章节正文
GERALD. Mother, you make it terribly difficult for me by talking
like that; and I can't understand why you won't look at this matter
from the right, from the only proper standpoint. It is to take
away the bitterness out of your life, to take away the shadow that
lies on your name, that this marriage must take place. There is no
alternative: and after the marriage you and I can go away together.
But the marriage must take place first. It is a duty that you owe,
not merely to yourself, but to all other women - yes: to all the
other women in the world, lest he betray more.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I owe nothing to other women. There is not one of
them to help me. There is not one woman in the world to whom I
could go for pity, if I would take it, or for sympathy, if I could
win it. Women are hard on each other. That girl, last night, good
though she is, fled from the room as though I were a tainted thing.
She was right. I am a tainted thing. But my wrongs are my own,
and I will bear them alone. I must bear them alone. What have
women who have not sinned to do with me, or I with them? We do not
understand each other.
[Enter HESTER behind.]
GERALD. I implore you to do what I ask you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. What son has ever asked of his mother to make so
hideous a sacrifice? None.
GERALD. What mother has ever refused to marry the father of her
own child? None.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Let me be the first, then. I will not do it.
GERALD. Mother, you believe in religion, and you brought me up to
believe in it also. Well, surely your religion, the religion that
you taught me when I was a boy, mother, must tell you that I am
right. You know it, you feel it.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I
ever stand before God's altar and ask God's blessing on so hideous
a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not
say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I
dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour
him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery,
made me to sin? No: marriage is a sacrament for those who love
each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to
save you from the world's sneers and taunts I have lied to the
world. For twenty years I have lied to the world. I could not
tell the world the truth. Who can, ever? But not for my own sake
will I lie to God, and in God's presence. No, Gerald, no ceremony,
Church-hallowed or State-made, shall ever bind me to George
Harford. It may be that I am too bound to him already, who,
robbing me, yet left me richer, so that in the mire of my life I
found the pearl of price, or what I thought would be so.
GERALD. I don't understand you now.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Men don't understand what mothers are. I am no
different from other women except in the wrong done me and the
wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And
yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to
wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to
fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless,
wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed
you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that
long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly
for the thing we women love - and oh! how I loved YOU. Not Hannah,
Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and only
love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep any one alive.
And boys are careless often and without thinking give pain, and we
always fancy that when they come to man's estate and know us better
they will repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from
our side, and they make friends with whom they are happier than
they are with us, and have amusements from which we are barred, and
interests that are not ours: and they are unjust to us often, for
when they find life bitter they blame us for it, and when they find
it sweet we do not taste its sweetness with them . . . You made
many friends and went into their houses and were glad with them,
and I, knowing my secret, did not dare to follow, but stayed at
home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness.
What should I have done in honest households? My past was ever
with me. . . . And you thought I didn't care for the pleasant
things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to
touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier
working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It
was not, but where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the
hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the
lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you
I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not
need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs . . . And you
thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in
Church duties. But where else could I turn? God's house is the
only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in
my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day,
at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God's house, I have never
repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my
love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot
repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would
rather be your mother - oh! much rather! - than have been always
pure . . . Oh, don't you see? don't you understand? It is my
dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that
has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you -
the price of soul and body - that makes me love you as I do. Oh,
don't ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be
still the child of my shame!
GERALD. Mother, I didn't know you loved me so much as that. And I
will be a better son to you than I have been. And you and I must
never leave each other . . . but, mother . . . I can't help it . .
. you must become my father's wife. You must marry him. It is
your duty.
HESTER. [Running forwards and embracing MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] No, no;
you shall not. That would be real dishonour, the first you have
ever known. That would be real disgrace: the first to touch you.
Leave him and come with me. There are other countries than England
. . . Oh! other countries over sea, better, wiser, and less unjust
lands. The world is very wide and very big.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. No, not for me. For me the world is shrivelled to
a palm's breadth, and where I walk there are thorns.
HESTER. It shall not be so. We shall somewhere find green valleys
and fresh waters, and if we weep, well, we shall weep together.
Have we not both loved him?
GERALD. Hester!
HESTER. [Waving him back.] Don't, don't! You cannot love me at
all, unless you love her also. You cannot honour me, unless she's
holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone,
but all of us are stricken in her house.
GERALD. Hester, Hester, what shall I do?
HESTER. Do you respect the man who is your father?
GERALD. Respect him? I despise him! He is infamous.
HESTER. I thank you for saving me from him last night.
GERALD. Ah, that is nothing. I would die to save you. But you
don't tell me what to do now!
HESTER. Have I not thanked you for saving ME?
GERALD. But what should I do?
HESTER. Ask your own heart, not mine. I never had a mother to
save, or shame.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He is hard - he is hard. Let me go away.
GERALD. [Rushes over and kneels down bedside his mother.] Mother,
forgive me: I have been to blame.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Don't kiss my hands: they are cold. My heart is
cold: something has broken it.
HESTER, Ah, don't say that. Hearts live by being wounded.
Pleasure may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but
sorrow - oh, sorrow cannot break it. Besides, what sorrows have
you now? Why, at this moment you are more dear to him than ever,
DEAR though you have BEEN, and oh! how dear you HAVE been always.
Ah! be kind to him.
GERALD. You are my mother and my father all in one. I need no
second parent. It was for you I spoke, for you alone. Oh, say
something, mother. Have I but found one love to lose another?
Don't tell me that. O mother, you are cruel. [Gets up and flings
himself sobbing on a sofa.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [To HESTER.] But has he found indeed another
love?
HESTER. You know I have loved him always.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. But we are very poor.
HESTER. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches.
They are a burden. Let him share it with me.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. But we are disgraced. We rank among the outcasts
Gerald is nameless. The sins of the parents should be visited on
the children. It is God's law.
HESTER. I was wrong. God's law is only Love.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Rises, and taking HESTER by the hand, goes slowly
over to where GERALD is lying on the sofa with his head buried in
his hands. She touches him and he looks up.] Gerald, I cannot
give you a father, but I have brought you a wife.
GERALD. Mother, I am not worthy either of her or you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. So she comes first, you are worthy. And when you
are away, Gerald . . . with . . . her - oh, think of me sometimes.
Don't forget me. And when you pray, pray for me. We should pray
when we are happiest, and you will be happy, Gerald.
HESTER. Oh, you don't think of leaving us?
GERALD. Mother, you won't leave us?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I might bring shame upon you!
GERALD. Mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For a little then: and if you let me, near you
always.
HESTER. [To MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Come out with us to the garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Later on, later on. [Exeunt HESTER and GERALD.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT goes towards door L.C. Stops at looking-glass over
mantelpiece and looks into it. Enter ALICE R.C.]
ALICE. A gentleman to see you, ma'am.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Say I am not at home. Show me the card. [Takes
card from salver and looks at it.] Say I will not see him.
[LORD ILLINGWORTH enters. MRS. ARBUTHNOT sees him in the glass and
starts, but does not turn round. Exit ALICE.] What can you have
to say to me to-day, George Harford? You can have nothing to say
to me. You must leave this house.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Rachel, Gerald knows everything about you and me
now, so some arrangement must be come to that will suit us all
three. I assure you, he will find in me the most charming and
generous of fathers.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. My son may come in at any moment. I saved you
last night. I may not be able to save you again. My son feels my
dishonour strongly, terriblystrongly. I beg you to go.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Sitting down.] Last night was excessively
unfortunate. That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely because
I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Turning round.] A kiss may ruin a human life,
George Harford. I know that. I know that too well.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. We won't discuss that at present. What is of
importance to-day, as yesterday, is still our son. I am extremely
fond of him, as you know, and odd though it may seem to you, I
admired his conduct last night immensely. He took up the cudgels
for that pretty prude with wonderful promptitude. He is just what
I should have liked a son of mine to be. Except that no son of
mine should ever take the side of the Puritans: that is always an
error. Now, what I propose is this.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth, no proposition of yours
interests me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. According to our ridiculous English laws, I
can't legitimise Gerald. But I can leave him my property.
like that; and I can't understand why you won't look at this matter
from the right, from the only proper standpoint. It is to take
away the bitterness out of your life, to take away the shadow that
lies on your name, that this marriage must take place. There is no
alternative: and after the marriage you and I can go away together.
But the marriage must take place first. It is a duty that you owe,
not merely to yourself, but to all other women - yes: to all the
other women in the world, lest he betray more.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I owe nothing to other women. There is not one of
them to help me. There is not one woman in the world to whom I
could go for pity, if I would take it, or for sympathy, if I could
win it. Women are hard on each other. That girl, last night, good
though she is, fled from the room as though I were a tainted thing.
She was right. I am a tainted thing. But my wrongs are my own,
and I will bear them alone. I must bear them alone. What have
women who have not sinned to do with me, or I with them? We do not
understand each other.
[Enter HESTER behind.]
GERALD. I implore you to do what I ask you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. What son has ever asked of his mother to make so
hideous a sacrifice? None.
GERALD. What mother has ever refused to marry the father of her
own child? None.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Let me be the first, then. I will not do it.
GERALD. Mother, you believe in religion, and you brought me up to
believe in it also. Well, surely your religion, the religion that
you taught me when I was a boy, mother, must tell you that I am
right. You know it, you feel it.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I
ever stand before God's altar and ask God's blessing on so hideous
a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not
say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I
dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour
him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery,
made me to sin? No: marriage is a sacrament for those who love
each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to
save you from the world's sneers and taunts I have lied to the
world. For twenty years I have lied to the world. I could not
tell the world the truth. Who can, ever? But not for my own sake
will I lie to God, and in God's presence. No, Gerald, no ceremony,
Church-hallowed or State-made, shall ever bind me to George
Harford. It may be that I am too bound to him already, who,
robbing me, yet left me richer, so that in the mire of my life I
found the pearl of price, or what I thought would be so.
GERALD. I don't understand you now.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Men don't understand what mothers are. I am no
different from other women except in the wrong done me and the
wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And
yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to
wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to
fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless,
wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed
you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that
long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly
for the thing we women love - and oh! how I loved YOU. Not Hannah,
Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and only
love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep any one alive.
And boys are careless often and without thinking give pain, and we
always fancy that when they come to man's estate and know us better
they will repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from
our side, and they make friends with whom they are happier than
they are with us, and have amusements from which we are barred, and
interests that are not ours: and they are unjust to us often, for
when they find life bitter they blame us for it, and when they find
it sweet we do not taste its sweetness with them . . . You made
many friends and went into their houses and were glad with them,
and I, knowing my secret, did not dare to follow, but stayed at
home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness.
What should I have done in honest households? My past was ever
with me. . . . And you thought I didn't care for the pleasant
things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to
touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier
working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It
was not, but where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the
hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the
lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you
I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not
need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs . . . And you
thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in
Church duties. But where else could I turn? God's house is the
only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in
my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day,
at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God's house, I have never
repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my
love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot
repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would
rather be your mother - oh! much rather! - than have been always
pure . . . Oh, don't you see? don't you understand? It is my
dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that
has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you -
the price of soul and body - that makes me love you as I do. Oh,
don't ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be
still the child of my shame!
GERALD. Mother, I didn't know you loved me so much as that. And I
will be a better son to you than I have been. And you and I must
never leave each other . . . but, mother . . . I can't help it . .
. you must become my father's wife. You must marry him. It is
your duty.
HESTER. [Running forwards and embracing MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] No, no;
you shall not. That would be real dishonour, the first you have
ever known. That would be real disgrace: the first to touch you.
Leave him and come with me. There are other countries than England
. . . Oh! other countries over sea, better, wiser, and less unjust
lands. The world is very wide and very big.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. No, not for me. For me the world is shrivelled to
a palm's breadth, and where I walk there are thorns.
HESTER. It shall not be so. We shall somewhere find green valleys
and fresh waters, and if we weep, well, we shall weep together.
Have we not both loved him?
GERALD. Hester!
HESTER. [Waving him back.] Don't, don't! You cannot love me at
all, unless you love her also. You cannot honour me, unless she's
holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone,
but all of us are stricken in her house.
GERALD. Hester, Hester, what shall I do?
HESTER. Do you respect the man who is your father?
GERALD. Respect him? I despise him! He is infamous.
HESTER. I thank you for saving me from him last night.
GERALD. Ah, that is nothing. I would die to save you. But you
don't tell me what to do now!
HESTER. Have I not thanked you for saving ME?
GERALD. But what should I do?
HESTER. Ask your own heart, not mine. I never had a mother to
save, or shame.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He is hard - he is hard. Let me go away.
GERALD. [Rushes over and kneels down bedside his mother.] Mother,
forgive me: I have been to blame.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Don't kiss my hands: they are cold. My heart is
cold: something has broken it.
HESTER, Ah, don't say that. Hearts live by being wounded.
Pleasure may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but
sorrow - oh, sorrow cannot break it. Besides, what sorrows have
you now? Why, at this moment you are more dear to him than ever,
DEAR though you have BEEN, and oh! how dear you HAVE been always.
Ah! be kind to him.
GERALD. You are my mother and my father all in one. I need no
second parent. It was for you I spoke, for you alone. Oh, say
something, mother. Have I but found one love to lose another?
Don't tell me that. O mother, you are cruel. [Gets up and flings
himself sobbing on a sofa.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [To HESTER.] But has he found indeed another
love?
HESTER. You know I have loved him always.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. But we are very poor.
HESTER. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches.
They are a burden. Let him share it with me.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. But we are disgraced. We rank among the outcasts
Gerald is nameless. The sins of the parents should be visited on
the children. It is God's law.
HESTER. I was wrong. God's law is only Love.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Rises, and taking HESTER by the hand, goes slowly
over to where GERALD is lying on the sofa with his head buried in
his hands. She touches him and he looks up.] Gerald, I cannot
give you a father, but I have brought you a wife.
GERALD. Mother, I am not worthy either of her or you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. So she comes first, you are worthy. And when you
are away, Gerald . . . with . . . her - oh, think of me sometimes.
Don't forget me. And when you pray, pray for me. We should pray
when we are happiest, and you will be happy, Gerald.
HESTER. Oh, you don't think of leaving us?
GERALD. Mother, you won't leave us?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I might bring shame upon you!
GERALD. Mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For a little then: and if you let me, near you
always.
HESTER. [To MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Come out with us to the garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Later on, later on. [Exeunt HESTER and GERALD.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT goes towards door L.C. Stops at looking-glass over
mantelpiece and looks into it. Enter ALICE R.C.]
ALICE. A gentleman to see you, ma'am.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Say I am not at home. Show me the card. [Takes
card from salver and looks at it.] Say I will not see him.
[LORD ILLINGWORTH enters. MRS. ARBUTHNOT sees him in the glass and
starts, but does not turn round. Exit ALICE.] What can you have
to say to me to-day, George Harford? You can have nothing to say
to me. You must leave this house.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Rachel, Gerald knows everything about you and me
now, so some arrangement must be come to that will suit us all
three. I assure you, he will find in me the most charming and
generous of fathers.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. My son may come in at any moment. I saved you
last night. I may not be able to save you again. My son feels my
dishonour strongly, terriblystrongly. I beg you to go.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Sitting down.] Last night was excessively
unfortunate. That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely because
I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Turning round.] A kiss may ruin a human life,
George Harford. I know that. I know that too well.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. We won't discuss that at present. What is of
importance to-day, as yesterday, is still our son. I am extremely
fond of him, as you know, and odd though it may seem to you, I
admired his conduct last night immensely. He took up the cudgels
for that pretty prude with wonderful promptitude. He is just what
I should have liked a son of mine to be. Except that no son of
mine should ever take the side of the Puritans: that is always an
error. Now, what I propose is this.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth, no proposition of yours
interests me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. According to our ridiculous English laws, I
can't legitimise Gerald. But I can leave him my property.
- terribly [´terəbli]
ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词) - betray [bi´trei] vt.背叛；辜负；暴露 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- blessing [´blesiŋ] n.祝福 (初中英语单词)
- wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- disgrace [dis´greis] n.耻辱 vt.玷辱；贬黜 (初中英语单词)
- careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
- estate [i´steit] n.财产；庄园；等级 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- mission [´miʃən] n.代表团；使馆vt.派遣 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- horrible [´hɔrəbəl] a.可怕的；恐怖的 (初中英语单词)
- despise [di´spaiz] vt.轻视，藐视 (初中英语单词)
- riches [´ritʃiz] n.房地产；丰富 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- arrangement [ə´reindʒmənt] n.整理；排列；筹备 (初中英语单词)
- charming [´tʃɑ:miŋ] a.可爱的；极好的 (初中英语单词)
- strongly [´strɔŋli] ad.强烈地；强有力地 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- bitterness [´bitənis] n.苦味；辛酸；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- implore [im´plɔ:] vt.乞求，恳求 (高中英语单词)
- sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- theirs [ðeəz] pron.他们的 (高中英语单词)
- repent [ri´pent] v.后悔；悔改；悔悟 (高中英语单词)
- innocence [´inəsəns] n.无罪；天真 (高中英语单词)
- breadth [bredθ] n.宽度，幅面，广度 (高中英语单词)
- stricken [´strikən] strike的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- puritan [´pjuəritən] n.&a.清教徒(的) (高中英语单词)
- proposition [,prɔpə´ziʃən] n.提议；主张；陈述 (高中英语单词)
- ridiculous [ri´dikjuləs] a.荒谬的；可笑的 (高中英语单词)
- standpoint [´stændpɔint] n.立场；观点 (英语四级单词)
- loathe [ləuð] vt.厌恶，嫌恶 (英语四级单词)
- unjust [ʌn´dʒʌst] a.不公平(正)的 (英语四级单词)
- bedside [´bedsaid] n.床边 a.护理的 (英语四级单词)
- immensely [i´mensli] ad.极大地，无限地 (英语四级单词)
- mockery [´mɔkəri] n.嘲笑；笑柄 (英语六级单词)
- nameless [´neimlis] a.无名字的；无名声的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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