章节正文
a monument over her in the old churchyard, as he had done before
to his father's memory. This, everyone said, was foolish, and perhaps it was,
for it took him at least two years to pay for them, and he might have
laid up the money and got a start, or, as some charitable persons said,
it might have been given to the poor. However, the monuments were put up,
and on them were epitaphs which recorded at length the virtues
of those to whom they were erected, with their descent, and declared
that they were Christians and Gentlepeople. Some one said to Floyd
that he might have shortened the epitaphs, and have saved something.
"I did not want them shortened," said he.
He had borne the yoke otherwise also. One of the first things he had done
after starting in life was to fall in love with a beautiful woman. She was
very beautiful and a great belle. Every one said it was sheer nonsense
for Henry Floyd to expect her to marry him, as poor as he was,
which was natural enough. The only thing was that she led Floyd to believe
she was going to marry him when she did not intend to do it, and it cost him
a great deal of unhappiness. He never said one word against her,
not even when she married a man much older than himself,
simply, as everyone said, because he was very rich. If Floyd ever thought
that she treated him badly, no one ever knew it, and when finally
she left her husband, no one ever ventured to discuss it before Floyd.
Henry Floyd, however, had suffered, -- that everyone could see who had eyes;
but only he knew how much. Generally grave and dreamy;
when quiet as calm as a dove, as fierce as a hawk when aroused;
moving always in an eccentric orbit, which few understood;
flashing out now and then gleams which some said were sparks of genius
but which most people said were mere eccentricity, he had sunk into a recluse.
He was in this state when he met HER. He always afterward referred to her so.
He was at a reception when he came upon her on a stairway.
A casual word about his life, a smile flashed from her large, dark,
luminous eyes, lighting up her face, and Henry Floyd awoke.
She had called him from the dead. It was a case of love at first sight.
From that time he never had a thought for anyone else,
least of all for himself. He lived in her and for her.
He blossomed under her sympathy as a tree comes out under the sunshine
and soft breath of spring. He grew, he broadened. She was his sun,
his breath of life; he worshipped her. Then one day she died -- suddenly --
sank down and died as a butterfly might die, chilled by a blast.
With her Henry Floyd buried his youth. For a time people were sympathetic;
but they began immediately to speculate about him, then to gossip about him.
It made no difference to him or in him. He was like a man that is dead,
who felt no more. One thing about a great sorrow is that it destroys
all lesser ones. A man with a crushed body does not feel pinpricks.
Henry Floyd went on his way calmly, doggedly, mechanically. He drifted on
and was talked about continually. Gossip would not let him alone,
so she did him the honor to connect his name with that of every woman he met.
In fact, there was as much reason to mention all as one.
He was fond of women, and enjoyed them. Women liked him too.
There was a certain gentleness mingled with firmness,
a kind of protecting air about him which women admired,
and a mystery of impenetrable sadness which women liked.
Every woman who knew him trusted him, and had a right to trust him.
To none was he indifferent, but in none was he interested.
He was simply cut off. A physician who saw him said,
"That man is dying of loneliness." This went on for some years.
At last his friends determined to get him back into society.
They made plans for him and carried them out to a certain length;
there the plans failed. Floyd might be led up to the water,
but none could make him drink; there he took the bit in his teeth
and went his own way. He would be invited to meet a girl at a dinner
got up for his benefit, that he might meet her, and would spend the evening
hanging over a little unheard-of country cousin with a low voice
and soft eyes, entertaining her with stories of his country days
or of his wanderings; or he would be put by some belle,
and after five minutes' homage spend the time talking to some old lady
about her grandchildren. "You must marry," they said to him.
"When one rises from the dead," he replied. At length,
his friends grew tired of helping him and gave him up, and he dropped out
and settled down. Commiseration is one of the bitter things of life.
But Floyd had what is harder to bear than that. It did not affect his work.
It was only his health and his life that suffered. He was like a man
who has lost the senses of touch and taste and sight. If he minded it,
he did not show it. One can get used to being bedridden.
One thing about him was that he always appeared poor. He began to be known
as an inventor and writer. It was known that he received high prices for
what he did; but he appeared to be no better off than when he made nothing.
Some persons supposed that he gambled; others whispered that he spent it
in other dissipation. In fact, one lady gave a circumstantial account
of the way he squandered his money, and declared herself very glad
that he had never visited her daughters. When this was repeated to Floyd,
he said he fortunately did not have to account to her for the way
he spent his money. He felt that the woman out under the marble cross
knew how his money went, and so did the little cousin who was named after her,
and who was at school. He had a letter from her in his pocket at that moment.
So he drifted on.
At length one evening he was at a reception in a strange city whither
his business had taken him. The rooms were filled with light and beauty.
Floyd was standing chatting with a child of ten years, whom he found
standing in a corner, gazing out with wide questioning eyes on the throng.
They were friends instantly, and he was telling her who the guests were,
as they came sailing in, giving them fictitious names and titles.
"They are all queens," he told her, at which she laughed.
She pointed out a tall and stately woman with a solemn face,
and with a gleaming bodice on like a cuirass, and her hair up on her head
like a casque. "Who is that?"
"Queen Semiramis."
"And who is that?" It was a stout lady with a tiara of diamonds, a red face,
and three feathers.
"Queen Victoria, of course."
"And who am I?" She placed her little hand on her breast
with a pretty gesture.
"The Queen of Hearts," said Floyd, quickly, at which she laughed outright.
"Oh! I must not laugh," she said, checking herself and glancing around her
with a shocked look. "I forgot."
"You shall. If you don't, you sha'n't know who another queen is."
"No, mamma told me I must not make a bit of noise; it is not style, you know,
but you mustn't be so funny."
"Good heavens!" said Floyd.
"Oh! who is this coming?" A lady richly dressed was making her way
toward them. "The Queen of Sheba -- coming to see Solomon," said Floyd,
as she came up to him. "Let me introduce you to a beautiful girl,
Sarah Dangerlie," she said, and drew him through the throng toward a door,
where he was presented to a tall and strikingly handsome girl
and made his bow and a civil speech, to which the young lady responded
with one equallypolite and important. Other men were pressing around her,
to all of whom she made apt and cordial speeches, and Floyd fell back
and rejoined his little girl, whose face lit up at his return.
"Oh! I was so afraid you were going away with her."
"And leave you? Never, I'm not so easily disposed of."
"Everyone goes with her. They call her the Queen."
"Do they?"
"Do you like her?"
"Yes."
"You don't," she said, looking at him keenly.
"Yes, she is beautiful."
"Everyone says so."
"She isn't as beautiful as someone else I know," said Floyd, pleasantly.
"Isn't she? As whom?"
Floyd took hold of the child's hand and said, "Let's go and get some supper."
"I don't like her," said the little girl, positively.
"Don't you?" said Floyd. He stopped and glanced across the room
toward where the girl had stood. He saw only the gleam of her fine shoulders
as she disappeared in the crowd surrounded by her admirers.
A little later Floyd met the young lady on the stairway.
He had not recognized her, and was passing on, when she spoke to him.
"I saw you talking to a little friend of mine," she began, then --
"Over in the corner," she explained.
"Oh! yes. She is sweet. They interest me. I always feel when I have talked
with a child as if I had got as near to the angels as one can get on earth."
"Do you know I was very anxious to meet you," she said.
"Were you? Thank you. Why?"
"Because of a line of yours I once read."
"I am pleased to have written only one line that attracted your attention,"
said Floyd, bowing.
"No, no -- it was this --
"The whitest soul of man or saint is black beside a girl's."
"Beside a child's," said Floyd, correcting her.
"Oh! yes, so it is -- `beside a child's.'"
Her voice was low and musical. Floyd glanced up and caught her look,
and the color deepened in her cheek as the young man suddenly leant
a little towards her and gazed earnestly into her eyes, which she dropped,
but instantly raised again.
"Yes -- good-night," she held out her hand, with a takinggesture and smile.
"Good-night," said Floyd, and passed on up the stairs to the dressing-room.
He got his coat and hat and came down the stairway. A group seized him.
"Come to the club," they said. He declined.
"Roast oysters and beer," they said.
"No, I'm going home."
"Are you ill?" asked a friend.
"No, not at all. Why?"
"You look like a man who has seen a spirit."
"Do I? I'm tired, I suppose. Good-night, -- good-night, gentlemen,"
and he passed out.
"Perhaps I have," he said as he went down the cold steps
into the frozen street.
Floyd went home and tossed about all night. His life was breaking up,
he was all at sea. Why had he met her? He was losing the anchor
that had held him. "They call her the queen," the little girl had said.
She must be. He had seen her soul through her eyes.
Floyd sent her the poem which contained the line which she had quoted;
and she wrote him a note thanking him. It pleased him. It was sympathetic.
She invited him to call. He went to see her. She was fine in grain
and in look. A closely fitting dark gown ornamented by a single
glorious red rose which might have grown where it lay, and her soft hair
coiled on her small head, as she entered tall and straight and calm,
made Floyd involuntarily say to himself, "Yes" --
"She was right," he said, half to himself, half aloud, as he stood
gazing at her with inquiring eyes after she had greeted him cordially.
"What was right?" she asked.
"Something a little girl said about you."
"What was it?"
"I will tell you some day, when I know you better."
"Was it a compliment?"
"Yes."
"Tell me now."
"No, wait."
He came to know her better; to know her very well. He did not see her
very often, but he thought of her a great deal. He seemed to find in her
a sympathy which he needed. It reminded him of the past.
He awoke from his lethargy; began to work once more in the old way;
mixed among men again; grew brighter. "Henry Floyd is growing younger,
instead of older," someone said of him. "His health has been bad,"
said a doctor. "He is improving. I thought at one time he was going to die."
"He is getting rich," said a broker, who had been a schoolmate of his.
"I see he has just invented a new something or other to relieve children
with hip or ankle-joint disease."
"Yes, and it is a capital thing, too; it is being taken up by the profession.
I use it. It is a curious thing that he should have hit on that
when he is not a surgeon. He had studiedanatomy as a sort of fad,
as he does everything. One of Haile Tabb's boys was bedridden,
and he was a great friend of his, and that set him at it."
to his father's memory. This, everyone said, was foolish, and perhaps it was,
for it took him at least two years to pay for them, and he might have
laid up the money and got a start, or, as some charitable persons said,
it might have been given to the poor. However, the monuments were put up,
and on them were epitaphs which recorded at length the virtues
of those to whom they were erected, with their descent, and declared
that they were Christians and Gentlepeople. Some one said to Floyd
that he might have shortened the epitaphs, and have saved something.
"I did not want them shortened," said he.
He had borne the yoke otherwise also. One of the first things he had done
after starting in life was to fall in love with a beautiful woman. She was
very beautiful and a great belle. Every one said it was sheer nonsense
for Henry Floyd to expect her to marry him, as poor as he was,
which was natural enough. The only thing was that she led Floyd to believe
she was going to marry him when she did not intend to do it, and it cost him
a great deal of unhappiness. He never said one word against her,
not even when she married a man much older than himself,
simply, as everyone said, because he was very rich. If Floyd ever thought
that she treated him badly, no one ever knew it, and when finally
she left her husband, no one ever ventured to discuss it before Floyd.
Henry Floyd, however, had suffered, -- that everyone could see who had eyes;
but only he knew how much. Generally grave and dreamy;
when quiet as calm as a dove, as fierce as a hawk when aroused;
moving always in an eccentric orbit, which few understood;
flashing out now and then gleams which some said were sparks of genius
but which most people said were mere eccentricity, he had sunk into a recluse.
He was in this state when he met HER. He always afterward referred to her so.
He was at a reception when he came upon her on a stairway.
A casual word about his life, a smile flashed from her large, dark,
luminous eyes, lighting up her face, and Henry Floyd awoke.
She had called him from the dead. It was a case of love at first sight.
From that time he never had a thought for anyone else,
least of all for himself. He lived in her and for her.
He blossomed under her sympathy as a tree comes out under the sunshine
and soft breath of spring. He grew, he broadened. She was his sun,
his breath of life; he worshipped her. Then one day she died -- suddenly --
sank down and died as a butterfly might die, chilled by a blast.
With her Henry Floyd buried his youth. For a time people were sympathetic;
but they began immediately to speculate about him, then to gossip about him.
It made no difference to him or in him. He was like a man that is dead,
who felt no more. One thing about a great sorrow is that it destroys
all lesser ones. A man with a crushed body does not feel pinpricks.
Henry Floyd went on his way calmly, doggedly, mechanically. He drifted on
and was talked about continually. Gossip would not let him alone,
so she did him the honor to connect his name with that of every woman he met.
In fact, there was as much reason to mention all as one.
He was fond of women, and enjoyed them. Women liked him too.
There was a certain gentleness mingled with firmness,
a kind of protecting air about him which women admired,
and a mystery of impenetrable sadness which women liked.
Every woman who knew him trusted him, and had a right to trust him.
To none was he indifferent, but in none was he interested.
He was simply cut off. A physician who saw him said,
"That man is dying of loneliness." This went on for some years.
At last his friends determined to get him back into society.
They made plans for him and carried them out to a certain length;
there the plans failed. Floyd might be led up to the water,
but none could make him drink; there he took the bit in his teeth
and went his own way. He would be invited to meet a girl at a dinner
got up for his benefit, that he might meet her, and would spend the evening
hanging over a little unheard-of country cousin with a low voice
and soft eyes, entertaining her with stories of his country days
or of his wanderings; or he would be put by some belle,
and after five minutes' homage spend the time talking to some old lady
about her grandchildren. "You must marry," they said to him.
"When one rises from the dead," he replied. At length,
his friends grew tired of helping him and gave him up, and he dropped out
and settled down. Commiseration is one of the bitter things of life.
But Floyd had what is harder to bear than that. It did not affect his work.
It was only his health and his life that suffered. He was like a man
who has lost the senses of touch and taste and sight. If he minded it,
he did not show it. One can get used to being bedridden.
One thing about him was that he always appeared poor. He began to be known
as an inventor and writer. It was known that he received high prices for
what he did; but he appeared to be no better off than when he made nothing.
Some persons supposed that he gambled; others whispered that he spent it
in other dissipation. In fact, one lady gave a circumstantial account
of the way he squandered his money, and declared herself very glad
that he had never visited her daughters. When this was repeated to Floyd,
he said he fortunately did not have to account to her for the way
he spent his money. He felt that the woman out under the marble cross
knew how his money went, and so did the little cousin who was named after her,
and who was at school. He had a letter from her in his pocket at that moment.
So he drifted on.
At length one evening he was at a reception in a strange city whither
his business had taken him. The rooms were filled with light and beauty.
Floyd was standing chatting with a child of ten years, whom he found
standing in a corner, gazing out with wide questioning eyes on the throng.
They were friends instantly, and he was telling her who the guests were,
as they came sailing in, giving them fictitious names and titles.
"They are all queens," he told her, at which she laughed.
She pointed out a tall and stately woman with a solemn face,
and with a gleaming bodice on like a cuirass, and her hair up on her head
like a casque. "Who is that?"
"Queen Semiramis."
"And who is that?" It was a stout lady with a tiara of diamonds, a red face,
and three feathers.
"Queen Victoria, of course."
"And who am I?" She placed her little hand on her breast
with a pretty gesture.
"The Queen of Hearts," said Floyd, quickly, at which she laughed outright.
"Oh! I must not laugh," she said, checking herself and glancing around her
with a shocked look. "I forgot."
"You shall. If you don't, you sha'n't know who another queen is."
"No, mamma told me I must not make a bit of noise; it is not style, you know,
but you mustn't be so funny."
"Good heavens!" said Floyd.
"Oh! who is this coming?" A lady richly dressed was making her way
toward them. "The Queen of Sheba -- coming to see Solomon," said Floyd,
as she came up to him. "Let me introduce you to a beautiful girl,
Sarah Dangerlie," she said, and drew him through the throng toward a door,
where he was presented to a tall and strikingly handsome girl
and made his bow and a civil speech, to which the young lady responded
with one equallypolite and important. Other men were pressing around her,
to all of whom she made apt and cordial speeches, and Floyd fell back
and rejoined his little girl, whose face lit up at his return.
"Oh! I was so afraid you were going away with her."
"And leave you? Never, I'm not so easily disposed of."
"Everyone goes with her. They call her the Queen."
"Do they?"
"Do you like her?"
"Yes."
"You don't," she said, looking at him keenly.
"Yes, she is beautiful."
"Everyone says so."
"She isn't as beautiful as someone else I know," said Floyd, pleasantly.
"Isn't she? As whom?"
Floyd took hold of the child's hand and said, "Let's go and get some supper."
"I don't like her," said the little girl, positively.
"Don't you?" said Floyd. He stopped and glanced across the room
toward where the girl had stood. He saw only the gleam of her fine shoulders
as she disappeared in the crowd surrounded by her admirers.
A little later Floyd met the young lady on the stairway.
He had not recognized her, and was passing on, when she spoke to him.
"I saw you talking to a little friend of mine," she began, then --
"Over in the corner," she explained.
"Oh! yes. She is sweet. They interest me. I always feel when I have talked
with a child as if I had got as near to the angels as one can get on earth."
"Do you know I was very anxious to meet you," she said.
"Were you? Thank you. Why?"
"Because of a line of yours I once read."
"I am pleased to have written only one line that attracted your attention,"
said Floyd, bowing.
"No, no -- it was this --
"The whitest soul of man or saint is black beside a girl's."
"Beside a child's," said Floyd, correcting her.
"Oh! yes, so it is -- `beside a child's.'"
Her voice was low and musical. Floyd glanced up and caught her look,
and the color deepened in her cheek as the young man suddenly leant
a little towards her and gazed earnestly into her eyes, which she dropped,
but instantly raised again.
"Yes -- good-night," she held out her hand, with a takinggesture and smile.
"Good-night," said Floyd, and passed on up the stairs to the dressing-room.
He got his coat and hat and came down the stairway. A group seized him.
"Come to the club," they said. He declined.
"Roast oysters and beer," they said.
"No, I'm going home."
"Are you ill?" asked a friend.
"No, not at all. Why?"
"You look like a man who has seen a spirit."
"Do I? I'm tired, I suppose. Good-night, -- good-night, gentlemen,"
and he passed out.
"Perhaps I have," he said as he went down the cold steps
into the frozen street.
Floyd went home and tossed about all night. His life was breaking up,
he was all at sea. Why had he met her? He was losing the anchor
that had held him. "They call her the queen," the little girl had said.
She must be. He had seen her soul through her eyes.
Floyd sent her the poem which contained the line which she had quoted;
and she wrote him a note thanking him. It pleased him. It was sympathetic.
She invited him to call. He went to see her. She was fine in grain
and in look. A closely fitting dark gown ornamented by a single
glorious red rose which might have grown where it lay, and her soft hair
coiled on her small head, as she entered tall and straight and calm,
made Floyd involuntarily say to himself, "Yes" --
"She was right," he said, half to himself, half aloud, as he stood
gazing at her with inquiring eyes after she had greeted him cordially.
"What was right?" she asked.
"Something a little girl said about you."
"What was it?"
"I will tell you some day, when I know you better."
"Was it a compliment?"
"Yes."
"Tell me now."
"No, wait."
He came to know her better; to know her very well. He did not see her
very often, but he thought of her a great deal. He seemed to find in her
a sympathy which he needed. It reminded him of the past.
He awoke from his lethargy; began to work once more in the old way;
mixed among men again; grew brighter. "Henry Floyd is growing younger,
instead of older," someone said of him. "His health has been bad,"
said a doctor. "He is improving. I thought at one time he was going to die."
"He is getting rich," said a broker, who had been a schoolmate of his.
"I see he has just invented a new something or other to relieve children
with hip or ankle-joint disease."
"Yes, and it is a capital thing, too; it is being taken up by the profession.
I use it. It is a curious thing that he should have hit on that
when he is not a surgeon. He had studiedanatomy as a sort of fad,
as he does everything. One of Haile Tabb's boys was bedridden,
and he was a great friend of his, and that set him at it."
- monument [´mɔnjumənt]
n.纪念碑；古迹 (初中英语单词) - everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
- otherwise [´ʌðəwaiz] ad.另外 conj.否则 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- butterfly [´bʌtəflai] n.蝴蝶；蝶式 (初中英语单词)
- calmly [´kɑ:mli] ad.平静地；无风浪地 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- physician [fi´ziʃən] n.(内科)医生 (初中英语单词)
- affect [ə´fekt] vt.影响；感动；假装 (初中英语单词)
- writer [´raitə] n.作者；作家 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- equally [´i:kwəli] ad.相等地；平等地 (初中英语单词)
- polite [pə´lait] a.有礼貌的；温和的 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- schoolmate [´sku:lmeit] n.同学 (初中英语单词)
- relieve [ri´li:v] v.救济，援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- descent [di´sent] n.出身，家世 (高中英语单词)
- reception [ri´sepʃən] n.接待；欢迎；招待会 (高中英语单词)
- casual [´kæʒuəl] a.偶然的；临时的 (高中英语单词)
- gossip [´gɔsip] n.&vi.说闲话；聊天 (高中英语单词)
- continually [kən´tinjuəli] ad.不断地，频繁地 (高中英语单词)
- sadness [´sædnis] n.悲哀；悲痛；凄惨 (高中英语单词)
- indifferent [in´difrənt] a.不关心的；中立的 (高中英语单词)
- homage [´hɔmidʒ] n.敬意，尊敬 (高中英语单词)
- inventor [in´ventə] n.发明者 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- fortunately [´fɔ:tʃənətli] ad.幸运地 (高中英语单词)
- stately [´steitli] a.庄严的，雄伟的 (高中英语单词)
- throng [θrɔŋ] n.群众 v.拥挤；群集 (高中英语单词)
- cordial [´kɔ:diəl] a.热忱的；亲切的 (高中英语单词)
- earnestly [´ə:nistli] ad.认真地；急切地 (高中英语单词)
- surgeon [´sə:dʒən] n.外科医生；军医 (高中英语单词)
- studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
- churchyard [´tʃə:tʃjɑ:d] n.教堂院子 (英语四级单词)
- charitable [´tʃæritəbəl] a.仁爱的；慈善的 (英语四级单词)
- lighting [´laitiŋ] n.照明，发光 (英语四级单词)
- lesser [´lesə] a.较小的；次要的 (英语四级单词)
- gentleness [´dʒentlnis] n.温和，温柔 (英语四级单词)
- richly [´ritʃli] ad.富裕地；浓厚地 (英语四级单词)
- stairway [´steəwei] n.楼梯 (英语四级单词)
- broker [´brəukə] n.经纪人，掮客 (英语四级单词)
- anatomy [ə´nætəmi] n.解剖(学) (英语四级单词)
- eccentric [ik´sentrik] a.古怪的；离心的 (英语六级单词)
- speculate [´spekjuleit] vi.思索；推测；投机 (英语六级单词)
- doggedly [´dɔgidli] ad.顽强地，固执地 (英语六级单词)
- mechanically [mi´kænikəli] ad.机械地；无意识地 (英语六级单词)
- minded [´maindid] a.有...心的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- fitting [´fitiŋ] a.适当的 n.试衣 (英语六级单词)
- involuntarily [in´vɔləntərili] ad.不 自觉地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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