As she sat so with her round hat pushed askew2 by the window-glass, there was some delicate reminder3 about her that streaked4 the rich Italian landscape with vestiges5 of Bloombury.
He looked out of the window where she looked and saw the white straight-sided villas6 change to green-shuttered farmhouses7, and fine old Roman roads lead on to Harmony. It was all there for him in its unexpectedness, as freshly touching8 as those reminders9 of his mother which he came upon occasionally where Ellen kept them laid by in lavender; as if the girl had shaken from the folds of her jacket of unmistakable Bloombury cut, Youth for him—his own—anybody's Youth—no limp and yellowed keepsake, but all crisply done up and ready for putting on. So sharp for the moment was his sense of accepting the invitation to put it on with her as the best possible traveller's guise10, especially for seeing Venice in, that catching[Pg 188] the speculative11 eye of the large lady turned upon him, he quailed12 sensibly. She had the air of having detected him in an attempt to establish a relation with her companion on the ground of their common youngness, and finding herself much more a match for him both in years and in respect to their common origin. Whatever passed between the two women, and something did pass wordlessly, with hardly so much substance as a look, remained there, not intrusively13, but as proof that what he had been seeking was still going on in some far but attainable14 place. It was the first movement of an accomplished15 recovery, for Peter to find himself resisting the implication of his appearance in favour of what was coming to him out of the retouched, sensitive surfaces of his past.
He knew so well as he looked at the girl, what had produced her. She was leaning a little from the window in a way that brought more of her face into view, and though from where he sat Peter could have very little notion of the points of the nearing landscape, he knew by what he saw of her, that somewhere across[Pg 189] the low runnels in the windy reeds she had caught sight of the "sea birds' nest."
He did not on that account change his position so that he might have a glimpse of the dark hills of Arqua or the towers of Venice repeating themselves in the lustrous16, spacious17 sea. Sitting opposite the girl, he saw in her following eyes the silver trails of water and the dim procession down them of old loves, old wars, old splendours, much better than the thin line of the landscape presented them to his weary sense. He leaned back as far as the stiff seat allowed, watching the Old World shine on her face, where the low light, striking obliquely18 on the water, turned it white above black shoals of weed. For the first time since his illness his mind slipped the leash19 of maimed desire, and as if it parted for him there beyond the window of the railway carriage, struck into the trail to the House. The walls of it rose up straight and shining, gilded20 purely21; the windows arching to summer blueness, let in with them the smell of the wilding rose at the turn of the road and the evening clamour of the birds in Bloombury wood.[Pg 190]
All this time Peter had been sitting in an Italian railway carriage, knee to knee with a pirate bearded Austrian Jew who gave him the greatest possible occasion for wishing the window opened, and when the jar of the checked train drew him into consciousness again, he was at a loss to know what had set him off so far until he caught sight of the girl. She was buttoning on her jacket with fingers that trembled with excitement as she constrained22 herself to the recapitulation of the two suitcases, the hat box and three parcels which her companion in order to have well in hand, had been alternately picking up and dropping ever since they sighted the tower of San Georgio dark against the sea streaked west.
"Two and one is three and three is six and the 'Baedeker' and the umbrellas," said the girl. "No, I don't have to look in the address book. I have it by heart. Casa Frolli, the Zattera." Then the roar of the train split into the sharp cries of the facchinos that carried them forward like an explosion into Venice as it rose statelily from the rippling23 lustre24. Around it wove the black riders with still,[Pg 191] communicating prows25, so buoyant, so mysteriously alive and peering, like some superior sea creatures risen magically from below the frayed26 reflection of the station lights. Much as Peter felt that he owed to the vivid presence of the girl, his new capacity to see and feel it so as it burst upon them, he hadn't found the courage to address her. So it was with a distinct sense of deprivation27 that he saw her with her companion grasping the side of the gondola28 as if by that method to keep it afloat, disappearing down the dim water lanes in the direction of the Zattera.
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1 cypresses | |
n.柏属植物,柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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2 askew | |
adv.斜地;adj.歪斜的 | |
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3 reminder | |
n.提醒物,纪念品;暗示,提示 | |
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4 streaked | |
adj.有条斑纹的,不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 );使布满条纹 | |
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5 vestiges | |
残余部分( vestige的名词复数 ); 遗迹; 痕迹; 毫不 | |
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6 villas | |
别墅,公馆( villa的名词复数 ); (城郊)住宅 | |
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7 farmhouses | |
n.农舍,农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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8 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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9 reminders | |
n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 );提醒…的东西;(告知该做某事的)通知单;提示信 | |
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10 guise | |
n.外表,伪装的姿态 | |
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11 speculative | |
adj.思索性的,暝想性的,推理的 | |
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12 quailed | |
害怕,发抖,畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13 intrusively | |
adv.干扰地,侵入地 | |
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14 attainable | |
a.可达到的,可获得的 | |
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15 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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16 lustrous | |
adj.有光泽的;光辉的 | |
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17 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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18 obliquely | |
adv.斜; 倾斜; 间接; 不光明正大 | |
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19 leash | |
n.牵狗的皮带,束缚;v.用皮带系住 | |
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20 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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21 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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22 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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23 rippling | |
起涟漪的,潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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24 lustre | |
n.光亮,光泽;荣誉 | |
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25 prows | |
n.船首( prow的名词复数 ) | |
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26 frayed | |
adj.磨损的v.(使布、绳等)磨损,磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27 deprivation | |
n.匮乏;丧失;夺去,贫困 | |
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28 gondola | |
n.威尼斯的平底轻舟;飞船的吊船 | |
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