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Tales of Unrest-Part23_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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again with an every-day act--with something that could not be

misunderstood, that, thank God, had no moral meaning, no perplexity--



and yet was symbolic of their uninterrupted communion in the past--in

all the future. That morning, at that table, they had breakfast



together; and now they would dine. It was all over! What had happened

between could be forgotten--must be forgotten, like things that can



only happen once--death for instance.

"I will wait for you," he said, going to the door. He had some



difficulty with it, for he did not remember he had turned the key. He

hated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of the



room made him feel quite ill as, with the consciousness of her

presence behind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it at



last; then in the doorway he glanced over his shoulder to say, "It's

rather late--you know--" and saw her standing where he had left her,



with a face white as alabaster and perfectly still, like a woman in a

trance.



He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any breathing

time, he hardly knew how, he found himself sitting at table with her.



He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be natural. It seemed to

him necessary that deception should begin at home. The servants must



not know--must not suspect. This intense desire of secrecy; of secrecy

dark, destroying, profound, discreet like a grave, possessed him with



the strength of a hallucination--seemed to spread itself to inanimate

objects that had been the daily companions of his life, affected with



a taint of enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that

would stand forever between the shamelessness of facts and the



indignation of mankind. Even when--as it happened once or twice--both

the servants left the room together he remained carefully natural,



industriously hungry, laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted

to cheat the black oak sideboard, the heavy curtains, the stiff-backed



chairs, into the belief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful

of his wife's self-control, unwilling to look at her and reluctant to



speak, for it seemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray

herself by the slightest movement, by the very first word spoken. Then



he thought the silence in the room was becoming dangerous, and so

excessive as to produce the effect of an intolerableuproar. He wanted



to end it, as one is anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession;

but with the memory of that laugh upstairs he dared not give her an



occasion to open her lips. Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in

a calm tone some unimportant remark. He detached his eyes from the



centre of his plate and felt excited as if on the point of looking at

a wonder. And nothing could be more wonderful than her composure. He



was looking at the candid eyes, at the pure brow, at what he had seen

every evening for years in that place; he listened to the voice that



for five years he had heard every day. Perhaps she was a little

pale--but a healthy pallor had always been for him one of her chief



attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidly set--but that marmoreal

impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as of a wonderful statue by



some great sculptorworking under the curse of the gods; that

imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till then



mirrored for him the tranquildignity of a soul of which he had

thought himself--as a matter of course--the inexpugnable possessor.



Those were the outward signs of her difference from the ignoble herd

that feels, suffers, fails, errs--but has no distinct value in the



world except as a moral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He

had been proud of her appearance. It had the perfectly proper



frankness of perfection--and now he was shocked to see it unchanged.

She looked like this, spoke like this, exactly like this, a year ago,



a month ago--only yesterday when she. . . . What went on within made

no difference. What did she think? What meant the pallor, the placid






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