Such at least had been the intimated attitude of Mrs. Stringham, the elder of the companions, who had her own view of the impatiences of the younger, to which, however, she offered an opposition10 but of the most circuitous11. She moved, the admirable Mrs. Stringham, in a fine cloud of observation and suspicion; she was in the position, as she believed, of knowing much more about Milly Theale than Milly herself knew, and yet of having to darken her knowledge as well as make it active. The woman in the world least formed by nature, as she was quite aware, for duplicities and labyrinths12, she found herself dedicated13 to personal subtlety14 by a new set of circumstances, above all by a new personal relation; had now in fact to recognise that an education in the occult—she could scarce say what to call it—had begun for her the day she left New York with Mildred. She had come on from Boston for that purpose; had seen little of the girl—or rather had seen her but briefly15, for Mrs. Stringham, when she saw anything at all, saw much, saw everything—before accepting her proposal; and had accordingly placed herself, by her act, in a boat that she more and more estimated as, humanly speaking, of the biggest, though likewise, no doubt, in many ways, by reason of its size, of the safest. In Boston, the winter before, the young lady in whom we are interested had, on the spot, deeply, yet almost tacitly, appealed to her, dropped into her mind the shy conceit16 of some assistance, some devotion to render. Mrs. Stringham's little life had often been visited by shy conceits—secret dreams that had fluttered their hour between its narrow walls without, for any great part, so much as mustering18 courage to look out of its rather dim windows. But this imagination—the fancy of a possible link with the remarkable19 young thing from New York—had mustered20 courage: had perched, on the instant, at the clearest look-out it could find, and might be said to have remained there till, only a few months later, it had caught, in surprise and joy, the unmistakable flash of a signal.
Milly Theale had Boston friends, such as they were, and of recent making; and it was understood that her visit to them—a visit that was not to be meagre—had been undertaken, after a series of bereavements, in the interest of the particular peace that New York could not give. It was recognised, liberally enough, that there were many things—perhaps even too many—New York could give; but this was felt to make no difference in the constant fact that what you had most to do, under the discipline of life, or of death, was really to feel your situation as grave. Boston could help you to that as nothing else could, and it had extended to Milly, by every presumption22, some such measure of assistance. Mrs. Stringham was never to forget—for the moment had not faded, nor the infinitely23 fine vibration24 it set up in any degree ceased—her own first sight of the striking apparition25, then unheralded and unexplained: the slim, constantly pale, delicately haggard, anomalously26, agreeably angular young person, of not more than two-and-twenty in spite of her marks, whose hair was some how exceptionally red even for the real thing, which it innocently confessed to being, and whose clothes were remarkably27 black even for robes of mourning, which was the meaning they expressed. It was New York mourning, it was New York hair, it was a New York history, confused as yet, but multitudinous, of the loss of parents, brothers, sisters, almost every human appendage28, all on a scale and with a sweep that had required the greater stage; it was a New York legend of affecting, of romantic isolation29, and, beyond everything, it was by most accounts, in respect to the mass of money so piled on the girl's back, a set of New York possibilities. She was alone, she was stricken, she was rich, and, in particular, she was strange—a combination in itself of a nature to engage Mrs. Stringham's attention. But it was the strangeness that most determined30 our good lady's sympathy, convinced as she was that it was much greater than any one else—any one but the sole Susan Stringham—supposed. Susan privately31 settled it that Boston was not in the least seeing her, was only occupied with her seeing Boston, and that any assumed affinity32 between the two characters was delusive33 and vain. She was seeing her, and she had quite the deepest moment of her life in now obeying the instinct to conceal34 the vision. She couldn't explain it—no one would understand. They would say clever Boston things—Mrs. Stringham was from Burlington, Vermont, which she boldly upheld as the real heart of New England, Boston being "too far south"—but they would only darken counsel.
There could be no better proof, than this quick intellectual split, of the impression made on our friend, who shone, herself, she was well aware, with but the reflected light of the admirable city. She too had had her discipline, but it had not made her striking; it had been prosaically35 usual, though doubtless a decent dose; and had only made her usual to match it—usual, that is, as Boston went. She had lost first her husband, and then her mother, with whom, on her husband's death, she had lived again; so that now, childless, she was but more sharply single than before. But she sat rather coldly light, having, as she called it, enough to live on—so far, that is, as she lived by bread alone: how little indeed she was regularly content with that diet appeared from the name she had made—Susan Shepherd Stringham—as a contributor to the best magazines. She wrote short stories, and she fondly believed she had her "note," the art of showing New England without showing it wholly in the kitchen. She had not herself been brought up in the kitchen; she knew others who had not; and to speak for them had thus become with her a literary mission. To be in truth literary had ever been her dearest thought, the thought that kept her bright little nippers perpetually in position. There were masters, models, celebrities36, mainly foreign, whom she finely accounted so and in whose light she ingeniously laboured; there were others whom, however chattered37 about, she ranked with the inane38, for she was full of discrimination; but all categories failed her—they ceased at least to signify—as soon as she found herself in presence of the real thing, the romantic life itself. That was what she saw in Mildred—what positively39 made her hand a while tremble too much for the pen. She had had, it seemed to her, a revelation—such as even New England refined and grammatical couldn't give; and, all made up as she was of small neat memories and ingenuities40, little industries and ambitions, mixed with something moral, personal, that was still more intensely responsive, she felt her new friend would have done her an ill turn if their friendship shouldn't develop, and yet that nothing would be left of anything else if it should. It was for the surrender of everything else that she was, however, quite prepared, and while she went about her usual Boston business with her usual Boston probity41 she was really all the while holding herself. She wore her "handsome" felt hat, so Tyrolese, yet some how, though feathered from the eagle's wing, so truly domestic, with the same straightness and security; she attached her fur boa with the same honest precautions; she preserved her balance on the ice-slopes with the same practised skill; she opened, each evening, her "Transcript42" with the same interfusion of suspense43 and resignation; she attended her almost daily concert with the same expenditure44 of patience and the same economy of passion; she flitted in and out of the Public Library with the air of conscientiously45 returning or bravely carrying off in her pocket the key of knowledge itself; and finally—it was what she most did—she watched the thin trickle47 of a fictive "love-interest" through that somewhat serpentine48 channel, in the magazines, which she mainly managed to keep clear for it. But the real thing, all the while, was elsewhere; the real thing had gone back to New York, leaving behind it the two unsolved questions, quite distinct, of why it was real, and whether she should ever be so near it again.
For the figure to which these questions attached themselves she had found a convenient description—she thought of it for herself, always, as that of a girl with a background. The great reality was in the fact that, very soon, after but two or three meetings, the girl with the background, the girl with the crown of old gold and the mourning that was not as the mourning of Boston, but at once more rebellious49 in its gloom and more frivolous51 in its frills, had told her she had never seen any one like her. They had met thus as opposed curiosities, and that simple remark of Milly's—if simple it was—became the most important thing that had ever happened to her; it deprived the love-interest, for the time, of actuality and even of pertinence52; it moved her first, in short, in a high degree, to gratitude53, and then to no small compassion54. Yet in respect to this relation at least it was what did prove the key of knowledge; it lighted up as nothing else could do the poor young woman's history. That the potential heiress of all the ages should never have seen any one like a mere55 typical subscriber56, after all, to the "Transcript" was a truth that—in especial as announced with modesty57, with humility58, with regret—described a situation. It laid upon the elder woman, as to the void to be filled, a weight of responsibility; but in particular it led her to ask whom poor Mildred had then seen, and what range of contacts it had taken to produce such queer surprises. That was really the inquiry59 that had ended by clearing the air: the key of knowledge was felt to click in the lock from the moment it flashed upon Mrs. Stringham that her friend had been starved for culture. Culture was what she herself represented for her, and it was living up to that principle that would surely prove the great business. She knew, the clever lady, what the principle itself represented, and the limits of her own store; and a certain alarm would have grown upon her if something else hadn't grown faster.
This was, fortunately for her—and we give it in her own words—the sense of a harrowing pathos60. That, primarily, was what appealed to her, what seemed to open the door of romance for her still wider than any, than a still more reckless, connection with the "picture-papers." For such was essentially61 the point: it was rich, romantic, abysmal62, to have, as was evident, thousands and thousands a year, to have youth and intelligence and if not beauty, at least, in equal measure, a high, dim, charming, ambiguous oddity, which was even better, and then on top of all to enjoy boundless63 freedom, the freedom of the wind in the desert—it was unspeakably touching64 to be so equipped and yet to have been reduced by fortune to little humble-minded mistakes.
It brought our friend's imagination back again to New York, where aberrations66 were so possible in the intellectual sphere, and it in fact caused a visit she presently paid there to overflow67 with interest. As Milly had beautifully invited her, so she would hold out if she could against the strain of so much confidence in her mind; and the remarkable thing was that even at the end of three weeks she had held out. But by this time her mind had grown comparatively bold and free; it was dealing68 with new quantities, a different proportion altogether—and that had made for refreshment69: she had accordingly gone home in convenient possession of her subject. New York was vast, New York was startling, with strange histories, with wild cosmopolite backward generations that accounted for anything; and to have got nearer the luxuriant tribe of which the rare creature was the final flower, the immense, extravagant70, unregulated cluster, with free-living ancestors, handsome dead cousins, lurid71 uncles, beautiful vanished aunts, persons all busts72 and curls, preserved, though so exposed, in the marble of famous French chisels—all this, to say nothing of the effect of closer growths of the stem, was to have had one's small world-space both crowded and enlarged. Our couple had at all events effected an exchange; the elder friend had been as consciously intellectual as possible, and the younger, abounding73 in personal revelation, had been as unconsciously distinguished74. This was poetry—it was also history—Mrs. Stringham thought, to a finer tune65 even than Maeterlink and Pater, than Marbot and Gregorovius. She appointed occasions for the reading of these authors with her hostess, rather perhaps than actually achieved great spans; but what they managed and what they missed speedily sank for her into the dim depths of the merely relative, so quickly, so strongly had she clutched her central clue. All her scruples76 and hesitations77, all her anxious enthusiasms, had reduced themselves to a single alarm—the fear that she really might act on her companion clumsily and coarsely. She was positively afraid of what she might do to her, and to avoid that, to avoid it with piety78 and passion, to do, rather, nothing at all, to leave her untouched because no touch one could apply, however light, however just, however earnest and anxious, would be half good enough, would be anything but an ugly smutch upon perfection—this now imposed itself as a consistent, an inspiring thought.
Less than a month after the event that had so determined Mrs. Stringham's attitude—close upon the heels, that is, of her return from New York—she was reached by a proposal that brought up for her the kind of question her delicacy79 might have to contend with. Would she start for Europe with her young friend at the earliest possible date, and should she be willing to do so without making conditions? The inquiry was launched by wire; explanations, in sufficiency, were promised; extreme urgency was suggested, and a general surrender invited. It was to the honour of her sincerity80 that she made the surrender on the spot, though it was not perhaps altogether to that of her logic81. She had wanted, very consciously, from the first, to give something up for her new acquaintance, but she had now no doubt that she was practically giving up all. What settled this was the fulness of a particular impression, the impression that had throughout more and more supported her and which she would have uttered so far as she might by saying that the charm of the creature was positively in the creature's greatness. She would have been content so to leave it; unless indeed she had said, more familiarly, that Mildred was the biggest impression of her life. That was at all events the biggest account of her, and none but a big, clearly, would do. Her situation, as such things were called, was on the grand scale; but it still was not that. It was her nature, once for all—a nature that reminded Mrs. Stringham of the term always used in the newspapers about the great new steamers, the inordinate82 number of "feet of water" they drew; so that if, in your little boat, you had chosen to hover83 and approach, you had but yourself to thank, when once motion was started, for the way the draught84 pulled you. Milly drew the feet of water, and odd though it might seem that a lonely girl, who was not robust85 and who hated sound and show, should stir the stream like a leviathan, her companion floated off with the sense of rocking violently at her side. More than prepared, however, for that excitement, Mrs. Stringham mainly failed of ease in respect to her own consistency86. To attach herself for an indefinite time seemed a roundabout way of holding her hands off. If she wished to be sure of neither touching nor smutching, the straighter plan would doubtless have been not to keep her friend within reach. This in fact she fully2 recognised, and with it the degree to which she desired that the girl should lead her life, a life certain to be so much finer than that of anybody else. The difficulty, however, by good fortune, cleared away as soon as she had further recognised, as she was speedily able to do, that she, Susan Shepherd—the name with which Milly for the most part amused herself—was not anybody else. She had renounced87 that character; she had now no life to lead; and she honestly believed that she was thus supremely88 equipped for leading Milly's own. No other person whatever, she was sure, had to an equal degree this qualification, and it was really to assert it that she fondly embarked89.
Many things, though not in many weeks, had come and gone since then, and one of the best of them, doubtless, had been the voyage itself, by the happy southern course, to the succession of Mediterranean90 ports, with the dazzled wind-up at Naples. Two or three others had preceded this; incidents, indeed rather lively marks, of their last fortnight at home, and one of which had determined on Mrs. Stringham's part a rush to New York, forty-eight breathless hours there, previous to her final rally. But the great sustained sea-light had drunk up the rest of the picture, so that for many days other questions and other possibilities sounded with as little effect as a trio of penny whistles might sound in a Wagner overture91. It was the Wagner overture that practically prevailed, up through Italy, where Milly had already been, still further up and across the Alps, which were also partly known to Mrs. Stringham; only perhaps "taken" to a time not wholly congruous, hurried in fact on account of the girl's high restlessness. She had been expected, she had frankly92 promised, to be restless—that was partly why she was "great"—or was a consequence, at any rate, if not a cause; yet she had not perhaps altogether announced herself as straining so hard at the cord. It was familiar, it was beautiful to Mrs. Stringham that she had arrears93 to make up, the chances that had lapsed95 for her through the wanton ways of forefathers96 fond of Paris, but not of its higher sides, and fond almost of nothing else; but the vagueness, the openness, the eagerness without point and the interest without pause—all a part of the charm of her oddity as at first presented—had become more striking in proportion as they triumphed over movement and change. She had arts and idiosyncrasies of which no great account could have been given, but which were a daily grace if you lived with them; such as the art of being almost tragically97 impatient and yet making it as light as air; of being inexplicably98 sad and yet making it as clear as noon; of being unmistakably gay, and yet making it as soft as dusk. Mrs. Stringham by this time understood everything, was more than ever confirmed in wonder and admiration99, in her view that it was life enough simply to feel her companion's feelings; but there were special keys she had not yet added to her bunch, impressions that, of a sudden, were apt to affect her as new.
This particular day on the great Swiss road had been, for some reason, full of them, and they referred themselves, provisionally, to some deeper depth than she had touched—though into two or three such depths, it must be added, she had peeped long enough to find herself suddenly draw back. It was not Milly's unpacified state, in short, that now troubled her—though certainly, as Europe was the great American sedative100, the failure was to some extent to be noted101: it was the suspected presence of something behind it—which, however, could scarcely have taken its place there since their departure. What any fresh motive102 of unrest could suddenly have sprung from was, in short, not to be divined. It was but half an explanation to say that excitement, for each of them, had naturally dropped, and that what they had left behind, or tried to—the great serious facts of life, as Mrs. Stringham liked to call them—was once more coming into sight as objects loom50 through smoke when smoke begins to clear; for these were general appearances from which the girl's own aspect, her really larger vagueness, seemed rather to disconnect itself. The nearest approach to a personal anxiety indulged in as yet by the elder lady was on her taking occasion to wonder if what she had more than anything else got hold of mightn't be one of the finer, one of the finest, one of the rarest—as she called it so that she might call it nothing worse—cases of American intensity103. She had just had a moment of alarm—asked herself if her young friend were merely going to treat her to some complicated drama of nerves. At the end of a week, however, with their further progress, her young friend had effectively answered the question and given her the impression, indistinct indeed as yet, of something that had a reality compared with which the nervous explanation would have been coarse. Mrs. Stringham found herself from that hour, in other words, in presence of an explanation that remained a muffled104 and intangible form, but that, assuredly, should it take on sharpness, would explain everything and more than everything, would become instantly the light in which Milly was to be read.
Such a matter as this may at all events speak of the style in which our young woman could affect those who were near her, may testify to the sort of interest she could inspire. She worked—and seemingly quite without design—upon the sympathy, the curiosity, the fancy of her associates, and we shall really ourselves scarce otherwise come closer to her than by feeling their impression and sharing, if need be, their confusion. She reduced them, Mrs. Stringham would have said, reduced them to a consenting bewilderment; which was precisely105, for that good lady, on a last analysis, what was most in harmony with her greatness. She exceeded, escaped measure, was surprising only because they were so far from great. Thus it was that on this wondrous day on the Brünig the spell of watching her had grown more than ever irresistible106; a proof of what—or of a part of what—Mrs. Stringham had, with all the rest, been reduced to. She had almost the sense of tracking her young friend as if at a given moment to pounce107. She knew she shouldn't pounce, she hadn't come out to pounce; yet she felt her attention secretive, all the same, and her observation scientific. She struck herself as hovering108 like a spy, applying tests, laying traps, concealing109 signs. This would last, however, only till she should fairly know what was the matter; and to watch was, after all, meanwhile, a way of clinging to the girl, not less than an occupation, a satisfaction in itself. The pleasure of watching, moreover, if a reason were needed, came from a sense of her beauty. Her beauty hadn't at all originally seemed a part of the situation, and Mrs. Stringham had, even in the first flush of friendship, not named it, grossly, to any one; having seen early that, for stupid people—and who, she sometimes secretly asked herself, wasn't stupid?—it would take a great deal of explaining. She had learned not to mention it till it was mentioned first—which occasionally happened, but not too often; and then she was there in force. Then she both warmed to the perception that met her own perception, and disputed it, suspiciously, as to special items; while, in general, she had learned to refine even to the point of herself employing the word that most people employed. She employed it to pretend that she was also stupid and so have done with the matter; spoke110 of her friend as plain, as ugly even, in a case of especially dense111 insistence112; but as, in appearance, so "awfully113 full of things." This was her own way of describing a face that, thanks, doubtless, to rather too much forehead, too much nose and too much mouth, together with too little mere conventional colour and conventional line, was expressive114, irregular, exquisite115, both for speech and for silence. When Milly smiled it was a public event—when she didn't it was a chapter of history. They had stopped, on the Brünig, for luncheon116, and there had come up for them under the charm of the place the question of a longer stay.
Mrs. Stringham was now on the ground of thrilled recognitions, small sharp echoes of a past which she kept in a well-thumbed case, but which, on pressure of a spring and exposure to the air, still showed itself ticking as hard as an honest old watch. The embalmed117 "Europe" of her younger time had partly stood for three years of Switzerland, a term of continuous school at Vevey, with rewards of merit in the form of silver medals tied by blue ribbons and mild mountain-passes attacked with alpenstocks. It was the good girls who, in the holidays, were taken highest, and our friend could now judge, from what she supposed her familiarity with the minor118 peaks, that she had been one of the best. These reminiscences, sacred to-day because prepared in the hushed chambers119 of the past, had been part of the general train laid for the pair of sisters, daughters early fatherless, by their brave Vermont mother, who struck her at present as having apparently120, almost like Columbus, worked out, all unassisted, a conception of the other side of the globe. She had focussed Vevey, by the light of nature, and with extraordinary completeness, at Burlington; after which she had embarked, sailed, landed, explored and, above all, made good her presence. She had given her daughters the five years in Switzerland and Germany that were to leave them ever afterwards a standard of comparison for all cycles of Cathay, and to stamp the younger in especial—Susan was the younger—with a character that, as Mrs. Stringham had often had occasion, through life, to say to herself, made all the difference. It made all the difference for Mrs. Stringham, over and over again and in the most remote connections, that, thanks to her parent's lonely, thrifty121, hardy122 faith, she was a woman of the world. There were plenty of women who were all sorts of things that she wasn't, but who, on the other hand, were not that, and who didn't know she was (which she liked—it relegated123 them still further) and didn't know, either, how it enabled her to judge them. She had never seen herself so much in this light as during the actual phase of her associated, if slightly undirected, pilgrimage; and the consciousness gave perhaps to her plea for a pause more intensity than she knew. The irrecoverable days had come back to her from far off; they were part of the sense of the cool upper air and of everything else that hung like an indestructible scent124 to the torn garment of youth—the taste of honey and the luxury of milk, the sound of cattle-bells and the rush of streams, the fragrance125 of trodden balms and the dizziness of deep gorges126.
Milly clearly felt these things too, but they affected127 her companion at moments—that was quite the way Mrs. Stringham would have expressed it—as the princess in a conventional tragedy might have affected the confidant if a personal emotion had ever been permitted to the latter. That a princess could only be a princess was a truth with which, essentially, a confidant, however responsive, had to live. Mrs. Stringham was a woman of the world, but Milly Theale was a princess, the only one she had yet had to deal with, and this in its way, too, made all the difference. It was a perfectly128 definite doom129 for the wearer—it was for every one else a perfectly palpable quality. It might have been, possibly, with its involved loneliness and other mysteries, the weight under which she fancied her companion's admirable head occasionally, and ever so submissively, bowed. Milly had quite assented130 at luncheon to their staying over, and had left her to look at rooms, settle questions, arrange about their keeping on their carriage and horses; cares that had now moreover fallen to Mrs. Stringham as a matter of course and that yet for some reason, on this occasion particularly, brought home to her—all agreeably, richly, almost grandly—what it was to live with the great. Her young friend had, in a sublime131 degree, a sense closed to the general question of difficulty, which she got rid of, furthermore, not in the least as one had seen many charming persons do, by merely passing it on to others. She kept it completely at a distance: it never entered the circle; the most plaintive132 confidant couldn't have dragged it in; and to tread the path of a confidant was accordingly to live exempt133. Service was in other words so easy to render that the whole thing was like court life without the hardships. It came back of course to the question of money, and our observant lady had by this time repeatedly reflected that if one were talking of the "difference," it was just this, this incomparably and nothing else, that when all was said and done most made it. A less vulgarly, a less obviously purchasing or parading person she couldn't have imagined; but it was, all the same, the truth of truths that the girl couldn't get away from her wealth. She might leave her conscientious46 companion as freely alone with it as possible and never ask a question, scarce even tolerate a reference; but it was in the fine folds of the helplessly expensive little black frock that she drew over the grass as she now strolled vaguely134 off; it was in the curious and splendid coils of hair, "done" with no eye whatever to the mode du jour, that peeped from under the corresponding indifference135 of her hat, the merely personal tradition that suggested a sort of noble inelegance; it lurked136 between the leaves of the uncut but antiquated137 Tauchnitz volume of which, before going out, she had mechanically possessed138 herself. She couldn't dress it away, nor walk it away, nor read it away, nor think it away; she could neither smile it away in any dreamy absence nor blow it away in any softened139 sigh. She couldn't have lost it if she had tried—that was what it was to be really rich. It had to be the thing you were. When at the end of an hour she had not returned to the house Mrs. Stringham, though the bright afternoon was yet young, took, with precautions, the same direction, went to join her in case of her caring for a walk. But the purpose of joining her was in truth less distinct than that of a due regard for a possibly preferred detachment: so that, once more, the good lady proceeded with a quietness that made her slightly "underhand" even in her own eyes. She couldn't help that, however, and she didn't care, sure as she was that what she really wanted was not to overstep, but to stop in time. It was to be able to stop in time that she went softly, but she had on this occasion further to go than ever yet, for she followed in vain, and at last with some anxiety, the footpath140 she believed Milly to have taken. It wound up a hillside and into the higher Alpine141 meadows in which, all these last days, they had so often wanted, as they passed above or below, to stray; and then it obscured itself in a wood, but always going up, up, and with a small cluster of brown old high-perched chalets evidently for its goal. Mrs. Stringham reached in due course the chalets, and there received from a bewildered old woman, a very fearful person to behold142, an indication that sufficiently143 guided her. The young lady had been seen not long before passing further on, over a crest144 and to a place where the way would drop again, as our unappeased inquirer found it, in fact, a quarter of an hour later, markedly and almost alarmingly to do. It led somewhere, yet apparently quite into space, for the great side of the mountain appeared, from where she pulled up, to fall away altogether, though probably but to some issue below and out of sight. Her uncertainty145 moreover was brief, for she next became aware of the presence on a fragment of rock, twenty yards off, of the Tauchnitz volume that the girl had brought out, and that therefore pointed75 to her shortly previous passage. She had rid herself of the book, which was an encumbrance146, and meant of course to pick it up on her return; but as she hadn't yet picked it up what on earth had become of her? Mrs. Stringham, I hasten to add, was within a few moments to see; but it was quite an accident that she had not, before they were over, betrayed by her deeper agitation147 the fact of her own nearness.
The whole place, with the descent of the path and as a sequel to a sharp turn that was masked by rocks and shrubs148, appeared to fall precipitously and to become a "view" pure and simple, a view of great extent and beauty, but thrown forward and vertiginous149. Milly, with the promise of it from just above, had gone straight down to it, not stopping till it was all before her; and here, on what struck her friend as the dizzy edge of it, she was seated at her ease. The path somehow took care of itself and its final business, but the girl's seat was a slab150 of rock at the end of a short promontory151 or excrescence that merely pointed off to the right into gulfs of air and that was so placed by good fortune, if not by the worst, as to be at last completely visible. For Mrs. Stringham stifled152 a cry on taking in what she believed to be the danger of such a perch21 for a mere maiden153; her liability to slip, to slide, to leap, to be precipitated154 by a single false movement, by a turn of the head—how could one tell? into whatever was beneath. A thousand thoughts, for the minute, roared in the poor lady's ears, but without reaching, as happened, Milly's. It was a commotion155 that left our observer intensely still and holding her breath. What had first been offered her was the possibility of a latent intention—however wild the idea—in such a posture156; of some betrayed accordance of Milly's caprice with a horrible hidden obsession157. But since Mrs. Stringham stood as motionless as if a sound, a syllable158, must have produced the start that would be fatal, so even the lapse94 of a few seconds had a partly reassuring159 effect. It gave her time to receive the impression which, when she some minutes later softly retraced160 her steps, was to be the sharpest she carried away. This was the impression that if the girl was deeply and recklessly meditating161 there, she was not meditating a jump; she was on the contrary, as she sat, much more in a state of uplifted and unlimited162 possession that had nothing to gain from violence. She was looking down on the kingdoms of the earth, and though indeed that of itself might well go to the brain, it wouldn't be with a view of renouncing163 them. Was she choosing among them, or did she want them all? This question, before Mrs. Stringham had decided164 what to do, made others vain; in accordance with which she saw, or believed she did, that if it might be dangerous to call out, to sound in any way a surprise, it would probably be safe enough to withdraw as she had come. She watched a while longer, she held her breath, and she never knew afterwards what time had elapsed.
Not many minutes probably, yet they had not seemed few, and they had given her so much to think of, not only while creeping home, but while waiting afterwards at the inn, that she was still busy with them when, late in the afternoon, Milly reappeared. She had stopped at the point of the path where the Tauchnitz lay, had taken it up and, with the pencil attached to her watch-guard, had scrawled165 a word—à bientôt!—across the cover; then, even under the girl's continued delay, had measured time without a return of alarm. For she now saw that the great thing she had brought away was precisely a conviction that the future was not to exist for her princess in the form of any sharp or simple release from the human predicament. It wouldn't be for her a question of a flying leap and thereby166 of a quick escape. It would be a question of taking full in the face the whole assault of life, to the general muster17 of which indeed her face might have been directly presented as she sat there on her rock. Mrs. Stringham was thus able to say to herself, even after another interval167 of some length, that if her young friend still continued absent it wouldn't be because—whatever the opportunity—she had cut short the thread. She wouldn't have committed suicide; she knew herself unmistakably reserved for some more complicated passage; this was the very vision in which she had, with no little awe168, been discovered. The image that thus remained with the elder lady kept the character of revelation. During the breathless minutes of her watch she had seen her companion afresh; the latter's type, aspect, marks, her history, her state, her beauty, her mystery, all unconsciously betrayed themselves to the Alpine air, and all had been gathered in again to feed Mrs. Stringham's flame. They are things that will more distinctly appear for us, and they are meanwhile briefly represented by the enthusiasm that was stronger on our friend's part than any doubt. It was a consciousness she was scarce yet used to carrying, but she had as beneath her feet a mine of something precious. She seemed to herself to stand near the mouth, not yet quite cleared. The mine but needed working and would certainly yield a treasure. She was not thinking, either, of Milly's gold.
点击收听单词发音
1 remonstrance | |
n抗议,抱怨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 functionaries | |
n.公职人员,官员( functionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 villa | |
n.别墅,城郊小屋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 beguiled | |
v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 undone | |
a.未做完的,未完成的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 circuitous | |
adj.迂回的路的,迂曲的,绕行的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 labyrinths | |
迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 ); (文字,建筑)错综复杂的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 dedicated | |
adj.一心一意的;献身的;热诚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 conceit | |
n.自负,自高自大 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 muster | |
v.集合,收集,鼓起,激起;n.集合,检阅,集合人员,点名册 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 mustering | |
v.集合,召集,集结(尤指部队)( muster的现在分词 );(自他人处)搜集某事物;聚集;激发 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 mustered | |
v.集合,召集,集结(尤指部队)( muster的过去式和过去分词 );(自他人处)搜集某事物;聚集;激发 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 perch | |
n.栖木,高位,杆;v.栖息,就位,位于 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 presumption | |
n.推测,可能性,冒昧,放肆,[法律]推定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 vibration | |
n.颤动,振动;摆动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 apparition | |
n.幽灵,神奇的现象 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 anomalously | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 appendage | |
n.附加物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 privately | |
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 affinity | |
n.亲和力,密切关系 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 delusive | |
adj.欺骗的,妄想的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 prosaically | |
adv.无聊地;乏味地;散文式地;平凡地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 celebrities | |
n.(尤指娱乐界的)名人( celebrity的名词复数 );名流;名声;名誉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 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: |
|
|
38 inane | |
adj.空虚的,愚蠢的,空洞的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 ingenuities | |
足智多谋,心灵手巧( ingenuity的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 probity | |
n.刚直;廉洁,正直 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 suspense | |
n.(对可能发生的事)紧张感,担心,挂虑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 expenditure | |
n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出;使用,消耗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 conscientiously | |
adv.凭良心地;认真地,负责尽职地;老老实实 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 conscientious | |
adj.审慎正直的,认真的,本着良心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 trickle | |
vi.淌,滴,流出,慢慢移动,逐渐消散 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 serpentine | |
adj.蜿蜒的,弯曲的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 loom | |
n.织布机,织机;v.隐现,(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 frivolous | |
adj.轻薄的;轻率的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 pertinence | |
n.中肯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 compassion | |
n.同情,怜悯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 subscriber | |
n.用户,订户;(慈善机关等的)定期捐款者;预约者;签署者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 modesty | |
n.谦逊,虚心,端庄,稳重,羞怯,朴素 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 humility | |
n.谦逊,谦恭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 pathos | |
n.哀婉,悲怆 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 abysmal | |
adj.无底的,深不可测的,极深的;糟透的,极坏的;完全的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 boundless | |
adj.无限的;无边无际的;巨大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 tune | |
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 aberrations | |
n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 );差错;脱离常规;心理失常 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 overflow | |
v.(使)外溢,(使)溢出;溢出,流出,漫出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 refreshment | |
n.恢复,精神爽快,提神之事物;(复数)refreshments:点心,茶点 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 lurid | |
adj.可怕的;血红的;苍白的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 busts | |
半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 ); 妇女的胸部; 胸围; 突击搜捕 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 abounding | |
adj.丰富的,大量的v.大量存在,充满,富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 scruples | |
n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 );顾虑,顾忌v.感到于心不安,有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 hesitations | |
n.犹豫( hesitation的名词复数 );踌躇;犹豫(之事或行为);口吃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 piety | |
n.虔诚,虔敬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 delicacy | |
n.精致,细微,微妙,精良;美味,佳肴 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
80 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
81 logic | |
n.逻辑(学);逻辑性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
82 inordinate | |
adj.无节制的;过度的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
83 hover | |
vi.翱翔,盘旋;徘徊;彷徨,犹豫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
84 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
85 robust | |
adj.强壮的,强健的,粗野的,需要体力的,浓的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
86 consistency | |
n.一贯性,前后一致,稳定性;(液体的)浓度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
87 renounced | |
v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
88 supremely | |
adv.无上地,崇高地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
89 embarked | |
乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 ); 装载; 从事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
90 Mediterranean | |
adj.地中海的;地中海沿岸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
91 overture | |
n.前奏曲、序曲,提议,提案,初步交涉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
92 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
93 arrears | |
n.到期未付之债,拖欠的款项;待做的工作 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
94 lapse | |
n.过失,流逝,失效,抛弃信仰,间隔;vi.堕落,停止,失效,流逝;vt.使失效 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
95 lapsed | |
adj.流失的,堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 );陷入;倒退;丧失 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
96 forefathers | |
n.祖先,先人;祖先,祖宗( forefather的名词复数 );列祖列宗;前人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
97 tragically | |
adv. 悲剧地,悲惨地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
98 inexplicably | |
adv.无法说明地,难以理解地,令人难以理解的是 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
99 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
100 sedative | |
adj.使安静的,使镇静的;n. 镇静剂,能使安静的东西 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
101 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
102 motive | |
n.动机,目的;adv.发动的,运动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
103 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
104 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
105 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
106 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
107 pounce | |
n.猛扑;v.猛扑,突然袭击,欣然同意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
108 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
109 concealing | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
110 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: |
|
|
111 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
112 insistence | |
n.坚持;强调;坚决主张 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
113 awfully | |
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
114 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
115 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
116 luncheon | |
n.午宴,午餐,便宴 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
117 embalmed | |
adj.用防腐药物保存(尸体)的v.保存(尸体)不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 );使不被遗忘;使充满香气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
118 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
119 chambers | |
n.房间( chamber的名词复数 );(议会的)议院;卧室;会议厅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
120 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
121 thrifty | |
adj.节俭的;兴旺的;健壮的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
122 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
123 relegated | |
v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 );使降职;转移;把…归类 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
124 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
125 fragrance | |
n.芬芳,香味,香气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
126 gorges | |
n.山峡,峡谷( gorge的名词复数 );咽喉v.(用食物把自己)塞饱,填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 );作呕 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
127 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
128 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
129 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
130 assented | |
同意,赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
131 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
132 plaintive | |
adj.可怜的,伤心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
133 exempt | |
adj.免除的;v.使免除;n.免税者,被免除义务者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
134 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
135 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
136 lurked | |
vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
137 antiquated | |
adj.陈旧的,过时的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
138 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
139 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
140 footpath | |
n.小路,人行道 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
141 alpine | |
adj.高山的;n.高山植物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
142 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
143 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
144 crest | |
n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
145 uncertainty | |
n.易变,靠不住,不确知,不确定的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
146 encumbrance | |
n.妨碍物,累赘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
147 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
148 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
149 vertiginous | |
adj.回旋的;引起头晕的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
150 slab | |
n.平板,厚的切片;v.切成厚板,以平板盖上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
151 promontory | |
n.海角;岬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
152 stifled | |
(使)窒息, (使)窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 ); 镇压,遏制; 堵 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
153 maiden | |
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
154 precipitated | |
v.(突如其来地)使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 );促成;猛然摔下;使沉淀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
155 commotion | |
n.骚动,动乱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
156 posture | |
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
157 obsession | |
n.困扰,无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
158 syllable | |
n.音节;vt.分音节 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
159 reassuring | |
a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的,使人放心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
160 retraced | |
v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 );回忆;回顾;追溯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
161 meditating | |
a.沉思的,冥想的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
162 unlimited | |
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
163 renouncing | |
v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
164 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
165 scrawled | |
乱涂,潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
166 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
167 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
168 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |