Jolyon stood at the window in Holly1’s old night nursery, converted into a studio, not because it had a north light, but for its view over the prospect2 away to the Grand Stand at Epsom. He shifted to the side window which overlooked the stableyard, and whistled down to the dog Balthasar who lay for ever under the clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged his tail. ‘Poor old boy!’ thought Jolyon, shifting back to the other window.
He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to prosecute3 trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever acute, disturbed in his sense of compassion4 which was easily excited, and with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty had received some definite embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of the old oak-tree, its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been plentiful5 and hot this summer. As with trees, so with men’s lives! ‘I ought to live long,’ thought Jolyon; ‘I’m getting mildewed6 for want of heat. If I can’t work, I shall be off to Paris.’ But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how could he go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do. ‘I’m her trustee. I can’t leave her unprotected,’ he thought. It had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still see Irene in her little drawing-room which he had only twice entered. Her beauty must have a sort of poignant7 harmony! No literal portrait would ever do her justice; the essence of her was — ah I what? . . . The noise of hoofs8 called him back to the other window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed ‘palfrey.’ She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather silent lately; getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her future, as they all did — youngsters!
Time was certainly the devil! And with the feeling that to waste this swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly9, he took up his brush. But it was no use; he could not concentrate his eye — besides, the light was going. ‘I’ll go up to town,’ he thought. In the hall a servant met him.
“A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron.”
Extraordinary coincidence! Passing into the picture-gallery, as it was still called, he saw Irene standing10 over by the window.
She came towards him saying:
“I’ve been trespassing12; I came up through the coppice and garden. I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon.”
“You couldn’t trespass11 here,” replied Jolyon; “history makes that impossible. I was just thinking of you.”
Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere13 spirituality — serener14, completer, more alluring15.
“History!” she answered; “I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was for ever. Well, it isn’t. Only aversion lasts.”
Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?
“Yes!” he said, “aversion’s deeper than love or hate because it’s a natural product of the nerves, and we don’t change them.”
“I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a thing that frightened me. He said: ‘You are still my wife!’”
“What!” ejaculated Jolyon. “You ought not to live alone.” And he continued to stare at her, afflicted16 by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral17.
“What more?”
“He asked me to shake hands.
“Did you?”
“Yes. When he came in I’m sure he didn’t want to; he changed while he was there.”
“Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone.”
“I know no woman I could ask; and I can’t take a lover to order, Cousin Jolyon.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Jolyon. “What a damnable position! Will you stay to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted to go up this evening.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music, contrasting the English and French characters and the difference in their attitude to Art. But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the turn of her neck, the fascination18 of those dark eyes bent19 on him now and then, the lure20 of her whole figure, made a deeper impression than the remarks they exchanged. Unconsciously he held himself straighter, walked with a more elastic21 step.
In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what she did with her days.
Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano, translated from the French.
She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which supplemented her income a little. She seldom went out in the evening. “I’ve been living alone so long, you see, that I don’t mind it a bit. I believe I’m naturally solitary22.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Jolyon. “Do you know many people?”
“Very few.”
At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door of her mansions23. Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:
“You know, you could always come to us at Robin24 Hill; you must let me know everything that happens. Good-bye, Irene.”
“Good-bye,” she answered softly.
Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked her to dine and go to the theatre with him. Solitary, starved, hung-up life that she had! “Hotch Potch Club,” he said through the trap-door. As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a man in top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to the wall that he seemed to be scraping it.
‘By Jove!’ thought Jolyon; ‘Soames himself! What’s he up to now?’ And, stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and retraced25 his steps to where he could see the entrance to the mansions. Soames had halted in front of them, and was looking up at the light in her windows. ‘If he goes in,’ thought Jolyon, ‘what shall I do? What have I the right to do?’ What the fellow had said was true. She was still his wife, absolutely without protection from annoyance26! ‘Well, if he goes in,’ he thought, ‘I follow.’ And he began moving towards the mansions. Again Soames advanced; he was in the very entrance now. But suddenly he stopped, spun27 round on his heel, and came back towards the river. ‘What now?’ thought Jolyon. ‘In a dozen steps he’ll recognise me.’ And he turned tail. His cousin’s footsteps kept pace with his own. But he reached his cab, and got in before Soames had turned the corner. “Go on!” he said through the trap. Soames’ figure ranged up alongside.
“Hansom!” he said. “Engaged? Hallo!”
“Hallo!” answered Jolyon. “You?”
The quick suspicion on his cousin’s face, white in the lamplight, decided28 him.
“I can give you a lift,” he said, “if you’re going West.”
“Thanks,” answered Soames, and got in.
“I’ve been seeing Irene,” said Jolyon when the cab had started.
“Indeed!”
“You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand.”
“I did,” said Soames; “she’s my wife, you know.”
The tone, the half-lifted sneering29 lip, roused sudden anger in Jolyon; but he subdued30 it.
“You ought to know best,” he said, “but if you want a divorce it’s not very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds?”
“You’re very good to warn me,” said Soames, “but I have not made up my mind.”
“She has,” said Jolyon, looking straight before him; “you can’t take things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago.”
“Look here!” said Jolyon, “she’s in a damnable position, and I am the only person with any legal say in her affairs.”
“Except myself,” retorted Soames, “who am also in a damnable position. Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made for me. I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan’t require her to return to me.”
“What!” exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole body.
“I don’t know what you may mean by ‘what,’” answered Soames coldly; “your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her income; please bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her by a divorce, I retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at all sure that I shan’t require to exercise them.”
“My God!” ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.
“Yes,” said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice. “I’ve not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, ‘The man of property’! I’m not called names for nothing.”
“This is fantastic,” murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn’t force his wife to live with him. Those days were past, anyway! And he looked around at Soames with the thought: ‘Is he real, this man?’ But Soames looked very real, sitting square yet almost elegant with the clipped moustache on his pale face, and a tooth showing where a lip was lifted in a fixed32 smile. There was a long silence, while Jolyon thought: ‘Instead of helping33 her, I’ve made things worse.’ Suddenly Soames said:
“It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many ways.”
At those words such a turmoil34 began taking place in Jolyon that he could barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed up with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with that something in the national character which had always been to him revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural and yet which seemed to him inexplicable35 — their intense belief in contracts and vested rights, their complacent36 sense of virtue37 in the exaction38 of those rights. Here beside him in the cab was the very embodiment, the corporeal39 sum as it were, of the possessive instinct — his own kinsman40, too! It was uncanny and intolerable! ‘But there’s something more in it than that!’ he thought with a sick feeling. ‘The dog, they say, returns to his vomit41! The sight of her has reawakened something. Beauty! The devil’s in it!’
“As I say,” said Soames, “I have not made up my mind. I shall be obliged if you will kindly42 leave her quite alone.”
Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed the thought of one now.
“I can give you no such promise,” he said shortly.
“Very well,” said Soames, “then we know where we are. I’ll get down here.” And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign of farewell. Jolyon travelled on to his Club.
The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his father were alive! He could have done so much! But why could he not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old enough?— turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters and a son. ‘Queer,’ he thought. ‘If she were plain I shouldn’t be thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when you’re sensitive to it!’ And into the Club reading-room he went with a disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of June, the diagnosis43 of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him against. And now! He was almost in want of a warning himself. ‘It’s deuced funny!’ he thought, ‘really deuced funny!’
收听单词发音 |
1
holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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mildewed
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| adj.发了霉的，陈腐的，长了霉花的v.（使）发霉，（使）长霉( mildew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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serener
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| serene（沉静的，宁静的，安宁的）的比较级形式 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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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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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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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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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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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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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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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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exaction
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| n.强求，强征；杂税 | |
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corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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vomit
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| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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