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Amy Foster-Part1_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Raised above our heads upon the sky-line, it loomed



up against the red sun, triumphantly big, enor-

mous, like a chariot of giants drawn by two slow-



stepping steeds of legendary proportions. And

the clumsy figure of the man plodding at the head



of the leading horse projected itself on the back-

ground of the Infinite with a heroic uncouthness.



The end of his carter's whip quivered high up in

the blue. Kennedy discoursed.



"She's the eldest of a large family. At the age

of fifteen they put her out to service at the New



Barns Farm. I attended Mrs. Smith, the tenant's

wife, and saw that girl there for the first time.



Mrs. Smith, a genteel person with a sharp nose,

made her put on a black dress every afternoon. I



don't know what induced me to notice her at all.

There are faces that call your attention by a cu-



rious want of definiteness in their whole aspect, as,

walking in a mist, you peer attentively at a vague



shape which, after all, may be nothing more cu-

rious or strange than a signpost. The only pecu-



liarity I perceived in her was a slight hesitation in

her utterance, a sort of preliminarystammer which



passes away with the first word. When sharply

spoken to, she was apt to lose her head at once; but



her heart was of the kindest. She had never been

heard to express a dislike for a single human being,



and she was tender to every living creature. She

was devoted to Mrs. Smith, to Mr. Smith, to their



dogs, cats, canaries; and as to Mrs. Smith's grey

parrot, its peculiarities exercised upon her a posi-



tive fascination. Nevertheless, when that outland-

ish bird, attacked by the cat, shrieked for help in



human accents, she ran out into the yard stopping

her ears, and did not prevent the crime. For Mrs.



Smith this was another evidence of her stupidity;

on the other hand, her want of charm, in view of



Smith's well-known frivolousness, was a great rec-

commendation. Her short-sighted eyes would swim



with pity for a poor mouse in a trap, and she had

been seen once by some boys on her knees in the wet



grass helping a toad in difficulties. If it's true, as

some German fellow has said, that without phos-



phorus there is no thought, it is still more true that

there is no kindness of heart without a certain



amount of imagination. She had some. She had

even more than is necessary to understand suffer-



ing and to be moved by pity. She fell in love un-

der circumstances that leave no room for doubt in



the matter; for you need imagination to form a

notion of beauty at all, and still more to discover



your ideal in an unfamiliar shape.

"How this aptitude came to her, what it did



feed upon, is an inscrutable mystery. She was

born in the village, and had never been further



away from it than Colebrook or perhaps Darnford.

She lived for four years with the Smiths. New



Barns is an isolated farmhouse a mile away from

the road, and she was content to look day after



day at the same fields, hollows, rises; at the trees

and the hedgerows; at the faces of the four men



about the farm, always the same--day after day,

month after month, year after year. She never



showed a desire for conversation, and, as it seemed

to me, she did not know how to smile. Sometimes



of a fine Sunday afternoon she would put on her

best dress, a pair of stout boots, a large grey hat



trimmed with a black feather (I've seen her in that

finery), seize an absurdly slender parasol, climb



over two stiles, tramp over three fields and along

two hundred yards of road--never further. There



stood Foster's cottage. She would help her mother

to give their tea to the younger children, wash up



the crockery, kiss the little ones, and go back to

the farm. That was all. All the rest, all the






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