For a time there existed in the minds of both Gerald and Sophia the remarkable1 notion that twelve thousand pounds represented the infinity2 of wealth, that this sum possessed3 special magical properties which rendered it insensible to the process of subtraction4. It seemed impossible that twelve thousand pounds, while continually getting less, could ultimately quite disappear. The notion lived longer in the mind of Gerald than in that of Sophia; for Gerald would never look at a disturbing fact, whereas Sophia's gaze was morbidly5 fascinated by such phenomena6. In a life devoted7 to travel and pleasure Gerald meant not to spend more than six hundred a year, the interest on his fortune. Six hundred a year is less than two pounds a day, yet Gerald never paid less than two pounds a day in hotel bills alone. He hoped that he was living on a thousand a year, had a secret fear that he might be spending fifteen hundred, and was really spending about two thousand five hundred. Still, the remarkable notion of the inexhaustibility of twelve thousand pounds always reassured8 him. The faster the money went, the more vigorously this notion flourished in Gerald's mind. When twelve had unaccountably dwindled9 to three, Gerald suddenly decided10 that he must act, and in a few months he lost two thousand on the Paris Bourse. The adventure frightened him, and in his panic he scattered11 a couple of hundred in a frenzy12 of high living.
But even with only twenty thousand francs left out of three hundred thousand, he held closely to the belief that natural laws would in his case somehow be suspended. He had heard of men who were once rich begging bread and sweeping13 crossings, but he felt quite secure against such risks, by simple virtue14 of the axiom that he was he. However, he meant to assist the axiom by efforts to earn money. When these continued to fail, he tried to assist the axiom by borrowing money; but he found that his uncle had definitely done with him. He would have assisted the axiom by stealing money, but he had neither the nerve nor the knowledge to be a swindler; he was not even sufficiently15 expert to cheat at cards.
He had thought in thousands. Now he began to think in hundreds, in tens, daily and hourly. He paid two hundred francs in railway fares in order to live economically in a village, and shortly afterwards another two hundred francs in railway fares in order to live economically in Paris. And to celebrate the arrival in Paris and the definite commencement of an era of strict economy and serious search for a livelihood16, he spent a hundred francs on a dinner at the Maison Doree and two balcony stalls at the Gymnase. In brief, he omitted nothing--no act, no resolve, no self- deception--of the typical fool in his situation; always convinced that his difficulties and his wisdom were quite exceptional.
In May, 1870, on an afternoon, he was ranging nervously17 to and fro in a three-cornered bedroom of a little hotel at the angle of the Rue18 Fontaine and the Rue Laval (now the Rue Victor Masse), within half a minute of the Boulevard de Clichy. It had come to that--an exchange of the 'grand boulevard' for the 'boulevard exterieur'! Sophia sat on a chair at the grimy window, glancing down in idle disgust of life at the Clichy-Odeon omnibus which was casting off its tip-horse at the corner of the Rue Chaptal. The noise of petty, hurried traffic over the bossy19 paving stones was deafening20. The locality was not one to correspond with an ideal. There was too much humanity crowded into those narrow hilly streets; humanity seemed to be bulging21 out at the windows of the high houses. Gerald healed his pride by saying that this was, after all, the real Paris, and that the cookery was as good as could be got anywhere, pay what you would. He seldom ate a meal in the little salons22 on the first floor without becoming ecstatic upon the cookery. To hear him, he might have chosen the hotel on its superlative merits, without regard to expense. And with his air of use and custom, he did indeed look like a connoisseur23 of Paris who knew better than to herd24 with vulgar tourists in the pens of the Madeleine quarter. He was dressed with some distinction; good clothes, when put to the test, survive a change of fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed empire. Only his collar, large V-shaped front, and wristbands, which bore the ineifaceable signs of cheap laundering25, reflected the shadow of impending26 disaster.
He glanced sideways, stealthily, at Sophia. She, too, was still dressed with distinction; in the robe of black faille, the cashmere shawl, and the little black hat with its falling veil, there was no apparent symptom of beggary. She would have been judged as one of those women who content themselves with few clothes but good, and, greatly aided by nature, make a little go a long way. Good black will last for eternity28; it discloses no secrets of modification29 and mending, and it is not transparent30.
At last Gerald, resuming a suspended conversation, said as it were doggedly31:
"I tell you I haven't got five francs altogether! and you can feel my pockets if you like," added the habitual32 liar33 in him, fearing incredulity.
"Well, and what do you expect me to do?" Sophia inquired.
The accent, at once ironic34 and listless, in which she put this question, showed that strange and vital things had happened to Sophia in the four years which had elapsed since her marriage. It did really seem to her, indeed, that the Sophia whom Gerald had espoused35 was dead and gone, and that another Sophia had come into her body: so intensely conscious was she of a fundamental change in herself under the stress of continuous experience. And though this was but a seeming, though she was still the same Sophia more fully36 disclosed, it was a true seeming. Indisputably more beautiful than when Gerald had unwillingly37 made her his legal wife, she was now nearly twenty-four, and looked perhaps somewhat older than her age. Her frame was firmly set, her waist thicker, neither slim nor stout39. The lips were rather hard, and she had a habit of tightening40 her mouth, on the same provocation41 as sends a snail42 into its shell. No trace was left of immature43 gawkiness in her gestures or of simplicity44 in her intonations45. She was a woman of commanding and slightly arrogant46 charm, not in the least degree the charm of innocence47 and ingenuousness48. Her eyes were the eyes of one who has lost her illusions too violently and too completely. Her gaze, coldly comprehending, implied familiarity with the abjectness49 of human nature. Gerald had begun and had finished her education. He had not ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral force immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a masterpiece, but it was a tragic50 masterpiece. Sophia was such a woman as, by a mere27 glance as she utters an opinion, will make a man say to himself, half in desire and half in alarm lest she reads him too: "By Jove! she must have been through a thing or two. She knows what people are!"
The marriage was, of course, a calamitous51 folly52. From the very first, from the moment when the commercial traveller had with incomparable rash fatuity53 thrown the paper pellet over the counter, Sophia's awakening54 commonsense55 had told her that in yielding to her instinct she was sowing misery56 and shame for herself; but she had gone on, as if under a spell. It had needed the irretrievableness of flight from home to begin the breaking of the trance. Once fully awakened57 out of the trance, she had recognized her marriage for what it was. She had made neither the best nor the worst of it. She had accepted Gerald as one accepts a climate. She saw again and again that he was irreclaimably a fool and a prodigy58 of irresponsibleness. She tolerated him, now with sweetness, now bitterly; accepting always his caprices, and not permitting herself to have wishes of her own. She was ready to pay the price of pride and of a moment's imbecility with a lifetime of self-repression. It was high, but it was the price. She had acquired nothing but an exceptionally good knowledge of the French language (she soon learnt to scorn Gerald's glib59 maltreatment of the tongue), and she had conserved60 nothing but her dignity. She knew that Gerald was sick of her, that he would have danced for joy to be rid of her; that he was constantly unfaithful; that he had long since ceased to be excited by her beauty. She knew also that at bottom he was a little afraid of her; here was her sole moral consolation61. The thing that sometimes struck her as surprising was that he had not abandoned her, simply and crudely walked off one day and forgotten to take her with him.
They hated each other, but in different ways. She loathed62 him, and he resented her.
"What do I expect you to do?" he repeated after her. "Why don't you write home to your people and get some money out of them?"
Now that he had said what was in his mind, he faced her with a bullying63 swagger. Had he been a bigger man he might have tried the effect of physical bullying on her. One of his numerous reasons for resenting her was that she was the taller of the two.
She made no reply.
"Now you needn't turn pale and begin all that fuss over again. What I'm suggesting is a perfectly64 reasonable thing. If I haven't got money I haven't got it. I can't invent it."
She perceived that he was ready for one of their periodical tempestuous65 quarrels. But that day she felt too tired and unwell to quarrel. His warning against a repetition of 'fuss' had reference to the gastric66 dizziness from which she had been suffering for two years. It would take her usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head swam and she could not stand. She would sink down wherever she happened to be, and, her face alarmingly white, murmur67 faintly: "My salts." Within five minutes the attack had gone and left no trace. She had been through one just after lunch. He resented this affection. He detested68 being compelled to hand the smelling-bottle to her, and he would have avoided doing so if her pallor did not always alarm him. Nothing but this pallor convinced him that the attacks were not a deep ruse69 to impress him. His attitude invariably implied that she could cure the malady70 if she chose, but that through obstinacy71 she did not choose.
"Are you going to have the decency72 to answer my question, or aren't you?"
"What question?" Her vibrating voice was low and restrained.
"Will you write to your people?"
"For money?"
The sarcasm73 of her tone was diabolic. She could not have kept the sarcasm out of her tone; she did not attempt to keep it out. She cared little if it whipped him to fury. Did he imagine, seriously, that she would be capable of going on her knees to her family? She? Was he unaware74 that his wife was the proudest and the most obstinate75 woman on earth; that all her behaviour to him was the expression of her pride and her obstinacy? Ill and weak though she felt, she marshalled together all the forces of her character to defend her resolve never, never to eat the bread of humiliation76. She was absolutely determined77 to be dead to her family. Certainly, one December, several years previously78, she had seen English Christmas cards in an English shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and in a sudden gush79 of tenderness towards Constance, she had despatched a coloured greeting to Constance and her mother. And having initiated80 the custom, she had continued it. That was not like asking a kindness; it was bestowing81 a kindness. But except for the annual card, she was dead to St. Luke's Square. She was one of those daughters who disappear and are not discussed in the family circle. The thought of her immense foolishness, the little tender thoughts of Constance, some flitting souvenir, full of unwilling38 admiration82, of a regal gesture of her mother,--these things only steeled her against any sort of resurrection after death.
And he was urging her to write home for money! Why, she would not even have paid a visit in splendour to St. Luke's Square. Never should they know what she had suffered! And especially her Aunt Harriet, from whom she had stolen!
"Will you write to your people?" he demanded yet again, emphasizing and separating each word.
"No," she said shortly, with terrible disdain83.
"Why not?"
"Because I won't." The curling line of her lips, as they closed on each other, said all the rest; all the cruel truths about his unspeakable, inane84, coarse follies85, his laziness, his excesses, his lies, his deceptions86, his bad faith, his truculence87, his improvidence88, his shameful89 waste and ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he realized his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not read them in her silent contumely, she was too proud to recite them to him. She had never complained, save in uncontrolled moments of anger.
"If that's the way you're going to talk--all right!" he snapped, furious. Evidently he was baffled.
She kept silence. She was determined to see what he would do in the face of her inaction.
"You know, I'm not joking," he pursued. "We shall starve."
"Very well," she agreed. "We shall starve."
She watched him surreptitiously, and she was almost sure that he really had come to the end of his tether. His voice, which never alone convinced, carried a sort of conviction now. He was penniless. In four years he had squandered90 twelve thousand pounds, and had nothing to show for it except an enfeebled digestion91 and a tragic figure of a wife. One small point of satisfaction there was--and all the Baines in her clutched at it and tried to suck satisfaction from it--their manner of travelling about from hotel to hotel had made it impossible for Gerald to run up debts. A few debts he might have, unknown to her, but they could not be serious.
So they looked at one another, in hatred92 and despair. The inevitable93 had arrived. For months she had fronted it in bravado94, not concealing95 from herself that it lay in waiting. For years he had been sure that though the inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to him. There it was! He was conscious of a heavy weight in his stomach, and she of a general numbness96, enwrapping her fatigue97. Even then he could not believe that it was true, this disaster. As for Sophia she was reconciling herself with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities98 of fate. Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought up, etc? Her mother could not have improved the occasion more uncompromisingly than Sophia did-- behind that disdainful mask.
"Well--if that's it ...!" Gerald exploded at length, puffing99. And he puffed100 out of the room and was gone in a second.
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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subtraction
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| n.减法，减去 | |
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morbidly
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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bossy
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| adj.爱发号施令的，作威作福的 | |
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deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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laundering
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| n.洗涤（衣等），洗烫（衣等）；洗（钱）v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的现在分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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intonations
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| n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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ingenuousness
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| n.率直；正直；老实 | |
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abjectness
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| 凄惨； 绝望； 卑鄙； 卑劣 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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calamitous
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| adj.灾难的，悲惨的；多灾多难；惨重 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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commonsense
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| adj.有常识的；明白事理的；注重实际的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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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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prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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conserved
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| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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perfectly
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tempestuous
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gastric
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murmur
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ruse
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| n.诡计，计策；诡计 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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79
gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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80
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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81
bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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82
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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83
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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84
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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85
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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86
deceptions
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| 欺骗( deception的名词复数 )； 骗术，诡计 | |
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87
truculence
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| n.凶猛，粗暴 | |
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88
improvidence
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| n.目光短浅 | |
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89
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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90
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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92
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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93
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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94
bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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95
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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96
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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98
eccentricities
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| n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 )；反常；怪癖 | |
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99
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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100
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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