One day he said to her: “Well, the book’s finished.” He spoke1 in a low apprehensive2 voice, as if he had been putting off the announcement as long as possible, and now that it was made, did not know what to say next.
Since the night, weeks before, when Halo had ventured her criticism he had never again proposed to show her what he was doing, never even asked her to take his dictation or to copy out his manuscript; he had definitely excluded the subject of “Colossus” from their talks. The intellectual divorce between them was increasingly bitter to Halo. That the veil of passion must wear through was life’s unescapable lesson; but if no deeper understanding underlay3 it, what was left? Had not Frenside’s advice been the only answer? In the joy of Vance’s return, and the peaceful communion of their first days, when the mere4 fact of being together seemed to settle every doubt and lay every ghost, it had been easy to smile at her old friend’s suggestion, and to reflect how little any one could know of lovers’ hearts except the lovers. But now she understood on what unstable5 ground she had rebuilt her happiness, and trembled.
Vance stood in the window looking out over the bay. The palms were wrestling in dishevelled fury with the first autumn gale6; rain striped the panes8, and beyond the headlands a welter of green waters stretched away to the low pall9 of clouds. Halo saw him give a discouraged shrug10. “Good Lord — Miss Plummet11!”
The Pension Britannique had reopened its shutters12 the previous week, and after a prelude13 of carpet-shaking and tile-scrubbing Madame Fleuret’s lodgers14 were taking possession of their old quarters. The Anglican chapel15 was to resume its offices on the following Sunday; already Halo had encountered Mrs. Dorman, cordial though embarrassed, and eager to tell her that after the first rains a bad leak had shown itself in Lady Dayes–Dawes’s room, and that the mason was afraid they would have to rebuild the chimney of the lounge.
Halo stood by Vance watching Miss Plummet swept homeward by the south-easterly blast, her umbrella bellying16 like a black sail. After she had passed there was an interval17 during which the promenade18 remained empty, like a stage-setting before the leading actor’s entrance; then, punctually as of old, Colonel Churley stalked into view, his mackintosh flapping, his stick dragging in the mud, his head thrust out angrily to meet the gale. Vance followed his struggling figure with fascinated eyes. “I suppose they all think they’re alive!” he groaned19.
Halo laid her arm on his shoulder. She knew what thoughts the sight of Colonel Churley had stirred in him. “Why should we stay here any longer?” she said.
Vance drummed on the pane7 without answering. His eyes still followed the bent20 figure lessening21 between the palm-trunks.
“Now that your book’s finished — ”
“Oh, my book! I don’t believe it is a book — just a big dump of words. And not mine, anyhow; you’ve made that clear enough!” He gave an irritated laugh.
“I have? But you only let me hear a few chapters.”
“Exactly. And on those you gave me your judgment22 of the finished book. Without a moment’s hesitation23. Look here, child,” he added abruptly24, “don’t think I was surprised, or that I minded. Not in the least. It’s the sign of the amateur critic that he must always conclude, never leave an opinion in solution.”
Halo’s arm dropped from his shoulder. “Then it can’t much matter to the author what the conclusion is.”
Vance stood uneasily shifting from one foot to the other, his eyes bent to the ground. “If only it didn’t matter! The devil of it is that when a book’s growing the merest stupidest hint may deflect25 its growth, deform26 it . . . The artist loses confidence, ceases to visualize27 . . . Oh, what’s the use of trying to explain?”
“Don’t try, dear. You’re too tired, for one thing.”
“Tired — tired? When a man’s at the end of his tether a woman always thinks he’s tired. Why don’t you suggest a bottle of tonic28?”
“If you’re at the end of your tether it would be more to the point to suggest new pastures. Why shouldn’t we try some other place?”
He moved away and began his restless pacing; then he came back and paused before her. “It’s the landscape of the soul I’m fed up with,” he broke out.
She stood silent. The landscape of the soul! But that must mean his nearest surroundings — must mean herself, she supposed. She tried to steady the smile on her trembling lips. “I wish you’d let me help you as I used to,” she began. “But if I’m of no use to you in your work, and only in the way at other times, perhaps . . .” She felt a blur29 in her eyes, and hurried on. “Perhaps the real change you need — ” and now she achieved a little laugh — “is not a new place but a new woman.”
The words dropped into a profound silence. Was he never going to speak, to deny, to protest at the monstrousness30 of her suggestion? He stood in the window, looking out into the rain, for a time that seemed to her interminable; and when he turned back his face was expressionless, closed. She felt as if a door had been shut against her. She essayed her little laugh again. “Is that it? Don’t be afraid to tell me!”
“That?” He looked at her vaguely31. “Oh — another woman?” He stopped, and then began, in a hard embarrassed voice: “I suppose you put that newspaper cutting on my desk on purpose the night I came back? You wanted me to understand that you knew?”
She returned his look in genuine bewilderment. The weeks since his return had been crowded with so many emotions and agitations32 that for the moment she had forgotten the paragraph in which Floss Delaney figured. Suddenly the memory rushed back on her, and she stood speechless. It was that, then — her first instinct had been right, had led her straight to his secret! She stiffened33 herself, trying to thrust back the intolerable truth. “What cutting? You mean — about that girl?”
“Yes; that girl.”
“Oh, Vance . . . you don’t . . . you don’t mean that it’s for her . . .?” There was another silence. “You mean that when you left London it was to go away with her?”
He gave an angry laugh. “It was to go away FROM her — as far as I could go! Now do you understand?”
Halo’s eyes clung to his labouring face. Did she understand — dared she? She spoke very low. “To get away from her . . . because you realized . . .? Because it was all over — like a bad dream? Is that it?”
“A bad dream, yes; but not over. I’d rather you knew everything now . . . I didn’t run away from her. . .”
“Then —?”
“She kicked me out. Can’t you see? Do I have to put everything in words of one syllable34?”
Halo looked away from him. “No; you don’t have to.” Suddenly her contracted heart seemed to expand a very little. “Then those weeks after you left London — when Tolby said he didn’t know what had become of you — she wasn’t with you all that time?”
“Merciful heaven — she? No!”
“Then where were you, Vance?”
“Somewhere in hell. I believe they call it Belgium.”
“All alone there, all that time?” she cried pityingly. He mistook her intonation35.
“Do you suppose that as fast as one woman throws me over I hook on to another — like a sort of limpet?”
“I wasn’t thinking of another woman. I hoped you’d had one of your friends with you.”
“A man’s got no friends when he’s going through a thing like that . . .” He stopped, and then a rush of words broke from him. “You don’t know — how should you? She threw me out; and I trailed back after her to London; and she threw me out again. That time I had my lesson.”
He dropped into his armchair and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. She thought how young his face looked in spite of its drawn36 misery37, and said to herself: “He’ll get over it and I shan’t. He’ll use it up in a story, and it will go on living in me and feeding on me.” Aloud she said: “I’m very sorry for you, Vance. I shouldn’t have thought — ”
“No! I understand. You’d have thought it would be any other woman — only not that one. Well, it’s the other way round. I’m pitiably constant.” He continued to lean back, his arms crossed behind his head. He no longer looked at her, seemed hardly to know she was there; yet every word he spoke cut like a blade sharpened to wound her. She leaned against the desk, her arms stretched behind her for support. She felt a kind of inner rigidity38 that almost seemed like strength. While it lasted, she thought, she must speak. “If you feel like that you must marry her. You’re free, dear — you know that.”
He started up with a choking sound in his throat. “Marry her? She’s going to marry somebody else.” He buried his face in his hands and sat a long while without speaking. He was not weeping; his shoulders did not stir; he just sat there in dark communion with his grief. Halo did not move either till she felt a stiffness in the muscles of her arms; then she turned from the desk and stood looking out of the window at the storm-darkened world. As she stood there Colonel Churley went by, driven back by the storm from his solitary39 tramp. How she had pitied him last winter, when she and Vance, from the safe shelter of their love, had looked out on his lonely figure!
Night was falling; soon the lamp-lighter would come along and the gas-lamps along the promenade flicker40 into life. They said the streets would be lit by electricity next year. Their landlord had even spoken of putting in an electric cooker . . . That reminded Halo that if they meant to leave Oubli she ought to write at once and give notice. You sent your landlord a registered letter, and then he couldn’t say that he hadn’t been notified, because there was his signature.
She turned back into the room, which was already dark, groped for matches, and lit the two candles in the brass41 candlesticks on the chimney. The fibres of her heart were wound about every object in that homely42 friendly room. How many evenings she and Vance had sat there, between fire and candles, joking and planning! One flesh — they had been one flesh. And now they were to be divided. She felt like some one facing a surgical43 operation: the kind of which the surgeons say to the family: “There HAVE been cases in which it has proved successful; and if it’s not done we refuse to answer for the consequences.”
She tried to picture what her future would be — what she herself would be — if the operation were to be successful. Perhaps in the end she would marry somebody else, have children, live on as a totally different being, preoccupied44 about ordering another man’s dinner and bringing up his family, though the same face continued to look back at her from her mirror. How odd if in years to come she should meet Vance somewhere — in the street, in a train — and they should not recognize each other, and some one, perhaps her husband, should say afterward45: “You didn’t know? Why, that’s the man who wrote ‘Colossus’. I thought you used to know him. That handsome common-looking woman was his wife.”
Vance stood up, shook himself and passed his hand over his forehead. “I think I’ll go out.”
Halo moved toward him. She must make use of her factitious energy before it flickered46 out. “Vance — just a minute. I want to tell you . . .”
He stopped unwillingly47. “Yes?”
“You’re free as air. You understand that, don’t you?”
He lifted his eyes and looked at her heavily. “You mean — you want to make an end?”
Her voice was hardly audible, even to her own ears. “Hadn’t we better?”
He still looked at her in a wounded suffering way. “All right, then; I understand.”
“Vance — it’s better, isn’t it?”
“It’s all I’m worth.”
She went closer to him. “Oh, not that — don’t say that! I only want you to feel that if there’s any hope . . . any happiness for you . . . elsewhere . . . I want you . . .” Her voice grew suddenly louder, and then broke into a sob48. The tide of her tears rushed over her. She dropped down on the divan49 and wept as if she were weeping away all the accumulated agony of the last weeks. How brief a way her strength had carried her! She fought back her tears, straightened herself, and lifted her face to his. “This is nothing — just nervousness. I suppose I’ve been alone too long . . .”
He knelt down at her side, and she felt his arms about her. Their treacherous50 warmth melted her resistance away. “Oh, Van . . . my Van . . .” while he held her thus, could any other woman come between them?
收听单词发音 |
1
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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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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underlay
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的过去式 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起n.衬垫物 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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plummet
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| vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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bellying
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| 鼓出部；鼓鼓囊囊 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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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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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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deflect
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| v.(使)偏斜，(使)偏离，(使)转向 | |
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deform
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| vt.损坏…的形状；使变形，使变丑；vi.变形 | |
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visualize
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| vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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monstrousness
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| 怪异 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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agitations
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| （液体等的）摇动( agitation的名词复数 )； 鼓动； 激烈争论； （情绪等的）纷乱 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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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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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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40
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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41
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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43
surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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44
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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45
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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46
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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48
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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49
divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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50
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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