(Certainly, Nancy had gone with them, since Minta Doyle had asked itwith her dumb look, holding out her hand, as Nancy made off, afterlunch, to her attic1, to escape the horror of family life. She supposed shemust go then. She did not want to go. She did not want to be drawn2 intoit all. For as they walked along the road to the cliff Minta kept on takingher hand. Then she would let it go. Then she would take it again. Whatwas it she wanted? Nancy asked herself. There was something, of course,that people wanted; for when Minta took her hand and held it, Nancy,reluctantly, saw the whole world spread out beneath her, as if it wereConstantinople seen through a mist, and then, however heavy-eyed onemight be, one must needs ask, "Is that Santa Sofia?" "Is that the GoldenHorn?" So Nancy asked, when Minta took her hand. "What is it that shewants? Is it that?" And what was that? Here and there emerged from themist (as Nancy looked down upon life spread beneath her) a pinnacle3, adome; prominent things, without names. But when Minta dropped herhand, as she did when they ran down the hillside, all that, the dome4, thepinnacle, whatever it was that had protruded5 through the mist, sankdown into it and disappeared. Minta, Andrew observed, was rather agood walker. She wore more sensible clothes that most women. Shewore very short skirts and black knickerbockers. She would jumpstraight into a stream and flounder across. He liked her rashness, but hesaw that it would not do—she would kill herself in some idiotic6 way oneof these days. She seemed to be afraid of nothing—except bulls. At themere sight of a bull in a field she would throw up her arms and flyscreaming, which was the very thing to enrage7 a bull of course. But shedid not mind owning up to it in the least; one must admit that. She knewshe was an awful coward about bulls, she said. She thought she musthave been tossed in her perambulator when she was a baby. She didn'tseem to mind what she said or did. Suddenly now she pitched down onthe edge of the cliff and began to sing some song aboutDamn your eyes, damn your eyes.
They all had to join in and sing the chorus, and shout out together:
Damn your eyes, damn your eyes,but it would be fatal to let the tide come in and cover up all the goodhunting-grounds before they got on to the beach.
"Fatal," Paul agreed, springing up, and as they went slithering down,he kept quoting the guide-book about "these islands being justly celebratedfor their park-like prospects8 and the extent and variety of theirmarine curiosities." But it would not do altogether, this shouting anddamning your eyes, Andrew felt, picking his way down the cliff, thisclapping him on the back, and calling him "old fellow" and all that; itwould not altogether do. It was the worst of taking women on walks.
Once on the beach they separated, he going out on to the Pope's Nose,taking his shoes off, and rolling his socks in them and letting that couplelook after themselves; Nancy waded9 out to her own rocks and searchedher own pools and let that couple look after themselves. She crouchedlow down and touched the smooth rubber-like sea anemones10, who werestuck like lumps of jelly to the side of the rock. Brooding, she changedthe pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales,and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against thesun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millionsof ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand awaysuddenly and let the sun stream down. Out on the pale criss-crossedsand, high-stepping, fringed, gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan(she was still enlarging the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures11 ofthe mountain side. And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly abovethe pool and rest on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunkswhich the smoke of steamers made waver on the horizon, she becamewith all that power sweeping12 savagely13 in and inevitably14 withdrawing,hypnotised, and the two senses of that vastness and this tininess (thepool had diminished again) flowering within it made her feel that shewas bound hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity15 of feelingswhich reduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the peoplein the world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves, crouchingover the pool, she brooded.
And Andrew shouted that the sea was coming in, so she leapt splashingthrough the shallow waves on to the shore and ran up the beach andwas carried by her own impetuosity and her desire for rapid movementright behind a rock and there—oh, heavens! in each other's arms, werePaul and Minta kissing probably. She was outraged16, indignant. She and Andrew put on their shoes and stockings in dead silence without sayinga thing about it. Indeed they were rather sharp with each other. Shemight have called him when she saw the crayfish or whatever it was,Andrew grumbled17. However, they both felt, it's not our fault. They hadnot wanted this horrid18 nuisance to happen. All the same it irritatedAndrew that Nancy should be a woman, and Nancy that Andrew shouldbe a man, and they tied their shoes very neatly19 and drew the bows rathertight.
It was not until they had climbed right up on to the top of the cliffagain that Minta cried out that she had lost her grandmother's brooch—her grandmother's brooch, the sole ornament20 she possessed—a weepingwillow, it was (they must remember it) set in pearls. They must haveseen it, she said, with the tears running down her cheeks, the broochwhich her grandmother had fastened her cap with till the last day of herlife. Now she had lost it. She would rather have lost anything than that!
She would go back and look for it. They all went back. They poked21 andpeered and looked. They kept their heads very low, and said thingsshortly and gruffly. Paul Rayley searched like a madman all about therock where they had been sitting. All this pother about a brooch reallydidn't do at all, Andrew thought, as Paul told him to make a "thoroughsearch between this point and that." The tide was coming in fast. The seawould cover the place where they had sat in a minute. There was not aghost of a chance of their finding it now. "We shall be cut off!" Mintashrieked, suddenly terrified. As if there were any danger of that! It wasthe same as the bulls all over again—she had no control over her emotions,Andrew thought. Women hadn't. The wretched Paul had to pacifyher. The men (Andrew and Paul at once became manly22, and differentfrom usual) took counsel briefly23 and decided24 that they would plantRayley's stick where they had sat and come back at low tide again. Therewas nothing more that could be done now. If the brooch was there, itwould still be there in the morning, they assured her, but Minta stillsobbed, all the way up to the top of the cliff. It was her grandmother'sbrooch; she would rather have lost anything but that, and yet Nancy felt,it might be true that she minded losing her brooch, but she wasn't cryingonly for that. She was crying for something else. We might all sit downand cry, she felt. But she did not know what for.
They drew ahead together, Paul and Minta, and he comforted her, andsaid how famous he was for finding things. Once when he was a littleboy he had found a gold watch. He would get up at daybreak and hewas positive he would find it. It seemed to him that it would be almost dark, and he would be alone on the beach, and somehow it would berather dangerous. He began telling her, however, that he would certainlyfind it, and she said that she would not hear of his getting up at dawn: itwas lost: she knew that: she had had a presentiment25 when she put it onthat afternoon. And secretly he resolved that he would not tell her, buthe would slip out of the house at dawn when they were all asleep and ifhe could not find it he would go to Edinburgh and buy her another, justlike it but more beautiful. He would prove what he could do. And asthey came out on the hill and saw the lights of the town beneath them,the lights coming out suddenly one by one seemed like things that weregoing to happen to him—his marriage, his children, his house; and againhe thought, as they came out on to the high road, which was shadedwith high bushes, how they would retreat into solitude26 together, andwalk on and on, he always leading her, and she pressing close to his side(as she did now). As they turned by the cross roads he thought what anappalling experience he had been through, and he must tell someone—Mrs Ramsay of course, for it took his breath away to think what hehad been and done. It had been far and away the worst moment of hislife when he asked Minta to marry him. He would go straight to MrsRamsay, because he felt somehow that she was the person who hadmade him do it. She had made him think he could do anything. Nobodyelse took him seriously. But she made him believe that he could dowhatever he wanted. He had felt her eyes on him all day today, followinghim about (though she never said a word) as if she were saying, "Yes,you can do it. I believe in you. I expect it of you." She had made him feelall that, and directly they got back (he looked for the lights of the houseabove the bay) he would go to her and say, "I've done it, Mrs Ramsay;thanks to you." And so turning into the lane that led to the house hecould see lights moving about in the upper windows. They must be awfullylate then. People were getting ready for dinner. The house was alllit up, and the lights after the darkness made his eyes feel full, and hesaid to himself, childishly, as he walked up the drive, Lights, lights,lights, and repeated in a dazed way, Lights, lights, lights, as they cameinto the house staring about him with his face quite stiff. But, good heavens,he said to himself, putting his hand to his tie, I must not make a foolof myself.)
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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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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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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enrage
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| v.触怒，激怒 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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fissures
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| n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 )；裂伤；分歧；分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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