章节正文
began to grow restless. She wanted to drive the in-
structor away, to get out of his presence. While they
sat together in the grand-stand and while the eyes
of former schoolmates were upon them, she paid so
much attention to her escort that he grew interested.
"A scholar needs money. I should marry a woman
with money," he mused.
Helen White was thinking of George Willard even
as he wandered gloomily through the crowds think-
ing of her. She remembered the summer evening
when they had walked together and wanted to walk
with him again. She thought that the months she
had spent in the city, the going to theaters and the
seeing of great crowds wandering in lighted thor-
oughfares, had changed her profoundly. She wanted
him to feel and be conscious of the change in her
nature.
The summer evening together that had left its
mark on the memory of both the young man and
woman had, when looked at quite sensibly, been
rather stupidly spent. They had walked out of town
along a country road. Then they had stopped by a
fence near a field of young corn and George had
taken off his coat and let it hang on his arm. "Well,
I've stayed here in Winesburg--yes--I've not yet
gone away but I'm growing up," he had said. "I've
been reading books and I've been thinking. I'm
going to try to amount to something in life.
"Well," he explained, "that isn't the point. Per-
haps I'd better quit talking."
The confused boy put his hand on the girl's arm.
His voice trembled. The two started to walk back
along the road toward town. In his desperation
George boasted, "I'm going to be a big man, the
biggest that ever lived here in Winesburg," he de-
clared. "I want you to do something, I don't know
what. Perhaps it is none of my business. I want you
to try to be different from other women. You see
the point. It's none of my business I tell you. I want
you to be a beautiful woman. You see what I want."
The boy's voice failed and in silence the two came
back into town and went along the street to Helen
White's house. At the gate he tried to say something
impressive. Speeches he had thought out came into
his head, but they seemed utterly pointless. "I
thought--I used to think--I had it in my mind you
would marry Seth Richmond. Now I know you
won't," was all he could find to say as she went
through the gate and toward the door of her house.
On the warm fall evening as he stood in the stair-
way and looked at the crowd drifting through Main
Street, George thought of the talk beside the field of
young corn and was ashamed of the figure he had
made of himself. In the street the people surged up
and down like cattle confined in a pen. Buggies and
wagons almost filled the narrow thoroughfare. A
band played and small boys raced along the side-
walk, diving between the legs of men. Young men
with shining red faces walked awkwardly about
with girls on their arms. In a room above one of the
stores, where a dance was to be held, the fiddlers
tuned their instruments. The broken sounds floated
down through an open window and out across the
murmur of voices and the loud blare of the horns
of the band. The medley of sounds got on young
Willard's nerves. Everywhere, on all sides, the sense
of crowding, moving life closed in about him. He
wanted to run away by himself and think. "If she
wants to stay with that fellow she may. Why should
I care? What difference does it make to me?" he
growled and went along Main Street and through
Hern's Grocery into a side street.
George felt so utterly lonely and dejected that he
wanted to weep but pride made him walk rapidly
along, swinging his arms. He came to Wesley Moy-
er's livery barn and stopped in the shadows to listen
to a group of men who talked of a race Wesley's
stallion, Tony Tip, had won at the Fair during the
afternoon. A crowd had gathered in front of the
barn and before the crowd walked Wesley, prancing
up and down boasting. He held a whip in his hand
and kept tapping the ground. Little puffs of dust
arose in the lamplight. "Hell, quit your talking,"
Wesley exclaimed. "I wasn't afraid, I knew I had
'em beat all the time. I wasn't afraid."
Ordinarily George Willard would have been in-
tensely interested in the boasting of Moyer, the
horseman. Now it made him angry. He turned and
hurried away along the street. "Old windbag," he
sputtered. "Why does he want to be bragging? Why
don't he shut up?"
George went into a vacant lot and, as he hurried
along, fell over a pile of rubbish. A nail protruding
from an empty barrel tore his trousers. He sat down
on the ground and swore. With a pin he mended
the torn place and then arose and went on. "I'll go
to Helen White's house, that's what I'll do. I'll walk
right in. I'll say that I want to see her. I'll walk right
in and sit down, that's what I'll do," he declared,
climbing over a fence and beginning to run.
On the veranda of Banker White's house Helen
was restless and distraught. The instructor sat be-
tween the mother and daughter. His talk wearied
the girl. Although he had also been raised in an
Ohio town, the instructor began to put on the airs
of the city. He wanted to appear cosmopolitan. "I
like the chance you have given me to study the back-
ground out of which most of our girls come," he
declared. "It was good of you, Mrs. White, to have
me down for the day." He turned to Helen and
laughed. "Your life is still bound up with the life of
this town?" he asked. "There are people here in
whom you are interested?" To the girl his voice
sounded pompous and heavy.
Helen arose and went into the house. At the door
leading to a garden at the back she stopped and
stood listening. Her mother began to talk. "There is
no one here fit to associate with a girl of Helen's
breeding," she said.
Helen ran down a flight of stairs at the back of
the house and into the garden. In the darkness she
stopped and stood trembling. It seemed to her that
the world was full of meaningless people saying
words. Afire with eagerness she ran through a gar-
den gate and, turning a corner by the banker's barn,
went into a little side street. "George! Where are
you, George?" she cried, filled with nervous excite-
ment. She stopped running, and leaned against a
tree to laugh hysterically. Along the dark little street
came George Willard, still saying words. "I'm going
to walk right into her house. I'll go right in and sit
down, " he declared as he came up to her. He
stopped and stared stupidly. "Come on," he said
and took hold of her hand. With hanging heads they
walked away along the street under the trees. Dry
leaves rustled under foot. Now that he had found
her George wondered what he had better do and
say.
At the upper end of the Fair Ground, in Wines-
burg, there is a half decayed old grand-stand. It has
never been painted and the boards are all warped
out of shape. The Fair Ground stands on top of a
low hill rising out of the valley of Wine Creek and
from the grand-stand one can see at night, over a
cornfield, the lights of the town reflected against the
sky.
George and Helen climbed the hill to the Fair
Ground, coming by the path past Waterworks Pond.
The feeling of loneliness and isolation that had come
to the young man in the crowded streets of his town
was both broken and intensified by the presence of
Helen. What he felt was reflected in her.
In youth there are always two forces fighting in
people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles
against the thing that reflects and remembers, and
the older, the more sophisticated thing had posses-
sion of George Willard. Sensing his mood, Helen
walked beside him filled with respect. When they
got to the grand-stand they climbed up under the
roof and sat down on one of the long bench-like
seats.
There is something memorable in the experience
to be had by going into a fair ground that stands at
the edge of a Middle Western town on a night after
the annual fair has been held. The sensation is one
never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not
of the dead, but of living people. Here, during the
day just passed, have come the people pouring in
from the town and the country around. Farmers
with their wives and children and all the people
from the hundreds of little frame houses have gath-
ered within these board walls. Young girls have
laughed and men with beards have talked of the
affairs of their lives. The place has been filled to
overflowing with life. It has itched and squirmed
with life and now it is night and the life has all gone
away. The silence is almost terrifying. One conceals
oneself standingsilently beside the trunk of a tree
and what there is of a reflective tendency in his na-
ture is intensified. One shudders at the thought of
the meaninglessness of life while at the same in-
stant, and if the people of the town are his people,
one loves life so intensely that tears come into the
eyes.
In the darkness under the roof of the grand-stand,
George Willard sat beside Helen White and felt very
keenly his own insignificance in the scheme of exis-
tence. Now that he had come out of town where
the presence of the people stirring about, busy with
a multitude of affairs, had been so irritating, the
irritation was all gone. The presence of Helen re-
newed and refreshed him. It was as though her
woman's hand was assisting him to make some mi-
nute readjustment of the machinery of his life. He
began to think of the people in the town where he
had always lived with something like reverence.
He had reverence for Helen. He wanted to love and
to be loved by her, but he did not want at the mo-
ment to be confused by her womanhood. In the
darkness he took hold of her hand and when she
crept close put a hand on her shoulder. A wind
structor away, to get out of his presence. While they
sat together in the grand-stand and while the eyes
of former schoolmates were upon them, she paid so
much attention to her escort that he grew interested.
"A scholar needs money. I should marry a woman
with money," he mused.
Helen White was thinking of George Willard even
as he wandered gloomily through the crowds think-
ing of her. She remembered the summer evening
when they had walked together and wanted to walk
with him again. She thought that the months she
had spent in the city, the going to theaters and the
seeing of great crowds wandering in lighted thor-
oughfares, had changed her profoundly. She wanted
him to feel and be conscious of the change in her
nature.
The summer evening together that had left its
mark on the memory of both the young man and
woman had, when looked at quite sensibly, been
rather stupidly spent. They had walked out of town
along a country road. Then they had stopped by a
fence near a field of young corn and George had
taken off his coat and let it hang on his arm. "Well,
I've stayed here in Winesburg--yes--I've not yet
gone away but I'm growing up," he had said. "I've
been reading books and I've been thinking. I'm
going to try to amount to something in life.
"Well," he explained, "that isn't the point. Per-
haps I'd better quit talking."
The confused boy put his hand on the girl's arm.
His voice trembled. The two started to walk back
along the road toward town. In his desperation
George boasted, "I'm going to be a big man, the
biggest that ever lived here in Winesburg," he de-
clared. "I want you to do something, I don't know
what. Perhaps it is none of my business. I want you
to try to be different from other women. You see
the point. It's none of my business I tell you. I want
you to be a beautiful woman. You see what I want."
The boy's voice failed and in silence the two came
back into town and went along the street to Helen
White's house. At the gate he tried to say something
impressive. Speeches he had thought out came into
his head, but they seemed utterly pointless. "I
thought--I used to think--I had it in my mind you
would marry Seth Richmond. Now I know you
won't," was all he could find to say as she went
through the gate and toward the door of her house.
On the warm fall evening as he stood in the stair-
way and looked at the crowd drifting through Main
Street, George thought of the talk beside the field of
young corn and was ashamed of the figure he had
made of himself. In the street the people surged up
and down like cattle confined in a pen. Buggies and
wagons almost filled the narrow thoroughfare. A
band played and small boys raced along the side-
walk, diving between the legs of men. Young men
with shining red faces walked awkwardly about
with girls on their arms. In a room above one of the
stores, where a dance was to be held, the fiddlers
tuned their instruments. The broken sounds floated
down through an open window and out across the
murmur of voices and the loud blare of the horns
of the band. The medley of sounds got on young
Willard's nerves. Everywhere, on all sides, the sense
of crowding, moving life closed in about him. He
wanted to run away by himself and think. "If she
wants to stay with that fellow she may. Why should
I care? What difference does it make to me?" he
growled and went along Main Street and through
Hern's Grocery into a side street.
George felt so utterly lonely and dejected that he
wanted to weep but pride made him walk rapidly
along, swinging his arms. He came to Wesley Moy-
er's livery barn and stopped in the shadows to listen
to a group of men who talked of a race Wesley's
stallion, Tony Tip, had won at the Fair during the
afternoon. A crowd had gathered in front of the
barn and before the crowd walked Wesley, prancing
up and down boasting. He held a whip in his hand
and kept tapping the ground. Little puffs of dust
arose in the lamplight. "Hell, quit your talking,"
Wesley exclaimed. "I wasn't afraid, I knew I had
'em beat all the time. I wasn't afraid."
Ordinarily George Willard would have been in-
tensely interested in the boasting of Moyer, the
horseman. Now it made him angry. He turned and
hurried away along the street. "Old windbag," he
sputtered. "Why does he want to be bragging? Why
don't he shut up?"
George went into a vacant lot and, as he hurried
along, fell over a pile of rubbish. A nail protruding
from an empty barrel tore his trousers. He sat down
on the ground and swore. With a pin he mended
the torn place and then arose and went on. "I'll go
to Helen White's house, that's what I'll do. I'll walk
right in. I'll say that I want to see her. I'll walk right
in and sit down, that's what I'll do," he declared,
climbing over a fence and beginning to run.
On the veranda of Banker White's house Helen
was restless and distraught. The instructor sat be-
tween the mother and daughter. His talk wearied
the girl. Although he had also been raised in an
Ohio town, the instructor began to put on the airs
of the city. He wanted to appear cosmopolitan. "I
like the chance you have given me to study the back-
ground out of which most of our girls come," he
declared. "It was good of you, Mrs. White, to have
me down for the day." He turned to Helen and
laughed. "Your life is still bound up with the life of
this town?" he asked. "There are people here in
whom you are interested?" To the girl his voice
sounded pompous and heavy.
Helen arose and went into the house. At the door
leading to a garden at the back she stopped and
stood listening. Her mother began to talk. "There is
no one here fit to associate with a girl of Helen's
breeding," she said.
Helen ran down a flight of stairs at the back of
the house and into the garden. In the darkness she
stopped and stood trembling. It seemed to her that
the world was full of meaningless people saying
words. Afire with eagerness she ran through a gar-
den gate and, turning a corner by the banker's barn,
went into a little side street. "George! Where are
you, George?" she cried, filled with nervous excite-
ment. She stopped running, and leaned against a
tree to laugh hysterically. Along the dark little street
came George Willard, still saying words. "I'm going
to walk right into her house. I'll go right in and sit
down, " he declared as he came up to her. He
stopped and stared stupidly. "Come on," he said
and took hold of her hand. With hanging heads they
walked away along the street under the trees. Dry
leaves rustled under foot. Now that he had found
her George wondered what he had better do and
say.
At the upper end of the Fair Ground, in Wines-
burg, there is a half decayed old grand-stand. It has
never been painted and the boards are all warped
out of shape. The Fair Ground stands on top of a
low hill rising out of the valley of Wine Creek and
from the grand-stand one can see at night, over a
cornfield, the lights of the town reflected against the
sky.
George and Helen climbed the hill to the Fair
Ground, coming by the path past Waterworks Pond.
The feeling of loneliness and isolation that had come
to the young man in the crowded streets of his town
was both broken and intensified by the presence of
Helen. What he felt was reflected in her.
In youth there are always two forces fighting in
people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles
against the thing that reflects and remembers, and
the older, the more sophisticated thing had posses-
sion of George Willard. Sensing his mood, Helen
walked beside him filled with respect. When they
got to the grand-stand they climbed up under the
roof and sat down on one of the long bench-like
seats.
There is something memorable in the experience
to be had by going into a fair ground that stands at
the edge of a Middle Western town on a night after
the annual fair has been held. The sensation is one
never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not
of the dead, but of living people. Here, during the
day just passed, have come the people pouring in
from the town and the country around. Farmers
with their wives and children and all the people
from the hundreds of little frame houses have gath-
ered within these board walls. Young girls have
laughed and men with beards have talked of the
affairs of their lives. The place has been filled to
overflowing with life. It has itched and squirmed
with life and now it is night and the life has all gone
away. The silence is almost terrifying. One conceals
oneself standingsilently beside the trunk of a tree
and what there is of a reflective tendency in his na-
ture is intensified. One shudders at the thought of
the meaninglessness of life while at the same in-
stant, and if the people of the town are his people,
one loves life so intensely that tears come into the
eyes.
In the darkness under the roof of the grand-stand,
George Willard sat beside Helen White and felt very
keenly his own insignificance in the scheme of exis-
tence. Now that he had come out of town where
the presence of the people stirring about, busy with
a multitude of affairs, had been so irritating, the
irritation was all gone. The presence of Helen re-
newed and refreshed him. It was as though her
woman's hand was assisting him to make some mi-
nute readjustment of the machinery of his life. He
began to think of the people in the town where he
had always lived with something like reverence.
He had reverence for Helen. He wanted to love and
to be loved by her, but he did not want at the mo-
ment to be confused by her womanhood. In the
darkness he took hold of her hand and when she
crept close put a hand on her shoulder. A wind
- restless [´restləs]
a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词) - scholar [´skɔlə, ´skɑ-] n.学者；奖学金获得者 (初中英语单词)
- conscious [´kɔnʃəs] a.意识的；自觉的 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
- ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- vacant [´veikənt] a.空虚的，无表情的 (初中英语单词)
- barrel [´bærəl] n.(琵琶)桶；圆筒 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- banker [´bæŋkə] n.银行家 (初中英语单词)
- instructor [in´strʌktə] n.教师；指导者 (初中英语单词)
- associate [ə´səuʃieit] v.联合a.同伴的n.伙伴 (初中英语单词)
- flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- annual [´ænjuəl] a.每年的 n.年刊 (初中英语单词)
- sensation [sen´seiʃən] n.感觉；轰动；轰动一时 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- tendency [´tendənsi] n.趋势；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- scheme [ski:m] n.计划；阴谋，诡计 (初中英语单词)
- multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)
- escort [´eskɔ:t] n.伴随者；警卫(队) (高中英语单词)
- grocery [´grəusəri] n.食品杂货店 (高中英语单词)
- eagerness [´i:gənis] n.渴望；热忱 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- loneliness [´ləunliniz] n.孤独，寂寞 (高中英语单词)
- crowded [´kraudid] a.充(拥)满了的 (高中英语单词)
- memorable [´memərəbəl] a.难忘的；重大的 (高中英语单词)
- reverence [´revərəns] n.尊敬；敬畏；尊严 (高中英语单词)
- profoundly [prə´faundli] ad.深深地 (英语四级单词)
- awkwardly [´ɔ:kwədli] a.笨拙地；棘手地 (英语四级单词)
- livery [´livəri] a.有肝病征象的 (英语四级单词)
- rubbish [´rʌbiʃ] n.垃圾；碎屑；废话 (英语四级单词)
- veranda [və´rændə] n.游廊；阳台 (英语四级单词)
- intensely [in´tensli] ad.激烈地；热切地 (英语四级单词)
- stirring [´stə:riŋ] a.活跃的；热闹的 (英语四级单词)
- gloomily [´glu:mili] adv.忧郁的 (英语六级单词)
- thoroughfare [´θʌrəfeə] n.大路；干道；通道 (英语六级单词)
- dejected [di´dʒektid] a.垂头丧气的 (英语六级单词)
- isolation [,aisə´leiʃən] n.隔离，孤立 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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