一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XIX
'Love was in the next degree.'
Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech which, byjudicious touches of epigrammatic flattery, obliterate a woman'srecollection of the speaker's abstract opinions. So no more wassaid by either on the subject of hair, eyes, or development.Elfride's mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her ownsmallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and herdiscomfort was visible in her face. The whole tendency of theconversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparageher; and she was fain to take Stephen into favour in self-defence.He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire anidiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephenhad declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything ofthe sort. Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation ofher smallness in Knight's eyes still remained. Had the positionbeen reversed--had Stephen loved her in spite of a differingtaste, and had Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblanceto his ideal, it would have engendered far happier thoughts. Asmatters stood, Stephen's admiration might have its root in ablindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen man's judgmentwas condemnatory of her.
During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrownwith their seniors, and no conversation arose which wasexclusively their own. When Elfride was in bed that night herthoughts recurred to the same subject. At one moment she insistedthat it was ill-natured of him to speak so decisively as he haddone; the next, that it was sterling honesty.
'Ah, what a poor nobody I am!' she said, sighing. 'People likehim, who go about the great world, don't care in the least what Iam like either in mood or feature.'
Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in thismanner, is half way to her heart; the distance between those twostations is proverbially short.
'And are you really going away this week?' said Mrs. Swancourt toKnight on the following evening, which was Sunday.
They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where alast service was now to be held at the rather exceptional time ofevening instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition ofthe ruinous portions.
'I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,' returned Knight;'and then I go on to Dublin.'
'Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,' said thevicar. 'A week is nothing. We have hardly been able to realizeyour presence yet. I remember a story which----'
The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, andwould probably have gone on in his week-day mode of thought hadnot a turn in the breeze blown the skirt of his college gownwithin the range of his vision, and so reminded him. He at oncediverted the current of his narrative with the dexterity theoccasion demanded.
'The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehem-judah, fromwhich I took my text the Sunday before last, is quite to thepoint,' he continued, with the pronunciation of a man who, farfrom having intended to tell a week-day story a moment earlier,had thought of nothing but Sabbath matters for several weeks.'What did he gain after all by his restlessness? Had he remainedin the city of the Jebusites, and not been so anxious for Gibeah,none of his troubles would have arisen.'
'But he had wasted five days already,' said Knight, closing hiseyes to the vicar's commendable diversion. 'His fault lay inbeginning the tarrying system originally.'
'True, true; my illustration fails.'
'But not the hospitality which prompted the story.'
'So you are to come just the same,' urged Mrs. Swancourt, for shehad seen an almost imperceptible fall of countenance in herstepdaughter at Knight's announcement.
lonely quiet-looking one?'thoughElfride at one.
Knight half promised to call on his return journey; but theuncertainty with which he spoke was quite enough to fill Elfridewith a regretful interest in all he did during the few remaininghours. The curate having already officiated twice that day in thetwo churches, Mr. Swancourt had undertaken the whole of theevening service, and Knight read the lessons for him. The sunstreamed across from the dilapidated west window, and lighted allthe assembled worshippers with a golden glow, Knight as he readbeing illuminated by the same mellow lustre. Elfride at the organregarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by asense of being far removed from his sphere. As he wentdeliberately through the chapter appointed--a portion of thehistory of Elijah--and ascended that magnificent climax of thewind, the earthquake, the fire, and the still small voice, hisdeep tones echoed past with such apparent disregard of herexistence, that his presence inspired her with a forlorn sense ofunapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been ableto cause.
At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the gloryof the dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested bythe shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was thebleak barren countenance of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride hadnot seen much of since the morning of her return with StephenSmith. Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappywoman appeared to spend her life in journeyings between EndelstowChurchyard and that of a village near Southampton, where herfather and mother were laid.
She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, andshe now seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat. From thegallery window the tomb of her son was plainly visible--standingas the nearest object in a prospect which was closed outwardly bythe changeless horizon of the sea.
The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towardsElfride with a hard and bitter expression that the solemnity ofthe place raised to a tragic dignity it did not intrinsicallypossess. The girl resumed her normal attitude with an addeddisquiet.
Elfride's emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assertitself on a sudden. A slight touch was enough to set it free--apoem, a sunset, a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vagueimagining, being the usual accidents of its exhibition. Thelonging for Knight's respect, which was leading up to an incipientyearning for his love, made the present conjuncture a sufficientone. Whilst kneeling down previous to leaving, when the sunnystreaks had gone upward to the roof, and the lower part of thechurch was in soft shadow, she could not help thinking ofColeridge's morbid poem 'The Three Graves,' and shuddering as shewondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if herheart would break.
They came out of church just as the sun went down, leaving thelandscape like a platform from which an eloquent speaker hasretired, and nothing remains for the audience to do but to riseand go home. Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt went off in the carriage,Knight and Elfride preferring to walk, as the skilful oldmatchmaker had imagined. They descended the hill together.
'I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,' Elfride presently foundherself saying. 'You read better than papa.'
'I will praise anybody that will praise me. You playedexcellently, Miss Swancourt, and very correctly.'
'Correctly--yes.'
'It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active part in theservice.'
'I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I have not agood selection of music, sacred or secular. I wish I had a nicelittle music-library--well chosen, and that the only new piecessent me were those of genuine merit.'
'I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary howmany women have no honest love of music as an end and not as ameans, even leaving out those who have nothing in them. Theymostly like it for its accessories. I have never met a woman wholoves music as do ten or a dozen men I know.'
'How would you draw the line between women with something andwomen with nothing in them?'
'Well,' said Knight, reflecting a moment, 'I mean by nothing inthem those who don't care about anything solid. This is aninstance: I knew a man who had a young friend in whom he was muchinterested; in fact, they were going to be married. She wasseemingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two editions ofthe British poets, which she pretended to want badly. He said,"Which of them would you like best for me to send?" She said, "Apair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don't mind,would be nicer than either." Now I call her a girl with not muchin her but vanity; and so do you, I daresay.'
'Oh yes,' replied Elfride with an effort.
Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, andnoticing that her attempt at heartiness was a miserable failure,he appeared to have misgivings.
'You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, havepreferred the nicknacks?'
'No, I don't think I should, indeed,' she stammered.
'I'll put it to you,' said the inflexible Knight. 'Which will youhave of these two things of about equal value--the well-chosenlittle library of the best music you spoke of--bound in morocco,walnut case, lock and key--or a pair of the very prettiestearrings in Bond Street windows?'
'Of course the music,' Elfride replied with forced earnestness.
'You are quite certain?' he said emphatically.
'Quite,' she faltered; 'if I could for certain buy the earringsafterwards.'
Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with thepalpitating mobile creature, whose excitable nature made any suchthing a species of cruelty.
He looked at her rather oddly, and said, 'Fie!'
'Forgive me,' she said, laughing a little, a little frightened,and blushing very deeply.
'Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn't you say at first, as any firm womanwould have said, I am as bad as she, and shall choose the same?'
'I don't know,' said Elfride wofully, and with a distressfulsmile.
'I thought you were exceptionally musical?'
'So I am, I think. But the test is so severe--quite painful.'
'I don't understand.'
'Music doesn't do any real good, or rather----'
'That IS a thing to say, Miss Swancourt! Why, what----'
'You don't understand! you don't understand!'
'Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack jewellery?'
'No, no, no, no!' she cried petulantly; 'I didn't mean what youthink. I like the music best, only I like----'
'Earrings better--own it!' he said in a teasing tone. 'Well, Ithink I should have had the moral courage to own it at once,without pretending to an elevation I could not reach.'
Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on thedefensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes that sheanswered desperately:
'My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lostone of my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buyany more, or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now Iwish I had some like them--that's what my meaning is--indeed itis, Mr. Knight.'
'I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,' said Knight, with alook of regret at seeing how disturbed she was. 'But seriously,if women only knew how they ruin their good looks by suchappurtenances, I am sure they would never want them.'
'They were lovely, and became me so!'
draw the line between women.
'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stufftheir ears with nowadays--like the governor of a steam-engine, ora pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists'palettes, and compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows whatbesides.'
'No; they were not one of those things. So pretty--like this,'she said with eager animation. And she drew with the point of herparasol an enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to ascale that would have suited a giantess half-a-mile high.
'Yes, very pretty--very,' said Knight dryly. 'How did you come tolose such a precious pair of articles?'
'I only lost one--nobody ever loses both at the same time.'
She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement ofthe fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smithwas attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, herconfusion was hardly to be wondered at. The question had beenawkward, and received no direct answer.
Knight seemed not to notice her manner.
'Oh, nobody ever loses both--I see. And certainly the fact thatit was a case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from yourchoice.'
'As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don't now,' shesaid, looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. Andcoming gallantly to her own rescue, 'If I really seem vain, it isthat I am only vain in my ways--not in my heart. The worst womenare those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.'
county. I don't knowthem, though I have ?
'An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the moreobjectionable of the two,' said Knight.
'Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin? You know what life is: tellme.'
'I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception oflife is too large a thing to grasp during the short interval ofpassing through it.'
'Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely tomake her life, in its higher sense, a failure?'
'Nobody's life is altogether a failure.'
'Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badlyselected and commonplace,' she said impatiently. 'Because I uttercommonplace words, you must not suppose I think only commonplacethoughts. My poor stock of words are like a limited number ofrough moulds I have to cast all my materials in, good and bad; andthe novelty or delicacy of the substance is often lost in thecoarse triteness of the form.'
'Very well; I'll believe that ingenious representation. As to thesubject in hand--lives which are failures--you need not troubleyourself. Anybody's life may be just as romantic and strange andinteresting if he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All thedifference is, that the last chapter is wanting in the story. Ifa man of power tries to do a great deed, and just falls short ofit by an accident not his fault, up to that time his history hadas much in it as that of a great man who has done his great deed.It is whimsical of the world to hold that particulars of how a ladwent to school and so on should be as an interesting romance or asnothing to them, precisely in proportion to his after renown.'
They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With thedropping of the sun a nearly full moon had begun to raise itself.Their shadows, as cast by the western glare, showed signs ofbecoming obliterated in the interest of a rival pair in theopposite direction which the moon was bringing to distinctness.
'I consider my life to some extent a failure,' said Knight againafter a pause, during which he had noticed the antagonisticshadows.
'You! How?'
'I don't precisely know. But in some way I have missed the mark.'
'Really? To have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feelthat you have done it must be a cause of sorrow. Am I right?'
'Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being profoundlyexperienced serves as a sort of consolation to people who areconscious of having taken wrong turnings. Contradictory as itseems, there is nothing truer than that people who have alwaysgone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways ofgoing right as those do who have gone wrong. However, it is notdesirable for me to chill your summer-time by going into this.'
'You have not told me even now if I am really vain.'
'If I say Yes, I shall offend you; if I say No, you'll think Idon't mean it,' he replied, looking curiously into her face.
'Ah, well,' she replied, with a little breath of distress, '"Thatwhich is exceeding deep, who will find it out?" I suppose I musttake you as I do the Bible--find out and understand all I can; andon the strength of that, swallow the rest in a lump, by simplefaith. Think me vain, if you will. Worldly greatness requires somuch littleness to grow up in, that an infirmity more or less isnot a matter for regret.'
'As regards women, I can't say,' answered Knight carelessly; 'butit is without doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living toget, to be born of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring aman to the workhouse; so you may be right in sticking up forvanity.'
'No, no, I don't do that,' she said regretfully.
Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me something you havewritten? I think I should like to see whether you write as youhave lately spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your trueself--the cynic you have been this evening, or the nicephilosopher you were up to to-night?'
'Ah, which? You know as well as I.'
Their conversation detained them on the lawn and in the porticotill the stars blinked out. Elfride flung back her head, and saididly--
'There's a bright star exactly over me.'
'Each bright star is overhead somewhere.'
'Is it? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one?' and she pointedwith her finger.
'That is poised like a white hawk over one of the Cape VerdeIslands.'
'Looking down upon the source of the Nile.'
'And that lonely quiet-looking one?'
'He watches the North Pole, and has no less than the whole equatorfor his horizon. And that idle one low down upon the ground, thatwe have almost rolled away from, is in India--over the head of ayoung friend of mine, who very possibly looks at the star in ourzenith, as it hangs low upon his horizon, and thinks of it asmarking where his true love dwells.'
Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he mean her? Shecould not see his features; but his attitude seemed to showunconsciousness.
'Or anybody else's in England.'
'Oh yes, I see:' she breathed her relief.
'His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't knowthem, though I have been in correspondence with him for many yearstill lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell inlove, and then went to Bombay. Since that time I have heard verylittle of him.'
Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and thoughElfride at one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons inhonesty he had just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and theintention dispersed into silence. There seemed a reproach inKnight's blind words, and yet she was not able to clearly defineany disloyalty that she had been guilty of.