一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XXXVIII
'Jealousy is cruel as the grave.'
Stephen pondered not a little on this meeting with his old friendand once-beloved exemplar. He was grieved, for amid all thedistractions of his latter years a still small voice of fidelityto Knight had lingered on in him. Perhaps this staunchness wasbecause Knight ever treated him as a mere disciple--even tosnubbing him sometimes; and had at last, though unwittingly,inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of taking awayhis sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitution was builtrather after a feminine than a male model; and that tremendouswound from Knight's hand may have tended to keep alive a warmthwhich solicitousness would have extinguished altogether.
Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, that he hadnot taken Stephen in hand a little after the old manner. Thosewords which Smith had let fall concerning somebody having a priorclaim to Elfride, would, if uttered when the man was younger, haveprovoked such a query as, 'Come, tell me all about it, my lad,'from Knight, and Stephen would straightway have delivered himselfof all he knew on the subject.
Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated externally byStephen the contriving man, returned to Knight's memory vividlythat afternoon. He was at present but a sojourner in London; andafter attending to the two or three matters of business whichremained to be done that day, he walked abstractedly into thegloomy corridors of the British Museum for the half-hour previousto their closing. That meeting with Smith had reunited thepresent with the past, closing up the chasm of his absence fromEngland as if it had never existed, until the final circumstancesof his previous time of residence in London formed but a yesterdayto the circumstances now. The conflict that then had raged in himconcerning Elfride Swancourt revived, strengthened by its sleep.Indeed, in those many months of absence, though quelling theintention to make her his wife, he had never forgotten that shewas the type of woman adapted to his nature; and instead of tryingto obliterate thoughts of her altogether, he had grown to regardthem as an infirmity it was necessary to tolerate.
Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than hewould have done in the ordinary course of things. He did not careto think whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gapthat had slowly been widening between himself and his earliestacquaintance, or from a hankering desire to hear the meaning ofthe dark oracles Stephen had hastily pronounced, betokening thathe knew something more of Elfride than Knight had supposed.
He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and soon was usheredinto the young man's presence, whom he found sitting in front of acomfortable fire, beside a table spread with a few scientificperiodicals and art reviews.
'I have come to you, after all,' said Knight. 'My manner was oddthis morning, and it seemed desirable to call; but that you hadtoo much sense to notice, Stephen, I know. Put it down to mywanderings in France and Italy.'
'Don't say another word, but sit down. I am only too glad to seeyou again.'
Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that theminute before Knight was announced he had been reading over someold letters of Elfride's. They were not many; and until to-nighthad been sealed up, and stowed away in a corner of his leathertrunk, with a few other mementoes and relics which had accompaniedhim in his travels. The familiar sights and sounds of London, themeeting with his friend, had with him also revived that sense ofabiding continuity with regard to Elfride and love which hisabsence at the other side of the world had to some extentsuspended, though never ruptured. He at first intended only tolook over these letters on the outside; then he read one; thenanother; until the whole was thus re-used as a stimulus to sadmemories. He folded them away again, placed them in his pocket,and instead of going on with an examination into the state of theartistic world, had remained musing on the strange circumstancethat he had returned to find Knight not the husband of Elfrideafter all.
The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulativesense of its necessity. Stephen gave the rein to his imagination,and felt more intensely than he had felt for many months that,without Elfride, his life would never be any great pleasure tohimself, or honour to his Maker.
They sat by the fire, chatting on external and random subjects,neither caring to be the first to approach the matter each mostlonged to discuss. On the table with the periodicals lay two orthree pocket-books, one of them being open. Knight seeing fromthe exposed page that the contents were sketches only, beganturning the leaves over carelessly with his finger. When, sometime later, Stephen was out of the room, Knight proceeded to passthe interval by looking at the sketches more carefully.
parishioners of his. It was only human nature tohold .
The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all kinds, wereroughly outlined on the different pages. Antiquities had beencopied; fragments of Indian columns, colossal statues, andoutlandish ornament from the temples of Elephanta and Kenneri,were carelessly intruded upon by outlines of modern doors,windows, roofs, cooking-stoves, and household furniture;everything, in short, which comes within the range of a practisingarchitect's experience, who travels with his eyes open. Amongthese occasionally appeared rough delineations of mediaevalsubjects for carving or illumination--heads of Virgins, Saints,and Prophets.
Stephen was not professedly a free-hand draughtsman, but he drewthe human figure with correctness and skill. In its numerousrepetitions on the sides and edges of the leaves, Knight began tonotice a peculiarity. All the feminine saints had one type offeature. There were large nimbi and small nimbi about theirdrooping heads, but the face was always the same. That profile--how well Knight knew that profile!
Had there been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, hemight have passed over the resemblance as accidental; but arepetition meant more. Knight thought anew of Smith's hasty wordsearlier in the day, and looked at the sketches again and again.
On the young man's entry, Knight said with palpable agitation--
'Stephen, who are those intended for?'
Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, 'Saints andangels, done in my leisure moments. They were intended as designsfor the stained glass of an English church.'
'But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adoptfor the Virgin?'
'Nobody.'
And then a thought raced along Stephen's mind and he looked up athis friend.
The truth is, Stephen's introduction of Elfride's lineaments hadbeen so unconscious that he had not at first understood hiscompanion's drift. The hand, like the tongue, easily acquires thetrick of repetition by rote, without calling in the mind to assistat all; and this had been the case here. Young men who cannotwrite verses about their Loves generally take to portraying them,and in the early days of his attachment Smith had never been wearyof outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen's sketches nowinitiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognizedher. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought.
'Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged,' he said quietly.
same varnish of careless criticism, 'she!
'Stephen!'
'I know what you mean by speaking like that.'
'Was it Elfride? YOU the man, Stephen?'
'Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from youthat time at Endelstow, are you not?'
'Yes, and more--more.'
'I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for thebest. And now say how could I be with you afterwards as I hadbeen before?'
'I don't know at all; I can't say.'
Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he murmured--
'I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some suchmeaning in your words about my taking her away. But I dismissedit. How came you to know her?' he presently asked, in almost aperemptory tone.
'I went down about the church; years ago now.'
'When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can'tunderstand it.' His tones rose. 'I don't know what to say, yourhoodwinking me like this for so long!'
'I don't see that I have hoodwinked you at all.'
'Yes, yes, but'----
Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room.His face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said--
'You did not act as I should have acted towards you under thosecircumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shallnever forget it!'
'What?'
'Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I toldyou we were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty,everywhere; all the world's of a piece!'
Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives,even though it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbedby emotion.
'I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her,' hesaid stiffly.
'Indeed!' said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. 'Norcould you with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! Ihave hoped--longed--that HE, who turns out to be YOU, wouldultimately have done that.'
'I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk verymysteriously. I think I had about the best reason anybody couldhave had for not doing that.'
'Oh, what reason was it?'
'That I could not.'
'You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, inbare justice to her, Stephen!' cried Knight, carried beyondhimself. 'That you know very well, and it hurts and wounds memore than you dream to find you never have tried to make anyreparation to a woman of that kind--so trusting, so apt to be runaway with by her feelings--poor little fool, so much the worse forher!'
'Why, you talk like a madman! You took her away from me, did younot?'
'Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called"taking away." However, we shall not agree too well upon thatsubject, so we had better part.'
'But I am quite certain you misapprehend something mostgrievously,' said Stephen, shaken to the bottom of his heart.'What have I done; tell me? I have lost Elfride, but is that sucha sin?'
'Was it her doing, or yours?'
'Was what?'
'That you parted.'
'I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, entirely.'
'What was her reason?'
'I can hardly say. But I'll tell the story without reserve.'
Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she grew tiredof him and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance thestatement now, or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwiseaccorded better with the hope to which Knight's estrangement hadgiven birth: that love for his friend was not the direct cause,but a result of her suspension of love for himself.
'Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,'Knight returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all histrue feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do seethat your reticence towards me in the vault may have been dictatedby prudential considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It wasa strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose,at this distance of time; and it does not concern me now, though Idon't mind hearing your story.'
These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciationand apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhapswith a little complacency--of his old secret engagement toElfride. He told the details of its origin, and the peremptorywords and actions of her father to extinguish their love.
Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterestedoutsider. It had become more than ever imperative to screen hisemotions from Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be lessfrank, and their meeting would be again embittered. What was theuse of untoward candour?
Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrativewhere he left the vicarage because of her father's manner.Knight's interest increased. Their love seemed so innocent andchildlike thus far.
'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whetheryou were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that yourfriends were parishioners of his. It was only human nature tohold your tongue under the circumstances. Well, what was theresult of your dismissal by him?'
'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this wethought we would marry.'
Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen enteredupon this phase of the subject.
'Do you mind telling on?' he said, steadying his manner of speech.
'Oh, not at all.'
Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting withElfride at the railway station; the necessity they were under ofgoing to London, unless the ceremony were to be postponed. Thelong journey of the afternoon and evening; her timidity andrevulsion of feeling; its culmination on reaching London; thecrossing over to the down-platform and their immediate departureagain, solely in obedience to her wish; the journey all night;their anxious watching for the dawn; their arrival at St. Launce'sat last--were detailed. And he told how a village woman namedJethway was the only person who recognized them, either going orcoming; and how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He told how hewaited in the fields whilst this then reproachful sweetheart wentfor her pony, and how the last kiss he ever gave her was given amile out of the town, on the way to Endelstow.
These things Stephen related with a will. He believed that indoing so he established word by word the reasonableness of hisclaim to Elfride.
cooking-stoves, and household furniture;everything, in.
'Curse her! curse that woman!--that miserable letter that partedus! O God!'
Knight began pacing the room again, and uttered this at furtherend.
'What did you say?' said Stephen, turning round.
'Say? Did I say anything? Oh, I was merely thinking about yourstory, and the oddness of my having a fancy for the same womanafterwards. And that now I--I have forgotten her almost; andneither of us care about her, except just as a friend, you know,eh?'
Knight still continued at the further end of the room, somewhat inshadow.
'Exactly,' said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was reallydeceived by Knight's off-hand manner.
Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of Knight's disguisethan by the persuasive power which lay in the fact that Knight hadnever before deceived him in anything. So this supposition thathis companion had ceased to love Elfride was an enormouslightening of the weight which had turned the scale against him.
'Admitting that Elfride COULD love another man after you,' saidthe elder, under the same varnish of careless criticism, 'she wasnone the worse for that experience.'
'The worse? Of course she was none the worse.'
'Did you ever think it a wild and thoughtless thing for her todo?'
'Indeed, I never did,' said Stephen. 'I persuaded her. She sawno harm in it until she decided to return, nor did I; nor wasthere, except to the extent of indiscretion.'
'Directly she thought it was wrong she would go no further?'
'That was it. I had just begun to think it wrong too.'
'Such a childish escapade might have been misrepresented by anyevil-disposed person, might it not?'
'It might; but I never heard that it was. Nobody who really knewall the circumstances would have done otherwise than smile. Ifall the world had known it, Elfride would still have remained theonly one who thought her action a sin. Poor child, she alwayspersisted in thinking so, and was frightened more than enough.'
'Stephen, do you love her now?'
'Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,' he said evasively,and with all the strategy love suggested. 'But I have not seenher for so long that I can hardly be expected to love her. Do youlove her still?'
'How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings wemen are, Stephen! Men may love strongest for a while, but womenlove longest. I used to love her--in my way, you know.'
'Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. Infact, I loved her a good deal at one time; but travel has atendency to obliterate early fancies.'
'It has--it has, truly.'
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation wasthe circumstance that, though each interlocutor had at first hissuspicions of the other's abiding passion awakened by severallittle acts, neither would allow himself to see that his friendmight now be speaking deceitfully as well as he.
'Stephen.' resumed Knight, 'now that matters are smooth betweenus, I think I must leave you. You won't mind my hurrying off tomy quarters?'
'You'll stay to some sort of supper surely? didn't you come todinner!'
'You must really excuse me this once.'
'Then you'll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.'
'I shall be rather pressed for time.'
'An early breakfast, which shall interfere with nothing?'
'I'll come,' said Knight, with as much readiness as it waspossible to graft upon a huge stock of reluctance. 'Yes, early;eight o'clock say, as we are under the same roof.'
'Any time you like. Eight it shall be.'
And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble his feelings ashe had in their late miserable conversation, was such torture thathe could support it no longer. It was the first time in Knight'slife that he had ever been so entirely the player of a part. Andthe man he had thus deceived was Stephen, who had docilely lookedup to him from youth as a superior of unblemished integrity.
for time.'parted.' her reason?',everywhere; all.
He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rageuncontrolled. Stephen--it was only he who was the rival--onlyStephen! There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight,wretched and conscience-stricken as he was, could not helprecognizing. Stephen was but a boy to him. Where the great grieflay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride inreading her little fault as one so grave was what had fatallymisled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, assertedthat she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs.Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not make hislittle docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had onlyexercised the imperativeness customary with him on others, allmight have been revealed. It smote his heart like a switch whenhe remembered how gently she had borne his scourging speeches,never answering him with a single reproach, only assuring him ofher unbounded love.
Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault.He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her.He again saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yetin her eagerness to be explanatory borne forward almost againsther will. How she would wait for him in green places, withoutshowing any of the ordinary womanly affectations of indifference!How proud she was to be seen walking with him, bearing legibly inher eyes the thought that he was the greatest genius in the world!
He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence ofslumber no longer. Rising and dressing himself, he sat down andwaited for day.
That night Stephen was restless too. Not because of theunwontedness of a return to English scenery; not because he wasabout to meet his parents, and settle down for awhile to Englishcottage life. He was indulging in dreams, and for the nonce thewarehouses of Bombay and the plains and forts of Poonah were but ashadow's shadow. His dream was based on this one atom of fact:Elfride and Knight had become separated, and their engagement wasas if it had never been. Their rupture must have occurred soonafter Stephen's discovery of the fact of their union; and, Stephenwent on to think, what so probable as that a return of her errantaffection to himself was the cause?
Stephen's opinions in this matter were those of a lover, and notthe balanced judgment of an unbiassed spectator. His naturallysanguine spirit built hope upon hope, till scarcely a doubtremained in his mind that her lingering tenderness for him had insome way been perceived by Knight, and had provoked their parting.
To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it wasimpossible to withstand. At any rate, to run down from St.Launce's to Castle Poterel, a distance of less than twenty miles,and glide like a ghost about their old haunts, making stealthyinquiries about her, would be a fascinating way of passing thefirst spare hours after reaching home on the day after the morrow.
He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing on his ownbottom; and the definite position in which he had rooted himselfnullified old local distinctions. He had become illustrious, evensanguine clarus, judging from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St.Launce's.