Upstairs, in his brown firelit room, he threw himself into an armchair, and remembered... Harvard first--then Oxford1; then a year of wandering and rich initiation2. Returning to New York, he had read law, and now had his desk in the office of the respectable firm in whose charge the Dagonet estate had mouldered3 for several generations. But his profession was the least real thing in his life. The realities lay about him now: the books jamming his old college bookcases and overflowing4 on chairs and tables; sketches5 too--he could do charming things, if only he had known how to finish them!--and, on the writing-table at his elbow, scattered6 sheets of prose and verse; charming things also, but, like the sketches, unfinished.
Nothing in the Dagonet and Marvell tradition was opposed to this desultory7 dabbling8 with life. For four or five generations it had been the rule of both houses that a young fellow should go to Columbia or Harvard, read law, and then lapse9 into more or less cultivated inaction. The only essential was that he should live "like a gentleman"--that is, with a tranquil10 disdain11 for mere12 money-getting, a passive openness to the finer sensations, one or two fixed13 principles as to the quality of wine, and an archaic14 probity15 that had not yet learned to distinguish between private and "business" honour.
No equipment could more thoroughly16 have unfitted the modern youth for getting on: it hardly needed the scribbled17 pages on the desk to complete the hopelessness of Ralph Marvell's case. He had accepted the fact with a humorous fatalism. Material resources were limited on both sides of the house, but there would always be enough for his frugal18 wants--enough to buy books (not "editions"), and pay now and then for a holiday dash to the great centres of art and ideas. And meanwhile there was the world of wonders within him. As a boy at the sea-side, Ralph, between tides, had once come on a cave--a secret inaccessible19 place with glaucous lights, mysterious murmurs20, and a single shaft21 of communication with the sky. He had kept his find from the other boys, not churlishly, for he was always an outspoken22 lad, but because he felt there were things about the cave that the others, good fellows as they all were, couldn't be expected to understand, and that, anyhow, it would never be quite his cave again after he had let his thick-set freckled24 cousins play smuggler25 and pirate in it.
And so with his inner world. Though so coloured by outer impressions, it wove a secret curtain about him, and he came and went in it with the same joy of furtive26 possession. One day, of course, some one would discover it and reign27 there with him--no, reign over it and him. Once or twice already a light foot had reached the threshold. His cousin Clare Dagonet, for instance: there had been a summer when her voice had sounded far down the windings28... but he had run over to Spain for the autumn, and when he came back she was engaged to Peter Van Degen, and for a while it looked black in the cave. That was long ago, as time is reckoned under thirty; and for three years now he had felt for her only a half-contemptuous pity. To have stood at the mouth of his cave, and have turned from it to the Van Degen lair--!
Poor Clare repented29, indeed--she wanted it clearly but she repented in the Van Degen diamonds, and the Van Degen motor bore her broken heart from opera to ball. She had been subdued30 to what she worked in, and she could never again find her way to the enchanted31 cave... Ralph, since then, had reached the point of deciding that he would never marry; reached it not suddenly or dramatically, but with such sober advisedness as is urged on those about to take the opposite step. What he most wanted, now that the first flutter of being was over, was to learn and to do--to know what the great people had thought, think about their thinking, and then launch his own boat: write some good verse if possible; if not, then critical prose. A dramatic poem lay among the stuff at his elbow; but the prose critic was at his elbow too, and not to be satisfied about the poem; and poet and critic passed the nights in hot if unproductive debate. On the whole, it seemed likely that the critic would win the day, and the essay on "The Rhythmical32 Structures of Walt Whitman" take shape before "The Banished33 God." Yet if the light in the cave was less supernaturally blue, the chant of its tides less laden34 with unimaginable music, it was still a thronged35 and echoing place when Undine Spragg appeared on its threshold...
His mother and sister of course wanted him to marry. They had the usual theory that he was "made" for conjugal36 bliss37: women always thought that of a fellow who didn't get drunk and have low tastes. Ralph smiled at the idea as he sat crouched38 among his secret treasures. Marry--but whom, in the name of light and freedom? The daughters of his own race sold themselves to the Invaders39; the daughters of the Invaders bought their husbands as they bought an opera-box. It ought all to have been transacted40 on the Stock Exchange. His mother, he knew, had no such ambitions for him: she would have liked him to fancy a "nice girl" like Harriet Ray.
Harriet Ray was neither vulgar nor ambitious. She regarded Washington Square as the birthplace of Society, knew by heart all the cousinships of early New York, hated motor-cars, could not make herself understood on the telephone, and was determined41, if she married, never to receive a divorced woman. As Mrs. Marvell often said, such girls as Harriet were growing rare. Ralph was not sure about this. He was inclined to think that, certain modifications42 allowed for, there would always be plenty of Harriet Rays for unworldly mothers to commend to their sons; and he had no desire to diminish their number by removing one from the ranks of the marriageable. He had no desire to marry at all--that had been the whole truth of it till he met Undine Spragg. And now--? He lit a cigar, and began to recall his hour's conversation with Mrs. Spragg.
Ralph had never taken his mother's social faiths very seriously. Surveying the march of civilization from a loftier angle, he had early mingled43 with the Invaders, and curiously44 observed their rites45 and customs. But most of those he had met had already been modified by contact with the indigenous46: they spoke23 the same language as his, though on their lips it had often so different a meaning. Ralph had never seen them actually in the making, before they had acquired the speech of the conquered race. But Mrs. Spragg still used the dialect of her people, and before the end of the visit Ralph had ceased to regret that her daughter was out. He felt obscurely that in the girl's presence--frank and simple as he thought her--he should have learned less of life in early Apex47.
Mrs. Spragg, once reconciled--or at least resigned--to the mysterious necessity of having to "entertain" a friend of Undine's, had yielded to the first touch on the weak springs of her garrulity48. She had not seen Mrs. Heeny for two days, and this friendly young man with the gentle manner was almost as easy to talk to as the masseuse. And then she could tell him things that Mrs. Heeny already knew, and Mrs. Spragg liked to repeat her stories. To do so gave her almost her sole sense of permanence among the shifting scenes of life. So that, after she had lengthily49 deplored50 the untoward51 accident of Undine's absence, and her visitor, with a smile, and echoes of divers52 et ondoyant in his brain, had repeated her daughter's name after her, saying: "It's a wonderful find--how could you tell it would be such a fit?"--it came to her quite easily to answer: "Why, we called her after a hair-waver father put on the market the week she was born--" and then to explain, as he remained struck and silent: "It's from UNdoolay, you know, the French for crimping; father always thought the name made it take. He was quite a scholar, and had the greatest knack53 for finding names. I remember the time he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible to get the name... No, father didn't start IN as a druggist," she went on, expanding with the signs of Marvell's interest; "he was educated for an undertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was always a beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into the ministry54. Of course it didn't pay him anything like as well, so finally he opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though his heart was always in the pulpit. But after he made such a success with his hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehow everything went--though Mr. Spragg did all he COULD--." Mrs. Spragg, when she found herself embarked55 on a long sentence, always ballasted it by italicizing the last word.
Her husband, she continued, could not, at the time, do much for his father-in-law. Mr. Spragg had come to Apex as a poor boy, and their early married life had been a protracted56 struggle, darkened by domestic affliction. Two of their three children had died of typhoid in the epidemic57 which devastated58 Apex before the new water-works were built; and this calamity59, by causing Mr. Spragg to resolve that thereafter Apex should drink pure water, had led directly to the founding of his fortunes.
"He had taken over some of poor father's land for a bad debt, and when he got up the Pure Water move the company voted to buy the land and build the new reservoir up there: and after that we began to be better off, and it DID seem as if it had come out so to comfort us some about the children."
Mr. Spragg, thereafter, had begun to be a power in Apex, and fat years had followed on the lean. Ralph Marvell was too little versed60 in affairs to read between the lines of Mrs. Spragg's untutored narrative61, and he understood no more than she the occult connection between Mr. Spragg's domestic misfortunes and his business triumph. Mr. Spragg had "helped out" his ruined father-in-law, and had vowed62 on his children's graves that no Apex child should ever again drink poisoned water--and out of those two disinterested63 impulses, by some impressive law of compensation, material prosperity had come. What Ralph understood and appreciated was Mrs. Spragg's unaffected frankness in talking of her early life. Here was no retrospective pretense64 of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland65 but undeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been "plain people" and had not yet learned to be ashamed of it. The fact drew them much closer to the Dagonet ideals than any sham66 elegance67 in the past tense. Ralph felt that his mother, who shuddered68 away from Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll, would understand and esteem69 Mrs. Spragg.
But how long would their virgin70 innocence71 last? Popple's vulgar hands were on it already--Popple's and the unspeakable Van Degen's! Once they and theirs had begun the process of initiating72 Undine, there was no knowing--or rather there was too easy knowing--how it would end! It was incredible that she too should be destined73 to swell74 the ranks of the cheaply fashionable; yet were not her very freshness, her malleability75, the mark of her fate? She was still at the age when the flexible soul offers itself to the first grasp. That the grasp should chance to be Van Degen's--that was what made Ralph's temples buzz, and swept away all his plans for his own future like a beaver's dam in a spring flood. To save her from Van Degen and Van Degenism: was that really to be his mission--the "call" for which his life had obscurely waited? It was not in the least what he had meant to do with the fugitive76 flash of consciousness he called self; but all that he had purposed for that transitory being sank into insignificance77 under the pressure of Undine's claims.
Ralph Marvell's notion of women had been formed on the experiences common to good-looking young men of his kind. Women were drawn78 to him as much by his winning appealing quality, by the sense of a youthful warmth behind his light ironic79 exterior80, as by his charms of face and mind. Except during Clare Dagonet's brief reign the depths in him had not been stirred; but in taking what each sentimental81 episode had to give he had preserved, through all his minor82 adventures, his faith in the great adventure to come. It was this faith that made him so easy a victim when love had at last appeared clad in the attributes of romance: the imaginative man's indestructible dream of a rounded passion.
The clearness with which he judged the girl and himself seemed the surest proof that his feeling was more than a surface thrill. He was not blind to her crudity83 and her limitations, but they were a part of her grace and her persuasion84. Diverse et ondoyante--so he had seen her from the first. But was not that merely the sign of a quicker response to the world's manifold appeal? There was Harriet Ray, sealed up tight in the vacuum of inherited opinion, where not a breath of fresh sensation could get at her: there could be no call to rescue young ladies so secured from the perils85 of reality! Undine had no such traditional safeguards--Ralph guessed Mrs. Spragg's opinions to be as fluid as her daughter's--and the girl's very sensitiveness to new impressions, combined with her obvious lack of any sense of relative values, would make her an easy prey86 to the powers of folly87. He seemed to see her--as he sat there, pressing his fists into his temples--he seemed to see her like a lovely rock-bound Andromeda, with the devouring88 monster Society careering up to make a mouthful of her; and himself whirling down on his winged horse--just Pegasus turned Rosinante for the nonce--to cut her bonds, snatch her up, and whirl her back into the blue...
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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mouldered
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| v.腐朽( moulder的过去式和过去分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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dabbling
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| v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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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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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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probity
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| n.刚直；廉洁，正直 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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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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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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transacted
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的过去式和过去分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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garrulity
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| n.饶舌，多嘴 | |
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lengthily
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| adv.长，冗长地 | |
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deplored
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untoward
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| adj.不利的，不幸的，困难重重的 | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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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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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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initiating
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| v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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malleability
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| n.可锻性，可塑性，延展性 | |
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76
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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77
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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78
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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79
ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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80
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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81
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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82
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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83
crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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84
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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85
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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86
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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87
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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88
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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