryship of the Lechford Committee. Some of 'em mayn't want me, but they'll have to have me. And when they've got me they'll have to look out. All of them, including Queen and her mother."
"Will it take the whole of your time?"
"Yes. I'm doing three days a week now."
"I suppose you think you've beaten me."
"Con, I do ask you not to be a child."
"But I am a child. Why don't you humour me? You know I've had a nervous breakdown. You used to humour me."
He shook his head.
"Humouring you won't do your nervous breakdown any good. It might some women's—but not yours."
"You shall humour me!" she cried. "I haven't told you half my ruin. Do you know I meant to love Carly all my life. I felt sure I should. Well, I can't! It's gone, all that feeling—already! In less than two years! And now I'm only sorry for him and sorry for myself. Isn't it horrible? Isn't it horrible?"
"Try not to think," he murmured.
She sat up impetuously.
"Don't talk such damned nonsense! 'Try not to think'! Why, my frightful7 unhappiness is the one thing that keeps me alive."
"Yes," G.J. yielded. "It was nonsense."
She sank back. He saw moisture in her eyes and felt it in his own.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
monologues
|
|
| n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
chattered
|
|
| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
con
|
|
| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
specially
|
|
| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
organise
|
|
| vt.组织，安排，筹办 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
frightful
|
|
| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
innocence
|
|
| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
thickets
|
|
| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
machinery
|
|
| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
idol
|
|
| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
canny
|
|
| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
catching
|
|
| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
lathes
|
|
| 车床( lathe的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
feats
|
|
| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
wart
|
|
| n.疣，肉赘；瑕疵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
propriety
|
|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
illustrate
|
|
| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
modesty
|
|
| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
constraint
|
|
| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
intimacy
|
|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
affronting
|
|
| v.勇敢地面对( affront的现在分词 )；相遇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
26
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
wrestle
|
|
| vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
organisation
|
|
| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
exultant
|
|
| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
perilous
|
|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
chestnut
|
|
| n.栗树，栗子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
overalls
|
|
| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
vivacity
|
|
| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
profusely
|
|
| ad.abundantly | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
breakdown
|
|
| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
theatrically
|
|
| adv.戏剧化地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
fatigue
|
|
| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
perpendicularly
|
|
| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
enigmas
|
|
| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
sanitation
|
|
| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
maim
|
|
| v.使残废，使不能工作，使伤残 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
callous
|
|
| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
persuasive
|
|
| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
everlasting
|
|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
candidly
|
|
| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
benevolently
|
|
| adv.仁慈地，行善地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |