【有声英语文学名著】螺丝在拧紧(23)
时间:2019-02-24 作者:英语课 分类:有声英语文学名著
英语课
The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
XXIII
“Oh, more or less.” I imagine my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We shouldn’t like that!” I went on.
“No — I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the others.”
“We have the others — we have indeed the others,” I concurred 1.
“Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands in his pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much count, do they?”
I made the best of it, but I felt wan 2. “It depends on what you call ‘much’!”
“Yes” — with all accommodation — “everything depends!” On this, however, he faced to the window again and presently reached it with his vague, restless, cogitating 3 step. He remained there awhile, with his forehead against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs 4 I knew and the dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy 5 of “work,” behind which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I had repeatedly done at those moments of torment 6 that I have described as the moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from which I was barred, I sufficiently 7 obeyed my habit of being prepared for the worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back — none other than the impression that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp intensity 8 and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was positively 9 HE who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a throb 10 of hope. Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted pane 11, for something he couldn’t see? — and wasn’t it the first time in the whole business that he had known such a lapse 12? The first, the very first: I found it a splendid portent 13. It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small strange genius to give it a gloss 14. When he at last turned round to meet me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed 15. “Well, I think I’m glad Bly agrees with ME!”
“You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, “that you’ve been enjoying yourself.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about — miles and miles away. I’ve never been so free.”
He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with him. “Well, do you like it?”
He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words — “Do YOU?” — more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened 16. “Nothing could be more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone together now it’s you that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw in, “you don’t particularly mind!”
“Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I help minding? Though I’ve renounced 17 all claim to your company — you’re so beyond me — I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?”
He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay on just for THAT?”
“Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest I take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth your while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I felt it impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I told you, when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you?”
“Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!”
“It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, you know, you didn’t do it.”
“Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, “you wanted me to tell you something.”
“That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know.”
“Ah, then, is THAT what you’ve stayed over for?”
He spoke 18 with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest little quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as if what I had yearned 19 for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, yes — I may as well make a clean breast of it. it was precisely 20 for that.”
He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating 21 the assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was: “Do you mean now — here?”
“There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round him uneasily, and I had the rare — oh, the queer! — impression of the very first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate 22 fear. It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me — which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang 23 of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque 24. “You want so to go out again?”
“Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching 25 little bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse 26 horror of what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of but the obtrusion 27 of the idea of grossness and guilt 28 on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse 29? Wasn’t it base to create for a being so exquisite 30 a mere 31 alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation a clearness it couldn’t have had at the time, for I seem to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision of the anguish 32 that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and scruples 33, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. “I’ll tell you everything,” Miles said — “I mean I’ll tell you anything you like. You’ll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL tell you — I WILL. But not now.”
“Why not now?”
My insistence 34 turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, someone who had frankly 35 to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see Luke.”
I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, go to Luke, and I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request.”
He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a little to bargain. “Very much smaller —?”
“Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me” — oh, my work preoccupied 36 me, and I was offhand 37! — “if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the hall, you took, you know, my letter.”
by Henry James
XXIII
“Oh, more or less.” I imagine my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We shouldn’t like that!” I went on.
“No — I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the others.”
“We have the others — we have indeed the others,” I concurred 1.
“Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands in his pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much count, do they?”
I made the best of it, but I felt wan 2. “It depends on what you call ‘much’!”
“Yes” — with all accommodation — “everything depends!” On this, however, he faced to the window again and presently reached it with his vague, restless, cogitating 3 step. He remained there awhile, with his forehead against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs 4 I knew and the dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy 5 of “work,” behind which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I had repeatedly done at those moments of torment 6 that I have described as the moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from which I was barred, I sufficiently 7 obeyed my habit of being prepared for the worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back — none other than the impression that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp intensity 8 and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was positively 9 HE who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a throb 10 of hope. Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted pane 11, for something he couldn’t see? — and wasn’t it the first time in the whole business that he had known such a lapse 12? The first, the very first: I found it a splendid portent 13. It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small strange genius to give it a gloss 14. When he at last turned round to meet me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed 15. “Well, I think I’m glad Bly agrees with ME!”
“You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, “that you’ve been enjoying yourself.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about — miles and miles away. I’ve never been so free.”
He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with him. “Well, do you like it?”
He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words — “Do YOU?” — more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened 16. “Nothing could be more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone together now it’s you that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw in, “you don’t particularly mind!”
“Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I help minding? Though I’ve renounced 17 all claim to your company — you’re so beyond me — I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?”
He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay on just for THAT?”
“Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest I take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth your while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I felt it impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I told you, when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you?”
“Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!”
“It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, you know, you didn’t do it.”
“Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, “you wanted me to tell you something.”
“That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know.”
“Ah, then, is THAT what you’ve stayed over for?”
He spoke 18 with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest little quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as if what I had yearned 19 for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, yes — I may as well make a clean breast of it. it was precisely 20 for that.”
He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating 21 the assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was: “Do you mean now — here?”
“There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round him uneasily, and I had the rare — oh, the queer! — impression of the very first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate 22 fear. It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me — which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang 23 of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque 24. “You want so to go out again?”
“Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching 25 little bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse 26 horror of what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of but the obtrusion 27 of the idea of grossness and guilt 28 on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse 29? Wasn’t it base to create for a being so exquisite 30 a mere 31 alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation a clearness it couldn’t have had at the time, for I seem to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision of the anguish 32 that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and scruples 33, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. “I’ll tell you everything,” Miles said — “I mean I’ll tell you anything you like. You’ll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL tell you — I WILL. But not now.”
“Why not now?”
My insistence 34 turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, someone who had frankly 35 to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see Luke.”
I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, go to Luke, and I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request.”
He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a little to bargain. “Very much smaller —?”
“Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me” — oh, my work preoccupied 36 me, and I was offhand 37! — “if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the hall, you took, you know, my letter.”
同意(concur的过去式与过去分词形式)
- Historians have concurred with each other in this view. 历史学家在这个观点上已取得一致意见。
- So many things concurred to give rise to the problem. 许多事情同时发生而导致了这一问题。
(wide area network)广域网
- The shared connection can be an Ethernet,wireless LAN,or wireless WAN connection.提供共享的网络连接可以是以太网、无线局域网或无线广域网。
v.认真思考,深思熟虑( cogitate的现在分词 )
- Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. 于是他一气之下扔掉那个弹子,站在那儿沉思。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
- He sat silently cogitating. 他静静地坐着沉思。 来自辞典例句
灌木( shrub的名词复数 )
- The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
- These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。
n.伪善,虚伪
- He railed against hypocrisy and greed.他痛斥伪善和贪婪的行为。
- He accused newspapers of hypocrisy in their treatment of the story.他指责了报纸在报道该新闻时的虚伪。
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠
- He has never suffered the torment of rejection.他从未经受过遭人拒绝的痛苦。
- Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each other.没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。
adv.足够地,充分地
- It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
- The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度
- I didn't realize the intensity of people's feelings on this issue.我没有意识到这一问题能引起群情激奋。
- The strike is growing in intensity.罢工日益加剧。
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实
- She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
- The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。
v.震颤,颤动;(急速强烈地)跳动,搏动
- She felt her heart give a great throb.她感到自己的心怦地跳了一下。
- The drums seemed to throb in his ears.阵阵鼓声彷佛在他耳边震响。
n.窗格玻璃,长方块
- He broke this pane of glass.他打破了这块窗玻璃。
- Their breath bloomed the frosty pane.他们呼出的水气,在冰冷的窗玻璃上形成一层雾。
n.过失,流逝,失效,抛弃信仰,间隔;vi.堕落,停止,失效,流逝;vt.使失效
- The incident was being seen as a serious security lapse.这一事故被看作是一次严重的安全疏忽。
- I had a lapse of memory.我记错了。
n.预兆;恶兆;怪事
- I see it as a portent of things to come.我把它看作是将要到来的事物的前兆。
- As for her engagement with Adam,I would say the portents are gloomy.至于她和亚当的婚约,我看兆头不妙。
n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰
- John tried in vain to gloss over his faults.约翰极力想掩饰自己的缺点,但是没有用。
- She rubbed up the silver plates to a high gloss.她把银盘擦得很亮。
不再抵抗(诱惑、疾病、攻击等)( succumb的过去式和过去分词 ); 屈从; 被压垮; 死
- The town succumbed after a short siege. 该城被围困不久即告失守。
- After an artillery bombardment lasting several days the town finally succumbed. 在持续炮轰数日后,该城终于屈服了。
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰
- His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
- The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。
v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃
- We have renounced the use of force to settle our disputes. 我们已再次宣布放弃使用武力来解决争端。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Andrew renounced his claim to the property. 安德鲁放弃了财产的所有权。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
- They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
- The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
渴望,切盼,向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 )
- The people yearned for peace. 人民渴望和平。
- She yearned to go back to the south. 她渴望回到南方去。
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地
- It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
- The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。
v.(正式地)否认( repudiate的现在分词 );拒绝接受;拒绝与…往来;拒不履行(法律义务)
- Instead of repudiating what he had done, he gloried in it. 他不但没有否定自己做过的事,反而引以为荣。 来自辞典例句
- He accused the government of tearing up(ie repudiating)the negotiated agreement. 他控告政府撕毁(不履行)协议。 来自互联网
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的
- His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
- We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。
n.剧痛,悲痛,苦闷
- She experienced a sharp pang of disappointment.她经历了失望的巨大痛苦。
- She was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love.她开始尝到了失恋的痛苦。
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物)
- His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
- Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。
adj.刚愎的;坚持错误的,行为反常的
- It would be perverse to stop this healthy trend.阻止这种健康发展的趋势是没有道理的。
- She gets a perverse satisfaction from making other people embarrassed.她有一种不正常的心态,以使别人难堪来取乐。
n.强制,莽撞
- The obtrusion of his views was uncalled-for. 他的意见之强迫别人接受实在是不必要的。 来自辞典例句
- The obtrusion of her views was uncalled-for. 强迫别人接受她的意见实在是不必要的。 来自互联网
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责
- She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
- Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。
n.性交;交流,交往,交际
- The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
- There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的
- I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
- I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过
- That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
- It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼
- She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时,她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
- The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。
n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 );顾虑,顾忌v.感到于心不安,有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 )
- I overcame my moral scruples. 我抛开了道德方面的顾虑。
- I'm not ashamed of my scruples about your family. They were natural. 我并未因为对你家人的顾虑而感到羞耻。这种感觉是自然而然的。 来自疯狂英语突破英语语调
n.坚持;强调;坚决主张
- They were united in their insistence that she should go to college.他们一致坚持她应上大学。
- His insistence upon strict obedience is correct.他坚持绝对服从是对的。
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说
- To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说,我一点也不赞成这个主意。
- Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说,我不反对改革。
adj.全神贯注的,入神的;被抢先占有的;心事重重的v.占据(某人)思想,使对…全神贯注,使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)
- He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事,没注意到有什么不对。
- The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》