Fulvia, in the twilight1, sat awaiting the Duke.
The room in which she sat looked out on a stone-flagged cloisterenclosing a plot of ground planted with yews3; and at the farther end ofthis cloister2 a door communicated by a covered way with the ducalgardens. The house had formed a part of the convent of the PerpetualAdoration, which had been sold by the nuns4 when they moved to the newbuildings the late Duke had given them. A portion had been torn down tomake way for the Marquess of Cerveno's palace, and in the remainingfragment, a low building wedged between high walls, Fulvia had found alodging. Her whole dwelling5 consisted of the Abbess's parlour, in whichshe now sat, and the two or three adjoining cells. The tall presses inthe parlour had been filled with her father's books, and surmounted6 byhis globes and other scientific instruments. But for this the apartmentremained as unadorned as in her predecessor's day; and Fulvia, in heraustere black gown, with a lawn kerchief folded over her breast, and theunpowdered hair drawn7 back from her pale face, might herself have passedfor the head of a religious community.
She cultivated with almost morbid8 care this severity of dress andsurroundings. There were moments when she could hardly tolerate the paleautumnal beauty which her glass reflected, when even this phantom9 ofyouth and radiance became a stumbling-block to her spiritual pride. Shewas not ashamed of being the Duke of Pianura's mistress; but she had ahorror of being thought like the mistresses of other princes. Sheloathed all that the position represented in men's minds; she hadrefused all that, according to the conventions of the day, it entitledher to claim: wealth, patronage10, and the rank and estates which it wascustomary for the sovereign to confer. She had taken nothing from Odobut his love, and the little house in which he had lodged11 her.
Three years had passed since Fulvia's flight to Pianura. From the momentwhen she and Odo had stood face to face again, it had been clear to himthat he could never give her up, to her that she could never leave him.
Fate seemed to have thrown them together in derision of their longstruggle, and both felt that lassitude of the will which is the reactionfrom vain endeavour. The discovery that he needed her, that the task forwhich he had given her up could after all not be accomplished12 withouther, served to overcome her last resistance. If the end for which bothstrove could best be attained13 together--if he needed the aid of herunfaltering faith as much as she needed that of his wealth andpower--why should any personal scruple14 stand between them? Why shouldshe who had given all else to the cause--ease, fortune, safety, and eventhe happiness that lay in her hand--hesitate to make the final sacrificeof a private ideal? According to the standards of her day there was nodishonour to a woman in being the mistress of a man whose rank forbadehis marrying her: the dishonour15 lay in the conduct which had come to beassociated with such relations. Under the old dispensation the influenceof the prince's mistress had stood for the last excesses of moral andpolitical corruption16; why might it not, under the new law, come torepresent as unlimited17 a power for good?
So love, the casuist, argued; and during those first months, whenhappiness seemed at last its own justification18, Fulvia lived in everyfibre. But always, even then, she was on the defensive19 against thathigher tribunal which her own conception of life had created. In spiteof herself she was a child of the new era, of the universal reactionagainst the falseness and egotism of the old social code. A standard ofconduct regulated by the needs of the race rather than by individualpassion, a conception of each existence as a link in the great chain ofhuman endeavour, had slowly shaped itself out of the wild theories andvague "codes" of the eighteenth-century moralists; and with this senseof the sacramental nature of human ties, came a renewed reverence20 formoral and physical purity.
Fulvia was of those who require that their lives shall be an affirmationof themselves; and the lack of inner harmony drove her to seek someoutward expression of her ideals. She threw herself with renewed passioninto the political struggle. The best, the only justification of herpower, was to use it boldly, openly, for the good of the people. All therepressed forces of her nature were poured into this single channel. Shehad no desire to conceal21 her situation, to disguise her influence overOdo. She wished it rather to be so visible a factor in his relationswith his people that she should come to be regarded as the ultimatepledge of his good faith. But, like all the casuistical virtues22, thisposition had the rigidity23 of something created to fit a special case;and the result was a fixity of attitude, which spread benumbingly overher whole nature. She was conscious of the change, yet dared notstruggle against it, since to do so was to confess the weakness of hercase. She had chosen to be regarded as a symbol rather than a woman, andthere were moments when she felt as isolated24 from life as some marbleallegory in its niche25 above the market-place.
It was the desire to associate herself with the Duke's public life thathad induced her, after much hesitation26, to accept the degree which theUniversity had conferred on her. She had shared eagerly in the work ofreconstructing the University, and had been the means of drawing toPianura several teachers of distinction from Padua and Pavia. It was herdream to build up a seat of learning which should attract students fromall parts of Italy; and though many young men of good family hadwithdrawn from the classes when the Barnabites were dispossessed, shewas confident that they would soon be replaced by scholars from otherstates. She was resolved to identify herself openly with the educationalreform which seemed to her one of the most important steps toward civicemancipation; and she had therefore acceded28 to the request of thefaculty that, on receiving her degree, she should sustain a thesisbefore the University. This ceremony was to take place a few days hence,on the Duke's birthday; and, as the new charter was to be proclaimed onthe same day, Fulvia had chosen as the subject of her discourse29 theConstitution recently promulgated30 in France.
She pushed aside the bundle of political pamphlets which she had beenstudying, and sat looking out at the strip of garden beyond the archesof the cloister. The narrow horizon bounded by convent walls symbolisedfitly enough the life she had chosen to lead: a life of artificialrestraints and renunciations, passive, conventual almost, in which eventhe central point of her love burned, now, with a calm devotional glow.
The door in the cloister opened and the Duke crossed the garden. Hewalked slowly, with the listless step she had observed in him of late;and as he entered she saw that he looked pale and weary.
"You have been at work again," she said. "A cabinet-meeting?""Yes," he answered, sinking into the Abbess's high carved chair.
He glanced musingly31 about the dim room, in which the shadow of thecloister made an early dusk. Its atmosphere of monastic calm, of whichthe significance did not escape him, fell soothingly33 on his spirit. Itsimplified his relation to Fulvia by tacitly restricting it within thebounds of a tranquil34 tenderness. Any other setting would have seemedless in harmony with their fate.
Better, perhaps, than Fulvia, he knew what ailed35 them both. Happinesshad come to them, but it had come too late; it had come tinged36 withdisloyalty to their early ideals; it had come when delay anddisillusionment had imperceptibly weakened the springs of passion. Forit is the saddest thing about sorrow that it deadens the capacity forhappiness; and to Fulvia and Odo the joy they had renounced37 had returnedwith an exile's alien face.
Seeing that he remained silent, she rose and lit the shaded lamp on thetable. He watched her as she moved across the room. Her step had lostnone of its flowing grace, of that harmonious38 impetus39 which years agohad drawn his boyish fancy in its wake. As she bent40 above the lamp, thecircle of light threw her face into relief against the deepening shadowsof the room. She had changed, indeed, but as those change in whom thesprings of life are clear and abundant: it was a development rather thana diminution41. The old purity of outline remained; and deep below thesurface, but still visible sometimes to his lessening42 insight, the oldgirlish spirit, radiant, tender and impetuous, stirred for a moment inher eyes.
The lamplight fell on the pamphlets she had pushed aside. Odo picked oneup. "What are these?" he asked.
"They were sent to me by the English traveller whom Andreoni broughthere."He turned a few pages. "The old story," he said. "Do you never weary ofit?""An old story?" she exclaimed. "I thought it had been the newest in theworld. Is it not being written, chapter by chapter, before our veryeyes?"Odo laid the treatise43 aside. "Are you never afraid to turn the nextpage?" he asked.
"Afraid? Afraid of what?""That it may be written in blood."She uttered a quick exclamation44; then her face hardened, and she said ina low tone: "De Crucis has been with you."He made the half-resigned, half-impatient gesture of the man who feelshimself drawn into a familiar argument from which there is no issue.
"He left yesterday for Germany.""He was here too long!" she said, with an uncontrollable escape ofbitterness.
Odo sighed. "If you would but let me bring him to you, you would seethat his influence over me is not what you think it."She was silent a moment; then she said: "You are tired tonight. Let usnot talk of these things.""As you please," he answered, with an air of relief; and she rose andwent to the harpsichord45.
She played softly, with a veiled touch, gliding46 from one crepuscularmelody to another, till the room was filled with drifts of sound thatseemed like the voice of its own shadows. There had been times when hecould have yielded himself to this languid tide of music, letting itloosen the ties of thought till he floated out into the soothing32 dimnessof sensation; but now the present held him. To Fulvia, too, he knew themusic was but a forced interlude, a mechanical refuge from thought. Shehad deliberately47 narrowed their intercourse48 to one central idea; and itwas her punishment that silence had come to be merely an intensifiedexpression of this idea.
When she turned to Odo she saw the same consciousness in his face. Itwas useless for them to talk of other things. With a pang49 of unreasoningregret she felt that she had become to him the embodiment of a singlethought--a formula, rather than a woman.
"Tell me what you have been doing," she said.
The question was a relief. At once he began to separation of his work.
All his thoughts, all his time, were given to the constitution which wasto define the powers of Church and state. The difficulties increased asthe work advanced; but the gravest difficulty was one of which he darednot tell her: his own growing distrust of the ideas for which helaboured. He was too keenly aware of the difference in their mentaloperations. With Fulvia, ideas were either rejected or at once convertedinto principles; with himself, they remained stored in the mind, servingrather as commentaries on life than as incentives50 to action. Thisperpetual accessibility to new impressions was a quality she could notunderstand, or could conceive of only as a weakness. Her own mind waslike a garden in which nothing is ever transplanted. She allowed for nointermediate stages between error and dogma, for no shifting of thebounds of conviction; and this security gave her the singleness ofpurpose in which he found himself more and more deficient51.
Odo remembered that he had once thought her nearness would dispel52 hishesitations. At first it had been so; but gradually the contact with herfixed enthusiasms had set up within him an opposing sense of the claimsignored. The element of dogmatism in her faith showed the discouragingsameness of the human mind. He perceived that to a spirit like Fulvia'sit might become possible to shed blood in the cause of tolerance53.
The rapid march of events in France had necessarily produced an oppositeeffect on minds so differently constituted. To Fulvia the year had beena year of victory, a glorious affirmation of her political creed54. Stepby step she had seen, as in some old allegorical painting, error flybefore the shafts55 of truth. Where Odo beheld56 a conflagration57 she saw asunrise; and all that was bare and cold in her own life was warmed andtransfigured by that ineffable58 brightness.
She listened patiently while he enlarged on the difficulties of thecase. The constitution was framed in all its details, but with itscompletion he felt more than ever doubtful of the wisdom of granting it.
He would have welcomed any postponement59 that did not seem an admissionof fear. He dreaded60 the inevitable61 break with the clergy62, not so muchbecause of the consequent danger to his own authority, as because he wasincreasingly conscious of the newness and clumsiness of the instrumentwith which he proposed to replace their tried and complex system. Hementioned to Fulvia the rumours63 of popular disaffection; but she sweptthem aside with a smile.
"The people mistrust you," she said. "And what does that mean? That youhave given your enemies time to work on their credulity. The longer youdelay the more opposition64 you will encounter. Father Ignazio wouldrather destroy the state than let it be saved by any hand but his."Odo reflected. "Of all my enemies," he said, "Father Ignazio is the oneI most respect, because he is the most sincere.""He is the most dangerous, then," she returned. "A fanatic65 is alwaysmore powerful than a knave66."He was struck with her undiminished faith in the sufficiency of suchgeneralisations. Did she really think that to solve such a problem itwas only necessary to define it? The contact with her unfalteringassurance would once have given him a momentary67 glow; but now it lefthim cold.
She was speaking more urgently. "Surely," she said, "the noblest use aman can make of his own freedom is to set others free. My father said itwas the only justification of kingship."He glanced at her half-sadly. "Do you still fancy that kings are free? Iam bound hand and foot.""So was my father," she flashed back at him; "but he had the Prometheanspirit."She coloured at her own quickness, but Odo took the thrust tranquilly68.
"Yes," he said, "your father had the Promethean spirit: I have not. Theflesh that is daily torn from me does not grow again.""Your courage is as great as his," she exclaimed, her tenderness inarms.
"No," he answered, "for his was hopeful." There was a pause, and then hebegan to speak of the day's work.
All the afternoon he had been in consultation69 with Crescenti, whose vasthistorical knowledge was of service in determining many disputed pointsin the tenure70 of land. The librarian was in sympathy with any measurestending to relieve the condition of the peasantry; yet he was almost asstrongly opposed as Trescorre to any reproduction of the Tuscanconstitution.
"He is afraid!" broke from Fulvia. She admired and respected Crescenti,yet she had never fully71 trusted him. The taint72 of ecclesiasticism was onhim.
Odo smiled. "He has never been afraid of facing the charge ofJansenism," he replied. "All his life he has stood in open opposition tothe Church party.""It is one thing to criticise73 their dogmas, another to attack theirprivileges. At such a time he is bound to remember that he is apriest--that he is one of them.""Yet, as you have often pointed74 out, it is to the clergy that France ingreat measure owes her release from feudalism."She smiled coldly. "France would have won her cause without the clergy!""This is not France, then," he said with a sigh. After a moment he beganagain: "Can you not see that any reform which aims at reducing the powerof the clergy must be more easily and successfully carried out if theycan be induced to take part in it? That, in short, we need them at thismoment as we have never needed them before? The example of France oughtat least to show you that.""The example of France shows me that, to gain a point in such astruggle, any means must be used! In France, as you say, the clergy werewith the people--here they are against them. Where persuasion75 failscoercion must be used!"Odo smiled faintly. "You might have borrowed that from their ownarmoury," he said.
She coloured at the sarcasm76. "Why not?" she retorted. "Let them have ataste of their own methods! They know the kind of pressure that makesmen yield--when they feel it they will know what to do."He looked at her with astonishment77. "This is Gamba's tone," he said. "Ihave never heard you speak in this way before."She coloured again; and now with a profound emotion. "Yes," she said,"it is Gamba's tone. He and I speak for the same cause and with the samevoice. We are of the people and we speak for the people. Who are yourother counsellors? Priests and noblemen! It is natural enough that theyshould wish to make their side of the question heard. Listen to them, ifyou will--conciliate them, if you can! We need all the allies we canwin. Only do not fancy they are really speaking for the people. Do notthink it is the people's voice you hear. The people do not ask you toweigh this claim against that, to look too curiously78 into the defectsand merits of every clause in their charter. All they ask is that thecharter should be given them!"She spoke79 with the low-voiced passion that possessed27 her at suchmoments. All acrimony had vanished from her tone. The expression of agreat conviction had swept aside every personal animosity, and clearedthe sources of her deepest feeling. Odo felt the pressure of heremotion. He leaned to her and their hands met.
"It shall be given them," he said.
She lifted her face to his. It shone with a great light. Once before hehad seen it so illumined, but with how different a brightness! Theremembrance stirred in him some old habit of the senses. He bent overand kissed her.
收听单词发音 |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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acceded
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| v.（正式）加入( accede的过去式和过去分词 )；答应；（通过财产的添附而）增加；开始任职 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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promulgated
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| v.宣扬（某事物）( promulgate的过去式和过去分词 )；传播；公布；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
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musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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ailed
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| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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harpsichord
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| n.键琴（钢琴前身） | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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incentives
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| 激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机 | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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56
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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60
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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61
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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62
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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63
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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64
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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65
fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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66
knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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67
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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68
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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69
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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70
tenure
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| n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期 | |
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71
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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72
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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73
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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74
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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75
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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76
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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77
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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78
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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79
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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