Further Adventures of the Angel in the Village. XXIX.

"That's all right," said Crump when the bandaging was replaced. "It's a trick of memory, no doubt, but these excrescences of yours don't seem nearly so large as they did yesterday. I suppose they struck me rather forcibly. Stop and have lunch with me now you're down here. Midday meal, you know. The youngsters will be swallowed up by school again in the afternoon."

 

"I never saw anything heal so well in my life," he said, as they walked into the dining-room. "Your blood and flesh must be as clean and free from bacteria as they make 'em. Whatever stuff there is in your head," he added sotto voce.

 

At lunch he watched the Angel narrowly, and talked to draw him out.

 

[Pg 136]

 

"Journey tire you yesterday?" he said suddenly.

 

"Journey!" said the Angel. "Oh! my wings felt a little stiff."

 

("Not to be had,") said Crump to himself. ("Suppose I must enter into it.")

 

"So you flew all the way, eigh? No conveyance¹?"

 

"There wasn't any way," explained the Angel, taking mustard. "I was flying up a symphony with some Griffins and Fiery² Cherubim, and suddenly everything went dark and I was in this world of yours."

 

"Dear me!" said Crump. "And that's why you haven't any luggage." He drew his serviette across his mouth, and a smile flickered³ in his eyes.

 

"I suppose you know this world of ours pretty well? Watching us over the adamantine walls and all that kind of thing. Eigh?"

 

"Not very well. We dream of it sometimes. In the moonlight, when the Nightmares have fanned us to sleep with their wings."

 

"Ah, yes—of course," said Crump. "Very[Pg 137] poetical⁴ way of putting it. Won't you take some Burgundy? It's just beside you."

 

"There's a persuasion⁵ in this world, you know, that Angels' Visits are by no means infrequent. Perhaps some of your—friends have travelled? They are supposed to come down to deserving persons in prisons, and do refined Nautches and that kind of thing. Faust business, you know."

 

"I've never heard of anything of the kind," said the Angel.

 

"Only the other day a lady whose baby was my patient for the time being—indigestion—assured me that certain facial contortions⁶ the little creature made indicated that it was Dreaming of Angels. In the novels of Mrs Henry Wood that is spoken of as an infallible symptom of an early departure. I suppose you can't throw any light on that obscure pathological manifestation⁷?"

 

"I don't understand it at all," said the Angel, puzzled, and not clearly apprehending⁸ the Doctor's drift.

 

("Getting huffy,") said Crump to himself. ("Sees I'm poking⁹ fun at him.") "There's[Pg 138] one thing I'm curious about. Do the new arrivals complain much about their medical attendants? I've always fancied there must be a good deal of hydropathic talk just at first. I was looking at that picture in the Academy only this June...."

 

"New Arrivals!" said the Angel. "I really don't follow you."

 

The Doctor stared. "Don't they come?"

 

"Come!" said the Angel. "Who?"

 

"The people who die here."

 

"After they've gone to pieces here?"

 

"That's the general belief, you know."

 

"People, like the woman who screamed out of the door, and the blackfaced man and his volutations and the horrible little things that threw husks!—certainly not. I never saw such creatures before I fell into this world."

 

"Oh! but come!" said the Doctor. "You'll tell me next your official robes are not white and that you can't play the harp¹⁰."

 

"There's no such thing as white in the Angelic Land," said the Angel. "It's that queer blank colour you get by mixing up all the others."

 

[Pg 139]

 

"Why, my dear Sir!" said the doctor, suddenly altering his tone, "you positively¹¹ know nothing about the Land you come from. White's the very essence of it."

 

The Angel stared at him. Was the man jesting? He looked perfectly¹² serious.

 

"Look here," said Crump, and getting up, he went to the sideboard on which a copy of the Parish Magazine was lying. He brought it round to the Angel and opened it at the coloured supplement. "Here's some real angels," he said. "You see it's not simply the wings make the Angel. White you see, with a curly whisp of robe, sailing up into the sky with their wings furled. Those are angels on the best authority. Hydroxyl kind of hair. One has a bit of a harp, you see, and the other is helping¹³ this wingless lady—kind of larval Angel, you know—upward."

 

"Oh! but really!" said the Angel, "those are not angels at all."

 

"But they are," said Crump, putting the magazine back on the sideboard and resuming his seat with an air of intense satisfaction. "I can assure you I have the best authority...."

 

[Pg 140]

 

"I can assure you...."

 

Crump tucked in the corners of his mouth and shook his head from side to side even as he had done to the Vicar. "No good," he said, "can't alter our ideas just because an irresponsible visitor...."

 

"If these are angels," said the Angel, "then I have never been in the Angelic Land."

 

"Precisely," said Crump, ineffably¹⁴ self-satisfied; "that was just what I was getting at."

 

The Angel stared at him for a minute round-eyed, and then was seized for the second time by the human disorder¹⁵ of laughter.

 

"Ha, ha, ha!" said Crump, joining in. "I thought you were not quite so mad as you seemed. Ha, ha, ha!"

 

And for the rest of the lunch they were both very merry, for entirely¹⁶ different reasons, and Crump insisted upon treating the Angel as a "dorg" of the highest degree.

 

1 conveyance   

n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具

参考例句：

• Bicycles have become the most popular conveyance for Chinese people.自行车已成为中国人最流行的代步工具。
• Its another,older,usage is a synonym for conveyance.它的另一个更古老的习惯用法是作为财产转让的同义词使用。

2 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

3 flickered   

（通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The lights flickered and went out. 灯光闪了闪就熄了。
• These lights flickered continuously like traffic lights which have gone mad. 这些灯象发狂的交通灯一样不停地闪动着。

4 poetical   

adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的

参考例句：

• This is a poetical picture of the landscape. 这是一幅富有诗意的风景画。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• John is making a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion. 约翰正在对陈腐的诗风做迂回冗长的研究。 来自辞典例句

5 persuasion   

n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派

参考例句：

• He decided to leave only after much persuasion.经过多方劝说，他才决定离开。
• After a lot of persuasion,she agreed to go.经过多次劝说后，她同意去了。

6 contortions   

n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Trimeris' compound, called T-20, blocks the final structural contortions from taking place. T-20是特里米瑞斯公司生产的化合物。它能阻止分子最终结构折叠的发生。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 癌症与艾滋病
• The guard was laughing at his contortions. 那个警卫看到他那难受劲儿感到好笑。 来自英汉文学

7 manifestation   

n.表现形式；表明；现象

参考例句：

• Her smile is a manifestation of joy.她的微笑是她快乐的表现。
• What we call mass is only another manifestation of energy.我们称之为质量的东西只是能量的另一种表现形态。

8 apprehending   

逮捕，拘押( apprehend的现在分词 )； 理解

参考例句：

• China has not been totally unsuccessful apprehending corruption suspects. 在逮捕腐化分子方面，中国并非毫无进展。
• Apprehending violence is not an easy task. 惧怕暴力不是一件容易的事。

9 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

10 harp   

n.竖琴；天琴座

参考例句：

• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。
• He played an Irish melody on the harp.他用竖琴演奏了一首爱尔兰曲调。

11 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

12 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

14 ineffably   

adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地

参考例句：

• Why to always syare blankly ineffably, feel sadness namely next. 为什么总是莫名的发呆，然后就是感到悲伤。 来自互联网

15 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

16 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。