章节正文
upon it packed tight, only now there were with
them many women and children who made much
noise. A cold rain fell, the wind blew in his face;
he was wet through, and his teeth chattered. He
and the young man from the same valley took each
other by the hand.
"They thought they were being taken to Amer-
ica straight away, but suddenly the steam-machine
bumped against the side of a thing like a house on
the water. The walls were smooth and black, and
there uprose, growing from the roof as it were,
bare trees in the shape of crosses, extremely high.
That's how it appeared to him then, for he had
never seen a ship before. This was the ship that
was going to swim all the way to America. Voices
shouted, everything swayed; there was a ladder
dipping up and down. He went up on his hands
and knees in mortal fear of falling into the water
below, which made a great splashing. He got sep-
arated from his companion, and when he descended
into the bottom of that ship his heart seemed to melt
suddenly within him.
"It was then also, as he told me, that he lost con-
tact for good and all with one of those three men
who the summer before had been going about
through all the little towns in the foothills of his
country. They would arrive on market days driv-
ing in a peasant's cart, and would set up an office
in an inn or some other Jew's house. There were
three of them, of whom one with a long beard
looked venerable; and they had red cloth collars
round their necks and gold lace on their sleeves
like Government officials. They sat proudly behind
a long table; and in the next room, so that the com-
mon people shouldn't hear, they kept a cunning
telegraph machine, through which they could talk
to the Emperor of America. The fathers hung
about the door, but the young men of the mountains
would crowd up to the table asking many questions,
for there was work to be got all the year round at
three dollars a day in America, and no military
service to do.
"But the American Kaiser would not take every-
body. Oh, no! He himself had a great difficulty
in getting accepted, and the venerable man in uni-
form had to go out of the room several times to
work the telegraph on his behalf. The American
Kaiser engaged him at last at three dollars, he
being young and strong. However, many able
young men backed out, afraid of the great dis-
tance; besides, those only who had some money
could be taken. There were some who sold their
huts and their land because it cost a lot of money
to get to America; but then, once there, you had
three dollars a day, and if you were clever you
could find places where true gold could be picked
up on the ground. His father's house was getting
over full. Two of his brothers were married and
had children. He promised to send money home
from America by post twice a year. His father
sold an old cow, a pair of piebald mountain ponies
of his own raising, and a cleared plot of fair pas-
ture land on the sunny slope of a pine-clad pass to
a Jew inn-keeper in order to pay the people of the
ship that took men to America to get rich in a
short time.
"He must have been a real adventurer at heart,
for how many of the greatest enterprises in the
conquest of the earth had for their beginning just
such a bargaining away of the paternal cow for the
mirage or true gold far away! I have been telling
you more or less in my own words what I learned
fragmentarily in the course of two or three years,
during which I seldom missed an opportunity of a
friendly chat with him. He told me this story of
his adventure with many flashes of white teeth and
lively glances of black eyes, at first in a sort of anx-
ious baby-talk, then, as he acquired the language,
with great fluency, but always with that singing,
soft, and at the same time vibrating intonation that
instilled a strangely penetrating power into the
sound of the most familiar English words, as if
they had been the words of an unearthly language.
And he always would come to an end, with many
emphatic shakes of his head, upon that awful sen-
sation of his heart melting within him directly he
set foot on board that ship. Afterwards there
seemed to come for him a period of blank ignorance,
at any rate as to facts. No doubt he must have
been abominably sea-sick and abominably unhappy
--this soft and passionateadventurer, taken thus
out of his knowledge, and feeling bitterly as he lay
in his emigrant bunk his utter loneliness; for his
was a highly sensitive nature. The next thing we
know of him for certain is that he had been hiding
in Hammond's pig-pound by the side of the road
to Norton six miles, as the crow flies, from the sea.
Of these experiences he was unwilling to speak:
they seemed to have seared into his soul a sombre
sort of wonder and indignation. Through the ru-
mours of the country-side, which lasted for a good
many days after his arrival, we know that the fish-
ermen of West Colebrook had been disturbed and
startled by heavy knocks against the walls of
weatherboard cottages, and by a voice crying
piercingly strange words in the night. Several of
them turned out even, but, no doubt, he had fled in
sudden alarm at their rough angry tones hailing
each other in the darkness. A sort of frenzy must
have helped him up the steep Norton hill. It was
he, no doubt, who early the following morning had
been seen lying (in a swoon, I should say) on the
roadside grass by the Brenzett carrier, who actually
got down to have a nearer look, but drew back, in-
timidated by the perfect immobility, and by some-
thing queer in the aspect of that tramp, sleeping
so still under the showers. As the day advanced,
some children came dashing into school at Norton
in such a fright that the schoolmistress went out
and spoke indignantly to a 'horrid-looking man'
on the road. He edged away, hanging his head,
for a few steps, and then suddenly ran off with ex-
traordinary fleetness. The driver of Mr. Brad-
ley's milk-cart made no secret of it that he had
lashed with his whip at a hairy sort of gipsy fel-
low who, jumping up at a turn of the road by the
Vents, made a snatch at the pony's bridle. And
he caught him a good one too, right over the face,
he said, that made him drop down in the mud a
jolly sight quicker than he had jumped up; but it
was a good half-a-mile before he could stop the
pony. Maybe that in his desperate endeavours to
get help, and in his need to get in touch with some
one, the poor devil had tried to stop the cart. Also
three boys confessed afterwards to throwing stones
at a funny tramp, knocking about all wet and
muddy, and, it seemed, very drunk, in the narrow
deep lane by the limekilns. All this was the talk of
three villages for days; but we have Mrs. Finn's
(the wife of Smith's waggoner) unimpeachable
testimony that she saw him get over the low wall of
Hammond's pig-pound and lurch straight at her,
babbling aloud in a voice that was enough to make
one die of fright. Having the baby with her in a
perambulator, Mrs. Finn called out to him to go
away, and as he persisted in coming nearer, she hit
him courageously with her umbrella over the head
and, without once looking back, ran like the wind
with the perambulator as far as the first house in
the village. She stopped then, out of breath, and
spoke to old Lewis, hammering there at a heap of
stones; and the old chap, taking off his immense
black wire goggles, got up on his shaky legs to
look where she pointed. Together they followed
with their eyes the figure of the man running over
a field; they saw him fall down, pick himself up,
and run on again, staggering and waving his long
arms above his head, in the direction of the New
Barns Farm. From that moment he is plainly in
the toils of his obscure and touching destiny.
There is no doubt after this of what happened to
him. All is certain now: Mrs. Smith's intense ter-
ror; Amy Foster's stolid conviction held against
the other's nervous attack, that the man 'meant no
harm'; Smith's exasperation (on his return from
Darnford Market) at finding the dog barking
himself into a fit, the back-door locked, his wife in
hysterics; and all for an unfortunate dirty tramp,
supposed to be even then lurking in his stackyard.
Was he? He would teach him to frighten women.
"Smith is notoriously hot-tempered, but the
sight of some nondescript and miry creature sitting
crosslegged amongst a lot of loose straw, and
swinging itself to and fro like a bear in a cage,
made him pause. Then this tramp stood up si-
lently before him, one mass of mud and filth from
head to foot. Smith, alone amongst his stacks with
this apparition, in the stormy twilight ringing with
the infuriated barking of the dog, felt the dread
of an inexplicable strangeness. But when that be-
ing, parting with his black hands the long matted
locks that hung before his face, as you part the two
halves of a curtain, looked out at him with glisten-
ing, wild, black-and-white eyes, the weirdness of
this silent encounter fairly staggered him. He had
admitted since (for the story has been a legitimate
subject of conversation about here for years) that
he made more than one step backwards. Then a
sudden burst of rapid, senseless speech persuaded
him at once that he had to do with an escaped luna-
tic. In fact, that impression never wore off com-
pletely. Smith has not in his heart given up his
secret conviction of the man's essentialinsanity to
this very day.
"As the creature approached him, jabbering in
a most discomposing manner, Smith (unaware that
he was being addressed as 'gracious lord,' and ad-
jured in God's name to afford food and shelter)
kept on speakingfirmly but gently to it, and re-
treating all the time into the other yard. At last,
watching his chance, by a sudden charge he bun-
them many women and children who made much
noise. A cold rain fell, the wind blew in his face;
he was wet through, and his teeth chattered. He
and the young man from the same valley took each
other by the hand.
"They thought they were being taken to Amer-
ica straight away, but suddenly the steam-machine
bumped against the side of a thing like a house on
the water. The walls were smooth and black, and
there uprose, growing from the roof as it were,
bare trees in the shape of crosses, extremely high.
That's how it appeared to him then, for he had
never seen a ship before. This was the ship that
was going to swim all the way to America. Voices
shouted, everything swayed; there was a ladder
dipping up and down. He went up on his hands
and knees in mortal fear of falling into the water
below, which made a great splashing. He got sep-
arated from his companion, and when he descended
into the bottom of that ship his heart seemed to melt
suddenly within him.
"It was then also, as he told me, that he lost con-
tact for good and all with one of those three men
who the summer before had been going about
through all the little towns in the foothills of his
country. They would arrive on market days driv-
ing in a peasant's cart, and would set up an office
in an inn or some other Jew's house. There were
three of them, of whom one with a long beard
looked venerable; and they had red cloth collars
round their necks and gold lace on their sleeves
like Government officials. They sat proudly behind
a long table; and in the next room, so that the com-
mon people shouldn't hear, they kept a cunning
telegraph machine, through which they could talk
to the Emperor of America. The fathers hung
about the door, but the young men of the mountains
would crowd up to the table asking many questions,
for there was work to be got all the year round at
three dollars a day in America, and no military
service to do.
"But the American Kaiser would not take every-
body. Oh, no! He himself had a great difficulty
in getting accepted, and the venerable man in uni-
form had to go out of the room several times to
work the telegraph on his behalf. The American
Kaiser engaged him at last at three dollars, he
being young and strong. However, many able
young men backed out, afraid of the great dis-
tance; besides, those only who had some money
could be taken. There were some who sold their
huts and their land because it cost a lot of money
to get to America; but then, once there, you had
three dollars a day, and if you were clever you
could find places where true gold could be picked
up on the ground. His father's house was getting
over full. Two of his brothers were married and
had children. He promised to send money home
from America by post twice a year. His father
sold an old cow, a pair of piebald mountain ponies
of his own raising, and a cleared plot of fair pas-
ture land on the sunny slope of a pine-clad pass to
a Jew inn-keeper in order to pay the people of the
ship that took men to America to get rich in a
short time.
"He must have been a real adventurer at heart,
for how many of the greatest enterprises in the
conquest of the earth had for their beginning just
such a bargaining away of the paternal cow for the
mirage or true gold far away! I have been telling
you more or less in my own words what I learned
fragmentarily in the course of two or three years,
during which I seldom missed an opportunity of a
friendly chat with him. He told me this story of
his adventure with many flashes of white teeth and
lively glances of black eyes, at first in a sort of anx-
ious baby-talk, then, as he acquired the language,
with great fluency, but always with that singing,
soft, and at the same time vibrating intonation that
instilled a strangely penetrating power into the
sound of the most familiar English words, as if
they had been the words of an unearthly language.
And he always would come to an end, with many
emphatic shakes of his head, upon that awful sen-
sation of his heart melting within him directly he
set foot on board that ship. Afterwards there
seemed to come for him a period of blank ignorance,
at any rate as to facts. No doubt he must have
been abominably sea-sick and abominably unhappy
--this soft and passionateadventurer, taken thus
out of his knowledge, and feeling bitterly as he lay
in his emigrant bunk his utter loneliness; for his
was a highly sensitive nature. The next thing we
know of him for certain is that he had been hiding
in Hammond's pig-pound by the side of the road
to Norton six miles, as the crow flies, from the sea.
Of these experiences he was unwilling to speak:
they seemed to have seared into his soul a sombre
sort of wonder and indignation. Through the ru-
mours of the country-side, which lasted for a good
many days after his arrival, we know that the fish-
ermen of West Colebrook had been disturbed and
startled by heavy knocks against the walls of
weatherboard cottages, and by a voice crying
piercingly strange words in the night. Several of
them turned out even, but, no doubt, he had fled in
sudden alarm at their rough angry tones hailing
each other in the darkness. A sort of frenzy must
have helped him up the steep Norton hill. It was
he, no doubt, who early the following morning had
been seen lying (in a swoon, I should say) on the
roadside grass by the Brenzett carrier, who actually
got down to have a nearer look, but drew back, in-
timidated by the perfect immobility, and by some-
thing queer in the aspect of that tramp, sleeping
so still under the showers. As the day advanced,
some children came dashing into school at Norton
in such a fright that the schoolmistress went out
and spoke indignantly to a 'horrid-looking man'
on the road. He edged away, hanging his head,
for a few steps, and then suddenly ran off with ex-
traordinary fleetness. The driver of Mr. Brad-
ley's milk-cart made no secret of it that he had
lashed with his whip at a hairy sort of gipsy fel-
low who, jumping up at a turn of the road by the
Vents, made a snatch at the pony's bridle. And
he caught him a good one too, right over the face,
he said, that made him drop down in the mud a
jolly sight quicker than he had jumped up; but it
was a good half-a-mile before he could stop the
pony. Maybe that in his desperate endeavours to
get help, and in his need to get in touch with some
one, the poor devil had tried to stop the cart. Also
three boys confessed afterwards to throwing stones
at a funny tramp, knocking about all wet and
muddy, and, it seemed, very drunk, in the narrow
deep lane by the limekilns. All this was the talk of
three villages for days; but we have Mrs. Finn's
(the wife of Smith's waggoner) unimpeachable
testimony that she saw him get over the low wall of
Hammond's pig-pound and lurch straight at her,
babbling aloud in a voice that was enough to make
one die of fright. Having the baby with her in a
perambulator, Mrs. Finn called out to him to go
away, and as he persisted in coming nearer, she hit
him courageously with her umbrella over the head
and, without once looking back, ran like the wind
with the perambulator as far as the first house in
the village. She stopped then, out of breath, and
spoke to old Lewis, hammering there at a heap of
stones; and the old chap, taking off his immense
black wire goggles, got up on his shaky legs to
look where she pointed. Together they followed
with their eyes the figure of the man running over
a field; they saw him fall down, pick himself up,
and run on again, staggering and waving his long
arms above his head, in the direction of the New
Barns Farm. From that moment he is plainly in
the toils of his obscure and touching destiny.
There is no doubt after this of what happened to
him. All is certain now: Mrs. Smith's intense ter-
ror; Amy Foster's stolid conviction held against
the other's nervous attack, that the man 'meant no
harm'; Smith's exasperation (on his return from
Darnford Market) at finding the dog barking
himself into a fit, the back-door locked, his wife in
hysterics; and all for an unfortunate dirty tramp,
supposed to be even then lurking in his stackyard.
Was he? He would teach him to frighten women.
"Smith is notoriously hot-tempered, but the
sight of some nondescript and miry creature sitting
crosslegged amongst a lot of loose straw, and
swinging itself to and fro like a bear in a cage,
made him pause. Then this tramp stood up si-
lently before him, one mass of mud and filth from
head to foot. Smith, alone amongst his stacks with
this apparition, in the stormy twilight ringing with
the infuriated barking of the dog, felt the dread
of an inexplicable strangeness. But when that be-
ing, parting with his black hands the long matted
locks that hung before his face, as you part the two
halves of a curtain, looked out at him with glisten-
ing, wild, black-and-white eyes, the weirdness of
this silent encounter fairly staggered him. He had
admitted since (for the story has been a legitimate
subject of conversation about here for years) that
he made more than one step backwards. Then a
sudden burst of rapid, senseless speech persuaded
him at once that he had to do with an escaped luna-
tic. In fact, that impression never wore off com-
pletely. Smith has not in his heart given up his
secret conviction of the man's essentialinsanity to
this very day.
"As the creature approached him, jabbering in
a most discomposing manner, Smith (unaware that
he was being addressed as 'gracious lord,' and ad-
jured in God's name to afford food and shelter)
kept on speakingfirmly but gently to it, and re-
treating all the time into the other yard. At last,
watching his chance, by a sudden charge he bun-
- valley [´væli]
n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词) - extremely [ik´stri:mli] ad.极端地；非常地 (初中英语单词)
- companion [kəm´pæniən] n.同伴；同事；伴侣 (初中英语单词)
- proudly [´praudli] ad.骄傲地；傲慢地 (初中英语单词)
- emperor [´empərə] n.皇帝 (初中英语单词)
- telegraph [´teligrɑ:f] n.&v.(打)电报；电告 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- strangely [´streindʒli] ad.奇怪地；陌生地 (初中英语单词)
- bitterly [´bitəli] ad.悲痛地；憎恨地 (初中英语单词)
- arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
- aspect [´æspekt] n.面貌；神色；方向 (初中英语单词)
- fright [frait] n.惊吓；恐怖；怪人 (初中英语单词)
- schoolmistress [´sku:l,mistris] n.女教师；女校长 (初中英语单词)
- snatch [snætʃ] v.&n.抢，夺取，抓住 (初中英语单词)
- desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- conviction [kən´vikʃən] n.定罪；确信，信服 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- unfortunate [ʌn´fɔ:tʃunit] a.不幸的，运气差的 (初中英语单词)
- frighten [´fraitn] vt.吓唬，使惊惧 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- encounter [in´kauntə] vt.&n.偶然相遇；冲突 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- essential [i´senʃəl] a.必需的 n.要素，要点 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
- behalf [bi´hɑ:f] n.利益 (高中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- loneliness [´ləunliniz] n.孤独，寂寞 (高中英语单词)
- sensitive [´sensitiv] a.敏感的；感光的 (高中英语单词)
- indignation [,indig´neiʃən] n.愤慨；气愤 (高中英语单词)
- carrier [´kæriə] n.搬运工人；托架 (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- bridle [´braidl] n.(马)笼头；束缚 (高中英语单词)
- umbrella [ʌm´brelə] n.伞 (高中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- venerable [´venərəbəl] a.可尊敬的；森严的 (英语四级单词)
- adventurer [əd´ventʃərə] n.冒险者 (英语四级单词)
- emigrant [´emigrənt] n.&a.移(侨)民的 (英语四级单词)
- unwilling [ʌn´wiliŋ] a.不愿意的；不情愿的 (英语四级单词)
- frenzy [´frenzi] n.&vt.(使)狂乱 (英语四级单词)
- touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
- kaiser [´kaizə] n.皇帝；独裁者 (英语六级单词)
- paternal [pə´tə:nl] a.(象)父亲的；父方的 (英语六级单词)
- dashing [´dæʃiŋ] a.勇猛的；生气勃勃的 (英语六级单词)
- indignantly [in´dignəntli] ad.愤慨地，义愤地 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- apparition [,æpə´riʃən] n.(幽灵)出现；鬼；幻影 (英语六级单词)
- inexplicable [,inik´splikəbəl] a.难以理解的 (英语六级单词)
- backwards [´bækwədz] ad.向后 a.向后的 (英语六级单词)
- insanity [in´sæniti] n.疯狂；精神错乱 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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