一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XXXII
'Had I wist before I kist'
It was now October, and the night air was chill. After looking tosee that she was well wrapped up, Knight took her along thehillside path they had ascended so many times in each other'scompany, when doubt was a thing unknown. On reaching the churchthey found that one side of the tower was, as the vicar hadstated, entirely removed, and lying in the shape of rubbish attheir feet. The tower on its eastern side still was firm, andmight have withstood the shock of storms and the siege ofbattering years for many a generation even now. They entered bythe side-door, went eastward, and sat down by the altar-steps.
strangethings. I don't know what!
The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and nave formed to-night a black frame to a distant misty view, stretching farwestward. Just outside the arch came the heap of fallen stones,then a portion of moonlit churchyard, then the wide and convex seabehind. It was a coup-d'oeil which had never been possible sincethe mediaeval masons first attached the old tower to the olderchurch it dignified, and hence must be supposed to have had aninterest apart from that of simple moonlight on ancient wall andsea and shore--any mention of which has by this time, it is to befeared, become one of the cuckoo-cries which are heard but notregarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone upon the twainfrom the east window behind them, wherein saints and angels viedwith each other in primitive surroundings of landscape and sky,and threw upon the pavement at the sitters' feet a softerreproduction of the same translucent hues, amid which the shadowsof the two living heads of Knight and Elfride were opaque andprominent blots. Presently the moon became covered by a cloud,and the iridescence died away.
'There, it is gone!' said Knight. 'I've been thinking, Elfride,that this place we sit on is where we may hope to kneel togethersoon. But I am restless and uneasy, and you know why.'
Before she replied the moonlight returned again, irradiating thatportion of churchyard within their view. It brightened the nearpart first, and against the background which the cloud-shadow hadnot yet uncovered stood, brightest of all, a white tomb--the tombof young Jethway.
Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride's secret, thought ofher words concerning the kiss that it once had occurred on a tombin this churchyard.
'Elfride,' he said, with a superficial archness which did not halfcover an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you know, I think you mighthave told me voluntarily about that past--of kisses andbetrothing--without giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Wasthat the tomb you alluded to as having sat on with him?'
She waited an instant. 'Yes,' she said.
The correctness of his random shot startled Knight; though,considering that almost all the other memorials in the churchyardwere upright headstones upon which nobody could possibly sit, itwas not so wonderful.
Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation her exactinglover wished to have, and her reticence began to irritate him asbefore. He was inclined to read her a lecture.
'Why don't you tell me all?' he said somewhat indignantly.'Elfride, there is not a single subject upon which I feel morestrongly than upon this--that everything ought to be cleared upbetween two persons before they become husband and wife. See howdesirable and wise such a course is, in order to avoiddisagreeable contingencies in the form of discoveries afterwards.For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all may be made thebasis of some fatal misunderstanding only because it isdiscovered, and not confessed. They say there never was a coupleof whom one had not some secret the other never knew or wasintended to know. This may or may not be true; but if it be true,some have been happy in spite rather than in consequence of it.If a man were to see another man looking significantly at hiswife, and she were blushing crimson and appearing startled, do youthink he would be so well satisfied with, for instance, hertruthful explanation that once, to her great annoyance, sheaccidentally fainted into his arms, as if she had said itvoluntarily long ago, before the circumstance occurred whichforced it from her? Suppose that admirer you spoke of inconnection with the tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. Itwould embitter our lives, if I were then half in the dark, as I amnow!'
Knight spoke the latter sentences with growing force.
'It cannot be,' she said.
dead, how can you meet him?
'Why not?' he asked sharply.
Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a mood, and shetrembled. In a confusion of ideas, probably not intending awilful prevarication, she answered hurriedly--
'If he's dead, how can you meet him?'
'Is he dead? Oh, that's different altogether!' said Knight,immensely relieved. 'But, let me see--what did you say about thattomb and him?'
'That's his tomb,' she continued faintly.
'What! was he who lies buried there the man who was your lover?'Knight asked in a distinct voice.
'Yes; and I didn't love him or encourage him.'
'But you let him kiss you--you said so, you know, Elfride.'
as I trust you.'does,' he sadly continued.
She made no reply.
'Why,' said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, 'yousurely said you were in some degree engaged to him--and of courseyou were if he kissed you. And now you say you never encouragedhim. And I have been fancying you said--I am almost sure you did--that you were sitting with him ON that tomb. Good God!' hecried, suddenly starting up in anger, 'are you telling meuntruths? Why should you play with me like this? I'll have theright of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There's a blightupon us, or me, or you, and it must be cleared off before wemarry.' Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her.
She jumped up and clutched his arm
'Don't go, Harry--don't!
'Tell me, then,' said Knight sternly. 'And remember this, no morefibs, or, upon my soul, I shall hate you. Heavens! that I shouldcome to this, to be made a fool of by a girl's untruths----'
'Don't, don't treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, andwithdraw those dreadful words! I am truthful by nature--I am--andI don't know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I wasfrightened!' She quivered so in her perturbation that she shookhim with her (Note: sentence incomplete in text.)
'Did you say you were sitting on that tomb?' he asked moodily.
'Yes; and it was true.'
'Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit upon his owntomb?'
'That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won't you?'
'What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it?'
'Oh--Oh--yes!'
'Then there were two before me?
'I--suppose so.'
'Now, don't be a silly woman with your supposing--I hate allthat,' said Knight contemptuously almost. 'Well, we learn strangethings. I don't know what I might have done--no man can say intowhat shape circumstances may warp him--but I hardly think I shouldhave had the conscience to accept the favours of a new loverwhilst sitting over the poor remains of the old one; upon my soul,I don't.' Knight, in moody meditation, continued looking towardsthe tomb, which stood staring them in the face like an avengingghost.
'But you wrong me--Oh, so grievously!" she cried. 'I did notmeditate any such thing: believe me, Harry, I did not. It onlyhappened so--quite of itself.'
'Well, I suppose you didn't INTEND such a thing,' he said.'Nobody ever does,' he sadly continued.
'And him in the grave I never once loved.'
'I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat there, vowed to befaithful to each other for ever?'
Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing she was onthe brink of a sob.
'You don't choose to be anything but reserved, then?' he saidimperatively.
'Of course we did,' she responded.
'"Of course!" You seem to treat the subject very lightly?'
'It is past, and is nothing to us now.'
'Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make a careless manlaugh, cannot but make a genuine one grieve. It is a very gnawingpain. Tell me straight through--all of it.'
'Never. O Harry! how can you expect it when so little of it makesyou so harsh with me?'
'Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what you have toldonly jars the subtler fancies in one, after all. The feeling Ihave about it would be called, and is, mere sentimentality; and Idon't want you to suppose that an ordinary previous engagement ofa straightforward kind would make any practical difference in mylove, or my wish to make you my wife. But you seem to have moreto tell, and that's where the wrong is. Is there more?'
'Not much more,' she wearily answered.
Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. '"Not much more,"'he said at last. 'I should think not, indeed!' His voice assumeda low and steady pitch. 'Elfride, you must not mind my saying astrange-sounding thing, for say it I shall. It is this: that ifthere WERE much more to add to an account which already includesall the particulars that a broken marriage engagement couldpossibly include with propriety, it must be some exceptional thingwhich might make it impossible for me or any one else to love youand marry you.'
Knight's disturbed mood led him much further than he would havegone in a quieter moment. And, even as it was, had she beenassertive to any degree he would not have been so peremptory; andhad she been a stronger character--more practical and lessimaginative--she would have made more use of her position in hisheart to influence him. But the confiding tenderness which hadwon him is ever accompanied by a sort of self-committal to thestream of events, leading every such woman to trust more to thekindness of fate for good results than to any argument of her own.
'Well, well,' he murmured cynically; 'I won't say it is yourfault: it is my ill-luck, I suppose. I had no real right toquestion you--everybody would say it was presuming. But when wehave misunderstood, we feel injured by the subject of ourmisunderstanding. You never said you had had nobody else heremaking love to you, so why should I blame you? Elfride, I beg yourpardon.'
'No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrievedpoliteness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should you inflict that uponme? It reduces me to the level of a mere acquaintance.'
'You do that with me. Why not confidence for confidence?'
'Yes; but I didn't ask you a single question with regard to yourpast: I didn't wish to know about it. All I cared for was that,wherever you came from, whatever you had done, whoever you hadloved, you were mine at last. Harry, if originally you had knownI had loved, would you never have cared for me?'
'I won't quite say that. Though I own that the idea of yourinexperienced state had a great charm for me. But I think this:that if I had known there was any phase of your past love youwould refuse to reveal if I asked to know it, I should never haveloved you.'
Elfride sobbed bitterly. 'Am I such a--mere characterless toy--asto have no attrac--tion in me, apart from--freshness? Haven't Ibrains? You said--I was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and--isn't that anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have alittle--and I know I have--yes, I do! You have praised my voice,and my manner, and my accomplishments. Yet all these together areso much rubbish because I--accidentally saw a man before you!'
'Oh, come, Elfride. "Accidentally saw a man" is very cool. Youloved him, remember.'
--'And loved him a little!'
'And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Doyou refuse still, Elfride?'
'You have no right to question me so--you said so. It is unfair.Trust me as I trust you.'
'That's not at all.'
'I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel to me toargue like this.'
'Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by my feeling foryou. Heaven knows that I didn't mean to; but I have loved you sothat I have used you badly.'
'I don't mind it, Harry!' she instantly answered, creeping up andnestling against him; 'and I will not think at all that you usedme harshly if you will forgive me, and not be vexed with me anymore? I do wish I had been exactly as you thought I was, but Icould not help it, you know. If I had only known you had beencoming, what a nunnery I would have lived in to have been goodenough for you!'
'Well, never mind,' said Knight; and he turned to go. Heendeavoured to speak sportively as they went on. 'DiogenesLaertius says that philosophers used voluntarily to deprivethemselves of sight to be uninterrupted in their meditations.Men, becoming lovers, ought to do the same thing.'
'Why? Because they would never then be distracted by discoveringtheir idol was second-hand.'
She looked down and sighed; and they passed out of the crumblingold place, and slowly crossed to the churchyard entrance. Knightwas not himself, and he could not pretend to be. She had not toldall.
He supported her lightly over the stile, and was practically asattentive as a lover could be. But there had passed away a glory,and the dream was not as it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight wasnot shaped by Nature for a marrying man. Perhaps his lifelongconstraint towards women, which he had attributed to accident, wasnot chance after all, but the natural result of instinctive actsso minute as to be undiscernible even by himself. Or whether therough dispelling of any bright illusion, however imaginative,depreciates the real and unexaggerated brightness which appertainsto its basis, one cannot say. Certain it was that Knight'sdisappointment at finding himself second or third in the field, atElfride's momentary equivoque, and at her reluctance to be candid,brought him to the verge of cynicism.