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Tales of Unrest-Part19_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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presence--after all--had the power to recall him to himself. He

stared at her. She sat with her hands on her lap, looking down; and he



noticed that her boots were dirty, her skirts wet and splashed, as

though she had been driven back there by a blind fear through a waste



of mud. He was indignant, amazed and shocked, but in a natural,

healthy way now; so that he could control those unprofitable



sentiments by the dictates of cautious self-restraint. The light in

the room had no unusualbrilliance now; it was a good light in which



he could easily observe the expression of her face. It was that of

dull fatigue. And the silence that surrounded them was the normal



silence of any quiet house, hardly disturbed by the faint noises of a

respectable quarter of the town. He was very cool--and it was quite



coolly that he thought how much better it would be if neither of them

ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips, with an air of lassitude



in the stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment she lifted

her drooping eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive stare by a look



that had all the formless eloquence of a cry. It penetrated, it

stirred without informing; it was the very essence of anguish stripped



of words that can be smiled at, argued away, shouted down, disdained.

It was anguish naked and unashamed, the bare pain of existence let



loose upon the world in the fleeting unreserve of a look that had in

it an immensity of fatigue, the scornfulsincerity, the black



impudence of an extorted confession. Alvan Hervey was seized with

wonder, as though he had seen something inconceivable; and some



obscure part of his being was ready to exclaim with him: "I would

never have believed it!" but an instantaneous revulsion of wounded



susceptibilities checked the unfinished thought.

He felt full of rancorous indignation against the woman who could look



like this at one. This look probed him; it tampered with him. It was

dangerous to one as would be a hint of unbelief whispered by a priest



in the august decorum of a temple; and at the same time it was impure,

it was disturbing, like a cynicalconsolation muttered in the dark,



tainting the sorrow, corroding the thought, poisoning the heart. He

wanted to ask her furiously: "Who do you take me for? How dare you



look at me like this?" He felt himself helpless before the hidden

meaning of that look; he resented it with pained and futile violence



as an injury so secret that it could never, never be redressed. His

wish was to crush her by a single sentence. He was stainless. Opinion



was on his side; morality, men and gods were on his side; law,

conscience--all the world! She had nothing but that look. And he could



only say:

"How long do you intend to stay here?"



Her eyes did not waver, her lips remained closed; and for any effect

of his words he might have spoken to a dead woman, only that this one



breathed quickly. He was profoundly disappointed by what he had said.

It was a great deception, something in the nature of treason. He had



deceived himself. It should have been altogether different--other

words--another sensation. And before his eyes, so fixed that at



times they saw nothing, she sat apparently as unconscious as though

she had been alone, sending that look of brazenconfession straight at



him--with an air of staring into empty space. He said significantly:

"Must I go then?" And he knew he meant nothing of what he implied.






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