As he approached, he saw her thrust her hand into the pocket of her overcoat, a match flared4, and for a moment he saw Edith plainly, the small flower of her face framed in the wavering light as she lowered her head to light her cigarette.
The light went out, he saw the small respiring glow of her cigarette before the white blur5 of her face, he passed her swiftly, head bent6, without speaking, his heart filled with the sense of strangeness and wonder which the family had roused in him.
Then he walked on up the road, muttering to himself. The house was dark when he got there, but when he entered his sitting-room7 the place was still warmly and softly luminous8 with the glow of hot coals in the grate. He turned the lights on, shut the door behind him, and hurled9 several lumps of coal upon the bedded coals. In a moment the fire was blazing and crackling cheerfully, and getting a kind of comfort and satisfaction from this activity, he flung off his coat, went over to the sideboard, poured out a stiff drink of Scotch10 from a bottle there, and coming back to the fire, flung himself into a chair and began to stare sullenly11 into the dancing flames.
How long he sat there in this stupor13 of sullen12 and nameless fury he did not know, but he was sharply roused at length by footsteps light and rapid on the gravel14, shocked into a start of surprise by a figure that appeared suddenly at one of the French windows that opened directly from his sitting-room on to the level sward of velvet15 lawn before the house.
He peered through the glass for a moment with an astonished stare before he recognized the face of Edith Coulson. He opened the doors at once, she came in quickly, smiling at his surprise and at the glass which he was holding foolishly, half-raised, in his hand.
He continued to look at her with an expression of gape-mouthed astonishment16 and in a moment became conscious of her smiling glance, the cool sweet assurance of her young voice.
“I say!” she was saying cheerfully, “what a lucky thing to find you up! I came away without any key — I should have had to wake the whole house up — so when I saw your light!” she concluded briskly, “— what luck! I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why no-o, no,” Eugene stammered17 foolishly, still staring dumbly at her. “No — no-o — not at all,” he blundered on. Then suddenly coming to himself with a burst of galvanic energy, he shut the windows, pushed another chair before the fire, and said:
“Won’t you sit down and have a drink before you go?”
“Thanks,” she said crisply. “I will — yes. What a jolly fire you have.” As she talked she took off her coat and hat swiftly and put them on a chair. Her face was flushed and rosy18, beaded with small particles of rain, and for a moment she stood before the mirror arranging her hair, which had been tousled by the wind.
The girl was slender, tall, and very lovely with the kind of beauty they have when they are beautiful — a beauty so fresh, fair, and delicate that it seems to be given to just a few of them to compensate19 for all the grimly weathered ugliness of the rest. Her voice was also lovely, sweet, and musical, and when she talked all the notes of tenderness and love were in it. But she had the same hard bright look in her eye that her mother had, the faint set smile around her mouth: as they stood there talking she was standing very close to him, and he could smell the fragrance20 of her hair, and felt an intolerable desire to put his hand upon hers and was almost certain she would not draw away. But the hard bright look was in her eye, the faint set smile around her mouth, and he did nothing.
“What’ll you have?” Eugene said. “Whisky?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said with the same sweet crisp assurance with which she always spoke21, “and a splash of soda22.” He struck a match and held it for her while she lit the cigarette she was holding in her hand, and in a moment returned to her with the drink. Then she sat down, crossed her legs, and for a moment puffed23 thoughtfully at her cigarette as she stared into the fire. The storm wind moaned in the great trees along the road and near the house, and suddenly a swirl24 of rain and wind struck the windows with a rattling25 blast. The girl stirred a little in her chair, restlessly, shivered.
“Listen!” she said. “What a night! Horrible weather we have here, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like the fog and rain so well. But this — the way it is tonight —” he nodded toward the window —“I like it.”
She looked at him for a moment.
“Oh,” she said non-committally. “You do.” Then, as she sipped26 her drink, she looked curiously27 about the room, her reflective glance finally resting on his table, where there was a great stack of the ledgers28 in which he wrote.
“I say,” she cried again, “what are you doing with all those big books there?”
“I write in them.”
“Really?” she said, in a surprised tone. “I should think it’d be an awful bother carrying them around when you travel?”
“It is. But it’s the best way I’ve found of keeping what I do together.”
“Oh,” she said, as before, and continued to stare curiously at him with her fair, lovely young face, the curiously hard, bright, and unrevealing glance of her eye. “I see. . . . But why do you come to such a place as this to write?” she said presently. “Do you like it here?”
“I do. As well as any place I’ve ever known.”
“Oh! . . . I should think a writer would want a different kind of place.”
“What kind?”
“Oh — I don’t know — Paris — London — some place like that, where there are lots of life — people — fun — I should think you’d work better in a place like that.”
“I work better here.”
“But don’t you get awfully29 fed up sitting in here all day long and writing in these enormous books?”
“I do, yes.”
“I should think you would . . . I should think you’d want to get away from it sometimes.”
“Yes. I do want to — every day — almost all the time.”
“Then why don’t you?” she said crisply. “Why don’t you go off some week-end for a little spree? I should think it’d buck30 you up no end.”
“It would — yes. Where should I go?”
“Oh, Paris, I suppose. . . . Or London! London!” she cried. “London is quite jolly if you know it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know it.”
“But you’ve BEEN to London,” she said in a surprised tone.
“Oh, yes. I lived there for several months.”
“Then you know London,” she said impatiently. “Of course you do.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know it very well. I don’t know many people there — and after all, that’s the thing that counts, isn’t it?”
She looked at Eugene curiously for a moment, with the faint hard smile around the edges of her lovely mouth.
“— Should think that might be arranged,” she said with a quiet, an enigmatic humour. Then, more directly, she added: “That shouldn’t be difficult at all. Perhaps I could introduce you to some people.”
“That would be fine. Do you know many people there?”
“Not many,” she said. “I go there — whenever I can.” She got up with a swift decisive movement, put her glass down on the mantelpiece and cast her cigarette into the fire. Then she faced Eugene, looking at him with a curiously bold, an almost defiant31 directness, and she fixed32 him with this glance for a full moment before she spoke.
“Good night,” she said. “Thanks awfully for letting me in-and for the drink.”
“Good night,” Eugene said, and she was gone before he could say more, and he had closed the door behind her, and he could hear her light swift footsteps going down the hall and up the steps. And then there was nothing in the house but sleep and silence, and storm and darkness in the world around him.
Mrs. Coulson came into Eugene’s room just once or twice while he was there. One morning she came in, spoke crisply and cheerfully, and walked over to the window, looking out upon the velvet lawn and at the dreary33, impenetrable grey of foggy air. Although the room was warm and there was a good fire burning in the grate, she clasped her arms together as she looked, and shivered a little.
“Wretched weather, isn’t it?” she said in her crisp tones, her gaunt weathered face and toothy mouth touched by the faint fixed grin as she looked out with her bright hard stare. “Don’t you find it frightfully depressing? Most Americans do,” she said, getting a sharp disquieting34 sound into the word.
“Yes. I do, a little. We don’t have this kind of weather very often. But this is the time of year you get it here, isn’t it? I suppose you’re used to it by now?”
“Used to it?” she said crisply, turning her gaze upon him. “Not at all. I’ve known it all my life, but I’ll never get used to it. It is a wretched climate.”
“Still, you wouldn’t feel at home anywhere else, would you? You wouldn’t want to live outside of England?”
“No?” she said, staring at him with the faint set grin around her toothy mouth. “Why do you think so?”
“Because your home is here.”
“My home? My home is where they have fine days and where the sun is always shining.”
“I wouldn’t like that. I’d get tired of sunlight all the time. I’d want some grey days and some fog and snow.”
“Yes, I suppose you would. But then, you’ve been used to having fine days all your life, haven’t you? With us, it’s different. I’m so fed up with fog and rain that I could do without them nicely, thank you, if I never saw them again. . . . I don’t think you could ever understand how much the sunlight means to us,” she said slowly. She turned, and for a moment looked out of the window. “Sunlight — warmth — fine days for ever! Warmth everywhere — in the earth, the sky, in the lives of the people all around you, nothing but warmth and sunlight and fine days!”
“And where would you go to find all that? Does it exist?”
“Oh, of course!” she said crisply and good-naturedly, turning to him again. “There’s only one place to live — only one country where I want to live.”
“Where is that?”
“Italy,” she said. “That’s my real home. . . . I’d live the rest of my life there if I could.” For a moment longer she looked out of the window, then turned briskly, saying:
“Why don’t you run over to Paris some week-end? After all, it’s only seven hours from London: if you left here in the morning you’d be there in time for dinner. It would be a good change for you. I should think a little trip like that would buck you up tremendously.”
Her words gave him a wonderful feeling of confidence and hope: she had travelled a great deal, and she had the casual, assured way of speaking of a voyage that made it seem very easy and filled one with a sense of joy and adventure when she spoke about it. When Eugene tried to think of Paris by himself it had seemed very far away and hard to reach: London stood between it and him, and when he thought of the huge smoky web of London, the soft grey skies above him, and the enormous weight of lives that were hidden somewhere in that impenetrable fog, a grey desolation and weariness of the spirit filled him. It seemed to him that he must draw each breath of that soft grey air with heavy weary effort, and that every mile of his journey would be a ghastly struggle through some viscous35 and material substance, that weighted down his steps and filled his heart with desolation.
But when Mrs. Coulson spoke to him about it, suddenly it all seemed wonderfully easy and good. England was magically small, the Channel to be taken in a stride, and all the thrill, the joy, the mystery of Paris his again — the moment that he chose to make it his.
He looked at her gaunt weathered face, the hard bright armour36 of her eyes, and wondered how anything so clear, so sharp, so crisp, and so incisive37 could have been shaped and grown underneath38 these soft and humid skies that numbed39 him, mind and heart and body, with their thick dull substance of grey weariness and desolation.
A day or two before he left, Edith came into his room one afternoon bearing a tray with tea and jam and buttered bread. He was sitting in his chair before the fire, and had his coat off: when she came in he scrambled40 to his feet, reached for the coat and started to put it on. In her young crisp voice she told him not to, and put the tray down on the table, saying that the maid was having her afternoon off.
Then for a moment she stood looking at him with her faint and enigmatic smile.
“So you’re leaving us?” she said presently.
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
“And where will you go from here?” she said.
“To Germany, I think. Just for a short time — two or three weeks.”
“And after that?”
“I’m going home.”
“Home?”
“Back to America.”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “I see.” In a moment, she added, “We shall miss you.”
He wanted to talk to her more than he had ever wanted to talk to anyone in his life, but when he spoke all that he could say, lamely41, muttering, was:
“I’ll miss you, too.”
“Will you?” She spoke so quietly that he could scarcely hear her. “I wonder for how long?” she said.
“For ever,” he said, flushing miserably42 at the sound of the word, and yet not knowing any other word to say.
The faint hard smile about her mouth was a little deeper when she spoke again.
“For ever? That’s a long time, when one is young as you,” she said.
“I mean it. I’ll never forget you as long as I live.”
“We shall remember you,” she said quietly. “And I hope you think of us some time — back here, buried, lost, in all the fog and rain and ruin of England. How good it must be to know that you are young in a young country — where nothing that you did yesterday matters very much. How wonderful it must be to know that none of the failure of the past can pull you down — that there will always be another day for you — a new beginning. I wonder if you Americans will ever know how fortunate you are,” the girl said.
“And yet you couldn’t leave all this?” Eugene said with a kind of desperate hope. “This old country you’ve lived in, known all your life. A girl like you could never leave a place like this to live the kind of life we have in America.”
“COULDN’T I?” she said with a quiet but unmistakable passion of conviction. “There’s nothing I’d like better.”
Eugene stared at her blindly, dumbly for a moment; suddenly all that he wanted to say, and had not been able to say, found release in a movement of his hands. He gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, and began to plead with her:
“Then why don’t you? I’ll take you there! — Look here —” his words were crazy and he knew it, but as he spoke them he believed all he said —“Look here! I haven’t got much money — but in America you can make it if you want to! I’m going back there. You come too — I’ll take you when I go!”
She had not tried to free herself; she just stood there passive, unresisting, as he poured that frenzied43 proposal in her ears. Now, with the same passive and unyielding movement, the bright armour of her young eyes, she stepped away, and stood looking at him silently for a moment. Then slowly, with an almost imperceptible movement, she shook her head. “Oh, you’ll forget all about us,” she said quietly. “You’ll forget about our lives here — buried in fog — and rain — and failure — and defeat.”
“Failure and defeat won’t last for ever.”
“Sometimes they do,” she said with a quiet finality that froze his heart.
“Not for you — they won’t!” Eugene said, and took her by the hand again with desperate entreaty44. “Listen to me —” he blundered on incoherently, with the old feeling of nameless shame and horror. “You don’t need to tell me what it is — I don’t want to know — but whatever it is — for you, it doesn’t matter — you can get the best of it.”
She said nothing, but just looked at him through that hard bright armour of her eyes, the obdurate45 finality of her smile.
“Good-bye,” she said, “I’ll not forget you either.” She looked at him for a moment curiously before she spoke again. “I wonder,” she said slowly, “if you’ll ever understand just what it was you did for me by coming here?”
“What was it?”
“You opened a door that I thought had been closed for ever,” she said, “a door that let me look in on a world I thought I should never see again — a new bright world, a new life and a new beginning — for us all. And I thought that was something which would never happen to anyone in this house again.”
“It will to you,” Eugene said, and took her hand again with desperate eagerness. “It can happen to you whenever you want it to. It’s yours, I’ll swear it to you, if you’ll only speak.”
She looked at him, with an almost imperceptible movement of her head.
“I tell you I know what I’m talking about.”
Again she shook her head.
“You don’t know,” she said. “You’re young. You’re an American. There are some things you’ll never be old enough to know. — For some of us there’s no return. — Go back,” she said, “go back to the life you know — the life you understand — where there can always be a new beginning — a new life.”
“And you —” Eugene said dumbly, miserably.
“Good-bye, my dear,” she said so low and gently he could scarcely hear her. “Think of me sometimes, won’t you? — I’ll not forget you.” And before he could speak she kissed him once and was gone, so light and swift that he did not know it, until the door had closed behind her. And for some time, like a man in a stupor, he stood there looking out of the window at the grey wet light of England.
The next day he went away, and never saw any of them again, but he could not forget them. Although he had never passed beyond the armour of their hard bright eyes, or breached46 the wall of their crisp, friendly, and impersonal47 speech, or found out anything about them, he always thought of them with warmth, with a deep and tender affection, as if he had always known them — as if, somehow, he could have lived with them or made their lives his own had he only said a word or turned the handle of a door — a word he never knew, a door he never found.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
cadences
|
|
| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
scudding
|
|
| n.刮面v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
Flared
|
|
| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
blur
|
|
| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
hurled
|
|
| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
scotch
|
|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
sullenly
|
|
| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
stupor
|
|
| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
gravel
|
|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
astonishment
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
stammered
|
|
| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
compensate
|
|
| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
fragrance
|
|
| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
soda
|
|
| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
puffed
|
|
| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
swirl
|
|
| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
rattling
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
ledgers
|
|
| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
buck
|
|
| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
defiant
|
|
| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
disquieting
|
|
| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
viscous
|
|
| adj.粘滞的，粘性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
armour
|
|
| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
incisive
|
|
| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
numbed
|
|
| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
scrambled
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
lamely
|
|
| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
miserably
|
|
| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
frenzied
|
|
| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
entreaty
|
|
| n.恳求，哀求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
obdurate
|
|
| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
breached
|
|
| 攻破( breach的现在分词 )； 破坏，违反 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
impersonal
|
|
| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |