Mrs. Tracy had recovered. The keys of the Willows1 were safely back in her drawer, and she and Laura Lou began again going to the house on stated days. On those days Vance usually stayed at home to write in the stuffy2 little dining room; or, if the stuffiness3 was too oppressive, wandered off up the mountain, past the gates of Eaglewood, past the highest-lying farms, to the open ridges4 below Thundertop.
Mrs. Tracy’s day was Saturday. On her first return to the Willows she apparently5 discovered nothing unusual or out of order; if she had, Vance would certainly have heard of it. She had never thrown off the worry of having to entrust6 the keys to him, and had manifestly expected to find books dislodged and cigarette ends lying about, if nothing worse.
“I told Mother you’d be ever so careful,” Laura Lou reported afterward7 with a little smile of triumph; and Vance, pushing his manuscript aside, smiled back absently: “After the scare I had in that house —!”
He was not afraid of scares now. He knew that on the days when he went to the Willows he was still supposed by his wife and mother-inlaw to be “at the office.” And so, technically8, he was. After all, he had simply transferred his papers from a precarious9 desk corner at the New Hour to the sanctuary10 of Miss Lorburn’s library. He no longer needed Mrs. Tracy’s keys (those damned keys!) for Halo Tarrant had her own, and was always there before him. He did not remember how that tacit arrangement had been established, nor at whose suggestion he and she, when the afternoon’s work was over, invariably restored every book to its place, locked up the manuscript in a cupboard below the bookshelves, and buried their cigarette ends in the border outside of the window. On the day when Mrs. Tarrant had first surprised him in the library Vance had confessed that his wife and mother-in-law did not know of his coming to the Willows to work, and had told her his reasons for keeping his visits secret. She had understood in a flash — when did she not? — and all their subsequent precautions had grown out of that brief avowal11, without any comment or question that he could remember.
That was one of her rare qualities, to him perhaps the rarest: the way she took things for granted, didn’t forever come harping12 back on them. That, and her not asking questions — personal questions. In the world of Euphoria and the Tracys the women did nothing but ask questions. They never stopped asking questions. The only things that seemed to interest them unfailingly were the things a man might conceivably want to keep to himself. They had noses like shooting dogs for those particular things, whatever they were; a good part of the time a man spent away from his women had to be devoted13 to inventing prevarications as to how he spent it. If a fellow had only strolled down to the station to see the Chicago express come in, he would invent something else from the mere14 force of habit. . . . With Mrs. Tarrant it was different. She had a way of dashing straight at the essentials. And anyhow, she didn’t seem to care how Vance spent his time when he was away from her, an indifference15 as surprising to him in a woman friend as in wife or sweetheart. No one had ever cross-questioned him more searchingly than his own sisters; yet here was a woman with whom he was on terms of fraternal intimacy16 — who shared with him almost daily the long hushed midsummer afternoons, yet seemed interested only in the hours they lived together in fervid17 intellectual communion. The truth was that, both as Halo Spear and as Halo Tarrant, she had always appeared to Vance less as a simple human creature than as the mysterious custodian18 of the unknown, a being who held the keys of knowledge and could render it accessible and lovely to him. The first day she had found him at work on his new tale she had plunged19 into his enchanted20 world with him, and there they met again each afternoon. She had entered instantly into his idea of evoking21 the old house and its dwellers22, and as he advanced in his task she was there at each turn, her hands full of treasure, like a disciple23 bringing refreshment24 to an artist too engrossed25 to leave his work. Only it was he who was the disciple, not she: he who, at each stage, had something new to learn of her. He had brought his fresh untouched imagination to the study of the old house and the lives led in it — a subject which to her had seemed too near to be interesting, but to him was remote and poetic26 as the Crusades or the wars of Alexander. And he saw that, as she supplied him with the quaint27 homely28 details of that past, she was fascinated by the way in which they were absorbed into his vision, woven into his design. “I don’t see how you can feel as those people must have felt. I suppose it’s because they’re already history to you. . . . Don’t forget that Alida” (Elinor Lorburn had become Alida Thorpe) “would always have had her handkerchief in her hand: with a wide lace edge, like the one I brought down from Eaglewood to show you yesterday. . . . It’s important, because it made them use their hands differently. . . . And their minds too, perhaps . . . like the old gentlemen I remember when I was a child, who always carried their hat and gloves into the drawing room when they called. And her wedding dress” (for their Alida was to have had the hope of marriage) “would, I think, have been like my great-great~grandmother’s: India mull, embroidered29 at Madras, and brought back on one of her grandfather’s merchantmen. For of course all their finery would have been stored away for generations in those old chests we found in the attic30. Elinor really was an epitome31 of six or seven generations — the last chapter of a long slowly moving story.”
“Ah — slowly moving! That’s it! If I could get the pace the way you seem to give it to me when you tell me all those things . . .”
He leaned his elbows on the scattered32 pages and stared at her across the table. The long folds of the green velvet33 table cover drooped34 to the floor between them, and from her shadowy place above the mantel Miss Lorburn looked down meditatively35 on the young pair who were trying to call her back to life. Halo Tarrant, facing him, her dark hair parted on her temples, her thin face full of shadowy hollows, seemed in the shuttered summer light, almost as ghostly as Miss Lorburn. “I wonder — ” Vance broke out, laying down his pen to look at her. “Have you had to give up things too . . .?”
“Give up things . . .?”
“I mean: a vision of life.”
“Oh, THAT—!” She gave a faint laugh. “Who doesn’t? Luckily one can recapture it sometimes — in another form.” She pointed36 to the manuscript. “That’s exactly your theme, isn’t it?”
He nodded. The allusion37 sent him back to his work. He did not know why he had strayed from it to ask her that question — the first personal question he had ever put to her. But there were moments when the shape of her face, the curves of her hair and brows, reminded him so startlingly of the thwarted38 lady above the mantel that the comparison sent a pang39 through him. And then Mrs. Tarrant would burst into banter40 and laughter, would flame with youthful contradictions and enthusiasms, and he would wonder how he could have seen in her any resemblance to the sad spinster who had leaned on winter evenings on the green velvet table, reading Coleridge.
“Yes — but it was Coleridge; don’t forget that! It wasn’t The Saints’ Rest or The Book of Martyrs41.” That had been one of Halo’s first admonitions. Vance was not to make a predestined old maid or a pious43 recluse44 out of his Alida. She must be a creature apt for love, but somehow caught in the cruel taboos45 and inhibitions of her day, and breaking through them too late to find compensation except under another guise46: the guise of poetry, dreams, visions. . . . That was how they saw her.
His work had always been engrossing47 to Vance — something he was driven to by an irresistible48 force. But hitherto it had been laborious49, thankless, full of pitfalls50 and perplexities, as much a weariness as a joy, and always undertaken tentatively, hazardously51, with a dread52 lest the rich fields through which it beckoned53 should turn into a waterless desert. Now he felt at ease with his subject, assurance grew in him as he advanced. For beside him was that other consciousness which seemed an extension of his own, in which every inspiration, as it came, instantly rooted and flowered, and every mistake withered54 and dropped out of sight. He was tasting for the first time the creator’s supreme55 joy, the reflection of his creation in a responsive intelligence; and young as he was, and used to snatching what came to him as recklessly as a boy breaking the buds from a fruit tree, he was yet deeply aware of the peculiar56 quality of this experience.
“That about the handkerchief always in her hand — that’s the kind of thing that gives me the pace . . . .” He leaned back, rumpling57 his hair and looking straight ahead of him into his dream. He had been reading aloud the afternoon’s work, and Halo, as her way was, sat silent, letting the impression of the reading penetrate58 her.
“You see, from the first day I set foot in this house I got that sense of continuity that we folks have missed out of our lives — out where I live, anyway — and it gave me the idea of a different rhythm, a different time beat: a movement without jerks and breaks, flowing down from ever so far off in the hills, bearing ships to the sea. . . . I don’t say one method’s better than another; only I see this is mine . . . for the subjects I want to do, anyhow. . . . And so even a handkerchief in a woman’s hand counts . . . .”
She nodded: “Of course.”
“And those are the things I never could have found out if you hadn’t told me.”
“Oh, yes, you would. . . . You were destined42 to . . . .”
“I guess I was destined to YOU,” he rejoined, half laughing.
She echoed the laugh; then she pushed back her chair with a sigh. “It’s late — I must be going. But you’re all right now; you’ve got all the material you need, and you know what to do with it. I’m glad to go away feeling certain of that.”
Still deep in his dream, he protested: “But you’re not going away? It’s not late, really; and there are two or three things more . . .”
She stood up with a gesture of negation59. “Oh, you’ll have to write me about those, or drop in some day when you come to New York — ”
He sat crouched60 over the table, his chin sunk in his locked hands, and stared up uncomprehendingly. “Write to you? What do you mean? Can’t you come back tomorrow?”
“No, nor the next day. Our holiday’s over, Vance — didn’t you know?”
“Over — why?”
“Because my husband’s arriving; I’m going back to New York to join him.”
The words fell on his excited brain like little blows from some deadly instrument. At first he hardly felt them — then his head reeled with the shock, and for a moment he found no word to say.
“But you’re all right now; I mean the book’s all right — you can see your way ahead; can’t you, Vance?”
He still looked up at her incredulously. “I can’t see anything but you.”
“Oh — ” she murmured, and sat down once more, facing him across the familiar table. “Well, no wonder: we’ve looked at each other like this nearly every day for two months now . . . .”
Vance was not listening. He had reached the same degree of absorption which, the day he had met Laura Lou in the rubberneck car, had made it impossible to fix his attention on what she was saying. He sat looking at Halo Tarrant with a concentration as remote as possible from that April ecstasy62, yet as intense. “I feel as if I’d never looked at you before,” he blundered out.
“I don’t believe you ever did!” she said. Her lips began a smile; then they became grave, and her slow colour mounted. She sat motionless, giving him back his gaze so steadfastly63 that hers seemed to enter into his eyes and slip down their long windings64 to his very soul. She dropped her lids after a while, and made a motion to rise again. “But you’ll know me now, won’t you, the next time we meet?”
He made no answer. Her banter hung in a meaningless dazzle somewhere outside of him; all his real self was within, centred in the effort of holding her image fast, of tracing it, line by line, curve by curve, with the passionate65 hands of memory. She who had seemed to him but a disembodied intelligence was now stealing into every vein66 and fibre like wine, like wind, like all the seed~bearing currents of spring. He looked at her hands, which lay folded before her on the table, and wondered what their hidden palms were like, and the dimpled recess67 of her inner arm at the elbow. “No, I’ve never known you,” he repeated stupidly.
“Oh, but we’ve been . . . but we’ve been . . . .” She broke off, and began again, in a more decided68 tone: “Your book has reached a point now when it will be all the better for you to go on with it alone. A writer oughtn’t to get too dependent on anybody’s advice. If I’ve been able to help you . . .”
“Oh, curse the book,” he broke in, burying his face in his hands. The tears choked in his throat and burnt his close-pressed eyeballs. He hadn’t known — why hadn’t he known? — that it would be like this. . . . The room grew still. He heard a fly bang against the window and drop to the sill from the shock of its own impact. Outside was the confused murmur61 of the summer afternoon. Presently Mrs. Tarrant moved. She walked around the table, he felt the stir of her nearness, her hand rested on his shoulder. “Vance — don’t. Remember, you’ve got your job; and you belong to it.”
He did not move lest he should lose the shock of her light touch running through him like his blood. But to himself he groaned69: “It’s always the same way with you, you fool. You see only one thing at a time, and get into a frenzy70 about that, and nine times out of ten it’s not the real thing you’re chasing after but only something your brain has faked up.”
Mrs. Tarrant went on in the same even tone. “Vance, are you listening to me? You must listen. Of course you must go on with your work here. You mustn’t be disturbed — and you must have this atmosphere about you; I’ll see to that — I’ll arrange it.” Still he did not answer; did not drop his hands or turn his head when he heard a slight click on the table at his elbow. “See, Vance, I’m leaving you the keys. Don’t forget them. You can return them to me in New York when you bring me the finished book.”
He did not move. She too was silent for a moment; then her hand was withdrawn71. “Come — we must say good-bye, Vance.”
He dropped his hands and leaned back, looking up at her. “I never thought about its ending,” he muttered.
“But it isn’t ending; why should it? You must stick to your job and carry it through; and then, when it’s done, you’ll be coming back regularly to the office — and I shall see you often, I hope . . . .”
“Not like this.”
“This had been good, hasn’t it? But when your book’s done, that will be lots better; that will be the best that could happen . . . .”
“I don’t care a curse about the book.”
She stood looking down at him, and a faint smile stole to her lips. “You ought to, if you say we’ve done it together.”
Again the tone of banter! She was determined72 to force that tone on him then. She was teasing him, ridiculing73 him, condescending74 to him from the height of all her superiorities: age, experience, education, worldly situation; and he, this raw boy, had sat there, forgetting these differences, and imagining that because he had suddenly discovered what she was to him, he could hope to be as much to her! He ached with the blow to his vanity, and a fierce pride forced him to feel no other ache. If she thought of him as a blundering boy, to be pitied and joked with, to hell with dreams and ambitions, and all he had believed himself to be!
“I guess I don’t know how to talk,” he grumbled75 out. “Better tie up to my writing — that your idea?”
She sat down beside him again, and while he covered his eyes from the glare of his own blunder he heard her, on another plane of consciousness, with other ears, as it were — heard her talking to him reasonably, wisely, urgently of his work, of the opportunities ahead of him, of what he was justified76 in hoping, of what his effort and ambition ought to be: all in an affectionate “older friend” voice, a voice so cool and measured that every syllable77 fell with a little hiss78 on the red-hot surface of his humiliation79.
“You know how I’ve always believed in you, Vance. Oh, but that’s nothing . . . I’m nobody. But my husband believes in you too . . . believed in you from the first, before I’d read anything of yours; he’s proved his belief, hasn’t he? And Frenside — Frenside, who’s never pleased, never satisfied . . . And when they see what you’ve done now they’ll feel they were justified — I know they will. . . . Vance, you know artists always have these fits of discouragement . . . often just when they’ve done their best; it’s the reaction after successful effort. And this is your best so far, oh, so much your best! I’m sure something still bigger and better will follow; but meanwhile, dear boy, for your soul’s sake you must believe in this, you must believe in yourself . . . .”
For his soul’s sake he could not have looked up or changed his attitude. Her friendly compassion80 crushed him to earth, her incomprehension held him there. “If she’d only go,” he thought, “if only it was over . . . .”
The stillness was broken by the scraping of her pushed-back chair. He felt a stir of air as she moved, and heard, through interlocked hands, her footfall sink into the bottomless silence of the old house. A door closed. She had gone; it was over . . . .
收听单词发音 |
1
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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stuffiness
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| n.不通风，闷热；不通气 | |
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ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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harping
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| n.反复述说 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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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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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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custodian
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| n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守 | |
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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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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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evoking
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| 产生，引起，唤起( evoke的现在分词 ) | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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epitome
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| n.典型，梗概 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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hazardously
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| adv.冒险地，有危险地 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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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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rumpling
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的现在分词 ) | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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62
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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66
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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68
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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69
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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70
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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71
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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75
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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76
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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77
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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78
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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