AN UNCOUNTED HOUR

 We were standing¹, Lady Mickleham and I, at a door which led from the morning room to the terrace at The Towers. I was on a visit to the historic pile (by Vanbrugh—out of the money accumulated by the third Earl—Paymaster to the Forces—temp. Queen Anne). The morning room is a large room. Archie was somewhere in it. Lady Mickleham held a jar containing pate² de foie gras; from time to time she dug a piece out with a fork and flung the morsel³ to a big retriever which was sitting on the terrace. The morning was fine, but cloudy. Lady Mickleham wore blue. The dog swallowed the pate with greediness.

 

“It’s so bad for him,” sighed she; “but the dear likes it so much.”

 

“How human the creatures are,” said I.

 

“Do you know,” pursued Lady Mickleham, “that the Dowager says I’m extravagant⁴. She thinks dogs ought not to be fed on pate de foie gras.”

 

“Your extravagance,” I observed, “is probably due to your having been brought up on a moderate income. I have felt the effect myself.”

 

“Of course,” said Dolly, “we are hit by the agricultural depression.”

 

“The Carters also,” I murmured, “are landed gentry⁵.”

 

“After all, I don’t see much point in economy, do you, Mr. Carter?”

 

“Economy,” I remarked, putting my hands in my pockets, “is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something which you probably won’t want.”

 

“Isn’t that clever?” asked Dolly in an apprehensive⁶ tone.

 

“Oh, dear, no,” I answered reassuringly⁷. “Anybody can do that—if they care to try, you know.”

 

Dolly tossed a piece of pate to the retriever.

 

“I have made a discovery lately,” I observed.

 

“What are you two talking about?” called Archie.

 

“You’re not meant to hear,” said Dolly, without turning round.

 

“Yet, if it’s a discovery, he ought to hear it.”

 

“He’s made a good many lately,” said Dolly.

 

She dug out the last bit of pate, flung it to the dog, and handed the empty pot to me.

 

“Don’t be so allegorical,” I implored⁸. “Besides, it’s really not just to Archie. No doubt the dog is a nice one, but—”

 

“How foolish you are this morning! What’s the discovery?”

 

“An entirely⁹ surprising one.”

 

“Oh, but let me hear! It’s nothing about Archie, is it?”

 

“No, I’ve told you all Archie’s sins.”

 

“Nor Mrs. Hilary? I wish it was Mrs. Hilary!”

 

“Shall we walk on the terrace?” I suggested.

 

“Oh, yes, let’s,” said Dolly, stepping out, and putting on a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, which she caught up from a chair hard by. “It isn’t Mrs. Hilary?” she added, sitting down on a garden seat.

 

“No,” said I, leaning on a sundial which stood by the seat.

 

“Well, what is it?”

 

“It is simple,” said I, “and serious. It is not, therefore, like you, Lady Mickleham.”

 

“It’s like Mrs. Hilary,” said Dolly.

 

“No; because it isn’t pleasant. By the way, you are jealous of Mrs. Hilary?”

 

Dolly said nothing at all. She took off her hat, roughened her hair a little, and assumed an effective pose. Still, it is a fact (for what it is worth) that she doesn’t care much about Mrs. Hilary.

 

“The discovery,” I continued, “is that I’m growing middle-aged¹⁰.”

 

“You are middle-aged,” said Dolly, spearing her hat with its long pin.

 

I was, very naturally, nettled¹¹ at this.

 

“So will you be soon,” I retorted.

 

“Not soon,” said Dolly.

 

“Some day,” I insisted.

 

After a pause of about half a minute, Dolly said, “I suppose so.”

 

“You will become,” I pursued, idly drawing patterns with my finger on the sundial, “wrinkled, rough, fat—and, perhaps, good.”

 

“You’re very disagreeable today,” said Dolly.

 

She rose and stood by me.

 

“What do the mottoes mean?” she asked.

 

There were two; I will not say they contradicted one another, but they looked at life from different points of view.

 

“Pereunt et imputantur,” I read.

 

“Well, what’s that, Mr. Carter?”

 

“A trite¹², but offensive, assertion,” said I, lighting¹³ a cigarette.

 

“But what does it mean?” she asked, a pucker¹⁴ on her forehead.

 

“What does it matter?” said I. “Let’s try the other.”

 

“The other is longer.”

 

“And better. Horas non numero nisi serenas.”

 

“And what’s that?”

 

I translated literally¹⁵. Dolly clapped her hands, and her face gleamed with smiles.

 

“I like that one,” she cried.

 

“Stop!” said I imperatively¹⁶. “You’ll set it moving!”

 

“It’s very sensible,” said she.

 

“More freely rendered, it means, I live only when you—”

 

“By Jove!” remarked Archie, coming up behind us, pipe in mouth, “there was a lot of rain last night. I’ve just measured it in the gauge¹⁷.”

 

“Some people measure everything,” said I, with a displeased¹⁸ air. “It is a detestable habit.”

 

“Archie, what does Pereunt et imputantur mean?”

 

“Eh? Oh, I see. Well, I say, Carter!—Oh, well, you know, I suppose it means you’ve got to pay for your fun, doesn’t it?”

 

“Oh, is that all? I was afraid it was something horrid¹⁹. Why did you frighten me, Mr. Carter?”

 

“I think it is rather horrid,” said I.

 

“Why, it isn’t even true,” said Dolly scornfully.

 

Now when I heard this ancient and respectable legend thus cavalierly challenged, I fell to studying it again, and presently I exclaimed:

 

“Yes, you’re right! If it said that, it wouldn’t be true; but Archie translated it wrong.”

 

“Well, you have a shot,” suggested Archie.

 

“The oysters²⁰ are eaten and put down in the bill,” said I. “And you will observe, Archie, that it does not say in whose bill.”

 

“Ah!” said Dolly.

 

“Well, somebody’s got to pay,” persisted Archie.

 

“Oh, yes, somebody,” laughed Dolly.

 

“Well, I don’t know,” said Archie. “I suppose the chap that has the fun—”

 

“It’s not always a chap,” observed Dolly.

 

“Well, then the individual,” amended²¹ Archie. “I suppose he’d have to pay.”

 

“It doesn’t say so,” I remarked mildly. “And according to my small experience—”

 

“I’m quite sure your meaning is right, Mr. Carter,” said Dolly in an authoritative²² tone.

 

“As for the other motto, Archie,” said I, “it merely means that a woman considers all hours wasted which she does not spend in the society of her husband.”

 

“Oh, come, you don’t gammon me,” said Archie. “It means that the sun don’t shine unless it’s fine, you know.”

 

Archie delivered this remarkable²³ discovery in a tone of great self satisfaction.

 

“Oh, you dear old thing!” said Dolly.

 

“Well, it does you know,” said he.

 

There was a pause. Archie kissed his wife (I am not complaining; he has, of course, a perfect right to kiss his wife) and strolled away toward the hothouses.

 

I lit another cigarette. Then Dolly, pointing to the stem of the dial, cried:

 

“Why, here’s another inscription—oh, and in English?”

 

She was right. There was another—carelessly scratched on the old battered²⁴ column—nearly effaced²⁵, for the characters had been but lightly marked—and yet not, as I conceived from the tenor²⁶ of the words, very old.

 

“What is it?” asked Dolly, peering over my shoulder, as I bent²⁷ down to read the letters, and shading her eyes with her hand. (Why didn’t she put on her hat? We touch the Incomprehensible.)

 

“It is,” said I, “a singularly poor, shallow, feeble, and undesirable²⁸ little verse.”

 

“Read it out,” said Dolly.

 

So I read it. The silly fellow had written:

 

Life is Love, the poets tell us, In the little books they sell us; But pray, ma’am—what’s of Life the Use, If Life be Love? For Love’s the Deuce.

 

Dolly began to laugh gently, digging the pin again into her hat.

 

“I wonder,” she said, “whether they used to come and sit by this old dial just as we did this morning!”

 

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said I. “And another point occurs to me, Lady Mickleham.”

 

“Oh, does it? What’s that, Mr. Carter?”

 

“Do you think that anybody measured the rain gauge!”

 

Dolly looked at me very gravely.

 

“I’m so sorry when you do that,” said she pathetically.

 

I smiled.

 

“I really am,” said dolly. “But you don’t mean it, do you?”

 

“Certainly not,” said I.

 

Dolly smiled.

 

“No more than he did!” said I, pointing to the sun dial.

 

And then we both smiled.

 

“Will this hour count, Mr. Carter?” asked Dolly, as she turned away.

 

“That would be rather strict,” said I.

 

 

 

1 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

2 pate   

n.头顶；光顶

参考例句：

• The few strands of white hair at the back of his gourd-like pate also quivered.他那长在半个葫芦样的头上的白发，也随着笑声一齐抖动着。
• He removed his hat to reveal a glowing bald pate.他脱下帽子，露出了发亮的光头。

3 morsel   

n.一口，一点点

参考例句：

• He refused to touch a morsel of the food they had brought.他们拿来的东西他一口也不吃。
• The patient has not had a morsel of food since the morning.从早上起病人一直没有进食。

4 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

5 gentry   

n.绅士阶级，上层阶级

参考例句：

• Landed income was the true measure of the gentry.来自土地的收入是衡量是否士绅阶层的真正标准。
• Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry.宁做自由民之首，不居贵族之末。

6 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

• She was deeply apprehensive about her future.她对未来感到非常担心。
• He was rather apprehensive of failure.他相当害怕失败。

7 reassuringly   

ad.安心，可靠

参考例句：

• He patted her knee reassuringly. 他轻拍她的膝盖让她放心。
• The doctor smiled reassuringly. 医生笑了笑，让人心里很踏实。

8 implored   

恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She implored him to stay. 她恳求他留下。
• She implored him with tears in her eyes to forgive her. 她含泪哀求他原谅她。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

10 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

11 nettled   

v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• My remarks clearly nettled her. 我的话显然惹恼了她。
• He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together. 他刚才有些来火，但现在又恢复了常态。 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛

12 trite   

adj.陈腐的

参考例句：

• The movie is teeming with obvious and trite ideas.这部电影充斥着平铺直叙的陈腐观点。
• Yesterday,in the restaurant,Lorraine had seemed trite,blurred,worn away.昨天在饭店里，洛兰显得庸俗、堕落、衰老了。

13 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

14 pucker   

v.撅起，使起皱；n.（衣服上的）皱纹，褶子

参考例句：

• She puckered her lips into a rosebud and kissed him on the nose.她双唇努起犹如一朵玫瑰花蕾，在他的鼻子上吻了一下。
• Toby's face puckered.托比的脸皱了起来。

15 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

16 imperatively   

adv.命令式地

参考例句：

• Drying wet rice rapidly and soaking or rewetting dry rice kernels imperatively results in severe fissuring. 潮湿米粒快速干燥或干燥籽粒浸水、回潮均会产生严重的裂纹。 来自互联网
• Drying wet rice kernels rapidly, Soaking or Rewetting dry rice Kernels imperatively results in severe fissuring. 潮湿米粒的快速干燥，干燥籽粒的浸水或回潮均会带来严重的裂纹。 来自互联网

17 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

18 displeased   

a.不快的

参考例句：

• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。
• He was displeased about the whole affair. 他对整个事情感到很不高兴。

19 horrid   

adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的

参考例句：

• I'm not going to the horrid dinner party.我不打算去参加这次讨厌的宴会。
• The medicine is horrid and she couldn't get it down.这种药很难吃，她咽不下去。

20 oysters   

牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We don't have oysters tonight, but the crayfish are very good. 我们今晚没有牡蛎供应。但小龙虾是非常好。
• She carried a piping hot grill of oysters and bacon. 她端出一盘滚烫的烤牡蛎和咸肉。

21 Amended   

adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He asked to see the amended version. 他要求看修订本。
• He amended his speech by making some additions and deletions. 他对讲稿作了些增删修改。

22 authoritative   

adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的

参考例句：

• David speaks in an authoritative tone.大卫以命令的口吻说话。
• Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼，同时又透着威严。

23 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

24 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

25 effaced   

v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色

参考例句：

• Someone has effaced part of the address on his letter. 有人把他信上的一部分地址擦掉了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The name of the ship had been effaced from the menus. 那艘船的名字已经从菜单中删除了。 来自辞典例句

26 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。

27 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

28 undesirable   

adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子

参考例句：

• They are the undesirable elements among the employees.他们是雇员中的不良分子。
• Certain chemicals can induce undesirable changes in the nervous system.有些化学物质能在神经系统中引起不良变化。