CHAPTER VI

THROUGH the weeks that followed Eldridge watched the things money could buy quietly taking their place in the house. Little comforts that he had not missed—had not known any one could miss—were at hand. The children looked somehow subtly different. He had a sense of expansion, softly breaking threads of habit, expectancy¹. Only Rosalind seemed unchanged. Yet each time he looked at her he fancied that she had changed—more than all of them. He could not keep his eyes from her. Something was hidden in her—Something he did not know—that he would never know. Perhaps he should die and not know it.... Did the dead know things—everything? He seemed to remember hazily² from Sunday-school—something—If he were dead, he might come close to her—as close as the little thoughts behind her eyes——

 

The cold grew keener, and Eldridge, shivering home from the office, remembered a pair of fur gloves in the attic³. He had not worn them for years. But after supper he took a light and went to look for them.

 

It was cold there, in the attic, and he shivered a little, looking about the dusty place. There were boxes stacked along under the eaves and garments hanging grotesquely⁴ from the beams. He knew where Rosalind kept the gloves; he had seen them one day last summer when he was looking for window netting. It had not seemed to him then, in the hot attic, that any one could ever need gloves. He set down the lamp on a box and drew out a trunk and looked in it; they were not there. She must have changed the place of things—he would have to go down and ask her.

 

Then his eye sought out a box pushed far back under the eaves—he did not remember that he had ever seen that box; he glanced at it—and half turned away to pick up the lamp—and turned back. He could not have told why he felt that he must open it. He had set the light on a box a little above him, and it glimmered⁵ down on the box that he drew out and opened—and on a smooth piece of tissue-paper under the cover——A faint perfume came from beneath the paper, and he lifted it. There was a pair of long grey gloves—with the shape of a woman’s hand still softly held in the finger-tips.... He lifted them and stared and moistened his lips and ran his hand down inside the box to the bottom—soft, filmy stuff that yielded and sprang back.... He kneeled before it, half on his heels, peering down. He bent⁶ forward and lifted the things out—white things with threaded ribbon and lace—things such as Eldridge Walcott had never seen—delicate, web-like things—then a fur-lined coat and a grey dress and, at the bottom, a little linked something. He lifted it and peered at it and at the coins shining through the meshes⁷ and dropped it back.

 

He stood up and looked about him vaguely⁸... after a minute he shivered a little. It was very cold in the attic. He knelt down and tried to put the things back; but his fingers shook, and the things took queer shapes and fell apart, and a soft perfume came from them that confused him. He tried to steady himself—he began at the bottom, putting each thing carefully in place... smoothing it down.

 

The door below creaked. A voice listened.... “You up there, Eldridge?”

 

He straightened himself... out of a thousand thoughts and questions. “Where are my fur gloves?” he said quietly. He took the light from its box and came over to the stairs.

 

Her face, lifted to him, was in the light and he could see the rays of light falling on it—and on the stillness, like a pool....

 

“They’re in the black trunk,” said Rosalind. Her foot moved to the stair—“I’ll get them for you.”

 

“No—Don’t come up,” he said. “It’s cold here. I know—I was just looking there.”

 

So she went back, closing the door behind her to keep out the cold.

 

When Eldridge came down he did not look at her. He blew out the light and put the gloves with his hat in the hall and came over with his paper and sat down.

 

She was standing⁹ by the fire, bending over a pair of socks that she had been washing out. She was hanging them in front of the fire, pulling out the toes. Her eyes looked at him inquiringly as her fingers went on stretching the little toes.

 

“Did you find them?”

 

“Yes.” He opened his paper slowly. She went on fussing at the socks, a little, absent smile on her face. “If it keeps on like this I must get heavier flannels¹⁰ for them,” she said. The look in her face was very sweet as she bent over the small socks.

 

He looked up—and glanced away. “Money enough—have you?”

 

“Oh, yes—plenty of money. I will get them to-morrow—if I can go in to town—” she said.

 

His mind flashed to the attic above them and to the quiet alcove¹¹ with the little green curtains that shut it off. “Better dress warm if you do go,” he said carelessly. “It is pretty cold, you know.” He took up the paper and stared at it.

 

1 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

2 hazily   

ad. vaguely, not clear

参考例句：

• He remembered her only hazily. 他只是模模糊糊地记得她。
• We saw the distant hills hazily. 我们朦胧地看到了远处的山丘。

3 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

4 grotesquely   

adv. 奇异地,荒诞地

参考例句：

• Her arched eyebrows and grotesquely powdered face were at once seductive and grimly overbearing. 眉棱棱着，在一脸的怪粉上显出妖媚而霸道。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• Two faces grotesquely disfigured in nylon stocking masks looked through the window. 2张戴尼龙长袜面罩的怪脸望着窗外。

5 glimmered   

v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• "There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray." 她胸前绣着的字母闪着的非凡的光辉，将温暖舒适带给他人。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学
• The moon glimmered faintly through the mists. 月亮透过薄雾洒下微光。 来自辞典例句

6 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。

7 meshes   

网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境

参考例句：

• The net of Heaven has large meshes, but it lets nothing through. 天网恢恢，疏而不漏。
• This net has half-inch meshes. 这个网有半英寸见方的网孔。

8 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

9 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。

10 flannels   

法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Erik had been seen in flannels and an imitation Panama hat. 人们看到埃里克身穿法兰绒裤，头戴仿制巴拿马草帽。
• He is wearing flannels and a blue jacket. 他穿着一条法兰绒裤子和一件蓝夹克。

11 alcove   

n.凹室

参考例句：

• The bookcase fits neatly into the alcove.书架正好放得进壁凹。
• In the alcoves on either side of the fire were bookshelves.火炉两边的凹室里是书架。