章节正文
putting out her hand into the darkness and trying
to get hold of some other hand. In all the babble of
words that fell from the lips of the men with whom
she adventured she was trying to find what would
be for her the true word,
Elizabeth had married Tom Willard, a clerk in her
father's hotel, because he was at hand and wanted
to marry at the time when the determination to
marry came to her. For a while, like most young
girls, she thought marriage would change the face
of life. If there was in her mind a doubt of the out-
come of the marriage with Tom she brushed it aside.
Her father was ill and near death at the time and
she was perplexed because of the meaningless out-
come of an affair in which she had just been in-
volved. Other girls of her age in Winesburg were
marrying men she had always known, grocery clerks
or young farmers. In the evening they walked in
Main Street with their husbands and when she
passed they smiled happily. She began to think that
the fact of marriage might be full of some hidden
significance. Young wives with whom she talked
spoke softly and shyly. "It changes things to have
a man of your own," they said.
On the evening before her marriage the perplexed
girl had a talk with her father. Later she wondered
if the hours alone with the sick man had not led to
her decision to marry. The father talked of his life
and advised the daughter to avoid being led into
another such muddle. He abused Tom Willard, and
that led Elizabeth to come to the clerk's defense. The
sick man became excited and tried to get out of bed.
When she would not let him walk about he began
to complain. "I've never been let alone," he said.
"Although I've worked hard I've not made the hotel
pay. Even now I owe money at the bank. You'll find
that out when I'm gone."
The voice of the sick man became tense with ear-
nestness. Being unable to arise, he put out his hand
and pulled the girl's head down beside his own.
"There's a way out," he whispered. "Don't marry
Tom Willard or anyone else here in Winesburg.
There is eight hundred dollars in a tin box in my
trunk. Take it and go away."
Again the sick man's voice became querulous.
"You've got to promise," he declared. "If you won't
promise not to marry, give me your word that you'll
never tell Tom about the money. It is mine and if I
give it to you I've the right to make that demand.
Hide it away. It is to make up to you for my failure
as a father. Some time it may prove to be a door, a
great open door to you. Come now, I tell you I'm
about to die, give me your promise."
In Doctor Reefy's office, Elizabeth, a tired gaunt
old woman at forty-one, sat in a chair near the stove
and looked at the floor. By a small desk near the
window sat the doctor. His hands played with a
lead pencil that lay on the desk. Elizabeth talked of
her life as a married woman. She became impersonal
and forgot her husband, only using him as a lay
figure to give point to her tale. "And then I was
married and it did not turn out at all," she said
bitterly. "As soon as I had gone into it I began to
be afraid. Perhaps I knew too much before and then
perhaps I found out too much during my first night
with him. I don't remember.
"What a fool I was. When father gave me the
money and tried to talk me out of the thought of
marriage, I would not listen. I thought of what the
girls who were married had said of it and I wanted
marriage also. It wasn't Tom I wanted, it was mar-
riage. When father went to sleep I leaned out of the
window and thought of the life I had led. I didn't
want to be a bad woman. The town was full of sto-
ries about me. I even began to be afraid Tom would
change his mind."
The woman's voice began to quiver with excite-
ment. To Doctor Reefy, who without realizing what
was happening had begun to love her, there came
an odd illusion. He thought that as she talked the
woman's body was changing, that she was becom-
ing younger, straighter, stronger. When he could
not shake off the illusion his mind gave it a profes-
sional twist. "It is good for both her body and her
mind, this talking," he muttered.
The woman began telling of an incident that had
happened one afternoon a few months after her
marriage. Her voice became steadier. "In the late
afternoon I went for a drive alone," she said. "I had
a buggy and a little grey pony I kept in Moyer's
Livery. Tom was painting and repapering rooms in
the hotel. He wanted money and I was trying to
make up my mind to tell him about the eight hun-
dred dollars father had given to me. I couldn't de-
cide to do it. I didn't like him well enough. There
was always paint on his hands and face during those
days and he smelled of paint. He was trying to fix
up the old hotel, and make it new and smart."
The excited woman sat up very straight in her
chair and made a quick girlish movement with her
hand as she told of the drive alone on the spring
afternoon. "It was cloudy and a storm threatened,"
she said. "Black clouds made the green of the trees
and the grass stand out so that the colors hurt my
eyes. I went out Trunion Pike a mile or more and
then turned into a side road. The little horse went
quickly along up hill and down. I was impatient.
Thoughts came and I wanted to get away from my
thoughts. I began to beat the horse. The black clouds
settled down and it began to rain. I wanted to go at
a terrible speed, to drive on and on forever. I
wanted to get out of town, out of my clothes, out
of my marriage, out of my body, out of everything.
I almost killed the horse, making him run, and when
he could not run any more I got out of the buggy
and ran afoot into the darkness until I fell and hurt
my side. I wanted to run away from everything but
I wanted to run towards something too. Don't you
see, dear, how it was?"
Elizabeth sprang out of the chair and began to
walk about in the office. She walked as Doctor Reefy
thought he had never seen anyone walk before. To
her whole body there was a swing, a rhythm that
intoxicated him. When she came and knelt on the
floor beside his chair he took her into his arms and
began to kiss her passionately. "I cried all the way
home," she said, as she tried to continue the story
of her wild ride, but he did not listen. "You dear!
You lovely dear! Oh you lovely dear!" he muttered
and thought he held in his arms not the tired-out
woman of forty-one but a lovely and innocent girl
who had been able by some miracle to project her-
self out of the husk of the body of the tired-out
woman.
Doctor Reefy did not see the woman he had held
in his arms again until after her death. On the sum-
mer afternoon in the office when he was on the
point of becoming her lover a half grotesque little
incident brought his love-making quickly to an end.
As the man and woman held each other tightly
heavy feet came tramping up the office stairs. The
two sprang to their feet and stood listening and
trembling. The noise on the stairs was made by a
clerk from the Paris Dry Goods Company. With a
loud bang he threw an empty box on the pile of
rubbish in the hallway and then went heavily down
the stairs. Elizabeth followed him almost immedi-
ately. The thing that had come to life in her as she
talked to her one friend died suddenly. She was
hysterical, as was also Doctor Reefy, and did not
want to continue the talk. Along the street she went
with the blood still singing in her body, but when
she turned out of Main Street and saw ahead the
lights of the New Willard House, she began to trem-
ble and her knees shook so that for a moment she
thought she would fall in the street.
The sick woman spent the last few months of her
life hungering for death. Along the road of death
she went, seeking, hungering. She personified the
figure of death and made him now a strong black-
haired youth running over hills, now a stem quiet
man marked and scarred by the business of living.
In the darkness of her room she put out her hand,
thrusting it from under the covers of her bed, and
she thought that death like a living thing put out
his hand to her. "Be patient, lover," she whispered.
"Keep yourself young and beautiful and be patient."
On the evening when disease laid its heavy hand
upon her and defeated her plans for telling her son
George of the eight hundred dollars hidden away,
she got out of bed and crept half across the room
pleading with death for another hour of life. "Wait,
dear! The boy! The boy! The boy!" she pleaded as
she tried with all of her strength to fight off the arms
of the lover she had wanted so earnestly.
Elizabeth died one day in March in the year when
her son George became eighteen, and the young
man had but little sense of the meaning of her
death. Only time could give him that. For a month
he had seen her lying white and still and speechless
in her bed, and then one afternoon the doctor
stopped him in the hallway and said a few words.
The young man went into his own room and
closed the door. He had a queer empty feeling in
the region of his stomach. For a moment he sat star-
ing at, the floor and then jumping up went for a
walk. Along the station platform he went, and
around through residence streets past the high-
school building, thinking almost entirely of his own
affairs. The notion of death could not get hold of
him and he was in fact a little annoyed that his
mother had died on that day. He had just received
a note from Helen White, the daughter of the town
banker, in answer to one from him. "Tonight I could
have gone to see her and now it will have to be put
off," he thought half angrily.
Elizabeth died on a Friday afternoon at three
o'clock. It had been cold and rainy in the morning
but in the afternoon the sun came out. Before she
died she lay paralyzed for six days unable to speak
or move and with only her mind and her eyes alive.
to get hold of some other hand. In all the babble of
words that fell from the lips of the men with whom
she adventured she was trying to find what would
be for her the true word,
Elizabeth had married Tom Willard, a clerk in her
father's hotel, because he was at hand and wanted
to marry at the time when the determination to
marry came to her. For a while, like most young
girls, she thought marriage would change the face
of life. If there was in her mind a doubt of the out-
come of the marriage with Tom she brushed it aside.
Her father was ill and near death at the time and
she was perplexed because of the meaningless out-
come of an affair in which she had just been in-
volved. Other girls of her age in Winesburg were
marrying men she had always known, grocery clerks
or young farmers. In the evening they walked in
Main Street with their husbands and when she
passed they smiled happily. She began to think that
the fact of marriage might be full of some hidden
significance. Young wives with whom she talked
spoke softly and shyly. "It changes things to have
a man of your own," they said.
On the evening before her marriage the perplexed
girl had a talk with her father. Later she wondered
if the hours alone with the sick man had not led to
her decision to marry. The father talked of his life
and advised the daughter to avoid being led into
another such muddle. He abused Tom Willard, and
that led Elizabeth to come to the clerk's defense. The
sick man became excited and tried to get out of bed.
When she would not let him walk about he began
to complain. "I've never been let alone," he said.
"Although I've worked hard I've not made the hotel
pay. Even now I owe money at the bank. You'll find
that out when I'm gone."
The voice of the sick man became tense with ear-
nestness. Being unable to arise, he put out his hand
and pulled the girl's head down beside his own.
"There's a way out," he whispered. "Don't marry
Tom Willard or anyone else here in Winesburg.
There is eight hundred dollars in a tin box in my
trunk. Take it and go away."
Again the sick man's voice became querulous.
"You've got to promise," he declared. "If you won't
promise not to marry, give me your word that you'll
never tell Tom about the money. It is mine and if I
give it to you I've the right to make that demand.
Hide it away. It is to make up to you for my failure
as a father. Some time it may prove to be a door, a
great open door to you. Come now, I tell you I'm
about to die, give me your promise."
In Doctor Reefy's office, Elizabeth, a tired gaunt
old woman at forty-one, sat in a chair near the stove
and looked at the floor. By a small desk near the
window sat the doctor. His hands played with a
lead pencil that lay on the desk. Elizabeth talked of
her life as a married woman. She became impersonal
and forgot her husband, only using him as a lay
figure to give point to her tale. "And then I was
married and it did not turn out at all," she said
bitterly. "As soon as I had gone into it I began to
be afraid. Perhaps I knew too much before and then
perhaps I found out too much during my first night
with him. I don't remember.
"What a fool I was. When father gave me the
money and tried to talk me out of the thought of
marriage, I would not listen. I thought of what the
girls who were married had said of it and I wanted
marriage also. It wasn't Tom I wanted, it was mar-
riage. When father went to sleep I leaned out of the
window and thought of the life I had led. I didn't
want to be a bad woman. The town was full of sto-
ries about me. I even began to be afraid Tom would
change his mind."
The woman's voice began to quiver with excite-
ment. To Doctor Reefy, who without realizing what
was happening had begun to love her, there came
an odd illusion. He thought that as she talked the
woman's body was changing, that she was becom-
ing younger, straighter, stronger. When he could
not shake off the illusion his mind gave it a profes-
sional twist. "It is good for both her body and her
mind, this talking," he muttered.
The woman began telling of an incident that had
happened one afternoon a few months after her
marriage. Her voice became steadier. "In the late
afternoon I went for a drive alone," she said. "I had
a buggy and a little grey pony I kept in Moyer's
Livery. Tom was painting and repapering rooms in
the hotel. He wanted money and I was trying to
make up my mind to tell him about the eight hun-
dred dollars father had given to me. I couldn't de-
cide to do it. I didn't like him well enough. There
was always paint on his hands and face during those
days and he smelled of paint. He was trying to fix
up the old hotel, and make it new and smart."
The excited woman sat up very straight in her
chair and made a quick girlish movement with her
hand as she told of the drive alone on the spring
afternoon. "It was cloudy and a storm threatened,"
she said. "Black clouds made the green of the trees
and the grass stand out so that the colors hurt my
eyes. I went out Trunion Pike a mile or more and
then turned into a side road. The little horse went
quickly along up hill and down. I was impatient.
Thoughts came and I wanted to get away from my
thoughts. I began to beat the horse. The black clouds
settled down and it began to rain. I wanted to go at
a terrible speed, to drive on and on forever. I
wanted to get out of town, out of my clothes, out
of my marriage, out of my body, out of everything.
I almost killed the horse, making him run, and when
he could not run any more I got out of the buggy
and ran afoot into the darkness until I fell and hurt
my side. I wanted to run away from everything but
I wanted to run towards something too. Don't you
see, dear, how it was?"
Elizabeth sprang out of the chair and began to
walk about in the office. She walked as Doctor Reefy
thought he had never seen anyone walk before. To
her whole body there was a swing, a rhythm that
intoxicated him. When she came and knelt on the
floor beside his chair he took her into his arms and
began to kiss her passionately. "I cried all the way
home," she said, as she tried to continue the story
of her wild ride, but he did not listen. "You dear!
You lovely dear! Oh you lovely dear!" he muttered
and thought he held in his arms not the tired-out
woman of forty-one but a lovely and innocent girl
who had been able by some miracle to project her-
self out of the husk of the body of the tired-out
woman.
Doctor Reefy did not see the woman he had held
in his arms again until after her death. On the sum-
mer afternoon in the office when he was on the
point of becoming her lover a half grotesque little
incident brought his love-making quickly to an end.
As the man and woman held each other tightly
heavy feet came tramping up the office stairs. The
two sprang to their feet and stood listening and
trembling. The noise on the stairs was made by a
clerk from the Paris Dry Goods Company. With a
loud bang he threw an empty box on the pile of
rubbish in the hallway and then went heavily down
the stairs. Elizabeth followed him almost immedi-
ately. The thing that had come to life in her as she
talked to her one friend died suddenly. She was
hysterical, as was also Doctor Reefy, and did not
want to continue the talk. Along the street she went
with the blood still singing in her body, but when
she turned out of Main Street and saw ahead the
lights of the New Willard House, she began to trem-
ble and her knees shook so that for a moment she
thought she would fall in the street.
The sick woman spent the last few months of her
life hungering for death. Along the road of death
she went, seeking, hungering. She personified the
figure of death and made him now a strong black-
haired youth running over hills, now a stem quiet
man marked and scarred by the business of living.
In the darkness of her room she put out her hand,
thrusting it from under the covers of her bed, and
she thought that death like a living thing put out
his hand to her. "Be patient, lover," she whispered.
"Keep yourself young and beautiful and be patient."
On the evening when disease laid its heavy hand
upon her and defeated her plans for telling her son
George of the eight hundred dollars hidden away,
she got out of bed and crept half across the room
pleading with death for another hour of life. "Wait,
dear! The boy! The boy! The boy!" she pleaded as
she tried with all of her strength to fight off the arms
of the lover she had wanted so earnestly.
Elizabeth died one day in March in the year when
her son George became eighteen, and the young
man had but little sense of the meaning of her
death. Only time could give him that. For a month
he had seen her lying white and still and speechless
in her bed, and then one afternoon the doctor
stopped him in the hallway and said a few words.
The young man went into his own room and
closed the door. He had a queer empty feeling in
the region of his stomach. For a moment he sat star-
ing at, the floor and then jumping up went for a
walk. Along the station platform he went, and
around through residence streets past the high-
school building, thinking almost entirely of his own
affairs. The notion of death could not get hold of
him and he was in fact a little annoyed that his
mother had died on that day. He had just received
a note from Helen White, the daughter of the town
banker, in answer to one from him. "Tonight I could
have gone to see her and now it will have to be put
off," he thought half angrily.
Elizabeth died on a Friday afternoon at three
o'clock. It had been cold and rainy in the morning
but in the afternoon the sun came out. Before she
died she lay paralyzed for six days unable to speak
or move and with only her mind and her eyes alive.
- softly [´sɔftli]
ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词) - complain [kəm´plein] vi.抱怨，叫屈；控诉 (初中英语单词)
- unable [ʌn´eibəl] a.不能的；无能为力的 (初中英语单词)
- quiver [´kwivə] v.抖动 n.颤动(声) (初中英语单词)
- incident [´insidənt] n.小事件；事变 (初中英语单词)
- painting [´peintiŋ] n.绘画；(油)画；着色 (初中英语单词)
- movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- miracle [´mirəkl] n.奇迹；令人惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
- project [prə´dʒekt, ´prɔdʒekt] v.设计；投掷 n.计划 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- stomach [´stʌmək] n.胃；胃口，食欲 (初中英语单词)
- platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
- residence [´rezidəns] n.居住(期间)；住宅 (初中英语单词)
- determination [di,tə:mi´neiʃən] n.决心；决定 (高中英语单词)
- grocery [´grəusəri] n.食品杂货店 (高中英语单词)
- illusion [i´lu:ʒən] n.幻觉；幻影；错觉 (高中英语单词)
- babble [´bæbəl] v.&n.唠叨；胡言乱语 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- happening [´hæpəniŋ] n.事件，偶然发生的事 (英语四级单词)
- rhythm [´riðəm] n.(诗的)韵律；格律 (英语四级单词)
- passionately [´pæʃənitli] ad.多情地；热烈地 (英语四级单词)
- grotesque [grəu´tesk] a.奇异的，想象中的 (英语四级单词)
- hallway [´hɔ:lwei] n.(美)门厅，过道 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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