米德尔马契 英文版 Middlemarch
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LXV.
"One of us two must bowen douteless,And, sith a man is more reasonableThan woman is, ye (men) moste be suffrable.--CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales.
The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphseven over the present quickening in the general pace of things:what wonder then that in 1832 old Sir Godwin Lydgate was slowto write a letter which was of consequence to others ratherthan to himself? Nearly three weeks of the new year were gone,and Rosamond, awaiting an answer to her winning appeal, was everyday disappointed. Lydgate, in total ignorance of her expectations,was seeing the bills come in, and feeling that Dover's use ofhis advantage over other creditors was imminent. He had nevermentioned to Rosamond his brooding purpose of going to Quallingham:he did not want to admit what would appear to her a concessionto her wishes after indignant refusal, until the last moment;but he was really expecting to set off soon. A slice of the railwaywould enable him to manage the whole journey and back in four days.
But one morning after Lydgate had gone out, a letter came addressedto him, which Rosamond saw clearly to be from Sir Godwin. She was fullof hope. Perhaps there might be a particular note to her enclosed;but Lydgate was naturally addressed on the question of money or other aid,and the fact that he was written to, nay, the very delay in writingat all, seemed to certify that the answer was thoroughly compliant.She was too much excited by these thoughts to do anything but lightstitching in a warm corner of the dining-room, with the outsideof this momentous letter lying on the table before her. About twelveshe heard her husband's step in the passage, and tripping to openthe door, she said in her lightest tones, "Tertius, come in here--here is a letter for you."
"Ah?" he said, not taking off his hat, but just turning her roundwithin his arm to walk towards the spot where the letter lay."My uncle Godwin!" he exclaimed, while Rosamond reseated herself,and watched him as he opened the letter. She had expected him tobe surprised.
While Lydgate's eyes glanced rapidly over the brief letter, she sawhis face, usually of a pale brown, taking on a dry whiteness;with nostrils and lips quivering he tossed down the letter before her,and said violently--
"It will be impossible to endure life with you, if you will alwaysbe acting secretly--acting in opposition to me and hiding your actions."
He checked his speech and turned his back on her--then wheeledround and walked about, sat down, and got up again restlessly,grasping hard the objects deep down in his pockets. He was afraidof saying something irremediably cruel.
Rosamond too had changed color as she read. The letter ranin this way:--
"DEAR TERTIUS,--Don't set your wife to write to me when you haveanything to ask. It is a roundabout wheedling sort of thingwhich I should not have credited you with. I never choose to writeto a woman on matters of business. As to my supplying you with athousand pounds, or only half that sum, I can do nothing of the sort.My own family drains me to the last penny. With two younger sonsand three daughters, I am not likely to have cash to spare. You seemto have got through your own money pretty quickly, and to have madea mess where you are; the sooner you go somewhere else the better.But I have nothing to do with men of your profession, and can'thelp you there. I did the best I could for you as guardian,and let you have your own way in taking to medicine. You mighthave gone into the army or the Church. Your money would have heldout for that, and there would have been a surer ladder before you.Your uncle Charles has had a grudge against you for not goinginto his profession, but not I. I have always wished you well,but you must consider yourself on your own legs entirely now.Your affectionate uncle,GODWIN LYDGATE."
When Rosamond had finished reading the letter she sat quite still,with her hands folded before her, restraining any show of herkeen disappointment, and intrenching herself in quiet passivityunder her husband's wrath. Lydgate paused in his movements,looked at her again, and said, with biting severity--
"Will this be enough to convince you of the harm you maydo by secret meddling? Have you sense enough to recognizenow your incompetence to judge and act for me--to interferewith your ignorance in affairs which it belongs to me to decide on?"
The words were hard; but this was not the first time that Lydgatehad been frustrated by her. She did not look at him, and madeno reply.
"I had nearly resolved on going to Quallingham. It would have costme pain enough to do it, yet it might have been of some use.But it has been of no use for me to think of anything.You have always been counteracting me secretly. You delude mewith a false assent, and then I am at the mercy of your devices.If you mean to resist every wish I express, say so and defy me.I shall at least know what I am doing then."
It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love'sbond has turned to this power of galling. In spite of Rosamond'sself-control a tear fell silently and rolled over her lips. She stillsaid nothing; but under that quietude was hidden an intense effect:she was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished shehad never seen him. Sir Godwin's rudeness towards her and utterwant of feeling ranged him with Dover and all other creditors--disagreeable people who only thought of themselves, and did notmind how annoying they were to her. Even her father was unkind,and might have done more for them. In fact there was but one personin Rosamond's world whom she did not regard as blameworthy, and thatwas the graceful creature with blond plaits and with little handscrossed before her, who had never expressed herself unbecomingly,and had always acted for the best--the best naturally being what shebest liked.
Lydgate pausing and looking at her began to feel that half-maddeningsense of helplessness which comes over passionate people when theirpassion is met by an innocent-looking silence whose meek victimizedair seems to put them in the wrong, and at last infects even thejustest indignation with a doubt of its justice. He needed torecover the full sense that he was in the right by moderating his words.
and constant appeals to his activity onbehalf of others. He wished to excuse everything.
"Can you not see, Rosamond," he began again, trying to be simplygrave and not bitter, "that nothing can be so fatal as a want ofopenness and confidence between us? It has happened again and againthat I have expressed a decided wish, and you have seemed to assent,yet after that you have secretly disobeyed my wish. In that way I cannever know what I have to trust to. There would be some hope for usif you would admit this. Am I such an unreasonable, furious brute?Why should you not be open with me?" Still silence.
"Will you only say that you have been mistaken, and that I maydepend on your not acting secretly in future?" said Lydgate,urgently, but with something of request in his tone which Rosamondwas quick to perceive. She spoke with coolness.
"I cannot possibly make admissions or promises in answer to suchwords as you have used towards me. I have not been accustomedto language of that kind. You have spoken of my `secret meddling,'and my `interfering ignorance,' and my `false assent.' I have neverexpressed myself in that way to you, and I think that you oughtto apologize. You spoke of its being impossible to live with me.Certainly you have not made my life pleasant to me of late.I think it was to be expected that I should try to avert some ofthe hardships which our marriage has brought on me." Another tearfell as Rosamond ceased speaking, and she pressed it away as quietlyas the first.
Lydgate flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated. What placewas there in her mind for a remonstrance to lodge in? He laid downhis hat, flung an arm over the back of his chair, and looked downfor some moments without speaking. Rosamond had the double purchaseover him of insensibility to the point of justice in his reproach,and of sensibility to the undeniable hardships now present in hermarried life. Although her duplicity in the affair of the househad exceeded what he knew, and had really hindered the Plymdalesfrom knowing of it, she had no consciousness that her action couldrightly be called false. We are not obliged to identify our own actsaccording to a strict classification, any more than the materialsof our grocery and clothes. Rosamond felt that she was aggrieved,and that this was what Lydgate had to recognize.
As for him, the need of accommodating himself to her nature, which wasinflexible in proportion to its negations, held him as with pincers.He had begun to have an alarmed foresight of her irrevocable lossof love for him, and the consequent dreariness of their life.The ready fulness of his emotions made this dread alternate quicklywith the first violent movements of his anger. It would assuredlyhave been a vain boast in him to say that he was her master.
"You have not made my life pleasant to me of late"--"the hardshipswhich our marriage has brought on me"--these words werestinging his imagination as a pain makes an exaggerated dream.If he were not only to sink from his highest resolve,but to sink into the hideous fettering of domestic hate?
"Rosamond," he said, turning his eyes on her with a melancholy look,"you should allow for a man's words when he is disappointedand provoked. You and I cannot have opposite interests.I cannot part my happiness from yours. If I am angry with you,it is that you seem not to see how any concealment divides us.How could I wish to make anything hard to you either by my wordsor conduct? When I hurt you, I hurt part of my own life. I shouldnever be angry with you if you would be quite open with me."
"I have only wished to prevent you from hurrying us into wretchednesswithout any necessity," said Rosamond, the tears coming againfrom a softened feeling now that her husband had softened."It is so very hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know,and to live in such a miserable way. I wish I had died with the baby."
She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such wordsand tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. Lydgate drewhis chair near to hers and pressed her delicate head againsthis cheek with his powerful tender hand. He only caressed her;he did not say anything; for what was there to say? He could notpromise to shield her from the dreaded wretchedness, for he couldsee no sure means of doing so. When he left her to go out again,he told himself that it was ten times harder for her than for him:he had a life away from home, and constant appeals to his activity onbehalf of others. He wished to excuse everything in her if he could--but it was inevitable that in that excusing mood he should thinkof her as if she were an animal of another and feebler species.Nevertheless she had mastered him.