Then she sat down again in her chair — a big, wicker chair with a vast, fan-shaped back, he sat down beside her, and sank gratefully into oblivion while the other people resumed their interrupted conversation.
“No, but — POLLY! SURELY not! You know, she actually did not go through with it?” said a strong, protesting voice, in which yet an eager curiosity was evident. “You know, they stopped the thing before she went the whole way?”
“My dear,” said Polly firmly — she had evidently been well named: in the moonlight her face showed sharp and pointed4, with a big nose, and the shrewd, witty5, and rather malicious6 features of a parrot — “my dear, I KNOW she DID. I was visiting Alice Bellamy at Newport when it happened: I got the whole story straight from her. The family were perfectly7 frantic8 — they were calling Hugh Bellamy up or running in to see him a dozen times a day to find out if something could be done — how to get it annulled9 — But I tell you,” Polly cried, shaking her head obstinately11 and speaking in a tone of unmistakable conviction, “— I know what I’m talking about! There’s no doubt about it whatever — she MARRIED him — the ceremony was ACTUALLY performed —”
“And she really Lived with him — with this — this Stable-Boy?”
“LIVED with him!” Polly cried. “My dear, they’d been living together for almost two weeks before old Dick Rossiter found them. Now, of course,” she said piously12, but with a faint, malicious smirk13, “— I don’t know what they’d been doing all that time — perhaps the whole affair had been quite idyllic14, but — well, my dear, you can use your own imagination. My own experience with ostlers is rather limited, but I shouldn’t think they were particularly renowned15 for their platonic16 virtues17.”
“No,” said Mrs. Pierce quietly, but with an unmistakable note of level and obdurate18 cynicism in her voice, “— nor Ellen Rossiter either — not if I know the breed! . . . After all,” she went on in a moment, in a voice that was characterized by its grimly quiet conviction, “what else could you expect out of that crowd? . . . There’s bad blood there! Bad blood in the whole lot of them,” her voice rose on a formidable and powerful note of unrelenting judgment19. “— Everyone in Society knows that old Steve Buchanan, that girl’s grandfather, was a thorough-going rotter,” she bit the word off almost viciously. “His reputation was so bad that most people wouldn’t even have him in their house — that was the reason he spent the last twenty years of his life in France: he had become an outcast over here, no one would speak to him — he had to get out! — But! Heavens! A STABLE-BOY!” she laughed again, and this time her laugh was almost hard and ugly. “What a blow to Myra — after all her years of scheming and contriving20 to get Timmy Wilson and his millions into the family! . . . I knew it! I knew it!” she shook her head with formidable, obstinate10 conviction. “I could have told them long ago they’d have trouble with that girl before they were done with her! There’s bad blood there! Of course, it was BOUND to happen, sooner or later, anyway — Myra’s a fool of the first water: she never had the brains of a rabbit. But to think! — Heavens! what a let-down after all her scheming: a stable-boy! I bet she had a fit!”
“Still,” suggested a young man named Howard, at this propitious21 moment, in his mincing22, lisping, and effeminately mannered tone, “— as Irene Cartwright said, it was the only original thing that Ellen Rossiter ever did, and it was rather a pity to break the romance off. . . . I thought,” he went on casually23, “that the story they told about the ostler was rather touching24 — asking her to send his letters back, you know!”
“No!” cried Mrs. Pierce in an astounded25 tone. “Did he? . . . Well!” she went on eagerly. “And did she send them? . . . Go on, Howard!”
“But, of course,” said Howard. “And the wedding-ring, and everything else that he had given her. . . . I read the letter that he wrote her: it was really TOO pathetic — he said he was going with another girl — a housemaid, I believe — and he didn’t want it to get out that he had paid attentions to someone else. . . . ‘I have spoke26 it all over with my mother,’ he said,” Howard quoted drolly27, “‘and she thinks the same as me, you ought to let me have them back’"—
“Oh, HOWARD!” Mrs. Pierce shrieked28 faintly. “You KNOW he didn’t! Simply PRICELESS!”
For a moment her splendid, even teeth flashed brilliantly in the moonlight: she lifted the long cigarette-holder29 in her hand and took a long, deliberate puff30: the fragrant31, acrid32 smoke of Turkish tobacco coiled upward in the moonlight air like filings of light steel. Turning to the young man beside her, she addressed him with the somewhat patient and dutiful kindliness33 of a person receiving a strange guest in her home for the first time.
“Well,” she said, “and how did you find the trip up? Did Joel frighten you out of your wits by his driving? He does everyone else.”
“Well, he did go pretty fast,” the youth admitted. “He had me hanging on once or twice — when we left the main road we took the curve on two wheels, but he seemed to know what he was doing.”
“I assure you,” said Mrs. Pierce, with a stern laugh, “that he does not. I wish I could share your confidence, but I can’t. I don’t think he has the faintest notion what he’s doing.”
“But, after all,” the very quiet, pleasant, almost toneless voice of a young man whose name was George Thornton now took up the thread of the discussion —“after all, I should think that any reasonable man would be content with a speed of thirty-five or forty miles an hour. After all,” he said very quietly again, “perhaps the most important things in life are not to be got at through speed — perhaps all the things that are most worth living for are not to be had if we always go a mile a minute.”
“That’s just it, George!” Mrs. Pierce put in with decisive satisfaction. “That’s just it! Any reasonable man WOULD be content with thirty-five or forty miles an hour — but Joel is not reasonable. When he gets in a car he’s like a child that’s been given a new toy to play with for the first time.”
“The greatest things in life, the highest values,” George Thornton went on in his quiet, pleasant, almost toneless voice, which now, despite the air of telling reasonableness with which he spoke — the air of temperance, moderation and control — was, somehow, indefinably tinged34 by a sombre fatality35: the tone of a man whose extreme reasonableness comes from a fear of madness, whose temperance from some fatal impulse to insane excess —“the greatest things in life,” he went on in his quiet, toneless voice, almost as if he were talking to himself and had not heard what Mrs. Pierce had said —“are not to be got from machinery36 or speed, or any material object in the world whatever. . . . Christ,” he continued with his quiet, utterly37 reasonable, and implacable finality, “said that the greatest thing in life is love. Buddha38 said that the greatest thing in life is the illumination of the human spirit. Socrates found that man’s highest duty was obedience39 to his country’s laws. And Confucius, after weighing life and death against each other, found man’s only reason for living in keeping as many of the conventions of society as he could. . . . And that, Joel, perhaps is the real reason, the only reason, why you should not drive your car at reckless speed. . . . You break your country’s law by doing so . . . and you cause pain and worry and anxiety to other people who may love you. For that reason, if for nothing else, you ought not to do it.”
He delivered this judgment in his quiet and toneless voice, without vanity or arrogance40, but with a finality that was almost prophetic and that left no room for argument. When he was done speaking there was a deep, impersonal41 silence for a moment, and then the voice of Joel’s sister, Rosalind — a voice that was still the voice of a girl, but that was also sweet and low and womanly, full of noble tenderness and warmth — could be heard in all its affectionate young impulsiveness43:
“Oh, but, George! — you’re an ANGEL about everything! If everyone were like you, life would be heaven!” She took his hand between her strong, warm hands and squeezed it — an impulsive42 and natural gesture with her that revealed, as much as anything else, the deep and true affection of her nature. “— Darling,” she said, “— you make all of us — everyone else — feel so mean — and small — and — so petty. . . . I mean,” she went on with the earnest and na?ve sincerity44, the spontaneous admiration45, of a generous and warm-spirited girl —“the way you live — the way you have spent your whole life, George, in helping46 other people — the way you have found out all these wonderful things about — about — Buddha and Confucius and Socrates — you KNOW so much, George!” she cried enthusiastically — “you have learned so much, while the rest of us were just leading an idle, stupid, empty kind of life — and the way you give it all away to others — the way you give your money away to anyone who needs it — the — the — way,” she faltered47 suddenly, and her voice was choked with tears —“the way you have looked after poor Dick all these years”— she blurted48 out.
“Rosalind!” Mrs. Pierce cried out sharply and warningly, yet not with reproof49 so much as with apprehension50.
“I don’t care!” cried Rosalind impulsively51 —“I— I think he’s wonderful! George, you’re a SAINT!” she said, and clasped his hand again.
No one spoke for a moment: George sat quietly on the terrace step, his fine and small bronzed head, his very still eyes, in whose steady, quiet depths the fatal madness which would destroy him was already legible, turned out across the great sward of moon-drenched lawn towards the shine and wink52 and velvet53 mystery of the noble river far below. In the quality of silence that held all these people, there was a sense of profound emotion — the reference to “poor Dick” had touched some sorrowful fact that all of them knew about, and one could sense this deep feeling now in the stony54 silence that held all of them. It was broken in a moment by Mrs. Pierce, who betrayed, by the studied matter-of-factness of her tone, the emotion which she, too, had felt.
“But it IS an extraordinary thing, George — a simply astonishing thing — to find a young man of your age who has read and studied — and — and — PREPARED himself for life the way you have. It’s SIMPLY astonishing!” she concluded, and then did what was perhaps an astonishing thing for her — quickly and vigorously she blew her nose. “But SIMPLY astonishing!” she said again, as she thrust the handkerchief away and put a cigarette into her eight-inch holder.
“No, I think not,” he said quietly, and without a trace of vanity or false modesty55. “It would have been astonishing if I had not done it. After all, my debt to society for all that it has done for me is great enough as it is: I could not with any decency56 look the world in the face if I knew that I had not made some effort to repay it.”
“How few rich young men feel that way about it,” said Mrs. Pierce quietly. “I wish more did!”
The conversation was now turned to other, lighter57 channels of discussion: gossip, spirited but light debate. Mrs. Pierce renewed her conversation with Howard and Polly; farther away upon the steps Rosalind, Seaholm, a dark girl named Ruth, and George Thornton talked, gossiped and laughed together with the charming intimacy58 of youth, and Joel and Miss Telfair were engaged in eager and excited debate — Joel, for the most part, listening with the eager, respectful, bent59-forward attentiveness60, the devoted61 courtesy of reverence62, that marked all of his relations with women, and Miss Telfair doing most of the talking. She talked the way she looked and dressed and acted, the way she was: a speech fragile, empty, nervous, brittle63, artificial and incisive64 as one of the precious bits of china, the costly65, rare, enamelled little trinkets that filled up her house, her life, her interest.
“No, Joel!” she was saying with a voice that had a curious, shell-like penetration66 — a positive, brittle, but incisively67 certain voice —“you are absolutely wrong! You are COMPLETELY mistaken about that! The thing cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called Sienese! It is PURE Ravenna — PERFECT Ravenna — ABSOLUTELY!” she cried, shaking her enamelled face with obdurate conviction. “It’s nothing else on earth but the PUREST and MOST PERFECT Ravenna — and Fourteenth Century Ravenna at that! . . . No! No!” she cried incisively, cutting him off shortly, and shaking her head stubbornly as he tried to put in a smiling, whispered word of courteous68 doubt. “My dear child, you are dead wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about! . . . I was an authority on these things before you were born. . . . I’ve forgotten more about Ravenna than you’ll ever know! . . . No! . . . No! . . . Absolutely NOT! . . . You’re ALL wrong!”
He received this stubborn, arrogant69 and almost insulting rebuttal as he always did — with the whispered, gracious humility70 of his beautiful good nature: laughing softly and enthusiastically over her arrogant and contemptuous denial, as if he were merely the victim of the most tender and high-spirited raillery.
At this moment, however, when, with a sense of resentment71 and displeasure he was listening to the naked and arrogant penetrations72 of Miss Telfair’s voice, Rosalind Pierce rose from her seat on the terrace step, left the other young people there, came swiftly to where Eugene was seated, and sat down beside him.
“Why are you sitting here all by yourself — so quiet and so alone?” she said in her warm, sweet, lovely, and affectionate young voice. “Can I sit here and talk to you?” she said, and even as she spoke these words, she slipped her arm through his and clasped him by the hand. The whole life and character of this beautiful, fine and lovely girl were in that simple, natural and spontaneous gesture. That gesture did what words could never do, explained what years of living with many people could not explain: in an instant she communicated to him the whole quality of her life, told him the kind of person she was. And the kind of person she was was unbelievably good and beautiful.
“What have you been thinking of all the time you have been sitting here?” she whispered in her low, sweet voice. “I could see you sitting here, listening, looking at us, and all the time it was just as if you were a million miles away. What were you thinking? — that we are all an idle, shallow lot, with nothing to do except to chatter73 and gossip about other useless people like ourselves?”
“Why — no — no,” he stammered74. “Why — not at all —” He looked at her with a red embarrassed face, but there was no guile75 or mockery in her. She was not clever enough for sarcasm76 or malice77, not witty enough for irony78: she was a creature full of innocence79 and ardour, without profound intelligence, but with a nature full of warmth, generous enthusiasm, and affection.
“I— I— think you’re all fine,” he blurted out. “I think you’re great.”
“Do you, darling?” she said softly. “Well, we’re not.” She pulled him towards her with a gesture of friendly intimacy, and said: “Come on: let’s leave them all for a few minutes. I want to talk to you.”
They got up, and still with her warm hand clasped in his, they walked along the terrace and around the great, moon-whitened wings of the house on to the road that swept in an oval before it.
“Do you really like us?” she said, as they walked on down the road away from the house under a deep, nocturnal mystery of great trees through which the moonlight shone and swarmed80 upon the earth in mottles of light. “Don’t you like Joel? Don’t you think he’s grand?”
“I— I think he’s the best fellow in the world,” he said. “He’s — he’s just TOO good!”
“Oh, he’s a saint,” she said in her quiet, sweet voice. “There was never anyone like him: he’s the loveliest person I’ve ever known. . . . Aren’t people wonderful?” she said, and turned and paused in the moonlit road and looked at him. “I mean, there are a lot of mean ones . . . and useless ones . . . and sort of shabby ones like . . . like — well, like some of those people there tonight . . . but there’s something good in all of them — even poor little Howard Martin has something sweet and good in him: he has a kind heart — he really has — he wants to be amusing and to entertain people, he wants everyone to be happy and have a good time. . . . And when you meet someone like Joel, it makes up for everything else, doesn’t it? . . . Or George Thornton — don’t you like him? Don’t you think he’s a grand person, too?”
“He — seems fine,” he answered with some difficulty. “I— I never met him till tonight.”
“Oh, you’ll LOVE him when you get to know him,” the girl said earnestly. “— Everybody does. . . . He’s another saint, just like Joel . . . and he’s so brave, and kind, and good — and his life has been so terrible.”
“Terrible? I— I thought he said —”
“Oh, he IS, darling — he DOES have everything THAT way — money, I mean. He’s terribly rich: one of the richest young men in the world. . . . Only he doesn’t spend it on himself, he gives it all away and then . . . you see, darling, George has had an unhappy life of it from the beginning. . . . His father died a raving81 madman, there’s been insanity82 in his family for generations back, his mother was a horrible woman who deserted83 him when he was a child and ran off with a man, and he was brought up by an aunt — his father’s sister — who was half cracked herself. . . . Now he lives all alone on this big place that he’s inherited — he has one brother, Dick, who is two years older than he is — and he has spent practically his whole life in looking after Dick.”
“Looking after him?”
“Yes,” the girl said quietly, “— Dick is insane too — a raving maniac84; they have guards for him, they have to watch him every minute of the time — when George comes to see him, Dick tries to kill him. . . . And George loves him, he’d give his life for him, he does everything he can to make Dick happy — and Dick hates him so that he’d kill him if he could. . . . And George has this thing hanging over him all the time, he can’t forget about it for a moment, it’s made his whole life wretched, and yet you’d never know it when you talk to him: he never mentions it, he’s always the same to people — always kind and good and gentle, never thinking of himself.”
“I see. And is that the reason why he studies all these different philosophies — Christ and Socrates and Confucius? —”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “— And Buddha. I think so. . . . He would never admit it . . . he has never said so . . . and of course no one COULD ask him. . . . But I think that’s the reason. . . . There’s something . . . something desperate . . . lost . . . in his eyes sometimes,” she said slowly, after a pause. “ . . . It’s . . . it’s not good to look at . . . it’s . . . I imagine it’s like the look you would see in the eyes of a drowning man.”
“And you think that he may be afraid of . . . of insanity?”
She was silent for a moment, and did not answer him directly.
“He’s been studying Buddhism85 for the last two years,” she said. “He’s had all kinds of people at the house to teach him. . . . Hindus, mystics, scholars — learned people . . . he’s . . . he’s become more and more . . . I don’t know,” she said in a puzzled tone. “— I don’t know what you’d call it — sort of mystical.” Again she was silent, and presently added matter-of-factly: “He’s going to India next year.”
“To study?”
“Yes, I think so,” the girl said, and again was silent. “Somehow — it’s a dreadful thought, isn’t it?” she said in a low tone after a moment —“But sometimes I have wondered if George would ever come back. . . . Perhaps,” she concluded quietly, “ . . . perhaps that is why we all love him so much . . . it’s like loving someone who is brave and good and gentle that you know has got to die.”
For some time they walked on slowly down the moon-white road without further speech.
“I want you to know Carl, too,” she said. “He seems very cold and strange at first — but that is just his foreign way. He is really one of the loveliest, sweetest people that ever lived. . . . You know,” she said presently, “we are going to be married in October.”
“Yes, I know. Joel told me. . . . Will you live here — in this country?”
“No. I’m afraid not. . . . You see, Carl is in the diplomatic service, and they get moved around a great deal. They have to go where they get sent.”
“And where will you go first? Do you know?”
“Yes, I think they are sending him to Paris next.”
“Will you like that? Do you think you’ll like living in Paris?”
“Of COURSE,” she said with her rich, warm, easy laugh. “I’m awfully87 easy to please — I like everything — I’m happy anywhere — wherever I am. Is that very bad of me?” she said with a kind and gently teasing smile.
“No, that’s very good of you. . . . Have you ever been to Paris?”
“Yes,” she cried in a rich, enthusiastic tone, “and I love it. I adore it. I studied music there. Mother and I lived there for two years before I came out.”
“But now you’ll have to learn Swedish and German and Italian and Spanish and Russian — all those languages — now that you’re getting married to a diplomat86. Won’t you?”
“Yes,” she said with her sweet and careless laugh —“Everything! One must become a regular little walking Berlitz school of languages — only I shan’t mind very much: I’m very stupid, but my husband is so kind and clever I’m sure I’ll learn in spite of everything.”
“And you’ll live in Paris and Rome and London and Berlin — all those places? Won’t you?”
“Yes, darling,” she said in her warm, sweet tone that always had something maternal88 and tolerantly amused in its humour, “— and in Copenhagen and Stockholm and Bucharest and Madrid — even in Pogo Pogo or in China or Peru — wherever they choose to send us. We’ll be two international hoboes, darling — that’s the kind of life we’ll have to lead.”
“God!” he said bluntly. “It sounds wonderful! What a thing to happen to anyone! — and to happen to you at your age! . . . But won’t if make all this — this place here — seem awfully far away, and very strange — when you think back on it?”
“Yes,” the girl said quietly, and added so softly that she seemed to breathe the words — so softly that he could scarcely hear her, “— and quite impossibly lovely!”
He stared at her in blank astonishment89 for a minute: she had clasped her hands against her breast in a natural and simple gesture, the moon had made an aureole of magic around the silken strands90 of her brown hair, and suddenly he noticed that her eyes were bright with tears.
“Very, very far away,” she said in a low tone, “and enormously beautiful. . . . You see,” she said simply, “this is my home. . . . I was born here, and I love it.” She was silent for a moment longer, and then she said quietly but in a more matter-of-fact way:
“Don’t you think our place — this country here — is beautiful?”
He did not answer her for a moment: at first he was not even conscious that he had heard her. He kept staring at her with a comical expression of gape-jawed and hypnotic fascination91. He was conscious of a queer, bewildered and inappropriate feeling of surprise — a kind of numb92, absurd wonder that if he had read all the books and poems in the world, and then tried to imagine for himself something as impossibly lovely as this girl and the whole scene around her, he could never, by any soaring stretch of the imagination, have come within a million miles of it.
Behind her head the moon was making its spun93 aura of enchanted94 light, the dress she was wearing was of some sweet gossamer95 stuff of light moon-blue that seemed spun out of the very substance of the moon itself — to float, to move like some aerial fume96 of magic smoke, but the girl herself was lovely, sweet and strong as the whole earth around her. She was herself no creature of elves’ fantasy, she was not lithe97 and slender, fleeting98 as a nymph: she was a warm, strong-bodied girl, wide in the hips99 for children, a nature warm and soft and gentle as a cow, but radiant and lovely with fair girlhood, too, and full of sweetness, strength, and tender, jolly humour.
She stood there in the middle of the white, empty road with the enchanted radiance of the moon upon her, and he stared at her unbelievingly, like a man who meets some vision in a dream and does not know if he is dreaming or awake, and yet knows all the time that it is real. Then he would take his fascinated gaze away from her, and look down at the moon-white road, and stamp it with his foot, and kick and scurf the ground of the moon-white road to see if it was real, and then lift his head and look at her again, and turn and see the great, sweet fields and meadows dreaming in the moonlight, and cows down upon their knees, facing toward him with their strange and silent stare, or faced one way and grazing towards him through the moon pastures with sweet, wrenching100 pull of teeth; and then he would see the dark and sleeping woods of night, with all their mystery and loveliness and wild and solemn joy, and secret terror, and all the grand and casual folds and convolutions of the sleeping, moon-enchanted earth, and far away the moon-blaze and wink, the herring glamour101, and the dancing scallop fires and all the darkness, coolness, and the velvet-breasted mystery of the strange and silent river, the haunted river, the great Hudson River, drawing on for ever from the dark and secret earth the sources of its depthless tides, and in the night-time, in the dark, with soundless movings of its tide, drawing on for ever like time and silence past the strange and secret land, the mysterious earth, the sleeping cities and the lost and lonely little towns of dark America.
It was all so strange, so impossibly lovely, so hauntingly familiar — the grand and casual landscape of America — and it seemed past words and past belief, to be so much a part of this girl’s life, and she a part of it, that all the haunting mystery of the secret earth, the silent river, and all its sweetness, fragrance102 and fertility, its casual homeliness103, and its unuttered loveliness had entered into her, had fed her life, had shaped her to its special quality, and like a solemn music was mixed into the conduits of her blood and life and soul for ever, so that now he could not bear to see her taken from it, he felt a cruel and ruinous loss and waste in this destructive separation — a loss that touched not only this girl’s life, but the life of the great earth and all America as well — a loss as if a rare and glorious flower were brutally104 uprooted105 from the only earth that could produce or nurture106 it and which would henceforth be, by reason of its treasured loss, bereft107. And feeling so, a blind and bitter resentment surged up in his heart, his whole life and spirit were set against her going, and in his soul an unforgiving and protesting voice kept saying doggedly108:
“Why has she got to go? Why must she be lost? Why does she have to go and marry that damned Swede?”
In the great moon-drenched field beside the road, the cows were moving towards them slowly, grazing, pulling the fragrant meadow grass of night with sweet, cool wrenching, with rustling109 stir, and with whisking of dry tails.
The girl walked over to the wire fence, and one of the cows, after regarding her with its grave, gentle stare, moved slowly towards her, rattling110 the fence wires as it thrust its gentle, bending head across the fence and nuzzled her soft palm.
“She seems to know you,” said the youth.
“Yes,” the girl answered. “I know them all by name, they all know me. I gave them all their names: this one’s Brindle. Aren’t they lovely creatures?” she said quietly, as she stroked the cow. “Such — such — gentle pets,” she said, “with their kind looks and great, soft eyes. They all know me, and will come to me when I call their names.”
The other cows, indeed, were now standing still, faced toward her, looking at her with slow, gaunt and gentle heads. Now, slowly, they started to move toward her, making a cool, sweet rustling through night grasses as they came. The moonlight burst upon their short, curved horns, it burst upon the rich bright patches of their mottled hides, upon their stringy, dung-bespattered rumps, their soft eyes, and the slow, gentle wonder of their long, gaunt heads.
And it was all so wonderful — the sleeping woods, the moon-enchanted fields, the slow, light grazings of the moonlit cows, and all the fragrance of the night, the grass, the clover and the meadow spells, and the magic warmth and loveliness of the girl, and her sweet, low voice beside him in the moonlight — that it seemed to him that all his life had been a prelude111 and a preparation to this wonder. He did not know what he could say, it came swelling112 up in a wild flood of tenderness and passion, he felt that he must tell her somehow, and he had no words for saying it; he seized her hands and stammered:
“Look here — if I live to be a million years I’ll never — the way the river was tonight, the moon, and the way Joel met me and then finding you and your mother and your friends there in the moonlight — and the river down below — and now this walk with you — this road — the field — and all these cows there in the field — and you here — why, by God!” he cried thickly, incoherently, “you are the finest girl I ever saw in all my life! — this place — tonight here — the most wonderful —”
“Come on,” she said quietly, with her warm, young laugh, and took him by the arm again. “We must be going back:— the others will be waiting for us — but it HAS been lovely, hasn’t it?”
“Why,” he muttered thickly and seized her hand again, “— why! By God! By God!”
When they got back to the house the guests had risen for departure, but were standing in an interested group around George Thornton, who was showing them gymnastics.
“Another thing,” he was saying, in his very quiet, pleasant, toneless voice, “— another thing that you can try is this.” With these words he stretched his slight and graceful113 figure — which was as tough as hickory and as flexible as a whip — flat out upon the bricked floor of the terrace.
“Try this some time,” he continued in his quiet, even tone that had a curiously114 hushed, still and almost sombre penetration in the deep moon-silence of the night. “Try lying flat out on your back some time — like this.” And he lay there, small, graceful, beautifully lithe, completely relaxed.
“And then what?” said Mrs. Pierce in an interested tone. “What do you do then, George?”
“Nothing,” he said with toneless quiet. “You just lie there — it relaxes you: a Hindu showed me how to do it.”
“Oh, but anyone could do that!” Howard Martin protested, in his mannered and rather effeminate voice. “Even I could do that, George.”
“It’s not as easy as you think,” George said. “You see,” he went on quietly, “it’s really a greater effort to be relaxed than most of us realize. Most of us are all tied up in a knot — so much more tense than we know we are. The thing you’ve got to do,” he went on with his quiet and fatal tonelessness, “is to relax — utterly relax — just let everything relax. You’ve got to lie so that everything — the back of your head, your shoulders, your spinal115 column — the whole thing — lies flat upon the floor. Like this,” he said, and just lay there, small, fragile, beautifully lithe and strong, and utterly, quietly, “relaxed”— his voice coming with a quiet and strange penetration from a figure that seemed inanimate. “— It’s not easy to do, but you can master it if you try.”
“Oh, let me see! I’m going to try!” little Howard Martin cried with the good-natured and unselfconscious eagerness that was really one of his attractive and appealing qualities. And completely unruffled by the laughter of the group, he immediately lay down and stretched himself out beside George, his dapper little figure looking indescribably comical as he tried to follow George’s instructions and imitate his posture116:
“How’s that, George?” he said presently, without moving. “Have I got it?”
George turned and observed him keenly for a moment.
“No,” he said quietly, “you haven’t got it yet, Howard. You see, you’ve got to flatten117 out completely. You’ve just got to let everything go limp — relax — so that your whole back is flat upon the ground.”
“But I AM flat! I AM flat!” little Howard protested in such a mincing and comical tone of protest that everyone burst out in hearty118 laughter, and even George smiled his fine, rare, and grave smile. “My GOD!” Howard said in an agonized119 tone when the laughter had subsided120, “if I was any flatter I’d feel like a pancake.”
“No, Howard,” George Thornton said quietly after another moment of observant silence. “You haven’t got it yet. You see, your back is really arched — you’re not RELAXED— your back is not upon the floor — the thing is to make yourself lie out as flat as a board — like this,” and with the fingers of his strong, small, bronzed hand he gently but firmly pushed Howard’s stomach down towards the floor. Howard grunted121 protestingly, but lay there after George had taken his hand away, and George, after looking at him closely for a moment, nodded approvingly and said:
“Yes, that’s better. You’re getting it now. But you’ve really got to practise every day. It looks easy, but it’s hard to do.”
“But, George,” Mrs. Pierce broke in, as Howard scrambled123 to his feet, “— what I’m interested in knowing is how you keep that beautiful, strong athlete’s figure that you’ve got! And that dancer’s WAIST! My dear sir, that is the curse of a woman’s life: so if you can tell me what to do to take it off around the waist and hips I’ll be eternally grateful to you.”— She was, as a matter of fact, herself as lean and well-conditioned as a race-horse, but George, still lying flat upon the floor, answered quietly:
“Did you ever try this, Ida? I think you’ll find it very useful for keeping the waist down. — You lie flat on your back — like this. You keep your arms flat at your sides — you mustn’t raise them or lift your head. You keep your legs straight — you mustn’t bend them at the knees — and then,” slowly, and with a sense of infinite, hard-muscled power and lean endurance, he suited the action to the words, “you raise your legs to right angles with your body — straighten out again — raise — straighten — raise — straighten — raise — straighten — if you do that a hundred times a day, when you get up and when you go to bed, I don’t think you’ll ever be troubled by fat around the waist,” he concluded quietly.
“I know,” Joel whispered, nodding with vigorous agreement. “I’ve tried that. That’s a good one. But a hundred times is a lot! It’s more than most people can do at first.”
“Yes,” said George quietly. “But you get used to it if you do it every day! I can do it a hundred times with no difficulty whatever,” he concluded quietly.
“Oh, of COURSE!” Joel whispered instantly. “But then, you’re hard as a rock, George. You can do anything.”
“But that doesn’t look hard,” Howard said again with blithe124 confidence. “Oh, I just KNOW that I can do THAT one,” he said mincingly125. And without further ado, while everyone laughed, he stretched himself out again, extended his dapper flannelled126 legs as George instructed him, and then slowly raised them, lowered them, raised them again with such a painful grunt122 that everyone burst out again in hearty laughter. After the fourth effort he was through, admitting defeat with a painful “Gosh! If I had to do that for a hundred times I’d be ready for the undertaker,” and scrambled to his feet again.
“Then,” said George in his quiet, pleasant tone, “I think you’ll find this one good, Ida, for strengthening the muscles of the back and stomach. You ARCH,” he said, “you arch with the neck and feet — like this,” and instantly his strong, frail127, beautifully proportioned figure was arched as lithely128 and gracefully129 as a bow, “— you come down slow like this,” he said, and sank slowly toward the ground, “you arch again like this”— again the light and graceful human bow.
“Oh, but that looks terribly hard to do, George!” Mrs. Pierce protested. “I could never learn to do that: it’s a regular circus stunt130.”
“No,” he said in his quiet and toneless fashion, “you could do it, Ida. Of course, it IS hard at first, but it would come with practice. . . . It makes you very strong,” he went on with a completely detached matter-of-factness. “Do you see that?” He arched his whip-cord body again and held it in that posture —“I could keep that up indefinitely — it makes you hard as nails,” he went on quietly, and without an atom of vanity or self-consciousness. “I could support the whole weight of a man’s body there without any difficulty — and LIFT him, too.”
“Not REALLY!” Joel whispered in an astounded tone. “Simply incredible!”
“But not at all,” said George quietly. “It’s the easiest thing on earth if you’re used to it. Come here, Howard,” he said quietly, without moving from his arched position. “Sit down on me.”
“Sit DOWN on you?” said Howard, in a comically bewildered tone. “WHERE, George?”
“On my stomach,” George replied. “Go on,” he said, smiling his fine, grave smile at sight of Howard’s hesitation131. “It’s all right. You won’t hurt me at all. Sit down.”
“Like — like this?” said Howard, and squatted132 gingerly and gently, settling down finally upon George’s arched stomach and looking about with such a comically troubled and inquiring expression that everyone burst out in hearty laughter again. “Is that all right?” he said, turning anxiously and looking down at his supporter.
“Yes, perfectly,” said George. “Now draw your knees up and hold them with your arms so that your whole weight is on me. . . . Good! . . . Now! Are you ready? . . . One, two . . . One, two . . . One, two,” his lithe, whip-cord figure rose and fell, arched and straightened, with little Howard sitting on top of him, and looking around with the expression of a frightened, huddled133 mannikin. When the demonstration134 was finished, both young men got to their feet, and Joel’s face could be seen raised in an expression of radiant admiration, his voice could be heard in an astounded whisper, saying:
“SIMPLY incredible!”
And Mrs. Pierce, her voice stronger, more powerful, and penetrating135, in slow, decisive declaration:
“GEORGE! I— think — that — is — the — MOST— ASTONISHING— I think — that — is — the — MOST—”
Words failed her, and as she looked at him, standing quietly composed before her, with all his beautiful, lithe grace and stillness, he smiled his grave, rare smile, and displayed his only playful raillery of the evening:
“But really, Ida,” he said quietly, as he smiled his fine, slow smile at her, “if you’re worried about that girlish figure you ought to try THIS some time.” With these words he bent over backward, as lithe and limber as a whip, and with his fingers arched upon the floor, suddenly, with effortless grace and speed, and without moving an inch from his position, whirled off a dozen brilliant cartwheels that would have done credit to a circus tumbler.
He came gracefully, unweariedly erect136 again, to standing posture, amid an ovation137 of breathlessly uttered wonder, frank applause.
But now the time had come for parting: there was the sound of a motor in the drive before the house, in a moment a maid-servant came quietly out upon the terrace and informed Miss Telfair that her car had come. She gathered her evening cloak about her fragile, ivory shoulders — that were somehow like a piece of her own rare porcelain138 — thrust her hand out towards Mrs. Pierce in swift and firm farewell, and turned, saying in her crisp, incisive voice: “Well, children, I’m departing. . . . Joel,” she said, pausing a moment as she went, “I shall expect you and your young friend at my house for tea tomorrow.”
“And are you coming to the pool tomorrow morning, Margaret?” Mrs. Pierce called after her.
“That, my dear, I couldn’t tell you,” she said, going. “If I do not get a call from town. We shall see what we shall see — good night, all,” and she went through the moonlit door into the house.
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1
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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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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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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annulled
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| v.宣告无效( annul的过去式和过去分词 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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10
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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13
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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14
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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17
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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18
obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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19
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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20
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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21
propitious
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| adj.吉利的；顺利的 | |
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mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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23
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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24
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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25
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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26
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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27
drolly
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| adv.古里古怪地；滑稽地；幽默地；诙谐地 | |
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28
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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30
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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31
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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32
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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33
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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34
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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36
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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37
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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38
Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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39
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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40
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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41
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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42
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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43
impulsiveness
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| n.冲动 | |
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44
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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45
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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46
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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47
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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48
blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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50
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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51
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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52
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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53
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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54
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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55
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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56
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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57
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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58
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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59
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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60
attentiveness
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| [医]注意 | |
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61
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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62
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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63
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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64
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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65
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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66
penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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67
incisively
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| adv.敏锐地，激烈地 | |
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68
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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69
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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70
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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71
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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72
penetrations
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| 渗透( penetration的名词复数 )； 穿透； 突破； （男人阴茎的）插入 | |
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73
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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74
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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76
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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77
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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78
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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79
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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80
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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81
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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82
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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83
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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84
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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85
Buddhism
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| n.佛教（教义） | |
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86
diplomat
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| n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人 | |
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87
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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88
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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89
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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90
strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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92
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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93
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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94
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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95
gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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96
fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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97
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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98
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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100
wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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101
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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102
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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103
homeliness
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| n.简朴，朴实；相貌平平 | |
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104
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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105
uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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106
nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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107
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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108
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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109
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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110
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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111
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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112
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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113
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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114
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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115
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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116
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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117
flatten
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| v.把．．．弄平，使倒伏；使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
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118
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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119
agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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120
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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121
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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122
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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123
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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124
blithe
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| adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的 | |
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125
mincingly
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126
flannelled
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| 穿法兰绒衣服的 | |
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127
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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128
lithely
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| adv.柔软地，易变地 | |
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129
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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130
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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131
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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132
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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133
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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134
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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135
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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136
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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137
ovation
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| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
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138
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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