The train had slowed down, and the excursionists had become busy and were all standing4 up expectant and swaying with their bags and umbrellas ready in their hands, except Ingeborg and the pastor5. The train stopped, and still the two at the door did not move. They were so much interested in what they were saying that they went on sitting there, barbarously corking6 up the congested queue inside the carriage while streams of properly liberated7 passengers poured past the window on their way to the best places on the boat.
The queue heaved and waited, holding on to its good manners till the last possible moment, quite anxious, with the exception of the two ladies who were driven to the very verge8 of naturalness by the things they had had to listen to, lest it should be forced to show what it was feeling (for what one is feeling, Dent's excursionists had surprisingly discovered, is always somehow something rude), and seconds passed and still it was kept there heaving.
Then the pastor, gazing with a large unhurried interest at the people pushing by the window, people disfigured by haste and the greed for the best places on the boat, said in a voice of mild but penetrating9 complaint—it almost seemed as if in that congested moment he saw only leisure for musing10 aloud—"But why does the good God make so many ugly old women?"
It was when he said this that the mountainous lady at the head of the queue flung behaviour to the winds and let herself go uncontrolledly. "Will you allow me to pass?" she cried. Nor did she give him another instant's grace, but pressed between his and Ingeborg's knees, followed torrentially by the released remainder.
"To keep us all waiting there just while he blasphemed!" she panted on the platform to her friend.
And during the rest of the time the party was together it retired11, led by these two ladies, into an icy exclusiveness, outside which and left together all day long Ingeborg and the pastor could not but make friends.
They did. They talked and they walked, they climbed and they sight-saw. They did everything Dent had arranged, going with him but not of him, always, as it were, bringing up his rear. Equally careful, being equally poor, they avoided the extras which seemed to lurk12 beckoning13 at every corner of the day. Their frugality14 was flagrant, and shocked the other excursionists even more than the dreadful things they said. "Such bad taste." the Tour declared when, on the third day, after having provoked criticism by their negative attitude towards afternoon tea and the purchase of picture postcards, they would not lighten its several burdens by taking their share of an unincluded outing in flys along the lake. Even Mr. Ascough, Dent's distracted representative, thought them undesirable15, and especially could make nothing of Ingeborg, except that somehow she was not Dent's sort. And the German gentleman, though in appearance a more familiar type, became whenever he opened his mouth grossly unfamiliar16. "Foul-mouthed" was the expression the largest lady had used, bearing down on Mr. Ascough at Dover to complain, adding that as she had done all her travelling for years with and through Dent's she felt justified17 in demanding that this man's mouth should be immediately cleansed18.
"I'm not a toothbrush, Mrs. Bawn," replied the distracted Mr. Ascough, engaged at that moment in struggling for air and light in the middle of his clinging flock.
"Then I shall write to Mr. Dent himself," said Mrs. Bawn indignantly.
And Mr. Ascough, intimidated19, fought himself free and followed her down the platform, inquiring dreadfully—really he seemed to be a person of little refinement—whether, then, the German gentleman's conversation had been obscene.
"I can get rid of him if it's been obscene, you know," said Mr. Ascough. "Was it?"
So that Mrs. Bawn, incensed20 and baffled, was obliged for the dignity of her womanhood to say she was glad to have to inform him she did not know what that word meant.
But the pastor—his name was Dremmel, he told Ingeborg: Robert Dremmel—took everything that happened with simplicity21. They might shut him out, and he would never notice it; they might turn their backs, and he would never know. Nothing that Dent's Tour could do in the way of ostracizing22 would have been able to pierce through to his consciousness. Having decided23 that the women of it were plain and the men uninteresting he thought of them no more. With his customary single-mindedness he concentrated his attention at first only on Switzerland, which was what he was paying to see, and he found it pleasant that the young lady in grey should so naturally join him in this concentration. Just for a few hours at the very beginning he had thought her naturalness, her ready friendliness24, a little unwomanly. She was, he thought, a little too productive of an impression that she was a kind of boy. She had no self-consciousness, which he had been taught by his mother to confound with modesty25, and no desire whatever apparently26 to please the opposite sex. She went to sleep, for instance, towards the end of the long journey right in front of him, letting her mouth open if it wanted to, and not bothering at all that he should probably be looking at it.
Herr Dremmel, who besides his agricultural researches prided himself on a liberal if intermittent27 interest in womanly charm, regretted these shortcomings, but only for a few hours at the very beginning. By the end of the first day in Lucerne he was finding it pleasant to pair off with her, womanly or unwomanly. He liked to talk to her. He discovered he could talk to her as he had been unable to talk to the few East Prussian young ladies he had met, in spite of the stiff intensity28 of their desire to please him. He searched about for a reason, and concluded that it was because she was interested. Whatever subject he discoursed29 upon she came, so it seemed, running to meet him. She listened intelligently, and with a pliability—he did not then know about the Bishop30's training—rarely to be found in combination with intelligence. Intelligent persons are very apt, he remembered, to argue and object. This young lady was intelligent without argument, a most comfortable compound, and before a definite opinion had a graceful31 knack32 of doubling up. And if her doublings up were at all, as they sometimes were, delayed while she put in "But—" he only needed repeat with patience to bring out an admirable submissive sunniness. He could not of course know of her severe training in sunniness.
By the end of the second day he had told her more about his life and his home and his work and his ambitions than he had ever told anybody, and she had told him, only he was unable to find that so interesting, about her life and her home and her work. She had no ambitions, she explained, which he said was well in a woman. He was hardly aware of the Bishop, so lightly did she skim over him.
By the end of the third day he had observed what had, curiously33, escaped him before, that she was pretty. Not of course in the abundant East Prussian way, the way of generous curves and of what he now began to think were after all superfluities, but with delicacy34 and restraint. He no longer considered she would be better fattened35 up. And he was noticing her clothes, and after a painstaking36 comparing of them with those of the other ladies applying to them the adjective elegant.
By the end of the fourth he admitted to himself that, very probably, he was soon going to be in love.
By the end of the fifth he knew without a doubt that the thing had happened; the, to him incontrovertible, proof being that on this day Switzerland sank into being just her background.
Even the Rigi, he observed with interest, was nothing to him. He walked up it, he who never walked up anything, because she wanted to. He toiled37 up panting, and forgot how warmly he was dissolving inside his black clothes in the pleasure of watching her on ahead glancing in and out of the sunshine that fell clear and white on her as she fluttered above him among the pine trunks. And when he got to the top, instead of looking at the view he sat down in the nearest seat and became absorbed in the way the burning afternoon light seemed to get caught in her hair as she stood on the edge of the plateau, and made it look the colour of flames.
This was very interesting. He had never yet within his recollection preferred hair to views. A curious result, he reflected, of his harmless holiday enterprise.
He had not intended to marry. He was thirty-five, and dedicated38 to his work. He felt it was a noble work, this patient proving to ignorance and prejudice of what could be done with barrenness if only you mixed it with brains. He was fairly comfortable in his housekeeping, having found a woman who was a widow and had therefore learned the great lesson that only widows ever really know, that a man must be let alone. He was poor, and what he could spare by rigid39 economies went into the few acres of sand that were to be the Light he had to offer to lighten the Gentiles. Every man, he thought, should offer some light to the abounding40 Gentiles before he died, some light which, however small, might be kept so clear that they could not choose but see it. A wife, he had felt when considering the question from time to time, which was each year in the early spring, would come between him and his light. She would be a shadow; and a voluminous, all-enveloping shadow. His church and the business of preaching in it were already sufficiently41 interrupting, but they were weekly. A wife would be every day. He could lock her out of the laboratory, he would reflect, and perhaps also out of the sitting-room42.... When he became aware that he was earnestly considering what other rooms he could lock her out of, and discovered that he would want to lock her out of nearly all, he, as a wise and honest man, decided he had best leave the much-curved virgins43 of the neighbourhood alone.
The question occupied him regularly every year in the first warm days of spring. For the rest of the year he mostly forgot it, absorbed in his work. And here he was on the top of the Rigi, a cool place, almost, wintry, with it suddenly become so living that compared to it his fertilizers seemed ridiculous.
He examined this change of attitude with care. He was proud of the way he had fallen in love; he, a poor man, doing it without any knowledge of whether the young lady had enough or indeed any money. He sat there and took pleasure in this proof that though he was thirty-five he could yet be reckless. He was greatly pleased at finding himself so much attracted that if it should turn out that she was penniless he would still manage to marry her, and would make it possible by a series of masterly financial skirmishings, the chief of which would be the dismissal of the widow and the replacing of her dinginess44, her arrested effect of having been nipped in the bud although there was no bud, by this incorporate sunshine. The young lady's tact45, of which he had seen several instances, would cause her to confine her sunshine to appropriate moments. She would not overflow46 it into his working hours. Besides, marriage was a great readjuster of values. After it, he had not a doubt his wife would fall quite naturally into her place, which would, though honourable47, be yet a little lower than the fertilizers. If it were not so, if marriage did not readjust the upset incidental to its preliminaries, what a disastrous48 thing falling in love would be. No serious man would be able to let himself do it. But how interesting it was the way Nature, that old Hostility49, that Ancient Enemy to man's thought, did somehow manage to trip him up sooner or later; and how still more interesting the ingenuity50 with which man, aware of this trick and determined51 to avoid the disturbance52 of a duration of affection, had invented marriage.
He gazed very benevolently53 at the little figure on the edge of the view. Why not marry her now, and frugally54 convert the tail-end of Dent's Excursion into a honeymoon55?
With the large simplicity and obliviousness56 to banns and licences of a man of scientific preoccupations he saw no reason against this course. It was obvious. It was desirable. It would not only save her going back to England first, it would save the extra journey there for him. They would go straight home to East Prussia together at the end of the week; and as for doing it without her family's knowledge, if she could run away from them as she had told him she had done just for the sake of a jaunt57, how much more readily, with what increase of swiftness, indeed, would she run for the sake of a husband?
"Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, "will you marry me?"
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1
dent
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| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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clinched
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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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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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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corking
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| adj.很好的adv.非常地v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的现在分词 ) | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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8
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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9
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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10
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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11
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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13
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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14
frugality
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| n.节约，节俭 | |
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15
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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16
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intimidated
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| v.恐吓；威胁adj.害怕的；受到威胁的 | |
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incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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ostracizing
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| v.放逐( ostracize的现在分词 )；流放；摈弃；排斥 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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24
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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25
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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26
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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27
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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28
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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30
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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31
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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33
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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35
fattened
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| v.喂肥( fatten的过去式和过去分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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38
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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39
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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40
abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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42
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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43
virgins
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| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
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44
dinginess
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| n.暗淡，肮脏 | |
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45
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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46
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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47
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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48
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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49
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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50
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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51
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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52
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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53
benevolently
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| adv.仁慈地，行善地 | |
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54
frugally
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| adv. 节约地, 节省地 | |
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55
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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56
obliviousness
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57
jaunt
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| v.短程旅游；n.游览 | |
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