Sometimes he would find him in his dusty little cubicle3, bent4 over the intricacy of a legal form, painfully and carefully, with compressed lips, filling in the blank spaces with his stiff, angular and laborious5 hand. Bascom would speak quietly, without looking up, as he came in: “Hello, my boy. Sit down, won’t you? I’ll be with you in a moment.” And for a time the silence would be broken only by the heavy rumble6 of Brill’s voice outside, by the minute scratching of his uncle’s pen, and by the immense and murmurous7 sound of time, which rose above the city, which caught up in the upper air all of the city’s million noises, and yet seemed remote, essential, imperturbable8 and everlasting9 — fixed10 and unchanging, no matter what men lived or died.
Again, the boy would find his uncle staring straight before him, with his great hands folded in a bony arch, his powerful gaunt face composed in a rapt tranquillity13 of thought. At these times he seemed to have escaped from every particular and degrading thing in life — from the excess of absurd and eccentric speech and gesture, from all demeaning parsimonies, from niggling irascibilities, from everything that contorted his face and spirit away from its calmness and unity14 of thought. His face at such a time might well have been the mask of thought, the visage of contemplation. Sometimes he would not speak for several minutes, his mind seemed to brood upon the lip and edge of time, to be remote from every dusty moment of the earth.
One day the boy went there and found him thus: after a few moments he lowered his great hands and, without turning toward his nephew, sat for some time in an attitude of quiet relaxation15. At length he said:
“What is man that thou art mindful of him?”
It was one of the first days of spring: the spring had come late, with a magical northern suddenness. It seemed to have burst out of the earth overnight, the air was lyrical and sang with it.
Spring came that year like a triumph and like a prophecy — it sang and shifted like a moth16 of light before the youth, but he was sure that it would bring him a glory and fulfilment he had never known.
His hunger and thirst had been immense: he was caught up for the first time in the midst of the Faustian web — there was no food that could feed him, no drink that could quench17 his thirst. Like an insatiate and maddened animal he roamed the streets, trying to draw up mercy from the cobble-stones, solace18 and wisdom from a million sights and faces, or he prowled through endless shelves of high-piled books, tortured by everything he could not see and could not know, and growing blind, weary, and desperate from what he read and saw. He wanted to know all, have all, be all — to be one and many, to have the whole riddle19 of this vast and swarming20 earth as legible, as tangible21 in his hand as a coin of minted gold.
Suddenly spring came, and he fell at once exultant22 certainty and joy. Outside his uncle’s dirty window he could see the edge of Faneuil Hall, and hear the swarming and abundant activity of the markets. The deep roar of the markets reached them across the singing and lyrical air, and he drank into his lungs a thousand proud, potent23, and mysterious odours which came to him like the breath of certainty, like the proof of magic, and like the revelation that all confusion had been banished25 — the world that he longed for won, the word that he sought for spoken, the hunger that devoured27 him fed and ended. And the markets, swarming with richness, joy, and abundance, thronged29 below him like a living evidence of fulfilment. For it seemed to him that nowhere more than here was the passionate30 enigma31 of New England felt: New England, with its harsh and stony32 soil, and its tragic33 and lonely beauty; its desolate rocky coasts and its swarming fisheries, the white, piled, frozen bleakness34 of its winters with the magnificent jewellery of stars, the dark firwoods, and the warm little white houses at which it is impossible to look without thinking of groaning35 bins36, hung bacon, hard cider, succulent bastings and love’s warm, white and opulent flesh.
There was the rustle37 of gingham by day and sober glances; then, under low eaves and starlight, the stir of the satiny thighs38 in feather beds, the white small bite and tigerish clasp of secret women — always the buried heart, the sunken passion, the frozen heat. And then, after the long, unendurably hard-locked harshness of the frozen winter, the coming of spring as now, like a lyrical cry, like a flicker39 of rain across a window glass, like the sudden and delicate noises of a spinet40 — the coming of spring and ecstasy41, and overnight the thrum of wings, the burst of the tender buds, the ripple42 and dance of the roughened water, the light of flowers, the sudden, fleeting43, almost captured, and exultant spring.
And here, within eighty yards of the dusty little room where his uncle Bascom had his desk, there was living evidence that this intuition was not false: the secret people, it was evident, did not subsist44 alone on codfish and a jugful45 of baked beans — they ate meat, and large chunks46 of it, for all day long, within the market district, the drivers of big wagons47 were standing48 to their chins in meat, boys dragged great baskets of raw meat along the pavements, red-faced butchers, aproned with gouts of blood, and wearing the battered49 straw hats that butchers wear, toiled50 through the streets below with great loads of loin or haunch or rib51, and in “chill” shops with sawdust floors the beeves were hung in frozen regimental rows.
Right and left, around the central market, the old buildings stretched down to the harbour and the smell of ships: this was built-on land; in old days ships were anchored where these cobbles were, but the warehouses52 were also old — they had the musty, mellow54, blackened air and smell of the ‘seventies, they looked like Victorian prints, they reeked55 of ancient ledgers56, of “counting-houses,” of proud, moneyed merchants, and the soft-spoked rumble of victorias.
By day, this district was one snarled58 web of chaos59: a gewirr of deep-bodied trucks, powerful dappled horses, cursing drivers, of loading, unloading, and shipping60, of dispatch and order, of the million complicated weavings of life and business.
But if one came here at evening, after the work of the day was done, if one came here at evening on one of those delicate and sudden days of spring that New England knows, if one came here as many a lonely youth had come here in the past, some boy from the inland immensity of America, some homesick lad from the South, from the marvellous hills of Old Catawba, he might be pierced again by the bitter ecstasy of youth, the ecstasy that tears him apart with a cry that has no tongue, the ecstasy that is proud, lonely, and exultant, that is fierce with joy and a moment, that the intangible cannot be touched, the ungraspable cannot be grasped — the imperial and magnificent minute is gone for ever which, with all its promises, its million intuitions, he wishes to clothe with the living substance of beauty. He wishes to flesh the moment with the thighs and breast and belly61 of a wonderful mistress, he wishes to be great and glorious and triumphant62, to distil63 the ether of this ecstasy in a liquor, and to drink strong joy for ever; and at the heart of all this is the bitter knowledge of death — death of the moment, death of the day, death of one more infrequent spring.
Perhaps the thing that really makes New England wonderful is this sense of joy, this intuition of brooding and magic fulfilment that hovers64 like a delicate presence in the air of one of these days. Perhaps the answer is simple: perhaps it is only that this soft and sudden spring, with its darts65 and flicks66 of evanescent joy, its sprite-like presence that is only half believed, its sound that is the sound of something lost and elfin and half dreamed, half heard, seems wonderful after the grim frozen tenacity68 of the winter, the beautiful and terrible desolation, the assault of the frost and ice on living flesh which resists it finally as it would resist the cruel battering69 of a brute70 antagonist71, so that the tart72, stingy speech, the tight gestures, the withdrawn73 and suspicious air, the thin lips, red pointed74 noses and hard prying75 eyes of these people are really the actions of those who, having to defend themselves harshly against nature, harshly defend themselves against all the world.
At any rate, the thing the boy feels who comes here at the day’s end is not completion, weariness, and sterility76, but a sense of swelling78 ecstasy, a note of brooding fulfilment. The air will have in it the wonderful odours of the market and the smell of the sea; as he walks over the bare cobbled pavement under the corrugated79 tin awnings80 of the warehouses and produce stores a hundred smells of the rich fecundity81 of the earth will assail82 him: the clean sharp pungency83 of thin crated84 wood and the citric nostalgia85 of oranges, lemons, and grape-fruit, the stench of a decayed cabbage and the mashed86 pulp87 of a rotten orange. There will be also the warm coarse limy smell of chickens, the strong coddy smell of cold fish and oysters88; and the crisp moist cleanliness of the garden smells — of great lettuces89, cabbages, new potatoes, with their delicate skins loamy with sweet earth, the wonderful sweet crispness of crated celery; and then the melons — the ripe golden melons bedded in fragrant90 straw — and all the warm infusions91 of the tropics: the bananas, the pineapples and the alligator92 pears.
The delicate and subtle air of spring touches all these odours with a new and delicious vitality93; it draws the tar11 out of the pavements also, and it draws slowly, subtly, from ancient warehouses the compacted perfumes of eighty years: the sweet thin piny scents94 of packing-boxes, the glutinous96 composts of half a century, that have thickly stained old warehouse53 plankings, the smells of twine97, tar, turpentine and hemp98, and of thick molasses, ginseng, pungent99 vines and roots and old piled sacking; the clean, ground strength of fresh coffee, brown, sultry, pungent, and exultantly100 fresh and clean; the smell of oats, baled hay and bran, of crated eggs and cheese and butter; and particularly the smell of meat, of frozen beeves, slick porks, and veals, of brains and livers and kidneys, of haunch, paunch, and jowl; of meat that is raw and of meat that is cooked, for upstairs in that richly dingy101 block of buildings there is a room where the butchers, side by side with the bakers102, the bankers, the brokers103 and the Harvard boys, devour28 thick steaks of the best and tenderest meat, smoking-hot breads, and big, jacketed potatoes.
And then there is always the sea. In dingy blocks, memoried with time and money, the buildings stretch down to the docks, and there is always the feeling that the sea was here, that this is built-on earth. A single truck will rattle104 over the deserted105 stones, and then there is the street that runs along the harbour, the dingy little clothing shops and eating places, the powerful strings106 of freight cars, agape and empty, odorous with their warm fatigued107 planking and the smells of flanges108 and axles that have rolled great distances.
And finally, by the edges of the water, there are great piers109 and storehouses, calm and potent with their finished work: they lie there, immense, starkly110 ugly, yet touched with the powerful beauty of enormous works and movements; they are what they are, they have been built without a flourish for the work they do, their great sides rise in level cliffs of brick, they are pierced with tracks and can engulf111 great trains; and now that the day is done they breathe with the vitality of a tired but living creature. A single footfall will make remote and lonely echoes in their brooding depths, there will be the expiring clatter112 of a single truck, the sound of a worker’s voice as he says “Good night,” and then the potent and magical silence.
And then there is the sea — the sea, beautiful and mysterious as it is only when it meets the earth in harbours, the sea that bears in swell77 and glut95 of tides the odorous savour of the earth, the sea that swings and slaps against encrusted piles, the sea that is braided with long ropes of scummy weed, the sea that brings the mast and marly scent67 of shelled decay. There is the sea, and there are the great ships — the freighters, the fishing schooners114, the clean white one-night boats that make the New York run, now also potent and silent, a glitter of bright lights, of gleaming brasses115, of opulent saloons — a token of joy and splendour in dark waters, a hint of love and the velvet116 belly upon dark tides — and the sight of all these things, the fusion24 of all these odours by the sprite of May is freighted with unspeakable memories, with unutterable intuitions for the youth: he does not know what he would utter, but glory, love, power, wealth, flight, and movement and the sight of new earth in the morning, and the living corporeal117 fulfilment of all his ecstasy is in his wish and his conviction.
Certainly, these things can be found in New England, but perhaps the person who finds this buried joy the most is this lonely visitor — and particularly the boy from the South, for in the heart of the Southerner alone, perhaps, is this true and secret knowledge of the North: it is there in his dreams and his childhood premonition, it is there like the dark Helen, and no matter what he sees to cheat it, he will always believe in it, he will always return to it. Certainly, this was true of the gnarled and miserly old man who now sat not far from all this glory in his dingy State Street office, for Bascom Pentland, although the stranger on seeing him might have said, “There goes the very image of a hard-bitten old Down–Easter,” had come, as lonely and wretched a youth as ever lived, from the earth of Old Catawba, he had known and felt these things and, in spite of his frequent bitter attacks on the people, the climate, the life, New England was the place to which he had returned to live, and for which he felt the most affection.
Now, ruminant and lost, he stared across the archway of his hands. In a moment, with what was only an apparent irrelevance118, with what was really a part of the coherent past, a light plucked from dark adyts of the brain, he said: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”
He was silent and thoughtful for a moment; then he added sadly: “I am an old man. I have lived a long time. I have seen so many things. Sometimes everything seems so long ago.”
Then his eye went back into the wilderness119, the lost earth, the buried men.
Presently he said: “I hope you will come out on Sunday. O, by all means! By all means! I believe your aunt is expecting you. Yes, sir, I believe she said something to that effect. Or perhaps she intends to pay a visit to one of her children. I do not know, I have not the REMOTEST— not the FAINTEST idea, of what she proposes to do,” he howled. “Of course,” he said impatiently and scornfully, “I never have any notion what she has in mind. No, sir, I really could not tell you. I no longer pay any attention to what she says — O! not the slightest!” he waved his great hand through the air —“SAY!” stiffly and harshly he tapped the boy’s knee, grinning at him with the combative120 glitter of his ptotic eye — “SAY! did you ever find ONE of them with whom it was possible to carry on a coherent conversation? Did you ever find one of them who would respond to the processes of reason and ordered thought? My dear boy!” he cried, “you cannot talk to them. I assure you, you cannot talk to them. You might as well whistle into the wind or spit into the waters of the Nile, for all the good it will do you. In his youth man will bare the riches of his spirit to them, will exhaust the rich accumulations of his genius — his wisdom, his learning, his philosophy — in an effort to make them worthy121 of his companionship — and in the end, what does he ALWAYS find? Why,” said Uncle Bascom bitterly, “that he has spent his powers in talking to an imbecile”— and he snarled vengefully through his nose. In a moment more, he contorted his face, and nasally whined122 in a grotesque123 and mincing124 parody125 of a woman’s voice, “O, I feel SO sick! O, deary ME, now! I think my TIME is coming on again! O, you don’t LOVE me any mo-o-ore! O, I WISH I was dead! O, I can’t get UP today! O, I wish you’d bring me something NICE from TA-OWN! O, if you loved me you’d buy me a NEW hat! O, I’ve got nothing to WE-E-AR!” here his voice had an added snarl57 of bitterness —“I’m ashamed to go out on the street with all the other wim-men!”
Then he paused broodingly for a moment more, wheeled abruptly127 and tapped the boy on the knee again: “The proper study of mankind is — say!” he said with a horrible fixed grimace128 and in a kind of cunning whisper —“does the poet say — WOMAN? I want to ask you: DOES he, now? Not on your life!” yelled Uncle Bascom. “The word is MAN! MAN! MAN! Nothing else but MAN!”
Again he was silent: then, with an accent of heavy sarcasm129, he went on: “Your aunt likes music. You may have observed your aunt is fond of music —”
It was, in fact, the solace of her life: on a tiny gramophone which one of her daughters had given her, she played constantly the records of the great composers.
“— Your aunt is fond of music,” Bascom said deliberately130. “Perhaps you may have thought — perhaps it seemed to you that she discovered it — perhaps you thought it was your aunt’s own patent and invention — but there you would be wrong! O yes! my boy!” he howled remotely.
“You may have thought so, but you would be wrong — Say!” he turned slowly with a malevolent131 glint of interrogation, a controlled ironic132 power —“was the Fifth Symphony written by a woman? Was the object of your aunt’s worship, Richard Wagner, a FEMALE?” he snarled. “By no means! Where are their great works — their mighty133 symphonies, their great paintings, their epic134 poetry? Was it in a woman’s skull135 that the Critique of Pure Reason was conceived? Is the gigantic work upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel136 the product of a woman’s genius? — Say! did you ever hear of a lady by the name of William Shakespeare? Was it a female of that name who wrote King Lear? Are you familiar with the works of a nice young lady named John Milton? Or Fr?ulein Goethe, a sweet German girl?” he sneered137. “Perhaps you have been edified138 by the writings of Mademoiselle Voltaire or Miss Jonathan Swift? Phuh! Phuh! Phuh! Phuh! Phuh!”
He paused, stared deliberately across his hands, and in a moment repeated, slowly and distinctly: “The woman gave me of the tree and I did eat. Ah! that’s it! There, my boy, you have it! There, in a nutshell, you have the work for which they are best fitted.” And he turned upon his nephew suddenly with a blaze of passion, his voice husky and tremulous from the stress of emotion. “The tempter! The Bringer of Forbidden Fruit! The devil’s ambassador! Since the beginning of time that has been their office — to madden the brain, to turn man’s spirit from its highest purposes, to corrupt139, to seduce140, and to destroy! To creep and crawl, to intrude141 into the lonely places of man’s heart and brain, to wind herself into the core of his most secret life as a worm eats its way into a healthy fruit — to do all this with the guile142 of a serpent, the cunning of a fox — that, my boy, is what she’s here for! — and she’ll never change!” And, lowering his voice to an ominous143 and foreboding whisper, he said mysteriously, “Beware! Beware! Do not be deceived!”
In a moment more he had resumed his tone and manner of calm deliberation and, with an air of irrelevance, somewhat grudgingly144, as if throwing a bone to a dog, he said: “Your aunt, of course, was a woman of considerable mentality145 — considerable, that is, for a female. Of course, her mind is no longer what it used to be. I never talk to her any more,” he said indifferently. “I do not listen to her. I think she said something to me about your coming out on Sunday! But I do not know. No, sir, I could not tell you what her plans are. I have my own interests, and I suppose she has hers. Of course, she has her music. . . . Yes, sir, she always has her music,” he said indifferently and contemptuously, and, staring across the apex146 of his hands, he forgot her.
Yet, he had been young, and full of pain and madness. For a space he had known all the torments147 any lover ever knew. So much Louise had told her nephew, and so much Bascom had not troubled to deny. For bending toward the boy swiftly, fiercely, and abruptly, as if Bascom was not there, she whispered: “Oh, yes! he’s indifferent enough to me now — but there was a time, there was a time, I tell you! — when he was mad about me! The old fool!” she cackled suddenly and bitterly with a seeming irrelevance. Then bending forward suddenly with a resumption of her former brooding intensity148, she whispered: “Yes! he was mad, mad, mad! Oh, he can’t deny it!” she cried. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off me for a minute! He went cwazy if any other man so much as looked at me!”
“Quite true, my dear! Quite true!” said Uncle Bascom without a trace of anger or denial in his voice, with one of his sudden and astonishing changes to a mood of tender and tranquil12 agreement. “Oh, yes,” he said again, staring reminiscently across the apex of his great folded hands, “it is all quite true — every word as she has spoken it — quite true, quite true, I had forgotten, but it’s all quite true.” And he shook his gaunt head gently from side to side, turning his closed eyes downward, and snuffling gently, blindly, tenderly, with laughter, with a passive and indifferent memory.
For a year or two after his marriage, she had said, he had been maddened by a black insanity149 of jealousy150. It descended151 on his spirit like a choking and pestilence-laden cloud, it entered his veins152 with blackened tongues of poison, it crept along the conduits of his blood, sweltered venomously in his heart, it soaked into the convolutions of his brain until his brain was fanged153 with hatred154, soaked in poison, stricken, maddened, and unhinged. His gaunt figure wasted until he became the picture of skeletonized emaciation155; jealousy and fear ate like a vulture at his entrails, all of the vital energy, the power and intensity of his life, was fed into this poisonous and consuming fire and then, when it had almost wrecked156 his health, ruined his career, and destroyed his reason, it left him as suddenly as it came: his life reverted157 to its ancient and embedded158 core of egotism, he grew weary of his wife, he thought of her indifferently, he forgot her.
And she, poor soul, was like a rabbit trapped before the fierce yellow eye, the hypnotic stare of a crouching159 tiger. She did not know whether he would spring, strike forth160 his paw to maul her, or walk off indifferently. She was dazed and stricken before the violence of his first passion, the unreasoning madness of his jealousy, and in the years that followed she was bewildered, resentful, and finally embittered161 by the abrupt126 indifference162 which succeeded it — an indifference so great that often he seemed to forget her very existence for days at a time, to live with her in a little house as if he were scarcely conscious of her presence, stumping164 about the place in an intensity of self-absorption while he cursed and muttered to himself, banged open furnace doors, chopped up whatever combinations of raw foods his fantastic imagination might contrive165, and answering her impatiently and contemptuously when she spoke26 to him: “What did you SAY-Y! Oh, what are you talking about?”— and he would stump163 away again, absorbed mysteriously with his own affairs. And sometimes, if he was the victim of conspiracy166 in the universe — if God had forsaken167 him and man had tricked and cheated him, he would roll upon the floor, hammer his heels against the wall, and howl his curses at oblivious168 heaven.
Louise, meanwhile, her children having left her, played Wagner on the gramophone, kept her small house tidy, and learned to carry on involved and animated170 conversations with herself, or even with her pots and pans, for when she scrubbed and cleaned them, she would talk to them: if she dropped one, she would scold it, pick it from the floor, spank171 it across the bottom, saying: “No, you don’t! Naughty, you bad thing, you!” And often, while he stumped173 through the house, these solitary174 conversations were interspersed175 by fits of laughter: she would bend double over her pots snuffling with soft laughter which was faintly broken at its climax176, a long high “Who-o-op!” Then she would shake her head pityingly, and be off again, but at what she was laughing she could not have said.
One night, however, she interrupted one of Bascom’s stamping and howling tirades177 by putting on her tiny gramophone The Ride of the Valkyries, as recorded by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Bascom, after the first paralysis178 of his surprise had passed, rushed furiously toward the offending instrument that was providing such melodious179 but mighty competition. Then Bascom halted; for suddenly he noticed that Louise was standing beside the instrument, that she was snuffling through her nose with laughter, and that from time to time she looked craftily180 toward him, and broke into a high piercing cackle. Bascom also noticed that she held a large carving-knife in her hand. With a loud yell he turned and fled toward his room, where he locked the door, crying out strongly in an agony of terror: “O Momma! Momma! Save me!”
All this had amused Louise enormously. She played the record over time after time, for ever snuffling with laughter and the high cackle: “Who-oo-oo!” She bent double with it.
And now, as the boy looked at the old man, he had a sense of union with the past. It seemed to him if he would only speak, the living past, the voices of lost men, the pain, the pride, the madness and despair, the million scenes and faces of the buried life — all that an old man ever knew — would be revealed to him, would be delivered to him like a priceless treasure, as an inheritance which old men owed to young, and which should be the end and effort of all living. His savage181 hunger was a kind of memory: he thought if he could speak, it would be fed.
And for a moment, it seemed, he saw the visages of time, dark time, the million lock-bolts shot back in man’s memory, the faces of the lost Americans, and all the million casual moments of their lives, with Bascom blazing at them from a dozen pulpits, Bascom, tortured by love and madness, walking the streets of the nation, stumping the rutted roads, muttering through darkness with clasped bony hands, a gaunt and twisted figure reeling across the continent below immense and cruel skies. Light fell upon his face and darkness crossed it:— he came up from the wilderness, from derbied men and bustled182 women, from all of the memories of lavish183 brown, and from time, dark time — from a time that was further off than Saxon thanes, all of the knights184, the spearheads, and the horses.
Was all this lost?
“It was so long ago,” the old man said.
Bitterly, bitterly Boston one time more: the flying leaf, the broken cloud. Was no love crying in the wilderness?
“— So long ago. I have lived so long. I have seen so much. I could tell you so many things,” his uncle said huskily, with weariness and indifference. His eye was lustreless185 and dead, he looked for a moment tired and old.
All at once, a strange and perplexing vision, which was to return many times in the years that followed, came to the boy. It was this: there was a company of old men and women at dinner, seated together around a table. All of them were very old, older than his uncle; the faces of the old men and women were fragile and delicate like old yellowed china, their faces were frail186 and sexless, they had begun to look alike. In their youth all these people had known one another. The men had drunk, fought, whored, hated one another, and loved the women. Some had been devoured by the sterile187 and corrupt fear and envy that young men know. In secret their lips were twisted, their faces livid, and their hearts bitter; their eyes glittered with a reptilian188 hatred of another man — they dreaded189 his success, and they exulted190 in his failure, laughing with a delirious191 joy when they heard or read of his hurt, defeat, or humiliation192. They had been afraid to speak or confess what was in their hearts, they feared the mockery of their fellows; with one another their words were careful, picked, and disparaging193. They gave the lie to passion and belief and they said what they knew was false. And yet along dark roads at night they had shouted out into the howling winds their great goat-cries of joy, exultancy194 and power; they had smelled snow in thick brooding air at night, and they had watched it come, softly spitting at the window glass, numbing195 the footfalls of the earth with its soft silent fall, filling their hearts with a dark proud ecstasy, touching196 their entrails with impending197 prophecy. Each had a thousand dark desires and fantasies; each wanted wealth, power, fame and love; each saw himself as great, good and talented; each feared and hated rivals in business or in love — and in crowds they glared at one another with hard hostile eyes, they bristled198 up like crested199 cocks, they watched their women jealously, felt looks and glances through their shoulder-blades, and hated men with white spermatic necks, amorous200 hair, and faces proud and insolent201 with female conquest.
They had been young and full of pain and combat, and now all this was dead in them: they smiled mildly, feebly, gently, they spoke in thin voices, and they looked at one another with eyes dead to desire, hostility202, and passion.
As for the old women, they sat there on their yellowed and bony haunches. They were all beyond the bitter pain and ecstasy of youth — its frenzy203, its hope, its sinew of bright blood and agony: they were beyond the pain and fear of anything save age and death. Here was a faithful wife, a fruitful mother; here was an adulterous and voluptuous204 woman, the potent mistress of a dozen men; here was her cuckold husband, who had screamed like a tortured animal when he had first found her in bed with another man, and here was the man he found her with; here was another man in whom the knowledge of his wife’s infidelity had aroused only a corrupt inverted205 joy; he exulted in it, he urged her on into new love affairs, he besought206 her greedily to taunt207 him with it, he fed upon his pain — and now they were all old and meagre and had the look of yellowed china. They turned their mild sunken faces toward one another with looks in which there was neither hate nor love nor desire nor passion; they laughed thinly, and their memory was all of little things.
They no longer wanted to excel or to be first; they were no longer mad and jealous; they no longer hated rivals; they no longer wanted fame; they no longer cared for work or grew drunk on hope; they no longer turned into the dark and struck their bloody208 knuckles209 at the wall; they no longer writhed210 with shame upon their beds, cursed at the memory of defeat and desolation, or ripped the sheets between convulsive fingers. Could they not speak? Had they forgotten?
Why could not the old men speak? They had known pain, death and madness, yet all their words were stale and rusty211. They had known the wilderness, the savage land, the blood of the murdered men ran down into the earth that gave no answer; and they had seen it, they had shed it. Where were the passion, pain and pride, the million living moments of their lives? Was all this lost? Were they all tongueless? It seemed to the boy that there was something sly and evil in their glances as they sat together, as if they hoarded212 some cunning and malevolent wisdom in their brains, as if the medicine to all our grief and error was in them, but as if through the evil and conspirate communication of their glance, they had resolved to keep it from us. Or were they simply devoured with satiety213, with weariness and indifference? Did they refuse to speak because they could not speak, because even memory had gone lifeless in them?
Yes. Words echoed in their throat but they were tongueless. For them the past was dead: they poured into our hands a handful of dry dust and ashes.
The dry bones, the bitter dust? The living wilderness, the silent waste? The barren land?
Have no lips trembled in the wilderness? No eyes sought seaward from the rock’s sharp edge for men returning home? Has no pulse beat more hot with love or hate upon the river’s edge? Or where the old wheel and the rusted113 stock lie stogged in desert sand: by the horsehead a woman’s skull. No love?
No lonely footfalls in a million streets, no heart that beat its best and bloodiest214 cry out against the steel and stone, no aching brain, caught in its iron ring, groping among the labyrinthine215 canyons216? Naught172 in that immense and lonely land but incessant217 growth and ripeness and pollution, the emptiness of forests and deserts, the unhearted, harsh and metal jangle of a million tongues, crying the belly-cry for bread, or the great cat’s snarl for meat and honey? All then, all? Birth and the twenty thousand days of snarl and jangle — and no love, no love? Was no love crying in the wilderness?
It was not true. The lovers lay below the lilac bush; the laurel leaves were trembling in the wood.
Suddenly it seemed to the boy that if he could put his hand upon his uncle, if he could grip his fingers in his stringy arm, his own strength and youth would go into him, and he could rekindle218 memory like a living flame in him, he could animate169 for an hour that ancient heart with the exultancy, the power, the joy that pulsed in himself; he could make the old man speak.
He wanted to speak to him as people never speak to one another, he wanted to say and hear the things one never says and hears. He wanted to know what the old man’s youth beyond its grim weather of poverty, loneliness, and desperation had been like. His uncle had been over ten years old when the war had ended, and he had seen the men plod219 home in wreaths of dust and heard their casual voices in a room; he had breathed the air of vanished summers, he had seen cloud shadows floating on the massed green of the wilderness, the twisting of a last lone1 leaf upon a bough220; and he had heard the desolate and stricken voices in the South long, long ago, the quiet and casual voices of lost men, a million vanished footsteps in the streets of life. And he had known the years of brown, dark lavish brown, the lost and hypocritical years, the thunder of the wheels and hooves upon the cobbles, the colour of bright blood — the savagery221, the hunger and the fear.
Was the memory of all this lost?
The boy touched him — he put his hand upon his uncle’s shoulder; the old man did not move. Sunken in what lost world, buried in what incommunicable and tongueless past, he said —“So long ago.”
Then the boy got up and left him and went out into the streets where the singing and lyrical air, the man-swarm passing in its million-footed weft, the glorious women and the girls compacted in a single music of belly and breasts and thighs, the sea, the earth, the proud, potent, clamorous222 city, all of the voices of time, fused to a unity that was like a song, a token and a cry. Victoriously223, he trod the neck of doubt as if it were a serpent: he was joined to the earth, a part of it, and he possessed224 it; he would be wasted and consumed, filled and renewed eternally; he would feel unceasingly alternate tides of life and dark oblivion; he would be emptied without weariness, replenished225 for ever with strong joy. He had a tongue for agony, a food for hunger, a door for exile and a surfeit226 for insatiate desire: exultant certainty welled up in him, he thought he could possess it all, and he cried: “Yes! It will be mine!”
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1
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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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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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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6
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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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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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 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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21
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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fusion
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| n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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bleakness
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| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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bins
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| n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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spinet
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| n.小型立式钢琴 | |
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41
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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42
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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43
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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subsist
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| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
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45
jugful
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| 一壶的份量 | |
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chunks
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| 厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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48
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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49
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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50
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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53
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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54
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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55
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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ledgers
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| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
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57
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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58
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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59
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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60
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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61
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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62
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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distil
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| vt.蒸馏；提取…的精华，精选出 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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65
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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flicks
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的第三人称单数 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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67
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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68
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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71
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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72
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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73
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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75
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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76
sterility
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| n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌 | |
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77
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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78
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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79
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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80
awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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81
fecundity
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| n.生产力；丰富 | |
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82
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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83
pungency
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| n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻 | |
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84
crated
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| 把…装入箱中( crate的过去式 ) | |
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85
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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86
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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87
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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88
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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89
lettuces
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| n.莴苣，生菜（ lettuce的名词复数 ）；生菜叶 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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91
infusions
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| n.沏或泡成的浸液（如茶等）( infusion的名词复数 )；注入，注入物 | |
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92
alligator
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| n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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glutinous
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| adj.粘的，胶状的 | |
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twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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100
exultantly
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| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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101
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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102
bakers
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| n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三 | |
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103
brokers
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| n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排… | |
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104
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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105
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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106
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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107
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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108
flanges
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| n.（机械等的）凸缘，（火车的）轮缘( flange的名词复数 ) | |
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109
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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110
starkly
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| adj. 变硬了的,完全的 adv. 完全,实在,简直 | |
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111
engulf
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| vt.吞没，吞食 | |
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112
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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113
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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114
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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115
brasses
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| n.黄铜( brass的名词复数 )；铜管乐器；钱；黄铜饰品（尤指马挽具上的黄铜圆片） | |
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116
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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117
corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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118
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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119
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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120
combative
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| adj.好战的；好斗的 | |
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121
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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122
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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123
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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124
mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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125
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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126
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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127
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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128
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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129
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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130
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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131
malevolent
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| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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132
ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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133
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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134
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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135
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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136
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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137
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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138
edified
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| v.开导，启发( edify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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139
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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140
seduce
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| vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱 | |
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141
intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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142
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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143
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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144
grudgingly
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145
mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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146
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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147
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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148
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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149
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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150
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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151
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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152
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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153
fanged
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| adj.有尖牙的，有牙根的，有毒牙的 | |
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154
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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155
emaciation
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| n.消瘦，憔悴，衰弱 | |
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156
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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157
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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158
embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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159
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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160
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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161
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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163
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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164
stumping
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的现在分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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165
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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166
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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167
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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168
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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169
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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170
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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171
spank
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| v.打，拍打(在屁股上) | |
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172
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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173
stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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174
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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175
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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176
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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177
tirades
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| 激烈的长篇指责或演说( tirade的名词复数 ) | |
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178
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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179
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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180
craftily
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| 狡猾地，狡诈地 | |
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181
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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182
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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183
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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184
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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185
lustreless
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| adj.无光泽的，无光彩的，平淡乏味的 | |
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186
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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187
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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188
reptilian
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| adj.（像）爬行动物的；（像）爬虫的；卑躬屈节的；卑鄙的n.两栖动物；卑劣的人 | |
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189
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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190
exulted
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| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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191
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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192
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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193
disparaging
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| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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194
exultancy
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| n.大喜，狂喜 | |
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195
numbing
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| adj.使麻木的，使失去感觉的v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的现在分词 ) | |
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196
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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197
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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198
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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199
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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200
amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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201
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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202
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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203
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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204
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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205
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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206
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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207
taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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208
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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209
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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210
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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211
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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212
hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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213
satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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214
bloodiest
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| adj.血污的( bloody的最高级 )；流血的；屠杀的；残忍的 | |
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215
labyrinthine
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| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
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216
canyons
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| n.峡谷( canyon的名词复数 ) | |
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217
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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218
rekindle
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| v.使再振作；再点火 | |
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219
plod
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| v.沉重缓慢地走，孜孜地工作 | |
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220
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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221
savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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222
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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223
victoriously
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| adv.获胜地，胜利地 | |
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224
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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225
replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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226
surfeit
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| v.使饮食过度；n.(食物)过量，过度 | |
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