It behooves1 me now to pass over a period of two years during which so little happened that bore directly upon the fortunes of any concerned in this lamentable2 history that to touch upon them would be to specify3 merely the matter-of-fact occurrences of ordinary daily life. To me they were an experience of peace and rest such as I had never yet known. I think—a long sleep on the broad sands of forgetfulness, whitherward the storm had cast me, and from which it was to tear me by and by with redoubled fury and mangle5 and devour6 my heart in gluttonous7 ferocity.
As yet, however, the moment had not come, and I lived and went my way in peace and resignation.
The first forewarning came one September afternoon of that second year of rest.
I had been butterfly-hunting about the meadows that lay to the west of the city, when a particularly fine specimen8 of the second brood of Brimstone tempted9 me over some railings that hedged in the ridge10 of a railway cutting that here bisected the chalky slopes of pasture land. I was cautiously approaching my settled quarry11, net in hand, when I started with an exclamation12 that lost me my prize.
On the metals, some distance below, a man whose attitude seemed somehow familiar to me was standing13.
I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked down, with bewilderment and a little fear constricting14 my heart.
He stood very still, staring up the line, and a thickness came in my throat, so that I could not for the moment call to him as I wanted to. For there was an ominous15 suggestion in his posture16 that sent a wave of sickness through me—a suggestion of rigid17 expectation, like that one might fancy a victim of the old reign18 of terror would have shown as he waited his turn on the guillotine.
And as I paused in indecision—at that moment came a surging rumble19 and a puff20 of steam from a dip in the hills a hundred yards away, and the figure threw itself down, with its neck stretched over the shining vein21 of iron that ran in front of it. And I cried “Jason!” in a nightmare voice, and had hardly strength to turn my head away from the sight that I knew was coming. Yet through all my sick panic the shadow of a thought flashed—blame me for it who will—“Let me bear it and not give way, for he is taking the sure way to end his terror.”
The thunder of the monster death came with the thought—shook the air of the hills—broke into a piercing scream of triumph as it rushed down on its victim—passed and clanged away among the hollows, as if the crushed mass in its jaws22 were choking it to silence. Then I brushed the blind horror from my eyes and looked down.
He was lying on the chalk of the embankment below me; he was stirring; he sat up and looked about him with a bewildered stare. The tragedy had ended in bathos after all. At the last moment courage had failed the poor wretch23 and he had leaped from the hurtling doom24.
Shaking all over, I scrambled25, slipping and rolling, down the slope, and landed on my feet before him.
“Up!” I cried; “up! Don’t wait to speak or explain! They’ll telegraph from the next stopping-place, and you’ll be laid by the heels for attempted suicide.”
He rose staggering and half-fell against me.
“Renny,” he whimpered in a thick voice and clutched at my shoulders to steady himself. “My God! I nearly did it—didn’t I?”
“Come away, I tell you. It’ll be too late in another half-hour.”
I ran him, shambling and stumbling, down the cutting till we had made a half-circuit of the town and were able to enter it at a point due east to that we had left. Then at last, on the slope of that quiet road we had crossed when escaping from Duke, I paused to gather breath and regard this returned brother of mine.
It was a sorry spectacle that met my vision, a personality pitiably fallen and degraded during those thirty months or so of absence. It was not only that the mere4 animal beauty of it was coarsened and debauched into a parody27 of itself, but that its informing spirit was so blunted by indulgence as to have lost forever that pathetic dignity of despair, with which a hounding persecution28 had once inspired it.
As I looked at him, at his dull, bloodshot eyes and loose pendulous29 lower lip, my heart hardened despite myself and I had difficulty in addressing him with any show of civility.
“Now,” I said, “what next?”
He stared at me quite expressionless and swayed where he stood. He was stupid and sodden30 with drink, it was evident.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “I’m heavy for sleep as a hedgehog in the sun.”
I set my lips and pushed him onward31. It was hopeless entirely32 to think of questioning him as to the reason of his sudden reappearance, and under such circumstances, in his present state. The most I could do was to get him within the mill as quietly as possible and settle him somewhere to sleep off his debauch26.
In this I was successful beyond my expectations, and not even my father, who lay resting in his room—as he often did now in the hot afternoons—knew of his return till late in the evening.
In the fresh gloom of the evening he stirred and woke. His brain was still clouded, but he was in, I supposed, such right senses as he ever enjoyed now. At the sound of his moving I came and stood over him. He stared at me for a long time in silence, as he lay.
“Do you know where you are?” I said at last.
“Yes; it’s the mill. I brought you here filthy35 with drink, after you’d tried to throw yourself under a train and thought better of it.”
“I thought of it all the way in the train—coming up—from London,” he said in a shrill37 undervoice. “When I got out at the station I had some more—the last straw, I suppose—for I wandered, and found myself above the place—and the devil drove me down to do it.”
“I couldn’t—when I heard it. And the very wind of it seemed to tear at me as it passed.”
“What brings you to London? I thought you were still abroad.”
“He found you out over there, then?”
“I can’t hide from him. I’ve never had a week of rest and peace after that first year. It was all right then. I threw upon the green cloth the miserable41 surplus of the stuff you lent me and won. For six months we lived like fighting cocks. We dressed the young ’un in the color that brought us luck. My soul, she’s a promising42 chick, Renny. You’re her uncle, you know; you can’t go back from that.”
“Where did he come across you?”
“In a kursaal at Homburg. We were down in the mouth then. Six weeks of lentils and sour bread. I saw him looking at me across the petits chevaux table—curse his brute43’s face! We never got rid of him after that. Give me some drink. My heart’s dancing like a pea on a drum.”
“There’s water on the wash-hand stand.”
“Don’t talk like that. There’s a fire here no water can reach.”
“What’s the good of moralizing with a poor fool condemned46 to perdition? It’s my only means of escaping out of hell for a moment. Sometimes, with that in me, I’m a man again.”
“A man!”
“There—get it for me, like a dear old chap, and don’t talk. It’s so easy for a saint to point a moral.”
He was so obviously on the verge47 of utter collapse48 that I felt the lesser49 responsibility would be to humor him. I fetched what he begged for and he gulped50 down a wineglassful of the raw stuff.
“Now,” I said, “are you better?”
“A little drop more and I’m a peacock with my tail up.” He tossed off a second dose of almost like proportion.
“Now,” he said, dangling51 his legs over the bedside, and giving a foolish reckless laugh, “question, mon frère, and I will answer.”
“You fled from him to England again?”
“To London, of all places. It’s the safest in the world, they say; where a man may leave his wife and live in the next street for twenty-five years without her knowing it.”
“You haven’t left yours?”
“No—we stick together. Zyp’s trumps53, she is, you long-faced moralizer; not that she holds one by her looks any longer. And that’s to my credit for sticking to her. You missed something in my being beforehand with you there, I can tell you.”
Was this pitiful creature worth one thrill of passion or resentment54? I let him go on.
“For months that devil followed us,” he said. “At last he forced a quarrel upon me in some vile55 drinking-place and brought me a challenge from the man he was seconding. You should have seen his face as he handed it to me! It took all the fighting nerve out of me. I swear I would have stood up to his fellow if he had found another backer.”
“And you ran away?”
“What else could I do?”
“And he pursued you again?”
“There isn’t any doubt of it—though his dreadful face hasn’t appeared to me as yet.”
“You had the nerve, it seems, to travel down here all alone?”
“I borrowed it. Sometimes now, when the stuff runs warm in me, I feel almost as if I could turn upon him and defy him. I’m in the mood at this moment. Why doesn’t he come when I’m ready for him? Oh, the brute! The miserable, cowardly brute!”
He jumped to his feet, gnashing his teeth and shaking his fists convulsively in the air.
As he stood thus, the door of the room opened, and I turned to see my father fall forward upon his face, with a bitter cry.
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1
behooves
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| n.利益，好处( behoof的名词复数 )v.适宜( behoove的第三人称单数 ) | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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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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6
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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gluttonous
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| adj.贪吃的，贪婪的 | |
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8
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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12
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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13
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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14
constricting
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| 压缩，压紧，使收缩( constrict的现在分词 ) | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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17
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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18
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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19
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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20
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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21
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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22
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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23
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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24
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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25
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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26
debauch
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| v.使堕落，放纵 | |
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27
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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28
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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29
pendulous
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| adj.下垂的；摆动的 | |
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30
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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31
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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32
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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33
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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34
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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35
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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36
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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37
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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38
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
persecuting
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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40
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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41
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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42
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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43
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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44
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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45
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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46
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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47
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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48
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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49
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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50
gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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51
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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52
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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53
trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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54
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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55
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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