She languidly picked up a book, the moment Gerald had departed, and tried to prove to herself that she was sufficiently1 in command of her nerves to read. For a long time reading had been her chief solace3. But she could not read. She glanced round the inhospitable chamber4, and thought of the hundreds of rooms--some splendid and some vile5, but all arid6 in their unwelcoming aspect--through which she had passed in her progress from mad exultation7 to calm and cold disgust. The ceaseless din2 of the street annoyed her jaded8 ears. And a great wave of desire for peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her. And then her deep distrust of Gerald reawakened; in spite of his seriously desperate air, which had a quality of sincerity9 quite new in her experience of him, she could not be entirely10 sure that, in asserting utter penury11, he was not after all merely using a trick to get rid of her.
She sprang up, threw the book on the bed, and seized her gloves. She would follow him, if she could. She would do what she had never done before--she would spy on him. Fighting against her lassitude, she descended12 the long winding13 stairs, and peeped forth14 from the doorway15 into the street. The ground floor of the hotel was a wine-shop; the stout16 landlord was lightly flicking17 one of the three little yellow tables that stood on the pavement. He smiled with his customary benevolence18, and silently pointed19 in the direction of the Rue20 Notre Dame21 de Lorette. She saw Gerald down there in the distance. He was smoking a cigar.
He seemed to be a little man without a care. The smoke of the cigar came first round his left cheek and then round his right, sailing away into nothing. He walked with a gay spring, but not quickly, flourishing his cane22 as freely as the traffic of the pavement would permit, glancing into all the shop windows and into the eyes of all the women under forty. This was not at all the same man as had a moment ago been spitting angry menaces at her in the bedroom of the hotel. It was a fellow of blithe23 charm, ripe for any adventurous24 joys that destiny had to offer.
Supposing he turned round and saw her?
If he turned round and saw her and asked her what she was doing there in the street, she would tell him plainly: "I'm following you, to find out what you do."
But he did not turn. He went straight forward, deviating26 at the church, where the crowd became thicker, into the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and so to the boulevard, which he crossed. The whole city seemed excited and vivacious27. Cannons28 boomed in slow succession, and flags were flying. Sophia had no conception of the significance of those guns, for, though she read a great deal, she never read a newspaper; the idea of opening a newspaper never occurred to her. But she was accustomed to the feverish29 atmosphere of Paris. She had lately seen regiments30 of cavalry31 flashing and prancing32 in the Luxembourg Gardens, and had much admired the fine picture. She accepted the booming as another expression of the high spirits that had to find vent25 somehow in this feverish empire. She so accepted it and forgot it, using all the panorama33 of the capital as a dim background for her exacerbated34 egoism.
She was obliged to walk slowly, because Gerald walked slowly. A beautiful woman, or any woman not positively35 hag-like or venerable, who walks slowly in the streets of Paris becomes at once the cause of inconvenient36 desires, as representing the main objective on earth, always transcending37 in importance politics and affairs. Just as a true patriotic38 Englishman cannot be too busy to run after a fox, so a Frenchman is always ready to forsake39 all in order to follow a woman whom he has never before set eyes on. Many men thought twice about her, with her romantic Saxon mystery of temperament40, and her Parisian clothes; but all refrained from affronting41 her, not in the least out of respect for the gloom in her face, but from an expert conviction that those rapt eyes were fixed42 immovably on another male. She walked unscathed amid the frothing hounds as though protected by a spell.
On the south side of the boulevard, Gerald proceeded down the Rue Montmartre, and then turned suddenly into the Rue Croissant. Sophia stopped and asked the price of some combs which were exposed outside a little shop. Then she went on, boldly passing the end of the Rue Croissant. No shadow of Gerald! She saw the signs of newspapers all along the street, Le Bien Public, La Presse Libre, La Patrie. There was a creamery at the corner. She entered it, asked for a cup of chocolate and sat down. She wanted to drink coffee, but every doctor had forbidden coffee to her, on account of her attacks of dizziness. Then, having ordered chocolate, she felt that, on this occasion, when she had need of strength in her great fatigue43, only coffee could suffice her, and she changed the order. She was close to the door, and Gerald could not escape her vigilance if he emerged at that end of the street. She drank the coffee with greedy satisfaction, and waited in the creamery till she began to feel conspicuous44 there. And then Gerald went by the door, within six feet of her. He turned the corner and continued his descent of the Rue Montmartre. She paid for her coffee and followed the chase. Her blood seemed to be up. Her lips were tightened45, and her thought was: "Wherever he goes, I'll go, and I don't care what happens." She despised him. She felt herself above him. She felt that somehow, since quitting the hotel, he had been gradually growing more and more vile and meet to be exterminated46. She imagined infamies47 as to the Rue Croissant. There was no obvious ground for this intensifying48 of her attitude towards him; it was merely the result of the chase. All that could be definitely charged against him was the smoking of a cigar.
He stepped into a tobacco-shop, and came out with a longer cigar than the first one, a more expensive article, stripped off its collar and lighted it as a millionaire might have lighted it. This was the man who swore that he did not possess five francs.
She tracked him as far as the Rue de Rivoli, and then lost him. There were vast surging crowds in the Rue de Rivoli, and much bunting, and soldiers and gesticulatory policemen. The general effect of the street was that all things were brightly waving in the breeze. She was caught in the crowd as in the current of a stream, and when she tried to sidle out of it into a square, a row of smiling policemen barred her passage; she was a part of the traffic that they had to regulate. She drifted till the Louvre came into view. After all, Gerald had only strolled forth to see the sight of the day, whatever it might be! She knew not what it was. She had no curiosity about it. In the middle of all that thickening mass of humanity, staring with one accord at the vast monument of royal and imperial vanities, she thought, with her characteristic grimness, of the sacrifice of her whole career as a school-teacher for the chance of seeing Gerald once a quarter in the shop. She gloated over that, as a sick appetite will gloat over tainted49 food. And she saw the shop, and the curve of the stairs up to the showroom, and the pier-glass in the showroom.
Then the guns began to boom again, and splendid carriages swept one after another from under a majestic50 archway and glittered westward51 down a lane of spotless splendid uniforms. The carriages were laden52 with still more splendid uniforms, and with enchanting53 toilets. Sophia, in her modestly stylish54 black, mechanically noticed how much easier it was for attired55 women to sit in a carriage now that crinolines had gone. That was the sole impression made upon her by this glimpse of the last fete of the Napoleonic Empire. She knew not that the supreme56 pillars of imperialism57 were exhibiting themselves before her; and that the eyes of those uniforms and those toilettes were full of the legendary58 beauty of Eugenie, and their ears echoing to the long phrases of Napoleon the Third about his gratitude59 to his people for their confidence in him as shown by the plebiscite, and about the ratification60 of constitutional reforms guaranteeing order, and about the empire having been strengthened at its base, and about showing force by moderation and envisaging61 the future without fear, and about the bosom62 of peace and liberty, and the eternal continuance of his dynasty.
She just wondered vaguely63 what was afoot.
When the last carriage had rolled away, and the guns and acclamations had ceased, the crowd at length began to scatter64. She was carried by it into the Place du Palais Royal, and in a few moments she managed to withdraw into the Rue des Bons Enfants and was free.
The coins in her purse amounted to three sous, and therefore, though she felt exhausted65 to the point of illness, she had to return to the hotel on foot. Very slowly she crawled upwards66 in the direction of the Boulevard, through the expiring gaiety of the city. Near the Bourse a fiacre overtook her, and in the fiacre were Gerald and a woman. Gerald had not seen her; he was talking eagerly to his ornate companion. All his body was alive. The fiacre was out of sight in a moment, but Sophia judged instantly the grade of the woman, who was evidently of the discreet67 class that frequented the big shops of an afternoon with something of their own to sell.
Sophia's grimness increased. The pace of the fiacre, her fatigued68 body, Gerald's delightful69, careless vivacity70, the attractive streaming veil of the nice, modest courtesan--everything conspired71 to increase it.
1 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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2 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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3 solace | |
n.安慰;v.使快乐;vt.安慰(物),缓和 | |
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4 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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5 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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6 arid | |
adj.干旱的;(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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7 exultation | |
n.狂喜,得意 | |
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8 jaded | |
adj.精疲力竭的;厌倦的;(因过饱或过多而)腻烦的;迟钝的 | |
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9 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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10 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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11 penury | |
n.贫穷,拮据 | |
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12 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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13 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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14 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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15 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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17 flicking | |
(尤指用手指或手快速地)轻击( flick的现在分词 ); (用…)轻挥; (快速地)按开关; 向…笑了一下(或瞥了一眼等) | |
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18 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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19 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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20 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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21 dame | |
n.女士 | |
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22 cane | |
n.手杖,细长的茎,藤条;v.以杖击,以藤编制的 | |
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23 blithe | |
adj.快乐的,无忧无虑的 | |
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24 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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25 vent | |
n.通风口,排放口;开衩;vt.表达,发泄 | |
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26 deviating | |
v.偏离,越轨( deviate的现在分词 ) | |
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27 vivacious | |
adj.活泼的,快活的 | |
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28 cannons | |
n.加农炮,大炮,火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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29 feverish | |
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的 | |
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30 regiments | |
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物 | |
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31 cavalry | |
n.骑兵;轻装甲部队 | |
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32 prancing | |
v.(马)腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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33 panorama | |
n.全景,全景画,全景摄影,全景照片[装置] | |
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34 exacerbated | |
v.使恶化,使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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36 inconvenient | |
adj.不方便的,令人感到麻烦的 | |
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37 transcending | |
超出或超越(经验、信念、描写能力等)的范围( transcend的现在分词 ); 优于或胜过… | |
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38 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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39 forsake | |
vt.遗弃,抛弃;舍弃,放弃 | |
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40 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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41 affronting | |
v.勇敢地面对( affront的现在分词 );相遇 | |
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42 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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43 fatigue | |
n.疲劳,劳累 | |
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44 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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45 tightened | |
收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)变紧; (使)绷紧; 加紧 | |
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46 exterminated | |
v.消灭,根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 infamies | |
n.声名狼藉( infamy的名词复数 );臭名;丑恶;恶行 | |
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48 intensifying | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的现在分词 );增辉 | |
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49 tainted | |
adj.腐坏的;污染的;沾污的;感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 );使污染;败坏;被污染,腐坏,败坏 | |
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50 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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51 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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52 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
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53 enchanting | |
a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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54 stylish | |
adj.流行的,时髦的;漂亮的,气派的 | |
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55 attired | |
adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服,使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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57 imperialism | |
n.帝国主义,帝国主义政策 | |
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58 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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59 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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60 ratification | |
n.批准,认可 | |
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61 envisaging | |
想像,设想( envisage的现在分词 ) | |
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62 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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63 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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64 scatter | |
vt.撒,驱散,散开;散布/播;vi.分散,消散 | |
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65 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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66 upwards | |
adv.向上,在更高处...以上 | |
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67 discreet | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
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68 fatigued | |
adj. 疲乏的 | |
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69 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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70 vivacity | |
n.快活,活泼,精神充沛 | |
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71 conspired | |
密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 ); 搞阴谋; (事件等)巧合; 共同导致 | |
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