章节正文
For three hours the two young men, thus strangely
thrown together, stayed in the printshop. When he
had a little recovered George took Tom for a walk.
They went into the country and sat on a log near
the edge of a wood. Something in the still night
drew them together and when the drunken boy's
head began to clear they talked.
"It was good to be drunk," Tom Foster said. "It
taught me something. I won't have to do it again. I
will think more dearly after this. You see how it is."
George Willard did not see, but his anger concern-
ing Helen White passed and he felt drawn toward
the pale, shaken boy as he had never before been
drawn toward anyone. With motherly solicitude, he
insisted that Tom get to his feet and walk about.
Again they went back to the printshop and sat in
silence in the darkness.
The reporter could not get the purpose of Tom
Foster's action straightened out in his mind. When
Tom spoke again of Helen White he again grew
angry and began to scold. "You quit that," he said
sharply. "You haven't been with her. What makes
you say you have? What makes you keep saying
such things? Now you quit it, do you hear?"
Tom was hurt. He couldn't quarrel with George
Willard because he was incapable of quarreling, so
he got up to go away. When George Willard was
insistent he put out his hand, laying it on the older
boy's arm, and tried to explain.
"Well," he said softly, "I don't know how it was.
I was happy. You see how that was. Helen White
made me happy and the night did too. I wanted to
suffer, to be hurt somehow. I thought that was what
I should do. I wanted to suffer, you see, because
everyone suffers and does wrong. I thought of a lot
of things to do, but they wouldn't work. They all
hurt someone else."
Tom Foster's voice arose, and for once in his life
he became almost excited. "It was like making love,
that's what I mean," he explained. "Don't you see
how it is? It hurt me to do what I did and made
everything strange. That's why I did it. I'm glad,
too. It taught me something, that's it, that's what I
wanted. Don't you understand? I wanted to learn
things, you see. That's why I did it."
DEATH
THE STAIRWAY LEADING up to Doctor Reefy's office,
in the Heffner Block above the Paris Dry Goods
store, was but dimly lighted. At the head of the
stairway hung a lamp with a dirty chimney that was
fastened by a bracket to the wall. The lamp had a
tin reflector, brown with rust and covered with dust.
The people who went up the stairway followed with
their feet the feet of many who had gone before.
The soft boards of the stairs had yielded under the
pressure of feet and deep hollows marked the way.
At the top of the stairway a turn to the right
brought you to the doctor's door. To the left was a
dark hallway filled with rubbish. Old chairs, carpen-
ter's horses, step ladders and empty boxes lay in the
darkness waiting for shins to be barked. The pile of
rubbish belonged to the Paris Dry Goods Company.
When a counter or a row of shelves in the store
became useless, clerks carried it up the stairway and
threw it on the pile.
Doctor Reefy's office was as large as a barn. A
stove with a round paunch sat in the middle of the
room. Around its base was piled sawdust, held in
place by heavy planks nailed to the floor. By the
door stood a huge table that had once been a part
of the furniture of Herrick's Clothing Store and that
had been used for displaying custom-made clothes.
It was covered with books, bottles, and surgical in-
struments. Near the edge of the table lay three or
four apples left by John Spaniard, a tree nurseryman
who was Doctor Reefy's friend, and who had
slipped the apples out of his pocket as he came in
at the door.
At middle age Doctor Reefy was tall and awk-
ward. The grey beard he later wore had not yet ap-
peared, but on the upper lip grew a brown mustache.
He was not a graceful man, as when he grew older,
and was much occupied with the problem of dispos-
ing of his hands and feet.
On summer afternoons, when she had been mar-
ried many years and when her son George was a
boy of twelve or fourteen, Elizabeth Willard some-
times went up the worn steps to Doctor Reefy's of-
fice. Already the woman's naturally tall figure had
begun to droop and to drag itself listlessly about.
Ostensibly she went to see the doctor because of her
health, but on the half dozen occasions when she
had been to see him the outcome of the visits did
not primarily concern her health. She and the doctor
talked of that but they talked most of her life, of
their two lives and of the ideas that had come to
them as they lived their lives in Winesburg.
In the big empty office the man and the woman
sat looking at each other and they were a good deal
alike. Their bodies were different, as were also the
color of their eyes, the length of their noses, and
the circumstances of their existence, but something
inside them meant the same thing, wanted the same
release, would have left the same impression on the
memory of an onlooker. Later, and when he grew
older and married a young wife, the doctor often
talked to her of the hours spent with the sick woman
and expressed a good many things he had been un-
able to express to Elizabeth. He was almost a poet
in his old age and his notion of what happened took
a poetic turn. "I had come to the time in my life
when prayer became necessary and so I invented
gods and prayed to them," he said. "I did not say
my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat
perfectly still in my chair. In the late afternoon when
it was hot and quiet on Main Street or in the winter
when the days were gloomy, the gods came into the
office and I thought no one knew about them. Then
I found that this woman Elizabeth knew, that she
worshipped also the same gods. I have a notion that
she came to the office because she thought the gods
would be there but she was happy to find herself
not alone just the same. It was an experience that
cannot be explained, although I suppose it is always
happening to men and women in all sorts of
places."
On the summer afternoons when Elizabeth and
the doctor sat in the office and talked of their two
lives they talked of other lives also. Sometimes the
doctor made philosophic epigrams. Then he chuck-
led with amusement. Now and then after a period
of silence, a word was said or a hint given that
strangely illuminated the fife of the speaker, a wish
became a desire, or a dream, half dead, flared sud-
denly into life. For the most part the words came
from the woman and she said them without looking
at the man.
Each time she came to see the doctor the hotel
keeper's wife talked a little more freely and after an
hour or two in his presence went down the stairway
into Main Street feeling renewed and strengthened
against the dullness of her days. With something
approaching a girlhood swing to her body she
walked along, but when she had got back to her
chair by the window of her room and when dark-
ness had come on and a girl from the hotel dining
room brought her dinner on a tray, she let it grow
cold. Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with
its passionate" target="_blank" title="a.易动情的；易怒的">passionatelonging for adventure and she remem-
bered the arms of men that had held her when ad-
venture was a possible thing for her. Particularly she
remembered one who had for a time been her lover
and who in the moment of his passion had cried out
to her more than a hundred times, saying the same
words madly over and over: "You dear! You dear!
You lovely dear!" The words, she thought, ex-
pressed something she would have liked to have
achieved in life.
In her room in the shabby old hotel the sick wife
of the hotel keeper began to weep and, putting her
hands to her face, rocked back and forth. The words
of her one friend, Doctor Reefy, rang in her ears.
"Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees
on a black night," he had said. "You must not try
to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life.
If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live
beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the
long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and
the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon
lips inflamed and made tender by kisses."
Elizabeth Willard could not remember her mother
who had died when she was but five years old. Her
girlhood had been lived in the most haphazard man-
ner imaginable. Her father was a man who had
wanted to be let alone and the affairs of the hotel
would not let him alone. He also had lived and died
a sick man. Every day he arose with a cheerful face,
but by ten o'clock in the morning all the joy had
gone out of his heart. When a guest complained of
the fare in the hotel dining room or one of the girls
who made up the beds got married and went away,
he stamped on the floor and swore. At night when
he went to bed he thought of his daughter growing
up among the stream of people that drifted in and
out of the hotel and was overcome with sadness. As
the girl grew older and began to walk out in the
evening with men he wanted to talk to her, but
when he tried was not successful. He always forgot
what he wanted to say and spent the time complain-
ing of his own affairs.
In her girlhood and young womanhood Elizabeth
had tried to be a real adventurer in life. At eighteen
life had so gripped her that she was no longer a
virgin but, although she had a half dozen lovers
before she married Tom Willard, she had never en-
tered upon an adventure prompted by desire alone.
Like all the women in the world, she wanted a real
lover. Always there was something she sought
blindly, passionate" target="_blank" title="a.易动情的；易怒的">passionately, some hidden wonder in life.
The tall beautiful girl with the swinging stride who
had walked under the trees with men was forever
thrown together, stayed in the printshop. When he
had a little recovered George took Tom for a walk.
They went into the country and sat on a log near
the edge of a wood. Something in the still night
drew them together and when the drunken boy's
head began to clear they talked.
"It was good to be drunk," Tom Foster said. "It
taught me something. I won't have to do it again. I
will think more dearly after this. You see how it is."
George Willard did not see, but his anger concern-
ing Helen White passed and he felt drawn toward
the pale, shaken boy as he had never before been
drawn toward anyone. With motherly solicitude, he
insisted that Tom get to his feet and walk about.
Again they went back to the printshop and sat in
silence in the darkness.
The reporter could not get the purpose of Tom
Foster's action straightened out in his mind. When
Tom spoke again of Helen White he again grew
angry and began to scold. "You quit that," he said
sharply. "You haven't been with her. What makes
you say you have? What makes you keep saying
such things? Now you quit it, do you hear?"
Tom was hurt. He couldn't quarrel with George
Willard because he was incapable of quarreling, so
he got up to go away. When George Willard was
insistent he put out his hand, laying it on the older
boy's arm, and tried to explain.
"Well," he said softly, "I don't know how it was.
I was happy. You see how that was. Helen White
made me happy and the night did too. I wanted to
suffer, to be hurt somehow. I thought that was what
I should do. I wanted to suffer, you see, because
everyone suffers and does wrong. I thought of a lot
of things to do, but they wouldn't work. They all
hurt someone else."
Tom Foster's voice arose, and for once in his life
he became almost excited. "It was like making love,
that's what I mean," he explained. "Don't you see
how it is? It hurt me to do what I did and made
everything strange. That's why I did it. I'm glad,
too. It taught me something, that's it, that's what I
wanted. Don't you understand? I wanted to learn
things, you see. That's why I did it."
DEATH
THE STAIRWAY LEADING up to Doctor Reefy's office,
in the Heffner Block above the Paris Dry Goods
store, was but dimly lighted. At the head of the
stairway hung a lamp with a dirty chimney that was
fastened by a bracket to the wall. The lamp had a
tin reflector, brown with rust and covered with dust.
The people who went up the stairway followed with
their feet the feet of many who had gone before.
The soft boards of the stairs had yielded under the
pressure of feet and deep hollows marked the way.
At the top of the stairway a turn to the right
brought you to the doctor's door. To the left was a
dark hallway filled with rubbish. Old chairs, carpen-
ter's horses, step ladders and empty boxes lay in the
darkness waiting for shins to be barked. The pile of
rubbish belonged to the Paris Dry Goods Company.
When a counter or a row of shelves in the store
became useless, clerks carried it up the stairway and
threw it on the pile.
Doctor Reefy's office was as large as a barn. A
stove with a round paunch sat in the middle of the
room. Around its base was piled sawdust, held in
place by heavy planks nailed to the floor. By the
door stood a huge table that had once been a part
of the furniture of Herrick's Clothing Store and that
had been used for displaying custom-made clothes.
It was covered with books, bottles, and surgical in-
struments. Near the edge of the table lay three or
four apples left by John Spaniard, a tree nurseryman
who was Doctor Reefy's friend, and who had
slipped the apples out of his pocket as he came in
at the door.
At middle age Doctor Reefy was tall and awk-
ward. The grey beard he later wore had not yet ap-
peared, but on the upper lip grew a brown mustache.
He was not a graceful man, as when he grew older,
and was much occupied with the problem of dispos-
ing of his hands and feet.
On summer afternoons, when she had been mar-
ried many years and when her son George was a
boy of twelve or fourteen, Elizabeth Willard some-
times went up the worn steps to Doctor Reefy's of-
fice. Already the woman's naturally tall figure had
begun to droop and to drag itself listlessly about.
Ostensibly she went to see the doctor because of her
health, but on the half dozen occasions when she
had been to see him the outcome of the visits did
not primarily concern her health. She and the doctor
talked of that but they talked most of her life, of
their two lives and of the ideas that had come to
them as they lived their lives in Winesburg.
In the big empty office the man and the woman
sat looking at each other and they were a good deal
alike. Their bodies were different, as were also the
color of their eyes, the length of their noses, and
the circumstances of their existence, but something
inside them meant the same thing, wanted the same
release, would have left the same impression on the
memory of an onlooker. Later, and when he grew
older and married a young wife, the doctor often
talked to her of the hours spent with the sick woman
and expressed a good many things he had been un-
able to express to Elizabeth. He was almost a poet
in his old age and his notion of what happened took
a poetic turn. "I had come to the time in my life
when prayer became necessary and so I invented
gods and prayed to them," he said. "I did not say
my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat
perfectly still in my chair. In the late afternoon when
it was hot and quiet on Main Street or in the winter
when the days were gloomy, the gods came into the
office and I thought no one knew about them. Then
I found that this woman Elizabeth knew, that she
worshipped also the same gods. I have a notion that
she came to the office because she thought the gods
would be there but she was happy to find herself
not alone just the same. It was an experience that
cannot be explained, although I suppose it is always
happening to men and women in all sorts of
places."
On the summer afternoons when Elizabeth and
the doctor sat in the office and talked of their two
lives they talked of other lives also. Sometimes the
doctor made philosophic epigrams. Then he chuck-
led with amusement. Now and then after a period
of silence, a word was said or a hint given that
strangely illuminated the fife of the speaker, a wish
became a desire, or a dream, half dead, flared sud-
denly into life. For the most part the words came
from the woman and she said them without looking
at the man.
Each time she came to see the doctor the hotel
keeper's wife talked a little more freely and after an
hour or two in his presence went down the stairway
into Main Street feeling renewed and strengthened
against the dullness of her days. With something
approaching a girlhood swing to her body she
walked along, but when she had got back to her
chair by the window of her room and when dark-
ness had come on and a girl from the hotel dining
room brought her dinner on a tray, she let it grow
cold. Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with
its passionate" target="_blank" title="a.易动情的；易怒的">passionatelonging for adventure and she remem-
bered the arms of men that had held her when ad-
venture was a possible thing for her. Particularly she
remembered one who had for a time been her lover
and who in the moment of his passion had cried out
to her more than a hundred times, saying the same
words madly over and over: "You dear! You dear!
You lovely dear!" The words, she thought, ex-
pressed something she would have liked to have
achieved in life.
In her room in the shabby old hotel the sick wife
of the hotel keeper began to weep and, putting her
hands to her face, rocked back and forth. The words
of her one friend, Doctor Reefy, rang in her ears.
"Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees
on a black night," he had said. "You must not try
to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life.
If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live
beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the
long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and
the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon
lips inflamed and made tender by kisses."
Elizabeth Willard could not remember her mother
who had died when she was but five years old. Her
girlhood had been lived in the most haphazard man-
ner imaginable. Her father was a man who had
wanted to be let alone and the affairs of the hotel
would not let him alone. He also had lived and died
a sick man. Every day he arose with a cheerful face,
but by ten o'clock in the morning all the joy had
gone out of his heart. When a guest complained of
the fare in the hotel dining room or one of the girls
who made up the beds got married and went away,
he stamped on the floor and swore. At night when
he went to bed he thought of his daughter growing
up among the stream of people that drifted in and
out of the hotel and was overcome with sadness. As
the girl grew older and began to walk out in the
evening with men he wanted to talk to her, but
when he tried was not successful. He always forgot
what he wanted to say and spent the time complain-
ing of his own affairs.
In her girlhood and young womanhood Elizabeth
had tried to be a real adventurer in life. At eighteen
life had so gripped her that she was no longer a
virgin but, although she had a half dozen lovers
before she married Tom Willard, she had never en-
tered upon an adventure prompted by desire alone.
Like all the women in the world, she wanted a real
lover. Always there was something she sought
blindly, passionate" target="_blank" title="a.易动情的；易怒的">passionately, some hidden wonder in life.
The tall beautiful girl with the swinging stride who
had walked under the trees with men was forever
- drunken [´drʌŋkən]
a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词) - shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- useless [´ju:sləs] a.无用的，无价值的 (初中英语单词)
- spaniard [´spænjəd] n.西班牙人 (初中英语单词)
- graceful [´greisfəl] a.优美的，流畅的 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- amusement [ə´mju:zmənt] n.娱乐；文娱设施 (初中英语单词)
- speaker [´spi:kə] n.演讲人；代言人 (初中英语单词)
- freely [´fri:li] ad.自由地；慷慨地 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- keeper [´ki:pə] n.管理人；看守；保管人 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- disappointment [,disə´pɔintmənt] n.失望；挫折 (初中英语单词)
- swiftly [´swiftli] ad.迅速地，敏捷地 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- foster [´fɔstə] vt.促进；推动；鼓励 (高中英语单词)
- reporter [ri´pɔ:tə] n.报告人；记者；广播员 (高中英语单词)
- counter [´kauntə] n.计算者；柜台；计算机 (高中英语单词)
- shelves [ʃelvz] shelf的复数 (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- shabby [´ʃæbi] a.(衣服)破旧的 (高中英语单词)
- sadness [´sædnis] n.悲哀；悲痛；凄惨 (高中英语单词)
- stride [straid] n.进展 v.跨过；骑 (高中英语单词)
- dearly [´diəli] ad.深深地(爱等)；昂贵 (英语四级单词)
- incapable [in´keipəbəl] a.无能力的；不能的 (英语四级单词)
- stairway [´steəwei] n.楼梯 (英语四级单词)
- bracket [´brækit] n.托架 vt.给...装托架 (英语四级单词)
- rubbish [´rʌbiʃ] n.垃圾；碎屑；废话 (英语四级单词)
- outcome [´autkʌm] n.结果；后果；成果 (英语四级单词)
- primarily [´praimərəli, prai´merəli] ad.首先；主要地 (英语四级单词)
- stirring [´stə:riŋ] a.活跃的；热闹的 (英语四级单词)
- adventurer [əd´ventʃərə] n.冒险者 (英语四级单词)
- passionately [´pæʃənitli] ad.多情地；热烈地 (英语四级单词)
- hallway [´hɔ:lwei] n.(美)门厅，过道 (英语六级单词)
- poetic [pəu´etik] a.理想化了的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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