老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
I
Sophia lay awake one night in the room lately quitted by Carlier.That silent negation of individuality had come and gone, and leftscarcely any record of himself either in his room or in thememories of those who had surrounded his existence in the house.Sophia had decided to descend from the sixth floor, partly becausethe temptation of a large room, after months in a cubicle, wasrather strong; but more because of late she had been obliged tobarricade the door of the cubicle with a chest of drawers, owingto the propensities of a new tenant of the sixth floor. It wasuseless to complain to the concierge; the sole effective argumentwas the chest of drawers, and even that was frailer than Sophiacould have wished. Hence, finally, her retreat.
She heard the front-door of the flat open; then it was shut withnervous violence. The resonance of its closing would havecertainly wakened less accomplished sleepers than M. Niepce andhis friend, whose snores continued with undisturbed regularity.After a pause of shuffling, a match was struck, and feet creptacross the corridor with the most exaggerated precautions againstnoise. There followed the unintentional bang of another door. Itwas decidedly the entry of a man without the slightest naturalaptitude for furtive irruptions. The clock in M. Niepce's room,which the grocer had persuaded to exact time-keeping, chimed threewith its delicate ting.
For several days past Chirac had been mysteriously engaged verylate at the bureaux of the Debats. No one knew the nature of hisemployment; he said nothing, except to inform Sophia that he wouldcontinue to come home about three o'clock until further notice.She had insisted on leaving in his room the materials andapparatus for a light meal. Naturally he had protested, with theirrational obstinacy of a physically weak man who sticks to itthat he can defy the laws of nature. But he had protested in vain.
His general conduct since Christmas Day had frightened Sophia, inspite of her tendency to stifle facile alarms at their birth. Hehad eaten scarcely anything at all, and he went about with theface of a man dying of a broken heart. The change in him wasindeed tragic. And instead of improving, he grew worse. "Have Idone this?" Sophia asked herself. "It is impossible that I shouldhave done this! It is absurd and ridiculous that he should behaveso!" Her thoughts were employed alternately in sympathizing withhim and in despising him, in blaming herself and in blaming him.When they spoke, they spoke awkwardly, as though one or both ofthem had committed a shameful crime, which could not even bementioned. The atmosphere of the flat was tainted by the horror.And Sophia could not offer him a bowl of soup without wonderinghow he would look at her or avoid looking, and without carefullyarranging in advance her own gestures and speech. Existence was anightmare of self-consciousness.
"At last they have unmasked their batteries!" he had exclaimedwith painful gaiety two days after Christmas, when the besiegershad recommenced their cannonade. He tried to imitate the strange,general joy of the city, which had been roused from apathy by therecurrence of a familiar noise; but the effort was a deplorablefailure. And Sophia condemned not merely the failure of Chirac'simitation, but the thing imitated. "Childish!" she thought. Yet,despise the feebleness of Chirac's behaviour as she might, she wasdeeply impressed, genuinely astonished, by the gravity andpersistence of the symptoms. "He must have been getting himselfinto a state about me for a long time," she thought. "Surely hecould not have gone mad like this all in a day or two! But I nevernoticed anything. No; honestly I never noticed anything!" And justas her behaviour in the restaurant had shaken Chirac's confidencein his knowledge of the other sex, so now the singular behaviourof Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She was frightened,though she pretended not to be frightened.
She had lived over and over again the scene in the restaurant. Sheasked herself over and over again if really she had not beforehandexpected him to make love to her in the restaurant. She could notdecide exactly when she had begun to expect a declaration; butprobably a long time before the meal was finished. She hadforeseen it, and might have stopped it. But she had not chosen tostop it. Curiosity concerning not merely him, but also herself,had tempted her tacitly to encourage him. She asked herself overand over again why she had repulsed him. It struck her as curiousthat she had repulsed him. Was it because she was a married woman?Was it because she had moral scruples? Was it at bottom becauseshe did not care for him? Was it because she could not care foranybody? Was it because his fervid manner of love-making offendedher English phlegm? And did she feel pleased or displeased by hisforbearance in not renewing the assault? She could not answer. Shedid not know.
But all the time she knew that she wanted love. Only, sheconceived a different kind of love: placid, regular, somewhatstern, somewhat above the plane of whims, moods, caresses, and allmere fleshly contacts. Not that she considered that she despisedthese things (though she did)! What she wanted was a love that wastoo proud, too independent, to exhibit frankly either its joy orits pain. She hated a display of sentiment. And even in the mostintimate abandonments she would have made reserves, and would haveexpected reserves, trusting to a lover's powers of divination, andto her own! The foundation of her character was a haughty moralindependence, and this quality was what she most admired inothers.
Chirac's inability to draw from his own pride strength to sustainhimself against the blow of her refusal gradually killed in herthe sexual desire which he had aroused, and which during a fewdays flickered up under the stimulus of fancy and of regret.Sophia saw with increasing clearness that her unreasoning instincthad been right in saying him nay. And when, in spite of this,regrets still visited her, she would comfort herself in thinking:"I cannot be bothered with all that sort of thing. It is not worthwhile. What does it lead to? Is not life complicated enoughwithout that? No, no! I will stay as I am. At any rate I know whatI am in for, as things are!" And she would reflect upon herhopeful financial situation, and the approaching prospect of aconstantly sufficient income. And a little thrill of impatienceagainst the interminable and gigantic foolishness of the siegewould take her.
But her self-consciousness in presence of Chirac did not abate.
As she lay in bed she awaited accustomed sounds which should haveconnoted Chirac's definite retirement for the night. Her ear,however, caught no sound whatever from his room. Then she imaginedthat there was a smell of burning in the flat. She sat up, andsniffed anxiously, of a sudden wideawake and apprehensive. Andthen she was sure that the smell of burning was not in herimagination. The bedroom was in perfect darkness. Feverishly shesearched with her right hand for the matches on the night-table,and knocked candlestick and matches to the floor. She seized herdressing-gown, which was spread over the bed, and put it on,aiming for the door. Her feet were bare. She discovered the door.In the passage she could discern nothing at first, and then shemade out a thin line of light, which indicated the bottom ofChirac's door. The smell of burning was strong and unmistakable.She went towards the faint light, fumbled for the door-handle withher palm, and opened. It did not occur to her to call out and askwhat was the matter.
The house was not on fire; but it might have been. She had left onthe table at the foot of Chirac's bed a small cooking-lamp, and asaucepan of bouillon. All that Chirac had to do was to ignite thelamp and put the saucepan on it. He had ignited the lamp, havingpreviously raised the double wicks, and had then dropped into thechair by the table just as he was, and sunk forward and gone tosleep with his head lying sideways on the table. He had not putthe saucepan on the lamp; he had not lowered the wicks, and theflames, capped with thick black smoke, were waving slowly to andfro within a few inches of his loose hair. His hat had rolledalong the floor; he was wearing his great overcoat and one woollenglove; the other glove had lodged on his slanting knee. A candlewas also burning.
Sophia hastened forward, as it were surreptitiously, and with aforward-reaching movement turned down the wicks of the lamp; blackspecks were falling on the table; happily the saucepan wascovered, or the bouillon would have been ruined.
Chirac made a heart-rending spectacle, and Sophia was aware ofdeep and painful emotion in seeing him thus. He must have beenutterly exhausted and broken by loss of sleep. He was a manincapable of regular hours, incapable of treating his body withdecency. Though going to bed at three o'clock, he had continued torise at his usual hour. He looked like one dead; but more sad,more wistful. Outside in the street a fog reigned, and his thindraggled beard was jewelled with the moisture of it. His attitudehad the unconsidered and violent prostration of an overspent dog.The beaten animal in him was expressed in every detail of thatposture. It showed even in his white, drawn eyelids, and in thefalling of a finger. All his face was very sad. It appealed formercy as the undefended face of sleep always appeals; it was sohelpless, so exposed, so simple. It recalled Sophia to a sense ofthe inner mysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanitywalks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses. She did notphysically shudder; but her soul shuddered.
She mechanically placed the saucepan on the lamp, and the noiseawakened Chirac. He groaned. At first he did not perceive her.When he saw that some one was looking down at him, he did notimmediately realize who this some one was. He rubbed his eyes withhis fists, exactly like a baby, and sat up, and the chair cracked.
"What then?" he demanded. "Oh, madame, I ask pardon. What?"
"You have nearly destroyed the house," she said. "I smelt fire,and I came in. I was just in time. There is no danger now. Butplease be careful." She made as if to move towards the door.
"But what did I do?" he asked, his eyelids wavering.
She explained.
He rose from his chair unsteadily. She told him to sit down again,and he obeyed as though in a dream.
"I can go now," she said.
"Wait one moment," he murmured. "I ask pardon. I should not knowhow to thank you. You are truly too good. Will you wait onemoment?"
His tone was one of supplication. He gazed at her, a littledazzled by the light and by her. The lamp and the candleilluminated the lower part of her face, theatrically, and showedthe texture of her blue flannel peignoir; the pattern of a part ofthe lace collar was silhouetted in shadow on her cheek. Her facewas flushed, and her hair hung down unconfined. Evidently he couldnot recover from his excusable astonishment at the apparition ofsuch a figure in his room.
"What is it--now?" she said. The faint, quizzical emphasis whichshe put on the 'now' indicated the essential of her thought. Thesight of him touched her and filled her with a womanly sympathy.But that sympathy was only the envelope of her disdain of him. Shecould not admire weakness. She could but pity it with a pity inwhich scorn was mingled. Her instinct was to treat him as a child.He had failed in human dignity. And it seemed to her as if she hadnot previously been quite certain whether she could not love him,but that now she was quite certain. She was close to him. She sawthe wounds of a soul that could not hide its wounds, and sheresented the sight. She was hard. She would not make allowances.And she revelled in her hardness. Contempt--a good-natured,kindly, forgiving contempt--that was the kernel of the sympathywhich exteriorly warmed her! Contempt for the lack of self-controlwhich had resulted in this swift degeneration of a man into atortured victim! Contempt for the lack of perspective whichmagnified a mere mushroom passion till it filled the whole fieldof life! Contempt for this feminine slavery to sentiment! She feltthat she might have been able to give herself to Chirac as onegives a toy to an infant. But of loving him ...! No! She wasconscious of an immeasurable superiority to him, for she wasconscious of the freedom of a strong mind.
"I wanted to tell you," said he, "I am going away."
"Where?" she asked.
"Out of Paris."
and kissed it.falling on the table; happily the saucepan .
"Out of Paris? How?"
"By balloon! My journal ...! It is an affair of great importance.You understand. I offered myself. What would you?"
"It is dangerous," she observed, waiting to see if he would put onthe silly air of one who does not understand fear.
"Oh!" the poor fellow muttered with a fatuous intonation andsnapping of the fingers. "That is all the same to me. Yes, it isdangerous. Yes, it is dangerous!" he repeated. "But what wouldyou ...? For me ...!"
She wished that she had not mentioned danger. It hurt her to watchhim incurring her ironic disdain.
"It will be the night after to-morrow," he said. "In the courtyardof the Gare du Nord. I want you to come and see me go. Iparticularly want you to come and see me go. I have asked Carlierto escort you."
He might have been saying, "I am offering myself to martyrdom, andyou must assist at the spectacle."
She despised him yet more.
"Oh! Be tranquil," he said. "I shall not worry you. Never shall Ispeak to you again of my love. I know you. I know it would beuseless. But I hope you will come and wish me bon voyage."
"Of course, if you really wish it," she replied with cheerfulcoolness.
He seized her hand and kissed it.
Once it had pleased her when he kissed her hand. But now she didnot like it. It seemed hysterical and foolish to her. She felt herfeet to be stone-cold on the floor.
gaiety two days after Christmas, when the besiegershad.
"I'll leave you now," she said. "Please eat your soup."
She escaped, hoping he would not espy her feet.