The Spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin1 fierce inher chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed andwatchful and entirely2 careless of what was done or thought by the beholders.
[Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father's arm, was given in marriage.
What, people said, could have been more fitting? And, they added,how beautiful she looked!]
As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened3, there came to thewakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool, imaginationsof the strangest kind—of flesh turned to atoms which drove before thewind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of cliff, sea, cloud, and sky broughtpurposely together to assemble outwardly the scattered4 parts of the visionwithin. In those mirrors, the minds of men, in those pools of uneasywater, in which clouds for ever turn and shadows form, dreams persisted,and it was impossible to resist the strange intimation which everygull, flower, tree, man and woman, and the white earth itself seemed todeclare (but if questioned at once to withdraw) that good triumphs, happinessprevails, order rules; or to resist the extraordinary stimulus5 torange hither and thither6 in search of some absolute good, some crystal ofintensity, remote from the known pleasures and familiar virtues,something alien to the processes of domestic life, single, hard, bright, likea diamond in the sand, which would render the possessor secure.
Moreover, softened7 and acquiescent8, the spring with her bees hummingand gnats9 dancing threw her cloak about her, veiled her eyes, avertedher head, and among passing shadows and flights of small rain seemedto have taken upon her a knowledge of the sorrows of mankind.
[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with childbirth,which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they said,had promised so well.]
And now in the heat of summer the wind sent its spies about thehouse again. Flies wove a web in the sunny rooms; weeds that hadgrown close to the glass in the night tapped methodically at the windowpane. When darkness fell, the stroke of the Lighthouse, which had laid itselfwith such authority upon the carpet in the darkness, tracing its pattern,came now in the softer light of spring mixed with moonlight glidinggently as if it laid its caress10 and lingered steathily and looked andcame lovingly again. But in the very lull11 of this loving caress, as the longstroke leant upon the bed, the rock was rent asunder12; another fold of theshawl loosened; there it hung, and swayed. Through the short summernights and the long summer days, when the empty rooms seemed tomurmur with the echoes of the fields and the hum of flies, the longstreamer waved gently, swayed aimlessly; while the sun so striped andbarred the rooms and filled them with yellow haze13 that Mrs McNab,when she broke in and lurched about, dusting, sweeping14, looked like atropical fish oaring15 its way through sun-lanced waters.
But slumber16 and sleep though it might there came later in the summerominous sounds like the measured blows of hammers dulled on felt,which, with their repeated shocks still further loosened the shawl andcracked the tea-cups. Now and again some glass tinkled17 in the cupboardas if a giant voice had shrieked18 so loud in its agony that tumblers stoodinside a cupboard vibrated too. Then again silence fell; and then, nightafter night, and sometimes in plain mid-day when the roses were brightand light turned on the wall its shape clearly there seemed to drop intothis silence, this indifference19, this integrity, the thud of something falling.
[A shell exploded. Twenty or thirty young men were blown up inFrance, among them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, wasinstantaneous.]
At that season those who had gone down to pace the beach and ask ofthe sea and sky what message they reported or what vision they affirmedhad to consider among the usual tokens of divine bounty—thesunset on the sea, the pallor of dawn, the moon rising, fishing-boatsagainst the moon, and children making mud pies or pelting20 each otherwith handfuls of grass, something out of harmony with this jocundityand this serenity21. There was the silent apparition22 of an ashen-colouredship for instance, come, gone; there was a purplish stain upon the blandsurface of the sea as if something had boiled and bled, invisibly, beneath.
This intrusion into a scene calculated to stir the most sublime23 reflectionsand lead to the most comfortable conclusions stayed their pacing. It wasdifficult blandly24 to overlook them; to abolish their significance in thelandscape; to continue, as one walked by the sea, to marvel25 how beautyoutside mirrored beauty within.
Did Nature supplement what man advanced? Did she complete whathe began? With equal complacence she saw his misery26, his meanness,and his torture. That dream, of sharing, completing, of finding insolitude on the beach an answer, was then but a reflection in a mirror,and the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in quiescencewhen the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient, despairing yetloth to go (for beauty offers her lures27, has her consolations), to pace thebeach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the mirror wasbroken.
[Mr Carmichael brought out a volume of poems that spring, whichhad an unexpected success. The war, people said, had revived their interestin poetry.]
1 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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2 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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3 lengthened | |
(时间或空间)延长,伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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5 stimulus | |
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物 | |
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6 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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7 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
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8 acquiescent | |
adj.默许的,默认的 | |
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9 gnats | |
n.叮人小虫( gnat的名词复数 ) | |
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10 caress | |
vt./n.爱抚,抚摸 | |
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11 lull | |
v.使安静,使入睡,缓和,哄骗;n.暂停,间歇 | |
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12 asunder | |
adj.分离的,化为碎片 | |
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13 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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14 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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15 oaring | |
v.划(行)( oar的现在分词 ) | |
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16 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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17 tinkled | |
(使)发出丁当声,(使)发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 ); 叮当响着发出,铃铃响着报出 | |
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18 shrieked | |
v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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20 pelting | |
微不足道的,无价值的,盛怒的 | |
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21 serenity | |
n.宁静,沉着,晴朗 | |
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22 apparition | |
n.幽灵,神奇的现象 | |
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23 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
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24 blandly | |
adv.温和地,殷勤地 | |
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25 marvel | |
vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异;n.令人惊异的事 | |
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26 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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27 lures | |
吸引力,魅力(lure的复数形式) | |
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