Hewet and Rachel had long ago reached the particular place onthe edge of the cliff where, looking down into the sea, you mightchance on jelly-fish and dolphins. Looking the other way, the vastexpanse of land gave them a sensation which is given by no view,however extended, in England; the villages and the hills therehaving names, and the farthest horizon of hills as often as notdipping and showing a line of mist which is the sea; here the viewwas one of infinite sun-dried earth, earth pointed2 in pinnacles,heaped in vast barriers, earth widening and spreading away and awaylike the immense floor of the sea, earth chequered by day and by night,and partitioned into different lands, where famous cities were founded,and the races of men changed from dark savages3 to white civilised men,and back to dark savages again. Perhaps their English bloodmade this prospect4 uncomfortably impersonal5 and hostile to them,for having once turned their faces that way they next turned themto the sea, and for the rest of the time sat looking at the sea.
The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here, which seemedincapable of surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself, clouded itspure tint6 with grey, and swirled7 through narrow channels and dashedin a shiver of broken waters against massive granite8 rocks.
It was this sea that flowed up to the mouth of the Thames;and the Thames washed the roots of the city of London.
Hewet's thoughts had followed some such course as this, for thefirst thing he said as they stood on the edge of the cliff was--"I'd like to be in England!"Rachel lay down on her elbow, and parted the tall grasses which grewon the edge, so that she might have a clear view. The water wasvery calm; rocking up and down at the base of the cliff, and so clearthat one could see the red of the stones at the bottom of it.
So it had been at the birth of the world, and so it had remainedever since. Probably no human being had ever broken that waterwith boat or with body. Obeying some impulse, she determined9 to marthat eternity10 of peace, and threw the largest pebble11 she could find.
It struck the water, and the ripples12 spread out and out.
Hewet looked down too.
"It's wonderful," he said, as they widened and ceased. The freshnessand the newness seemed to him wonderful. He threw a pebble next.
There was scarcely any sound.
"But England," Rachel murmured in the absorbed tone of one whose eyesare concentrated upon some sight. "What d'you want with England?""My friends chiefly," he said, "and all the things one does."He could look at Rachel without her noticing it. She was stillabsorbed in the water and the exquisitely13 pleasant sensationswhich a little depth of the sea washing over rocks suggests.
He noticed that she was wearing a dress of deep blue colour, made ofa soft thin cotton stuff, which clung to the shape of her body.
It was a body with the angles and hollows of a young woman's bodynot yet developed, but in no way distorted, and thus interestingand even lovable. Raising his eyes Hewet observed her head;she had taken her hat off, and the face rested on her hand.
As she looked down into the sea, her lips were slightly parted.
The expression was one of childlike intentness, as if she werewatching for a fish to swim past over the clear red rocks.
Nevertheless her twenty-four years of life had given her a lookof reserve. Her hand, which lay on the ground, the fingers curlingslightly in, was well shaped and competent; the square-tippedand nervous fingers were the fingers of a musician. With somethinglike anguish14 Hewet realised that, far from being unattractive,her body was very attractive to him. She looked up suddenly.
Her eyes were full of eagerness and interest.
"You write novels?" she asked.
For the moment he could not think what he was saying. He wasovercome with the desire to hold her in his arms.
"Oh yes," he said. "That is, I want to write them."She would not take her large grey eyes off his face.
"Novels," she repeated. "Why do you write novels? You oughtto write music. Music, you see"--she shifted her eyes, and becameless desirable as her brain began to work, inflicting15 a certainchange upon her face--"music goes straight for things. It saysall there is to say at once. With writing it seems to me there'sso much"--she paused for an expression, and rubbed her fingersin the earth--"scratching on the matchbox. Most of the time when Iwas reading Gibbon this afternoon I was horribly, oh infernally,damnably bored!" She gave a shake of laughter, looking at Hewet,who laughed too.
"_I_ shan't lend you books," he remarked.
"Why is it," Rachel continued, "that I can laugh at Mr. Hirstto you, but not to his face? At tea I was completely overwhelmed,not by his ugliness--by his mind." She enclosed a circle in the airwith her hands. She realised with a great sense of comfort whoeasily she could talk to Hewet, those thorns or ragged16 cornerswhich tear the surface of some relationships being smoothed away.
"So I observed," said Hewet. "That's a thing that never ceasesto amaze me." He had recovered his composure to such an extentthat he could light and smoke a cigarette, and feeling her ease,became happy and easy himself.
"The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women,have for men," he went on. "I believe we must have the sort of powerover you that we're said to have over horses. They see us three timesas big as we are or they'd never obey us. For that very reason,I'm inclined to doubt that you'll ever do anything even when youhave the vote." He looked at her reflectively. She appeared verysmooth and sensitive and young. "It'll take at least six generationsbefore you're sufficiently17 thick-skinned to go into law courtsand business offices. Consider what a bully18 the ordinary man is,"he continued, "the ordinary hard-working, rather ambitious solicitoror man of business with a family to bring up and a certain positionto maintain. And then, of course, the daughters have to give wayto the sons; the sons have to be educated; they have to bully andshove for their wives and families, and so it all comes over again.
And meanwhile there are the women in the background. . . . Do youreally think that the vote will do you any good?""The vote?" Rachel repeated. She had to visualise it as a littlebit of paper which she dropped into a box before she understoodhis question, and looking at each other they smiled at somethingabsurd in the question.
"Not to me," she said. "But I play the piano. . . . Are men reallylike that?" she asked, returning to the question that interested her.
"I'm not afraid of you." She looked at him easily.
"Oh, I'm different," Hewet replied. "I've got between six and sevenhundred a year of my own. And then no one takes a novelist seriously,thank heavens. There's no doubt it helps to make up for the drudgeryof a profession if a man's taken very, very seriously by every one--if he gets appointments, and has offices and a title, and lotsof letters after his name, and bits of ribbon and degrees.
I don't grudge19 it 'em, though sometimes it comes over me--what anamazing concoction20! What a miracle the masculine conception oflife is--judges, civil servants, army, navy, Houses of Parliament,lord mayors--what a world we've made of it! Look at Hirst now.
I assure you," he said, "not a day's passed since we came here withouta discussion as to whether he's to stay on at Cambridge or to goto the Bar. It's his career--his sacred career. And if I'veheard it twenty times, I'm sure his mother and sister have heardit five hundred times. Can't you imagine the family conclaves,and the sister told to run out and feed the rabbits because St. Johnmust have the school-room to himself--'St. John's working,' 'St. Johnwants his tea brought to him.' Don't you know the kind of thing?
No wonder that St. John thinks it a matter of considerable importance.
It is too. He has to earn his living. But St. John's sister--"Hewet puffed21 in silence. "No one takes her seriously, poor dear.
She feeds the rabbits.""Yes," said Rachel. "I've fed rabbits for twenty-four years; it seemsodd now." She looked meditative22, and Hewet, who had been talkingmuch at random23 and instinctively24 adopting the feminine point of view,saw that she would now talk about herself, which was what he wanted,for so they might come to know each other.
She looked back meditatively25 upon her past life.
"How do you spend your day?" he asked.
She meditated26 still. When she thought of their day it seemedto her it was cut into four pieces by their meals. These divisionswere absolutely rigid27, the contents of the day having to accommodatethemselves within the four rigid bars. Looking back at her life,that was what she saw.
"Breakfast nine; luncheon28 one; tea five; dinner eight," she said.
"Well," said Hewet, "what d'you do in the morning?""I need to play the piano for hours and hours.""And after luncheon?""Then I went shopping with one of my aunts. Or we went to see some one,or we took a message; or we did something that had to be done--the taps might be leaking. They visit the poor a good deal--old char-women with bad legs, women who want tickets for hospitals.
Or I used to walk in the park by myself. And after tea peoplesometimes called; or in summer we sat in the garden or played croquet;in winter I read aloud, while they worked; after dinner I playedthe piano and they wrote letters. If father was at home we had friendsof his to dinner, and about once a month we went up to the play.
Every now and then we dined out; sometimes I went to a dancein London, but that was difficult because of getting back.
The people we saw were old family friends, and relations, but wedidn't see many people. There was the clergyman, Mr. Pepper,and the Hunts. Father generally wanted to be quiet when hecame home, because he works very hard at Hull29. Also my aunts aren'tvery strong. A house takes up a lot of time if you do it properly.
Our servants were always bad, and so Aunt Lucy used to do a good dealin the kitchen, and Aunt Clara, I think, spent most of the morningdusting the drawing-room and going through the linen30 and silver.
Then there were the dogs. They had to be exercised, besides beingwashed and brushed. Now Sandy's dead, but Aunt Clara has a veryold cockatoo that came from India. Everything in our house,"she exclaimed, "comes from somewhere! It's full of old furniture,not really old, Victorian, things mother's family had or father'sfamily had, which they didn't like to get rid of, I suppose,though we've really no room for them. It's rather a nice house,"she continued, "except that it's a little dingy--dull I should say."She called up before her eyes a vision of the drawing-room at home;it was a large oblong room, with a square window opening on the garden.
Green plush chairs stood against the wall; there was a heavy carvedbook-case, with glass doors, and a general impression of fadedsofa covers, large spaces of pale green, and baskets with piecesof wool-work dropping out of them. Photographs from old Italianmasterpieces hung on the walls, and views of Venetian bridges andSwedish waterfalls which members of the family had seen years ago.
There were also one or two portraits of fathers and grandmothers,and an engraving31 of John Stuart Mill, after the picture by Watts32.
It was a room without definite character, being neither typicallyand openly hideous33, nor strenuously34 artistic35, nor really comfortable.
Rachel roused herself from the contemplation of this familiarpicture.
"But this isn't very interesting for you," she said, looking up.
"Good Lord!" Hewet exclaimed. "I've never been so much interestedin my life." She then realised that while she had been thinkingof Richmond, his eyes had never left her face. The knowledgeof this excited her.
"Go on, please go on," he urged. "Let's imagine it's a Wednesday.
You're all at luncheon. You sit there, and Aunt Lucy there,and Aunt Clara here"; he arranged three pebbles37 on the grassbetween them.
"Aunt Clara carves the neck of lamb," Rachel continued.
She fixed38 her gaze upon the pebbles. "There's a very ugly yellowchina stand in front of me, called a dumb waiter, on which arethree dishes, one for biscuits, one for butter, and one for cheese.
There's a pot of ferns. Then there's Blanche the maid, who snufflesbecause of her nose. We talk--oh yes, it's Aunt Lucy's afternoonat Walworth, so we're rather quick over luncheon. She goes off.
She has a purple bag, and a black notebook. Aunt Clara haswhat they call a G.F.S. meeting in the drawing-room on Wednesday,so I take the dogs out. I go up Richmond Hill, along the terrace,into the park. It's the 18th of April--the same day as it is here.
It's spring in England. The ground is rather damp. However, I crossthe road and get on to the grass and we walk along, and I singas I always do when I'm alone, until we come to the open placewhere you can see the whole of London beneath you on a clear day.
Hampstead Church spire39 there, Westminster Cathedral over there,and factory chimneys about here. There's generally a haze40 over the lowparts of London; but it's often blue over the park when London'sin a mist. It's the open place that the balloons cross going overto Hurlingham. They're pale yellow. Well, then, it smells very good,particularly if they happen to be burning wood in the keeper's lodgewhich is there. I could tell you now how to get from place to place,and exactly what trees you'd pass, and where you'd cross the roads.
You see, I played there when I was small. Spring is good, but it'sbest in the autumn when the deer are barking; then it gets dusky,and I go back through the streets, and you can't see people properly;they come past very quick, you just see their faces and thenthey're gone--that's what I like--and no one knows in the least whatyou're doing--""But you have to be back for tea, I suppose?" Hewet checked her.
"Tea? Oh yes. Five o'clock. Then I say what I've done, and myaunts say what they've done, and perhaps some one comes in:
Mrs. Hunt, let's suppose. She's an old lady with a lame41 leg.
She has or she once had eight children; so we ask after them.
They're all over the world; so we ask where they are, and sometimesthey're ill, or they're stationed in a cholera42 district, or insome place where it only rains once in five months. Mrs. Hunt,"she said with a smile, "had a son who was hugged to death bya bear."Here she stopped and looked at Hewet to see whether he was amusedby the same things that amused her. She was reassured43. But shethought it necessary to apologise again; she had been talking too much.
"You can't conceive how it interests me," he said.
Indeed, his cigarette had gone out, and he had to light another.
"Why does it interest you?" she asked.
"Partly because you're a woman," he replied. When he said this,Rachel, who had become oblivious44 of anything, and had reverted45 to achildlike state of interest and pleasure, lost her freedom and becameself-conscious. She felt herself at once singular and under observation,as she felt with St. John Hirst. She was about to launch into an argumentwhich would have made them both feel bitterly against each other,and to define sensations which had no such importance as wordswere bound to give them when Hewet led her thoughts in a different direction.
"I've often walked along the streets where people live all in a row,and one house is exactly like another house, and wondered what onearth the women were doing inside," he said. "Just consider:
it's the beginning of the twentieth century, and until a few yearsago no woman had ever come out by herself and said things at all.
There it was going on in the background, for all those thousandsof years, this curious silent unrepresented life. Of course we'realways writing about women--abusing them, or jeering46 at them,or worshipping them; but it's never come from women themselves.
I believe we still don't know in the least how they live,or what they feel, or what they do precisely47. If one's a man,the only confidences one gets are from young women about theirlove affairs. But the lives of women of forty, of unmarried women,of working women, of women who keep shops and bring up children,of women like your aunts or Mrs. Thornbury or Miss Allan--one knows nothing whatever about them. They won't tell you.
Either they're afraid, or they've got a way of treating men.
It's the man's view that's represented, you see. Think of arailway train: fifteen carriages for men who want to smoke.
Doesn't it make your blood boil? If I were a woman I'd blowsome one's brains out. Don't you laugh at us a great deal?
Don't you think it all a great humbug48? You, I mean--how does itall strike you?"His determination to know, while it gave meaning to their talk,hampered her; he seemed to press further and further, and made itappear so important. She took some time to answer, and during thattime she went over and over the course of her twenty-four years,lighting now on one point, now on another--on her aunts, her mother,her father, and at last her mind fixed upon her aunts and her father,and she tried to describe them as at this distance they appearedto her.
They were very much afraid of her father. He was a great dim forcein the house, by means of which they held on to the great worldwhich is represented every morning in the _Times_. But the reallife of the house was something quite different from this.
It went on independently of Mr. Vinrace, and tended to hide itselffrom him. He was good-humoured towards them, but contemptuous.
She had always taken it for granted that his point of view was just,and founded upon an ideal scale of things where the life of oneperson was absolutely more important than the life of another,and that in that scale they were much less importance than he was.
But did she really believe that? Hewet's words made her think.
She always submitted to her father, just as they did, but it was heraunts who influenced her really; her aunts who built up the fine,closely woven substance of their life at home. They were lesssplendid but more natural than her father was. All her rageshad been against them; it was their world with its four meals,its punctuality, and servants on the stairs at half-past ten, that sheexamined so closely and wanted so vehemently49 to smash to atoms.
Following these thoughts she looked up and said:
"And there's a sort of beauty in it--there they are at Richmondat this very moment building things up. They're all wrong,perhaps, but there's a sort of beauty in it," she repeated.
"It's so unconscious, so modest. And yet they feel things.
They do mind if people die. Old spinsters are always doing things.
I don't quite know what they do. Only that was what I felt when Ilived with them. It was very real."She reviewed their little journeys to and fro, to Walworth,to charwomen with bad legs, to meetings for this and that,their minute acts of charity and unselfishness which floweredpunctually from a definite view of what they ought to do,their friendships, their tastes and habits; she saw all these thingslike grains of sand falling, falling through innumerable days,making an atmosphere and building up a solid mass, a background.
Hewet observed her as she considered this.
"Were you happy?" he demanded.
Again she had become absorbed in something else, and he calledher back to an unusually vivid consciousness of herself.
"I was both," she replied. "I was happy and I was miserable50.
You've no conception what it's like--to be a young woman."She looked straight at him. "There are terrors and agonies,"she said, keeping her eye on him as if to detect the slightest hintof laughter.
"I can believe it," he said. He returned her look with perfect sincerity51.
"Women one sees in the streets," she said.
"Prostitutes?""Men kissing one."He nodded his head.
"You were never told?"She shook her head.
"And then," she began and stopped. Here came in the great spaceof life into which no one had ever penetrated52. All that she had beensaying about her father and her aunts and walks in Richmond Park,and what they did from hour to hour, was merely on the surface.
Hewet was watching her. Did he demand that she should describethat also? Why did he sit so near and keep his eye on her?
Why did they not have done with this searching and agony? Why didthey not kiss each other simply? She wished to kiss him. But allthe time she went on spinning out words.
"A girl is more lonely than a boy. No one cares in the least whatshe does. Nothing's expected of her. Unless one's very prettypeople don't listen to what you say. . . . And that is what I like,"she added energetically, as if the memory were very happy.
"I like walking in Richmond Park and singing to myself andknowing it doesn't matter a damn to anybody. I like seeingthings go on--as we saw you that night when you didn't see us--I love the freedom of it--it's like being the wind or the sea."She turned with a curious fling of her hands and looked at the sea.
It was still very blue, dancing away as far as the eye could reach,but the light on it was yellower, and the clouds were turningflamingo red.
A feeling of intense depression crossed Hewet's mind as she spoke53.
It seemed plain that she would never care for one person ratherthan another; she was evidently quite indifferent to him; they seemedto come very near, and then they were as far apart as ever again;and her gesture as she turned away had been oddly beautiful.
"Nonsense," he said abruptly54. "You like people. You like admiration55.
Your real grudge against Hirst is that he doesn't admire you."She made no answer for some time. Then she said:
"That's probably true. Of course I like people--I like almostevery one I've ever met."She turned her back on the sea and regarded Hewet with friendlyif critical eyes. He was good-looking in the sense that he hadalways had a sufficiency of beef to eat and fresh air to breathe.
His head was big; the eyes were also large; though generallyvague they could be forcible; and the lips were sensitive.
One might account him a man of considerable passion and fitful energy,likely to be at the mercy of moods which had little relation to facts;at once tolerant and fastidious. The breadth of his forehead showedcapacity for thought. The interest with which Rachel looked at himwas heard in her voice.
"What novels do you write?" she asked.
"I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; "the things peopledon't say. But the difficulty is immense." He sighed. "However, youdon't care," he continued. He looked at her almost severely56.
"Nobody cares. All you read a novel for is to see what sort of personthe writer is, and, if you know him, which of his friends he's put in.
As for the novel itself, the whole conception, the way one's seenthe thing, felt about it, make it stand in relation to other things,not one in a million cares for that. And yet I sometimes wonderwhether there's anything else in the whole world worth doing.
These other people," he indicated the hotel, "are always wantingsomething they can't get. But there's an extraordinary satisfactionin writing, even in the attempt to write. What you said just nowis true: one doesn't want to be things; one wants merely to beallowed to see them."Some of the satisfaction of which he spoke came into his face as hegazed out to sea.
It was Rachel's turn now to feel depressed57. As he talked of writinghe had become suddenly impersonal. He might never care for any one;all that desire to know her and get at her, which she had feltpressing on her almost painfully, had completely vanished.
"Are you a good writer?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'm not first-rate, of course; I'm good second-rate;about as good as Thackeray, I should say."Rachel was amazed. For one thing it amazed her to hear Thackeraycalled second-rate; and then she could not widen her point ofview to believe that there could be great writers in existenceat the present day, or if there were, that any one she knewcould be a great writer, and his self-confidence astounded58 her,and he became more and more remote.
"My other novel," Hewet continued, "is about a young manwho is obsessed59 by an idea--the idea of being a gentleman.
He manages to exist at Cambridge on a hundred pounds a year.
He has a coat; it was once a very good coat. But the trousers--they're not so good. Well, he goes up to London, gets intogood society, owing to an early-morning adventure on the banksof the Serpentine60. He is led into telling lies--my idea, you see,is to show the gradual corruption61 of the soul--calls himself the sonof some great landed proprietor62 in Devonshire. Meanwhile the coatbecomes older and older, and he hardly dares to wear the trousers.
Can't you imagine the wretched man, after some splendid eveningof debauchery, contemplating63 these garments--hanging them overthe end of the bed, arranging them now in full light, now in shade,and wondering whether they will survive him, or he will survive them?
Thoughts of suicide cross his mind. He has a friend, too, a manwho somehow subsists64 upon selling small birds, for which he setstraps in the fields near Uxbridge. They're scholars, both of them.
I know one or two wretched starving creatures like that who quoteAristotle at you over a fried herring and a pint65 of porter.
Fashionable life, too, I have to represent at some length,in order to show my hero under all circumstances. Lady TheoBingham Bingley, whose bay mare66 he had the good fortune to stop,is the daughter of a very fine old Tory peer. I'm going to describethe kind of parties I once went to--the fashionable intellectuals,you know, who like to have the latest book on their tables.
They give parties, river parties, parties where you play games.
There's no difficulty in conceiving incidents; the difficulty isto put them into shape--not to get run away with, as Lady Theo was.
It ended disastrously67 for her, poor woman, for the book, as Iplanned it, was going to end in profound and sordid68 respectability.
Disowned by her father, she marries my hero, and they live in a snuglittle villa1 outside Croydon, in which town he is set up as ahouse agent. He never succeeds in becoming a real gentleman after all.
That's the interesting part of it. Does it seem to you the kind of bookyou'd like to read?" he enquired69; "or perhaps you'd like my Stuarttragedy better," he continued, without waiting for her to answer him.
"My idea is that there's a certain quality of beauty in the past,which the ordinary historical novelist completely ruins by hisabsurd conventions. The moon becomes the Regent of the Skies.
People clap spurs to their horses, and so on. I'm going to treatpeople as though they were exactly the same as we are. The advantageis that, detached from modern conditions, one can make them moreintense and more abstract then people who live as we do."Rachel had listened to all this with attention, but with a certainamount of bewilderment. They both sat thinking their own thoughts.
"I'm not like Hirst," said Hewet, after a pause; he spoke meditatively;"I don't see circles of chalk between people's feet. I sometimes wishI did. It seems to me so tremendously complicated and confused.
One can't come to any decision at all; one's less and less capableof making judgments70. D'you find that? And then one never knowswhat any one feels. We're all in the dark. We try to find out,but can you imagine anything more ludicrous than one person'sopinion of another person? One goes along thinking one knows;but one really doesn't know."As he said this he was leaning on his elbow arranging and rearrangingin the grass the stones which had represented Rachel and her auntsat luncheon. He was speaking as much to himself as to Rachel.
He was reasoning against the desire, which had returned with intensity,to take her in his arms; to have done with indirectness; to explainexactly what he felt. What he said was against his belief;all the things that were important about her he knew; he felt themin the air around them; but he said nothing; he went on arrangingthe stones.
"I like you; d'you like me?" Rachel suddenly observed.
"I like you immensely," Hewet replied, speaking with the reliefof a person who is unexpectedly given an opportunity of sayingwhat he wants to say. He stopped moving the pebbles.
"Mightn't we call each other Rachel and Terence?" he asked.
"Terence," Rachel repeated. "Terence--that's like the cry of an owl36."She looked up with a sudden rush of delight, and in looking atTerence with eyes widened by pleasure she was struck by the changethat had come over the sky behind them. The substantial blue dayhad faded to a paler and more ethereal blue; the clouds were pink,far away and closely packed together; and the peace of eveninghad replaced the heat of the southern afternoon, in which theyhad started on their walk.
"It must be late!" she exclaimed.
It was nearly eight o'clock.
"But eight o'clock doesn't count here, does it?" Terence asked,as they got up and turned inland again. They began to walk ratherquickly down the hill on a little path between the olive trees.
They felt more intimate because they shared the knowledge ofwhat eight o'clock in Richmond meant. Terence walked in front,for there was not room for them side by side.
"What I want to do in writing novels is very much what you want to dowhen you play the piano, I expect," he began, turning and speaking overhis shoulder. "We want to find out what's behind things, don't we?--Look at the lights down there," he continued, "scattered71 about anyhow.
Things I feel come to me like lights. . . . I want to combine them.
. . . Have you ever seen fireworks that make figures? . . . I wantto make figures. . . . Is that what you want to do?"Now they were out on the road and could walk side by side.
"When I play the piano? Music is different. . . . But I see what you mean."They tried to invent theories and to make their theories agree.
As Hewet had no knowledge of music, Rachel took his stick and drewfigures in the thin white dust to explain how Bach wrote his fugues.
"My musical gift was ruined," he explained, as they walked on afterone of these demonstrations72, "by the village organist at home,who had invented a system of notation73 which he tried to teach me,with the result that I never got to the tune-playing at all.
My mother thought music wasn't manly74 for boys; she wanted me tokill rats and birds--that's the worst of living in the country.
We live in Devonshire. It's the loveliest place in the world.
Only--it's always difficult at home when one's grown up. I'd likeyou to know one of my sisters. . . . Oh, here's your gate--"He pushed it open. They paused for a moment. She could not ask himto come in. She could not say that she hoped they would meet again;there was nothing to be said, and so without a word she went throughthe gate, and was soon invisible. Directly Hewet lost sight of her,he felt the old discomfort75 return, even more strongly than before.
Their talk had been interrupted in the middle, just as hewas beginning to say the things he wanted to say. After all,what had they been able to say? He ran his mind over the thingsthey had said, the random, unnecessary things which had eddied76 roundand round and used up all the time, and drawn77 them so close togetherand flung them so far apart, and left him in the end unsatisfied,ignorant still of what she felt and of what she was like. What wasthe use of talking, talking, merely talking?
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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concoction
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| n.调配(物)；谎言 | |
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puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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watts
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| （电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 ) | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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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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cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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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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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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spoke
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| 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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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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61
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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63
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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subsists
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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73
notation
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| n.记号法，表示法，注释；[计算机]记法 | |
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74
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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76
eddied
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| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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