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An Inland Voyage-Part14_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the water became a cradle-song to lull my thoughts asleep; when a



piece of mud on the deck was sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and

sometimes quite a companion for me, and the object of pleased



consideration; - and all the time, with the river running and the

shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my strokes and



forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal in France.

DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS



WE made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont Sainte Maxence. I

was abroad a little after six the next morning. The air was



biting, and smelt of frost. In an open place a score of women

wrangled together over the day's market; and the noise of their



negotiation sounded thin and querulous like that of sparrows on a

winter's morning. The rare passengers blew into their hands, and



shuffled in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. The streets

were full of icy shadow, although the chimneys were smoking



overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early enough at this

season of the year, you may get up in December to break your fast



in June.

I found my way to the church; for there is always something to see



about a church, whether living worshippers or dead men's tombs; you

find there the deadliest earnest, and the hollowest deceit; and



even where it is not a piece of history, it will be certain to leak

out some contemporarygossip. It was scarcely so cold in the



church as it was without, but it looked colder. The white nave was

positively arctic to the eye; and the tawdriness of a continental



altar looked more forlorn than usual in the solitude and the bleak

air. Two priests sat in the chancel, reading and waiting



penitents; and out in the nave, one very old woman was engaged in

her devotions. It was a wonder how she was able to pass her beads



when healthy young people were breathing in their palms and

slapping their chest; but though this concerned me, I was yet more



dispirited by the nature of her exercises. She went from chair to

chair, from altar to altar, circumnavigating the church. To each



shrine she dedicated an equal number of beads and an equal length

of time. Like a prudentcapitalist with a somewhat cynical view of



the commercialprospect, she desired to place her supplications in

a great variety of heavenly securities. She would risk nothing on



the credit of any single intercessor. Out of the whole company of

saints and angels, not one but was to suppose himself her champion



elect against the Great Assize! I could only think of it as a

dull, transparent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief.



She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than bone and

parchment, curiously put together. Her eyes, with which she



interrogated mine, were vacant of sense. It depends on what you

call seeing, whether you might not call her blind. Perhaps she had



known love: perhaps borne children, suckled them and given them

pet names. But now that was all gone by, and had left her neither



happier nor wiser; and the best she could do with her mornings was

to come up here into the cold church and juggle for a slice of



heaven. It was not without a gulp that I escaped into the streets

and the keen morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it she would



be before night! and if she did not sleep, how then? It is

fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly to justify



our lives at the bar of threescore years and ten; fortunate that

such a number are knocked opportunely on the head in what they call



the flower of their years, and go away to suffer for their follies

in private somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick children and



discontented old folk, we might be put out of all conceit of life.

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day's paddle:



the old devotee stuck in my throatsorely. But I was soon in the

seventh heaven of stupidity; and knew nothing but that somebody was



paddling a canoe, while I was counting his strokes and forgetting

the hundreds. I used sometimes to be afraid I should remember the



hundreds; which would have made a toil of a pleasure; but the




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