GLAHN’S DEATH A DOCUMENT OF 1861 IV

We began going out shooting again. Glahn felt he had wronged me, and begged my pardon.

“And I’m dead sick of the whole thing,” he said. “I only wish you’d make a slip one day and put a bullet in my throat.” It was that letter from the Countess again, perhaps, that was smouldering in his mind. I answered:

“As a man soweth, so shall he also reap.”

Day by day he grew more silent and gloomy. He had given up drinking now, and didn’t say a word, either; his cheeks grew hollow.

One day I heard talking and laughter outside my window; Glahn had turned cheerful again, and he stood there talking out loud to Maggie. He was getting in all his fascinating tricks. Maggie must have come straight from her hut, and Glahn had been watching and waiting for her. They even had the nerve to stand there making up together right outside my glass window.

I felt a trembling in all my limbs. I cocked my gun; then I let the hammer down again. I went outside and took Maggie by the arm; we walked out of the village in silence; Glahn went back into the hut again at once.

“What were you talking with him again for?” I asked Maggie.

She made no answer.

I was thoroughly¹ desperate. My heart beat so I could hardly breathe. I had never seen Maggie look so lovely as she did then — never seen a real white girl so beautiful. And I forgot she was a Tamil — forgot everything for her sake.

“Answer me,” I said. “What were you talking to him for?”

“I like him best,” she said.

“You like him better than me?”

“Yes.”

Oh, indeed! She liked him better than me, though I was at least as good a man! Hadn’t I always been kind to her, and given her money and presents? And what had he done?

“He makes fun of you; he says you’re always chewing things,” I said.

She did not understand that, and I explained it better; how she had a habit of putting everything in her mouth and chewing it, and how Glahn laughed at her for it. That made more impression on her than all the rest I said.

“Look here, Maggie,” I went on, “you shall be mine for always. Wouldn’t you like that? I’ve been thinking it over. You shall go with me when I leave here; I will marry you, do you hear? and we’ll go to our own country and live there. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

And that impressed her too. Maggie grew lively and talked a lot as we walked. She only mentioned Glahn once; she asked:

“And will Glahn go with us when we go away?”

“No,” I said. “He won’t. Are you sorry about that?”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I am glad.”

She said no more about him, and I felt easier. And Maggie went home with me, too, when I asked her.

When she went, a couple of hours later, I climbed up the ladder to Glahn’s room and knocked at the thin reed door. He was in. I said:

“I came to tell you that perhaps we’d better not go out shooting to-morrow.”

“Why not?” said Glahn.

“Because I’m not so sure but I might make a little mistake and put a bullet in your throat.”

Glahn did not answer, and I went down again. After that warning he would hardly dare to go out to-morrow — but what did he want to get Maggie out under my window for, and fool with her there at the top of his voice? Why didn’t he go back home again, if the letter really asked him, instead of going about as he often did, clenching² his teeth and shouting at the empty air: “Never, never! I’ll be drawn³ and quartered first”?

But the morning after I had warned him, as I said, there was Glahn the same as ever, standing⁴ by my bed, calling out:

“Up with you, comrade! It’s a lovely day; we must go out and shoot something. That was all nonsense you said yesterday.”

It was no more than four o’clock, but I got up at once and got ready to go with him, in spite of my warning. I loaded my gun before starting out, and I let him see that I did. And it was not at all a lovely day, as he had said; it was raining, which showed that he was only trying to irritate me the more. But I took no notice, and went with him, saying nothing.

All that day we wandered round through the forest, each lost in his own thoughts. We shot nothing — lost one chance after another, through thinking of other things than sport. About noon, Glahn began walking a bit ahead of me, as if to give me a better chance of doing what I liked with him. He walked right across the muzzle⁵ of my gun; but I bore with that too. We came back that evening. Nothing had happened. I thought to myself: “Perhaps he’ll be more careful now, and leave Maggie alone.”

“This has been the longest day of my life,” said Glahn when we got back to the hut.

Nothing more was said on either side.

The next few days he was in the blackest humor, seemingly all about the same letter. “I can’t stand it; no, it’s more than I can bear,” he would say sometimes in the night; we could hear it all through the hut. His ill temper carried him so far that he would not even answer the most friendly questions when our landlady⁶ spoke⁷ to him; and he used to groan⁸ in his sleep. He must have a deal on his conscience, I thought — but why in the name of goodness didn’t he go home? Just pride, no doubt; he would not go back when he had been turned off once.

I met Maggie every evening, and Glahn talked with her no more. I noticed that she had given up chewing things altogether; she never chewed now. I was pleased at that, and thought: She’s given up chewing things; that is one failing the less, and I love her twice as much as I did before!

One day she asked about Glahn — asked very cautiously. Was he not well? Had he gone away?

“If he’s not dead, or gone away,” I said, “he’s lying at home, no doubt. It’s all one to me. He’s beyond all bearing now.”

But just then, coming up to the hut, we saw Glahn lying on a mat on the ground, hands at the back of his neck, staring up at the sky.

“There he is,” I said.

Maggie went straight up to him, before I could stop her, and said in a pleased sort of voice:

“I don’t chew things now — nothing at all. No feathers or money or bits of paper — you can see for yourself.”

Glahn scarcely looked at her. He lay still. Maggie and I went on. When I reproached her with having broken her promise and spoken to Glahn again, she answered that she had only meant to show him he was wrong.

“That’s right — show him he’s wrong,” I said. “But do you mean it was for his sake you stopped chewing things?”

She didn’t answer. What, wouldn’t she answer?

“Do you hear? Tell me, was it for his sake?”

And I could not think otherwise. Why should she do anything for Glahn’s sake?

That evening Maggie promised to come to me, and she did.

1 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

2 clenching   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I'll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists. 我永远也看不惯这些家伙，她握紧双拳，心里想。 来自飘（部分）
• Clenching her lips, she nodded. 她紧闭着嘴唇，点点头。 来自辞典例句

3 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 muzzle   

n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默

参考例句：

• He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth.他把手枪的枪口放在牙齿中间。
• The President wanted to muzzle the press.总统企图遏制新闻自由。

6 landlady   

n.女房东，女地主

参考例句：

• I heard my landlady creeping stealthily up to my door.我听到我的女房东偷偷地来到我的门前。
• The landlady came over to serve me.女店主过来接待我。

7 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：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。