That afternoon, while Mr. Meekin was digesting his lunch, and chatting airily with Sylvia, Rufus Dawes began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelligence that the investigation1 he had hoped for was not to be granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling2 fetters3 of self restraint which he had laid upon himself. For five years of desolation he had waited and hoped for a chance which might bring him to Hobart Town, and enable him to denounce the treachery of Maurice Frere. He had, by an almost miraculous4 accident, obtained that chance of open speech, and, having obtained it, he found that he was not allowed to speak. All the hopes he had formed were dashed to earth. All the calmness with which he had forced himself to bear his fate was now turned into bitterest rage and fury. Instead of one enemy he had twenty. All — judge, jury, gaoler, and parson — were banded together to work him evil and deny him right. The whole world was his foe5: there was no honesty or truth in any living creature — save one.
During the dull misery6 of his convict life at Port Arthur one bright memory shone upon him like a star. In the depth of his degradation7, at the height of his despair, he cherished one pure and ennobling thought — the thought of the child whom he had saved, and who loved him. When, on board the whaler that had rescued him from the burning boat, he had felt that the sailors, believing in Frere’s bluff8 lies, shrunk from the moody9 felon10, he had gained strength to be silent by thinking of the suffering child. When poor Mrs. Vickers died, making no sign, and thus the chief witness to his heroism11 perished before his eyes, the thought that the child was left had restrained his selfish regrets. When Frere, handing him over to the authorities as an absconder12, ingeniously twisted the details of the boat-building to his own glorification13, the knowledge that Sylvia would assign to these pretensions14 their true value had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude15, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious16 false witness against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment17, he disdained18 to make known the true part he had played in the matter, preferring to wait for the more exquisite19 revenge, the more complete justification20 which would follow upon the recovery of the child from her illness. But when, at Port Arthur, day after day passed over, and brought no word of pity or justification, he began, with a sickening feeling of despair, to comprehend that something strange had happened. He was told by newcomers that the child of the Commandant lay still and near to death. Then he heard that she and her father had left the colony, and that all prospect21 of her righting him by her evidence was at an end. This news gave him a terrible pang22; and at first he was inclined to break out into upbraidings of her selfishness. But, with that depth of love which was in him, albeit23 crusted over and concealed24 by the sullenness25 of speech and manner which his sufferings had produced, he found excuses for her even then. She was ill. She was in the hands of friends who loved her, and disregarded him; perhaps, even her entreaties26 and explanations were put aside as childish babblings. She would free him if she had the power. Then he wrote “Statements”, agonized27 to see the Commandant, pestered28 the gaolers and warders with the story of his wrongs, and inundated29 the Government with letters, which, containing, as they did always, denunciations of Maurice Frere, were never suffered to reach their destination. The authorities, willing at the first to look kindly30 upon him in consideration of his strange experience, grew weary of this perpetual iteration of what they believed to be malicious31 falsehoods, and ordered him heavier tasks and more continuous labour. They mistook his gloom for treachery, his impatient outbursts of passion at his fate for ferocity, his silent endurance for dangerous cunning. As he had been at Macquarie Harbour, so did he become at Port Arthur — a marked man. Despairing of winning his coveted32 liberty by fair means, and horrified33 at the hideous34 prospect of a life in chains, he twice attempted to escape, but escape was even more hopeless than it had been at Hell’s Gates. The peninsula of Port Arthur was admirably guarded, signal stations drew a chain round the prison, an armed boat’s crew watched each bay, and across the narrow isthmus35 which connected it with the mainland was a cordon36 of watch-dogs, in addition to the soldier guard. He was retaken, of course, flogged, and weighted with heavier irons. The second time, they sent him to the Coal Mines, where the prisoners lived underground, worked half-naked, and dragged their inspecting gaolers in wagons38 upon iron tramways, when such great people condescended39 to visit them. The day on which he started for this place he heard that Sylvia was dead, and his last hope went from him.
Then began with him a new religion. He worshipped the dead. For the living, he had but hatred40 and evil words; for the dead, he had love and tender thoughts. Instead of the phantoms41 of his vanished youth which were wont42 to visit him, he saw now but one vision — the vision of the child who had loved him. Instead of conjuring43 up for himself pictures of that home circle in which he had once moved, and those creatures who in the past years had thought him worthy44 of esteem45 and affection, he placed before himself but one idea, one embodiment of happiness, one being who was without sin and without stain, among all the monsters of that pit into which he had fallen. Around the figure of the innocent child who had lain in his breast, and laughed at him with her red young mouth, he grouped every image of happiness and love. Having banished46 from his thoughts all hope of resuming his name and place, he pictured to himself some quiet nook at the world’s end — a deep-gardened house in a German country town, or remote cottage by the English seashore, where he and his dream-child might have lived together, happier in a purer affection than the love of man for woman. He bethought him how he could have taught her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life had won for him, how he could have confided47 to her his real name, and perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet, he thought, she would not care for wealth and honour; she would prefer a quiet life — a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted48 to good deeds, to charity and love. He could see her — in his visions — reading by a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the marge of the slumbering49 mid-day sea. He could feel — in his dreams — her soft arms about his neck, her innocent kisses on his lips; he could hear her light laugh, and see her sunny ringlets float, back-blown, as she ran to meet him. Conscious that she was dead, and that he did to her gentle memory no disrespect by linking her fortunes to those of a wretch50 who had seen so much of evil as himself, he loved to think of her as still living, and to plot out for her and for himself impossible plans for future happiness. In the noisome51 darkness of the mine, in the glaring light of the noonday — dragging at his loaded wagon37, he could see her ever with him, her calm eyes gazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed in the boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery became too great for him to bear, and he cursed and blasphemed, mingling52 for a time in the hideous mirth of his companions, that the little figure fled away. Thus dreaming, he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort, and in his dream-world found a compensation for the terrible affliction of living. Indifference53 to his present sufferings took possession of him; only at the bottom of this indifference lurked54 a fixed55 hatred of the man who had brought these sufferings upon him, and a determination to demand at the first opportunity a reconsideration of that man’s claims to be esteemed56 a hero. It was in this mood that he had intended to make the revelation which he had made in Court, but the intelligence that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been usurped57 by a passionate58 torrent59 of complaint and invective60, which convinced no one, and gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was decided61 that the prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful scoundrel, whose only object was to gain a brief respite62 of the punishment which he had so justly earned. Against this injustice63 he had resolved to rebel. It was monstrous64, he thought, that they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready to speak in his favour, infamous65 that they should send him back to his doom66 without allowing her to say a word in his defence. But he would defeat that scheme. He had planned a method of escape, and he would break from his bonds, fling himself at her feet, and pray her to speak the truth for him, and so save him. Strong in his faith in her, and with his love for her brightened by the love he had borne to her dream-image, he felt sure of her power to rescue him now, as he had rescued her before. “If she knew I was alive, she would come to me,” he said. “I am sure she would. Perhaps they told her that I was dead.”
Meditating67 that night in the solitude68 of his cell — his evil character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness — he almost wept to think of the cruel deception69 that had doubtless been practised on her. “They have told her that I was dead, in order that she might learn to forget me; but she could not do that. I have thought of her so often during these weary years that she must sometimes have thought of me. Five years! She must be a woman now. My little child a woman! Yet she is sure to be childlike, sweet, and gentle. How she will grieve when she hears of my sufferings. Oh! my darling, my darling, you are not dead!” And then, looking hastily about him in the darkness, as though fearful even there of being seen, he pulled from out his breast a little packet, and felt it lovingly with his coarse, toil-worn fingers, reverently70 raising it to his lips, and dreaming over it, with a smile on his face, as though it were a sacred talisman71 that should open to him the doors of freedom.
1 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
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2 galling | |
adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的 | |
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3 fetters | |
n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 );束缚v.给…上脚镣,束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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4 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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5 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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6 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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7 degradation | |
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变 | |
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8 bluff | |
v.虚张声势,用假象骗人;n.虚张声势,欺骗 | |
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9 moody | |
adj.心情不稳的,易怒的,喜怒无常的 | |
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10 felon | |
n.重罪犯;adj.残忍的 | |
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11 heroism | |
n.大无畏精神,英勇 | |
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12 absconder | |
n.潜逃者,逃跑者 | |
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13 glorification | |
n.赞颂 | |
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14 pretensions | |
自称( pretension的名词复数 ); 自命不凡; 要求; 权力 | |
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15 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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16 insidious | |
adj.阴险的,隐匿的,暗中为害的,(疾病)不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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17 banishment | |
n.放逐,驱逐 | |
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18 disdained | |
鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 ); 不屑于做,不愿意做 | |
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19 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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20 justification | |
n.正当的理由;辩解的理由 | |
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21 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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22 pang | |
n.剧痛,悲痛,苦闷 | |
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23 albeit | |
conj.即使;纵使;虽然 | |
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24 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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25 sullenness | |
n. 愠怒, 沉闷, 情绪消沉 | |
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26 entreaties | |
n.恳求,乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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27 agonized | |
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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28 pestered | |
使烦恼,纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29 inundated | |
v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 );(洪水般地)涌来;充满;给予或交予(太多事物)使难以应付 | |
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30 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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31 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
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32 coveted | |
adj.令人垂涎的;垂涎的,梦寐以求的v.贪求,觊觎(covet的过去分词);垂涎;贪图 | |
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33 horrified | |
a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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34 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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35 isthmus | |
n.地峡 | |
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36 cordon | |
n.警戒线,哨兵线 | |
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37 wagon | |
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车 | |
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38 wagons | |
n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 );铁路货车;小手推车 | |
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39 condescended | |
屈尊,俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 ); 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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40 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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41 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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42 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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43 conjuring | |
n.魔术 | |
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44 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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45 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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46 banished | |
v.放逐,驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 confided | |
v.吐露(秘密,心事等)( confide的过去式和过去分词 );(向某人)吐露(隐私、秘密等) | |
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48 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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49 slumbering | |
微睡,睡眠(slumber的现在分词形式) | |
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50 wretch | |
n.可怜的人,不幸的人;卑鄙的人 | |
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51 noisome | |
adj.有害的,可厌的 | |
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52 mingling | |
adj.混合的 | |
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53 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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54 lurked | |
vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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55 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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56 esteemed | |
adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 );敬重;认为;以为 | |
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57 usurped | |
篡夺,霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 ); 盗用; 篡夺,篡权 | |
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58 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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59 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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60 invective | |
n.痛骂,恶意抨击 | |
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61 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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62 respite | |
n.休息,中止,暂缓 | |
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63 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
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64 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
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65 infamous | |
adj.声名狼藉的,臭名昭著的,邪恶的 | |
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66 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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67 meditating | |
a.沉思的,冥想的 | |
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68 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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69 deception | |
n.欺骗,欺诈;骗局,诡计 | |
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70 reverently | |
adv.虔诚地 | |
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71 talisman | |
n.避邪物,护身符 | |
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