日韩精品久久一区二区三区_亚洲色图p_亚洲综合在线最大成人_国产中出在线观看_日韩免费_亚洲综合在线一区

您現在的位置: Language Tips> Book Channel> Pure English  
 





 
一個小時的故事
[ 2007-08-02 17:18 ]

The story of an hour


大家都知道馬蘭德夫人的心臟有毛病,所以在把她丈夫的死訊告訴她時都是小心翼翼的,盡可能地溫和委婉。壞消息是她的姐姐約瑟芬告訴她的,她連話都沒說成句,只是遮遮掩掩地向她暗示。她丈夫的朋友理查茲也在場。當火車事故的消息傳來的時候,理查茲正好在報社里,遇難者名單上布蘭特雷·馬蘭德的名字排在第一個……

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will-as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion, which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole,imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door-you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his gripsack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills.

點擊欣賞更多美文  

(英語點津姍姍編輯)

 
 
相關文章 Related Stories
 
         
 
 
 
 
 
         

 

 

 
 

48小時內最熱門

   

本頻道最新推薦

     
  自由飛翔!
  A Woman in Charge 掌權的女人
  幸福人生
  我只想知道……
  Nineteen Minutes 十九分鐘

論壇熱貼

     
  “低生育,素質好,男女都是寶”,怎么譯為好?請教高手!
  請問“老鄉”這個詞怎么翻譯?
  C-E: how to say "路盲"?
  請問“老鄉”這個詞怎么翻譯?
  C-E: how to say "路盲"?
  各位,“相親”英語怎么說?






主站蜘蛛池模板: 欧美男女交配 | 久草视频在线观 | 激情五月婷婷综合网 | 精品亚洲国产成av人片传媒 | 久久综合久色欧美综合狠狠 | 天天做天天爱天天大综合 | 欧美日韩国产欧美 | 亚洲在线观看免费视频 | 夜夜撸.com | 91短视频在线免费观看 | 艹逼视频免费 | 亚洲夫妻 | 欧美精品国产制服第一页 | 天天插视频 | 欧美精品激情 | 亚洲毛片无码专区亚洲A片 日本高清www午色夜黄 | 91精品久久一区二区三区 | 国产午夜精品一区二区三区嫩草 | 久久夜夜 | 视频一区二区久久 | 亚洲 中文 欧美 日韩 在线 | 国产成人综合日韩精品婷婷九月 | 亚洲国产综合人成综合网站00 | 久久黄视频 | 2021精品国产品免费观看 | 亚洲成a人片77777在线播放 | 小凤仙的故事 电视剧 | 国产极品福利视频在线观看 | 天堂网成人 | 久久国产精品99久久久久久牛牛 | 国产婷婷综合 | 日韩专区中文字幕 | 国产精品久久久久久一级毛片 | 一区二区国产在线观看 | 欧美综合在线观看 | 精品日韩视频 | 婷婷视频在线观看 | 伊人狠狠干| 日韩欧美一区在线观看 | 欧美精品38videos性欧美 | 天天爽夜夜 |