CHAPTER VI

 This story is not his biography, remember, although things creep into it which have nothing to do with those dreams he had when he was young. We are almost done with them and with him now. There is only one more incident to be related here, and it happens seven years farther on.

 

It took place in New York, where he had done well—so well that there were no barriers too high for him. He was thirty-two years old, and, except for one flying trip immediately after the war, he had not been West in seven years. A man named Devlin from Detroit came into his office to see him in a business way, and then and there this incident occurred, and closed out, so to speak, this particular side of his life.

 

"So you're from the Middle West," said the man Devlin with careless curiosity. "That's funny—I thought men like you were probably born and raised on Wall Street. You know—wife of one of my best friends in Detroit came from your city. I was an usher¹ at the wedding."

 

Dexter waited with no apprehension² of what was coming.

 

"Judy Simms," said Devlin with no particular interest; "Judy Jones she was once."

 

"Yes, I knew her." A dull impatience³ spread over him. He had heard, of course, that she was married—perhaps deliberately⁴ he had heard no more.

 

"Awfully⁵ nice girl," brooded Devlin meaninglessly, "I'm sort of sorry for her."

 

"Why?" Something in Dexter was alert, receptive, at once.

 

"Oh, Lud Simms has gone to pieces in a way. I don't mean he ill-uses her, but he drinks and runs around——-"

 

"Doesn't she run around?"

 

"No. Stays at home with her kids."

 

"Oh."

 

"She's a little too old for him," said Devlin.

 

"Too old!" cried Dexter. "Why, man, she's only twenty-seven."

 

He was possessed⁶ with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to Detroit. He rose to his feet spasmodically.

 

"I guess you're busy," Devlin apologized quickly. "I didn't realize——"

 

"No, I'm not busy," said Dexter, steadying his voice. "I'm not busy at all. Not busy at all. Did you say she was—twenty-seven? No, I said she was twenty-seven."

 

"Yes, you did," agreed Devlin dryly.

 

"Go on, then. Go on."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"About Judy Jones."

 

Devlin looked at him helplessly.

 

"Well, that's—I told you all there is to it. He treats her like the devil. Oh, they're not going to get divorced or anything. When he's particularly outrageous⁷ she forgives him. In fact, I'm inclined to think she loves him. She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit."

 

A pretty girl! The phrase struck Dexter as ludicrous.

 

"Isn't she—a pretty girl, any more?"

 

"Oh, she's all right."

 

"Look here," said Dexter, sitting down suddenly, "I don't understand. You say she was a 'pretty girl' and now you say she's 'all right.' I don't understand what you mean—Judy Jones wasn't a pretty girl, at all. She was a great beauty. Why, I knew her, I knew her. She was——"

 

Devlin laughed pleasantly.

 

"I'm not trying to start a row," he said. "I think Judy's a nice girl and I like her. I can't understand how a man like Lud Simms could fall madly in love with her, but he did." Then he added: "Most of the women like her."

 

Dexter looked closely at Devlin, thinking wildly that there must be a reason for this, some insensitivity in the man or some private malice⁸.

 

"Lots of women fade just like that" Devlin snapped his fingers. "You must have seen it happen. Perhaps I've forgotten how pretty she was at her wedding. I've seen her so much since then, you see. She has nice eyes."

 

A sort of dulness settled down upon Dexter. For the first time in his life he felt like getting very drunk. He knew that he was laughing loudly at something Devlin had said, but he did not know what it was or why it was funny. When, in a few minutes, Devlin went he lay down on his lounge and looked out the window at the New York sky-line into which the sun was sinking in dull lovely shades of pink and gold.

 

He had thought that having nothing else to lose he was invulnerable at last—but he knew that he had just lost something more, as surely as if he had married Judy Jones and seen her fade away before his eyes.

 

The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda⁹, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck's soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive¹⁰ with melancholy¹¹ and her freshness like new fine linen¹² in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.

 

For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself now. He did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands. He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.

 

"Long ago," he said, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more."

 

1 usher   

n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员

参考例句：

• The usher seated us in the front row.引座员让我们在前排就座。
• They were quickly ushered away.他们被迅速领开。

2 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

3 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

4 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

5 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

6 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

7 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

8 malice   

n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋

参考例句：

• I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
• There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。

9 veranda   

n.走廊；阳台

参考例句：

• She sat in the shade on the veranda.她坐在阳台上的遮荫处。
• They were strolling up and down the veranda.他们在走廊上来回徜徉。

10 plaintive   

adj.可怜的，伤心的

参考例句：

• Her voice was small and plaintive.她的声音微弱而哀伤。
• Somewhere in the audience an old woman's voice began plaintive wail.观众席里，一位老太太伤心地哭起来。

11 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

12 linen   

n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的

参考例句：

• The worker is starching the linen.这名工人正在给亚麻布上浆。
• Fine linen and cotton fabrics were known as well as wool.精细的亚麻织品和棉织品像羊毛一样闻名遐迩。