Of that benediction5, however, it would have been false to say this life could really be emptied: it was still ruled by a pale ghost, still ordered by a sovereign presence. He had not been a man of numerous passions, and even in all these years no sense had grown stronger with him than the sense of being bereft6. He had needed no priest and no altar to make him for ever widowed. He had done many things in the world—he had done almost all but one: he had never, never forgotten. He had tried to put into his existence whatever else might take up room in it, but had failed to make it more than a house of which the mistress was eternally absent. She was most absent of all on the recurrent December day that his tenacity7 set apart. He had no arranged observance of it, but his nerves made it all their own. They drove him forth8 without mercy, and the goal of his pilgrimage was far. She had been buried in a London suburb, a part then of Nature’s breast, but which he had seen lose one after another every feature of freshness. It was in truth during the moments he stood there that his eyes beheld9 the place least. They looked at another image, they opened to another light. Was it a credible10 future? Was it an incredible past? Whatever the answer it was an immense escape from the actual.
It’s true that if there weren’t other dates than this there were other memories; and by the time George Stransom was fifty-five such memories had greatly multiplied. There were other ghosts in his life than the ghost of Mary Antrim. He had perhaps not had more losses than most men, but he had counted his losses more; he hadn’t seen death more closely, but had in a manner felt it more deeply. He had formed little by little the habit of numbering his Dead: it had come to him early in life that there was something one had to do for them. They were there in their simplified intensified11 essence, their conscious absence and expressive12 patience, as personally there as if they had only been stricken dumb. When all sense of them failed, all sound of them ceased, it was as if their purgatory13 were really still on earth: they asked so little that they got, poor things, even less, and died again, died every day, of the hard usage of life. They had no organised service, no reserved place, no honour, no shelter, no safety. Even ungenerous people provided for the living, but even those who were called most generous did nothing for the others. So on George Stransom’s part had grown up with the years a resolve that he at least would do something, do it, that is, for his own—would perform the great charity without reproach. Every man had his own, and every man had, to meet this charity, the ample resources of the soul.
It was doubtless the voice of Mary Antrim that spoke14 for them best; as the years at any rate went by he found himself in regular communion with these postponed15 pensioners16, those whom indeed he always called in his thoughts the Others. He spared them the moments, he organised the charity. Quite how it had risen he probably never could have told you, but what came to pass was that an altar, such as was after all within everybody’s compass, lighted with perpetual candles and dedicated17 to these secret rites18, reared itself in his spiritual spaces. He had wondered of old, in some embarrassment19, whether he had a religion; being very sure, and not a little content, that he hadn’t at all events the religion some of the people he had known wanted him to have. Gradually this question was straightened out for him: it became clear to him that the religion instilled20 by his earliest consciousness had been simply the religion of the Dead. It suited his inclination21, it satisfied his spirit, it gave employment to his piety22. It answered his love of great offices, of a solemn and splendid ritual; for no shrine23 could be more bedecked and no ceremonial more stately than those to which his worship was attached. He had no imagination about these things but that they were accessible to any one who should feel the need of them. The poorest could build such temples of the spirit—could make them blaze with candles and smoke with incense24, make them flush with pictures and flowers. The cost, in the common phrase, of keeping them up fell wholly on the generous heart.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
pretence
|
|
| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
softened
|
|
| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
malignant
|
|
| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
benediction
|
|
| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
bereft
|
|
| adj.被剥夺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
tenacity
|
|
| n.坚韧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
beheld
|
|
| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
credible
|
|
| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
intensified
|
|
| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
expressive
|
|
| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
purgatory
|
|
| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
postponed
|
|
| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
pensioners
|
|
| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
dedicated
|
|
| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
rites
|
|
| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
instilled
|
|
| v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
inclination
|
|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
piety
|
|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
shrine
|
|
| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
incense
|
|
| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |