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Amy Foster-Part4_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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women fierce. He had approached them as a beg-

gar, it is true, he said; but in his country, even if



they gave nothing, they spoke gently to beggars.

The children in his country were not taught to



throw stones at those who asked for compassion.

Smith's strategyovercame him completely. The



wood-lodge presented the horribleaspect of a dun-

geon. What would be done to him next? . . .



No wonder that Amy Foster appeared to his eyes

with the aureole of an angel of light. The girl



had not been able to sleep for thinking of the poor

man, and in the morning, before the Smiths were



up, she slipped out across the back yard. Holding

the door of the wood-lodge ajar, she looked in and



extended to him half a loaf of white bread--'such

bread as the rich eat in my country,' he used to



say.

"At this he got up slowly from amongst all sorts



of rubbish, stiff, hungry, trembling, miserable, and

doubtful. 'Can you eat this?' she asked in her



soft and timid voice. He must have taken her for

a 'gracious lady.' He devoured ferociously, and



tears were falling on the crust. Suddenly he

dropped the bread, seized her wrist, and im-



printed a kiss on her hand. She was not fright-

ened. Through his forlorn condition she had



observed that he was good-looking. She shut

the door and walked back slowly to the kitchen.



Much later on, she told Mrs. Smith, who shud-

dered at the bare idea of being touched by that



creature.

"Through this act of impulsive pity he was



brought back again within the pale of human rela-

tions with his new surroundings. He never forgot



it--never.

"That very same morning old Mr. Swaffer



(Smith's nearest neighbour) came over to give his

advice, and ended by carrying him off. He stood,



unsteady on his legs, meek, and caked over in half-

dried mud, while the two men talked around him in



an incomprehensible tongue. Mrs. Smith had re-

fused to come downstairs till the madman was off



the premises; Amy Foster, far from within the dark

kitchen, watched through the open back door; and



he obeyed the signs that were made to him to the

best of his ability. But Smith was full of mistrust.



'Mind, sir! It may be all his cunning,' he cried

repeatedly in a tone of warning. When Mr.



Swaffer started the mare, the deplorable being sit-

ting humbly by his side, through weakness, nearly



fell out over the back of the high two-wheeled cart.

Swaffer took him straight home. And it is then



that I come upon the scene.

"I was called in by the simple process of the old



man beckoning to me with his forefinger over the

gate of his house as I happened to be driving past.



I got down, of course.

"'I've got something here,' he mumbled, lead-



ing the way to an outhouse at a little distance from

his other farm-buildings.



"It was there that I saw him first, in a long low

room taken upon the space of that sort of coach-



house. It was bare and whitewashed, with a small

square aperture glazed with one cracked, dusty



pane at its further end. He was lying on his back

upon a straw pallet; they had given him a couple



of horse-blankets, and he seemed to have spent the

remainder of his strength in the exertion of clean-



ing himself. He was almost speechless; his quick

breathing under the blankets pulled up to his chin,



his glittering, restless black eyes reminded me of a

wild bird caught in a snare. While I was examining



him, old Swaffer stood silently by the door, passing




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