登陆注册
5242200000129

第129章 Chapter 1(3)

And yet by her little crouching posture there, that of a timid tigress, she had meant nothing recklessly ultimate, nothing clumsily fundamental; so that she called it names, the invidious, the grotesque attitude, holding it up to her own ridicule, reducing so far as she could the portee of what had followed it. She had but wanted to get nearer--nearer to something indeed that she could n't, that she would n't, even to herself, describe; and the degree of this achieved nearness was what had been in advance incalculable.

Her actual multiplication of distractions and suppressions, whatever it did for her, failed to prevent her living over again any chosen minute--for she could choose them, she could fix them--of the freshness of relation produced by her having administered to her husband the first surprise to which she had ever treated him. It had been a poor thing, but it had been all her own, and the whole passage was backwardly (11) there, a great picture hung on the wall of her daily life for her to make what she would of.

It fell for retrospect into a succession of moments that were WATCHABLE still; almost in the manner of the different things done during a scene on the stage, some scene so acted as to have left a great impression on the tenant of one of the stalls. Several of these moments stood out beyond the others, and those she could feel again most, count again like the firm pearls on a string, had belonged more particularly to the lapse of time before dinner--dinner which had been so late, quite at nine o'clock, that evening, thanks to the final lateness of Amerigo's own irruption. These were parts of the experience--though in fact there had been a good many of them--between which her impression could continue sharply to discriminate.

Before the subsequent passages, much later on, it was to be said, the flame of memory turned to an equalising glow, that of a lamp in some side-chapel in which incense was thick. The great moment at any rate, for conscious repossession, was doubtless the first: the strange little timed silence which she had fully gauged, on the spot, as altogether beyond her own intention, but which--for just how long? should she ever really know for just how long?--she could do nothing to break. She was in the smaller drawing-room, in which she always "sat," and she had, by calculation, dressed for dinner on finally coming in. It was a wonder how many things she had calculated in respect to this small incident--a matter for the importance of which she had so quite indefinite a measure. He would be late--he (12) would be very late; that was the one certainty that seemed to look her in the face. There was still also the possibility that if he drove with Charlotte straight to Eaton Square he might think it best to remain there even on learning she had come away. She had left no message for him on any such chance; this was another of her small shades of decision, though the effect of it might be to keep him still longer absent. He might suppose she would already have dined; he might stay, with all he would have to tell, just on purpose to be nice to her father. She had known him to stretch the point, to these beautiful ends, far beyond that; he had more than once stretched it to the sacrifice of the opportunity for dressing.

If she herself had now avoided any such sacrifice, and had made herself, during the time at her disposal, quite inordinately fresh and quite positively smart, this had probably added, while she waited and waited, to that very tension of spirit in which she was afterwards to find the image of her having crouched. She did her best, quite intensely, by herself, to banish any such appearance; she could n't help it if she could n't read her pale novel--ah that, par exemple, was beyond her!--but she could at least sit by the lamp with the book, sit there with her newest frock, worn for the first time, sticking out, all round her, quite stiff and grand; even perhaps a little too stiff and too grand for a familiar and domestic frock, yet marked none the less this time, she ventured to hope, by incontestable intrinsic merit. She had glanced repeatedly at the clock, but had refused herself the weak indulgence of walking up and down, though (13) the act of doing so, she knew, would make her feel, on the polished floor, with the rustle and the "hang," still more beautifully bedecked. The difficulty was that it would also make her feel herself still more sharply in a state; which was exactly what she proposed not to do. The only drops of her anxiety had been when her thought strayed complacently, with her eyes, to the front of her gown, which was in a manner a refuge, a beguilement, especially when she was able to fix it long enough to wonder if it would at last really satisfy Charlotte. She had ever been, in respect to her clothes, rather timorous and uncertain; for the last year above all she had lived in the light of Charlotte's possible and rather inscrutable judgement of them.

Charlotte's own were simply the most charming and interesting any woman had ever put on; there was a kind of poetic justice in her being at last able in this particular, thanks to means, thanks quite to omnipotence, freely to exercise her genius. But Maggie would have described herself as, in these connexions, constantly and intimately "torn"; conscious on one side of the impossibility of copying her companion and conscious on the other of the impossibility of sounding her, independently, to the bottom.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • The Coral Islandl

    The Coral Islandl

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 宁夏长城

    宁夏长城

    本书属“塞上江南神奇宁夏”丛书之一,以宁夏境内长城为叙述对象,较为全面、详细地描述了宁夏境内长城的历史沿革、建筑形制、结构和材料等。书中附录的长城图片具有一定的价值。
  • 风之守望者

    风之守望者

    明明只想过平凡的生活,却发现这个世界注定不可能平静。为什么想得到别人的认可也这么难?一个个的不解之谜,这一切的背后到底隐藏了什么?难道平静的生活也是一种奢侈吗?
  • 格致余论

    格致余论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 鉴宝女王

    鉴宝女王

    碰见自己的豪门未婚夫和好姐妹缠绵,心灰意冷,发生争执,意外伤到额头,本以为命已休,却没想到,医院养完伤后,竟然有了鉴定古玩和透视能力。
  • 大戏

    大戏

    遗憾的是,我们总是不能知道后来的结局。我们猜测的结果是跟过去的经验有关的,而有的时候,过去的经验无法解决未来的问题。丁红军走在初冬的大街上,他鬓角斑白,头发凌乱,没人会注意他。阳光依旧照耀着,城市还是那个城市,楼房多数还是老样子。街上的人面孔陌生,他们都行进着自己的生活。在人生的季节里,丁红军觉得自己已经被霜打过了,皮肤渐渐失去了水分,生命在悄无声息地枯萎下去,可他毕竟没有死。丁红军无论如何都不会想到,他已经死了四年多了。
  • 金秘书为何那样(下)

    金秘书为何那样(下)

    tvN热播剧《金秘书为何那样》(豆瓣评分8.4)原著小说,韩国爱情喜剧女王郑景允作家最新代表作!自恋装B到极点的完美总裁李英俊最近很不开心,因为自己的完美秘书金微笑竟然要辞职。自己这么完美,为什么她要离职?还说什么要去结婚生子,过平凡的生活?那,我跟你结婚,不就不用辞职了?——完美的解决方案。再说了,我这么帅气多金完美无瑕的霸道总裁,你一定喜欢我的,对不对?什么?你竟然不喜欢我这款?我就从头追你好了,让你见识见识,人见人爱花见花开的李会长无与伦比的魅力。李英俊能顺利追到金秘书吗?反套路的罗曼史即将爆笑来袭!
  • 彼间年少之繁梦如花

    彼间年少之繁梦如花

    【楔子+番外,是一整篇完整故事。谁是谁的劫难,且看大灰狼如何吃定小狐狸,重遇里发生的美妙爱情。精彩不停,坑品保证,欢迎围观。】周晓缪,从一个丑女,经历过青春的成长,华丽蜕变为一个优秀的美丽女人。有欢笑,有泪水,有悲伤,也有幸福。这是周晓缪的青春,也是所有90后成长过的青春。谨以此书献给所有同龄的人,无论你现在身在何方,无论你看到是否欢笑,是否哭泣流泪……
  • 韩娱之2015

    韩娱之2015

    2015年的某天,一个普通的留学生无意间闯入韩国娱乐圈,从此他的人生发生了翻天覆地的变化。
  • 冷情王爷多情妃

    冷情王爷多情妃

    “你没有资格拥有本王的子嗣,你只是一个工具而已。”好决绝的话语,把她彻底的打入地狱。她好恨好恨自己如此没出息,他为报复,用弟妹的生命来威胁逼她就范,折磨她,侮辱她,可她还是好珍惜他的每一次无意的温柔,心也跟着遗失。他的孤独冷情让她心疼以为总有一天可以温暖他的心,换来的却是决绝的冷情。为什么?在她即将要离开人世的时候他又来打扰她,不要让她再对人世间还有眷恋。他是在骗她的吧?这么温柔,不要再来让她的心碎了。可是为什么心还······我说吧!他不会那么好心“你要敢死,我和孩子下地府来陪你。”就是只会威胁她,不过不同的是换了筹码而已,还是拿她最为重要的两的人。我说,王爷你可不可以换一个方式好吗?