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The Black Dwarf-Part24_WALTER SCOTT(1771-1832)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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source so capricious was often abused, and his confidence



frequently betrayed. These disappointments, which occur to all,

more or less, and most to such as confer benefits without just



discrimination, his diseased fancy set down to the hatred and

contempt excited by his personal deformity.-- But I fatigue you,



Miss Vere?"

"No, by no means; I--I could not prevent my attention from



wandering an instant; pray proceed."

"He became at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious



self-tormentor of whom I have ever heard; the scoff of the

rabble, and the sneer of the yet more brutalvulgar of his own



rank, was to him agony and breaking on the wheel. He regarded

the laugh of the common people whom he passed on the street, and



the suppressed titter, or yet more offensiveterror, of the young

girls to whom he was introduced in company, as proofs of the true



sense which the world entertained of him, as a prodigy unfit to

be received among them on the usual terms of society, and as



vindicating the wisdom of his purpose in withdrawing himself from

among them. On the faith and sincerity of two persons alone, he



seemed to rely implicitly--on that of his betrothed bride, and of

a friend eminently gifted in personal accomplishments, who



seemed, and indeed probably was, sincerely attached to him. He

ought to have been so at least, for he was literally loaded with



benefits by him whom you are now about to see. The parents of

the subject of my story died within a short space of each other.



Their death postponed the marriage, for which the day had been

fixed. The lady did not seem greatly to mourn this delay,--



perhaps that was not to have been expected; but she intimated no

change of intention, when, after a decentinterval, a second day



was named for their union. The friend of whom I spoke was then a

constant resident at the Hall. In an evil hour, at the earnest



request and entreaty of this friend, they joined a general party,

where men of different political opinions were mingled, and where



they drank deep. A quarrel ensued; the friend of the Recluse

drew his sword with others, and was thrown down and disarmed by a



more powerful antagonist. They fell in the struggle at the feet

of the Recluse, who, maimed and truncated as his form appears,



possesses, nevertheless, great strength, as well as violent

passions. He caught up a sword, pierced the heart of his



friend's antagonist, was tried, and his life, with difficulty,

redeemed from justice at the expense of a year's close



imprisonment, the punishment of manslaughter. The incident

affected him most deeply, the more that the deceased was a man of



excellent character, and had sustained gross insult and injury

ere he drew his sword. I think, from that moment, I observed--I



beg pardon--The fits of morbid sensibility which had tormented

this unfortunate gentleman, were rendered henceforth more acute



by remorse, which he, of all men, was least capable of having

incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His



paroxysms of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom

he was betrothed; and it must be confessed they were of an



alarming and fearful nature. He comforted himself, that, at the

expiry of his imprisonment, he could form with his wife and



friend a society, encircled by which he might dispense with more

extensive communication with the world. He was deceived; before



that term elapsed, his friend and his betrothed bride were man

and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent



temperament, a disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and

loosened by the indulgence of a gloomyimagination from the rest



of mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable

at which the vessel rode had suddenly parted, and left her



abandoned to all the wild fury of the tempest. He was placed

under medicalrestraint. As a temporarymeasure this might have



been justifiable; but his hard-hearted friend, who, in




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