教堂钟声狄更斯 狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第27章Part 01

狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第27章Part 01  

Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark
and went out
walking in the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark
or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth
and looked about
among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air
singing unseen
farther beyond the reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so perfectly under control
that few could say more
in distinct terms
of its expression
than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pondered now
intently. As the lark rose higher
he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger
he fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length
when the lark came headlong down
with an accumulating stream of song
and dropped among the green wheat near him
rippling in the breath of the morning like a river
he sprang up from his reverie
and looked round with a suddensmile
as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse
after being thus awakened; but clearing his face
like one who bethought himself that it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales
went smiling on
as if for practice.
Perhaps with an eye to first impressions
Mr Carker was very carefully and trimly dressed
that morning. Though always somewhat formal
in his dress
in imitation of the great man whom he served
he stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps because he knew it to be ludicrous
and because in doing so he found another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance beeen them. Some people quoted him indeed
in this respect
as a pointed mentary
and not a flattering one
on his icy patron - but the world is prone to misconstruction
and Mr Carker was not accountable for its bad propensity.
Clean and florid: with his light plexion
fading as it were
in the sun
and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr Carker the Manager strolled about meadows
and green lanes
and glided among avenues of trees
until it was time to return to breakfast. Taking a nearer way back
Mr Carker pursued it
airing his teeth
and said aloud as he did so
'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!'
He had strolled beyond the town
and re-entered it by a pleasant walk
where there was a deep shade of leafy trees
and where there were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not being a place of general resort at any hour
and wearing at that time of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired
Mr Carker had it
or thought he had it
all to himself. So
with the whim of an idle man
to whom there yet remained enty minutes for reaching a destination easily able in ten
Mr Carker threaded the great boles of the trees
and went passing in and out
before this one and behind that
weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.
But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the grove
for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree
on which the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the Flood
he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand
about which
in another moment
he would have wound the chain he was making.