Leaning there, idly scanning the grey masses overhead, with floating, carrotty beard, loose-lipped mouth, indeterminate other features, and eternal frieze5 coat dangling6 by a single button, this big, good-tempered-looking Con1 O’Malley of Inishmaan might have passed, in the eyes of an observer on the look-out for types, as the very picture and ideal of the typical Connaught peasant—if there are such things as typical peasants or, indeed, any other varieties of human beings, a point that might be debated. As a matter of fact, he was not in the least, however, what we mean when we talk of a typical man, for he had at least one strongly-marked trait which is even proverbially rare amongst men of his race and class—so rare, indeed, that it has been said to be undiscoverable amongst them. His first marriage—an event which took place thirty years back, while he was{35} still barely twenty—had been of the usual mariage de convenance variety, settled between his own parents and the parent of his bride, with a careful, nay8, punctilious9, heed to the relative number of cows, turkeys, feather-beds, boneens, black pots and the like, producible upon either side, but as regards the probable liking10 or compatibility of the youthful couple absolutely no heed whatsoever11. Con O’Malley and Honor O’Shea (as in western fashion she was called to the hour of her death) had, all the same, been a fairly affectionate couple, judged by the current standard, and she, at any rate, had never dreamt of anything being lacking in this respect. Sundry12 children had been born to them, of whom only one, a daughter, at the present time survived. Then, after some eighteen years of married life, Honor O’Shea had died, and Con O’Malley had mourned her with a commendable{36} show of woe13 and, no doubt, a fair share of its inner reality also. He was by that time close upon forty, so that the fires of love, if they were ever going to be kindled14, might have been fairly supposed to have shown some signs of their presence. Not at all. It was not until several years later that they suddenly sprang into furious existence. An accident set them alight, as, but for such an accident, they would in all probability have slumbered15 on in his breast, unsuspected and unguessed at, even by himself, till the day of his death.
It was a girl from the ‘Continent,’ as the islanders call the mainland, who set the spark to that long-slumbering tinder—a girl from Maam in the Joyce country, high up in the mountains of Connemara—a Joyce herself by name, a tall, wild-eyed, magnificently handsome creature, with an unmistakable dash of Spanish blood in her veins16. Con had seen{37} her for the first time at old Malachy O’Flaherty’s wake, a festivity at which—Malachy having been the last of the real, original O’Flaherties of Aranmore—nearly every man in the three islands had mustered17, as well as a considerable sprinkling of more or less remotely connected Joyces and O’Flaherties from the opposite coast. Whole barrels of whisky had been broached18, and the drinking, dancing, and doings generally had been quite in accordance with the best of the old traditions.
Amongst the women gathered together on this celebrated19 occasion, Delia Joyce, of Maam in Connemara, had borne away the palm, as a Queen’s yacht might have borne it away amongst an assembly of hookers and canal barges20. Not a young man present on the spot—little as most of them were apt to be troubled with such perturbations—but felt a dim, unexplained trouble awake in his breast{38} as the young woman from Maam swept past him, or danced with measured, stately steps down the centre of the stone floor; her red petticoat slightly kilted above her ankles, her head thrown back, her great, dark, slumberous21 eyes sweeping22 round the room, as she looked demurely23 from one strange face to another. Upon Con O’Malley—not amongst the category of young men—the effect was the most marked, most instantaneous, most overwhelming of all! Delia Joyce, as everyone in the room discovered in ten minutes, had no fortune, and, therefore, obviously was no match. She was the orphan24 niece of a man who had seven living children of his own. She had not a cow, a gridiron, a penny-piece, an inch of land, not a possession of any sort in the world.
Regardless of this utterly25 damning fact, regardless of his own age, regardless of the{39} outrage26 inflicted27 upon public opinion, regardless of everything and everybody, Con O’Malley fell hopelessly in love with her; clung to her skirts like a leech28 the whole evening; followed her the next day as she was about to step on board her curragh for the mainland; carried her, in short, bodily off her feet by the sheer vehemence29 of his love-making. He was still a good-looking man at the time; not bent30 or slouching, but well set up; a ‘warm’ man, ‘well come’ and ‘well-to-do;’ a man whose pleadings no woman—short, that is, of a bailiff’s or a farmer’s daughter—would disdain31 to listen to.
Delia Joyce coyly but gladly consented to respond to his ardour. It was a genuine love-match on both sides—that rarest of rare phenomena32 in peasant Ireland. That it would, as a matter of course, and for that very reason, turn out disastrously33 was the opinion,{40} loudly expressed, of every experienced matron, not in Inishmaan alone, but for forty miles around that melancholy34 island. A ‘Black stranger,’ a ‘Foreigner,’ a girl ‘from the Continent,’ not related to anyone or belonging to the place! worse than all, a girl without a penny-piece, without a stool or a feather-bed to add to the establishment! There was not a woman, young or old, living on the three islands but felt a sense of intense personal degradation35 whenever the miserable36 affair was so much as alluded37 to before her!
Marriages, however, are queer things, and the less we prophesy38 about them the less likely we are perhaps to prove conspicuously39 wrong. So it was in this case. A happier, more admittedly successful marriage there never was or could be, save, indeed, in one important and lamentable40 respect, and that was that it came to an end only too soon. About a year after the{41} marriage little Grania was born, two years after it a boy; then, within a few days of one another, the mother and the baby both died. From that day Con O’Malley was a changed man. He displayed no overwhelming or picturesque41 grief. He left the weeping and howling at the funeral, as was proper, to the professional mourners hired upon that occasion. He did not wear crape on his hat—the last for the excellent reason that Denny O’Shaughnessy made none, and Denny O’Shaughnessy was much the most fashionable of the weavers42 upon Inishmaan. He did not mope, he did not mourn, he did not do anything in particular. But from the day of his wife’s death he went to the dogs steadily43 and relentlessly—to the dogs, that is, so far as it is going to the dogs to take no further interest in anything, including your own concerns. He did not even do this in any very eminent44 or extravagant45 fashion: sim{42}ply became on a par7 with the most shiftless and thriftless of his neighbours, instead of being rather noticeably a contrast to them in these respects. Bit by bit, too, the ‘Cruskeen Beg,’ which had hitherto regarded him as only a very distant and unsatisfactory acquaintance, began to know him better. He still managed to keep the hooker afloat, but what it and his farm brought him in nearly all found its way across the counter of it or some kindred shebeen, and how Honor O’Malley contrived46 to keep herself and the small Grania, not to speak of a tribe of pensioners47 and hangers-on, upon the margin48 left was a marvel49 to all who were acquainted with the family. Nine years this process had been going on, and it was going on still, and, as the nature of things is, more and more rapidly of late. Poor Con O’Malley! He was not in the least a bad man; nay, he was distinctly a good man: kindly50, religious, faithful,{43} affectionate, generous—a goodly list surely of the virtues51? But he had set his foot upon a very bad road, one which, all over the world, but especially in Ireland, there is rarely, or never, any turning back upon.
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1
con
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| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
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2
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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3
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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7
par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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8
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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9
punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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10
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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12
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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14
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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mustered
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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19
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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slumberous
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| a.昏昏欲睡的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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24
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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39
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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40
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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41
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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42
weavers
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| 织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 ) | |
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43
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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44
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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45
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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46
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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pensioners
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| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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49
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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50
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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51
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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