一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XXI
'On thy cold grey stones, O sea!'
Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thenceby a steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to avoid the long journeyover the hills from St. Launce's. He did not know of theextension of the railway to Camelton.
During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from anycliff along the shore it would be possible to see the steamer somehours before its arrival.
She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act ofsupererogation. The act was this--to go to some point of land andwatch for the ship that brought her future husband home.
It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from apurpose by a dull sky; and though she used to persuade herselfthat the weather was as fine as possible on the other side of theclouds, she could not bring about any practical result from thisfancy. Now, her mood was such that the humid sky harmonized withit.
Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfridecame to a small stream. She used it as a guide to the coast. Itwas smaller than that in her own valley, and flowed altogether ata higher level. Bushes lined the slopes of its shallow trough;but at the bottom, where the water ran, was a soft green carpet,in a strip two or three yards wide.
In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, ittrickled along a channel in the midst.
Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. Sheturned, and there was Mr. Knight. He had dropped into the valleyfrom the side of the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, andrebelliously allowed it to exist.
'What utter loneliness to find you in!'
'I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe itempties itself not far off, in a silver thread of water, over acascade of great height.'
'Why do you load yourself with that heavy telescope?'
'To look over the sea with it,' she said faintly.
'I'll carry it for you to your journey's end.' And he took theglass from her unresisting hands. 'It cannot be half a milefurther. See, there is the water.' He pointed to a short fragmentof level muddy-gray colour, cutting against the sky.
Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible,and had seen no ship.
They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook betweenthem--for it was no wider than a man's stride--sometimes closetogether. The green carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up.
One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower andbecame insignificant. That on the right hand rose with theiradvance, and terminated in a clearly defined edge against thelight, as if it were abruptly sawn off. A little further, and thebed of the rivulet ended in the same fashion.
They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it the valley was nolonger to be seen. It was withdrawn cleanly and completely. Inits place was sky and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularlydown beneath them--small and far off--lay the corrugated surfaceof the Atlantic.
The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipiceit was dispersed in spray before it was half-way down, and fallinglike rain upon projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows ofthem. At the bottom the water-drops soaked away amid the debrisof the cliff. This was the inglorious end of the river.
'What are you looking for? said Knight, following the direction ofher eyes.
She was gazing hard at a black object--nearer to the shore than tothe horizon--from the summit of which came a nebulous haze,stretching like gauze over the sea.
'The Puffin, a little summer steamboat--from Bristol to CastleBoterel,' she said. 'I think that is it--look. Will you give methe glass?'
Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful telescope, andhanded it to Elfride, who had looked on with heavy eyes.
'I can't keep it up now,' she said.
'Rest it on my shoulder.'
'It is too high.'
'Under my arm.'
'Too low. You may look instead,' she murmured weakly.
Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till thePuffin entered its field.
'Yes, it is the Puffin--a tiny craft. I can see her figure-headdistinctly--a bird with a beak as big as its head.'
'Can you see the deck?'
"Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the blackforms of the passengers against its white surface. One of themhas taken something from another--a glass, I think--yes, it is--and he is levelling it in this direction. Depend upon it we areconspicuous objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems torain upon them, and they put on overcoats and open umbrellas.They vanish and go below--all but that one who has borrowed theglass. He is a slim young fellow, and still watches us.'
Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily.
Knight lowered the glass.
'I think we had better return,' he said. 'That cloud which israining on them may soon reach us. Why, you look ill. How isthat?'
'Something in the air affects my face.'
'Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,' returned Knighttenderly. 'This air would make those rosy that were never sobefore, one would think--eh, Nature's spoilt child?'
Elfride's colour returned again.
'There is more to see behind us, after all,' said Knight.
She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw,towering still higher than themselves, the vertical face of thehill on the right, which did not project seaward so far as the bedof the valley, but formed the back of a small cove, and so wasvisible like a concave wall, bending round from their positiontowards the left.
The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone andmarrow here at its rent extremity. It consisted of a vaststratification of blackish-gray slate, unvaried in its wholeheight by a single change of shade.
which israining on them .
It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what iscalled a presence, which is not necessarily proportionate to theiractual bulk. A little cliff will impress you powerfully; a greatone not at all. It depends, as with man, upon the countenance ofthe cliff.
'I cannot bear to look at that cliff,' said Elfride. 'It has ahorrid personality, and makes me shudder. We will go.'
'Can you climb?' said Knight. 'If so, we will ascend by that pathover the grim old fellow's brow.'
'Try me,' said Elfride disdainfully. 'I have ascended steeperslopes than that.'
From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound alonginside a bank, placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians, tothe top of the precipice, and over it along the hill in an inlanddirection.
'Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,' said Knight.
'I can get on better without it, thank you.'
When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to takebreath. Knight stretched out his hand.
'Heavens, what an altitude!' said Knight between his pants, andlooking far over the sea. The cascade at the bottom of the slopeappeared a mere span in height from where they were now.
Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was in full viewagain, and by reason of the vast surface of sea their higherposition uncovered it seemed almost close to the shore.
'Over that edge,' said Knight, 'where nothing but vacancy appears,is a moving compact mass. The wind strikes the face of the rock,runs up it, rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads,curls over us in an arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, aninverted cascade is there--as perfect as the Niagara Falls--butrising instead of falling, and air instead of water. Now lookhere.'
Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if to go onwardover the cliff. Reaching the verge, it towered into the air likea bird, turned back, and alighted on the ground behind them. Theythemselves were in a dead calm.
'A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls,where the water is quite still, the fallen mass curving under it.We are in precisely the same position with regard to ouratmospheric cataract here. If you run back from the cliff fiftyyards, you will be in a brisk wind. Now I daresay over the bankis a little backward current.'
Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head aboveit than his hat appeared to be sucked from his head--slipping overhis forehead in a seaward direction.
'That's the backward eddy, as I told you,' he cried, and vanishedover the little bank after his hat.
Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another,and there was no sign of him.
A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower.
She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were twoor three yards of level ground--then a short steep preparatoryslope--then the verge of the precipice.
On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his handsand knees, trying to climb back to the level ground. The rain hadwetted the shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficialwetting of the soil hereabout made it far more slippery to standon than the same soil thoroughly drenched. The inner substancewas still hard, and was lubricated by the moistened film.
'I find a difficulty in getting back,' said Knight.
Elfride's heart fell like lead.
'But you can get back?' she wildly inquired.
Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and thedrops of perspiration began to bead his brow.
'No, I am unable to do it,' he answered.
Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind thesensation that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to helphim she must. She ventured upon the treacherous incline, proppedherself with the closed telescope, and gave him her hand before hesaw her movements.
'O Elfride! why did you?' said he. 'I am afraid you have onlyendangered yourself.'
And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by herassistance they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed.His foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on theverge of the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her headbeing about a foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride haddropped the glass; it rolled to the edge and vanished over it intoa nether sky.
'Hold tightly to me,' he said.
She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp thatwhilst he remained it was impossible for her to fall.
'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay abovethis block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I considerwhat we had better do.'
He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyedthe position of affairs.
Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It wasthat, unless they performed their feat of getting up the slopewith the precision of machines, they were over the edge andwhirling in mid-air.
For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover thebreath and strength which his previous efforts had cost him. Sohe still waited, and looked in the face of the enemy.
The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among theneighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above thewater it overhung. It had been proved by actual measurement to benot a foot less than six hundred and fifty.
That is to say, it is nearly three times the height ofFlamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, a hundredfeet higher than Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the eastor south side of this island--twice the height of St. Aldhelm's,thrice as high as the Lizard, and just double the height of St.Bee's. One sea-bord point on the western coast is known tosurpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet. This is GreatOrme's Head, in Caernarvonshire.
And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifyingfeature which some of those are without--sheer perpendicularityfrom the half-tide level.
Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls inan inlet--the promontory on each side being much lower. Thus, farfrom being salient, its horizontal section is concave. The sea,rolling direct from the shores of North America, has in fact eatena chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed andunobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy supporters. Not leastsingularly, neither hill, chasm, nor precipice has a name. Onthis account I will call the precipice the Cliff without a Name.*
* See Preface
What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. Andupon this dark face the beating of ten thousand west winds hadformed a kind of bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike thatof a Hambro' grape. Moreover it seemed to float off into theatmosphere, and inspire terror through the lungs.
'This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose ofthe cliff,' said Knight, breaking the silence after his rigidstoical meditation. 'Now what you are to do is this. Clamber upmy body till your feet are on my shoulders: when you are there youwill, I think, be able to climb on to level ground.'
'What will you do?'
'Wait whilst you run for assistance.'
'I ought to have done that in the first place, ought I not?'
'I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand-point without your weight, in all probability. But don't let ustalk. Be brave, Elfride, and climb.'
She prepared to ascend, saying, 'This is the moment I anticipatedwhen on the tower. I thought it would come!'
'This is not a time for superstition,' said Knight. 'Dismiss allthat.'
'I will,' she said humbly.
'Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That's good--well done. Hold to my shoulder.'
She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand, and washigh enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill overthe bank.
'Can you now climb on to level ground?'
'I am afraid not. I will try.'
'What can you see?'
'The sloping common.'
'What upon it?'
'Purple heather and some grass.'
'Nothing more--no man or human being of any kind?'
'Nobody.'
'Now try to get higher in this way. You see that tuft of sea-pinkabove you. Get that well into your hand, but don't trust to itentirely. Then step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reachthe top.'
With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. Thepreternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread uponherself, and gave her a courage not her own. She made a springfrom the top of his shoulder, and was up.
Then she turned to look at him.
By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, added to his ownweight, had been too much for the block of quartz upon which hisfeet depended. It was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusioninto the enormous masses of black strata, which had since beenworn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries offrost and rain, and now left it without much support.
It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand.
The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse thanuseless now. It rolled over, out of sight, and away into the samenether sky that had engulfed the telescope.
without it, thank you.'she.
One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root, and Knightbegan to follow the quartz. It was a terrible moment. Elfrideuttered a low wild wail of agony, bowed her head, and covered herface with her hands.
Between the turf-covered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rockintervened a weather-worn series of jagged edges, forming a faceyet steeper than the former slope. As he slowly slid inch by inchupon these, Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuftof vegetation--the last outlying knot of starved herbage ere therock appeared in all its bareness. It arrested his furtherdescent. Knight was now literally suspended by his arms; but theincline of the brow being what engineers would call about aquarter in one, it was sufficient to relieve his arms of a portionof his weight, but was very far from offering an adequately flatface to support him.
In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, Knight foundtime for a moment of thankfulness. Elfride was safe.
She lay on her side above him--her fingers clasped. Seeing himagain steady, she jumped upon her feet.
'Now, if I can only save you by running for help!' she cried.'Oh, I would have died instead! Why did you try so hard to deliverme?' And she turned away wildly to run for assistance.
'Elfride, how long will it take you to run to Endelstow and back?'
'Three-quarters of an hour.'
'That won't do; my hands will not hold out ten minutes. And isthere nobody nearer?'
'No; unless a chance passer may happen to be.'
'He would have nothing with him that could save me. Is there apole or stick of any kind on the common?'
She gazed around. The common was bare of everything but heatherand grass.
A minute--perhaps more time--was passed in mute thought by both.On a sudden the blank and helpless agony left her face. Shevanished over the bank from his sight.
Knight felt himself in the presence of a personalized lonliness.