Alone
Oswald had heard nothing, seen nothing. But he took note of Doris’ silence, and turning towards her in frenzy1 saw what had happened, and so was in a measure prepared for the stern, short sentence which now rang through the room:
“Wait, Miss Scott! you tell the story badly. Let him listen to me. From my mouth only shall he hear the stern and seemingly unnatural2 part I played in this family tragedy.”
The face of Oswald hardened. Those pliant3 features — beloved for their gracious kindliness4 — set themselves in lines which altered them almost beyond recognition; but his voice was not without some of its natural sweetness, as, after a long and hollow look at the other’s composed countenance5, he abruptly7 exclaimed:
“Speak! I am bound to listen; you are my brother.”
Orlando turned towards Doris. She was slipping away.
“Don’t go,” said he.
But she was gone.
Slowly he turned back.
Oswald raised his hand and checked the words with which he would have begun his story.
“Never mind the beginnings,” said he. “Doris has told all that. You saw Miss Challoner in Lenox — admired her — offered yourself to her and afterwards wrote her a threatening letter because she rejected you.”
“It is true. Other men have followed just such unworthy impulses — and been ashamed and sorry afterwards. I was sorry and I was ashamed, and as soon as my first anger was over went to tell her so. But she mistook my purpose and —”
“And what?”
Orlando hesitated. Even his iron nature trembled before the misery8 he saw — a misery he was destined9 to augment10 rather than soothe11. With pains altogether out of keeping with his character, he sought in the recesses12 of his darkened mind for words less bitter and less abrupt6 than those which sprang involuntarily to his lips. But he did not find them. Though he pitied his brother and wished to show that he did, nothing but the stern language suitable to the stern fact he wished to impart, would leave his lips.
“And ended the pitiful struggle of the moment with one quick, unpremeditated blow,” was what he said. “There is no other explanation possible for this act, Oswald. Bitter as it is for me to acknowledge it, I am thus far guilty of this beloved woman’s death. But, as God hears me, from the moment I first saw her, to the moment I saw her last, I did not know, nor did I for a moment dream that she was anything to you or to any other man of my stamp and station. I thought she despised my country birth, my mechanical attempts, my lack of aristocratic pretensions14 and traditions.”
“Edith?”
“Now that I know she had other reasons for her contempt — that the words she wrote were in rebuke15 to the brother rather than to the man, I feel my guilt13 and deplore16 my anger. I cannot say more. I should but insult your grief by any lengthy17 expressions of regret and sorrow.”
A groan18 of intolerable anguish19 from the sick man’s lips, and then the quick thrust of his re-awakened intelligence rising superior to the overthrow20 of all his hopes.
“For a woman of Edith’s principle to seek death in a moment of desperation, the provocation21 must have been very great. Tell me if I’m to hate you through life — yea through all eternity22 — or if I must seek in some unimaginable failure of my own character or conduct the cause of her intolerable despair.”
“Oswald!” The tone was controlling, and yet that of one strong man to another. “Is it for us to read the heart of any woman, least of all of a woman of her susceptibilities and keen inner life? The wish to end all comes to some natures like a lightning flash from a clear sky. It comes, it goes, often without leaving a sign. But if a weapon chances to be near —(here it was in hand)— then death follows the impulse which, given an instant of thought, would have vanished in a back sweep of other emotions. Chance was the real accessory to this death by suicide. Oswald, let us realise it as such and accept our sorrow as a mutual23 burden and turn to what remains24 to us of life and labour. Work is grief’s only consolation25. Then let us work.”
But of all this Oswald had caught but the one word.
“Chance?” he repeated. “Orlando, I believe in God.”
“Then seek your comfort there. I find it in harnessing the winds; in forcing the powers of nature to do my bidding.”
The other did not speak, and the silence grew heavy. It was broken, when it was broken, by a cry from Oswald:
“No more,” said he, “no more.” Then, in a yearning26 accent, “Send Doris to me,”
Orlando started. This name coming so close upon that word comfort produced a strange effect upon him. But another look at Oswald and he was ready to do his bidding. The bitter ordeal27 was over; let him have his solace28 if it was in her power to give it to him.
Orlando, upon leaving his brother’s room, did not stop to deliver that brother’s message directly to Doris; he left this for Truda to do, and retired29 immediately to his hangar in the woods. Locking himself in, he slightly raised the roof and then sat down before the car which was rapidly taking on shape and assuming that individuality and appearance of sentient30 life which hitherto he had only seen in dreams. But his eye, which had never failed to kindle31 at this sight before, shone dully in the semi-gloom. The air-car could wait; he would first have his hour in this solitude32 of his own making. The gaze he dreaded33, the words from which he shrank could not penetrate34 here. He might even shout her name aloud, and only these windowless walls would respond. He was alone with his past, his present and his future.
Alone!
He needed to be. The strongest must pause when the precipice35 yawns before him. The gulf36 can be spanned; he feels himself forceful enough for that; but his eyes must take their measurement of it first; he must know its depths and possible dangers. Only a fool would ignore these steeps of jagged rock; and he was no fool, only a man to whom the unexpected had happened, a man who had seen his way clear to the horizon and then had come up against this! Love, when he thought such folly37 dead! Remorse38, when Glory called for the quiet mind and heart!
He recognised its mordant39 fang40, and knew that its ravages41, though only just begun, would last his lifetime. Nothing could stop them now, nothing, nothing. And he laughed, as the thought went home; laughed at the irony42 of fate and its inexorableness; laughed at his own defeat and his nearness to a barred Paradise. Oswald loved Edith, loved her yet, with a flame time would take long to quench43. Doris loved Oswald and he Doris; and not one of them would ever attain44 the delights each was so fitted to enjoy. Why shouldn’t he laugh? What is left to man but mockery when all props45 fall? Disappointment was the universal lot; and it should go merrily with him if he must take his turn at it. But here the strong spirit of the man re-asserted itself; it should be but a turn. A man’s joys are not bounded by his loves or even by the satisfaction of a perfectly46 untrammelled mind. Performance makes a world of its own for the capable and the strong, and this was still left to him. He, Orlando Brotherson, despair while his great work lay unfinished! That would be to lay stress on the inevitable47 pains and fears of commonplace humanity. He was not of that ilk. Intellect was his god; ambition his motive48 power. What would this casual blight49 upon his supreme50 contentment be to him, when with the wings of his air-car spread, he should spurn51 the earth and soar into the heaven of fame simultaneously52 with his flight into the open.
He could wait for that hour. He had measured the gulf before him and found it passable. Henceforth no looking back.
Rising, he stood for a moment gazing, with an alert eye now, upon such sections of his car as had not yet been fitted into their places; then he bent53 forward to his work, and soon the lips which had uttered that sardonic54 laugh a few minutes before, parted in gentler fashion, and song took the place of curses — a ballad55 of love and fondest truth. But Orlando never knew what he sang. He had the gift and used it.
Would his tones, however, have rung out with quite so mellow56 a sweetness had he seen the restless figure even then circling his retreat with eyes darting57 accusation58 and arms lifted towards him in wild but impotent threat?
Yes, I think they would; for he knew that the man who thus expressed his helplessness along with his convictions, was no nearer the end he had set himself to attain than on the day he first betrayed his suspicions.
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1
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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7
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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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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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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augment
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| vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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13
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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17
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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19
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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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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21
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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25
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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26
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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27
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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28
solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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29
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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30
sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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31
kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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32
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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33
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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34
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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35
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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38
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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39
mordant
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| adj.讽刺的；尖酸的 | |
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40
fang
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| n.尖牙，犬牙 | |
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41
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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43
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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45
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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46
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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48
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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49
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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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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51
spurn
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| v.拒绝，摈弃；n.轻视的拒绝；踢开 | |
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52
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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53
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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54
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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55
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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56
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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57
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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58
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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