The sidewalks were scratched with brittle1 leaves, and the bad little boy next door froze his tongue to the iron mail-box. Snow before night, sure. Autumn was over. This, of course, raised the coal question and the Christmas question; but Roger Halsey, standing3 on his own front porch, assured the dead suburban4 sky that he hadn't time for worrying about the weather. Then he let himself hurriedly into the house, and shut the subject out into the cold twilight5.
The hall was dark, but from above he heard the voices of his wife and the nursemaid and the baby in one of their interminable conversations, which consisted chiefly of "Don't!" and "Look out, Maxy!" and "Oh, there he goes!" punctuated6 by wild threats and vague bumpings and the recurrent sound of small, venturing feet.
Roger turned on the hall-light and walked into the living-room and turned on the red silk lamp. He put his bulging7 portfolio8 on the table, and sitting down rested his intense young face in his hand for a few minutes, shading his eyes carefully from the light. Then he lit a cigarette, squashed it out, and going to the foot of the stairs called for his wife.
"Gretchen!"
"Hello, dear." Her voice was full of laughter. "Come see baby."
He swore softly.
There was a mysterious pause, and then a succession of "Don'ts" and "Look outs, Maxy" evidently meant to avert9 some threatened catastrophe10.
"How long 'fore you'll be down?" repeated Roger, slightly irritated.
"Oh, I'll be right down."
"How soon?" he shouted.
He had trouble every day at this hour in adapting his voice from the urgent key of the city to the proper casualness for a model home. But to-night he was deliberately11 impatient. It almost disappointed him when Gretchen came running down the stairs, three at a time, crying "What is it?" in a rather surprised voice.
They kissed—lingered over it some moments. They had been married three years, and they were much more in love than that implies. It was seldom that they hated each other with that violent hate of which only young couples are capable, for Roger was still actively12 sensitive to her beauty.
His wife, a bright-colored, Titian-haired girl, vivid as a French rag doll, followed him into the living-room.
"Listen, Gretchen"—he sat down at the end of the sofa—"beginning with to-night I'm going to—What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I'm just looking for a cigarette. Go on."
She tiptoed breathlessly back to the sofa and settled at the other end.
"Gretchen—" Again he broke off. Her hand, palm upward, was extended toward him. "Well, what is it?" he asked wildly.
"Matches."
"What?"
In his impatience14 it seemed incredible that she should ask for matches, but he fumbled15 automatically in his pocket.
"Thank you," she whispered. "I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go on."
"Gretch——"
Her fawn's eyes apologized mutely this time, and he laughed. After all, she had done no more than light a cigarette; but when he was in this mood her slightest positive action irritated him beyond measure.
"When you've got time to listen," he said crossly, "you might be interested in discussing the poorhouse question with me."
"What poorhouse?" Her eyes were wide, startled; she sat quiet as a mouse.
"That was just to get your attention. But, beginning to-night, I start on what'll probably be the most important six weeks of my life—the six weeks that'll decide whether we're going on forever in this rotten little house in this rotten little suburban town."
Boredom17 replaced alarm in Gretchen's black eyes. She was a Southern girl, and any question that had to do with getting ahead in the world always tended to give her a headache.
"Six months ago I left the New York Lithographic Company," announced Roger, "and went in the advertising18 business for myself."
"I know," interrupted Gretchen resentfully; "and now instead of getting six hundred a month sure, we're living on a risky19 five hundred."
"Gretchen," said Roger sharply, "if you'll just believe in me as hard as you can for six weeks more we'll be rich. I've got a chance now to get some of the biggest accounts in the country." He hesitated. "And for these six weeks we won't go out at all, and we won't have any one here. I'm going to bring home work every night, and we'll pull down all the blinds and if any one rings the door-bell we won't answer."
He smiled airily as if it were a new game they were going to play. Then, as Gretchen was silent, his smile faded, and he looked at her uncertainly.
"Well, what's the matter?" she broke out finally. "Do you expect me to jump up and sing? You do enough work as it is. If you try to do any more you'll end up with a nervous breakdown20. I read about a——"
"Don't worry about me," he interrupted; "I'm all right. But you're going to be bored to death sitting here every evening."
"No, I won't," she said without conviction—"except to-night."
"What about to-night?"
"George Tompkins asked us to dinner."
"Did you accept?"
"Of course I did," she said impatiently. "Why not? You're always talking about what a terrible neighborhood this is, and I thought maybe you'd like to go to a nicer one for a change."
"When I go to a nicer neighborhood I want to go for good," he said grimly.
"Well, can we go?"
"I suppose we'll have to if you've accepted."
Somewhat to his annoyance21 the conversation abruptly ended. Gretchen jumped up and kissed him sketchily22 and rushed into the kitchen to light the hot water for a bath. With a sigh he carefully deposited his portfolio behind the bookcase—it contained only sketches23 and layouts for display advertising, but it seemed to him the first thing a burglar would look for. Then he went abstractedly up-stairs, dropped into the baby's room for a casual moist kiss, and began dressing24 for dinner.
They had no automobile25, so George Tompkins called for them at 6.30. Tompkins was a successful interior decorator, a broad, rosy26 man with a handsome mustache and a strong odor of jasmine. He and Roger had once roomed side by side in a boarding-house in New York, but they had met only intermittently27 in the past five years.
"We ought to see each other more," he told Roger to-night. "You ought to go out more often, old boy. Cocktail28?"
"No, thanks."
"No? Well, your fair wife will—won't you, Gretchen?"
"I love this house," she exclaimed, taking the glass and looking admiringly at ship models, Colonial whiskey bottles, and other fashionable débris of 1925.
"I like it," said Tompkins with satisfaction. "I did it to please myself, and I succeeded."
Roger stared moodily29 around the stiff, plain room, wondering if they could have blundered into the kitchen by mistake.
"You look like the devil, Roger," said his host. "Have a cocktail and cheer up."
"Have one," urged Gretchen.
"What?" Roger turned around absently. "Oh, no, thanks. I've got to work after I get home."
"Work!" Tompkins smiled. "Listen, Roger, you'll kill yourself with work. Why don't you bring a little balance into your life—work a little, then play a little?"
"That's what I tell him," said Gretchen.
"Do you know an average business man's day?" demanded Tompkins as they went in to dinner. "Coffee in the morning, eight hours' work interrupted by a bolted luncheon30, and then home again with dyspepsia and a bad temper to give the wife a pleasant evening."
Roger laughed shortly.
"You've been going to the movies too much," he said dryly.
"What?" Tompkins looked at him with some irritation31. "Movies? I've hardly ever been to the movies in my life. I think the movies are atrocious. My opinions on life are drawn32 from my own observations. I believe in a balanced life."
"What's that?" demanded Roger.
"Well"—he hesitated—"probably the best way to tell you would be to describe my own day. Would that seem horribly egotistic?"
"Oh, no!" Gretchen looked at him with interest. "I'd love to hear about it."
"Well, in the morning I get up and go through a series of exercises. I've got one room fitted up as a little gymnasium, and I punch the bag and do shadow-boxing and weight-pulling for an hour. Then after a cold bath— There's a thing now! Do you take a daily cold bath?"
"No," admitted Roger, "I take a hot bath in the evening three or four times a week."
A horrified33 silence fell. Tompkins and Gretchen exchanged a glance as if something obscene had been said.
"What's the matter?" broke out Roger, glancing from one to the other in some irritation. "You know I don't take a bath every day—I haven't got the time."
Tompkins gave a prolonged sigh.
"After my bath," he continued, drawing a merciful veil of silence over the matter, "I have breakfast and drive to my office in New York, where I work until four. Then I lay off, and if it's summer I hurry out here for nine holes of golf, or if it's winter I play squash for an hour at my club. Then a good snappy game of bridge until dinner. Dinner is liable to have something to do with business, but in a pleasant way. Perhaps I've just finished a house for some customer, and he wants me to be on hand for his first party to see that the lighting34 is soft enough and all that sort of thing. Or maybe I sit down with a good book of poetry and spend the evening alone. At any rate, I do something every night to get me out of myself."
"It must be wonderful," said Gretchen enthusiastically. "I wish we lived like that."
"You can," he said impressively. "There's no reason why you shouldn't. Look here, if Roger'll play nine holes of golf every day it'll do wonders for him. He won't know himself. He'll do his work better, never get that tired, nervous feeling— What's the matter?"
He broke off. Roger had perceptibly yawned.
"Roger," cried Gretchen sharply, "there's no need to be so rude. If you did what George said, you'd be a lot better off." She turned indignantly to their host. "The latest is that he's going to work at night for the next six weeks. He says he's going to pull down the blinds and shut us up like hermits36 in a cave. He's been doing it every Sunday for the last year; now he's going to do it every night for six weeks."
Tompkins shook his head sadly.
"At the end of six weeks," he remarked, "he'll be starting for the sanitarium. Let me tell you, every private hospital in New York is full of cases like yours. You just strain the human nervous system a little too far, and bang!—you've broken something. And in order to save sixty hours you're laid up sixty weeks for repairs." He broke off, changed his tone, and turned to Gretchen with a smile. "Not to mention what happens to you. It seems to me it's the wife rather than the husband who bears the brunt of these insane periods of overwork."
"I don't mind," protested Gretchen loyally.
"Yes, she does," said Roger grimly; "she minds like the devil. She's a shortsighted little egg, and she thinks it's going to be forever until I get started and she can have some new clothes. But it can't be helped. The saddest thing about women is that, after all, their best trick is to sit down and fold their hands."
"Your ideas on women are about twenty years out of date," said Tompkins pityingly. "Women won't sit down and wait any more."
"Then they'd better marry men of forty," insisted Roger stubbornly. "If a girl marries a young man for love she ought to be willing to make any sacrifice within reason, so long as her husband keeps going ahead."
"Let's not talk about it," said Gretchen impatiently. "Please, Roger, let's have a good time just this once."
When Tompkins dropped them in front of their house at eleven Roger and Gretchen stood for a moment on the sidewalk looking at the winter moon. There was a fine, damp, dusty snow in the air, and Roger drew a long breath of it and put his arm around Gretchen exultantly37.
"I can make more money than he can," he said tensely. "And I'll be doing it in just forty days."
"Forty days," she sighed. "It seems such a long time—when everybody else is always having fun. If I could only sleep for forty days."
She was silent for a moment.
"Roger," she asked thoughtfully, "do you think George meant what he said about taking me horseback riding on Sunday?"
Roger frowned.
"I don't know. Probably not—I hope to Heaven he didn't." He hesitated. "As a matter of fact, he made me sort of sore to-night—all that junk about his cold bath."
With their arms about each other, they started up the walk to the house.
"I'll bet he doesn't take a cold bath every morning," continued Roger ruminatively39; "or three times a week, either." He fumbled in his pocket for the key and inserted it in the lock with savage40 precision. Then he turned around defiantly41. "I'll bet he hasn't had a bath for a month."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
brittle
|
|
| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fore
|
|
| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
suburban
|
|
| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
punctuated
|
|
| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
portfolio
|
|
| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
avert
|
|
| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
catastrophe
|
|
| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
actively
|
|
| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
impatience
|
|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
fumbled
|
|
| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
Flared
|
|
| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
advertising
|
|
| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
risky
|
|
| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
breakdown
|
|
| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
sketchily
|
|
| adv.写生风格地，大略地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
sketches
|
|
| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
dressing
|
|
| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
automobile
|
|
| n.汽车，机动车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
intermittently
|
|
| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
cocktail
|
|
| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
moodily
|
|
| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
horrified
|
|
| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
hermits
|
|
| （尤指早期基督教的）隐居修道士，隐士，遁世者( hermit的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
exultantly
|
|
| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
winks
|
|
| v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
ruminatively
|
|
| adv.沉思默想地，反复思考地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
defiantly
|
|
| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |