一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XXXVII
'After many days.'
Knight roamed south, under colour of studying Continentalantiquities.
He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by Ardennes Abbey,climbed into the strange towers of Laon, analyzed Noyon andRheims. Then he went to Chartres, and examined its scaly spiresand quaint carving then he idled about Coutances. He rowedbeneath the base of Mont St. Michel, and caught the varied skylineof the crumbling edifices encrusting it. St. Ouen's, Rouen, knewhim for days; so did Vezelay, Sens, and many a hallowed monumentbesides. Abandoning the inspection of early French art with thesame purposeless haste as he had shown in undertaking it, he wentfurther, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and Pisa. Satiatedwith mediaevalism, he tried the Roman Forum. Next he observedmoonlight and starlight effects by the bay of Naples. He turnedto Austria, became enervated and depressed on Hungarian andBohemian plains, and was refreshed again by breezes on thedeclivities of the Carpathians.
Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the plain ofMarathon, and strove to imagine the Persian defeat; to Mars Hill,to picture St. Paul addressing the ancient Athenians; toThermopylae and Salamis, to run through the facts and traditionsof the Second Invasion--the result of his endeavours being more orless chaotic. Knight grew as weary of these places as of allothers. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the IonianIslands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in gondolas up and downthe winding thoroughfare of the Grand Canal, and loitered on calleand piazza at night, when the lagunes were undisturbed by aripple, and no sound was to be heard but the stroke of themidnight clock. Afterwards he remained for weeks in the museums,galleries, and libraries of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris; and thencecame home.
Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteenmonths from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brownstubble field towards the sea.
Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignnessin their look, met by accident on one of the gravel walks leadingacross Hyde Park. The younger, more given to looking about himthan his fellow, saw and noticed the approach of his senior sometime before the latter had raised his eyes from the ground, uponwhich they were bent in an abstracted gaze that seemed habitualwith him.
day or two; then I am going ?
'Mr. Knight--indeed it is!' exclaimed the younger man.
'Ah, Stephen Smith!' said Knight.
Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressingin both, the result being that an expression less frank andimpulsive than the first took possession of their features. Itwas manifest that the next words uttered were a superficialcovering to constraint on both sides.
'Have you been in England long?' said Knight.
'Only two days,' said Smith. India ever since?'
'Nearly ever since.'
'They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce's last year. Ifancy I saw something of the sort in the papers.'
'Yes; I believe something was said about me.'
'I must congratulate you on your achievements.'
'Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A naturalprofessional progress where there was no opposition.'
There followed that want of words which will always assert itselfbetween nominal friends who find they have ceased to be real ones,and have not yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance. Eachlooked up and down the Park. Knight may possibly have borne inmind during the intervening months Stephen's manner towards himthe last time they had met, and may have encouraged his formerinterest in Stephen's welfare to die out of him as misplaced.Stephen certainly was full of the feelings begotten by the beliefthat Knight had taken away the woman he loved so well.
Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a certainrecklessness of manner and tone to hide, if possible, the factthat the subject was a much greater one to him than his friend hadever supposed.
Did she jilt you?'positionsin.
'Are you married?'
'I am not.'
Knight spoke in an indescribable tone of bitterness that wasalmost moroseness.
'And I never shall be,' he added decisively. 'Are you?'
'No,' said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in a sick-room.Totally ignorant whether or not Knight knew of his own previousclaims upon Elfride, he yet resolved to hazard a few more wordsupon the topic which had an aching fascination for him even now.
'Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to nothing,' he said.'You remember I met you with her once?'
Stephen's voice gave way a little here, in defiance of his firmestwill to the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet lowered thoseemotions down to the point of control.
'It was broken off,' came quickly from Knight. 'Engagements tomarry often end like that--for better or for worse.'
'Yes; so they do. And what have you been doing lately?'
'Doing? Nothing.'
'Where have you been?'
'I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about Europe; and itmay perhaps interest you to know that I have been attempting theserious study of Continental art of the Middle Ages. My notes oneach example I visited are at your service. They are of no use tome.'
'I shall be glad with them....Oh, travelling far and near!'
'Not far,' said Knight, with moody carelessness. 'You know, Idaresay, that sheep occasionally become giddy--hydatids in thehead, 'tis called, in which their brains become eaten up, and theanimal exhibits the strange peculiarity of walking round and roundin a circle continually. I have travelled just in the same way--round and round like a giddy ram.'
The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which Knight talked,as if rather to vent his images than to convey any ideas toStephen, struck the young man painfully. His former friend's dayshad become cankered in some way: Knight was a changed man. Hehimself had changed much, but not as Knight had changed.
'Yesterday I came home,' continued Knight, 'without having, to thebest of my belief, imbibed half-a-dozen ideas worth retaining.'
'You out-Hamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,' said Stephen, withregretful frankness.
Knight made no reply.
'Do you know,' Stephen continued, 'I could almost have sworn thatyou would be married before this time, from what I saw?'
Knight's face grew harder. 'Could you?' he said.
Stephen was powerless to forsake the depressing, luring subject.
'Yes; and I simply wonder at it.'
'Whom did you expect me to marry?'
'Her I saw you with.'
'Thank you for that wonder.'
'Did she jilt you?'
'Smith, now one word to you,' Knight returned steadily. 'Don'tyou ever question me on that subject. I have a reason for makingthis request, mind. And if you do question me, you will not getan answer.'
'Oh, I don't for a moment wish to ask what is unpleasant to you--not I. I had a momentary feeling that I should like to explainsomething on my side, and hear a similar explanation on yours.But let it go, let it go, by all means.'
'What would you explain?'
'I lost the woman I was going to marry: you have not married asyou intended. We might have compared notes.'
he added decisively. 'Are you.
'I have never asked you a word about your case.'
'I know that.'
'And the inference is obvious.'
'Quite so.'
'The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved never to alludeto the matter--for which I have a very good reason.'
'Doubtless. As good a reason as you had for not marrying her.'
your case.'doing lately.
'You talk insidiously. I had a good one--a miserably good one!'
Smith's anxiety urged him to venture one more question.
'Did she not love you enough?' He drew his breath in a slow andattenuated stream, as he waited in timorous hope for the answer.
'Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in pressingquestions of that kind after what I have said. I cannotunderstand you at all. I must go on now.'
'Why, good God!' exclaimed Stephen passionately, 'you talk as ifyou hadn't at all taken her away from anybody who had betterclaims to her than you!'
'What do you mean by that?' said Knight, with a puzzled air.'What have you heard?'
'Nothing. I too must go on. Good-day.'
'If you will go,' said Knight, reluctantly now, 'you must, Isuppose. I am sure I cannot understand why you behave so.'
'Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful to you, and as faras I am concerned we need never have become so estranged as wehave.'
'And have I ever been anything but well-disposed towards you,Stephen? Surely you know that I have not! The system of reservebegan with you: you know that.'
'No, no! You altogether mistake our position. You were alwaysfrom the first reserved to me, though I was confidential to you.That was, I suppose, the natural issue of our differing positionsin life. And when I, the pupil, became reserved like you, themaster, you did not like it. However, I was going to ask you tocome round and see me.'
'Where are you staying?'
'At the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico.'
'So am I.'
'That's convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am detained in Londonfor a day or two; then I am going down to see my father andmother, who live at St. Launce's now. Will you see me thisevening?'
'I may; but I will not promise. I was wishing to be alone for anhour or two; but I shall know where to find you, at any rate.Good-bye.'