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Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part41_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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-- whether the field's owner -- in his irritation at discovering the robber,

-- or one of a band of similar `charbonniers' (for they suppose the man



to be a Piedmontese of that occupation) remains to be proved:

they began by imprisoning the owner, who denies his guilt energetically.



Now the odd thing is, that, either the day of, or after the murder, --

as I and S. were looking at the utter solitude, I had the fancy



"What should I do if I suddenly came upon a dead body in this field?

Go and proclaim it -- and subject myself to all the vexations



inflicted by the French way of procedure (which begins by assuming

that you may be the criminal) -- or neglect an obvious duty,



and return silently." I, of course, saw that the former

was the only proper course, whatever the annoyance involved.



And, all the while, there was just about to be the very same incident

for the trouble of somebody.'



==

Here the account breaks off; but writing again from the same place,



August 16, 1882, he takes up the suspended narrative with this question:

`Did I tell you of what happened to me on the last day of my stay here



last year?' And after repeating the main facts continues as follows:

==



`This morning, in the course of my walk, I entered into conversation

with two persons of whom I made enquiry myself. They said the accused man,



a simple person, had been locked up in a high chamber, --

protesting his innocencestrongly, -- and troubled in his mind



by the affair altogether and the turn it was taking, had profited

by the gendarme's negligence, and thrown himself out of the window --



and so died, continuing to the last to protest as before.

My presentiment of what such a person might have to undergo



was justified you see -- though I should not in any case

have taken THAT way of getting out of the difficulty.



The man added, "it was not he who committed the murder,

but the companions of the man, an Italian charcoal-burner,



who owed him a grudge, killed him, and dragged him to the field --

filling his sack with potatoes as if stolen, to give a likelihood



that the field's owner had caught him stealing and killed him, --

so M. Perrier the greffier told me." Enough of this grim story.



. . . . .

`My sister was anxious to know exactly where the body was found:



"Vouz savez la croix au sommet de la colline? A cette distance de cela!"

That is precisely where I was standing when the thought came over me.'



==

A passage in a subsequent letter of September 3 clearly refers



to some comment of Mrs. Fitz-Gerald's on the peculiar nature

of this presentiment:



==

`No -- I attribute no sort of supernaturalism to my fancy about the thing



that was really about to take place. By a law of the association of ideas --

CONTRARIES come into the mind as often as SIMILARITIES --



and the peace and solitudereadily called up the notion

of what would most jar with them. I have often thought of the trouble



that might have befallen me if poor Miss Smith's death had happened

the night before, when we were on the mountain alone together --



or next morning when we were on the proposed excursion --

only THEN we should have had companions.'



==

The letter then passes to other subjects.



==

`This is the fifth magnificent day -- like magnificence,



unfit for turning to much account -- for we cannot walk till sunset.

I had two hours' walk, or nearly, before breakfast, however:



It is the loveliest country I ever had experience of,

and we shall prolong our stay perhaps -- apart from the concern






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