Lady Sunningdale, far less superficial really than{258} the other, not knowing that almost everything under the sun was rich with childish romance in Martin’s eyes, had hazarded the suggestion that they were talking about golf. This was practically correct, because they were talking about skating, and the two to her were indistinguishable,—she supposed you got runs at each,—being objectless exercises for the body. The moment you hunted or shot or played any game you entered that bracket. All these things were of the same genre10, and quite unintelligible11.
“But I can’t get my shoulders round,” said Stella. “It is no earthly use telling me that I must. They won’t go. Can you understand the meaning of those three simple words, or shall I try to express it differently? And if I try to make them get round I fall down.”
Martin frowned.
“Stella, you are really stupid about it,” he said,—they had long ago fallen into Christian12 names. “For the hundredth time you have to consider your foot as fixed13. Then pivot14 round, head first,—then——“
Stella nodded.
“Yes, I understand that,” she said. “It is always head first with me,—on the ice.”
“You’re not being serious,” said Martin; “and if you can’t be serious about a game you can’t be serious about anything. That is a universal truth. I discovered it. What do you suppose matters to me most in my life? Music? Not at all. Get along with you, you silly thing. But, oh, if any one would teach me to do back brackets not rather clean, but quite clean. I dreamed I did one once, and I awoke sobbing15 loudly from sheer happiness. I would sign a pledge never to{259} touch tobacco or a piano again, if I could do that. That’s my real state of mind. Now, will you skate to-morrow at Prince’s? I can be there at ten for an hour.”
“Considering I am always there at half-past nine,” remarked Stella, “I don’t think you need ask. And yet you say I am not serious. Oh, Martin, why is it that one really only wants to do the things one can’t do?”
“You can if you want enough,” said he. “The deuce is that one can’t always want enough.”
“I don’t believe that,” said she promptly,—Lady Monica would have stayed her devastating16 hand, if she had heard this,—“I want lots of things as much as I possibly can.”
“But perhaps even that isn’t enough. What, for instance?”
Stella could not help a momentary17 lifting of her eyes to his.
“Why, to skate, silly,” she said. “Yes, I’ll be there by ten, and so be punctual. I will consider my foot whatever you wish, and I’ll fall down as often as you think necessary. But don’t be unkind at once when you pick me up, and tell me I was too much on my heel, or anything of that sort. Wait till the first agony is over. I attend best when the pain is beginning to pass off.”
“Well, I only tell you to save trouble in the future,” said he.
“I know, but give me a moment. Do you care about the future much, by the way? I don’t. Give me the immediate18 present. To think much about the future is a sign of age. No one begins to care about the future{260} until he is too old to have any. Besides, it implies that the present has ceased to be absorbing.”
Martin pondered this.
“Oh, no; I don’t think that is so at all.”
Stella laughed.
“You never, by any chance, agree with a word I say,” she remarked.
“Well, you haven’t agreed with me since August,” he said. “I made a note of it. But that is why we have no stupid pauses. All conversation runs dry in two minutes if one agrees with the other person. But what you say about age really isn’t so. Look at Karl Rusoff or Lady Sunningdale. They both live intensely in the present.”
“Ah, you are shallow,” she said. “Years have got nothing whatever to do with age. That is the most superficial view. People of ninety die young, people of twenty die of senile decay.”
Martin stretched his trouser over his crossed knee.
“I am a hundred and eleven,” he said, “and whiles—don’t you hate the Scotch—and whiles I am about twelve in an Eton collar.”
“Yes, loathe19 them, laddie. Hoots20! That is what is so maddening about you. Half the time I think I am talking to my great-uncle, and the rest of it to my little nephew up from the country.”
“Is he a nice boy?” asked Martin. “Or do you like your great-uncle best?”
“I don’t like either at all, thank you. You are always being far too wise or far too young. As a man of a hundred, how can you play silly games with such enthusiasm? And as a boy of twelve, how can you play the piano as you do?”{261}
“It is because I am so extremely gifted,” said Martin, so gravely and naturally that for an appreciable21 moment she stared.
“Ah! Don’t you find it an awful bore?” she asked.
“Dreadful. I can’t really take any pleasure in anything, owing to the sense of responsibility which my talents bring to me.”
Stella broke down and laughed. At gravity he always beat her completely. At which period in their conversation Lord Sunningdale did as he was ordered, and, taking him firmly by the arm, led him to the piano.
Karl was always most assiduous in his attendance at houses where Martin played, and he was here to-night. His object was certainly not to flatter or encourage his pupil, for often and often, when Martin had played in his presence the night before, he found but a growling22 reception waiting for him at his next lesson.
“You played well enough for them,” Karl would say; “I grant you that. Any bungling23 would do for them. But to play ‘well enough for them’ is damnation.”
“But it did,” Martin would argue. “I did not want to play at all; but one can’t say no. At least I can’t. I was not playing for you.”
“Then you should not have played at all. If you play often enough in a second-rate manner, you will soon become second-rate.”
But to-night Martin never suggested the second-rate even to his exacting24 master. In a sort of boyish protestation at the strictures he had undergone last night concerning the last of the Noveletten, he played it{262} again now. Certainly to-night there was no note of stodginess25 there; the varied26, crisp, masterful moods of the music rang extraordinarily27 true. Half way through Karl turned to Lady Sunningdale, who was sitting next him.
“How has he spent his day?” he asked, suddenly.
“Skating, I think. He skated all morning, and was late for lunch, and he went back to Prince’s afterwards. He is terribly idle, is he not? Pray don’t interrupt, Monsieur Rusoff. I never can feel as if I hear a note at all unless I hear them all. Who said that? You, I think. So true. And have you heard his piece on me? He must play it. Delicious this is, isn’t it? I learned it when I was a child. Tum-tum. There is the tune28 again.”
“But with whom did he skate, my dear lady?” asked Karl. There had been a good many notes missed by now.
Lady Sunningdale gasped29.
“Oh, Monsieur Rusoff, how clever of you!” she said. “You are really clairvoyant30. So is my maid,—the one like a murderess. Do you know her? No; how should you. Martin was skating with Stella Plympton. And that is important, is it? Don’t tell her mother. She is such a fool, and also she has been trying to pump me. You see, it was I who brought them together. So suitable. I feel dreadfully responsible——“
At this point the Novelette ended, and Lady Sunningdale clapped her hands in a perfunctory manner.
“Too heavenly, monster,” she said. “Now play Tum-te-tum. Yes, that one. And is he really going to marry her?” she continued to Karl. “I love being{263} pumped, if I know it. Dear Monica, she pumps like a fire-engine. There is no possibility of mistake. Now, while he is playing this, do tell me all you know.”
“My dear lady, you are building on no foundation,” said Karl. “All I know is that he played that to me last night, and played it abominably31. To-night he has played it—well, you have heard. And, psychologically, I should like to know what has occurred in the interval32.”
“Was his playing of it just now very wonderful?” she asked.
“Yes; one might venture to say that. And as he has been skating all day, presumably he has not thought much about it. His thinking perhaps has been done for him. And who is Stella Plympton? Wife or maid?”
Lady Sunningdale gave a little shriek33 of laughter. Really people who lived out of the world were much more amusing than those who lived in it. Those who lived in it, it is true, always believed the worst in the absence of definite knowledge; the others, however, made far more startling suggestions.
“Next but two on your right,” she whispered. “Dear Monica will have a fit if Stella turns out to be already married.”
Karl’s eyes wandered slowly to the right, looking pointedly34 at many things first, at the cornice of the ceiling, at Martin’s profile, at the slumber35 of Lord Sunningdale. Then they swept quickly by Stella.
She sat there absorbed and radiant, her face flushed with some secret, delicate joy as she watched and listened, hardly knowing whether eyes or ears demanded her attention most. Certainly the music and the musician between them held her in a spell.{264}
“She is looking quite her best,” whispered Lady Sunningdale. “How interesting! They have millions, you know—oil-cake, or was it oil-cloth? Oil-something, anyhow, which sounds so rich, and she is the only child. The father is quite impossible, not an ‘h,’ though every one crowds there. One always does if there are millions. So vulgar of one. Dear Monica. We were almost brought up together.”
Karl turned round to her.
“Dear Lady Sunningdale,” he said, “you are really quite premature36 if you build anything on what I have said. He played admirably to-night what he played abominably last night. That is absolutely all I know. I should be so sorry if I had suggested anything to you which proved to be without any sort of foundation.”
There certainly seemed to be some new power in Martin’s playing to-night; but new power had constantly shewn itself there during the last month or two, for, as Karl said, he had been growing. To-night, however, he was conscious of it himself, and even as he played, he knew that fresh light of some kind, some fresh spring of inspiration, was his. His hand and his brain were too busy as he played to let him be more than conscious of it. Where it came from, what it was, he could not guess this moment; but as he struck the last chords the tension relaxed, and he knew. Then, looking up, he saw Stella sitting near him, leaning forward, her beautiful mouth a little open. That glorious white column of her neck supported her head like the stem of a flower,—no garden flower, but something wonderful and wild. There were rows of faces{265} behind her, to each side of her,—she was one in a crowd only; but as his eyes caught her gaze, the crowd fell away, became misty37 to him, vanished as a breath vanishes in a frosty air, and she only, that one face bending a little towards him, remained.
For a long moment their eyes dwelt on each other; neither smiled, for the occasion was too grave for that, and they two for all they knew, were alone, in Paradise or in the desert, it was all one. The gay crowd, the applause that merged38 into a crescendo39 of renewed conversation, lights, glitter, men and women, were for that one moment obliterated40, for in his soul Love had leaped to birth,—no puny41 weakling, prematurely42 warped43 and disfigured by evil practices and parodies44 of itself, but clean and full-grown it sprang towards her, knowing, seeing that its welcome was already assured. Then the real world, so strangely unreal in comparison to that world in which for a moment their souls had mingled45 and embraced, reeled into existence again, and Martin rose from the piano, for she had risen, too, and had turned to some phantom46 on her right that appeared to speak to her.
Lady Sunningdale beckoned47 and screamed to him.
“Martin,” she cried, “you are too deevey! Monsieur Rusoff is really almost—didn’t you say almost—satisfied with the way you played that. And you learned all that exquisite48 thing—I used to play it years ago—while you were skating to-day, because he says you played it too abominably last night. Really, if I thought I could play it like that to-morrow evening I would go and skate all day. Now, don’t waste time, but play something more instantly.”{266}
“Oh, please, Lady Sunningdale, I would rather not,” said he. “I really don’t think I could play any more to-night. I really am—I don’t know what—tired.”
Lady Sunningdale looked at his brilliant, vigorous face.
“Martin, I don’t believe you will ever learn to tell a decent, passable lie,” she said. “Why not tell me you had got cancer. Oh, there’s Suez Canal come back. Naughty! Monsieur Rusoff, won’t you tell him that he must. Just a scale or two. I adore scales, so satisfactory, are they not—so expected—as if it was a music-lesson. No? How tiresome49 of you.”
Karl laid his hand on Martin’s arm.
“No, my dear lady,” he said. “He’s never to play except when he wants to. But if you really want a little more music, and I——“
“Ah, but how enchanting50 of you. Monsieur Rusoff is going to play. Surely, dear Monica, you will wait. You are not going yet?”
“Desolated, Violet, but Stella says she feels a little faint. The hot room, I suppose. She is waiting for me outside. How deliciously you play, Mr. Challoner. I suppose you practise a great deal. Won’t you come some day and——“
She broke off, for Martin had simply turned his back on her, and was firmly edging his way through the crowd to the door. Then Lady Monica’s maternal51 instinct positively52 leaped to a conclusion, and Martin’s rudeness was completely forgiven.
“But I can’t resist waiting to hear Monsieur Rusoff,” she said. “I thought he never played at private houses. How clever of you, dear Violet. I wonder if{267} you could get him to play for me. Stella will sit down and wait for me, no doubt.”
But before Karl struck the first chord, Martin had won (not to say pushed) his way through the hushed crowd, and found Stella sitting outside in the other drawing-room. Every one had flocked in to hear the music, and they were alone.
His foot was noiseless on the thick carpet, and he was but a yard or two from her when she raised her eyes and saw him. Then with a little choking cry, only half articulate, he came close to her. All the excitement and fire in which his life was passed was cold ashes compared to this moment, and his heart thumped53 riotously54 against his chest. Twice he tried to speak, but his trembling lips would not form the words, and she waited, her eyes still fixed on his. Then suddenly he threw his arms out.
“It is no good trying,” he said. “But I love you! I—I love you!”
Oh, the clumsy, bald statement! But Life and Death meant less than that word.
“Oh, Martin,” she said, “I have waited—I—I don’t know what I am saying.”
“Waited?” he asked, and his eyes glowed like hot coals.
Then he laughed.
“And you never told me,” he said. “If it was not you, I should never forgive you. And if it was not you, I should not care.”
“Isn’t that nonsense?” she asked.
“Yes, probably. Who cares? Stella! Oh, my star!”
He flung his arms round her.{268}
“My star, my star,” he cried again.
For one moment she could not but yield to him.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered; “but Martin, Martin,” and her mouth wreathed into laughter, “it is an evening party. You must not; you must not.”
He paused like a man dying of drought from whose lips the cup of water had been taken away.
“Party,” he cried; “what party? It is you and I, that is all.”
This was all unknown to her. She had loved him, the boy with the extraordinary eyes, the boy who played so magnificently, who laughed so much. But now there was roused something more than these. The piano-player was gone, he did not laugh, his eyes had never quite glowed like that, and there was in his face something she had never seen yet. The woman had awakened55 the man; this was his first full moment of consciousness. And, like all women for the first time face to face with the lover and the beloved, she was afraid. She had not till now seen his full fire.
“I am frightened,” she cried. “What have we done?”
But his answer came back like an echo to what she had not said, but what was behind her words.
“Frightened?” he said. “Oh, Stella, not of me, not of the real me?”
She gave a little laugh, still mysteriously nervous.
“You were a stranger,” she said. “I never saw you before.”
Martin gave a great, happy sigh.
“You are quite right,” he said, and the authentic56 fire leaped to and fro between their eyes. “I was never this before. But you are not frightened now?”{269}
This time her eyes did not waver from his.
“No, Martin,” she said.
But there was no more privacy possible here. Stella had been quite right; there was a party going on, and at the moment a great burst of applause signified the end of Karl Rusoff’s performance. Stella started.
“There. I told you so,” she said. “Now take me to my mother; she will be waiting for me.”
Martin frowned.
“Cannot she wait?” he asked. “I too have never seen the real you before.”
“No, dear, we must go. There is to-morrow, all the to-morrows.”
“And to think that it has only been yesterday until this evening,” he said. “There is Lady Monica, looking for you.”
Lady Monica had a practised eye. She kept everything she had in excellent practise; there was nothing rusty57 about her.
“Stella dear, I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “Are you better? Has Mr. Challoner been taking care of you?”
That was sufficient.
“Stella says I may,” said he.
Lady Monica checked her exclamation58 of “Thank God!” as being a shade too business-like.
“Ah, dear Mr. Martin,” she said. “How nice, how very, very nice! Stella, my dearest. How secret you have been. Come, darling, we must go. I can’t talk to either of you in this crowd. But how nice! We shall see you to-morrow? Come to lunch, quite, quite quietly.”{270}
Stella looked at him.
“Yes, do, Martin,” she said. “I will take you back after our skate.”
“Ah, I had forgotten,” he said.
She laughed divinely.
“But I had not. And you will be kind to me, as I asked you?” she added.
He dwelt on his answer.
“I kind—to you?” he said.
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收听单词发音
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1
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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annexed
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| [法] 附加的，附属的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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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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genre
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| n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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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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pivot
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| v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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hoots
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| 咄，啐 | |
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appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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stodginess
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| n.难消化，笨拙 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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clairvoyant
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| adj.有预见的；n.有预见的人 | |
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abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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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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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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44
parodies
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| n.拙劣的模仿( parody的名词复数 )；恶搞；滑稽的模仿诗文；表面上模仿得笨拙但充满了机智用来嘲弄别人作品的作品v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的第三人称单数 ) | |
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45
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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49
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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50
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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51
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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52
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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53
thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
riotously
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| adv.骚动地，暴乱地 | |
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55
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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56
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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57
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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58
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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