老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
III
Was Constance happy? Of course there was always something on hermind, something that had to be dealt with, either in the shop orin the house, something to employ all the skill and experiencewhich she had acquired. Her life had much in it of laborioustedium--tedium never-ending and monotonous. And both she andSamuel worked consistently hard, rising early, 'pushing forward,'as the phrase ran, and going to bed early from sheer fatigue; weekafter week and month after month as season changed imperceptiblyinto season. In June and July it would happen to them occasionallyto retire before the last silver of dusk was out of the sky. Theywould lie in bed and talk placidly of their daily affairs. Therewould be a noise in the street below. "Vaults closing!" Samuelwould say, and yawn. "Yes, it's quite late," Constance would say.And the Swiss clock would rapidly strike eleven on its coil ofresonant wire. And then, just before she went to sleep, Constancemight reflect upon her destiny, as even the busiest and smoothestwomen do, and she would decide that it was kind. Her mother'sgradual decline and lonely life at Axe saddened her. The cardswhich came now and then at extremely long intervals from Sophiahad been the cause of more sorrow than joy. The naive ecstasies ofher girlhood had long since departed--the price paid forexperience and self-possession and a true vision of things. Thevast inherent melancholy of the universe did not exempt her. Butas she went to sleep she would be conscious of a vaguecontentment. The basis of this contentment was the fact that sheand Samuel comprehended and esteemed each other, and madeallowances for each other. Their characters had been tested andhad stood the test. Affection, love, was not to them a salientphenomenon in their relations. Habit had inevitably dulled itsglitter. It was like a flavouring, scarce remarked; but had itbeen absent, how they would have turned from that dish!
Samuel never, or hardly ever, set himself to meditate upon theproblem whether or not life had come up to his expectations. Buthe had, at times, strange sensations which he did not analyze, andwhich approached nearer to ecstasy than any feeling ofConstance's. Thus, when he was in one of his dark furies, moltenwithin and black without, the sudden thought of his wife'sunalterable benignant calm, which nothing could overthrow, mightstrike him into a wondering cold. For him she was astoundinglyfeminine. She would put flowers on the mantelpiece, and then,hours afterwards, in the middle of a meal, ask him unexpectedlywhat he thought of her 'garden;' and he gradually divined that aperfunctory reply left her unsatisfied; she wanted a genuineopinion; a genuine opinion mattered to her. Fancy calling flowerson a mantelpiece a 'garden'! How charming, how childlike! Then shehad a way, on Sunday mornings, when she descended to the parlourall ready for chapel, of shutting the door at the foot of thestairs with a little bang, shaking herself, and turning roundswiftly as if for his inspection, as if saying: "Well, what aboutthis? Will this do?" A phenomenon always associated in his mindwith the smell of kid gloves! Invariably she asked him about thecolours and cut of her dresses. Would he prefer this, or that? Hecould not take such questions seriously until one day he happenedto hint, merely hint, that he was not a thorough-going admirer ofa certain new dress--it was her first new dress after the definiteabandonment of crinolines. She never wore it again. He thought shewas not serious at first, and remonstrated against a joke beingcarried too far. She said: "It's not a bit of use you talking, Ishan't wear it again." And then he so far appreciated herseriousness as to refrain, by discretion, from any comment. Theincident affected him for days. It flattered him; it thrilled him;but it baffled him. Strange that a woman subject to such capricesshould be so sagacious, capable, and utterly reliable as Constancewas! For the practical and commonsense side of her eternallycompelled his admiration. The very first example of it--herinsistence that the simultaneous absence of both of them from theshop for half an hour or an hour twice a day would not mean theimmediate downfall of the business--had remained in his mind eversince. Had she not been obstinate--in her benevolent way--againstthe old superstition which he had acquired from his employers,they might have been eating separately to that day. Then herhandling of her mother during the months of the siege of Paris,when Mrs. Baines was convinced that her sinful daughter was inhourly danger of death, had been extraordinarily fine, heconsidered. And the sequel, a card for Constance's birthday, hadcompletely justified her attitude.
Sometimes some blundering fool would jovially exclaim to them:
"What about that baby?"
Or a woman would remark quietly: "I often feel sorry you've nochildren."
And they would answer that really they did not know what theywould do if there was a baby. What with the shop and one thing oranother ...! And they were quite sincere.