狄更斯小说改编系列 狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第36章Part6

狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第36章Part6  

'Your duty
Madam
' pursued Mr Dombey
'to have received my friends with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased to slight to-night in a very marked manner
Mrs Dombey
confer a distinction upon you
I must tell you
in any visit they pay you.
'Do you know that there is someone here?' she returned
now looking at him steadily.
'No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not
' cried Mr Dombey
stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. 'Mr Carker
Madam
as you know
possesses my confidence. He is as well acquainted as myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell you
for your information
Mrs Dombey
that I consider these wealthy and important persons confer a distinction upon me:' and Mr Dombey drew himself up
as having now rendered them of the highest possible importance.
'I ask you
' she repeated
bending her disdainful
steady gaze upon him
'do you know that there is someone here
Sir?'
'I must entreat
' said Mr Carker
stepping forward
'I must beg
I must demand
to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference is - '
Mrs Skewton
who had been intent upon her daughter's face
took him up here.
'My sweetest Edith
' she said
'and my dearest Dombey; our excellent friend Mr Carker
for so I am sure I ought to mention him - '
Mr Carker murmured
'Too much honour.'
' - has used the very words that were in my mind
and that I have been dying
these ages
for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and unimportant! My sweetest Edith
and my dearest Dombey
do we not know that any difference beeen you o - No
Flowers; not now.
Flowers was the maid
who
finding gentlemen present
retreated with precipitation.
'That any difference beeen you o
' resumed Mrs Skewton
'with the Heart you possess in mon
and the excessively charming bond of feeling that there is beeen you
must be slight and unimportant? What words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take this slight occasion - this trifling occasion
that is so replete with Nature
and your individual characters
and all that - so truly calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes - to say that I attach no importance to them in the least
except as developing these minor elements of Soul; and that
unlike most Mamas-in-law (that odious phrase
dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to exist in this I fear too artificial world
I never shall attempt to interpose beeen you
at such a time
and never can much regret
after all
such little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name - not Cupid
but the other delightful creature.
There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her children as she spoke
that may have been expressive of a direct and well-considered purpose hidden beeen these rambling words. That purpose
providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that were to e
and to shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection
and their adaptation to each other.
'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey
' said Mr Dombey
in his most stately manner
'that in her conduct thus early in our married life
to which I object
and which
I request
may be corrected. Carker
' with a nod of dismissal
'good-night to you!'
Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride
whose sparkling eye was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his way out
raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him
in lowly and admiring homage.
If his handsome wife had reproached him
or even changed countenance
or broken the silence in which she remained
by one word
now that they were alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed)
Mr Dombey would have been equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the intense
unutterable
withering scorn
with which
after looking upon him
she dropped her eyes
as if he were too worthless and indifferent to her to be challenged with a syllable - the ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which she sat before him - the cold inflexible resolve with which her every feature seemed to bear him down
and put him by - these
he had no resource against; and he left her
with her whole overbearing beauty concentrated on despising him.
Was he coward enough to watch her
an hour afterwards
on the old well staircase
where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight
toiling up with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident
when
looking up
he saw her ing
with a light
from the room where Florence lay
and marked again the face so changed
which he could not subdue?
But it could never alter as his own did. It never
in its uttermost pride and passion
knew the shadow that had fallen on his
in the dark corner
on the night of the return; and often since; and which deepened on it now
as he looked up.