Then she was lying in bed in a small room, obscure because it was heavily curtained; the light came through the inner pair of curtains of ecru lace, with a beautiful soft silvery quality. A man was standing1 by the side of the bed--not Chirac.
"Now, madame," he said to her, with kind firmness, and speaking with a charming exaggerated purity of the vowels3. "You have the mucous4 fever. I have had it myself. You will be forced to take baths, very frequently. I must ask you to reconcile yourself to that, to be good."
She did not reply. It did not occur to her to reply. But she certainly thought that this doctor--he was probably a doctor--was overestimating5 her case. She felt better than she had felt for two days. Still, she did not desire to move, nor was she in the least anxious as to her surroundings. She lay quiet.
A woman in a rather coquettish deshabille watched over her with expert skill.
Later, Sophia seemed to be revisiting the sea on whose waves the cab had swum; but now she was under the sea, in a watery6 gulf7, terribly deep; and the sounds of the world came to her through the water, sudden and strange. Hands seized her and forced her from the subaqueous grotto8 where she had hidden into new alarms. And she briefly9 perceived that there was a large bath by the side of the bed, and that she was being pushed into it. The water was icy cold. After that her outlook upon things was for a time clearer and more precise. She knew from fragments of talk which she heard that she was put into the cold bath by her bed every three hours, night and day, and that she remained in it for ten minutes. Always, before the bath, she had to drink a glass of wine, and sometimes another glass while she was in the bath. Beyond this wine, and occasionally a cup of soup, she took nothing, had no wish to take anything. She grew perfectly10 accustomed to these extraordinary habits of life, to this merging11 of night and day into one monotonous12 and endless repetition of the same rite13 amid the same circumstances on exactly the same spot. Then followed a period during which she objected to being constantly wakened up for this annoying immersion14. And she fought against it even in her dreams. Long days seemed to pass when she could not be sure whether she had been put into the bath or not, when all external phenomena15 were disconcertingly interwoven with matters which she knew to be merely fanciful. And then she was overwhelmed by the hopeless gravity of her state. She felt that her state was desperate. She felt that she was dying. Her unhappiness was extreme, not because she was dying, but because the veils of sense were so puzzling, so exasperating16, and because her exhausted17 body was so vitiated, in every fibre, by disease. She was perfectly aware that she was going to die. She cried aloud for a pair of scissors. She wanted to cut off her hair, and to send part of it to Constance and part of it to her mother, in separate packages. She insisted upon separate packages. Nobody would give her a pair of scissors. She implored18, meekly19, haughtily20, furiously, but nobody would satisfy her. It seemed to her shocking that all her hair should go with her into her coffin21 while Constance and her mother had nothing by which to remember her, no tangible22 souvenir of her beauty. Then she fought for the scissors. She clutched at some one--always through those baffling veils--who was putting her into the bath by the bedside, and fought frantically23. It appeared to her that this some one was the rather stout24 woman who had supped at Sylvain's with the quarrelsome Englishman, four years ago. She could not rid herself of this singular conceit25, though she knew it to be absurd. ...
A long time afterwards--it seemed like a century--she did actually and unmistakably see the woman sitting by her bed, and the woman was crying.
"Why are you crying?" Sophia asked wonderingly.
And the other, younger, woman, who was standing at the foot of the bed, replied:
"You do well to ask! It is you who have hurt her, in your delirium26, when you so madly demanded the scissors."
The stout woman smiled with the tears on her cheeks; but Sophia wept, from remorse27. The stout woman looked old, worn, and untidy. The other one was much younger. Sophia did not trouble to inquire from them who they were.
That little conversation formed a brief interlude in the delirium, which overtook her again and distorted everything. She forgot, however, that she was destined28 to die.
One day her brain cleared. She could be sure that she had gone to sleep in the morning and not wakened till the evening. Hence she had not been put into the bath.
"Have I had my baths?" she questioned.
It was the doctor who faced her.
"No," he said, "the baths are finished."
She knew from his face that she was out of danger. Moreover, she was conscious of a new feeling in her body, as though the fount of physical energy within her, long interrupted, had recommenced to flow--but very slowly, a trickling29. It was a rebirth. She was not glad, but her body itself was glad; her body had an existence of its own.
She was now often left by herself in the bedroom. To the right of the foot of the bed was a piano in walnut30, and to the left a chimney-piece with a large mirror. She wanted to look at herself in the mirror. But it was a very long way off. She tried to sit up, and could not. She hoped that one day she would be able to get as far as the mirror. She said not a word about this to either of the two women.
Often they would sit in the bedroom and talk without ceasing. Sophia learnt that the stout woman was named Foucault, and the other Laurence. Sometimes Laurence would address Madame Foucault as Aimee, but usually she was more formal. Madame Foucault always called the other Laurence.
Sophia's curiosity stirred and awoke. But she could not obtain any very exact information as to where she was, except that the house was in the Rue31 Breda, off the Rue Notre Dame2 de Lorette. She recollected32 vaguely33 that the reputation of the street was sinister34. It appeared that, on the day when she had gone out with Chirac, the upper part of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette was closed for repairs--(this she remembered)--and that the cabman had turned up the Rue Breda in order to make a detour35, and that it was just opposite to the house of Madame Foucault that she had lost consciousness. Madame Foucault happened to be getting into a cab at the moment; but she had told Chirac nevertheless to carry Sophia into the house, and a policeman had helped. Then, when the doctor came, it was discovered that she could not be moved, save to a hospital, and both Madame Foucault and Laurence were determined36 that no friend of Chirac's should be committed to the horrors of a Paris hospital. Madame Foucault had suffered in one as a patient, and Laurence had been a nurse in another. ...
Chirac was now away. The women talked loosely of a war.
"How kind you have been!" murmured Sophia, with humid eyes.
But they silenced her with gestures. She was not to talk. They seemed to have nothing further to tell her. They said Chirac would be returning perhaps soon, and that she could talk to him. Evidently they both held Chirac in affection. They said often that he was a charming boy.
Bit by bit Sophia comprehended the length and the seriousness of her illness, and the immense devotion of the two women, and the terrific disturbance37 of their lives, and her own debility. She saw that the women were strongly attached to her, and she could not understand why, as she had never done anything for them, whereas they had done everything for her. She had not learnt that benefits rendered, not benefits received, are the cause of such attachments38.
All the time she was plotting, and gathering39 her strength to disobey orders and get as far as the mirror. Her preliminary studies and her preparations were as elaborate as those of a prisoner arranging to escape from a fortress40. The first attempt was a failure. The second succeeded. Though she could not stand without support, she managed by clinging to the bed to reach a chair, and to push the chair in front of her until it approached the mirror. The enterprise was exciting and terrific. Then she saw a face in the glass: white, incredibly emaciated41, with great, wild, staring eyes; and the shoulders were bent42 as though with age. It was a painful, almost a horrible sight. It frightened her, so that in her alarm she recoiled43 from it. Not attending sufficiently44 to the chair, she sank to the ground. She could not pick herself up, and she was caught there, miserably45, by her angered jailers. The vision of her face taught her more efficiently46 than anything else the gravity of her adventure. As the women lifted her inert47, repentant48 mass into the bed, she reflected, "How queer my life is!" It seemed to her that she ought to have been trimming hats in the showroom instead of being in that curtained, mysterious, Parisian interior.
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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vowels
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| n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
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mucous
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| adj. 黏液的，似黏液的 | |
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overestimating
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| 对（数量）估计过高，对…作过高的评价( overestimate的现在分词 ) | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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grotto
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| n.洞穴 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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merging
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| 合并（分类） | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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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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32
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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detour
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| n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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attachments
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| n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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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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43
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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44
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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repentant
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| adj.对…感到悔恨的 | |
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