ACCORDING TO the poster in the hallway, the date of the first performance of The Trials of Arabella was only one day after the first rehearsal1. However, it was not easy for the writer-director to find clear time for concentrated work. As on the preceding afternoon, the trouble lay in assembling the cast. During the night Arabella’s disapproving2 father, Jackson, had wet the bed, as troubled small boys far from home will, and was obliged by current theory to carry his sheets and pajamas3 down to the laundry and wash them himself, by hand, under the supervision4 of Betty who had been instructed to be distant and firm. This was not represented to the boy as a punishment, the idea being to instruct his unconscious that future lapses5 would entail6 inconvenience and hard work; but he was bound to feel it as reproof7 as he stood at the vast stone sink which rose level to his chest, suds creeping up his bare arms to soak his rolled-up shirtsleeves, the wet sheets as heavy as a dead dog and a general sense of calamity8 numbing9 his will. Briony came down at intervals10 to check on his progress. She was forbidden to help, and Jackson, of course, had never laundered11 a thing in his life; the two washes, countless12 rinses13 and the sustained two-handed grappling with the mangle14, as well as the fifteen trembling minutes he had afterward15 at the kitchen table with bread and butter and a glass of water, took up two hours’ rehearsal time.
Betty told Hardman when he came in from the morning heat for his pint16 of ale that it was enough that she was having to prepare a special roast dinner in such weather, and that she personally thought the treatment too harsh, and would have administered several sharp smacks17 to the buttocks and washed the sheets herself. This would have suited Briony, for the morning was slipping away. When her mother came down to see for herself that the task was done, it was inevitable18 that a feeling of release should settle on the participants, and in Mrs. Tallis’s mind a degree of unacknowledged guilt19, so that when Jackson asked in a small voice if he might please now be allowed a swim in the pool and could his brother come too, his wish was immediately granted, and Briony’s objections generously brushed aside, as though she were the one who was imposing20 unpleasant ordeals21 on a helpless little fellow. So there was swimming, and then there had to be lunch.
Rehearsals22 had continued without Jackson, but it was undermining not to have the important first scene, Arabella’s leave-
taking, brought to perfection, and Pierrot was too nervous about the fate of his brother down in the bowels23 of the house to be much in the way of a dastardly foreign count; whatever happened to Jackson would be Pierrot’s future too. He made frequent trips to the lavatory24 at the end of the corridor.
When Briony returned from one of her visits to the laundry, he asked her, “Has he had the spanking25?”
“Not as yet.”
Like his brother, Pierrot had the knack26 of depriving his lines of any sense. He intoned a roll call of words: “Do-you-think-you-can-escape-from-my-clutches?” All present and correct.
“It’s a question,” Briony cut in. “Don’t you see? It goes up at the end.”
“What do you mean?”
“There. You just did it. You start low and end high. It’s a question.”
He swallowed hard, drew a breath and made another attempt, producing this time a roll call on a rising chromatic27 scale.
“At the end. It goes up at the end!”
Now came a roll call on the old monotone, with a break of register, a yodel, on the final syllable28.
Lola had come to the nursery that morning in the guise29 of the adult she considered herself at heart to be. She wore pleated flannel30 trousers that ballooned at the hips31 and flared32 at the ankle, and a short-sleeved sweater made of cashmere. Other tokens of maturity33 included a velvet34 choker of tiny pearls, the ginger35 tresses gathered at the nape and secured with an emerald clasp, three loose silver bracelets36 around a freckled37 wrist, and the fact that whenever she moved, the air about her tasted of rosewater. Her condescension38, being wholly restrained, was all the more potent39. She was coolly responsive to Briony’s suggestions, spoke40 her lines, which she seemed to have learned overnight, with sufficient expression, and was gently encouraging to her little brother, without encroaching at all on the director’s authority. It was as if Cecilia, or even their mother, had agreed to spend some time with the little ones by taking on a role in the play, and was determined41 not to let a trace of boredom42 show. What was missing was any demonstration43 of ragged44, childish enthusiasm. When Briony had shown her cousins the sales booth and the collection box the evening before, the twins had fought each other for the best front-of-house roles, but Lola had crossed her arms and paid decorous, grown-up compliments through a half smile that was too opaque45 for the detection of irony46.
“How marvelous. How awfully47 clever of you, Briony, to think of that. Did you really make it all by yourself?”
Briony suspected that behind her older cousin’s perfect manners was a destructive intent. Perhaps Lola was relying on the twins to wreck48 the play innocently, and needed only to stand back and observe.
These unprovable suspicions, Jackson’s detainment in the laundry, Pierrot’s wretched delivery and the morning’s colossal49 heat were oppressive to Briony. It bothered her too when she noticed Danny Hardman watching from the doorway50. He had to be asked to leave. She could not penetrate51 Lola’s detachment or coax52 from Pierrot the common inflections of everyday speech. What a relief, then, suddenly to find herself alone in the nursery. Lola had said she needed to reconsider her hair, and her brother had wandered off down the corridor, to the lavatory, or beyond.
Briony sat on the floor with her back to one of the tall built-in toy cupboards and fanned her face with the pages of her play. The silence in the house was complete—no voices or footfalls downstairs, no murmurs53 from the plumbing54; in the space between one of the open sash windows a trapped fly had abandoned its struggle, and outside, the liquid birdsong had evaporated in the heat. She pushed her knees out straight before her and let the folds of her white muslin dress and the familiar, endearing, pucker55 of skin about her knees fill her view. She should have changed her dress this morning. She thought how she should take more care of her appearance, like Lola. It was childish not to. But what an effort it was. The silence hissed56 in her ears and her vision was faintly distorted—her hands in her lap appeared unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. She raised one hand and flexed57 its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely58 at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent59 her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest60, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge. She brought her forefinger61 closer to her face and stared at it, urging it to move. It remained still because she was pretending, she was not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it. And when she did crook62 it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of her mind. When did it know to move, when did she know to move it? There was no catching63 herself out. It was either-or. There was no stitching, no seam, and yet she knew that behind the smooth continuous fabric64 was the real self—was it her soul?—which took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command.
These thoughts were as familiar to her, and as comforting, as the precise configuration65 of her knees, their matching but competing, symmetrical and reversible, look. A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: Was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Did her sister also have a real self concealed66 behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it, with a finger held up to her face? Did everybody, including her father, Betty, Hardman? If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably67 complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance68. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had. This was sinister69 and lonely, as well as unlikely. For, though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid70 way; she didn’t really feel it.
The rehearsals also offended her sense of order. The self-contained world she had drawn71 with clear and perfect lines had been defaced with the scribble72 of other minds, other needs; and time itself, so easily sectioned on paper into acts and scenes, was even now dribbling73 uncontrollably away. Perhaps she wouldn’t get Jackson back until after lunch. Leon and his friend were arriving in the early evening, or even sooner, and the performance was set for seven o’clock. And still there had been no proper rehearsal, and the twins could not act, or even speak, and Lola had stolen Briony’s rightful role, and nothing could be managed, and it was hot, ludicrously hot. The girl squirmed in her oppression and stood. Dust from along the skirting board had dirtied her hands and the back of her dress. Away in her thoughts, she wiped her palms down her front as she went toward the window. The simplest way to have impressed Leon would have been to write him a story and put it in his hands herself, and watch as he read it. The title lettering, the illustrated74 cover, the pages bound—in that word alone she felt the attraction of the neat, limited and controllable form she had left behind when she decided75 to write a play. A story was direct and simple, allowing nothing to come between herself and her reader—no intermediaries with their private ambitions or incompetence76, no pressures of time, no limits on resources. In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world; in a play you had to make do with what was available: no horses, no village streets, no seaside. No curtain. It seemed so obvious now that it was too late: a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader’s. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. Reading a sentence and understanding it were the same thing; as with the crooking78 of a finger, nothing lay between them. There was no gap during which the symbols were unraveled. You saw the word castle, and it was there, seen from some distance, with woods in high summer spread before it, the air bluish and soft with smoke rising from the blacksmith’s forge, and a cobbled road twisting away into the green shade . . .
She had arrived at one of the nursery’s wide-open windows and must have seen what lay before her some seconds before she registered it. It was a scene that could easily have accommodated, in the distance at least, a medieval castle. Some miles beyond the Tallises’ land rose the Surrey Hills and their motionless crowds of thick crested79 oaks, their greens softened80 by a milky81 heat haze82. Then, nearer, the estate’s open parkland, which today had a dry and savage83 look, roasting like a savanna84, where isolated85 trees threw harsh stumpy shadows and the long grass was already stalked by the leonine yellow of high summer. Closer, within the boundaries of the balustrade, were the rose gardens and, nearer still, the Triton fountain, and standing77 by the basin’s retaining wall was her sister, and right before her was Robbie Turner. There was something rather formal about the way he stood, feet apart, head held back. A proposal of marriage. Briony would not have been surprised. She herself had written a tale in which a humble86 woodcutter saved a princess from drowning and ended by marrying her. What was presented here fitted well. Robbie Turner, only son of a humble cleaning lady and of no known father, Robbie who had been subsidized by Briony’s father through school and university, had wanted to be a landscape gardener, and now wanted to take up medicine, had the boldness of ambition to ask for Cecilia’s hand. It made perfect sense. Such leaps across boundaries were the stuff of daily romance.
What was less comprehensible, however, was how Robbie imperiously raised his hand now, as though issuing a command which Cecilia dared not disobey. It was extraordinary that she was unable to resist him. At his insistence87 she was removing her clothes, and at such speed. She was out of her blouse, now she had let her skirt drop to the ground and was stepping out of it, while he looked on impatiently, hands on hips. What strange power did he have over her? Blackmail88? Threats? Briony raised two hands to her face and stepped back a little way from the window. She should shut her eyes, she thought, and spare herself the sight of her sister’s shame. But that was impossible, because there were further surprises. Cecilia, mercifully still in her underwear, was climbing into the pond, was standing waist deep in the water, was pinching her nose—and then she was gone. There was only Robbie, and the clothes on the gravel89, and beyond, the silent park and the distant, blue hills.
The sequence was illogical—the drowning scene, followed by a rescue, should have preceded the marriage proposal. Such was Briony’s last thought before she accepted that she did not understand, and that she must simply watch. Unseen, from two stories up, with the benefit of unambiguous sunlight, she had privileged access across the years to adult behavior, to rites90 and conventions she knew nothing about, as yet. Clearly, these were the kinds of things that happened. Even as her sister’s head broke the surface—thank God!—Briony had her first, weak intimation that for her now it could no longer be fairy-tale castles and princesses, but the strangeness of the here and now, of what passed between people, the ordinary people that she knew, and what power one could have over the other, and how easy it was to get everything wrong, completely wrong. Cecilia had climbed out of the pond and was fixing her skirt, and with difficulty pulling her blouse on over her wet skin. She turned abruptly91 and picked up from the deep shade of the fountain’s wall a vase of flowers Briony had not noticed before, and set off with it toward the house. No words were exchanged with Robbie, not a glance in his direction. He was now staring into the water, and then he too was striding away, no doubt satisfied, round the side of the house. Suddenly the scene was empty; the wet patch on the ground where Cecilia had got out of the pond was the only evidence that anything had happened at all.
Briony leaned back against a wall and stared unseeingly down the nursery’s length. It was a temptation for her to be magical and dramatic, and to regard what she had witnessed as a tableau92 mounted for her alone, a special moral for her wrapped in a mystery. But she knew very well that if she had not stood when she did, the scene would still have happened, for it was not about her at all. Only chance had brought her to the window. This was not a fairy tale, this was the real, the adult world in which frogs did not address princesses, and the only messages were the ones that people sent. It was also a temptation to run to Cecilia’s room and demand an explanation. Briony resisted because she wanted to chase in solitude93 the faint thrill of possibility she had felt before, the elusive94 excitement at a prospect95 she was coming close to defining, at least emotionally. The definition would refine itself over the years. She was to concede that she may have attributed more deliberation than was feasible to her thirteen-year-old self. At the time there may have been no precise form of words; in fact, she may have experienced nothing more than impatience96 to begin writing again.
As she stood in the nursery waiting for her cousins’ return she sensed she could write a scene like the one by the fountain and she could include a hidden observer like herself. She could imagine herself hurrying down now to her bedroom, to a clean block of lined paper and her marbled, Bakelite fountain pen. She could see the simple sentences, the accumulating telepathic symbols, unfurling at the nib’s end. She could write the scene three times over, from three points of view; her excitement was in the prospect of freedom, of being delivered from the cumbrous struggle between good and bad, heroes and villains97. None of these three was bad, nor were they particularly good. She need not judge. There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.
Six decades later she would describe how at the age of thirteen she had written her way through a whole history of literature, beginning with stories derived98 from the European tradition of folktales, through drama with simple moral intent, to arrive at an impartial99 psychological realism which she had discovered for herself, one special morning during a heat wave in 1935. She would be well aware of the extent of her self-mythologizing, and she gave her account a self-mocking, or mock-heroic tone. Her fiction was known for its amorality, and like all authors pressed by a repeated question, she felt obliged to produce a story line, a plot of her development that contained the moment when she became recognizably herself. She knew that it was not correct to refer to her dramas in the plural100, that her mockery distanced her from the earnest, reflective child, and that it was not the long-ago morning she was recalling so much as her subsequent accounts of it. It was possible that the contemplation of a crooked101 finger, the unbearable102 idea of other minds and the superiority of stories over plays were thoughts she had had on other days. She also knew that whatever actually happened drew its significance from her published work and would not have been remembered without it.
However, she could not betray herself completely; there could be no doubt that some kind of revelation occurred. When the young girl went back to the window and looked down, the damp patch on the gravel had evaporated. Now there was nothing left of the dumb show by the fountain beyond what survived in memory, in three separate and overlapping103 memories. The truth had become as ghostly as invention. She could begin now, setting it down as she had seen it, meeting the challenge by refusing to condemn104 her sister’s shocking near-nakedness, in daylight, right by the house. Then the scene could be recast, through Cecilia’s eyes, and then Robbie’s. But now was not the time to begin. Briony’s sense of obligation, as well as her instinct for order, was powerful; she must complete what she had initiated105, there was a rehearsal in progress, Leon was on his way, the household was expecting a performance tonight. She should go down once more to the laundry to see whether the trials of Jackson were at an end. The writing could wait until she was free.
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rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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entail
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| vt.使承担，使成为必要，需要 | |
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reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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numbing
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| adj.使麻木的，使失去感觉的v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的现在分词 ) | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；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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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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rinses
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| v.漂洗( rinse的第三人称单数 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉 | |
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mangle
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| vt.乱砍，撕裂，破坏，毁损，损坏，轧布 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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smacks
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| 掌掴（声）( smack的名词复数 )； 海洛因； （打的）一拳； 打巴掌 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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ordeals
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| n.严峻的考验，苦难的经历( ordeal的名词复数 ) | |
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rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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spanking
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| adj.强烈的，疾行的；n.打屁股 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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chromatic
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| adj.色彩的，颜色的 | |
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syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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bracelets
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| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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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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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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53
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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54
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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55
pucker
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| v.撅起，使起皱；n.（衣服上的）皱纹，褶子 | |
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56
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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57
flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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58
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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59
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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60
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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61
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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62
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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63
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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64
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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65
configuration
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| n.结构，布局，形态，(计算机)配置 | |
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66
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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67
unbearably
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| adv.不能忍受地，无法容忍地；慌 | |
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68
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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71
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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72
scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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73
dribbling
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| n.（燃料或油从系统内）漏泄v.流口水( dribble的现在分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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74
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate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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incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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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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crooking
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| n.弯曲（木材等的缺陷）v.弯成钩形( crook的现在分词 ) | |
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79
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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80
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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81
milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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82
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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83
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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84
savanna
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| n.大草原 | |
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85
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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86
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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88
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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90
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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92
tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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96
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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97
villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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98
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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99
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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100
plural
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| n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的 | |
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101
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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102
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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103
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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104
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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105
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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