One of the arrivals, a young man pleasantly distinguished7 by his good dress and elastic8 walk, hurried ahead of the others and entered one of the hotel ’buses. The horses took the steep road leisurely9. Spring was in the air. Up in the sky floated the white shifting clouds of May and June, light, sportive young creatures, playfully coursing the blue path of heaven, suddenly dipping and hiding behind the mountains, embracing and running away, crumpling10 up like handkerchiefs, elongating11 into gauzy scarfs, and ending their play by roguishly perching white caps on the mountain tops. There was unrest below, too, in the wind, which shook the lean trees, still wet from the rain, and set their limbs a-groaning softly and brought down a thousand shining drops. Sometimes a cool breath of snow descended12 from the mountains, and then there was a feel in the air both balmy and cutting. All things in the atmosphere and on the earth were in motion and astir with the ferment13 of impatience14. The horses tossed their heads and snorted as they now trotted15 down a descent, the sound of their bells jingling16 far ahead of them.
On arriving at the hotel, the young man made straight for the registry and looked over the list of guests. He was disappointed.
“What the deuce have I come here for?” he thought in vexation. “Stuck ’way up here on top of the mountain all alone, no company; why it’s worse than the office. I must have come either too early or too late. I never do have luck with my holidays. Not a single name do I know. If only there was a woman or two here to pick up a flirtation17 with, even a perfectly18 innocent one, if it must be, just to keep the week from being too utterly19 dismal20.”
The young man, a baron21 not very high up in the country’s nobility, held a government position, and had secured this short vacation not because he required it particularly, but because his colleagues had all got a week off in spring and he saw no reason for making a present of his “week off” to the government. Although not without inner resources, he was a thoroughly22 social being, his sociability23 being the very quality for which his friends liked him and for which he was welcomed in all circles. He was quite conscious of his inability to stay by himself and had no inclination24 to meet himself, as it were, but rather avoided his own company, feeling not the least urge to become intimately acquainted with his own soul. He knew he required contact with other human beings to kindle25 his talents and stir up the warmth and exuberance26 of his spirits. Alone he was like a match in a box, frosty and useless.
He paced up and down the hall, completely out of sorts, stopping now and then irresolutely27 to turn the leaves of the magazines, or to glance at the newspapers, or to strike up a waltz on the piano in the music-room. Finally he sat down in a sulk and watched the growing dusk and the gray mist steal in patches between the fir-trees. After a long, vain, fretful hour he took refuge in the dining-room.
As yet only a few of the tables were occupied. He took them in at a swift glance. No use. No one he knew, except—he responded to the greeting listlessly—a gentleman to whom he had spoken on the train, and farther off a familiar face from the metropolis28. No one else. Not a single woman to promise even a momentary29 adventure. He became more and more impatient and out of sorts.
Being a young man favored with a handsome face, he was always prepared for a new experience. He was of the sort of men who are constantly on the lookout30 for an opportunity to plunge31 into an adventure for the sake of its novelty, yet whom nothing surprises because, forever lying in wait, they have calculated every possibility in advance. Such men never overlook any element of the erotic. The very first glance they cast at a woman is a probe into the sensual, a searching, impartial32 probe that knows no distinction between the wife of a friend or the maid who opens the door to her house. One rarely realizes, in using the ready-made word “woman-hunter,” which we toss in contempt at such men, how true the expression is and how much of faithful observation it implies. In their watchful33 alertness all the passionate34 instincts of the chase are afire, the stalking, the excitement, the cruel cunning. They are always at their post, always ready and determined35 to follow the tracks of an adventure up to the very brink36 of the precipice37, always loaded with passion, not with the passion of a lover, but with the cold, calculating, dangerous passion of a gambler. Some of them are doggedly38 persevering39, their whole life shaping itself, from this expectancy40, into one perpetual adventure. Each day is divided for them into a hundred little sensual experiences—a passing look, a flitting smile, an accidental contact of the knees—and each year into a hundred such days, in which the sensual experience constitutes the ever-flowing, life-giving and quickening source of their existence.
There was no partner for a game here—that the baron’s experienced eye instantly detected. And there is nothing more exasperating41 than for a player with cards in his hands, conscious of his ability, to be sitting at the green table vainly awaiting a partner. The baron called for a newspaper, but merely ran his eyes down the columns fretfully. His thoughts were crippled and he stumbled over the words.
A tall voluptuous45 figure in silk crackled by his table, followed by a small, pale boy in a black velvet46 suit. The boy eyed the baron curiously47, as the two seated themselves at a table reserved for them opposite to him. The child was making evident efforts to be correct in his behavior, but propriety48 seemed to be out of keeping with the dark, restless expression of his eyes.
The lady—the young man’s attention was fixed49 upon her only—was very much betoiletted and dressed with conspicuous50 elegance51. She was a type that particularly appealed to the baron, a Jewess with a somewhat opulent figure, close to, though not yet arrived at, the borderline of overmaturity, and evidently of a passionate nature like his, yet sufficiently52 experienced to hide her temperament53 behind a veil of dignified54 melancholy55. He could not see her eyes, but was able to admire the lovely curve of her eyebrows56 arching clean and well-defined above a nose delicate yet nobly curved and giving her face distinction. It was her nose that betrayed her race. Her hair, in keeping with everything else about her, was remarkably57 luxuriant. Her beauty seemed to have grown sated and boastful with the sure sense of the wealth of admiration58 it had evoked59.
She gave her order in a very low voice and told the boy to stop making a noise with his fork, this with apparent indifference60 to the baron’s cautious, stealthy gaze. She seemed not to observe his look, though, as a matter of fact, it was his keen, alert vigilance that had made her constrained61.
A flash lit up the gloom of the baron’s face. His nerves responded as to an underground current, his muscles tautened, his figure straightened up, fire came to his eyes. He was not unlike the women who require a masculine presence to bring out their full powers. He needed the stimulation62 of sex completely to energize63 his faculties64. The hunter in him scented65 the prey66. His eyes tried to challenge hers, and her glance crossed his, but waveringly without ever giving an occasional relaxation67 of the muscles round her mouth, as if in an incipient68 smile, but he was not sure, and the very uncertainty69 of it aroused him. The one thing that held out promise was her constant looking away from him, which argued both resistance and embarrassment70. Then, too, the conversation that she kept up with her child encouraged him, being obviously designed for show, while her outward calm, he felt, was forced and quite superficial, actually indicating the commencement of inner agitation71. He was a-quiver. The play had begun.
He made his dinner last a long while, and for a full half-hour, almost steadily72, he kept the woman fixed with his gaze, until it had travelled over every line of her face and touched, unseen, every spot of her body.
Outside the darkness fell heavily, the woods groaned73 as if in childish fear of the large, rain-laden clouds stretching out gray hands after them. The shadows deepened in the room, and the silence seemed to press the people closer together. Under the dead weight of the stillness, the baron clearly noted74 that the mother’s conversation with her son became still more constrained and artificial and would soon, he was sure, cease altogether.
He resolved upon an experiment. He rose and went to the door slowly, looking past the woman at the prospect75 outside. At the door he gave a quick turn, as if he had forgotten something, and caught her looking at him with keen interest. That titillated76 him.
He waited in the hall. Presently she appeared, holding the boy’s hand and paused for a while to look through some magazines and show the child a few pictures. The baron walked up to the table with a casual air, pretending to hunt for a periodical. His real intention was to probe deeper below the moist sheen of her eyes and perhaps even begin a conversation.
The woman instantly turned away and tapped the boy’s shoulder.
“Viens, Edgar. Au lit.”
She rustled77 past the baron. He followed her with his eyes, somewhat disappointed. He had counted upon making the acquaintance that very evening. Her brusque manner was disconcerting. However, there was a fascination78 in her resistance, and the very uncertainty added zest79 to the chase. At all events he had found a partner, and the play could begin.
点击收听单词发音
1 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 exacerbated | |
v.使恶化,使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 puffing | |
v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 shriek | |
v./n.尖叫,叫喊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 clattered | |
发出咔哒声(clatter的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 elastic | |
n.橡皮圈,松紧带;adj.有弹性的;灵活的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 crumpling | |
压皱,弄皱( crumple的现在分词 ); 变皱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 elongating | |
v.延长,加长( elongate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 ferment | |
vt.使发酵;n./vt.(使)激动,(使)动乱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 trotted | |
小跑,急走( trot的过去分词 ); 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 jingling | |
叮当声 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 flirtation | |
n.调情,调戏,挑逗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 baron | |
n.男爵;(商业界等)巨头,大王 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 sociability | |
n.好交际,社交性,善于交际 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 kindle | |
v.点燃,着火 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 exuberance | |
n.丰富;繁荣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 irresolutely | |
adv.优柔寡断地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 metropolis | |
n.首府;大城市 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 lookout | |
n.注意,前途,瞭望台 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 impartial | |
adj.(in,to)公正的,无偏见的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 watchful | |
adj.注意的,警惕的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 brink | |
n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘,边沿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 precipice | |
n.悬崖,危急的处境 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 doggedly | |
adv.顽强地,固执地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 persevering | |
a.坚忍不拔的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 expectancy | |
n.期望,预期,(根据概率统计求得)预期数额 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 exasperating | |
adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 rustling | |
n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 voluptuous | |
adj.肉欲的,骄奢淫逸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 propriety | |
n.正当行为;正当;适当 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 evoked | |
[医]诱发的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 stimulation | |
n.刺激,激励,鼓舞 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 energize | |
vt.给予(某人或某物)精力、能量 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 scented | |
adj.有香味的;洒香水的;有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 relaxation | |
n.松弛,放松;休息;消遣;娱乐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 incipient | |
adj.起初的,发端的,初期的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 uncertainty | |
n.易变,靠不住,不确知,不确定的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 groaned | |
v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 titillated | |
v.使觉得痒( titillate的过去式和过去分词 );逗引;激发;使高兴 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 rustled | |
v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 zest | |
n.乐趣;滋味,风味;兴趣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |