The explanation I had desired for the morrow I determined1 to bring about there and then. I went and stood above the old man and looked down upon him.
“Dad,” I said, softly, “once before, if you remember, I came to you heart-full of the question that I am now going to put to you again. I was a boy then, and likely you did right in refusing me your confidence. Now I am a man, and, dad, a man whose soul has been badly wounded in its sore struggle with life.”
He had drooped2 forward as I began, but at this he raised his head and looked me earnestly in the eyes.
“I know, Renalt. It was I broke the bottle then, as you have now. You have taken the lead into your own hands. What is it you’d ask?”
“Don’t you know, dad?”
“Yes, I know. Give me a little time and perhaps some day I’ll tell you.”
“Why not now, dad?”
“Why not?” he muttered. “Why not?”
Suddenly he leaned forward and said softly:
“Has it ever concerned you to think what might be the source of your father’s income?”
“I have thought of it, dad, many and many a time. It wasn’t for me to ask. I have tried to force myself to believe that it came from our grandfather.”
“He was a just man, Renalt, and a hard. I married against his will and he never spoke5 to me afterward6.”
“But the mill——”
“The mill he left to me, as it had been left to him. He would not, in his justice, deprive me of the means of living. ‘What my hands have wrought7 of this, his may do,’ he wrote. But all his little personal estate he willed elsewhere.”
“And you never worked the mill?”
“For a time I worked it, to some profit. We began not all empty-handed. She brought a little with her.”
“My mother?”
At the word he half-started from his chair and sunk back into it again. His eyes blazed as I had not seen them do since my return.
“For twenty years and more,” he shrieked8, “that name has never been on your lips—on the lips of any one of you. I would have struck him down without pity that spoke it!”
I stood looking at him amazed. For a moment he seemed transformed—translated out of his fallen self—for a moment and no more. His passion left him quakingly.
“Ah!” he cried, with a gasp9, and looked up at me beseeching—“you’re not offended—you are not offended, Renalt?”
“No, no,” I said, impatiently. “You must tell me why, dad. You will, won’t you?”
“You, her son, must not know. Haven’t I been faithful to her? Have I ever by word or sign dishonored her memory in her children’s ears—my boy, have I?”
“I have never heard you mention her till now. I have never dreamed of her but as a nameless shadow, father.”
“Let her be so always. She wrecked12 my life—in a day she made me the dark brute13 you remember well. I was not so always, Renalt. This long, degraded life of despair and the bestial14 drowning of it were her doing—hers, I tell you. Remorse15! It has struggled to master me, and I have laughed it away—all these years I have laughed it away. Yet it was pitiful when she died. A heart of stone would have wept to see her. But mine was lead—lead—lead.”
He dropped his head on his breast. I stood darkly pondering in the quiet room. There seemed a stir and rustling16 all round within the house, as if ghostly footfalls were restlessly pacing out their haunting penance17.
“Renalt,” said my father, presently; “never speak of her; never mention her by that name. She passed and left me what I am. I closed the mill and shut its door and that of my heart to every genial18 influence that might help it to forget. I had no wish to forget. In silence and solitariness19 I fed upon myself till I became like to a madman. Then I roused and went abroad more, for I had a mission of search to attend to.”
“You never found him?”
The words came to my lips instinctively20. How could I fail to interpret that part, at least, of the miserable21 secret?
“To this day—never.”
He answered preoccupied—suddenly heedless of my assurance in so speaking. A new light had come to his face—an unfamiliar23 one. I could have called it almost the reflection of cunning—vanity—a self-complacent smugness of retrospect24.
“What was that?”
He leaned forward in a listening attitude.
“Hush!” he murmured. “Was that a noise in the house?”
“I heard nothing, dad.”
“A jar of old Greek and Roman coins.”
He fell back in his chair and stared up at me with frightened eyes. The mystery was out, and an awful dismay seized him that at length in one moment of sentiment he had parted with the secret that had been life to him.
“What have I said?” he whispered, stilly. “Renalt, you won’t give any heed22 to the maundering of an old man?”
I looked down on him pityingly.
“Don’t fear me, father,” I said, almost with a groan28. “I will never breathe a word of it to anybody.”
“Good, dear boy,” he answered, smiling. “I can trust you, I know. You were always my favorite, Renalt, and——”
He broke off with a sudden, sharp cry.
“My favorite,” and he stared up at me. “My favorite? So kings treat their favorites!”
He passed a nervous hand across his forehead, his wild eyes never leaving my face. I could make nothing of his changing moods.
“What about the jar of coins?” I said.
“Ah!” he muttered, the odd expression degrading his features once more. “They were such a treasure it was never one man’s lot to acquire before or since—heaven’s compensation for the cruelty of the world.”
“Where did you find them?”
“In an ancient barrow of the dead,” he whispered, looking fearfully around him—“there, on the downs. It had rained heavily, and there had been a subsidence. I was idly brooding, and idly flung a stone through a rent in the soil. It tinkled29 upon something. I put in my hand and touched and brought away a disk of metal. It was a golden coin. I covered all up and returned at night, unearthed30 the jar and brought it secretly home. It was no great size, but full to the throat of gold. Then I knew that life had found me a new lease of pleasure. I hid the jar where no one could discover it and set about to enjoy the gift. It came in good time. The mill had ceased to yield. My store of money was near spent. I selected three or four of the likeliest coins and carried them to a man in London that bought such things—a numismatist31 he called himself. If he had any scruples32 he smothered33 them then and afterward, in face of such treasures as it made his eyes shoot green to look upon. He asked me at first where I had got them. Hunting about the downs, I said. That was the formula. He never asked for more. He gave me a good price for them, one by one, and made his heavier profit, no doubt, on each. They yielded richly and went slowly. They made an idle, debauched man of me, who forgot even his revenge in the glut34 of possession.”
He seemed even then to accuse himself, through an affectation rather than a conviction of avarice35.
“They went slowly,” he repeated; “till—till—Renalt, I would have loved you as boy was never loved, if you had killed that doctor, as you killed——” he stopped and gave a thin cry of anguish36.
“I didn’t kill Modred, father. I know it now.”
“No, no—you didn’t,” he half-whined in a cowering37 voice. “Don’t say I said it. I caught myself up.”
“We’ll talk about that presently. The doctor——”
“That night, you remember,” he cried, passionately38, “when I dropped a coin and he saw it—that was the beginning. Oh, he has a hateful greed for such things. A wicked, suspicious nature. He soon began cajoling, threatening, worming my secret out of me. I had to silence him now and again or he would have exposed me to the world and wrenched39 my one devouring40 happiness from me.”
“You gave him some of the coins?”
“He has had enough to melt into a grill41 as big as St. Lawrence’s, and he shall fry on it some day. More than that—more than that!”
“There was one thing in the jar worth a soul’s ransom—a cameo, Renalt, that I swear was priceless—I, who speak from intuition—not knowledge. The beauty of the old world was crystallized in it. An emperor would have pawned43 his crown to buy it.”
His words brought before me with a shock the night of Modred’s death, when I had stood listening on the stairs.
“One evening—a terrible evening, Renalt—when I went to fetch a new bribe44 for him from the hiding-place (he demanded it before he would move a finger to help that poor boy upstairs), I found this cameo gone. He swore he hadn’t set eyes on it, and to this day I believe he lied. How can I tell—how can I tell? Twenty times a week, perhaps, my vice45 brought the secret almost within touch of discovery. Sometimes for days together I would carry this gem46 in my pocket, and take it out when alone and gaze on it with exquisite47 rapture48. Then for months it would lie safely hidden again. If I had dropped and lost it in one of my fits—as he suggested—should I have never heard of it again? Renalt”—he held out two trembling hands to me—“it was the darling of my heart! Find it for me and I will bless you forever.”
He ended almost with a sob11. I could have wept myself over the pitiful degeneration of a noble intellect.
“Father, you said he cajoled—threatened. Didn’t you ever reveal to him——”
“Where the jar was hid? No; a million times, no! He would have sucked me dry of the last coin. He knew that I had made a rich find—no more.”
“And on the strength of that vague surmise49 you have allowed him to blackmail50 you all these years?”
“You don’t know the man as I do,” he cried, in a low voice. “He is a devil—not a man.”
“Well,” I said at length. “I won’t ask you for your secret. To share it with any one would kill the zest54, no doubt.”
I put my hand gently on his shoulder.
“Dad,” I said, “I must never leave you again.”
He seized my hand and kissed it.
“Harkee, Renalt,” he whispered. “Many are gone, but there are some left. Could I find out where the cameo is, we would take it, and what remains56, and leave this hateful place—you and I—and bury ourselves in some beautiful city under the world, where none could find us, and live in peace and comfort to the end.”
“Peace can never be mine again, father. Would you like to know why? Would you like to know what has made a sorrowful, haunted man of me, while you were living on at the old mill here these five years past?”
“Tell me,” he said. “Confide in this old, broken, selfish man, who has that love in his heart to seek comfort for you where he can find none himself.”
Then, standing57 up in the red dusk of the room, I gave him my history. “Nothing extenuate58, nor set down aught in malice59.” And he sat with face darkened from me, and quivered only when he heard of Jason’s villainy.
And at the end he lifted up his voice and cried:
“Oh, Absolom, my son—my son, Absolom!”
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收听单词发音
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1
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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4
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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5
spoke
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| 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 | |
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6
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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8
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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10
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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11
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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12
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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13
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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15
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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16
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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17
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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18
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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19
solitariness
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| n.隐居；单独 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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21
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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22
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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23
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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24
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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25
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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27
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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29
tinkled
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| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
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30
unearthed
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| 出土的（考古） | |
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31
numismatist
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| n.钱币收藏家 | |
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32
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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33
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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34
glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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35
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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36
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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37
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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38
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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39
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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40
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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41
grill
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| n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问 | |
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42
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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44
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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45
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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46
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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47
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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48
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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49
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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50
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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51
abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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53
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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54
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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55
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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56
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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57
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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58
extenuate
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| v.减轻，使人原谅 | |
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59
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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