It was not till the following spring that I plucked up courage to tell Mrs. Bridgeworth what had happened to me that night at Morgat.
In the first place, Mrs. Bridgeworth was in America; and after the night in question I lingered on abroad for several months — not for pleasure, God knows, but because of a nervous collapse1 supposed to be the result of having taken up my work again too soon after my touch of fever in Egypt. But, in any case, if I had been door to door with Grace Bridgeworth I could not have spoken of the affair before, to her or to any one else; not till I had been rest-cured and built up again at one of those wonderful Swiss sanatoria where they clean the cobwebs out of you. I could not even have written to her — not to save my life. The happenings of that night had to be overlaid with layer upon layer of time and forgetfulness before I could tolerate any return to them.
The beginning was idiotically simple; just the sudden reflex of a New England conscience acting2 on an enfeebled constitution. I had been painting in Brittany, in lovely but uncertain autumn weather, one day all blue and silver, the next shrieking3 gales4 or driving fog. There is a rough little white-washed inn out on the Pointe du Raz, swarmed5 over by tourists in summer but a sea-washed solitude6 in autumn; and there I was staying and trying to do waves, when some one said: “You ought to go over to Cape7 something else, beyond Morgat.”
I went, and had a silver-and-blue day there; and on the way back the name of Morgat set up an unexpected association of ideas: Morgat — Grace Bridgeworth — Grace’s sister, Mary Pask — “You know my darling Mary has a little place now near Morgat; if you ever go to Brittany do go to see her. She lives such a lonely life — it makes me so unhappy.”
That was the way it came about. I had known Mrs. Bridgeworth well for years, but had only a hazy8 intermittent9 acquaintance with Mary Pask, her older and unmarried sister. Grace and she were greatly attached to each other, I knew; it had been Grace’s chief sorrow, when she married my old friend Horace Bridgeworth, and went to live in New York, that Mary, from whom she had never before been separated, obstinately10 lingered on in Europe, where the two sisters had been travelling since their mother’s death. I never quite understood why Mary Pask refused to join Grace in America. Grace said it was because she was “too artistic” — but, knowing the elder Miss Pask, and the extremely elementary nature of her interest in art, I wondered whether it were not rather because she disliked Horace Bridgeworth. There was a third alternative — more conceivable if one knew Horace — and that was that she may have liked him too much. But that again became untenable (at least I supposed it did) when one knew Miss Pask: Miss Pask with her round flushed face, her innocent bulging11 eyes, her old-maidish flat decorated with art-tidies, and her vague and timid philanthropy. Aspire12 to Horace —!
Well, it was all rather puzzling, or would have been if it had been interesting enough to be worth puzzling over. But it was not. Mary Pask was like hundreds of other dowdy13 old maids, cheerful derelicts content with their innumerable little substitutes for living. Even Grace would not have interested me particularly if she hadn’t happened to marry one of my oldest friends, and to be kind to his friends. She was a handsome capable and rather dull woman, absorbed in her husband and children, and without an ounce of imagination; and between her attachment14 to her sister and Mary Pask’s worship of her there lay the inevitable15 gulf16 between the feelings of the sentimentally17 unemployed18 and those whose affections are satisfied. But a close intimacy19 had linked the two sisters before Grace’s marriage, and Grace was one of the sweet conscientious20 women who go on using the language of devotion about people whom they live happily without seeing; so that when she said: “You know it’s years since Mary and I have been together — not since little Molly was born. If only she’d come to America! Just think . . . Molly is six, and has never seen her darling auntie . . . ” when she said this, and added: “If you go to Brittany promise me you’ll look up my Mary,” I was moved in that dim depth of one where unnecessary obligations are contracted.
And so it came about that, on that silver-and-blue afternoon, the idea “Morgat — Mary Pask — to please Grace” suddenly unlocked the sense of duty in me. Very well: I would chuck a few things into my bag, do my day’s painting, go to see Miss Pask when the light faded, and spend the night at the inn at Morgat. To this end I ordered a rickety one-horse vehicle to await me at the inn when I got back from my painting, and in it I started out toward sunset to hunt for Mary Pask . . .
As suddenly as a pair of hands clapped over one’s eyes, the sea-fog shut down on us. A minute before we had been driving over a wide bare upland, our backs turned to a sunset that crimsoned21 the road ahead; now the densest22 night enveloped23 us. No one had been able to tell me exactly where Miss Pask lived; but I thought it likely that I should find out at the fishers’ hamlet toward which we were trying to make our way. And I was right . . . an old man in a doorway24 said: Yes — over the next rise, and then down a lane to the left that led to the sea; the American lady who always used to dress in white. Oh, he knew . . . near the Baie des Trépassés.
“Yes; but how can we see to find it? I don’t know the place,” grumbled25 the reluctant boy who was driving me.
“You will when we get there,” I remarked.
“Yes — and the horse foundered26 meantime! I can’t risk it, sir; I’ll get into trouble with the patron.”
Finally an opportune27 argument induced him to get out and lead the stumbling horse, and we continued on our way. We seemed to crawl on for a long time through a wet blackness impenetrable to the glimmer28 of our only lamp. But now and then the ball lifted or its folds divided; and then our feeble light would drag out of the night some perfectly29 commonplace object — a white gate, a cow’s staring face, a heap of roadside stones — made portentous30 and incredible by being thus detached from its setting, capriciously thrust at us, and as suddenly withdrawn31. After each of these projections32 the darkness grew three times as thick; and the sense I had had for some time of descending33 a gradual slope now became that of scrambling34 down a precipice35. I jumped out hurriedly and joined my young driver at the horse’s head.
“I can’t go on — I won’t, sir!” he whimpered.
“Why, see, there’s a light over there — just ahead!”
The veil swayed aside, and we beheld36 two faintly illuminated37 squares in a low mass that was surely the front of a house.
“Get me as far as that — then you can go back if you like.”
The veil dropped again; but the boy had seen the lights and took heart. Certainly there was a house ahead of us; and certainly it must be Miss Pask’s, since there could hardly be two in such a desert. Besides, the old man in the hamlet had said: “Near the sea”; and those endless modulations of the ocean’s voice, so familiar in every corner of the Breton land that one gets to measure distances by them rather than by visual means, had told me for some time past that we must be making for the shore. The boy continued to lead the horse on without making any answer. The fog had shut in more closely than ever, and our lamp merely showed us the big round drops of wet on the horse’s shaggy quarters.
The boy stopped with a jerk. “There’s no house — we’re going straight down to the sea.”
“But you saw those lights, didn’t you?”
“I thought I did. But where are they now? The fog’s thinner again. Look — I can make out trees ahead. But there are no lights any more.”
“Perhaps the people have gone to bed,” I suggested jocosely38.
“Then hadn’t we better turn back, sir?”
“What — two yards from the gate?”
The boy was silent: certainly there was a gate ahead, and presumably, behind the dripping trees, some sort of dwelling39. Unless there was just a field and the sea . . . the sea whose hungry voice I heard asking and asking, close below us. No wonder the place was called the Bay of the Dead! But what could have induced the rosy40 benevolent41 Mary Pask to come and bury herself there? Of course the boy wouldn’t wait for me . . . I knew that . . . the Baie des Trépassés indeed! The sea whined42 down there as if it were feeding-time, and the Furies, its keepers, had forgotten it . . .
There was the gate! My hand had struck against it. I felt along to the latch43, undid44 it, and brushed between wet bushes to the house-front. Not a candle-glint anywhere. If the house were indeed Miss Pask’s, she certainly kept early hours . . .
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1
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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3
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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6
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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7
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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9
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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10
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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13
dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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15
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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18
unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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19
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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21
crimsoned
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| 变为深红色（crimson的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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densest
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| 密集的( dense的最高级 )； 密度大的； 愚笨的； （信息量大得）难理解的 | |
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23
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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25
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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26
foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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29
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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30
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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31
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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32
projections
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| 预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物 | |
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33
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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34
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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35
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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36
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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37
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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38
jocosely
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| adv.说玩笑地，诙谐地 | |
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39
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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40
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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41
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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42
whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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43
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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44
Undid
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| v. 解开, 复原 | |
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