姐,我要。。。
轻松的小说阅读环境
双城记英文版 - Part 3 Chapter XLV. THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER
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。
  A long the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my Father’s house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along.As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before.Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people.There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question, for it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere girI who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound.On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, “Has he sacrificed me?” when his face clears, as he looks into the third.“Which is Evremonde?” says a man behind him.“That. At the back there.”“With his hand in the girl’s?”“Yes.”The man cries, “Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evremonde!”“Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly.“And why not, citizen?”“He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be at peace.”But the man continuing to exclaim, “Down, Evremonde!” the face of Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way.The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the foremost chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend.“Therese!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen her? Therese Defarge!”“She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance petulantly. “Therese.”“Louder,” the woman recommends.Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her!“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, “and here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will be dispatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!”As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!—a head is held up, and the knitting-women, who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One.The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up.Crash!—And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their work, count Two.The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him.“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.”“Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.”“I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.”“They will be rapid. Fear not!”The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom.“Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me—just a little.”“Tell me what it is.”“I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate—for I cannot write—and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is.”“Yes, yes, better as it is.”“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:—If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old.”“What then, my gentle sister?”“Do you think”; the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: “that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?”“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.”“You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?”“Yes.”She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty- Two.“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die!”The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe—a woman—had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Jurymen, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long, long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace; I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”The End
或许您还会喜欢:
如此之爱
作者:佚名
章节:10 人气:2
摘要:风野的妻子并不知道衿子的住处,但是清楚他与她来往。可是妻子从不问衿子的地址和电话。话说回来,即使真被妻子询问,风野也是绝对不会说的。因为妻子的不闻不问,风野才得以安心。但是恰恰如此又给风野带来些许担忧。风野作为职业作家出道不久,上门约稿者还不多。万一他不在家,就很可能失去难得的机遇。风野以前曾打算把衿子的电话告诉一两个有交情的编辑,可又觉得这么做有些唐突也就作罢了。 [点击阅读]
妖窟魔影
作者:佚名
章节:10 人气:2
摘要:当山冈圭介来到琴川河的上游地区,已是时近中午。山冈行走在岩石地带时,极为小心谨慎。如果从同上次一样的道路上通过,则很容易留下足印。山冈圭介连那足印也极力避免留下。他每一步都尽量地避开土质松软的地方,以及草地,把步子尽可能踩在土质坚硬的路面上以及岩石上,以免留下走过的痕迹。他的整个行动都小心翼翼。他深知,稍有不慎,就会导致严重的后果。山冈进入到岩石地带的中心部位。 [点击阅读]
安德的代言
作者:佚名
章节:19 人气:2
摘要:星际议会成立之后1830年,也就是新元1830年,一艘自动巡航飞船通过安赛波①发回一份报告:该飞船所探测的星球非常适宜于人类居住。人类定居的行星中,拜阿是距离它最近的一个有人口压力的行星。于是星际议会作出决议,批准拜阿向新发现的行星移民。如此一来,拜阿人就成为见证这个新世界的第一批人类成员,他们是巴西后裔,说葡萄矛浯,信奉天主教。 [点击阅读]
安德的游戏
作者:佚名
章节:84 人气:2
摘要:“我用他的眼睛来观察,用他的耳朵来聆听,我告诉你他是独特的,至少他非常接近于我们要找的人。”“这话你已经对他的哥哥说过。”“由于某些原因,他哥哥已经被测试过不符合需要,但这和他的能力无关。”“他的姐姐也是这样,我很怀疑他会不会也是这样,他的性格太过柔弱,很容易屈服于别人的意愿。”“但不会是对他的敌人。”“那么我们怎么做?将他无时不刻的置于敌人之中?”“我们没有选择。”“我想你喜欢这孩子。 [点击阅读]
安迪密恩的觉醒
作者:佚名
章节:60 人气:2
摘要:01你不应读此。如果你读这本书,只是想知道和弥赛亚[1](我们的弥赛亚)做爱是什么感觉,那你就不该继续读下去,因为你只是个窥婬狂而已。如果你读这本书,只因你是诗人那部《诗篇》的忠实爱好者,对海伯利安朝圣者的余生之事十分着迷且好奇,那你将会大失所望。我不知道他们大多数人发生了什么事。他们生活并死去,那是在我出生前三个世纪的事情了。 [点击阅读]
情人 杜拉斯
作者:佚名
章节:17 人气:2
摘要:一个与昆德拉、村上春树和张爱玲并列的小资读者、时尚标志的女作家,一个富有传奇人生经历、惊世骇俗叛逆性格、五色斑斓爱情的艺术家,一个堪称当代法国文化骄傲的作家,一个引导世界文学时尚的作家……《情人》系杜拉斯代表作之一,自传性质的小说,获一九八四年法国龚古尔文学奖。全书以法国殖民者在越南的生活为背景,描写贫穷的法国女孩与富有的中国少爷之间深沉而无望的爱情。 [点击阅读]
瓦尔登湖
作者:佚名
章节:24 人气:2
摘要:这本书的思想是崇尚简朴生活,热爱大自然的风光,内容丰厚,意义深远,语言生动,意境深邃,就像是个智慧的老人,闪现哲理灵光,又有高山流水那样的境界。书中记录了作者隐居瓦尔登湖畔,与大自然水-乳-交融、在田园生活中感知自然重塑自我的奇异历程。读本书,能引领人进入一个澄明、恬美、素雅的世界。亨利·戴维·梭罗(1817-1862),美国超验主义作家。 [点击阅读]
老妇还乡
作者:佚名
章节:3 人气:2
摘要:正文第一幕火车站一阵报时钟声后,幕徐徐升起。接着就看到“居仑”两字。显然,这是北京处隐约可见的小城的名称,一片破烂、败落的景象。车站大楼同样破败不堪,墙上标出有的州通车,有的州不通;还贴着一张破烂不堪的列车时刻表,车站还包括一间发黑的信号室,一扇门上写着:禁止入内。在北京中间是一条通往车站的马路,样子可怜得很,它也只是用笔勾勒出来。 [点击阅读]
荆棘鸟
作者:佚名
章节:30 人气:2
摘要:考琳·麦卡洛,生于澳大利亚新南威尔士州的惠灵顿。她曾从事过多种工作——旅游业、图书馆、教书;后来终于成了一名神经病理学家,曾就学于美国耶鲁大学。她的第一部小说是《蒂姆》,而《荆棘鸟》则构思了四年,作了大量的调查工作,方始动笔。此书一发表,作者便一举成名。作者是位多才多艺的人,喜欢摄影、音乐、绘画、服装裁剪等。她现定居于美国。 [点击阅读]
藏书房女尸之谜
作者:佚名
章节:19 人气:2
摘要:有些陈腐的词语只属于某些类型的小说。比如情节剧里的“秃头坏男爵”,侦探故事里的“藏书室里的尸体”。多年来我一直试图为人们熟知的主题作一些适当的改变。我为自己订立了条件:书里描写的藏书室必须属于非常正统、传统的那一类,而尸体则必须让人觉得悱恻不定、触目惊心。遵循这些原则,几年来出现在笔记本上的只有短短几行文字。 [点击阅读]
解忧杂货店
作者:佚名
章节:45 人气:2
摘要:导读这就是东野圭吾的本事东野圭吾小说普及性之所以这么高,几乎等于畅销书保证,一个不能不提的因素,即他的作品并非只有谜团,只是卖弄诡计;一个更重要的元素,即他过人的说故事能力,以及很有温度的文字书写;身为作家,强项一堆,难怪东野的创作总是多元又量产。 [点击阅读]
野性的呼唤
作者:杰克·伦敦
章节:13 人气:2
摘要:它目睹了人与人、狗与狗、强者与弱者之间冷酷无情和生死争斗,于是为了生存,它学会了只求活命、不顾道义的处世原则,变得凶悍、机智而狡诈。最后,在森林中狼群的呼唤下,巴克狼性*复萌,逃入丛林,重归荒野。在小说中,杰克·伦敦运用拟人手法,把狗眼中的世界及人类的本质刻画地淋漓尽致,反映了资本主义社会冷酷的现实和“优胜劣汰,适者生存”的客观现实。 [点击阅读]