Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten all the figures — it was so many years since she had danced at school; and she was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavy heart. But at length the music wrought9 in her young limbs, and the longing10 came; even though it was the horrible young Torry, who walked up a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that she could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be complimentary11 when he assured her at several intervals12 that it was a “great bore” that she couldn’t waltz, he would have liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioned dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it, and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment14 of that half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish15 pretentious16 etiquette17. She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her along and held her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire of young joy in them which will flame out if it can find the least breath to fan it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of black lace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel.
Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more than a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her which perpetually made part of his consciousness, had been half screened by the image of Philip Wakem, which came across it like a blot18; there was some attachment19 between her and Philip; at least there was an attachment on his side, which made her feel in some bondage20. Here, then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called on him to resist the attraction that was continually threatening to overpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt a certain savage21 resistance, and at another moment a shuddering22 repugnance23, to this intrusion of Philip’s image, which almost made it a new incitement24 to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself. Nevertheless, he had done what he meant to do this evening — he had kept aloof25 from her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had been gayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring26 Maggie; he felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take his place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his partner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and have her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a thirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the dance — were meeting still to the very end of it, though they were far off each other.
Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he got through the duties of politeness in the interval13, until he was free and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the room. He made his way toward her round the couples that were forming for the waltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she was the person he sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, a glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter — she was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised27 above pleasure or pain. This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the future.
“They’re going to waltz again,” said Stephen, bending to speak to her, with that glance and tone of subdued28 tenderness which young dreams create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fill the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them into a room that is half stifling29 with glaring gas and hard flirtation30.
“They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on, and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?”
He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on into the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for the accommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But no visitors were here at this moment. They passed on into the conservatory.
“How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lights among them!” said Maggie, in a low voice. “They look as if they belonged to an enchanted31 land, and would never fade away; I could fancy they were all made of jewels.”
She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke32, and Stephen made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme33 poet blend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute, and light eloquent34? Something strangely powerful there was in the light of Stephen’s long gaze, for it made Maggie’s face turn toward it and look upward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending35 brightness. And they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking; without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual36 gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hovering37 thought that they must and would renounce38 each other made this moment of mute confession39 more intense in its rapture40.
But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged to pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to Maggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm from Stephen’s, going up to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood motionless, and still pale.
“Oh, may I get this rose?” said Maggie, making a great effort to say something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable confession. “I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather them and smell them till they have no scent41 left.”
Stephen was mute; he was incapable42 of putting a sentence together, and Maggie bent43 her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman’s arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied44 gently lessening45 curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman’s arm touched the soul of a great sculptor46 two thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the timeworn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie’s was such an arm as that, and it had the warm tints47 of life.
A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted48 toward the arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.
But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation49.
“How dare you?” She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice. “What right have I given you to insult me?”
She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the sofa, panting and trembling.
A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a moment’s happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her own better soul. That momentary50 happiness had been smitten51 with a blight52, a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of her than he did of Lucy.
As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions — love, rage, and confused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despair that he had offended Maggie.
The last feeling surmounted53 every other; to be by her side again and entreat54 forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive55 for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly56 before her. But Maggie’s bitter rage was unspent.
“Leave me to myself, if you please,” she said, with impetuous haughtiness57, “and for the future avoid me.”
Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end of the room. There was the dire58 necessity of going back into the dancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended.
Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her nature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged her within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least wrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber59 of memory. There was nothing to allure60 her now; duty would be easy, and all the old calm purposes would reign61 peacefully once more. She re-entered the drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but with a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate62 her. She refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with every one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she kissed Lucy with a free heart, almost exulting63 in this scorching64 moment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another word or look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle, unsuspicious sister.
The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she had expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and household business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver. So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sit waiting, equipped for the drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in the house wrapping up some bazaar65 presents for the younger ones at Basset, and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt some alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure to be Stephen.
But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated himself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen.
“We can just catch the tips of the Scotch66 firs, Maggie, from this seat,” said Philip.
They had taken each other’s hands in silence, but Maggie had looked at him with a more complete revival67 of the old childlike affectionate smile than he had seen before, and he felt encouraged.
“Yes,” she said, “I often look at them, and wish I could see the low sunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way but once — to the churchyard with my mother.”
“I have been there, I go there, continually,” said Philip. “I have nothing but the past to live upon.”
A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled68 Maggie to put her hand in Philip’s. They had so often walked hand in hand!
“I remember all the spots,” she said — “just where you told me of particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of before.”
“You will go there again soon, won’t you, Maggie?” said Philip, getting timid. “The Mill will soon be your brother’s home again.”
“Yes; but I shall not be there,” said Maggie. “I shall only hear of that happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you, perhaps?”
“Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That book is quite closed?”
The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreating69 worship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope in them, and Maggie met them with her large sincere gaze.
“That book never will be closed, Philip,” she said, with grave sadness; “I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. But the tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothing willingly that will divide me always from him.”
“Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?” said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer.
“The only reason,” said Maggie, with calm decision. And she believed it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed to the ground. The reactionary70 excitement that gave her a proud self-mastery had not subsided71, and she looked at the future with a sense of calm choice.
They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for a few minutes; in Maggie’s mind the first scenes of love and parting were more present than the actual moment, and she was looking at Philip in the Red Deeps.
Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answer of hers; she was as open and transparent72 as a rock-pool. Why was he not thoroughly happy? Jealousy73 is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience74 that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
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1
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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splendors
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| n.华丽( splendor的名词复数 )；壮丽；光辉；显赫 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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4
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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7
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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10
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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12
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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14
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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15
banish
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| vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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18
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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19
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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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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22
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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23
repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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24
incitement
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| 激励； 刺激； 煽动； 激励物 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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26
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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27
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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31
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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32
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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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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37
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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38
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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39
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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40
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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41
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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42
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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43
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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44
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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45
lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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46
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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47
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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48
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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49
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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50
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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51
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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52
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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53
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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54
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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55
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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56
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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57
haughtiness
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| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
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58
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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59
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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60
allure
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| n.诱惑力，魅力；vt.诱惑，引诱，吸引 | |
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61
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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62
agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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63
exulting
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| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
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64
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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65
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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66
scotch
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| 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 | |
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67
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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68
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
entreating
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的现在分词 ) | |
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70
reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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71
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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72
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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73
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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74
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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