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1、【英文读物】The Black DogThe Black Dog Having pocketed his fare the freckled rustic took himself and his antediluvian cab back to the village limbo from which they had briefly emerged. Loughlin checked his luggage into the care of the porter, an angular man with one eye who was apparently the only other l
2、iving being in this remote minute station, and sat down in the platform shade. July noon had a stark eye-tiring brightness, and a silence so very deepwhen that porter ceased his intolerable clatterthat Loughlin could hear footsteps crunching in the road half a mile away. The train was late. There we
3、re no other passengers. Nothing to look at except his trunks, two shiny rails in the grim track, red hollyhocks against white palings on the opposite bank. The holiday in this quiet neighbourhood had delighted him, but its crowning experience had been too brief. On the last day but one the loveliest
4、 woman he had ever known had emerged almost as briefly as that cabman. Some men are constantly meeting that woman. Not so the Honourable Gerald Loughlin, but no man turns his back tranquilly on destiny even if it is but two days old and already some half-dozen miles away. The visit had come to its e
5、nd, Loughlin had come to his station, the cab had gone back to its lair, but on reflection he could find no other reasons for going away and denying himself the delight of this proffered experience. Time was his own, as much as he could buy of it, and he had an income that enabled him to buy a good
6、deal. 14 Moody and hesitant he began to fill his pipe when the one-eyed porter again approached him. “Take a pipe of that?” said Loughlin, offering him the pouch. “Thanky, sir, but I cant smoke a pipe; a cigarette I take now and again, thanky, sir, not often, just to keep me from cussing and damming
7、. My wife buys me a packet sometimes, she says I dont swear so much then, but I dont know, I has to knock em off soons they make me feel bad, and then, dam it all, I be worsen ever.” “Look here,” said the other, interrupting him, “Im not going by this train after all. Something I have forgotten. Now
8、 look after my bags and Ill come along later, this afternoon.” He turned and left the station as hurriedly as if his business was really of the high importance the porter immediately conceived it to be. The Honourable Gerald, though handsome and honest, was not a fool. A fool is one who becomes dist
9、racted between the claims of instinct and common sense; the larger foolishness is the peculiar doom of imaginative people, artists and their kind, while the smaller foolishness is the mark of all those who have nothing but their foolishness to endorse them. Loughlin responded to this impulse unhesit
10、atingly but without distraction, calmly and directly as became a well-bred bachelor in the early thirties. He might have written to the young beauty with the queer name, Orianda Crabbe, but that course teemed with absurdities and difficulties for he was modest, his romantic imagination weak, and he
11、had only met her15 at old Lady Tillingtons a couple of days before. Of this mere girl, just twenty-three or twenty-four, he knew nothing save that they had been immediately and vividly charming to each other. That was no excuse for presenting himself again to the old invalid of Tillington Park, it w
12、ould be impossible for him to do so, but there had been one vague moment of their recalled intercourse, a glimmering intimation, which just now seemed to offer a remote possibility of achievement, and so he walked on in the direction of the park. Tillington was some miles off and the heat was oppres
13、sive. At the end of an hours stroll he stepped into “The Three Pigeons” at Denbury and drank a deep drink. It was quiet and deliciously cool in the taproom there, yes, as silent as that little station had been. Empty the world seemed to-day, quite empty; he had not passed a human creature. Happily b
14、emused he took another draught. Eighteen small panes of glass in that long window and perhaps as many flies buzzing in the room. He could hear and see a breeze saluting the bright walled ivy outside and the bushes by a stream. This drowsiness was heaven, it made so clear his recollection of Orianda.
15、 It was impossible to particularize but she was in her way, her rather uncultured way, just perfection. He had engaged her upon several themes, music, fishing (Loughlin loved fishing), golf, tennis, and books; none of these had particularly stirred her but she had brains, quite an original turn of m
16、ind. There had been neither time nor opportunity to discover anything about her, but there she was, staying there, that16 was the one thing certain, apparently indefinitely, for she described the park in a witty detailed way even to a certain favourite glade which she always visited in the afternoon
17、s. When she had told him that, he could swear she was not finessing; no, no, it was a most engaging simplicity, a frankness that was positively marmoreal. He would certainly write to her; yes, and he began to think of fine phrases to put in a letter, but could there be anything finer, now, just at t
18、his moment, than to be sitting with her in this empty inn. It was not a fair place, though it was clean, but how she would brighten it, yes! there were two long settles and two short ones, two tiny tables and eight spittoons (he had to count them), and somehow he felt her image flitting adorably int
19、o this setting, defeating with its native glory all the scrupulous beer-smelling impoverishment. And then, after a while, he would take her, and they would lie in the grass under a deep-bosomed tree and speak of love. How beautiful she would be. But she was not there, and so he left the inn and cros
20、sed the road to a church, pleasant and tiny and tidy, whitewalled and clean-ceilinged. A sparrow chirped in the porch, flies hummed in the nave, a puppy was barking in the vicarage garden. How trivial, how absurdly solemn, everything seemed. The thud of the great pendulum in the tower had the sound
21、of a dead man beating on a bar of spiritless iron. He was tired of the vapid tidiness of these altars with their insignificant tapestries, candlesticks of gilded wood, the bunches of pale flowers oppressed by the rich glow from the windows. He longed for17 an altar that should be an inspiring symbol
22、 of belief, a place of green and solemn walls with a dark velvet shrine sweeping aloft to the peaked roof unhindered by tarnishing lustre and tedious linen. Holiness was always something richly dim. There was no more holiness here than in the tough hassocks and rush-bottomed chairs; not here, surely
23、, the apple of Eden flourished. And yet, turning to the lectern, he noted the large prayer book open at the office of marriage. He idly read over the words of the ceremony, filling in at the gaps the names of Gerald Wilmot Loughlin and Orianda Crabbe. What a fool! He closed the book with a slam and
24、left the church. Absurd! You couldnt fall in love with a person as sharply as all that, could you? But why not? Unless fancy was charged with the lightning of gods it was nothing at all. Tramping away still in the direction of Tillington Park he came in the afternoon to that glade under a screen of
25、trees spoken of by the girl. It was green and shady, full of scattering birds. He flung himself down in the grass under a deep-bosomed tree. She had spoken delightfully of this delightful spot. When she came, for come she did, the confrontation left him very unsteady as he sprang to his feet. (Confo
26、und that potation at “The Three Pigeons”! Enormously hungry, too!) But he was amazed, entranced, she was so happy to see him again. They sat down together, but he was still bewildered and his confusion left him all at sixes and sevens. Fortunately her own rivulet of casual chatter carried them18 on
27、until he suddenly asked: “Are you related to the Crabbes of CottertonI fancy I know them?” “No, I think not, no, I am from the south country, near the sea, nobody at all, my father keeps an inn.” “An inn! How extraordinary! How very . very .” “Extraordinary?” Nodding her head in the direction of the
28、 hidden mansion she added: “I am her companion.” “Lady Tillingtons?” She assented coolly, was silent, while Loughlin ransacked his brains for some delicate reference that would clear him over this . this . cataract. But he felt stupidthat confounded potation at “The Three Pigeons”! Why, that was whe
29、re he had thought of her so admirably, too. He asked if she cared for the position, was it pleasant, and so on. Heavens, what an astonishing creature for a domestic, quite positively lovely, a compendium of delightful qualities, this girl, so frank, so simple! “Yes, I like it, but home is better. I
30、should love to go back to my home, to father, but I cant, Im still afraidI ran away from home three years ago, to go with my mother. Im like my mother, she ran away from home too.” Orianda picked up the open parasol which she had dropped, closed it in a thoughtful manner, and laid its crimson folds
31、beside her. There was no other note of colour in her white attire; she was without a hat. Her fair hair had a quenching tinge upon it that made it less bright than gold, but more rare. Her19 cheeks had the colour of homely flowers, the lily and the pink. Her teeth were as even as the peas in a newly
32、 opened pod, as clear as milk. “Tell me about all that. May I hear it?” “I have not seen him or heard from him since, but I love him very much now.” “Your father?” “Yes, but he is stern, a simple man, and he is so just. We live at a tiny old inn at the end of a village near the hills. The Black Dog.
33、 It is thatched and has tiny rooms. Its painted all over with pink, pink whitewash.” “Ah, I know.” “Theres a porch, under a sycamore tree, where people sit, and an old rusty chain hanging on a hook just outside the door.” “Whats that for?” 20 “I dont know what it is for, horses, perhaps, but it is a
34、lways there, I always see that rusty chain. And on the opposite side of the road there are three lime trees and behind them is the yard where my father works. He makes hurdles and ladders. He is the best hurdle maker in three counties, he has won many prizes at the shows. It is splendid to see him w
35、orking at the willow wood, soft and white. The yard is full of poles and palings, spars and fagots, and long shavings of the thin bark like seaweed. It smells so nice. In the spring the chaffinches and wrens are singing about him all day long; the wren is lovely, but in the summer of course its the
36、whitethroats come chippering, and yellow-hammers.” “Ah, blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales!” “Yes, but its the little birds seem to love my fathers yard.” “Well then, but why did you, why did you run away?” “My mother was much younger, and different from father; she was handsome and proud too, and i
37、n all sorts of ways superior to him. They got to hate each other; they were so quiet about it, but I could see. Their only common interest was me, they both loved me very much. Three years ago she ran away from him. Quite suddenly, you know; there was nothing at all leading up to such a thing. But I
38、 could not understand my father, not then, he took it all so calmly. He did not mention even her name to me for a long time, and I feared to intrude; you see, I did not understand, I was only twenty. When I did ask about her he told me not to bother him, forbade me to write to her. I didnt know wher
39、e she was, but he knew, and at last I found out too.” “And you defied him, I suppose?” “No, I deceived him. He gave me money for some purposeto pay a debtand I stole it. I left him a letter and ran away to my mother. I loved her.” “O well, that was only to be expected,” said Loughlin. “It was all ri
40、ght, quite right.” “She was living with another man. I didnt know. I was a fool.” “Good lord! That was a shock for you,” Loughlin said. “What did you do?” 21 “No, I was not shocked, she was so happy. I lived with them for a year.” “Extraordinary!” “And then she died.” “Your mother died!” “Yes, so yo
41、u see I could not stop with my . I could not stay where I was, and I couldnt go back to my father.” “I see, no, but you want to go back to your father now.” “Im afraid. I love him, but Im afraid. I dont blame my mother, I feel she was right, quite rightit was such happiness. And yet I feel, too, tha
42、t father was deeply wronged. I cant understand that, it sounds foolish. I should so love to go home again. This other kind of life doesnt seem to eclipse methings have been extraordinary kindI dont feel out of my setting, but still it doesnt satisfy, it is polite and soft, like silk, perhaps it isnt
43、 barbarous enough, and I want to live, somehowwell, I have not found what I wanted to find.” “What did you want to find?” “I shant know until I have found it. I do want to go home now, but I am full of strange feelings about it. I feel as if I was bearing the mark of something that cant be hidden or
44、 disguised of what my mother did, as if I were all a burning recollection for him that he couldnt fail to see. He is good, a just man. He . he is the best hurdle maker in three counties.” While listening to this daughter of a man who made ladders the Honourable Gerald had been swiftly thinking of an
45、 intriguing phrase that leaped into his mind. Social plesiomorphism, that was it! Caste was humbug, no doubt, but even if it was22 conscious humbug it was there, really there, like the patterned frost upon a window pane, beautiful though a little incoherent, and conditioned only by the size and numb
46、er of your windows. (Eighteen windows in that pub!) But what did it amount to, after all? It was stuck upon your clear polished outline for every eye to see, but within was something surprising as the sight of a badger in churchuntil you got used to the indubitable relation of such badgers to such c
47、hurches. Fine turpitudes! “My dear girl,” he burst out, “your mother and you were right, absolutely. I am sure life is enhanced not by amassing conventions, but by destroying them. And your feeling for your father is right, too, rightest of all. Tell me . let me . may I take you back to him?” The gi
48、rls eyes dwelt upon his with some intensity. “Your courage is kind,” she said, “but he doesnt know you, nor you him.” And to that she added, “You dont even know me.” “I have known you for ten thousand years. Come home to him with me, we will go back together. Yes, you can explain. Tell him”the Honourable Gerald had got the bit between his teeth now“tell him Im your sweetheart, will youwill you?” “Ten thousand .! Yes, I know; but its strange to think you have only seen me just once before!” 23 “Does that matter? Everything grows from that one small moment into a world of . well of