Daniel Deronda. Джордж Элиот

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СКАЧАТЬ Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the real man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and vexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. The shock came from the reversal of her expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been more unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome, with only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight whisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt’s bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing but indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the alphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the point that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the first minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in the words, “He is not ridiculous.” But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was gone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant element in it being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently with a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while she only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a little softened by coquetry. Also, after her answers there was a longer or shorter pause before he spoke again.

      “I used to think archery was a great bore,” Grandcourt began. He spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest.

      “Are you converted to-day?” said Gwendolen.

      (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)

      “Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally sees people missing and simpering.”

      “I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle.”

      (Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of Grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite hearer.)

      “I have left off shooting.”

      “Oh, then, you are a formidable person. People who have done things once and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I practice a great many.”

      (Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own speech.)

      “What do you call follies?”

      “Well, in general, I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But you have not left off hunting, I hear.”

      (Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about Grandcourt’s position, and decided that he was the most aristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.)

      “One must do something.”

      “And do you care about the turf?—or is that among the things you have left off?”

      (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife’s preferences.)

      “I run a horse now and then; but I don’t go in for the thing as some men do. Are you fond of horses?”

      “Yes, indeed; I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback, having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong and happy.”

      (Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what she said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.)

      “Do you like danger?”

      “I don’t know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It seems to me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at anything that came in my way.”

      (Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season with two chosen hunters to ride at will.)

      “You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after that.”

      “You are fond of danger, then?”

      (Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.)

      “One must have something or other. But one gets used to it.”

      “I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me: it is only that I can’t get enough of it. I am not used to anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left off shooting.”

      (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the other hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not observed husbands to be companions—and that after all she was not going to accept Grandcourt.)

      “Why are you dull?”

      “This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it. That is why I practiced my archery.”

      (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of anything must necessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.)

      “You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first prize.”

      “I don’t know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well Miss Arrowpoint shot?”

      (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.)

      “Miss Arrowpoint. No—that is, yes.”

      “Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to the other end now—shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking toward me. He perhaps wants me.”

      Gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: not that the tete-à-tete was quite disagreeable to her; but while it lasted she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her cheeks and the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of herself than usual. And this Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own importance more than he did hers—a sort of unreasonableness СКАЧАТЬ