CHAPTER IV

 After that evening Thea’s work with Harsanyi changed somewhat. He insisted that she should study some songs with him, and after almost every lesson he gave up half an hour of his own time to practicing them with her. He did not pretend to know much about voice production, but so far, he thought, she had acquired no really injurious habits. A healthy and powerful organ had found its own method, which was not a bad one. He wished to find out a good deal before he recommended a vocal¹ teacher. He never told Thea what he thought about her voice, and made her general ignorance of anything worth singing his pretext² for the trouble he took. That was in the beginning. After the first few lessons his own pleasure and hers were pretext enough. The singing came at the end of the lesson hour, and they both treated it as a form of relaxation³.

 

Harsanyi did not say much even to his wife about his discovery. He brooded upon it in a curious way. He found that these unscientific singing lessons stimulated⁴ him in his own study. After Miss Kronborg left him he often lay down in his studio for an hour before dinner, with his head full of musical ideas, with an effervescence in his brain which he had sometimes lost for weeks together under the grind of teaching. He had never got so much back for himself from any pupil as he did from Miss Kronborg. From the first she had stimulated him; something in her personality invariably affected⁵ him. Now that he was feeling his way toward her voice, he found her more interesting than ever before. She lifted the tedium⁶ of the winter for him, gave him curious fancies and reveries. Musically, she was sympathetic to him. Why all this was true, he never asked himself. He had learned that one must take where and when one can the mysterious mental irritant that rouses one’s imagination; that it is not to be had by order. She often wearied him, but she never bored him. Under her crudeness and brusque hardness, he felt there was a nature quite different, of which he never got so much as a hint except when she was at the piano, or when she sang. It was toward this hidden creature that he was trying, for his own pleasure, to find his way. In short, Harsanyi looked forward to his hour with Thea for the same reason that poor Wunsch had sometimes dreaded⁷ his; because she stirred him more than anything she did could adequately explain.

 

One afternoon Harsanyi, after the lesson, was standing⁸ by the window putting some collodion on a cracked finger, and Thea was at the piano trying over “Die Lorelei” which he had given her last week to practice. It was scarcely a song which a singing master would have given her, but he had his own reasons. How she sang it mattered only to him and to her. He was playing his own game now, without interference; he suspected that he could not do so always.

 

When she finished the song, she looked back over her shoulder at him and spoke⁹ thoughtfully. “That wasn’t right, at the end, was it?”

 

“No, that should be an open, flowing tone, something like this,”—he waved his fingers rapidly in the air. “You get the idea?”

 

“No, I don’t. Seems a queer ending, after the rest.”

 

Harsanyi corked¹⁰ his little bottle and dropped it into the pocket of his velvet¹¹ coat. “Why so? Shipwrecks¹² come and go, Märchen come and go, but the river keeps right on. There you have your open, flowing tone.”

 

Thea looked intently at the music. “I see,” she said dully. “Oh, I see!” she repeated quickly and turned to him a glowing countenance¹³. “It is the river.—Oh, yes, I get it now!” She looked at him but long enough to catch his glance, then turned to the piano again. Harsanyi was never quite sure where the light came from when her face suddenly flashed out at him in that way. Her eyes were too small to account for it, though they glittered like green ice in the sun. At such moments her hair was yellower, her skin whiter, her cheeks pinker, as if a lamp had suddenly been turned up inside of her. She went at the song again:

 

“Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,

Das ich so traurig bin¹⁴.”

 

A kind of happiness vibrated in her voice. Harsanyi noticed how much and how unhesitatingly she changed her delivery of the whole song, the first part as well as the last. He had often noticed that she could not think a thing out in passages. Until she saw it as a whole, she wandered like a blind man surrounded by torments¹⁵. After she once had her “revelation,” after she got the idea that to her—not always to him—explained everything, then she went forward rapidly. But she was not always easy to help. She was sometimes impervious¹⁶ to suggestion; she would stare at him as if she were deaf and ignore everything he told her to do. Then, all at once, something would happen in her brain and she would begin to do all that he had been for weeks telling her to do, without realizing that he had ever told her.

 

To-night Thea forgot Harsanyi and his finger. She finished the song only to begin it with fresh enthusiasm.

 

“Und das hat mit ihrem singen

Die Lorelei gethan.”

 

She sat there singing it until the darkening room was so flooded with it that Harsanyi threw open a window.

 

“You really must stop it, Miss Kronborg. I shan’t be able to get it out of my head to-night.”

 

Thea laughed tolerantly as she began to gather up her music. “Why, I thought you had gone, Mr. Harsanyi. I like that song.”

 

That evening at dinner Harsanyi sat looking intently into a glass of heavy yellow wine; boring into it, indeed, with his one eye, when his face suddenly broke into a smile.

 

“What is it, Andor?” his wife asked.

 

He smiled again, this time at her, and took up the nutcrackers and a Brazil nut. “Do you know,” he said in a tone so intimate and confidential¹⁷ that he might have been speaking to himself,—“do you know, I like to see Miss Kronborg get hold of an idea. In spite of being so talented, she’s not quick. But when she does get an idea, it fills her up to the eyes. She had my room so reeking¹⁸ of a song this afternoon that I couldn’t stay there.”

 

Mrs. Harsanyi looked up quickly, “‘Die Lorelei,’ you mean? One couldn’t think of anything else anywhere in the house. I thought she was possessed¹⁹. But don’t you think her voice is wonderful sometimes?”

 

Harsanyi tasted his wine slowly. “My dear, I’ve told you before that I don’t know what I think about Miss Kronborg, except that I’m glad there are not two of her. I sometimes wonder whether she is not glad. Fresh as she is at it all, I’ve occasionally fancied that, if she knew how, she would like to—diminish.” He moved his left hand out into the air as if he were suggesting a diminuendo to an orchestra.

1 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

2 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

3 relaxation   

n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐

参考例句：

• The minister has consistently opposed any relaxation in the law.部长一向反对法律上的任何放宽。
• She listens to classical music for relaxation.她听古典音乐放松。

4 stimulated   

a.刺激的

参考例句：

• The exhibition has stimulated interest in her work. 展览增进了人们对她作品的兴趣。
• The award has stimulated her into working still harder. 奖金促使她更加努力地工作。

5 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

6 tedium   

n.单调；烦闷

参考例句：

• We played games to relieve the tedium of the journey.我们玩游戏，来解除旅行的沉闷。
• In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium. 从我自己身上，我所观察到的烦闷的根源有下列一些。

7 dreaded   

adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The dreaded moment had finally arrived. 可怕的时刻终于来到了。
• He dreaded having to spend Christmas in hospital. 他害怕非得在医院过圣诞节不可。 来自《用法词典》

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 corked   

adj.带木塞气味的，塞着瓶塞的v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的过去式 )

参考例句：

• Our army completely surrounded and corked up the enemy stronghold. 我军把敌人的堡垒完全包围并封锁起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He kept his emotions corked up inside him. 他把感情深藏于内心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

12 shipwrecks   

海难，船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 )； 沉船

参考例句：

• Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. 船只失事总是来得出人意料。
• There are many shipwrecks in these waters. 在这些海域多海难事件。

13 countenance   

n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同

参考例句：

• At the sight of this photograph he changed his countenance.他一看见这张照片脸色就变了。
• I made a fierce countenance as if I would eat him alive.我脸色恶狠狠地，仿佛要把他活生生地吞下去。

14 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

15 torments   

（肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人]

参考例句：

• He released me from my torments. 他解除了我的痛苦。
• He suffered torments from his aching teeth. 他牙痛得难受。

16 impervious   

adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的

参考例句：

• He was completely impervious to criticism.他对批评毫不在乎。
• This material is impervious to gases and liquids.气体和液体都透不过这种物质。

17 confidential   

adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的

参考例句：

• He refused to allow his secretary to handle confidential letters.他不让秘书处理机密文件。
• We have a confidential exchange of views.我们推心置腹地交换意见。

18 reeking   

v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象）

参考例句：

• I won't have you reeking with sweat in my bed! 我就不许你混身臭汗，臭烘烘的上我的炕！ 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• This is a novel reeking with sentimentalism. 这是一本充满着感伤主义的小说。 来自辞典例句

19 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。