neighbour had done, and what it said to him, full in the face, was

that she was what he had missed. This was the awful thought, the
answer to all the past, the vision at the dread clearness of which

he turned as cold as the stone beneath him. Everything fell
together, confessed, explained, overwhelmed; leaving him most of

all stupefied at the blindness he had cherished. The fate he had
been marked for he had met with a vengeance--he had emptied the cup

to the lees; he had been the man of his time, THE man, to whom
nothing on earth was to have happened. That was the rare stroke--

that was his visitation. So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror,
while the pieces fitted and fitted. So SHE had seen it while he

didn't, and so she served at this hour to drive the truth home. It
was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had

waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his
vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him

the chance to baffle his doom. One's doom, however, was never
baffled, and on the day she told him his own had come down she had

seen him but stupidly stare at the escape she offered him.
The escape would have been to love her; then, THEN he would have

lived. SHE had lived--who could say now with what passion?--since
she had loved him for himself; whereas he had never thought of her

(ah how it hugely glared at him!) but in the chill of his egotism
and the light of her use. Her spoken words came back to him--the

chain stretched and stretched. The Beast had lurked indeed, and
the Beast, at its hour, had sprung; it had sprung in that twilight

of the cold April when, pale, ill, wasted, but all beautiful, and
perhaps even then recoverable, she had risen from her chair to

stand before him and let him imaginably guess. It had sprung as he
didn't guess; it had sprung as she hopelessly turned from him, and

the mark, by the time he left her, had fallen where it WAS to fall.
He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; he had failed,

with the last exactitude, of all he was to fail of; and a moan now
rose to his lips as he remembered she had prayed he mightn't know.

This horror of waking--THIS was knowledge, knowledge under the
breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze.

Through them, none the less, he tried to fix it and hold it; he
kept it there before him so that he might feel the pain. That at

least, belated and bitter, had something of the taste of life. But
the bitterness suddenly sickened him, and it was as if, horribly,

he saw, in the truth, in the cruelty of his image, what had been
appointed and done. He saw the Jungle of his life and saw the

lurking Beast; then, while he looked, perceived it, as by a stir of
the air, rise, huge and hideous, for the leap that was to settle

him. His eyes darkened--it was close; and, instinctively turning,
in his hallucination, to avoid it, he flung himself, face down,

on the tomb.
End

• vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
• portion [´pɔ:ʃən] n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词)
• companion [kəm´pæniən] n.同伴；同事；伴侣 (初中英语单词)
• whereas [weər´æz] conj.鉴于；因此；而 (初中英语单词)
• spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
• monstrous [´mɔnstrəs] a.怪异的；庞大的 (高中英语单词)
• sprung [sprʌŋ] spring的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
• bitterness [´bitənis] n.苦味；辛酸；苦难 (高中英语单词)
• cruelty [´kru:əlti] n.残忍；残酷行为 (高中英语单词)
• jungle [´dʒʌŋgəl] n.丛林；杂乱的东西 (高中英语单词)
• hideous [´hidiəs] a.丑陋的，可怕的 (高中英语单词)
• blindness [´blaindnis] n.失明；愚味，文盲 (英语四级单词)
• baffle [´bæfəl] vt.&n.阻碍；徒劳；困惑 (英语四级单词)
• hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
• instinctively [in´stiŋktivli] ad.本能地 (英语四级单词)
• clearness [´kliənis] n.清楚；明白；明确 (英语六级单词)
• visitation [,vizi´teiʃən] n.访问；视察；检查 (英语六级单词)
• belated [bi´leitid] a.延误的；遗留的 (英语六级单词)