There was a sound of children’s voices calling and talking: high, childish, girlish voices, slightly didactic and tinged9 with domineering: “If you don’t come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where there are snakes.” And nobody had the sang-froid to reply: “Run then, little fool.” It was always, “No, darling. Very well, darling. In a moment, darling. Darling, you must be patient.”
His heart was hard with disillusion10: a continual gnawing11 and resistance. But he worked on. What was there to do but submit!
The sunlight blazed down upon the earth, there was a vividness of flamy vegetation, of fierce seclusion12 amid the savage13 peace of the commons. Strange how the savage England lingers in patches: as here, amid these shaggy gorse commons, and marshy14, snake infested16 places near the foot of the south downs. The spirit of place lingering on primeval, as when the Saxons came, so long ago.
Ah, how he had loved it! The green garden path, the tufts of flowers, purple and white columbines, and great oriental red poppies with their black chaps and mulleins tall and yellow, this flamy garden which had been a garden for a thousand years, scooped17 out in the little hollow among the snake-infested commons. He had made it flame with flowers, in a sun cup under its hedges and trees. So old, so old a place! And yet he had re-created it.
The timbered cottage with its sloping, cloak-like roof was old and forgotten. It belonged to the old England of hamlets and yeomen. Lost all alone on the edge of the common, at the end of a wide, grassy19, briar-entangled lane shaded with oak, it had never known the world of today. Not till Egbert came with his bride. And he had come to fill it with flowers.
The house was ancient and very uncomfortable. But he did not want to alter it. Ah, marvellous to sit there in the wide, black, time-old chimney, at night when the wind roared overhead, and the wood which he had chopped himself sputtered20 on the hearth21! Himself on one side the angle, and Winifred on the other.
Ah, how he had wanted her: Winifred! She was young and beautiful and strong with life, like a flame in sunshine. She moved with a slow grace of energy like a blossoming, red-flowered bush in motion. She, too, seemed to come out of the old England, ruddy, strong, with a certain crude, passionate22 quiescence23 and a hawthorn24 robustness25. And he, he was tall and slim and agile27, like an English archer28 with his long supple29 legs and fine movements. Her hair was nut-brown and all in energic curls and tendrils. Her eyes were nut-brown, too, like a robin’s for brightness. And he was white-skinned with fine, silky hair that had darkened from fair, and a slightly arched nose of an old country family. They were a beautiful couple.
The house was Winifred’s. Her father was a man of energy, too. He had come from the north poor. Now he was moderately rich. He had bought this fair stretch of inexpensive land, down in Hampshire. Not far from the tiny church of the almost extinct hamlet stood his own house, a commodious30 old farmhouse31 standing32 back from the road across a bare grassed yard. On one side of this quadrangle was the long, long barn or shed which he had made into a cottage for his youngest daughter Priscilla. One saw little blue-and-white check curtains at the long windows, and inside, overhead, the grand old timbers of the high-pitched shed. This was Prissy’s house. Fifty yards away was the pretty little new cottage which he had built for his daughter Magdalen, with the vegetable garden stretching away to the oak copse. And then away beyond the lawns and rose trees of the house-garden went the track across a shaggy, wild grass space, towards the ridge4 of tall black pines that grew on a dyke-bank, through the pines and above the sloping little bog33, under the wide, desolate34 oak trees, till there was Winifred’s cottage crouching35 unexpectedly in front, so much alone, and so primitive36.
It was Winifred’s own house, and the gardens and the bit of common and the boggy37 slope were hers: her tiny domain38. She had married just at the time when her father had bought the estate, about ten years before the war, so she had been able to come to Egbert with this for a marriage portion. And who was more delighted, he or she, it would be hard to say. She was only twenty at the time, and he was only twenty-one. He had about a hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own—and nothing else but his very considerable personal attractions. He had no profession: he earned nothing. But he talked of literature and music, he had a passion for old folk-music, collecting folk-songs and folk-dances, studying the Morris-dance and the old customs. Of course in time he would make money in these ways.
Meanwhile youth and health and passion and promise. Winifred’s father was always generous: but still, he was a man from the north with a hard head and a hard skin too, having received a good many knocks. At home he kept the hard head out of sight, and played at poetry and romance with his literary wife and his sturdy, passionate girls. He was a man of courage, not given to complaining, bearing his burdens by himself. No, he did not let the world intrude39 far into his home. He had a delicate, sensitive wife whose poetry won some fame in the narrow world of letters. He himself, with his tough old barbarian40 fighting spirit, had an almost child-like delight in verse, in sweet poetry, and in the delightful41 game of a cultured home. His blood was strong even to coarseness. But that only made the home more vigorous, more robust26 and Christmassy. There was always a touch of Christmas about him, now he was well off. If there was poetry after dinner, there were also chocolates and nuts, and good little out-of-the-way things to be munching42.
Well then, into this family came Egbert. He was made of quite a different paste. The girls and the father were strong-limbed, thick-blooded people, true English, as holly43-trees and hawthorn are English. Their culture was grafted45 on to them, as one might perhaps graft44 a common pink rose on to a thornstem. It flowered oddly enough, but it did not alter their blood.
And Egbert was a born rose. The age-long breeding had left him with a delightful spontaneous passion. He was not clever, nor even “literary”. No, but the intonation46 of his voice, and the movement of his supple, handsome body, and the fine texture47 of his flesh and his hair, the slight arch of his nose, the quickness of his blue eyes would easily take the place of poetry. Winifred loved him, loved him, this southerner, as a higher being. A higher being, mind you. Not a deeper. And as for him, he loved her in passion with every fibre of him. She was the very warm stuff of life to him.
Wonderful then, those days at Crockham Cottage, the first days, all alone save for the woman who came to work in the mornings. Marvellous days, when she had all his tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth to herself, for herself, and he had her like a ruddy fire into which he could cast himself for rejuvenation48. Ah, that it might never end, this passion, this marriage! The flame of their two bodies burnt again into that old cottage, that was haunted already by so much by-gone, physical desire. You could not be in the dark room for an hour without the influences coming over you. The hot blood-desire of by-gone yeomen, there in this old den2 where they had lusted49 and bred for so many generations. The silent house, dark, with thick, timbered walls and the big black chimney-place, and the sense of secrecy50. Dark, with low, little windows, sunk into the earth. Dark, like a lair51 where strong beasts had lurked53 and mated, lonely at night and lonely by day, left to themselves and their own intensity54 for so many generations. It seemed to cast a spell on the two young people. They became different. There was a curious secret glow about them, a certain slumbering55 flame hard to understand, that enveloped56 them both. They too felt that they did not belong to the London world any more. Crockham had changed their blood: the sense of the snakes that lived and slept even in their own garden, in the sun, so that he, going forward with the spade, would see a curious coiled brownish pile on the black soil, which suddenly would start up, hiss57, and dazzle rapidly away, hissing58. One day Winifred heard the strangest scream from the flower-bed under the low window of the living room: ah, the strangest scream, like the very soul of the dark past crying aloud. She ran out, and saw a long brown snake on the flower-bed, and in its flat mouth the one hind59 leg of a frog was striving to escape, and screaming its strange, tiny, bellowing60 scream. She looked at the snake, and from its sullen61 flat head it looked at her, obstinately62. She gave a cry, and it released the frog and slid angrily away.
That was Crockham. The spear of modern invention had not passed through it, and it lay there secret, primitive, savage as when the Saxons first came. And Egbert and she were caught there, caught out of the world.
He was not idle, nor was she. There were plenty of things to be done, the house to be put into final repair after the workmen had gone, cushions and curtains to sew, the paths to make, the water to fetch and attend to, and then the slope of the deep-soiled, neglected garden to level, to terrace with little terraces and paths, and to fill with flowers. He worked away, in his shirt-sleeves, worked all day intermittently63 doing this thing and the other. And she, quiet and rich in herself, seeing him stooping and labouring away by himself, would come to help him, to be near him. He of course was an amateur—a born amateur. He worked so hard, and did so little, and nothing he ever did would hold together for long. If he terraced the garden, he held up the earth with a couple of long narrow planks64 that soon began to bend with the pressure from behind, and would not need many years to rot through and break and let the soil slither all down again in a heap towards the stream-bed. But there you are. He had not been brought up to come to grips with anything, and he thought it would do. Nay66, he did not think there was anything else except little temporary contrivances possible, he who had such a passion for his old enduring cottage, and for the old enduring things of the bygone England. Curious that the sense of permanency in the past had such a hold over him, whilst in the present he was all amateurish67 and sketchy68.
Winifred could not criticize him. Town-bred, everything seemed to her splendid, and the very digging and shovelling69 itself seemed romantic. But neither Egbert nor she yet realised the difference between work and romance.
Godfrey Marshall, her father, was at first perfectly70 pleased with the ménage down at Crockham Cottage. He thought Egbert was wonderful, the many things he accomplished71, and he was gratified by the glow of physical passion between the two young people. To the man who in London still worked hard to keep steady his modest fortune, the thought of this young couple digging away and loving one another down at Crockham Cottage, buried deep among the commons and marshes72, near the pale-showing bulk of the downs, was like a chapter of living romance. And they drew the sustenance73 for their fire of passion from him, from the old man. It was he who fed their flame. He triumphed secretly in the thought. And it was to her father that Winifred still turned, as the one source of all surety and life and support. She loved Egbert with passion. But behind her was the power of her father. It was the power of her father she referred to, whenever she needed to refer. It never occurred to her to refer to Egbert, if she were in difficulty or doubt. No, in all the serious matters she depended on her father.
For Egbert had no intention of coming to grips with life. He had no ambition whatsoever74. He came from a decent family, from a pleasant country home, from delightful surroundings. He should, of course, have had a profession. He should have studied law or entered business in some way. But no—that fatal three pounds a week would keep him from starving as long as he lived, and he did not want to give himself into bondage75. It was not that he was idle. He was always doing something, in his amateurish way. But he had no desire to give himself to the world, and still less had he any desire to fight his way in the world. No, no, the world wasn’t worth it. He wanted to ignore it, to go his own way apart, like a casual pilgrim down the forsaken76 sidetracks. He loved his wife, his cottage and garden. He would make his life there, as a sort of epicurean hermit77. He loved the past, the old music and dances and customs of old England. He would try and live in the spirit of these, not in the spirit of the world of business.
But often Winifred’s father called her to London: for he loved to have his children round him. So Egbert and she must have a tiny flat in town, and the young couple must transfer themselves from time to time from the country to the city. In town Egbert had plenty of friends, of the same ineffectual sort as himself, tampering78 with the arts, literature, painting, sculpture, music. He was not bored.
Three pounds a week, however, would not pay for all this. Winifred’s father paid. He liked paying. He made her only a very small allowance, but he often gave her ten pounds—or gave Egbert ten pounds. So they both looked on the old man as the mainstay. Egbert didn’t mind being patronized and paid for. Only when he felt the family was a little too condescending79, on account of money, he began to get huffy.
Then of course children came: a lovely little blonde daughter with a head of thistle-down. Everybody adored the child. It was the first exquisite80 blonde thing that had come into the family, a little mite81 with the white, slim, beautiful limbs of its father, and as it grew up the dancing, dainty movement of a wild little daisy-spirit. No wonder the Marshalls all loved the child: they called her Joyce. They themselves had their own grace, but it was slow, rather heavy. They had everyone of them strong, heavy limbs and darkish skins, and they were short in stature82. And now they had for one of their own this light little cowslip child. She was like a little poem in herself.
But nevertheless, she brought a new difficulty. Winifred must have a nurse for her. Yes, yes, there must be a nurse. It was the family decree. Who was to pay for the nurse? The grandfather—seeing the father himself earned no money. Yes, the grandfather would pay, as he had paid all the lying-in expenses. There came a slight sense of money-strain. Egbert was living on his father-in-law.
After the child was born, it was never quite the same between him and Winifred. The difference was at first hardly perceptible. But it was there. In the first place Winifred had a new centre of interest. She was not going to adore her child. But she had what the modern mother so often has in the place of spontaneous love: a profound sense of duty towards her child. Winifred appreciated her darling little girl, and felt a deep sense of duty towards her. Strange, that this sense of duty should go deeper than the love for her husband. But so it was. And so it often is. The responsibility of motherhood was the prime responsibility in Winifred’s heart: the responsibility of wifehood came a long way second.
Her child seemed to link her up again in a circuit with her own family. Her father and mother, herself, and her child, that was the human trinity for her. Her husband—? Yes, she loved him still. But that was like play. She had an almost barbaric sense of duty and of family. Till she married, her first human duty had been towards her father: he was the pillar, the source of life, the everlasting83 support. Now another link was added to the chain of duty: her father, herself, and her child.
Egbert was out of it. Without anything happening, he was gradually, unconsciously excluded from the circle. His wife still loved him, physically84. But, but—he was almost the unnecessary party in the affair. He could not complain of Winifred. She still did her duty towards him. She still had a physical passion for him, that physical passion on which he had put all his life and soul. But—but—
It was for a long while an ever-recurring but. And then, after the second child, another blonde, winsome85 touching86 little thing, not so proud and flame-like as Joyce; after Annabel came, then Egbert began truly to realise how it was. His wife still loved him. But—and now the but had grown enormous—her physical love for him was of secondary importance to her. It became ever less important. After all, she had had it, this physical passion, for two years now. It was not this that one lived from. No, no—something sterner, realer.
She began to resent her own passion for Egbert—just a little she began to despise it. For after all there he was, he was charming, he was lovable, he was terribly desirable. But—but—oh, the awful looming87 cloud of that but!—He did not stand firm in the landscape of her life like a tower of strength, like a great pillar of significance. No, he was like a cat one has about the house, which will one day disappear and leave no trace. He was like a flower in the garden, trembling in the wind of life, and then gone, leaving nothing to show. As an adjunct, as an accessory, he was perfect. Many a woman would have adored to have him about her all her life, the most beautiful and desirable of all her possessions. But Winifred belonged to another school.
The years went by, and instead of coming more to grips with life, he relaxed more. He was of a subtle, sensitive, passionate nature. But he simply would not give himself to what Winifred called life, Work. No, he would not go into the world and work for money. No, he just would not. If Winifred liked to live beyond their small income—well, it was her look-out.
And Winifred did not really want him to go out into the world to work for money. Money became, alas88, a word like a firebrand between them, setting them both aflame with anger. But that is because we must talk in symbols. Winifred did not really care about money. She did not care whether he earned or did not earn anything. Only she knew she was dependent on her father for three-fourths of the money spent for herself and her children, that she let that be the casus belli, the drawn89 weapon between herself and Egbert.
What did she want—what did she want? Her mother once said to her, with that characteristic touch of irony90: “Well, dear, if it is your fate to consider the lilies, that toil91 not, neither do they spin, that is one destiny among many others, and perhaps not so unpleasant as most. Why do you take it amiss, my child?”
The mother was subtler than her children, they very rarely knew how to answer her. So Winifred was only more confused. It was not a question of lilies. At least, if it were a question of lilies, then her children were the little blossoms. They at least grew. Doesn’t Jesus say: “Consider the lilies how they grow.” Good then, she had her growing babies. But as for that other tall, handsome flower of a father of theirs, he was full grown already, so she did not want to spend her life considering him in the flower of his days.
No, it was not that he didn’t earn money. It was not that he was idle. He was not idle. He was always doing something, always working away, down at Crockham, doing little jobs. But, oh dear, the little jobs—the garden paths—the gorgeous flowers—the chairs to mend, old chairs to mend!
It was that he stood for nothing. If he had done something unsuccessfully, and lost what money they had! If he had but striven with something. Nay, even if he had been wicked, a waster, she would have been more free. She would have had something to resist, at least. A waster stands for something, really. He says: “No, I will not aid and abet93 society in this business of increase and hanging together, I will upset the apple-cart as much as I can, in my small way.” Or else he says: “No, I will not bother about others. If I have lusts94, they are my own, and I prefer them to other people’s virtues95.” So, a waster, a scamp, takes a sort of stand. He exposes himself to opposition96 and final castigation97: at any rate in story-books.
But Egbert! What are you to do with a man like Egbert? He had no vices98. He was really kind, nay generous. And he was not weak. If he had been weak Winifred could have been kind to him. But he did not even give her that consolation99. He was not weak, and he did not want her consolation or her kindness. No, thank you. He was of a fine passionate temper, and of a rarer steel than she. He knew it, and she knew it. Hence she was only the more baffled and maddened, poor thing. He, the higher, the finer, in his way the stronger, played with his garden, and his old folk-songs and Morris-dances, just played, and let her support the pillars of the future on her own heart.
And he began to get bitter, and a wicked look began to come on his face. He did not give in to her; not he. There were seven devils inside his long, slim, white body. He was healthy, full of restrained life. Yes, even he himself had to lock up his own vivid life inside himself, now she would not take it from him. Or rather, now that she only took it occasionally. For she had to yield at times. She loved him so, she desired him so, he was so exquisite to her, the fine creature that he was, finer than herself. Yes, with a groan100 she had to give in to her own unquenched passion for him. And he came to her then—ah, terrible, ah, wonderful, sometimes she wondered how either of them could live after the terror of the passion that swept between them. It was to her as if pure lightning, flash after flash, went through every fibre of her, till extinction102 came.
But it is the fate of human beings to live on. And it is the fate of clouds that seem nothing but bits of vapour slowly to pile up, to pile up and fill the heavens and blacken the sun entirely104.
So it was. The love came back, the lightning of passion flashed tremendously between them. And there was blue sky and gorgeousness for a little while. And then, as inevitably105, as inevitably, slowly the clouds began to edge up again above the horizon, slowly, slowly to lurk52 about the heavens, throwing an occasional cold and hateful shadow: slowly, slowly to congregate106, to fill the empyrean space.
And as the years passed, the lightning cleared the sky more and more rarely, less and less the blue showed. Gradually the grey lid sank down upon them, as if it would be permanent.
Why didn’t Egbert do something, then? Why didn’t he come to grips with life? Why wasn’t he like Winifred’s father, a pillar of society, even if a slender, exquisite column? Why didn’t he go into harness of some sort? Why didn’t he take some direction?
Well, you can bring an ass6 to the water, but you cannot make him drink. The world was the water and Egbert was the ass. And he wasn’t having any. He couldn’t: he just couldn’t. Since necessity did not force him to work for his bread and butter, he would not work for work’s sake. You can’t make the columbine flowers nod in January, nor make the cuckoo sing in England at Christmas. Why? It isn’t his season. He doesn’t want to. Nay, he can’t want to.
And there it was with Egbert. He couldn’t link up with the world’s work, because the basic desire was absent from him. Nay, at the bottom of him he had an even stronger desire: to hold aloof107. To hold aloof. To do nobody any damage. But to hold aloof. It was not his season.
Perhaps he should not have married and had children. But you can’t stop the waters flowing.
Which held true for Winifred, too. She was not made to endure aloof. Her family tree was a robust vegetation that had to be stirring and believing. In one direction or another her life had to go. In her own home she had known nothing of this diffidence which she found in Egbert, and which she could not understand, and which threw her into such dismay. What was she to do, what was she to do, in face of this terrible diffidence?
It was all so different in her own home. Her father may have had his own misgivings108, but he kept them to himself. Perhaps he had no very profound belief in this world of ours, this society which we have elaborated with so much effort, only to find ourselves elaborated to death at last. But Godfrey Marshall was of tough, rough fibre, not without a vein109 of healthy cunning through it all. It was for him a question of winning through, and leaving the rest to heaven. Without having many illusions to grace him, he still did believe in heaven. In a dark and unquestioning way, he had a sort of faith: an acrid110 faith like the sap of some not-to-be-exterminated111 tree. Just a blind acrid faith as sap is blind and acrid, and yet pushes on in growth and in faith. Perhaps he was unscrupulous, but only as a striving tree is unscrupulous, pushing its single way in a jungle of others.
In the end, it is only this robust, sap-like faith which keeps man going. He may live on for many generations inside the shelter of the social establishment which he has erected112 for himself, as pear-trees and currant bushes would go on bearing fruit for many seasons, inside a walled garden, even if the race of man were suddenly exterminated. But bit by bit the wall-fruit-trees would gradually pull down the very walls that sustained them. Bit by bit every establishment collapses114, unless it is renewed or restored by living hands, all the while.
Egbert could not bring himself to any more of this restoring or renewing business. He was not aware of the fact: but awareness116 doesn’t help much, anyhow. He just couldn’t. He had the stoic117 and epicurean quality of his old, fine breeding. His father-in-law, however, though he was not one bit more of a fool than Egbert, realised that since we are here we may as well live. And so he applied118 himself to his own tiny section of the social work, and to doing the best for his family, and to leaving the rest to the ultimate will of heaven. A certain robustness of blood made him able to go on. But sometimes even from him spurted119 a sudden gall120 of bitterness against the world and its make-up. And yet—he had his own will-to-succeed, and this carried him through. He refused to ask himself what the success would amount to. It amounted to the estate down in Hampshire, and his children lacking for nothing, and himself of some importance in the world: and basta!—Basta! Basta!
Nevertheless do not let us imagine that he was a common pusher. He was not. He knew as well as Egbert what disillusion meant. Perhaps in his soul he had the same estimation of success. But he had a certain acrid courage, and a certain will-to-power. In his own small circle he would emanate121 power, the single power of his own blind self. With all his spoiling of his children, he was still the father of the old English type. He was too wise to make laws and to domineer in the abstract. But he had kept, and all honour to him, a certain primitive dominion122 over the souls of his children, the old, almost magic prestige of paternity. There it was, still burning in him, the old smoky torch or paternal123 godhead.
And in the sacred glare of this torch his children had been brought up. He had given the girls every liberty, at last. But he had never really let them go beyond his power. And they, venturing out into the hard white light of our fatherless world, learned to see with the eyes of the world. They learned to criticize their father, even, from some effulgence124 of worldly white light, to see him as inferior. But this was all very well in the head. The moment they forgot their tricks of criticism, the old red glow of his authority came over them again. He was not to be quenched101.
Let the psychoanalysts talk about father complex. It is just a word invented. Here was a man who had kept alive the old red flame of fatherhood, fatherhood that had even the right to sacrifice the child to God, like Isaac. Fatherhood that had life-and-death authority over the children: a great natural power. And till his children could be brought under some other great authority as girls; or could arrive at manhood and become themselves centres of the same power, continuing the same male mystery as men; until such time, willy-nilly, Godfrey Marshall would keep his children.
It had seemed as if he might lose Winifred. Winifred had adored her husband, and looked up to him as to something wonderful. Perhaps she had expected in him another great authority, a male authority greater, finer than her father’s. For having once known the glow of male power, she would not easily turn to the cold white light of feminine independence. She would hunger, hunger all her life for the warmth and shelter of true male strength.
And hunger she might, for Egbert’s power lay in the abnegation of power. He was himself the living negative of power. Even of responsibility. For the negation125 of power at last means the negation of responsibility. As far as these things went, he would confine himself to himself. He would try to confine his own influence even to himself. He would try, as far as possible, to abstain126 from influencing his children by assuming any responsibility for them. “A little child shall lead them—” His child should lead, then. He would try not to make it go in any direction whatever. He would abstain from influencing it. Liberty!—
Poor Winifred was like a fish out of water in this liberty, gasping127 for the denser128 element which should contain her. Till her child came. And then she knew that she must be responsible for it, that she must have authority over it.
But here Egbert silently and negatively stepped in. Silently, negatively, but fatally he neutralized129 her authority over her children.
There was a third little girl born. And after this Winifred wanted no more children. Her soul was turning to salt.
So she had charge of the children, they were her responsibility. The money for them had come from her father. She would do her very best for them, and have command over their life and death. But no! Egbert would not take the responsibility. He would not even provide the money. But he would not let her have her way. Her dark, silent, passionate authority he would not allow. It was a battle between them, the battle between liberty and the old blood-power. And of course he won. The little girls loved him and adored him. “Daddy! Daddy!” They could do as they liked with him. Their mother would have ruled them. She would have ruled them passionately130, with indulgence, with the old dark magic of parental131 authority, something looming and unquestioned and, after all, divine: if we believe in divine authority. The Marshalls did, being Catholic.
And Egbert, he turned her old dark, Catholic blood-authority into a sort of tyranny. He would not leave her her children. He stole them from her, and yet without assuming responsibility for them. He stole them from her, in emotion and spirit, and left her only to command their behaviour. A thankless lot for a mother. And her children adored him, adored him, little knowing the empty bitterness they were preparing for themselves when they too grew up to have husbands: husbands such as Egbert, adorable and null.
Joyce, the eldest132, was still his favourite. She was now a quicksilver little thing of six years old. Barbara, the youngest, was a toddler of two years. They spent most of their time down at Crockham, because he wanted to be there. And even Winifred loved the place really. But now, in her frustrated133 and blinded state, it was full of menace for her children. The adders134, the poison-berries, the brook, the marsh15, the water that might not be pure—one thing and another. From mother and nurse it was a guerilla gunfire of commands, and blithe135, quicksilver disobedience from the three blonde, never-still little girls. Behind the girls was the father, against mother and nurse. And so it was.
“If you don’t come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where there are snakes.”
“Joyce, you must be patient. I’m just changing Annabel.”
There you are. There it was: always the same. Working away on the common across the brook he heard it. And he worked on, just the same.
Suddenly he heard a shriek137, and he flung the spade from him and started for the bridge, looking up like a startled deer. Ah, there was Winifred—Joyce had hurt herself. He went on up the garden.
“What is it?”
The child was still screaming—now it was—“Daddy! Daddy! Oh—oh, Daddy!” And the mother was saying:
“Don’t be frightened, darling. Let mother look.”
But the child only cried:
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
She was terrified by the sight of the blood running from her own knee. Winifred crouched down, with her child of six in her lap, to examine the knee. Egbert bent138 over also.
“She fell on that sickle140 thing which you left lying about after cutting the grass,” said Winifred, looking into his face with bitter accusation141 as he bent near.
He had taken his handkerchief and tied it round the knee. Then he lifted the still sobbing142 child in his arms, and carried her into the house and upstairs to her bed. In his arms she became quiet. But his heart was burning with pain and with guilt143. He had left the sickle there lying on the edge of the grass, and so his first-born child whom he loved so dearly had come to hurt. But then it was an accident—it was an accident. Why should he feel guilty? It would probably be nothing, better in two or three days. Why take it to heart, why worry? He put it aside.
The child lay on the bed in her little summer frock, her face very white now after the shock, Nurse had come carrying the youngest child: and little Annabel stood holding her skirt. Winifred, terribly serious and wooden-seeming, was bending over the knee, from which she had taken his blood-soaked handkerchief. Egbert bent forward, too, keeping more sang-froid in his face than in his heart. Winifred went all of a lump of seriousness, so he had to keep some reserve. The child moaned and whimpered.
“You’d better go for the doctor, Egbert,” said Winifred bitterly.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” cried Joyce in a panic.
“Joyce, my darling, don’t cry!” said Winifred, suddenly catching145 the little girl to her breast in a strange tragic146 anguish147, the Mater Dolorata. Even the child was frightened into silence. Egbert looked at the tragic figure of his wife with the child at her breast, and turned away. Only Annabel started suddenly to cry: “Joycey, Joycey, don’t have your leg bleeding!”
Egbert rode four miles to the village for the doctor. He could not help feeling that Winifred was laying it on rather. Surely the knee itself wasn’t hurt! Surely not. It was only a surface cut.
The doctor was out. Egbert left the message and came cycling swiftly home, his heart pinched with anxiety. He dropped sweating off his bicycle and went into the house, looking rather small, like a man who is at fault. Winifred was upstairs sitting by Joyce, who was looking pale and important in bed, and was eating some tapioca pudding. The pale, small, scared face of his child went to Egbert’s heart.
“Doctor Wing was out. He’ll be here about half past two,” said Egbert.
“I don’t want him to come,” whimpered Joyce.
“Joyce, dear, you must be patient and quiet,” said Winifred. “He won’t hurt you. But he will tell us what to do to make your knee better quickly. That is why he must come.”
Winifred always explained carefully to her little girls: and it always took the words off their lips for the moment.
“Does it bleed yet?” said Egbert.
Winifred moved the bedclothes carefully aside.
“I think not,” she said.
Egbert stooped also to look.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said. Then he stood up with a relieved look on his face. He turned to the child.
“Eat your pudding, Joyce,” he said. “It won’t be anything. You’ve only got to keep still for a few days.”
“You haven’t had your dinner, have you, Daddy?”
“Not yet.”
“Nurse will give it to you,” said Winifred.
“You’ll be all right, Joyce,” he said, smiling to the child and pushing the blonde hair off her brow. She smiled back winsomely148 into his face.
He went downstairs and ate his meal alone. Nurse served him. She liked waiting on him. All women liked him and liked to do things for him.
The doctor came—a fat country practitioner149, pleasant and kind.
“What, little girl, been tumbling down, have you? There’s a thing to be doing, for a smart little lady like you! What! And cutting your knee! Tut-tut-tut! That wasn’t clever of you, now was it? Never mind, never mind, soon be better. Let us look at it. Won’t hurt you. Not the least in life. Bring a bowl with a little warm water, nurse. Soon have it all right again, soon have it all right.”
Joyce smiled at him with a pale smile of faint superiority. This was not the way in which she was used to being talked to.
He bent down, carefully looking at the little, thin, wounded knee of the child. Egbert bent over him.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Quite a deep little cut. Nasty little cut. Nasty little cut. But, never mind. Never mind, little lady. We’ll soon have it better. Soon have it better, little lady. What’s your name?”
“My name is Joyce,” said the child distinctly.
“Oh, really!” he replied. “Oh, really! Well, that’s a fine name too, in my opinion. Joyce, eh?—And how old might Miss Joyce be? Can she tell me that?”
“I’m six,” said the child, slightly amused and very condescending.
“Six! There now. Add up and count as far as six, can you? Well, that’s a clever little girl, a clever little girl. And if she has to drink a spoonful of medicine, she won’t make a murmur150, I’ll be bound. Not like some little girls. What? Eh?”
“I take it if mother wishes me to,” said Joyce.
“Ah, there now! That’s the style! That’s what I like to hear from a little lady in bed because she’s cut her knee. That’s the style—”
The comfortable and prolix151 doctor dressed and bandaged the knee and recommended bed and a light diet for the little lady. He thought a week or a fortnight would put it right. No bones or ligatures damaged—fortunately. Only a flesh cut. He would come again in a day or two.
So Joyce was reassured152 and stayed in bed and had all her toys up. Her father often played with her. The doctor came the third day. He was fairly pleased with the knee. It was healing. It was healing—yes—yes. Let the child continue in bed. He came again after a day or two. Winifred was a trifle uneasy. The wound seemed to be healing on the top, but it hurt the child too much. It didn’t look quite right. She said so to Egbert.
“Egbert, I’m sure Joyce’s knee isn’t healing properly.”
“I think it is,” he said. “I think it’s all right.”
“I’d rather Doctor Wing came again—I don’t feel satisfied.”
“Aren’t you trying to imagine it worse than it really is?”
“You would say so, of course. But I shall write a post-card to Doctor Wing now.”
The doctor came next day. He examined the knee. Yes, there was inflammation. Yes, there might be a little septic poisoning—there might. There might. Was the child feverish153?
So a fortnight passed by, and the child was feverish, and the knee was more inflamed154 and grew worse and was painful, painful. She cried in the night, and her mother had to sit up with her. Egbert still insisted it was nothing, really—it would pass. But in his heart he was anxious.
Winifred wrote again to her father. On Saturday the elderly man appeared. And no sooner did Winifred see the thick, rather short figure in its grey suit than a great yearning155 came over her.
“Father, I’m not satisfied with Joyce. I’m not satisfied with Doctor Wing.”
“Well, Winnie, dear, if you’re not satisfied we must have further advice, that is all.”
The sturdy, powerful, elderly man went upstairs, his voice sounding rather grating through the house, as if it cut upon the tense atmosphere.
“How are you, Joyce, darling?” he said to the child. “Does your knee hurt you? Does it hurt you, dear?”
“It does sometimes.” The child was shy of him, cold towards him.
“Well, dear, I’m sorry for that. I hope you try to bear it, and not trouble mother too much.”
There was no answer. He looked at the knee. It was red and stiff.
“Of course,” he said, “I think we must have another doctor’s opinion. And if we’re going to have it, we had better have it at once. Egbert, do you think you might cycle in to Bingham for Doctor Wayne? I found him very satisfactory for Winnie’s mother.”
“I can go if you think it necessary,” said Egbert.
“Certainly I think it necessary. Even if there is nothing, we can have peace of mind. Certainly I think it necessary. I should like Doctor Wayne to come this evening if possible.”
So Egbert set off on his bicycle through the wind, like a boy sent on an errand, leaving his father-in-law a pillar of assurance, with Winifred.
Doctor Wayne came, and looked grave. Yes, the knee was certainly taking the wrong way. The child might be lame18 for life.
Up went the fire and fear and anger in every heart. Doctor Wayne came again the next day for a proper examination. And, yes, the knee had really taken bad ways. It should be X-rayed. It was very important.
Godfrey Marshall walked up and down the lane with the doctor, beside the standing motor-car: up and down, up and down in one of those consultations156 of which he had had so many in his life.
As a result he came indoors to Winifred.
“Well, Winnie, dear, the best thing to do is to take Joyce up to London, to a nursing home where she can have proper treatment. Of course this knee has been allowed to go wrong. And apparently157 there is a risk that the child may even lose her leg. What do you think, dear? You agree to our taking her up to town and putting her under the best care?”
“Oh, father, you know I would do anything on earth for her.”
“I know you would, Winnie darling. The pity is that there has been this unfortunate delay already. I can’t think what Doctor Wing was doing. Apparently the child is in danger of losing her leg. Well then, if you will have everything ready, we will take her up to town tomorrow. I will order the large car from Denley’s to be here at ten. Egbert, will you take a telegram at once to Doctor Jackson? It is a small nursing home for children and for surgical158 cases, not far from Baker159 Street. I’m sure Joyce will be all right there.”
“Oh, father, can’t I nurse her myself!”
“Well, darling, if she is to have proper treatment, she had best be in a home. The X-ray treatment, and the electric treatment, and whatever is necessary.”
“It will cost a great deal—” said Winifred.
“We can’t think of cost, if the child’s leg is in danger—or even her life. No use speaking of cost,” said the elder man impatiently.
And so it was. Poor Joyce, stretched out on a bed in the big closed motor-car—the mother sitting by her head, the grandfather in his short grey beard and a bowler160 hat, sitting by her feet, thick, and implacable in his responsibility—they rolled slowly away from Crockham, and from Egbert who stood there bareheaded and a little ignominious161, left behind. He was to shut up the house and bring the rest of the family back to town, by train, the next day.
Followed a dark and bitter time. The poor child. The poor, poor child, how she suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home. It was a bitter six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred for ever. As she sat by the bed of her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the agony of the knee, and the still worse agony of these diabolic, but perhaps necessary modern treatments, she felt her heart killed and going cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her frail162, brave, wonderful, little Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white flower! Ah, how had she, Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so careless, so sensual.
“Let my heart die! Let my woman’s heart of flesh die! Saviour163, let my heart die. And save my child. Let my heart die from the world and from the flesh. Oh, destroy my heart that is so wayward. Let my heart of pride die. Let my heart die.”
So she prayed beside the bed of her child. And like the Mother with the seven swords in her breast, slowly her heart of pride and passion died in her breast, bleeding away. Slowly it died, bleeding away, and she turned to the Church for comfort, to Jesus, to the Mother of God, but most of all, to that great and enduring institution, the Roman Catholic Church. She withdrew into the shadow of the Church. She was a mother with three children. But in her soul she died, her heart of pride and passion and desire bled to death, her soul belonged to her church, her body belonged to her duty as a mother.
Her duty as a wife did not enter. As a wife she had no sense of duty: only a certain bitterness towards the man with whom she had known such sensuality and distraction164. She was purely165 the Mater Dolorata. To the man she was closed as a tomb.
Egbert came to see his child. But Winifred seemed to be always seated there, like the tomb of his manhood and his fatherhood. Poor Winifred: she was still young, still strong and ruddy and beautiful like a ruddy hard flower of the field. Strange—her ruddy, healthy face, so sombre, and her strong, heavy, full-blooded body, so still. She, a nun166! Never. And yet the gates of her heart and soul had shut in his face with a slow, resonant167 clang, shutting him out for ever. There was no need for her to go into a convent. Her will had done it.
And between this young mother and this young father lay the crippled child, like a bit of pale silk floss on the pillow, and a little white pain-quenched face. He could not bear it. He just could not bear it. He turned aside. There was nothing to do but to turn aside. He turned aside, and went hither and thither168, desultory169. He was still attractive and desirable. But there was a little frown between his brow as if he had been cleft170 there with a hatchet171: cleft right in, for ever, and that was the stigma172.
The child’s leg was saved: but the knee was locked stiff. The fear now was lest the lower leg should wither173, or cease to grow. There must be long-continued massage174 and treatment, daily treatment, even when the child left the nursing home. And the whole of the expense was borne by the grandfather.
Egbert now had no real home. Winifred with the children and nurse was tied to the little flat in London. He could not live there: he could not contain himself. The cottage was shut-up—or lent to friends. He went down sometimes to work in his garden and keep the place in order. Then with the empty house around him at night, all the empty rooms, he felt his heart go wicked. The sense of frustration175 and futility176, like some slow, torpid177 snake, slowly bit right through his heart. Futility, futility: the horrible marsh-poison went through his veins178 and killed him.
As he worked in the garden in the silence of day he would listen for a sound. No sound. No sound of Winifred from the dark inside of the cottage: no sound of children’s voices from the air, from the common, from the near distance. No sound, nothing but the old dark marsh-venomous atmosphere of the place. So he worked spasmodically through the day, and at night made a fire and cooked some food alone.
He was alone. He himself cleaned the cottage and made his bed. But his mending he did not do. His shirts were slit65 on the shoulders, when he had been working, and the white flesh showed through. He would feel the air and the spots of rain on his exposed flesh. And he would look again across the common, where the dark, tufted gorse was dying to seed, and the bits of cat-heather were coming pink in tufts, like a sprinkling of sacrificial blood.
His heart went back to the savage old spirit of the place: the desire for old gods, old, lost passions, the passion of the cold-blooded, darting179 snakes that hissed180 and shot away from him, the mystery of blood-sacrifices, all the lost, intense sensations of the primeval people of the place, whose passions seethed182 in the air still, from those long days before the Romans came. The seethe181 of a lost, dark passion in the air. The presence of unseen snakes.
A queer, baffled, half-wicked look came on his face. He could not stay long at the cottage. Suddenly he must swing on to his bicycle and go—anywhere. Anywhere, away from the place. He would stay a few days with his mother in the old home. His mother adored him and grieved as a mother would. But the little, baffled, half-wicked smile curled on his face, and he swung away from his mother’s solicitude183 as from everything else.
Always moving on—from place to place, friend to friend: and always swinging away from sympathy. As soon as sympathy, like a soft hand, was reached out to touch him, away he swerved184, instinctively185, as a harmless snake swerves186 and swerves and swerves away from an outstretched hand. Away he must go. And periodically he went back to Winifred.
He was terrible to her now, like a temptation. She had devoted187 herself to her children and her church. Joyce was once more on her feet; but, alas! lame, with iron supports to her leg, and a little crutch188. It was strange how she had grown into a long, pallid189, wild little thing. Strange that the pain had not made her soft and docile190, but had brought out a wild, almost maenad temper in the child. She was seven, and long and white and thin, but by no means subdued191. Her blonde hair was darkening. She still had long sufferings to face, and, in her own childish consciousness, the stigma of her lameness192 to bear.
And she bore it. An almost maenad courage seemed to possess her, as if she were a long, thin, young weapon of life. She acknowledged all her mother’s care. She would stand by her mother for ever. But some of her father’s fine-tempered desperation flashed in her.
When Egbert saw his little girl limping horribly—not only limping but lurching horribly in crippled, childish way, his heart again hardened with chagrin193, like steel that is tempered again. There was a tacit understanding between him and his little girl: not what we would call love, but a weapon-like kinship. There was a tiny touch of irony in his manner towards her, contrasting sharply with Winifred’s heavy, unleavened solicitude and care. The child flickered194 back to him with an answering little smile of irony and recklessness: an odd flippancy195 which made Winifred only the more sombre and earnest.
The Marshalls took endless thought and trouble for the child, searching out every means to save her limb and her active freedom. They spared no effort and no money, they spared no strength of will. With all their slow, heavy power of will they willed that Joyce should save her liberty of movement, should win back her wild, free grace. Even if it took a long time to recover, it should be recovered.
So the situation stood. And Joyce submitted, week after week, month after month to the tyranny and pain of the treatment. She acknowledged the honourable196 effort on her behalf. But her flamy reckless spirit was her father’s. It was he who had all the glamour197 for her. He and she were like members of some forbidden secret society who know one another but may not recognise one another. Knowledge they had in common, the same secret of life, the father and the child. But the child stayed in the camp of her mother, honourably198, and the father wandered outside like Ishmael, only coming sometimes to sit in the home for an hour or two, an evening or two beside the camp fire, like Ishmael, in a curious silence and tension, with the mocking answer of the desert speaking out of his silence, and annulling199 the whole convention of the domestic home.
His presence was almost an anguish to Winifred. She prayed against it. That little cleft between his brow, that flickering201, wicked, little smile that seemed to haunt his face, and above all, the triumphant202 loneliness, the Ishmael quality. And then the erectness203 of his supple body, like a symbol. The very way he stood, so quiet, so insidious204, like an erect113, supple symbol of life, the living body, confronting her downcast soul, was torture to her. He was like a supple living idol205 moving before her eyes, and she felt if she watched him she was damned.
And he came and made himself at home in her little home. When he was there, moving in his own quiet way, she felt as if the whole great law of sacrifice, by which she had elected to live, were annulled206. He annulled by his very presence the laws of her life. And what did he substitute? Ah, against that question she hardened herself in recoil207.
It was awful to her to have to have him about—moving about in his shirt-sleeves, speaking in his tenor208, throaty voice to the children. Annabel simply adored him, and he teased the little girl. The baby, Barbara, was not sure of him. She had been born a stranger to him. But even the nurse, when she saw his white shoulder of flesh through the slits209 of his torn shirt, thought it a shame.
Winifred felt it was only another weapon of his against her.
“You have other shirts—why do you wear that old one that is all torn, Egbert?” she said.
“I may as well wear it out,” he said subtly.
He knew she would not offer to mend it for him. She could not. And no, she would not. Had she not her own gods to honour? And could she betray them, submitting to his Baal and Ashtaroth? And it was terrible to her, his unsheathed presence, that seemed to annul200 her and her faith, like another revelation. Like a gleaming idol evoked210 against her, a vivid life-idol that might triumph.
He came and he went—and she persisted. And then the great war broke out. He was a man who could not go to the dogs. He could not dissipate himself. He was pure-bred in his Englishness, and even when he would have killed to be vicious, he could not.
So when the war broke out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the score of its rosiness211.
No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt212 England. The distinction between German and English was not for him the distinction between good and bad. It was the distinction between blue water-flowers and red or white bush-blossoms: just difference. The difference between the wild boar and the wild bear. And a man was good or bad according to his nature, not according to his nationality.
Egbert was well-bred, and this was part of his natural understanding. It was merely unnatural213 to him to hate a nation en bloc214. Certain individuals he disliked, and others he liked, and the mass he knew nothing about. Certain deeds he disliked, certain deeds seemed natural to him, and about most deeds he had no particular feeling.
He had, however, the one deepest pure-bred instinct. He recoiled215 inevitably from having his feelings dictated216 to him by the mass feeling. His feelings were his own, his understanding was his own, and he would never go back on either, willingly. Shall a man become inferior to his own true knowledge and self, just because the mob expects it of him?
What Egbert felt subtly and without question, his father-in-law felt also in a rough, more combative217 way. Different as the two men were, they were two real Englishmen, and their instincts were almost the same.
And Godfrey Marshall had the world to reckon with. There was German military aggression218, and the English non-military idea of liberty and the “conquests of peace”—meaning industrialism. Even if the choice between militarism and industrialism were a choice of evils, the elderly man asserted his choice of the latter, perforce. He whose soul was quick with the instinct of power.
Egbert just refused to reckon with the world. He just refused even to decide between German militarism and British industrialism. He chose neither. As for atrocities219, he despised the people who committed them as inferior criminal types. There was nothing national about crime.
And yet, war! War! Just war! Not right or wrong, but just war itself. Should he join? Should he give himself over to war? The question was in his mind for some weeks. Not because he thought England was right and Germany wrong. Probably Germany was wrong, but he refused to make a choice. Not because he felt inspired. No. But just—war.
The deterrent220 was, the giving himself over into the power of other men, and into the power of the mob-spirit of a democratic army. Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? Should he? Should he betray himself?
He was going to put himself into the power of his inferiors, and he knew it. He was going to subjugate221 himself. He was going to be ordered about by petty canaille of non-commissioned officers—and even commissioned officers. He who was born and bred free. Should he do it?
He went to his wife, to speak to her.
“Shall I join up, Winifred?”
She was silent. Her instinct also was dead against it. And yet a certain profound resentment222 made her answer:
“You have three children dependent on you. I don’t know whether you have thought of that.”
It was still only the third month of the war, and the old pre-war ideas were still alive.
“Of course. But it won’t make much difference to them. I shall be earning a shilling a day, at least.”
“You’d better speak to father, I think,” she replied heavily.
Egbert went to his father-in-law. The elderly man’s heart was full of resentment.
“I should say,” he said rather sourly, “it is the best thing you could do.”
Egbert went and joined up immediately, as a private soldier. He was drafted into the light artillery223.
Winifred now had a new duty towards him: the duty of a wife towards a husband who is himself performing his duty towards the world. She loved him still. She would always love him, as far as earthly love went. But it was duty she now lived by. When he came back to her in khaki, a soldier, she submitted to him as a wife. It was her duty. But to his passion she could never again fully92 submit. Something prevented her, for ever: even her own deepest choice.
He went back again to camp. It did not suit him to be a modern soldier. In the thick, gritty, hideous225 khaki his subtle physique was extinguished as if he had been killed. In the ugly intimacy226 of the camp his thoroughbred sensibilities were just degraded. But he had chosen, so he accepted. An ugly little look came on to his face, of a man who has accepted his own degradation227.
In the early spring Winifred went down to Crockham to be there when primroses228 were out, and the tassels229 hanging on the hazel-bushes. She felt something like a reconciliation230 towards Egbert, now he was a prisoner in camp most of his days. Joyce was wild with delight at seeing the garden and the common again, after the eight or nine months of London and misery231. She was still lame. She still had the irons up her leg. But she lurched about with a wild, crippled agility232.
Egbert came for a week-end, in his gritty, thick, sand-paper khaki and puttees and the hideous cap. Nay, he looked terrible. And on his face a slightly impure233 look, a little sore on his lip, as if he had eaten too much or drunk too much or let his blood become a little unclean. He was almost uglily healthy, with the camp life. It did not suit him.
Winifred waited for him in a little passion of duty and sacrifice, willing to serve the soldier, if not the man. It only made him feel a little more ugly inside. The week-end was torment234 to him: the memory of the camp, the knowledge of the life he led there; even the sight of his own legs in that abhorrent235 khaki. He felt as if the hideous cloth went into his blood and made it gritty and dirty. Then Winifred so ready to serve the soldier, when she repudiated236 the man. And this made the grit224 worse between his teeth. And the children running around playing and calling in the rather mincing237 fashion of children who have nurses and governesses and literature in the family. And Joyce so lame! It had all become unreal to him, after the camp. It only set his soul on edge. He left at dawn on the Monday morning, glad to get back to the realness and vulgarity of the camp.
Winifred would never meet him again at the cottage—only in London, where the world was with them. But sometimes he came alone to Crockham perhaps when friends were staying there. And then he would work awhile in his garden. This summer still it would flame with blue anchusas and big red poppies, the mulleins would sway their soft, downy erections in the air: he loved mulleins: and the honeysuckle would stream out scent238 like memory, when the owl103 was whooing. Then he sat by the fire with the friends and with Winifred’s sisters, and they sang the folk-songs. He put on thin civilian239 clothes and his charm and his beauty and the supple dominancy of his body glowed out again. But Winifred was not there.
At the end of the summer he went to Flanders, into action. He seemed already to have gone out of life, beyond the pale of life. He hardly remembered his life any more, being like a man who is going to take a jump from a height, and is only looking to where he must land.
He was twice slightly wounded, in two months. But not enough to put him off duty for more than a day or two. They were retiring again, holding the enemy back. He was in the rear—three machine-guns. The country was all pleasant, war had not yet trampled240 it. Only the air seemed shattered, and the land awaiting death. It was a small, unimportant action in which he was engaged.
The guns were stationed on a little bushy hillock just outside a village. But occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the sharp crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon241. The afternoon was wintry and cold.
A lieutenant242 stood on a little iron platform at the top of the ladders, taking the sights and giving the aim, calling in a high, tense, mechanical voice. Out of the sky came the sharp cry of the directions, then the warning numbers, then “Fire!” The shot went, the piston243 of the gun sprang back, there was a sharp explosion, and a very faint film of smoke in the air. Then the other two guns fired, and there was a lull244. The officer was uncertain of the enemy’s position. The thick clump245 of horse-chestnut trees below was without change. Only in the far distance the sound of heavy firing continued, so far off as to give a sense of peace.
The gorse bushes on either hand were dark, but a few sparks of flowers showed yellow. He noticed them almost unconsciously as he waited, in the lull. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the air came chill on his arms. Again his shirt was slit on the shoulders, and the flesh showed through. He was dirty and unkempt. But his face was quiet. So many things go out of consciousness before we come to the end of consciousness.
Before him, below, was the highroad, running between high banks of grass and gorse. He saw the whitish muddy tracks and deep scores in the road, where the part of the regiment246 had retired247. Now all was still. Sounds that came, came from the outside. The place where he stood was still silent, chill, serene248: the white church among the trees beyond seemed like a thought only.
He moved into a lightning-like mechanical response at the sharp cry from the officer overhead. Mechanism249, the pure mechanical action of obedience136 at the guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul unburdened, brooding in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone, brooding on the face of the uncreated flux250, as a bird on a dark sea.
Nothing could be seen but the road, and a crucifix knocked slanting251 and the dark, autumnal fields and woods. There appeared three horsemen on a little eminence252, very small, on the crest253 of a ploughed field. They were our own men. Of the enemy, nothing.
The lull continued. Then suddenly came sharp orders, and a new direction of the guns, and an intense, exciting activity. Yet at the centre the soul remained dark and aloof, alone.
But even so, it was the soul that heard the new sound: the new, deep “papp!” of a gun that seemed to touch right upon the soul. He kept up the rapid activity at the machine-gun, sweating. But in his soul was the echo of the new, deep sound, deeper than life.
And in confirmation254 came the awful faint whistling of a shell, advancing almost suddenly into a piercing, tearing shriek that would tear through the membrane255 of life. He heard it in his ears, but he heard it also in his soul, in tension. There was relief when the thing had swung by and struck, away beyond. He heard the hoarseness256 of its explosion, and the voice of the soldier calling to the horses. But he did not turn round to look. He only noticed a twig257 of holly with red berries fall like a gift on to the road below.
Not this time, not this time. Whither thou goest I will go. Did he say it to the shell, or to whom? Whither thou goest I will go. Then, the faint whistling of another shell dawned, and his blood became small and still to receive it. It drew nearer, like some horrible blast of wind; his blood lost consciousness. But in the second of suspension he saw the heavy shell swoop258 to earth, into the rocky bushes on the right, and earth and stones poured up into the sky. It was as if he heard no sound. The earth and stones and fragments of bush fell to earth again, and there was the same unchanging peace. The Germans had got the aim.
Would they move now? Would they retire? Yes. The officer was giving the last lightning-rapid orders to fire before withdrawing. A shell passed unnoticed in the rapidity of action. And then, into the silence, into the suspense259 where the soul brooded, finally crashed a noise and a darkness and a moment’s flaming agony and horror. Ah, he had seen the dark bird flying towards him, flying home this time. In one instant life and eternity260 went up in a conflagration261 of agony, then there was a weight of darkness.
When faintly something began to struggle in the darkness, a consciousness of himself, he was aware of a great load and a clanging sound. To have known the moment of death! And to be forced, before dying, to review it. So, fate, even in death.
There was a resounding262 of pain. It seemed to sound from the outside of his consciousness: like a loud bell clanging very near. Yet he knew it was himself. He must associate himself with it. After a lapse115 and a new effort, he identified a pain in his head, a large pain that clanged and resounded263. So far he could identify himself with himself. Then there was a lapse.
After a time he seemed to wake up again, and waking, to know that he was at the front, and that he was killed. He did not open his eyes. Light was not yet his. The clanging pain in his head rang out the rest of his consciousness. So he lapsed264 away from consciousness, in unutterable sick abandon of life.
Bit by bit, like a doom265 came the necessity to know. He was hit in the head. It was only a vague surmise266 at first. But in the swinging of the pendulum267 of pain, swinging ever nearer and nearer, to touch him into an agony of consciousness and a consciousness of agony, gradually the knowledge emerged—he must be hit in the head—hit on the left brow; if so, there would be blood—was there blood?—could he feel blood in his left eye? Then the clanging seemed to burst the membrane of his brain, like death-madness.
Was there blood on his face? Was hot blood flowing? Or was it dry blood congealing268 down his cheek? It took him hours even to ask the question: time being no more than an agony in darkness, without measurement.
A long time after he had opened his eyes he realised he was seeing something—something, something, but the effort to recall what was too great. No, no; no recall!
Were they the stars in the dark sky? Was it possible it was stars in the dark sky? Stars? The world? Ah, no, he could not know it! Stars and the world were gone for him, he closed his eyes. No stars, no sky, no world. No, No! The thick darkness of blood alone. It should be one great lapse into the thick darkness of blood in agony.
Death, oh, death! The world all blood, and the blood all writhing269 with death. The soul like the tiniest little light out on a dark sea, the sea of blood. And the light guttering270, beating, pulsing in a windless storm, wishing it could go out, yet unable.
There had been life. There had been Winifred and his children. But the frail death-agony effort to catch at straws of memory, straws of life from the past, brought on too great a nausea271. No, No! No Winifred, no children. No world, no people. Better the agony of dissolution ahead than the nausea of the effort backwards272. Better the terrible work should go forward, the dissolving into the black sea of death, in the extremity273 of dissolution, than that there should be any reaching back towards life. To forget! To forget! Utterly274, utterly to forget, in the great forgetting of death. To break the core and the unit of life, and to lapse out on the great darkness. Only that. To break the clue, and mingle275 and commingle276 with the one darkness, without afterwards or forwards. Let the black sea of death itself solve the problem of futurity. Let the will of man break and give up.
What was that? A light! A terrible light! Was it figures? Was it legs of a horse colossal—colossal above him: huge, huge?
The Germans heard a slight noise, and started. Then, in the glare of a light-bomb, by the side of the heap of earth thrown up by the shell, they saw the dead face.
该作者的其它产品
《Lady Chatterley‘s Lover查太莱夫人的情人》
《恋爱中的女人 Women in Love》
《The White Peacock白孔雀》
该作者的其它产品
《Lady Chatterley‘s Lover查太莱夫人的情人》
《恋爱中的女人 Women in Love》
《The White Peacock白孔雀》
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1
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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marshy
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| adj.沼泽的 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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17
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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sputtered
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| v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的过去式和过去分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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quiescence
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| n.静止 | |
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24
hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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robustness
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| 坚固性，健壮性；鲁棒性 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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28
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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32
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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bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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35
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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boggy
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| adj.沼泽多的 | |
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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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39
intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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42
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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45
grafted
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| 移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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47
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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48
rejuvenation
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| n. 复原，再生, 更新, 嫩化, 恢复 | |
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49
lusted
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| 贪求（lust的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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50
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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51
lair
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| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
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52
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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53
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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54
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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55
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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56
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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58
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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59
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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60
bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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61
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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62
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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63
intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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64
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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65
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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66
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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67
amateurish
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| n.业余爱好的，不熟练的 | |
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68
sketchy
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| adj.写生的，写生风格的，概略的 | |
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69
shovelling
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| v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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70
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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71
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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72
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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73
sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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74
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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75
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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76
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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77
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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78
tampering
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| v.窜改( tamper的现在分词 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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79
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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80
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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81
mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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82
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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83
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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84
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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85
winsome
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| n.迷人的，漂亮的 | |
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86
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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87
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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88
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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89
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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90
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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91
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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92
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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93
abet
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| v.教唆，鼓励帮助 | |
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94
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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95
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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96
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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castigation
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| n.申斥，强烈反对 | |
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98
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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99
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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100
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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101
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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102
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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103
owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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104
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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105
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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106
congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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107
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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108
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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109
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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110
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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111
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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113
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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114
collapses
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| 折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下 | |
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115
lapse
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| 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 | |
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116
awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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117
stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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118
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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119
spurted
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| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的过去式和过去分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺 | |
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120
gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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121
emanate
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| v.发自，来自，出自 | |
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122
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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123
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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124
effulgence
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| n.光辉 | |
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125
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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126
abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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127
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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128
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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129
neutralized
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| v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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130
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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131
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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132
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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133
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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134
adders
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| n.加法器，（欧洲产）蝰蛇（小毒蛇），（北美产无毒的）猪鼻蛇( adder的名词复数 ) | |
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135
blithe
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| adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的 | |
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136
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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137
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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138
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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139
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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140
sickle
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| n.镰刀 | |
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141
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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142
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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143
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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144
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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145
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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146
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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147
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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148
winsomely
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149
practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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150
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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151
prolix
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| adj.罗嗦的；冗长的 | |
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152
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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153
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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154
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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155
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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156
consultations
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| n.磋商（会议）( consultation的名词复数 )；商讨会；协商会；查找 | |
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157
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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158
surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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159
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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160
bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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161
ignominious
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|
| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
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162
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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163
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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164
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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165
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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166
nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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167
resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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168
thither
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|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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169
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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170
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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171
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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172
stigma
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| n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头 | |
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173
wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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174
massage
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| n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据 | |
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175
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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176
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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177
torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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178
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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179
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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180
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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181
seethe
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| vi.拥挤，云集；发怒，激动，骚动 | |
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182
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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183
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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184
swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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185
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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186
swerves
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| n.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的名词复数 )v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的第三人称单数 ) | |
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187
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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188
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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189
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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190
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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191
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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192
lameness
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| n. 跛, 瘸, 残废 | |
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193
chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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194
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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195
flippancy
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| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
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196
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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197
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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198
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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199
annulling
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| v.宣告无效( annul的现在分词 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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200
annul
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| v.宣告…无效，取消，废止 | |
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201
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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202
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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203
erectness
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| n.直立 | |
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204
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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205
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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206
annulled
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| v.宣告无效( annul的过去式和过去分词 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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207
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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208
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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209
slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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210
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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211
rosiness
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| n.玫瑰色；淡红色；光明；有希望 | |
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212
exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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213
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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214
bloc
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| n.集团；联盟 | |
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215
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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216
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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217
combative
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| adj.好战的；好斗的 | |
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218
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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219
atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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220
deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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221
subjugate
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| v.征服；抑制 | |
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222
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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223
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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224
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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225
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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226
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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227
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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228
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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229
tassels
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| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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231
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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232
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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233
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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234
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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235
abhorrent
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| adj.可恶的，可恨的，讨厌的 | |
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236
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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237
mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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238
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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239
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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240
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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241
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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242
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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243
piston
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| n.活塞 | |
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244
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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245
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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246
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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248
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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249
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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250
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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251
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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252
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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253
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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255
membrane
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| n.薄膜，膜皮，羊皮纸 | |
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256
hoarseness
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| n.嘶哑， 刺耳 | |
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257
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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258
swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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259
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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260
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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261
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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262
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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263
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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264
lapsed
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| 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 | |
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265
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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266
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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267
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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268
congealing
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的现在分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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269
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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270
guttering
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| n.用于建排水系统的材料；沟状切除术；开沟 | |
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271
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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272
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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273
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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274
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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275
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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276
commingle
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| v.混合 | |
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