This one was almost empty and the other altars were dim; a verger shuffled11 about, an old woman coughed, but it seemed to Stransom there was hospitality in the thick sweet air. Was it only the savour of the incense12 or was it something of larger intention? He had at any rate quitted the great grey suburb and come nearer to the warm centre. He presently ceased to feel intrusive13, gaining at last even a sense of community with the only worshipper in his neighbourhood, the sombre presence of a woman, in mourning unrelieved, whose back was all he could see of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance from him. He wished he could sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in prostration14. After a few moments he shifted his seat; it was almost indelicate to be so aware of her. But Stransom subsequently quite lost himself, floating away on the sea of light. If occasions like this had been more frequent in his life he would have had more present the great original type, set up in a myriad15 temples, of the unapproachable shrine16 he had erected17 in his mind. That shrine had begun in vague likeness18 to church pomps, but the echo had ended by growing more distinct than the sound. The sound now rang out, the type blazed at him with all its fires and with a mystery of radiance in which endless meanings could glow. The thing became as he sat there his appropriate altar and each starry19 candle an appropriate vow20. He numbered them, named them, grouped them—it was the silent roll-call of his Dead. They made together a brightness vast and intense, a brightness in which the mere21 chapel22 of his thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked himself if he shouldn’t find his real comfort in some material act, some outward worship.
This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the black-robed lady continued prostrate23; he was quietly thrilled with his conception, which at last brought him to his feet in the sudden excitement of a plan. He wandered softly through the aisles24, pausing in the different chapels25, all save one applied26 to a special devotion. It was in this clear recess27, lampless and unapplied, that he stood longest—the length of time it took him fully28 to grasp the conception of gilding29 it with his bounty30. He should snatch it from no other rites31 and associate it with nothing profane32; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him and make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire. Tended sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it, it would always be ready for his offices. There would be difficulties, but from the first they presented themselves only as difficulties surmounted33. Even for a person so little affiliated34 the thing would be a matter of arrangement. He saw it all in advance, and how bright in especial the place would become to him in the intermissions of toil35 and the dusk of afternoons; how rich in assurance at all times, but especially in the indifferent world. Before withdrawing he drew nearer again to the spot where he had first sat down, and in the movement he met the lady whom he had seen praying and who was now on her way to the door. She passed him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of her pale face and her unconscious, almost sightless eyes. For that instant she looked faded and handsome.
This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly esoteric, that he at last found himself able to establish. It took a long time, it took a year, and both the process and the result would have been—for any who knew—a vivid picture of his good faith. No one did know, in fact—no one but the bland36 ecclesiastics37 whose acquaintance he had promptly38 sought, whose objections he had softly overridden39, whose curiosity and sympathy he had artfully charmed, whose assent40 to his eccentric munificence41 he had eventually won, and who had asked for concessions42 in exchange for indulgences. Stransom had of course at an early stage of his enquiry been referred to the Bishop43, and the Bishop had been delightfully44 human, the Bishop had been almost amused. Success was within sight, at any rate from the moment the attitude of those whom it concerned became liberal in response to liberality. The altar and the sacred shell that half encircled it, consecrated45 to an ostensible46 and customary worship, were to be splendidly maintained; all that Stransom reserved to himself was the number of his lights and the free enjoyment47 of his intention. When the intention had taken complete effect the enjoyment became even greater than he had ventured to hope. He liked to think of this effect when far from it, liked to convince himself of it yet again when near. He was not often indeed so near as that a visit to it hadn’t perforce something of the patience of a pilgrimage; but the time he gave to his devotion came to seem to him more a contribution to his other interests than a betrayal of them. Even a loaded life might be easier when one had added a new necessity to it.
How much easier was probably never guessed by those who simply knew there were hours when he disappeared and for many of whom there was a vulgar reading of what they used to call his plunges48. These plunges were into depths quieter than the deep sea-caves, and the habit had at the end of a year or two become the one it would have cost him most to relinquish49. Now they had really, his Dead, something that was indefensibly theirs; and he liked to think that they might in cases be the Dead of others, as well as that the Dead of others might be invoked50 there under the protection of what he had done. Whoever bent51 a knee on the carpet he had laid down appeared to him to act in the spirit of his intention. Each of his lights had a name for him, and from time to time a new light was kindled52. This was what he had fundamentally agreed for, that there should always be room for them all. What those who passed or lingered saw was simply the most resplendent of the altars called suddenly into vivid usefulness, with a quiet elderly man, for whom it evidently had a fascination53, often seated there in a maze54 or a doze55; but half the satisfaction of the spot for this mysterious and fitful worshipper was that he found the years of his life there, and the ties, the affections, the struggles, the submissions56, the conquests, if there had been such, a record of that adventurous57 journey in which the beginnings and the endings of human relations are the lettered mile-stones. He had in general little taste for the past as a part of his own history; at other times and in other places it mostly seemed to him pitiful to consider and impossible to repair; but on these occasions he accepted it with something of that positive gladness with which one adjusts one’s self to an ache that begins to succumb58 to treatment. To the treatment of time the malady59 of life begins at a given moment to succumb; and these were doubtless the hours at which that truth most came home to him. The day was written for him there on which he had first become acquainted with death, and the successive phases of the acquaintance were marked each with a flame.
The flames were gathering60 thick at present, for Stransom had entered that dark defile61 of our earthly descent in which some one dies every day. It was only yesterday that Kate Creston had flashed out her white fire; yet already there were younger stars ablaze62 on the tips of the tapers. Various persons in whom his interest had not been intense drew closer to him by entering this company. He went over it, head by head, till he felt like the shepherd of a huddled63 flock, with all a shepherd’s vision of differences imperceptible. He knew his candles apart, up to the colour of the flame, and would still have known them had their positions all been changed. To other imaginations they might stand for other things—that they should stand for something to be hushed before was all he desired; but he was intensely conscious of the personal note of each and of the distinguishable way it contributed to the concert. There were hours at which he almost caught himself wishing that certain of his friends would now die, that he might establish with them in this manner a connexion more charming than, as it happened, it was possible to enjoy with them in life. In regard to those from whom one was separated by the long curves of the globe such a connexion could only be an improvement: it brought them instantly within reach. Of course there were gaps in the constellation64, for Stransom knew he could only pretend to act for his own, and it wasn’t every figure passing before his eyes into the great obscure that was entitled to a memorial. There was a strange sanctification in death, but some characters were more sanctified by being forgotten than by being remembered. The greatest blank in the shining page was the memory of Acton Hague, of which he inveterately65 tried to rid himself. For Acton Hague no flame could ever rise on any altar of his.
点击收听单词发音
1 cemetery | |
n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
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2 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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3 devious | |
adj.不坦率的,狡猾的;迂回的,曲折的 | |
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4 hovered | |
鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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5 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
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6 dreariness | |
沉寂,可怕,凄凉 | |
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7 tracts | |
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文 | |
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8 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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9 tapers | |
(长形物体的)逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 ); 微弱的光; 极细的蜡烛 | |
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10 persuasion | |
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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11 shuffled | |
v.洗(纸牌)( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 );拖着脚步走;粗心地做;摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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12 incense | |
v.激怒;n.香,焚香时的烟,香气 | |
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13 intrusive | |
adj.打搅的;侵扰的 | |
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14 prostration | |
n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳 | |
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15 myriad | |
adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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16 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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17 ERECTED | |
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立 | |
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18 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
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19 starry | |
adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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20 vow | |
n.誓(言),誓约;v.起誓,立誓 | |
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21 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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22 chapel | |
n.小教堂,殡仪馆 | |
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23 prostrate | |
v.拜倒,平卧,衰竭;adj.拜倒的,平卧的,衰竭的 | |
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24 aisles | |
n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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25 chapels | |
n.小教堂, (医院、监狱等的)附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 );(在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的)礼拜仪式 | |
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26 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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27 recess | |
n.短期休息,壁凹(墙上装架子,柜子等凹处) | |
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28 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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29 gilding | |
n.贴金箔,镀金 | |
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30 bounty | |
n.慷慨的赠予物,奖金;慷慨,大方;施与 | |
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31 rites | |
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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32 profane | |
adj.亵神的,亵渎的;vt.亵渎,玷污 | |
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33 surmounted | |
战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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34 affiliated | |
adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
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35 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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36 bland | |
adj.淡而无味的,温和的,无刺激性的 | |
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37 ecclesiastics | |
n.神职者,教会,牧师( ecclesiastic的名词复数 ) | |
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38 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
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39 overridden | |
越控( override的过去分词 ); (以权力)否决; 优先于; 比…更重要 | |
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40 assent | |
v.批准,认可;n.批准,认可 | |
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41 munificence | |
n.宽宏大量,慷慨给与 | |
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42 concessions | |
n.(尤指由政府或雇主给予的)特许权( concession的名词复数 );承认;减价;(在某地的)特许经营权 | |
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43 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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44 delightfully | |
大喜,欣然 | |
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45 consecrated | |
adj.神圣的,被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣,给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 );奉献 | |
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46 ostensible | |
adj.(指理由)表面的,假装的 | |
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47 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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48 plunges | |
n.跳进,投入vt.使投入,使插入,使陷入vi.投入,跳进,陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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49 relinquish | |
v.放弃,撤回,让与,放手 | |
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50 invoked | |
v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 );行使(权利等);祈求救助;恳求 | |
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51 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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52 kindled | |
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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53 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
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54 maze | |
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑 | |
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55 doze | |
v.打瞌睡;n.打盹,假寐 | |
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56 submissions | |
n.提交( submission的名词复数 );屈从;归顺;向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据 | |
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57 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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58 succumb | |
v.屈服,屈从;死 | |
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59 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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60 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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61 defile | |
v.弄污,弄脏;n.(山间)小道 | |
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62 ablaze | |
adj.着火的,燃烧的;闪耀的,灯火辉煌的 | |
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63 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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64 constellation | |
n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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65 inveterately | |
adv.根深蒂固地,积习地 | |
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