老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
II
Sophia fled along the passage leading to the shop and took refugein the cutting-out room, a room which the astonishing architecthad devised upon what must have been a backyard of one of thethree constituent houses. It was lighted from its roof, and only awooden partition, eight feet high, separated it from the passage.Here Sophia gave rein to her feelings; she laughed and criedtogether, weeping generously into her handkerchief and wildlygiggling, in a hysteria which she could not control. The spectacleof Mr. Povey mourning for a tooth which he thought he hadswallowed, but which in fact lay all the time in her pocket,seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous, side-splittingthing that had ever happened or could happen on earth. It utterlyovercame her. And when she fancied that she had exhausted andconquered its surpassing ridiculousness, this ridiculousnessseized her again and rolled her anew in depths of mad, tremblinglaughter.
Gradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door open, andConstance descend the kitchen steps with a rattling tray of tea-things. Tea, then, was finished, without her! Constance did notremain in the kitchen, because the cups and saucers were left forMaggie to wash up as a fitting coda to Maggie's monthly holiday.The parlour door closed. And the vision of Mr. Povey in hisantimacassar swept Sophia off into another convulsion of laughterand tears. Upon this the parlour door opened again, and Sophiachoked herself into silence while Constance hastened along thepassage. In a minute Constance returned with her woolwork, whichshe had got from the showroom, and the parlour received her. Notthe least curiosity on the part of Constance as to what had becomeof Sophia!
At length Sophia, a faint meditative smile being all that was leftof the storm in her, ascended slowly to the showroom, through theshop. Nothing there of interest! Thence she wandered towards thedrawing-room, and encountered Mr. Critchlow's tray on the mat. Shepicked it up and carried it by way of the showroom and shop downto the kitchen, where she dreamily munched two pieces of toastthat had cooled to the consistency of leather. She mounted thestone steps and listened at the door of the parlour. No sound!This seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance was really very strange.She roved right round the house, and descended creepingly by thetwisted house-stairs, and listened intently at the other door ofthe parlour. She now detected a faint regular snore. Mr. Povey, aprey to laudanum and mussels, was sleeping while Constance workedat her fire-screen! It was now in the highest degree odd, thisseclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance; unlike anything in Sophia'sexperience! She wanted to go into the parlour, but she could notbring herself to do so. She crept away again, forlorn and puzzled,and next discovered herself in the bedroom which she shared withConstance at the top of the house; she lay down in the dusk on thebed and began to read "The Days of Bruce;" but she read only withher eyes.
Later, she heard movements on the house-stairs, and the familiarwhining creak of the door at the foot thereof. She skipped lightlyto the door of the bedroom.
But suppose he wants something in the night?
"Good-night, Mr. Povey. I hope you'll be able to sleep."
Constance's voice!
"It will probably come on again."
Mr. Povey's voice, pessimistic!
Then the shutting of doors. It was almost dark. She went back tothe bed, expecting a visit from Constance. But a clock struckeight, and all the various phenomena connected with the departureof Mr. Critchlow occurred one after another. At the same timeMaggie came home from the land of romance. Then long silences!Constance was now immured with her father, it being her "turn" tonurse; Maggie was washing up in her cave, and Mr. Povey was lostto sight in his bedroom. Then Sophia heard her mother's lively,commanding knock on the King Street door. Dusk had definitelyyielded to black night in the bedroom. Sophia dozed and dreamed.When she awoke, her ear caught the sound of knocking. She jumpedup, tiptoed to the landing, and looked over the balustrade, whenceshe had a view of all the first-floor corridor. The gas had beenlighted; through the round aperture at the top of the porcelainglobe she could see the wavering flame. It was her mother, stillbonneted, who was knocking at the door of Mr. Povey's room.Constance stood in the doorway of her parents' room. Mrs. Bainesknocked twice with an interval, and then said to Constance, in aresonant whisper that vibrated up the corridor---
"He seems to be fast asleep. I'd better not disturb him."
"But suppose he wants something in the night?"
"Well, child, I should hear him moving. Sleep's the best thing forhim."
Mrs. Baines left Mr. Povey to the effects of laudanum, and camealong the corridor. She was a stout woman, all black stuff andgold chain, and her skirt more than filled the width of thecorridor. Sophia watched her habitual heavy mounting gesture asshe climbed the two steps that gave variety to the corridor. Atthe gas-jet she paused, and, putting her hand to the tap, gazed upinto the globe.
"Where's Sophia?" she demanded, her eyes fixed on the gas as shelowered the flame.
"I think she must be in bed, mother," said Constance,nonchalantly.
The returned mistress was point by point resuming knowledge andcontrol of that complicated machine--her household.
Then Constance and her mother disappeared into the bedroom, andthe door was shut with a gentle, decisive bang that to the silentwatcher on the floor above seemed to create a special excludingintimacy round about the figures of Constance and her father andmother. The watcher wondered, with a little prick of jealousy,what they would be discussing in the large bedroom, her father'sbeard wagging feebly and his long arms on the counterpane,Constance perched at the foot of the bed, and her mother walkingto and fro, putting her cameo brooch on the dressing-table orstretching creases out of her gloves. Certainly, in some subtleway, Constance had a standing with her parents which was moreconfidential than Sophia's.