Vance, when he left the quay1, had meant to turn homeward. He liked strolling at twilight2 through the Luxembourg quarter, where great doorways3 opened on courtyards with mouldering4 plaster statues, where the tall garden walls were looped with bunches of blueish ivy5, and every yard of the way, behind those secretive walls, a story hung like fruit for him to gather. But he found it harder than ever to leave the Seine. Each moment, as night fell, and the lights came out, the face of the river grew more changing and mysterious. Where the current turned under the slopes of Passy a prodigal6 sunset flooded the brown waves with crimson7 and mulberry; at the point where he stood the dusky waters were already sprinkled with fluctuating lights from barges8 and steamboats; but toward the Louvre and Notre–Dame all was in the uncertainty9 of night.
Tolby and Savignac were to come that afternoon to hear him read the first chapters of his new novel: “Colossus”. After pouring out to them, the night before, his large confused vision of the book, Vance had suggested their hearing what he had already written; but he regretted it now, for in the discussion which had followed they had raised so many questions that he would have preferred not to show the first pages till he had worked over them a little longer. Besides, in the excitement of talking over his project, he had forgotten that if they came for the promised reading Halo would find out for the first time that he was at work on a new novel. Vance had not meant to keep his plan a secret from her; in such matters his action was always instinctive10. His impulse was simply to talk over what he was doing with whichever listener was most likely to stimulate11 the dim creative process; and that listener was no longer Halo. Vance was sure that he loved her as much as ever, was as happy as ever in her company; it was not his fault or hers if the deep workings of his imagination were no longer roused by her presence.
This did not greatly trouble him; he took his stimulus12 where he found it, as a bee goes to the right flower. But since Halo’s outburst at Granada, when he had gone to the old Marquesa’s without her, he had felt in her a jealous vigilance which was perhaps what checked his confidences. She seemed to resent whatever excluded her from his pursuits; but though it troubled him to hurt her he could not give up the right to live his inner life in his own way, and the conflict disquieted13 and irritated him. Of late he had forgotten such minor14 problems. When he was planning a new book the turmoil15 of his mind was always enclosed in a great natural peace, and during those weeks of mysterious brooding he had not once thought of what Halo would think or say; but now he felt she would be hurt at his having told Tolby and Savignac of the new book before she knew of it.
His first idea was to get hold of his friends and put off the reading; but a glance at his watch showed that they must already be at the studio awaiting him. The worst of it was that they had probably told Halo what they had come for . . . “Oh, hell,” Vance groaned16. He stood still on the crowded pavement, thinking impatiently: “If only I could cut it all — .” Well, why shouldn’t he? This book possessed17 him. What he wanted above everything was to be alone with it, and away from everybody for a day or two, till he could clear his mind and get the whole thing back into its right perspective — just to lie somewhere on a grass-bank in the sun, and think and think.
He looked up and down the quays18, and then turned and signed to a taxi. “Gare de Lyon!” he called out. He felt suddenly hungry, and remembered that somebody had said you could get a first-rate meal at the Gare de Lyon. Dining at a great terminus, in the rush of arrivals and departures, would give him the illusion of escape; and the quarter was so remote that by the time he got home his friends would probably have left, and Halo have gone to bed . . . and the explanation could be deferred19 till the next day.
In the station restaurant a crowd of people were eating automatically in a cold glare of light. He had meant to order a good dinner, and then wander aimlessly about the streets, as he liked to do at night when ideas were churning in him. But the sight of all those travellers with their hand-luggage stacked at their feet, and something fixed21 and distant in their eyes, increased his desire to escape, and again he thought: “Why not?” He snatched a sandwich from the buffet22, and hurried to the telegraph office to send a message to Halo; then, his conscience eased, he began to stroll from one platform to another, consulting the signboards with the names of the places for which the trains were leaving . . . Dijon . . . Lyons . . . Avignon . . . Marseilles . . . Ventimiglia . . . every name woke in him a different sonority23, the deeper in proportion to the mystery. Lyons, Marseilles — the great cities — called up miles of streets lined with closely packed houses, and in every house innumerable rooms full of people, all strange and remote from him, yet all moved by the common springs of hunger, lust24, ambition . . . That vision of miles and miles of unknown humanity packed together in stifling25 propinquity, each nucleus26 revolving27 about its own tiny orbit, with passions as intractable as those that govern heroes and overthrow28 kingdoms, always seized him when he entered a new city. But other names — Avignon, Ventimiglia, Spezia — sang with sweeter cadences29, made him yearn30 for their mysterious cliffs and inlets (he pictured them all as encircled by summer seas). His geography was as vague as that of a mediaeval mapmaker; but he was sure those places must be at least as far off as Cadiz or Cordova, and he turned reluctantly from the enchanted31 platform.
On a signboard farther on he saw a familiar name: Fontainebleau. Though it was so near he had never been there; but he knew there was a forest there, and he felt that nothing would so fit in with his mood as to wander endlessly and alone under trees. He saw that a train was starting in ten minutes; he bought his ticket and got in.
A man in the compartment32, who said he was an American painter, told Vance of an inn on the edge of the forest where he would be away from everybody — especially from the painters, his adviser33 ironically added. He himself was going on to Sens, where they didn’t bother you much as yet . . . Vance got out at Fontainebleau, woke up the keeper of the inn, and slept in a hard little bed the dreamless sleep of the runaway35 schoolboy.
The next morning he was up early, and as soon as he could coax36 a cup of coffee from the landlady37 he started off into the forest. He did not know till then that he had never before seen a forest. In America he had seen endless acres of trees; but they were saplings, the growth of yesterday. Here at last was an ancient forest, a forest with great isolated38 trees, their branches heavy with memory, gazing in meditative39 majesty40 down glades41 through which legendary42 cavalcades43 came riding. For miles he walked on under immense low~spreading beeches44; then a trail through the bracken led him out on a white sandy clearing full of fantastic rocks, where birch-trees quivered delicately above cushions of purplish heather. Still farther, in another region, he came on hollows of turf brooded over by ancient oaks, on pools from which waterbirds started up crying, and grass-drives narrowing away to blue-brown distances like the background of tapestries45. The forest seemed endless; it enclosed him on every side. He could not imagine anything beyond it. In its all-embracing calm his nervous perturbations ceased. Face to face with this majesty of nature, this great solitude46 which had stood there, never expecting him yet always awaiting him, he felt the same deep union with earth that once or twice in his life he had known by the seashore.
After a while he grew tired of walking, and lay down to ponder on his book. In that immemorial quiet the voice of his thoughts came to him clear of the other voices entangling47 it. He had tried to explain the book to his two friends, and he knew he had failed, perhaps because he could not detach his own ideas from the dense48 thicket49 of ideas which flourished in the air of Paris. Or perhaps his friends’ minds were too well-ordered and logical to tolerate the amorphous50 mass he had tried to force into them. “Colossus” — he had pitched on the title as expressing that unwieldy bulk.
The endless talks about the arts of expression which went on in the circle presided over by Lorry and Jane Meggs had roused in Vance a new tendency to self-analysis. Especially when they discussed the writing of fiction — one of their most frequent themes — he felt that he had been practising blindly, almost automatically, what these brilliant and intensely aware young people regarded as the most self-conscious of arts. Their superior cultivation51 made it impossible to brush aside their theories and pronouncements as he had the outpourings of the young men in Rebecca Stram’s studio; he felt compelled to listen and to examine their arguments, fallacious as some of them seemed.
When they said that fiction, as the art of narrative52 and the portrayal53 of social groups, had reached its climax54, and could produce no more (citing Raphael and Ingres as analogous55 instances in painting) — that unless the arts were renewed they were doomed56, and that in fiction the only hope of renewal57 was in the exploration of the subliminal58, his robust59 instinct told him that the surface of life was rich enough to feed the creator’s imagination. But though he resisted the new theories they lamed60 his creative impulse, and he began to look back with contempt on what he had already done. The very popularity of “The Puritan in Spain” confirmed his dissatisfaction. A book that pleased the public was pretty sure not to have been worth writing. He remembered Frenside’s saying that “Instead” was a pretty fancy, but not to be repeated, and he knew that “The Puritan” was simply a skilful61 variation on “Instead”. Evidently he was on the wrong tack20, and his clever new friends must be right. . .
But what was the alternative they proposed? A microscopic62 analysis of the minute in man, as if the highest imaginative art consisted in decomposing63 him into his constituent64 atoms. And at that Vance instantly rebelled. The new technique might be right, but their application of it substituted pathology for invention. Man was man by virtue65 of the integration66 of his atoms, not of their dispersal. It was not when you had taken him apart that you could realize him, but when you had built him up. The fishers in the turbid67 stream-of~consciousness had reduced their fictitious68 characters to a bundle of loosely tied instincts and habits, borne along blindly on the current of existence. Why not reverse the process, reduce the universe to its component69 dust, and set man whole and dominant70 above the ruins? What landmarks71 were there in the wilderness72 of history but the great men rising here and there above the herd73? And was not even the average man great, if you pictured him as pitted against a hostile universe, and surviving, and binding74 it to his uses? It was that average man whom Vance wanted to depict75 in his weakness and his power. “Colossus” — the name was not wholly ironic34; it symbolized76 the new vision, the great firm outline, that he wanted to project against the petty chaos77 of Jane Meggs’s world. Only, how was it to be done?
He tried to carry over his gray theory into the golden world of creation; but the scents78 and sounds of the forest made him drowsy79, and he lay on a warm slope, gazing upward, and letting the long drifts of blue sky and snowy cumulus filter between his eyelids80.
Presently he grew hungry, and remembered that before starting he had stuffed his pockets with sandwiches and a flask81 of wine. He made his meal, and continued to lie on the grass-bank, smoking and dozing82, and murmuring over snatches of sylvan83 poetry, from Faust’s Walpurgis ride to the branch-charmed oaks of Hyperion.
At last he got up, shook the tufts of grass from his coat, and wandered on. The afternoon was perfect. The sun poured down from a sky banked with still clouds, and the air smelt84 of fading bracken and beech-leaves, and the spice of heather bloom. Why couldn’t he always live near a forest, have this populous85 solitude at his door? What were cities and societies for but to sterilize86 the imagination? People were of no use to him, even the cleverest, when it came to his work — what he needed was this tireless renewal of earth’s functions, the way of a forest with the soul. . .
He pulled off his coat and swung along in his shirtsleeves, glowing with the afternoon warmth of the woods. It seemed impossible that outside of those enchanted bounds winds blew, rain fell, and the earth plunged87 on toward a decaying year. He thought of purple grapes on hot trellises, of the amber88 fires of Poussin’s “Poet and the Muse”, of Keats’s mists and mellow89 fruitfulness, and the blue lightning-lit windows in the nameless church. He had lost all sense of direction, and did not know whether he was near the edge of the forest, or far from it, when suddenly he came on an open space flooded with sun, and a bank where a girl lay asleep. At least he supposed she was asleep, from the relaxed lines of her body; but he could not be sure, for she had opened her sunshade and planted it slantwise in the ground, so that its dome90 roofed her in, and hid her face.
Vance stood and looked at her. She was as sunlit and mysterious as his mood. A dress of some thin stuff modelled the long curves of her body; her ankles were crossed, and the slim arched feet, in sandal-like shoes, looked as if feathers might grow from them when she stirred. But she lay still, apparently91 unaware92 of him and of all the world.
He gazed at the picture in a mood of soft excitement. He wanted to lift the sunshade and surprise the wonder in her eyes. But would she be surprised? No; only a little amused, he thought. Dryads must be used to such encounters, and she would simply fit him into her dreams, and put her arms around his neck and her lips to his.
Perhaps every man had his Endymion-hour — only what if Diana, instead of vanishing in a silver mist, should say: “Let’s go off together,” and give Endymion her address? No . . . she must remain a part of his dream, a flicker93 of light among the leaves. . .
He turned away, still in the nymph’s toils94. As he walked on he saw coming toward him a stoutish95 common-looking young man with a straw hat tilted96 back on his head, and a self-satisfied smile on a coarse lip. He wore a new suit of clothes and walked jauntily97, swinging his stick and glancing ahead as if in pleasant expectation — an ordinary, not unkindly-looking youth, evidently satisfied with himself and what awaited him. Was he on his way to meet the roadside dryad? Had she fallen asleep as she lay in the sun and waited? Vance was annoyed by the thought; in looking at the man’s face he seemed to have seen the girl’s, and the world of earthly things re-entered the forest. He did not scorn those earthly things; a common good-natured man kissing a flushed girl under a tavern98 arbour was a pleasant enough sight. But he wanted something rarer in his memory of the forest, and he turned indifferently from the meeting of Diana and Endymion.
收听单词发音 |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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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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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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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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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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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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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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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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buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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sonority
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| n.响亮，宏亮 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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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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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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cavalcades
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| n.骑马队伍，车队( cavalcade的名词复数 ) | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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entangling
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| v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的现在分词 ) | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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amorphous
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| adj.无定形的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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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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portrayal
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| n.饰演；描画 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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subliminal
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| adj.下意识的，潜意识的；太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的 | |
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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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lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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decomposing
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| 腐烂( decompose的现在分词 )； （使）分解； 分解（某物质、光线等） | |
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constituent
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| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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integration
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| n.一体化，联合，结合 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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sterilize
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| vt.使不结果实；使绝育；使无效；杀菌，消毒 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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stoutish
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| 略胖的 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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