Verena Tarrant got up and went to her father in the middle of the room; Olive Chancellor1 crossed and resumed her place beside Mrs. Farrinder on the sofa the girl had quitted; and Miss Birdseye’s visitors, for the rest, settled themselves attentively2 in chairs or leaned against the bare sides of the parlour. Verena took her father’s hands, held them for a moment, while she stood before him, not looking at him, with her eyes towards the company; then, after an instant, her mother, rising, pushed forward, with an interesting sigh, the chair on which she had been sitting. Mrs. Tarrant was provided with another seat, and Verena, relinquishing3 her father’s grasp, placed herself in the chair, which Tarrant put in position for her. She sat there with closed eyes, and her father now rested his long, lean hands upon her head. Basil Ransom4 watched these proceedings5 with much interest, for the girl amused and pleased him. She had far more colour than any one there, for whatever brightness was to be found in Miss Birdseye’s rather faded and dingy6 human collection had gathered itself into this attractive but ambiguous young person. There was nothing ambiguous, by the way, about her confederate; Ransom simply loathed7 him, from the moment he opened his mouth; he was intensely familiar — that is, his type was; he was simply the detested8 carpet-bagger. He was false, cunning, vulgar, ignoble9; the cheapest kind of human product. That he should be the father of a delicate, pretty girl, who was apparently10 clever too, whether she had a gift or no, this was an annoying, disconcerting fact. The white, puffy mother, with the high forehead, in the corner there, looked more like a lady; but if she were one, it was all the more shame to her to have mated with such a varlet, Ransom said to himself, making use, as he did generally, of terms of opprobrium11 extracted from the older English literature. He had seen Tarrant, or his equivalent, often before; he had “whipped” him, as he believed, controversially, again and again, at political meetings in blighted12 Southern towns, during the horrible period of reconstruction13. If Mrs. Farrinder had looked at Verena Tarrant as if she were a mountebank14, there was some excuse for it, inasmuch as the girl made much the same impression on Basil Ransom. He had never seen such an odd mixture of elements; she had the sweetest, most unworldly face, and yet, with it, an air of being on exhibition, of belonging to a troupe15, of living in the gaslight, which pervaded16 even the details of her dress, fashioned evidently with an attempt at the histrionic. If she had produced a pair of castanets or a tambourine17, he felt that such accessories would have been quite in keeping.
Little Doctor Prance18, with her hard good sense, had noted19 that she was an?mic, and had intimated that she was a deceiver. The value of her performance was yet to be proved, but she was certainly very pale, white as women are who have that shade of red hair; they look as if their blood had gone into it. There was, however, something rich in the fairness of this young lady; she was strong and supple20, there was colour in her lips and eyes, and her tresses, gathered into a complicated coil, seemed to glow with the brightness of her nature. She had curious, radiant, liquid eyes (their smile was a sort of reflexion, like the glisten21 of a gem), and though she was not tall, she appeared to spring up, and carried her head as if it reached rather high. Ransom would have thought she looked like an Oriental, if it were not that Orientals are dark; and if she had only had a goat she would have resembled Esmeralda, though he had but a vague recollection of who Esmeralda had been. She wore a light-brown dress, of a shape that struck him as fantastic, a yellow petticoat, and a large crimson22 sash fastened at the side; while round her neck, and falling low upon her flat young chest, she had a double chain of amber23 beads24. It must be added that, in spite of her melodramatic appearance, there was no symptom that her performance, whatever it was, would be of a melodramatic character. She was very quiet now, at least (she had folded her big fan), and her father continued the mysterious process of calming her down. Ransom wondered whether he wouldn’t put her to sleep; for some minutes her eyes had remained closed; he heard a lady near him, apparently familiar with phenomena25 of this class, remark that she was going off. As yet the exhibition was not exciting, though it was certainly pleasant to have such a pretty girl placed there before one, like a moving statue. Doctor Tarrant looked at no one as he stroked and soothed26 his daughter; his eyes wandered round the cornice of the room, and he grinned upward, as if at an imaginary gallery. “Quietly — quietly,” he murmured from time to time. “It will come, my good child, it will come. Just let it work — just let it gather. The spirit, you know; you’ve got to let the spirit come out when it will.” He threw up his arms at moments, to rid himself of the wings of his long waterproof27, which fell forward over his hands. Basil Ransom noticed all these things, and noticed also, opposite, the waiting face of his cousin, fixed28, from her sofa, upon the closed eyes of the young prophetess. He grew more impatient at last, not of the delay of the edifying29 voice (though some time had elapsed), but of Tarrant’s grotesque30 manipulations, which he resented as much as if he himself had felt their touch, and which seemed a dishonour31 to the passive maiden32. They made him nervous, they made him angry, and it was only afterwards that he asked himself wherein they concerned him, and whether even a carpet-bagger hadn’t a right to do what he pleased with his daughter. It was a relief to him when Verena got up from her chair, with a movement which made Tarrant drop into the background as if his part were now over. She stood there with a quiet face, serious and sightless; then, after a short further delay, she began to speak.
She began incoherently, almost inaudibly, as if she were talking in a dream. Ransom could not understand her; he thought it very queer, and wondered what Doctor Prance would have said. “She’s just arranging her ideas, and trying to get in report; she’ll come out all right.” This remark he heard dropped in a low tone by the mesmeric healer; “in report” was apparently Tarrant’s version of en rapport33. His prophecy was verified, and Verena did come out, after a little; she came out with a great deal of sweetness — with a very quaint34 and peculiar35 effect. She proceeded slowly, cautiously, as if she were listening for the prompter, catching36, one by one, certain phrases that were whispered to her a great distance off, behind the scenes of the world. Then memory, or inspiration, returned to her, and presently she was in possession of her part. She played it with extraordinary simplicity37 and grace; at the end of ten minutes Ransom became aware that the whole audience — Mrs. Farrinder, Miss Chancellor, and the tough subject from Mississippi — were under the charm. I speak of ten minutes, but to tell the truth the young man lost all sense of time. He wondered afterwards how long she had spoken; then he counted that her strange, sweet, crude, absurd, enchanting38 improvisation39 must have lasted half an hour. It was not what she said; he didn’t care for that, he scarcely understood it; he could only see that it was all about the gentleness and goodness of women, and how, during the long ages of history, they had been trampled40 under the iron heel of man. It was about their equality — perhaps even (he was not definitely conscious) about their superiority. It was about their day having come at last, about the universal sisterhood, about their duty to themselves and to each other. It was about such matters as these, and Basil Ransom was delighted to observe that such matters as these didn’t spoil it. The effect was not in what she said, though she said some such pretty things, but in the picture and figure of the half-bedizened damsel (playing, now again, with her red fan), the visible freshness and purity of the little effort. When she had gained confidence she opened her eyes, and their shining softness was half the effect of her discourse41. It was full of school-girl phrases, of patches of remembered eloquence42, of childish lapses43 of logic44, of flights of fancy which might indeed have had success at Topeka; but Ransom thought that if it had been much worse it would have been quite as good, for the argument, the doctrine45, had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was simply an intensely personal exhibition, and the person making it happened to be fascinating. She might have offended the taste of certain people — Ransom could imagine that there were other Boston circles in which she would be thought pert; but for himself all he could feel was that to his starved senses she irresistibly46 appealed. He was the stiffest of conservatives, and his mind was steeled against the inanities47 she uttered — the rights and wrongs of women, the equality of the sexes, the hysterics of conventions, the further stultification48 of the suffrage49, the prospect50 of conscript mothers in the national Senate. It made no difference; she didn’t mean it, she didn’t know what she meant, she had been stuffed with this trash by her father, and she was neither more nor less willing to say it than to say anything else; for the necessity of her nature was not to make converts to a ridiculous cause, but to emit those charming notes of her voice, to stand in those free young attitudes, to shake her braided locks like a naiad rising from the waves, to please every one who came near her, and to be happy that she pleased. I know not whether Ransom was aware of the bearings of this interpretation51, which attributed to Miss Tarrant a singular hollowness of character; he contented52 himself with believing that she was as innocent as she was lovely, and with regarding her as a vocalist of exquisite53 faculty54, condemned55 to sing bad music. How prettily56, indeed, she made some of it sound!
“Of course I only speak to women — to my own dear sisters; I don’t speak to men, for I don’t expect them to like what I say. They pretend to admire us very much, but I should like them to admire us a little less and to trust us a little more. I don’t know what we have ever done to them that they should keep us out of everything. We have trusted them too much, and I think the time has come now for us to judge them, and say that by keeping us out we don’t think they have done so well. When I look around me at the world, and at the state that men have brought it to, I confess I say to myself, “Well, if women had fixed it this way I should like to know what they would think of it!” When I see the dreadful misery57 of mankind and think of the suffering of which at any hour, at any moment, the world is full, I say that if this is the best they can do by themselves, they had better let us come in a little and see what we can do. We couldn’t possibly make it worse, could we? If we had done only this, we shouldn’t boast of it. Poverty, and ignorance, and crime; disease, and wickedness, and wars! Wars, always more wars, and always more and more. Blood, blood — the world is drenched58 with blood! To kill each other, with all sorts of expensive and perfected instruments, that is the most brilliant thing they have been able to invent. It seems to me that we might stop it, we might invent something better. The cruelty — the cruelty; there is so much, so much! Why shouldn’t tenderness come in? Why should our woman’s hearts be so full of it, and all so wasted and withered59, while armies and prisons and helpless miseries60 grow greater all the while? I am only a girl, a simple American girl, and of course I haven’t seen much, and there is a great deal of life that I don’t know anything about. But there are some things I feel — it seems to me as if I had been born to feel them; they are in my ears in the stillness of the night and before my face in the visions of the darkness. It is what the great sisterhood of women might do if they should all join hands, and lift up their voices above the brutal61 uproar62 of the world, in which it is so hard for the plea of mercy or of justice, the moan of weakness and suffering, to be heard. We should quench63 it, we should make it still, and the sound of our lips would become the voice of universal peace! For this we must trust one another, we must be true and gentle and kind. We must remember that the world is ours too, ours — little as we have ever had to say about anything!— and that the question is not yet definitely settled whether it shall be a place of injustice64 or a place of love!”
It was with this that the young lady finished her harangue65, which was not followed by her sinking exhausted66 into her chair or by any of the traces of a laboured climax67. She only turned away slowly towards her mother, smiling over her shoulder at the whole room, as if it had been a single person, without a flush in her whiteness, or the need of drawing a longer breath. The performance had evidently been very easy to her, and there might have been a kind of impertinence in her air of not having suffered from an exertion68 which had wrought69 so powerfully on every one else. Ransom broke into a genial70 laugh, which he instantly swallowed again, at the sweet grotesqueness71 of this virginal creature’s standing72 up before a company of middle-aged73 people to talk to them about “love,” the note on which she had closed her harangue. It was the most charming touch in the whole thing, and the most vivid proof of her innocence74. She had had immense success, and Mrs. Tarrant, as she took her into her arms and kissed her, was certainly able to feel that the audience was not disappointed. They were exceedingly affected75; they broke into exclamations76 and murmurs77. Selah Tarrant went on conversing78 ostentatiously with his neighbours, slowly twirling his long thumbs and looking up at the cornice again, as if there could be nothing in the brilliant manner in which his daughter had acquitted79 herself to surprise him, who had heard her when she was still more remarkable80, and who, moreover, remembered that the affair was so impersonal81. Miss Birdseye looked round at the company with dim exultation82; her large mild cheeks were shining with unwiped tears. Young Mr. Pardon remarked, in Ransom’s hearing, that he knew parties who, if they had been present, would want to engage Miss Verena at a high figure for the winter campaign. And Ransom heard him add in a lower tone: “There’s money for some one in that girl; you see if she don’t have quite a run!” As for our Mississippian he kept his agreeable sensation for himself, only wondering whether he might not ask Miss Birdseye to present him to the heroine of the evening. Not immediately, of course, for the young man mingled83 with his Southern pride a shyness which often served all the purpose of humility84. He was aware how much he was an outsider in such a house as that, and he was ready to wait for his coveted85 satisfaction till the others, who all hung together, should have given her the assurance of an approval which she would value, naturally, more than anything he could say to her. This episode had imparted animation86 to the assembly; a certain gaiety, even, expressed in a higher pitch of conversation, seemed to float in the heated air. People circulated more freely, and Verena Tarrant was presently hidden from Ransom’s sight by the close-pressed ranks of the new friends she had made. “Well, I never heard it put that way!” Ransom heard one of the ladies exclaim; to which another replied that she wondered one of their bright women hadn’t thought of it before. “Well, it is a gift, and no mistake,” and “Well, they may call it what they please, it’s a pleasure to listen to it”— these genial tributes fell from the lips of a pair of ruminating87 gentlemen. It was affirmed within Ransom’s hearing that if they had a few more like that the matter would soon be fixed; and it was rejoined that they couldn’t expect to have a great many — the style was so peculiar. It was generally admitted that the style was peculiar, but Miss Tarrant’s peculiarity88 was the explanation of her success.
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1
chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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relinquishing
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的现在分词 )； 放弃 | |
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ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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opprobrium
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| n.耻辱，责难 | |
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blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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mountebank
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| n.江湖郎中；骗子 | |
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troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tambourine
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓 | |
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prance
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| v.（马）腾跃，(人)神气活现地走 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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glisten
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| vi.（光洁或湿润表面等）闪闪发光，闪闪发亮 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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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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edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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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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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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rapport
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| n.和睦，意见一致 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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improvisation
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| n.即席演奏(或演唱)；即兴创作 | |
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40
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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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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42
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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43
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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44
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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45
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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46
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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inanities
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| n.空洞( inanity的名词复数 )；浅薄；愚蠢；空洞的言行 | |
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stultification
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| n.使显得愚笨，使变无效 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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50
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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51
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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52
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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53
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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55
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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56
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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69
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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71
grotesqueness
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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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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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76
exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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77
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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78
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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80
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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81
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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82
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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83
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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84
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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85
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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86
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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87
ruminating
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| v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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