米德尔马契 英文版 Middlemarch
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LVIII. Page 1
"For there can live no hatred in thine eye,Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:In many's looks the false heart's historyIs writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange:But Heaven in thy creation did decreeThat in thy face sweet love should ever dwell:Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings beThy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell."--SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.
At the time when Mr. Vincy uttered that presentiment about Rosamond,she herself had never had the idea that she should be driven to makethe sort of appeal which he foresaw. She had not yet had anyanxiety about ways and means, although her domestic life had beenexpensive as well as eventful. Her baby had been born prematurely,and all the embroidered robes and caps had to be laid by in darkness.This misfortune was attributed entirely to her having persistedin going out on horseback one day when her husband had desired hernot to do so; but it must not be supposed that she had shown temperon the occasion, or rudely told him that she would do as she liked.
What led her particularly to desire horse-exercise was a visit fromCaptain Lydgate, the baronet's third son, who, I am sorry to say,was detested by our Tertius of that name as a vapid fop "partinghis hair from brow to nape in a despicable fashion" (not followedby Tertius himself), and showing an ignorant security that he knewthe proper thing to say on every topic. Lydgate inwardly cursed hisown folly that he had drawn down this visit by consenting to go to hisuncle's on the wedding-tour, and he made himself rather disagreeableto Rosamond by saying so in private. For to Rosamond this visitwas a source of unprecedented but gracefully concealed exultation.She was so intensely conscious of having a cousin who was a baronet'sson staying in the house, that she imagined the knowledge of whatwas implied by his presence to be diffused through all other minds;and when she introduced Captain Lydgate to her guests, she hada placid sense that his rank penetrated them as if it had beenan odor. The satisfaction was enough for the time to melt awaysome disappointment in the conditions of marriage with a medical maneven of good birth: it seemed now that her marriage was visiblyas well as ideally floating her above the Middlemarch level, and thefuture looked bright with letters and visits to and from Quallingham,and vague advancement in consequence for Tertius. Especially as,probably at the Captain's suggestion, his married sister, Mrs. Mengan,had come with her maid, and stayed two nights on her way from town.Hence it was clearly worth while for Rosamond to take pains withher music and the careful selection of her lace.
As to Captain Lydgate himself, his low brow, his aquiline nosebent on one side, and his rather heavy utterance, might have beendisadvantageous in any young gentleman who had not a military bearingand mustache to give him what is doted on by some flower-like blondheads as "style." He had, moreover, that sort of high-breedingwhich consists in being free from the petty solicitudes ofmiddle-class gentility, and he was a great critic of feminine charms.Rosamond delighted in his admiration now even more than she haddone at Quallingham, and he found it easy to spend several hoursof the day in flirting with her. The visit altogether was oneof the pleasantest larks he had ever had, not the less so perhapsbecause he suspected that his queer cousin Tertius wished him away:though Lydgate, who would rather (hyperbolically speaking) have diedthan have failed in polite hospitality, suppressed his dislike,and only pretended generally not to hear what the gallant officer said,consigning the task of answering him to Rosamond. For he was notat all a jealous husband, and preferred leaving a feather-headedyoung gentleman alone with his wife to bearing him company.
"I wish you would talk more to the Captain at dinner, Tertius,"said Rosamond, one evening when the important guest was goneto Loamford to see some brother officers stationed there."You really look so absent sometimes--you seem to be seeingthrough his head into something behind it, instead of looking at him."
"My dear Rosy, you don't expect me to talk much to such a conceitedass as that, I hope," said Lydgate, brusquely. "If he got hishead broken, I might look at it with interest, not before."
"I cannot conceive why you should speak of your cousin so contemptuously,"said Rosamond, her fingers moving at her work while she spokewith a mild gravity which had a touch of disdain in it.
"Ask Ladislaw if he doesn't think your Captain the greatest bore heever met with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came."
Rosamond thought she knew perfectly well why Mr. Ladislaw dislikedthe Captain: he was jealous, and she liked his being jealous.
"It is impossible to say what will suit eccentric persons,"she answered, "but in my opinion Captain Lydgate is a thoroughgentleman, and I think you ought not, out of respect to Sir Godwin,to treat him with neglect."
"No, dear; but we have had dinners for him. And he comes in andgoes out as he likes. He doesn't want me"
"Still, when he is in the room, you might show him more attention.He may not be a phoenix of cleverness in your sense; his professionis different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a littleon his subjects. _I_ think his conversation is quite agreeable.And he is anything but an unprincipled man."
"The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him,Rosy," said Lydgate, in a sort of resigned murmur, with asmile which was not exactly tender, and certainly not merry.Rosamond was silent and did not smile again; but the lovelycurves of her face looked good-tempered enough without smiling.
Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how farhe had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincyappeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverenceher husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid,using her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for therelaxation of his adored wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguishbetween that imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man'stalent because it gives him prestige, and is like an order in hisbutton-hole or an Honorable before his name.
It might have been supposed that Rosamond had travelled too,since she had found the pointless conversation of Mr. Ned Plymdaleperfectly wearisome; but to most mortals there is a stupiditywhich is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable--else, indeed, what would become of social bonds? Captain Lydgate'sstupidity was delicately scented, carried itself with "style,"talked with a good accent, and was closely related to Sir Godwin.Rosamond found it quite agreeable and caught many of its phrases.
Therefore since Rosamond, as we know, was fond of horseback,there were plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resumeher riding when Captain Lydgate, who had ordered his man withtwo horses to follow him and put up at the "Green Dragon,"begged her to go out on the gray which he warranted to be gentleand trained to carry a lady--indeed, he had bought it for his sister,and was taking it to Quallingham. Rosamond went out the first timewithout telling her husband, and came back before his return;but the ride had been so thorough a success, and she declaredherself so much the better in consequence, that he was informedof it with full reliance on his consent that she should go riding again.
On the contrary Lydgate was more than hurt--he was utterlyconfounded that she had risked herself on a strange horse withoutreferring the matter to his wish. After the first almostthundering exclamations of astonishment, which sufficientlywarned Rosamond of what was coming, he was silent for some moments.
"However, you have come back safely," he said, at last, in adecisive tone. "You will not go again, Rosy; that is understood.If it were the quietest, most familiar horse in the world,there would always be the chance of accident. And you know verywell that I wished you to give up riding the roan on that account."
"But there is the chance of accident indoors, Tertius."
"My darling, don't talk nonsense," said Lydgate, in an imploring tone;"surely I am the person to judge for you. I think it is enoughthat I say you are not to go again."
Rosamond was arranging her hair before dinner, and the reflectionof her head in the glass showed no change in its loveliness excepta little turning aside of the long neck. Lydgate had been movingabout with his hands in his pockets, and now paused near her,as if he awaited some assurance.
"I wish you would fasten up my plaits, dear," said Rosamond, letting herarms fall with a little sigh, so as to make a husband ashamed of standingthere like a brute. Lydgate had often fastened the plaits before,being among the deftest of men with his large finely formed fingers.He swept up the soft festoons of plaits and fastened in the tallcomb (to such uses do men come!); and what could he do then but kissthe exquisite nape which was shown in all its delicate curves?But when we do what we have done before, it is often with a difference.Lydgate was still angry, and had not forgotten his point.
"I shall tell the Captain that he ought to have known better thanoffer you his horse," he said, as he moved away.
"I beg you will not do anything of the kind, Tertius," said Rosamond,looking at him with something more marked than usual in her speech."It will be treating me as if I were a child. Promise that you willleave the subject to me."
There did seem to be some truth in her objection. Lydgate said,"Very well," with a surly obedience, and thus the discussion endedwith his promising Rosamond, and not with her promising him.
In fact, she had been determined not to promise. Rosamond hadthat victorious obstinacy which never wastes its energy inimpetuous resistance. What she liked to do was to her the right thing,and all her cleverness was directed to getting the means of doing it.She meant to go out riding again on the gray, and she did go onthe next opportunity of her husband's absence, not intending thathe should know until it was late enough not to signify to her.The temptation was certainly great: she was very fond of the exercise,and the gratification of riding on a fine horse, with Captain Lydgate,Sir Godwin's son, on another fine horse by her side, and of being metin this position by any one but her husband, was something as good asher dreams before marriage: moreover she was riveting the connectionwith the family at Quallingham, which must be a wise thing to do.
Captain the greatest bore heever met with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came."work while she spokewith.
But the gentle gray, unprepared for the crash of a tree that wasbeing felled on the edge of Halsell wood, took fright, and causeda worse fright to Rosamond, leading finally to the loss of her baby.Lydgate could not show his anger towards her, but he was ratherbearish to the Captain, whose visit naturally soon came to an end.
In all future conversations on the subject, Rosamond was mildlycertain that the ride had made no difference, and that if she hadstayed at home the same symptoms would have come on and would haveended in the same way, because she had felt something like them before.
Lydgate could only say, "Poor, poor darling!"--but he secretly wonderedover the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gatheringwithin him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond.His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as hehad imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply setaside on every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond'scleverness as precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman.He was now beginning to find out what that cleverness was--what wasthe shape into which it had run as into a close network aloofand independent. No one quicker than Rosamond to see causes andeffects which lay within the track of her own tastes and interests:she had seen clearly Lydgate's preeminence in Middlemarch society,and could go on imaginatively tracing still more agreeable socialeffects when his talent should have advanced him; but for her,his professional and scientific ambition had no other relationto these desirable effects than if they had been the fortunatediscovery of an ill-smelling oil. And that oil apart,with which she had nothing to do, of course she believed in her ownopinion more than she did in his. Lydgate was astounded to findin numberless trifling matters, as well as in this last seriouscase of the riding, that affection did not make her compliant.He had no doubt that the affection was there, and had no presentimentthat he had done anything to repel it. For his own part he saidto himself that he loved her as tenderly as ever, and could make uphis mind to her negations; but--well! Lydgate was much worried,and conscious of new elements in his life as noxious to him as aninlet of mud to a creature that has been used to breathe and batheand dart after its illuminated prey in the clearest of waters.
Rosamond was soon looking lovelier than ever at her worktable,enjoying drives in her father's phaeton and thinking it likelythat she might be invited to Quallingham. She knew that shewas a much more exquisite ornament to the drawing-room there thanany daughter of the family, and in reflecting that the gentlemenwere aware of that, did not perhaps sufficiently consider whetherthe ladies would be eager to see themselves surpassed.
Lydgate, relieved from anxiety about her, relapsed into what sheinwardly called his moodiness--a name which to her coveredhis thoughtful preoccupation with other subjects than herself,as well as that uneasy look of the brow and distaste for all ordinarythings as if they were mixed with bitter herbs, which reallymade a sort of weather-glass to his vexation and foreboding.These latter states of mind had one cause amongst others, which hehad generously but mistakenly avoided mentioning to Rosamond,lest it should affect her health and spirits. Between him and herindeed there was that total missing of each other's mental track,which is too evidently possible even between persons who arecontinually thinking of each other. To Lydgate it seemed that hehad been spending month after month in sacrificing more than halfof his best intent and best power to his tenderness for Rosamond;bearing her little claims and interruptions without impatience, and,above all, bearing without betrayal of bitterness to look throughless and less of interfering illusion at the blank unreflectingsurface her mind presented to his ardor for the more impersonalends of his profession and his scientific study, an ardor which hehad fancied that the ideal wife must somehow worship as sublime,though not in the least knowing why. But his endurance was mingledwith a self-discontent which, if we know how to be candid, we shallconfess to make more than half our bitterness under grievances,wife or husband included. It always remains true that if we hadbeen greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.Lydgate was aware that his concessions to Rosamond were oftenlittle more than the lapse of slackening resolution, the creepingparalysis apt to seize an enthusiasm which is out of adjustmentto a constant portion of our lives. And on Lydgate's enthusiasmthere was constantly pressing not a simple weight of sorrow,but the biting presence of a petty degrading care, such as caststhe blight of irony over all higher effort.
This was the care which he had hitherto abstained from mentioningto Rosamond; and he believed, with some wonder, that it had never enteredher mind, though certainly no difficulty could be less mysterious.It was an inference with a conspicuous handle to it, and had beeneasily drawn by indifferent observers, that Lydgate was in debt;and he could not succeed in keeping out of his mind for long togetherthat he was every day getting deeper into that swamp, which temptsmen towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure.It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there--in a conditionin which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release,though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul.
Eighteen months ago Lydgate was poor, but had never known the eagerwant of small sums, and felt rather a burning contempt for any onewho descended a step in order to gain them. He was now experiencingsomething worse than a simple deficit: he was assailed by thevulgar hateful trials of a man who has bought and used a greatmany things which might have been done without, and which heis unable to pay for, though the demand for payment has become pressing.
How this came about may be easily seen without much arithmetic orknowledge of prices. When a man in setting up a house and preparingfor marriage finds that his furniture and other initial expensescome to between four and five hundred pounds more than he hascapital to pay for; when at the end of a year it appears that hishousehold expenses, horses and et caeteras, amount to nearly a thousand,while the proceeds of the practice reckoned from the old booksto be worth eight hundred per annum have sunk like a summer pondand make hardly five hundred, chiefly in unpaid entries, the plaininference is that, whether he minds it or not, he is in debt.Those were less expensive times than our own, and provincial lifewas comparatively modest; but the ease with which a medical manwho had lately bought a practice, who thought that he was obligedto keep two horses, whose table was supplied without stint, and whopaid an insurance on his life and a high rent for house and garden,might find his expenses doubling his receipts, can be conceived byany one who does not think these details beneath his consideration.Rosamond, accustomed from her to an extravagant household,thought that good housekeeping consisted simply in ordering thebest of everything--nothing else "answered;" and Lydgate supposedthat "if things were done at all, they must be done properly"--he did not see how they were to live otherwise. If each headof household expenditure had been mentioned to him beforehand,he would have probably observed that "it could hardly come to much,"and if any one had suggested a saving on a particular article--for example, the substitution of cheap fish for dear--it would have appeared to him simply a penny-wise, mean notion.Rosamond, even without such an occasion as Captain Lydgate's visit,was fond of giving invitations, and Lydgate, though he often thoughtthe guests tiresome, did not interfere. This sociability seemeda necessary part of professional prudence, and the entertainmentmust be suitable. It is true Lydgate was constantly visitingthe homes of the poor and adjusting his prescriptions of dietto their small means; but, dear me! has it not by this time ceasedto be remarkable--is it not rather that we expect in men, that theyshould have numerous strands of experience lying side by sideand never compare them with each other? Expenditure--like uglinessand errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our ownpersonality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which ismanifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.Lydgate believed himself to be careless about his dress, and hedespised a man who calculated the effects of his costume; it seemedto him only a matter of course that he had abundance of fresh garments--such things were naturally ordered in sheaves. It must be rememberedthat he had never hitherto felt the check of importunate debt,and he walked by habit, not by self-criticism. But the check had come.