Recounts the Journey in a Chariot, with a Certain Amount of Dialogue, and a Small Incident on the Road
In the morning the fight was over. She looked at the signpost of The Crossways whilst dressing1, and submitted to follow, obediently as a puppet, the road recommended by friends, though a voice within, that she took for the intimations of her reason, protested that they were wrong, that they were judging of her case in the general, and unwisely—disastrously for her.
The mistaking of her desires for her reasons was peculiar2 to her situation.
‘So I suppose I shall some day see The Crossways again,’ she said, to conceive a compensation in the abandonment of freedom. The night’s red vision of martyrdom was reserved to console her secretly, among the unopened lockers3 in her treasury4 of thoughts. It helped to sustain her; and she was too conscious of things necessary for her sustainment to bring it to the light of day and examine it. She had a pitiful bit of pleasure in the gratification she imparted to Danvers, by informing her that the journey of the day was backward to Copsley.
‘If I may venture to say so, ma’am, I am very glad,’ said her maid.
‘You must be prepared for the questions of lawyers, Danvers.’
‘Oh, ma’am! they’ll get nothing out of me, and their wigs5 won’t frighten me.’
‘It is usually their baldness that is most frightening, my poor Danvers.’
‘Nor their baldness, ma’am,’ said the literal maid; ‘I never cared for their heads, or them. I’ve been in a Case before.’
‘Indeed!’ exclaimed her mistress; and she had a chill.
Danvers mentioned a notorious Case, adding, ‘They got nothing out of me.’
‘In my Case you will please to speak the truth,’ said Diana, and beheld6 in the looking-glass the primming7 of her maid’s mouth. The sight shot a sting.
‘Understand that there is to be no hesitation8 about telling the truth of what you know of me,’ said Diana; and the answer was, ‘No, ma’am.’
For Danvers could remark to herself that she knew little, and was not a person to hesitate. She was a maid of the world, with the quality of faithfulness, by nature, to a good mistress.
Redworth’s further difficulties were confined to the hiring of a conveyance9 for the travellers, and hot-water bottles, together with a postillion not addicted10 to drunkenness. He procured11 a posting-chariot, an ancient and musty, of a late autumnal yellow unrefreshed by paint; the only bottles to be had were Dutch Schiedam. His postillion, inspected at Storling, carried the flag of habitual12 inebriation13 on his nose, and he deemed it adviseable to ride the mare14 in accompaniment as far as Riddlehurst, notwithstanding the postillion’s vows15 upon his honour that he was no drinker. The emphasis, to a gentleman acquainted with his countrymen, was not reassuring16. He had hopes of enlisting17 a trustier fellow at Riddlehurst, but he was disappointed; and while debating upon what to do, for he shrank from leaving two women to the conduct of that inflamed18 troughsnout, Brisby, despatched to Storling by an afterthought of Lady Dunstane’s, rushed out of the Riddlehurst inn taproom, and relieved him of the charge of the mare. He was accommodated with a seat on a stool in the chariot. ‘My triumphal car,’ said his captive. She was very amusing about her postillion; Danvers had to beg pardon for laughing. ‘You are happy,’ observed her mistress. But Redworth laughed too, and he could not boast of any happiness beyond the temporary satisfaction, nor could she who sprang the laughter boast of that little. She said to herself, in the midst of the hilarity19, ‘Wherever I go now, in all weathers, I am perfectly20 naked!’ And remembering her readings of a certain wonderful old quarto book in her father’s library, by an eccentric old Scottish nobleman, wherein the wearing of garments and sleeping in houses is accused as the cause of human degeneracy, she took a forced merry stand on her return to the primitive21 healthful state of man and woman, and affected22 scorn of our modern ways of dressing and thinking. Whence it came that she had some of her wildest seizures23 of iridescent24 humour. Danvers attributed the fun to her mistress’s gladness in not having pursued her bent26 to quit the country. Redworth saw deeper, and was nevertheless amazed by the airy hawk-poise and pounce-down of her wit, as she ranged high and low, now capriciously generalizing, now dropping bolt upon things of passage—the postillion jogging from rum to gin, the rustics27 baconly agape, the horse-kneed ostlers. She touched them to the life in similes28 and phrases; and next she was aloft, derisively29 philosophizing, but with a comic afflatus30 that dispersed31 the sharpness of her irony32 in mocking laughter. The afternoon refreshments33 at the inn of the county market-town, and the English idea of public hospitality, as to manner and the substance provided for wayfarers34, were among the themes she made memorable35 to him. She spoke36 of everything tolerantly, just naming it in a simple sentence, that fell with a ring and chimed: their host’s ready acquiescence37 in receiving, orders, his contemptuous disclaimer of stuff he did not keep, his flat indifference38 to the sheep he sheared39, and the phantom40 half-crown flickering41 in one eye of the anticipatory42 waiter; the pervading43 and confounding smell of stale beer over all the apartments; the prevalent, notion of bread, butter, tea, milk, sugar, as matter for the exercise of a native inventive genius—these were reviewed in quips of metaphor44.
‘Come, we can do better at an inn or two known to me,’ said Redworth.
‘Surely this is the best that can be done for us, when we strike them with the magic wand of a postillion?’ said she.
‘It depends, as elsewhere, on the individuals entertaining us.’
‘Yet you admit that your railways are rapidly “polishing off” the individual.’
‘They will spread the metropolitan45 idea of comfort.’
‘I fear they will feed us on nothing but that big word. It booms—a curfew bell—for every poor little light that we would read by.’
Seeing their beacon-nosed postillion preparing too mount and failing in his jump, Redworth was apprehensive46, and questioned the fellow concerning potation.
‘Lord, sir, they call me half a horse, but I can’t ‘bids water,’ was the reply, with the assurance that he had not ‘taken a pailful.’
Habit enabled him to gain his seat.
‘It seems to us unnecessary to heap on coal when the chimney is afire; but he may know the proper course,’ Diana said, convulsing Danvers; and there was discernibly to Redworth, under the influence of her phrases, a likeness47 of the flaming ‘half-horse,’ with the animals all smoking in the frost, to a railway engine. ‘Your wrinkled centaur,’ she named the man. Of course he had to play second to her, and not unwillingly48; but he reflected passingly on the instinctive49 push of her rich and sparkling voluble fancy to the initiative, which women do not like in a woman, and men prefer to distantly admire. English women and men feel toward the quick-witted of their species as to aliens, having the demerits of aliens-wordiness, vanity, obscurity, shallowness, an empty glitter, the sin of posturing50. A quick-witted woman exerting her wit is both a foreigner and potentially a criminal. She is incandescent51 to a breath of rumour52. It accounted for her having detractors; a heavy counterpoise to her enthusiastic friends. It might account for her husband’s discontent-the reduction of him to a state of mere53 masculine antagonism54. What is the husband of a vanward woman? He feels himself but a diminished man. The English husband of a voluble woman relapses into a dreary55 mute. Ah, for the choice of places! Redworth would have yielded her the loquent lead for the smallest of the privileges due to him who now rejected all, except the public scourging56 of her. The conviction was in his mind that the husband of this woman sought rather to punish than be rid of her. But a part of his own emotion went to form the judgement.
Furthermore, Lady Dunstane’s allusion57 to her ‘enemies’ made him set down her growing crops of backbiters to the trick she had of ridiculing58 things English. If the English do it themselves, it is in a professionally robust59, a jocose60, kindly61 way, always with a glance at the other things, great things, they excel in; and it is done to have the credit of doing it. They are keen to catch an inimical tone; they will find occasion to chastise62 the presumptuous63 individual, unless it be the leader of a party, therefore a power; for they respect a power. Redworth knew their quaintnesses; without overlooking them he winced64 at the acid of an irony that seemed to spring from aversion, and regretted it, for her sake. He had to recollect65 that she was in a sharp-strung mood, bitterly surexcited; moreover he reminded himself of her many and memorable phrases of enthusiasm for England—Shakespeareland, as she would sometimes perversely66 term it, to sink the country in the poet. English fortitude67, English integrity, the English disposition68 to do justice to dependents, adolescent English ingenuousness69, she was always ready to laud70. Only her enthusiasm required rousing by circumstances; it was less at the brim than her satire71. Hence she made enemies among a placable people.
He felt that he could have helped her under happier conditions. The beautiful vision she had been on the night of the Irish Ball swept before him, and he looked at her, smiling.
‘Why do you smile?’ she said.
‘I was thinking of Mr. Sullivan Smith.’
‘Ah! my dear compatriot! And think, too, of Lord Larrian.’
She caught her breath. Instead of recreation, the names brought on a fit of sadness. It deepened; shy neither smiled nor rattled72 any more. She gazed across the hedgeways at the white meadows and bare-twigged copses showing their last leaves in the frost.
‘I remember your words: “Observation is the most, enduring of the pleasures of life”; and so I have found it,’ she said. There was a brightness along her under-eyelids that caused him to look away.
The expected catastrophe73 occurred on the descent of a cutting in the sand, where their cordial postillion at a trot74 bumped the chariot against the sturdy wheels of a waggon75, which sent it reclining for support upon a beech-tree’s huge intertwisted serpent roots, amid strips of brown bracken and pendant weeds, while he exhibited one short stump76 of leg, all boot, in air. No one was hurt. Diana disengaged herself from the shoulder of Danvers, and mildly said:
‘That reminds me, I forgot to ask why we came in a chariot.’
Redworth was excited on her behalf, but the broken glass had done no damage, nor had Danvers fainted. The remark was unintelligible77 to him, apart from the comforting it had been designed to give. He jumped out, and held a hand for them to do the same. ‘I never foresaw an event more positively,’ said he.
‘And it was nothing but a back view that inspired you all the way,’ said Diana.
A waggoner held the horses, another assisted Redworth to right the chariot. The postillion had hastily recovered possession of his official seat, that he might as soon as possible feel himself again where he was most intelligent, and was gay in stupidity, indifferent to what happened behind him. Diana heard him counselling the waggoner as to the common sense of meeting small accidents with a cheerful soul.
‘Lord!’ he cried, ‘I been pitched a Somerset in my time, and taken up for dead, and that didn’t beat me!’
Disasters of the present kind could hardly affect such a veteran. But he was painfully disconcerted by Redworth’s determination not to entrust78 the ladies any farther to his guidance. Danvers had implored79 for permission to walk the mile to the town, and thence take a fly to Copsley. Her mistress rather sided with the postillion; who begged them to spare him the disgrace of riding in and delivering a box at the Red Lion.
‘What’ll they say? And they know Arthur Dance well there,’ he groaned80. ‘What! Arthur! chariotin’ a box! And me a better man to his work now than I been for many a long season, fit for double the journey! A bit of a shake always braces81 me up. I could read a newspaper right off, small print and all. Come along, sir, and hand the ladies in.’
Danvers vowed82 her thanks to Mr. Redworth for refusing. They walked ahead; the postillion communicated his mixture of professional and human feelings to the waggoners, and walked his horses in the rear, meditating83 on the weak-heartedness of gentryfolk, and the means for escaping being chaffed out of his boots at the Old Red Lion, where he was to eat, drink, and sleep that night. Ladies might be fearsome after a bit of a shake; he would not have supposed it of a gentleman. He jogged himself into an arithmetic of the number of nips of liquor he had taken to soothe84 him on the road, in spite of the gentleman. ‘For some of ’em are sworn enemies of poor men, as yonder one, ne’er a doubt.’
Diana enjoyed her walk beneath the lingering brown-red of the frosty November sunset, with the scent25 of sand-earth strong in the air.
‘I had to hire a chariot because there was no two-horse carriage,’ said Redworth, ‘and I wished to reach Copsley as early as possible.’
She replied, smiling, that accidents were fated. As a certain marriage had been! The comparison forced itself on her reflections.
‘But this is quite an adventure,’ said she, reanimated by the brisker flow of her blood. ‘We ought really to be thankful for it, in days when nothing happens.’
Redworth accused her of getting that idea from the perusal85 of romances.
‘Yes, our lives require compression, like romances, to be interesting, and we object to the process,’ she said. ‘Real happiness is a state of dulness. When we taste it consciously it becomes mortal—a thing of the Seasons. But I like my walk. How long these November sunsets burn, and what hues86 they have! There is a scientific reason, only don’t tell it me. Now I understand why you always used to choose your holidays in November.’
She thrilled him with her friendly recollection of his customs.
‘As to happiness, the looking forward is happiness,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, the looking back! back!’ she cried.
‘Forward! that is life.’
‘And backward, death, if you will; and still at is happiness. Death, and our postillion!’
‘Ay; I wonder why the fellow hangs to the rear,’ said Redworth, turning about.
‘It’s his cunning strategy, poor creature, so that he may be thought to have delivered us at the head of the town, for us to make a purchase or two, if we go to the inn on foot,’ said Diana. ‘We’ll let the manoeuvre87 succeed.’
Redworth declared that she had a head for everything, and she was flattered to hear him.
So passing from the southern into the western road, they saw the town-lights beneath an amber88 sky burning out sombrely over the woods of Copsley, and entered the town, the postillion following.
收听单词发音 |
1
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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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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lockers
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| n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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wigs
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| n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 ) | |
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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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primming
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| v.循规蹈矩的( prim的现在分词 )；整洁的；（人）一本正经；循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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inebriation
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| n.醉，陶醉 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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enlisting
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| v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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seizures
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| n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物 | |
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iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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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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rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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similes
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| （使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 ) | |
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derisively
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| adv. 嘲笑地，嘲弄地 | |
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afflatus
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| n.灵感，神感 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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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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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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sheared
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| v.剪羊毛( shear的过去式和过去分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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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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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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anticipatory
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| adj.预想的，预期的 | |
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pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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posturing
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| 做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 ) | |
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incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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52
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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scourging
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| 鞭打( scourge的现在分词 )； 惩罚，压迫 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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58
ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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jocose
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| adj.开玩笑的，滑稽的 | |
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61
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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chastise
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| vt.责骂，严惩 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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64
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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ingenuousness
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| n.率直；正直；老实 | |
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laud
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| n.颂歌；v.赞美 | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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73
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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75
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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81
braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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82
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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meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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84
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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