姐,我要。。。
轻松的小说阅读环境
双城记英文版 - Part 2 Chapter XVI. TWO PROMISES
繁体
恢复默认
返回目录【键盘操作】左右光标键:上下章节;回车键:目录;双击鼠标:停止/启动自动滚动;滚动时上下光标键调节滚动速度。
  More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he would have been a Professor; in that age he was a Tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student’s way unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, moreover, with the circumstances of his country, and those were of ever-growing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered.In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it, and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted.A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in London.Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way—Charles Darnay’s way—the way of the love of a woman.He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water, and the long, long, dusty roads— the solid stone chateau which had itself become the mere mist of a dream—had been done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart.That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross.He found the Doctor reading in his armchair at a window. The energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare.He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand.“Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due.”“I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. “Miss Manette—““Is well,” said the Doctor, as he stopped short, “and your return will delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will soon be home.”“Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you.”There was a blank silence.“Yes?” said the Doctor, with evident constraint. “Bring your chair here, and speak on.”He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less easy.“I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,” so he at length began, “for some year and a half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may not—” He was stayed by the Doctor’s putting out his hand to stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back:“Is Lucie the topic?”“She is.”“It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.”“It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!” he said deferentially.There was another blank silence before her father rejoined:“I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.”His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles Darnay hesitated.“Shall I go on, sir?”Another blank.“Yes, go on.”“You anticipate what I would say, though you can not know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!”The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried:“Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!”His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remained silent.“I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, and after some moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it.”He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair overshadowed his face:“Have you spoken to Lucie?”“No.”“Nor written?”“Never.”“It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self- denial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks you.”He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it.“I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manette— how can I fail to know—that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home.”Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation.“Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even now feel, that to bring my love—even mine—between you, is to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her!”“I believe it,” answered her father, mournfully. “I have thought so before now. I believe it.”“But, do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, “that if my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my heart—if it ever had been there—if it ever could be there—I could not now touch this honoured hand.”He laid his own upon it as he spoke.“No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death, Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be.”His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle was evident in his face; a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread.“You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart—or nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?”“None. As yet none.”“Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once ascertain that, with my knowledge?”“Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness tomorrow.”“Do you seek any promise from me?”“I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some.”“Do you seek any promise from me!”“I do seek that.”“What is it?”“I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her innocent heart—do not think I have the presumption to assume so much—I could retain no place in it against her love for her father.”“If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?”“I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor’s favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, Doctor Manette.” said Darnay, modestly but firmly, “I would not ask that word, to save my life.”“I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her heart.”“May I ask, sir, if you think she is—” As he hesitated, her father supplied the rest.“Is sought by any other suitor?”“It is what I meant to say.”Her father considered a little before he answered:“You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.”“Or both,” said Darnay.“I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely, You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is.”“It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against me, I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require, I will observe immediately.”“I give the promise,” said the Doctor, “without any condition. I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. If there were—Charles Darnay—if there were—” The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as the Doctor spoke:“—any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really loved—the direct responsibility thereof not lying on his head—they should all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more to me—Well! This is idle talk.”So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it.“You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. “What was it you said to me?”He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered:“Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother’s, is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am in England.”“Stop!” said the Doctor of Beauvais.“I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no secret from you.”“Stop.”For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay’s lips.“Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you promise?”“Willingly.”“Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she should not see us together tonight, Go! God bless you!”It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone—for Miss Pross had gone straight upstairs—and was surprised to find his reading-chair empty.“My father!” she called to him. “Father dear!”Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in the bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled, “What shall I do! What shall I do!”Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down together for a long time.She came down from her bed to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept, heavily, and his tray of shoe-making tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual.
或许您还会喜欢:
马克吐温作品集
作者:佚名
章节:17 人气:2
摘要:本文是作者根据自己1868年在纽约采访州长竞选的素材写成的一篇政治讽刺小说。作者以夸张的漫画式的笔触,艺术地再现了美国社会中竞选的种种秽事丑闻,揭露了竞选的虚伪性和欺骗性。这篇小说以独立党候选人“我”的自白与大量的新闻、匿名信等引文的对照构成完整的故事,用犀利、夸张、含蓄的语言表达了作者对腐败政治的愤怒谴责。 [点击阅读]
高尔夫球场的疑云
作者:佚名
章节:28 人气:2
摘要:我知道有这么一则已为人所共知的铁事,它的大意是:一位年轻作家决心要把他的故事的开头写得独具一格、有声有色,想借此引起那些读腻了声色犬马之类文章的编辑们的注意,便写下了如下的句子:“‘该死!’公爵夫人说道。”真怪,我这故事的开头倒也是同一个形式.只不过说这句话的女士不是一位公爵夫人罢了。那是六月初的一天,我在巴黎刚办完了一些事务,正乘着早车回伦敦去。 [点击阅读]
ABC谋杀案
作者:佚名
章节:36 人气:0
摘要:在我的这本记叙性的书中,我摒弃了常规,仅仅以第一人称叙述了我亲自处理过的一些案件和勘查过的现场,而其它章节是以第三人称的方式写的。我希冀读者相信书中的情节是真实的。虽然在描述各种不同人物的思想及感情上过于细腻,可是我保证,这都是我当时精细的笔录。此外,我的朋友赫尔克里.波洛还亲自对它们进行过校对。 [点击阅读]
一个人的好天气
作者:佚名
章节:40 人气:0
摘要:正文第1节:春天(1)春天一个雨天,我来到了这个家。有间屋子的门楣上摆着一排漂亮的镜框,里面全是猫的照片。再往屋里一看,从左面墙开始,隔过中间窗户,一直转到右面墙的一半,又挂了快一圈儿猫的照片,我懒得去数多少张了。照片有黑白的,也有彩色的;有的猫不理睬我,有的猫死盯着我。整个房间就像个佛龛,令人窒息。我呆呆地站在门口。"这围脖真好看哪。 [点击阅读]
一朵桔梗花
作者:佚名
章节:37 人气:0
摘要:1.一串白藤花序幕花街上,点着常夜灯。如今,连一点痕迹都没有了,可是大正(注:日本年号,1911-1926)末年,在那个伸入濑户内海的小小港埠里,有一所即今是当时也使人觉得凄寂的风化区,名字就叫“常夜坡”。活了这么一把年纪,到如今还常常会想起那整晚点着的白花花、冷清清的灯光;奇异的是每次想起,它总是那么凄冷,了无生气。 [点击阅读]
万圣节前夜的谋杀案
作者:佚名
章节:27 人气:0
摘要:阿里阿德理-奥列弗夫人在朋友朱迪思-巴特勒家作客。一天德雷克夫人家准备给村里的孩子们开个晚会,奥列弗夫人便跟朋友一道前去帮忙。德雷克夫人家热闹非凡.女人们一个个精神抖擞,进进出出地搬着椅子、小桌子、花瓶什么的.还搬来许多老南瓜,有条不紊地放在选定的位置上。今天要举行的是万圣节前夜晚会,邀请了一群十至十七岁的孩子作客。 [点击阅读]
万延元年的足球队
作者:佚名
章节:13 人气:0
摘要:死者引导我们我在黎明前的黑暗中醒来,寻求着一种热切的“期待”的感觉,摸索着噩梦残破的意识。一如咽下一口要以烧着你五脏六腑的威士忌,这种“期待”的感觉热辣辣的。我心中忐忑,摸索着,企望它能切实重返体内。然而这种摸索却永远都是徒劳枉然。手指已没了气力,我只好将它们并拢起来。分明觉出自己全身的骨肉都已分离。迎着光亮,我的意识畏葸不前,这种感觉也正转化成一种钝痛。 [点击阅读]
万灵节之死
作者:佚名
章节:26 人气:0
摘要:一艾瑞丝-玛尔正在想着她的姐姐罗斯玛丽。在过去将近一年里,她极尽可能地试着把罗斯玛丽自脑海中抹去。她不想去记起。那太痛苦——太恐怖了!那氰化钾中毒发蓝的脸孔,那痉挛紧缩的手指……那与前一天欢乐可爱的罗斯玛丽形成的强烈对比……呵,也许并不真的是欢乐。 [点击阅读]
三个火枪手
作者:佚名
章节:77 人气:0
摘要:内容简介小说主要描述了法国红衣大主教黎塞留,从1624年出任首相到1628年攻打并占领胡格诺言教派的主要根据地拉罗谢尔城期间所发生的事。黎塞留为了要帮助国王路易十三,千方百计要抓住王后与英国首相白金汉公爵暧昧关系的把柄。而作品主人公达达尼昂出于正义,与他的好友三个火枪手为解救王后冲破大主教所设下的重重罗网,最终保全了王后的名誉。 [点击阅读]
三幕悲剧
作者:佚名
章节:27 人气:0
摘要:萨特思韦特先生坐在鸦巢屋的露台上,看着屋主查尔斯-卡特赖特爵士从海边爬上小路。鸦巢屋是一座漂亮的现代平房,木质结构不到一半,没有三角墙,没有三流建筑师爱不释手的多佘累赘的设计。这是一幢简洁而坚固的白色建筑物。它看起来比实际的体积小得多.真是不可貌相。这房子的名声要归功于它的位置-居高临下,俯瞰整个鲁茅斯海港。 [点击阅读]
不分手的理由
作者:佚名
章节:11 人气:0
摘要:在喧闹的大街拐弯之后,刹那间四周变得寂静无声,黑暗中一排路灯伫立在街头。放眼望去,只有一盏红绿灯在寒空中绽放着鲜红色的光芒。速见修平往前欠身,嘱咐计程车司机行驶至红绿灯时左转。这一带是世田谷的新兴社区,近年来开始兴建,大量的超级市场和公寓,修平目前住的房子也是三年前才盖好的。住宅用地有高度的限制,修平住的公寓只有三层楼,他本身住在二楼。 [点击阅读]
且听风吟
作者:佚名
章节:31 人气:0
摘要:1“不存在十全十美的文章,如同不存在彻头彻尾的绝望。”这是大学时代偶然结识的一位作家对我说的活。但对其含义的真正理解——至少能用以自慰——则是在很久很久以后。的确,所谓十全十美的文章是不存在的。尽管如此,每当我提笔写东西的时候,还是经常陷入绝望的情绪之中。因为我所能够写的范围实在过于狭小。譬如,我或许可以就大象本身写一点什么,但对象的驯化却不知何从写起。 [点击阅读]