He had hoped to travel faster during these last days, if he should have to turn back, because he would travel lighter: he had given no thought to the power of those monotonous4 rocks to weary and to depress with their desolation when the hope that had somewhat illumined their grimness was gone: he had thought little of turning back at all, till the tenth evening came and no pale-blue mountains, and he suddenly looked at his provisions. And all the monotony of his homeward journey was broken only by occasional fears that he might not be able to come to the fields we know.
The myriad5 rocks lay larger and thicker than tombstones and not so carefully shaped, yet the waste had the look of a graveyard6 stretching over the world with unrecording stones above nameless heads. Chilled by the bitter nights, guided by blazing sunsets, he went on through the morning mists and the empty noons and weary birdless evenings. More than a week went by since he had turned, and the last of his water was gone, and still he saw no sign of the fields we know, or anything more familiar than rocks that he seemed to remember and which would have misled him northward7, southward, or eastward8, were it not for the red November sun that he followed and sometimes some friendly star. And then at last, just as the darkness fell blackening that rocky multitude, there showed westward9 over the rocks, pale at first against remnants of sunset, but growing more and more orange, a window under one of the gables of man. Alveric rose and walked towards it till the rocks in the darkness and weariness overcame him and he lay down and slept; and the little yellow window shone into his dreams and made forms of hope as fair as any that came from Elfland.
The house that he saw in the morning when he woke seemed impossible to be the one whose tiny light had held out hope and help to him in the loneliness; it seemed now too plain and common. He recognized it for a house not far from the one of the leather-worker. Soon he came to a pool and drank. He came to a garden in which a woman was working early, and she asked him whence he had come. "From the East," he said, and pointed10, and she did not understand. And so he came again to the cottage from which he had started, to ask once more for hospitality from the old man who had housed him twice.
He was standing11 in his doorway12 as Alveric came, walking wearily, and again he made him welcome. He gave him milk and then food. And Alveric ate, and then rested all the day: it was not till evening he spoke13. But when he had eaten and rested and he was at the table again, and supper was now before him and there was light and warmth, he felt all at once the need of human speech. And then he poured out the story of that great journey over the land where the things of man ceased, and where yet no birds or little beasts had come, or even flowers, a chronicle of desolation. And the old man listened to the vivid words and said nothing, making some comments of his own only when Alveric spoke of the fields we know. He heard with politeness but said never a word of the land from which Elfland had ebbed14. It was indeed as though all the land to the East were delusion15, and as though Alveric had been restored from it or had awoken from dream, and were now among reasonably daily things, and there was nothing to say of the things of dream. Certainly never a word would the old man say in recognition of Elfland, or of anything eighty yards East of his cottage door. Then Alveric went to his bed and the old man sat alone till his fire was low, thinking of what he had heard and shaking his head. And all the next day Alveric rested there or walked in the old man's autumn-smitten garden, and sometimes he tried again to speak with his host of his great journey in the desolate16 land, but got from him no admission that such lands were, checked always by his avoidance of the topic, as though to speak of these lands might bring them nearer.
And Alveric pondered on many reasons for this. Had the old man been to Elfland in his youth and seen something he greatly feared, perhaps barely escaping from death or an age-long love? Was Elfland a mystery too great to be troubled by human voices? Did these folk dwelling17 there at the edge of our world know well the unearthly beauty of all the glories of Elfland, and fear that even to speak of them might be a lure18 to draw them whither their resolution, barely perhaps, held them back? Or might a word said of the magical land bring it nearer, to make fantastic and elvish the fields we know? To all these ponderings of Alveric there was no answer.
And yet one more day Alveric rested, and after that he set out to return to Erl. He set out in the morning, and his host came with him out of his doorway, saying farewell and speaking of his journey home and of the affairs of Erl, which were food for gossip over many farmlands. And great was the contrast between the good man's approval that he showed thus for the fields we know, over which Alveric journeyed now, and his disapproval19 for those other lands whither Alveric's hopes still turned. And they parted, and the old man's farewells dwindled20, and then he turned back into his house, rubbing his hands contentedly21 as he slowly went, for he was glad to see one who had looked toward the fantastic lands turn now to a journey across the fields we know.
In those fields the frost was master, and Alveric walked over the crisp grey grass and breathed the clear fresh air thinking little of his home or his son, but planning how even yet he might come to Elfland; for he thought that further North there might be a way, coming round perhaps behind the pale-blue mountains. That Elfland had ebbed too far for him to overtake it there he felt despairingly sure, but scarcely believed it had gone along the entire frontier of twilight22, where Elfland touches Earth as far as poet has sung. Further North he might find the frontier, unmoved, lying sleepy with twilight, and come under the pale-blue mountains and see his wife again: full of these thoughts he went over the misty23 mellow24 fields.
And full of his dreams and plans about that phantasmal land he came in the afternoon to the woods that brood above Erl. He entered the wood, and deep though he was amongst thoughts that were far from there, he soon saw the smoke of a fire a little way off, rising grey among the dark oak-boles. He went towards it to see who was there, and there were his son and Ziroonderel warming their hands at the fire.
"Where have you been?" called Orion as soon as he saw him.
"Upon a journey," said Alveric.
"Oth is hunting," Orion said, and he pointed in the direction whence the wind was fanning the smoke. And Ziroonderel said nothing, for she saw more in Alveric's eyes than any questions of hers would have drawn25 from his tongue. Then Orion showed him a deer-skin on which he was sitting. "Oth shot it," he said.
There seemed to be a magic all round that fire of big logs quietly smouldering in the woods upon Autumn's discarded robe that lay brilliant there; and it was not the magic of Elfland, nor had Ziroonderel called it up with her wand: it was only a magic of the wood's very own.
And Alveric stood there for a while in silence, watching the boy and the witch by their fire in the woods, and understanding that the time was come when he must tell Orion things that were not clear to himself and that were puzzling him even now. Yet he did not speak of them then, but saying something of the affairs of Erl, turned and walked on toward his castle, while Ziroonderel and the boy came back later with Oth.
And Alveric commanded supper when he came to his gateway26, and ate it alone in the great hall that there was in the Castle of Erl, and all the while he was pondering words to say. And then he went in the evening up to the nursery and told the boy how his mother was gone for a while to Elfland, to her father's palace (which may only be told of in song). And, unheeding any words of Orion then, he held on with the brief tale that he had come to tell, and told how Elfland was gone.
"But that cannot be," said Orion, "for I hear the horns of Elfland every day."
"You can hear them?" Alveric said.
And the boy replied, "I hear them blowing at evening."
点击收听单词发音
1 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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2 drearily | |
沉寂地,厌倦地,可怕地 | |
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3 lighter | |
n.打火机,点火器;驳船;v.用驳船运送;light的比较级 | |
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4 monotonous | |
adj.单调的,一成不变的,使人厌倦的 | |
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5 myriad | |
adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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6 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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7 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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8 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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9 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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10 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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11 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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12 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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13 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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14 ebbed | |
(指潮水)退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 ); 落; 减少; 衰落 | |
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15 delusion | |
n.谬见,欺骗,幻觉,迷惑 | |
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16 desolate | |
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂 | |
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17 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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18 lure | |
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引 | |
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19 disapproval | |
n.反对,不赞成 | |
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20 dwindled | |
v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21 contentedly | |
adv.心满意足地 | |
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22 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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23 misty | |
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的 | |
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24 mellow | |
adj.柔和的;熟透的;v.变柔和;(使)成熟 | |
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25 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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26 gateway | |
n.大门口,出入口,途径,方法 | |
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