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面纱 英文原本-第1章

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     The time of my end approaches。  I have lately been subject to attacks 
of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things; my physician tells 
me;  I   may   fairly  hope   that   my  life   will   not   be   protracted   many   months。 
Unless; then; I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution; as   I 
am cursed with an exceptional mental character; I shall not much longer 
groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence。                  If it were to 
be otherwiseif I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide 
forI   should    for   once   have    known     whether     the  miseries    of   delusive 
expectation   can   outweigh   the   miseries   of   true   provision。   For   I   foresee 
when I shall die; and everything that will happen in my last moments。 
     Just a month from this day; on September 20; 1850; I shall be sitting in 
this   chair;   in   this   study;  at   ten   o'clock   at   night; longing   to   die;   weary  of 
incessant insight and foresight; without delusions and without hope。                    Just 
as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire; and my lamp is 
burning low; the horrible contraction will begin at my chest。                  I shall only 
have   time   to   reach   the   bell;   and   pull   it   violently;   before   the   sense   of 
suffocation will e。          No one will answer my bell。             I know why。 My 
two servants are lovers; and will have quarrelled。                My housekeeper will 
have rushed out of the house in a fury; two hours before; hoping that Perry 
will believe she has gone to drown herself。              Perry is alarmed at last; and 
is gone out after her。       The little scullery…maid is asleep on a bench:              she 
never answers   the bell; it   does   not   wake   her。      The sense of   suffocation 
increases: my lamp goes out with a horrible stench:                I make a great effort; 
and   snatch   at   the   bell   again。  I   long   for   life;   and   there   is   no   help。 I 
thirsted   for   the unknown:       the   thirst   is gone。  O  God;  let   me   stay  with 
the   known;     and   be   weary    of  it:  I   am   content。    Agony      of  pain   and 
suffocationand all the while the earth; the fields; the pebbly brook at the 
bottom   of    the   rookery;   the   fresh   scent  after   the  rain;  the   light  of  the 
morning through my chamber…window; the warmth of the hearth after the 
frosty airwill darkness close over them for ever? 
     Darknessdarknessno painnothing but darkness:                 but I am passing 
on and on through the darkness:               my thought stays in the darkness;  but 
always with a sense of moving onward 。 。 。 
     Before   that   time   es;   I   wish   to   use   my   last   hours   of   ease   and 
strength in telling the strange story of my experience。                  I have never fully 
unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to 
trust much in the sympathy of my fellow…men。                   But we have all a chance 
of meeting with some pity; some   tenderness; some charity;  when we   are 
dead:     it is the living only who cannot be forgiventhe living only from 
whom   men's   indulgence   and   reverence   are   held   off;   like   the   rain   by  the 
hard     east   wind。     While      the   heart    beats;   bruise    itit  is  your    only 
opportunity;   while   the   eye   can   still   turn   towards   you   with   moist;   timid 
entreaty;     freeze   it  with   an   icy   unanswering       gaze;   while    the   ear;  that 
delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul; can still take in the 
tones of kindness; put it off with hard civility; or sneering pliment; or 
envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb 
with   the  sense  of   injustice;  with the   yearning   for brotherly  recognition 
make hasteoppress it with your ill… considered judgements; your trivial 
parisons; your careless misrepresentations。                  The heart will by and by 
be   still〃ubi   saeva   indignatio   ulterius   cor   lacerare   nequit〃;   the   eye   will 
cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all 
wants as well as from all work。             Then your charitable speeches may find 
vent; then   you   may remember   and   pity the toil and the struggle   and the 
failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may 
find extenuation for errors; and may consent to bury them。 
     That   is   a   trivial   schoolboy   text;   why   do   I   dwell   on   it? It   has   little 
reference to me; for I shall leave no works behind me for men to honour。 
I have no near relatives who will make up; by weeping over my grave; for 
the wounds they inflicted on me when I was among them。                         It is only the 
story    of   my    life  that  will   perhaps     win   a   little  more    sympathy      from 
strangers when I am dead; than I ever believed it would obtain from my 
friends while I was living。 
     My   childhood   perhaps   seems   happier   to   me   than   it   really   was;   by 
contrast with all the after…years。          For then the curtain of the future was as 
impenetrable   to   me   as   to   other   children:      I   had   all   their   delight   in   the 
present   hour;   their   sweet   indefinite   hopes   for   the   morrow;   and   I   had   a 
tender   mother:      even   now;   after   the   dreary  lapse   of   long   years;   a   slight 
trace of sensation acpanies the remembrance of her caress as she held 
me on her kneeher arms round my little body; her cheek pressed on mine。 
I had a plaint of the eyes that made me blind for a little while; and she 
kept me on her knee from morning till night。                That unequalled love soon 
vanished out of my life; and even to my childish consciousness it was as if 
that life had bee more chill I rode my little white pony with the groom 
by  my   side   as   before;   but   there   were  no   loving   eyes   looking   at   me   as   I 
mounted;   no   glad   arms   opened   to   me   when   I   came   back。         Perhaps   I 
missed my mother's love more than most children of seven or eight would 
have done; to whom the other pleasures of life remained as before; for I 
was     certainly    a  very   sensitive    child。    I   remember      still  the   mingled 
trepidation   and   delicious   excitement   with   which   I   was   affected   by   the 
tramping of the horses on the pavement in the echoing stables; by the loud 
resonance of the groom's voices; by the booming bark of the dogs as my 
father's carriage thundered under the archway of the courtyard; by the din 
of the gong as it gave notice of luncheon and dinner。 The measured tramp 
of   soldiery   which   I   sometimes   heardfor   my   father's   house   lay   near   a 
county town where there were large barracksmade me sob and tremble; 
and yet when they were gone past; I longed for them to e back again。 
     I fancy my father thought me an odd child; and had little fondness for 
me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's 
duties。    But he was already past the middle of life; and I was not his only 
son。    My   mother   had   been   his   second   wife;   and   he   was   five…and…forty 
when he married her。          He was a firm; unbending; intensely orderly man; 
in   root   and   stem   a  banker;    but   with   a  flourishing    graft   of  the  active 
landholder;   aspiring   to   county   influence:       one   of   those   people   who   are 
always   like   themselves   from   day   to   day;   who   are   uninfluenced   by   the 
weather;   and   neither   know   melancholy   nor   high   spirits。        I   held   him   in 
great awe; and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at 
other times; a circumstance which; perhaps; helped to confirm him in the 
intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with 
which he had plied in the case of my elder brother; already a tall youth 
at Eton。     My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must 
go   to   Eton   and   Oxford;   for   the   sake   of   making   connexions;   of   course: 
my   father   was   not   a   man   to   underrate   the   bearing   of   Latin   satirists   or 
Greek      dramatists     on   the  attainment      of  an   aristocratic    position。     But; 
intrinsically;   he   had   slight   esteem   for   〃those   dead   but   sceptred   spirits〃; 
having qualified   himself   for   forming   an   independent   opinion   by  reading 
Potter's AEschylus; and dipping into Francis's Horace。                     To this negative 
view     he   added    a  positive    one;   derived    from   a   recent    connexion      with 
mining   speculations;   namely;   that   a   scientific   education   was   the   really 
useful    training    for   a  younger     son。   Moreover;      it  was   clear   that  a  shy; 
sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a 
public school。       Mr。 Letherall had said so very decidedly。                 Mr。 Letherall 
was a large man in spectacles; who one day took my small head between 
his large hands; and pressed it here and there in an exploratory; auspicious 
mannerthen placed each of his great thumbs on my temples; and pushed 
me a little way from him; and stared at me with glittering spectacles。                     The 
contemplation appeared to displease him; for he frowned sternly; and said 
to my father; drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows … 
     〃The deficiency is there; sirthere; and here;〃 he added; touching the 
upper sides of my head; 〃here is the excess。               That must be brought out; sir; 
and this must be laid to sleep。〃 
     I was in a state of tremor; partly at the vague idea that I was the object 
of reprobation; partly in the agitation of my first hatred hatred of this big; 
spectacled   man;   who   pulled   my   head   about   as   if   he   wanted   to   buy   and 
cheapen it。 
     I   am   not   aware   how   much   Mr。   Letherall   had   to   do   with   the   system 
afterwards   adopted   towards   me;   but   it   was   presently   clear   that   private 
tutors;    natural    history;   science;     and   the   modern      languages;     were    the 
appliances by which the defects of my organization were to be remedied。 
I  was   very  stupid   about   machines; so   I  was   to   be   greatly  occupied   with 
them; I had no memory for classification; so it was particularly necessary 
that   I  should    study   systematic      zoology   and     botany;   I   was    hungry   for 
human   deeds   and   humane   motions;   so   I   was   to   be   plentifully   crammed 
with the mechanical powers; the elementary bodies; and the phenomena of 
electricity and magnetism。          A better…constituted boy would certainly have 
profited   under   my   intelligent   tutors;   with   their   scientific   apparatus;   and 
would; doubtless; have found the phenomen

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