Le Chateau de Mornaye, February 23, 1925.
My dear Mr. Gant:
My old friend, La Comtesse de Caux, informs me that you are spending some time in Orléans preparing a series of articles for the great journal you represent, The New York Times.
It will be a great pleasure to me if you, together with La Comtesse, will give me the honour of your presence at Mornaye for luncheon5 on Thursday, the twenty-sixth. La Comtesse de Caux informs me that you became acquainted with my son Paul when he visited America with Le Maréchal Foch in 1922, and that a warm friendship grew up between you at that time. I have often heard my son speak of his American tour, and of the dear friendships he made there, and I know how keen will be his regret when he hears that you were here and that he missed you. He is at present, I regret to say, at Paris, but I have written informing him of your presence here.
At any rate, it will give me great pleasure to welcome one of my son’s American friends to Mornaye, and I am looking forward to your visit with the most eager anticipation6. La Comtesse de Caux has already informed me of your acceptance, and my motor will be waiting for you at the village station, Thursday, the twenty-sixth, at noon.
Until then, ever sincerely yours,
MATHILDE, MARQUISE DE MORNAYE.
He read the letter a second time, anger swelling7 in a hot flood as its full significance was revealed to him. When he at length found the Countess, he was so choked with exasperation8 that for a moment he could not speak, but stood glaring at her with infuriated eyes, holding the crumpled9 letter in one clenched10 fist.
“Now, you look here,” he said at length in a smothered11 tone, “you look here —” he held the letter out and shook it furiously under her nose. “What do you mean by a thing like this?”
She returned his furious gaze with a glance of bright inquiry12, took the letter from his hand, and immediately, after looking at it, said cheerfully:
“Oh, yes! La Marquise has written to you, as she said she would. Did I not tell you I had great things in store for you?” she said triumphantly13. “Ah, my boy, how fortunate you were in finding me the way you did! Do you realize how few Americans ever have the opportunity you are getting? Here you are, a boy of twenty-four, being received with open arms into one of the greatest families in France. Why, there are American millionaires who would pay a fortune for the privilege!”
“Now, you see here,” he said again in a choking tone. “What do you mean by doing a thing like this behind my back?”
She raised puzzled eyebrows14 inquiringly.
“Behind your back? What do you mean, my boy?”
“What right have you got to tell this woman I had accepted her invitation, when you never spoke2 to me about it?”
“But!” she said, with a small protesting gasp15 —“I was sure you would be delighted! It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be! I felt sure you’d jump at the opportunity!”
“Opportunity!” he jeered16. “Opportunity for what? Opportunity to let you tell this woman a pack of lies about me, and try to work her with some trick or dodge17 that you’ve got up your sleeve!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, with quiet dignity.
“Oh, yes, you have!” he snarled18. “You know very well what I’m talking about. You’ve told these lying stories and misrepresented things to people ever since I met you, but you’ve gone too far this time. What the hell do you mean by telling this woman that I am a good friend of her son’s and met him in America?” He picked up the letter and shook it in her face again. “What do you mean by telling her such a lie as that?”
“Lie!” Her brows were lifted with an air of pained surprise. “Why, my boy, you told me that you did know her son.”
“I told you!” he fairly screamed. “I told you nothing! I never knew the woman had a son until I got this letter.”
“Listen, my friend,” the Countess spoke gently and patiently as she would speak to a child. “Think back a little, won’t you —?”
“Think back my eye!” he said rudely. “There’s nothing to think back about. It’s another lying story you made up on the spur of the moment, and you know it!”
“Don’t you remember,” she went on in the same quiet and patient voice, “— don’t you remember telling me you were a student at Harvard University?”
“Yes, I did tell you that. And that was true. What has that got to do with knowing this woman’s son?”
“Wait!” she said quietly. “Don’t you remember telling me that you were there at Harvard when Marshal Foch made his visit to America?”
“Yes, I did tell you that.”
“And that you saw him when he visited the university? You told me that, you know.”
“Of course I did! I did see him. Everyone else saw him, too. He stood on the steps of the library with his aides, and saluted19 while they fired the cannon20 off!”
“Ah! — With his aides, you say?” she said eagerly.
“Yes, of course, what’s wrong with that?”
“But nothing is wrong! It’s all just as I said! — Among his aides, now,” she said persuasively21, “did you not notice a young man, with a little moustache, about twenty-five years old, dressed in the uniform of a captain in the French army? — Think now, my boy,” she went on coaxingly22 —“a young man — much younger than the other officers on the Marshal’s staff?”
“Perhaps I did,” he said impatiently. “How should I remember now? What difference does it make?”
“Because that young man, my dear,” the Countess patiently explained, “that you saw standing23 there with the Marshal is the young Marquis — this woman’s son.”
He stared at her with fascinated disbelief.
“And do you mean to tell me,” he said presently, “that because I may have seen someone like that standing in a great crowd of people three years ago, you had the gall24 to tell that woman that I knew her son — that we were friends?”
“No, no,” the Countess said evasively, a little nervously25. “I didn’t tell her that, my dear. I’m sure I didn’t tell her that. She must have misunderstood me. All I said was that you SAW her son when he was in America. I’m sure that was all I said. And that was true, wasn’t it? You DID see him, didn’t you?” she said triumphantly.
He stared at her, with mouth ajar, unable for a moment to comprehend the full enormity of such deception26. Then he closed his jaws27 with a stubborn snap, and said:
“All right. You got yourself into this, now you get out of it. I’m not going with you.”
The old woman’s eyes were suddenly sharp with apprehension28. She leaned forward, clutched him by the arm, and said pleadingly:
“Oh, my boy, you wouldn’t do a thing like that to me, would you? Think what it means to me — the humiliation29 you would cause me now if you refused to go.”
“I can’t help that. You had no right to make arrangements with the woman, in the first place, before you spoke to me. Even that wouldn’t matter so much if you hadn’t told her that other story about her son and me. That’s the reason she’s inviting30 me — because she thinks her son and I were friends. How can I accept such an invitation — take advantage of the woman’s hospitality because you told her a story that had no truth in it?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” the Countess spoke quickly, eagerly. “If you want me to, I shall explain to her that there was a mistake — that you really do not know her son. But it makes no difference, anyway. She would want you to come just the same. — You see,” she spoke carefully, and for a moment there was a gleam of furtive31, cunning understanding in her eye — the wisdom of fox for fox —“I don’t think it’s exactly for that reason she is inviting you.”
“What other reason could there be? The woman does not know me. What other interest could she have in me?”
“Well, my boy —” the Countess hesitated, and spoke carefully —“you see, it’s this way. I think she wants to speak to you,” she paused carefully again before she spoke —“about a certain matter — about something she’s interested in-When she heard that you were connected with The New York Times —”
“WHAT!” He stared at her again, and suddenly exploded in a short angry laugh of resignation and defeat —“Are the whole crowd of you alike? Is there a single one of you who doesn’t have some scheme, some axe32 to grind — who doesn’t hope to get something out of Americans —”
“Then you’ll go?” she said eagerly.
“Yes, I’ll go!” he shouted. “Tell her anything you like. It’ll serve both of you right! I’ll go just to see what new trick or scheme you and this other woman are framing up. All right, I’ll go!”
“Good!” she nodded briskly, satisfied. “I knew you would, my boy. La Marquise will tell you all about it when she sees you.”
This final grotesque33 episode had suddenly determined34 his decision to leave Orléans. For a short time his chance meeting with this strange old woman, his instant inclusion in the curious schemes, designs and stratagems35 of her life, with all that it evoked36 of the strange and the familiar, its haunting glimpse of the million-noted web and weaving of dark chance and destiny, had struck bright sparks of interest from his mind, had fused his spirit to a brief forgetfulness and wonder.
Now, as suddenly as it had begun, that wonder died: the life of the town, the people, the old Countess and her friends, which had for a few days seemed so new, strange, and interesting, now filled him with weariness and distaste. He was suddenly fed up with the provincial37 tedium38 of the town, he felt the old dislike and boredom39 that all dark bloods and races could awake in him an importunate40 and unreasonable41 desire, beneath these soft, dull skies of grey, for something bright, sharp, Northern, fierce, and wild, in life — for something gold and blue and shining, the lavish42 flesh of great blond women, the surge of savage43 drunkenness, the fatal desperation of strong joy. The dark, strange faces of the Frenchmen all around, and all the hard perfection of that life, at once so alien and so drearily44 familiar, the unwearied energies of their small purposes fixed45 there in the small perfection of their universe, so dully ignorant of the world, so certain of itself, filled him suddenly with exasperation and dislike. He was tired suddenly of their darkness, their smallness, their hardness, their cat-like nervousness, their incessant46 ebullience47, their unwearied and yet joyless vitalities, and the dreary48 monotony of their timeless greed.
He was tired of Orléans, tired of the Vatels; most of all tired, with a feeling of weary disgust and dislike, of the old Countess and all the small tricks and schemings of her life.
And with this sudden weariness and distaste, this loss of interest in a life which had for a week or two devoured49 his interest, the old torment50 and unrest of spirit had returned. Again the old question had returned in all its naked desolation: “Why here? And where shall I go now? What shall I do?” He saw, with a return of the old naked shame, in a flash of brutal51 revelation, the aimless lack of purpose in his wandering. He saw that there had been no certain reason, no valid52 purpose, for his coming here to Orléans, and with a sense of drowning horror, as if the phial of his spirit had exploded like a flash of ether and emptied out into the formless spaces of a planetary vacancy53, he felt that there was no purpose and no reason for his going anywhere.
And yet the demons54 of unrest and tortured wandering had returned with all their fury: he knew that he must leave, that he must go on to some other destination, and he knew nowhere to go. Like a drowning man who clutches at a straw, he sought for some goal or purpose in his life, some justification55 for his wanderings, some target for his fierce desire. A thousand plans and projects suggested themselves to him, and each one seemed more futile56, hopeless, barren than the rest. He would return to Paris and “settle down and write.” He would go back to England, get a room in London, go to Oxford57, the Lake District, Cornwall, Devon — a thousand towns and places, evoked by a thousand fleeting58 memories, returned to argue some reasonable purpose for his blind wandering. Or he would go to the South of France, “to some quiet place,” or to Switzerland, “to some quiet place,” or to Germany, Vienna, Italy, Spain, Majorca — always “to settle down in some quiet place”— and for what? for what? Why, always, of course, “to write,” “to write”— Great God! “to write,” and even as he spoke the words the old dull shame returned to make him hate his life and all these sterile59, vain pretensions60 of his soul. “To write”— always to seek the magic skies, the golden clime, the wise and lovely people who would transform him. “To write”— always to seek in the enchanted61 distances, in the dreamy perspectives of a fool’s delusions62, the power and certitude he could not draw out of himself. “To write”— to be that most foolish, vain, and impotent of all impostors, a man who sought the whole world over “looking for a place to write,” when, he knew now, with every naked, brutal penetration63 of his life, “the place to write” was Brooklyn, Boston, Hammersmith, or Kansas — anywhere on earth, so long as the heart, the power, the faith, the desperation, the bitter and unendurable necessity, and the naked courage were there inside him all the time.
Now, having agreed to accompany the Countess on her visit to the Marquise, he suddenly decided64 to leave Orléans at the same time, spend the night at Blois, and go on to Tours the next day, after visiting Mornaye. And with this purpose he packed his bag, paid his bill at the hotel, and set out on the appointed day with the old woman who for two weeks now had been his self-constituted guide and keeper.
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1
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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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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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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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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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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10
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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13
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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14
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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15
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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16
jeered
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| v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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18
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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19
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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20
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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23
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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24
gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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25
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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26
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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27
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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29
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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30
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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31
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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32
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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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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34
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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35
stratagems
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| n.诡计，计谋( stratagem的名词复数 )；花招 | |
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36
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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37
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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38
tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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39
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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40
importunate
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| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
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41
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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42
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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43
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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44
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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45
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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46
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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47
ebullience
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| n.沸腾，热情，热情洋溢 | |
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48
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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49
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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50
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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51
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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52
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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53
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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54
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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55
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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56
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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57
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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58
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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59
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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60
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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61
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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62
delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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63
penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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64
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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