登陆注册
15467300000004

第4章 II(2)

Mrs. Aubyn was at that time an eager and somewhat tragic young woman, of complex mind and undeveloped manners, whom her crude experience of matrimony had fitted out with a stock of generalizations that exploded like bombs in the academic air of Hillbridge. In her choice of a husband she had been fortunate enough, if the paradox be permitted, to light on one so signally gifted with the faculty of putting himself in thewrong that her leaving him had the dignity of a manifesto--made her, as it were, the spokeswoman of outraged wifehood. In this light she was cherished by that dominant portion of Hillbridge society which was least indulgent to conjugal differences, and which found a proportionate pleasure in being for once able to feast openly on a dish liberally seasoned with the outrageous. So much did this endear Mrs. Aubyn to the university ladies that they were disposed from the first to allow her more latitude of speech and action than the ill-used wife was generally accorded in Hillbridge, where misfortune was still regarded as a visitation designed to put people in their proper place and make them feel the superiority of their neighbors. The young woman so privileged combined with a kind of personal shyness an intellectual audacity that was like a deflected impulse of coquetry: one felt that if she had been prettier she would have had emotions instead of ideas. She was in fact even then what she had always remained: a genius capable of the acutest generalizations, but curiously undiscerning where her personal susceptibilities were concerned. Her psychology failed her just where it serves most women and one felt that her brains would never be a guide to her heart. Of all this, however, Glennard thought little in the first year of their acquaintance. He was at an age when all the gifts and graces are but so much undiscriminated food to the ravening egoism of youth. In seeking Mrs. Aubyn's company he was prompted by an intuitive taste for the best as a pledge of his own superiority. The sympathy of the cleverest woman in Hillbridge was balm to his craving for distinction: it was public confirmation of his secret sense that he was cut out for a bigger place. It must not be understood that Glennard was vain. Vanity contents itself with the coarsest diet; there is no palate so fastidious as that of self-distrust. To a youth of Glennard's aspirations the encouragement of a clever woman stood for the symbol of all success. Later, when he had begun to feel his way, to gain a foothold, he would not need such support; but it served to carry him lightly and easily over what is often a period of insecurity and discouragement.

It would be unjust, however, to represent his interest in Mrs. Aubyn as a matter of calculation.It was as instinctive as love, and it missed beinglove by just such a hair-breadth deflection from the line of beauty as had determined the curve of Mrs. Aubyn's lips. When they met she had just published her first novel, and Glennard, who afterward had an ambitious man's impatience of distinguished women, was young enough to be dazzled by the semi-publicity it gave her. It was the kind of book that makes elderly ladies lower their voices and call each other "my dear" when they furtively discuss it; and Glennard exulted in the superior knowledge of the world that enabled him to take as a matter of course sentiments over which the university shook its head. Still more delightful was it to hear Mrs. Aubyn waken the echoes of academic drawing-rooms with audacities surpassing those of her printed page. Her intellectual independence gave a touch of comradeship to their intimacy, prolonging the illusion of college friendships based on a joyous interchange of heresies. Mrs. Aubyn and Glennard represented to each other the augur's wink behind the Hillbridge idol: they walked together in that light of young omniscience from which fate so curiously excludes one's elders.

Husbands who are notoriously inopportune, may even die inopportunely, and this was the revenge that Mr. Aubyn, some two years after her return to Hillbridge, took upon his injured wife. He died precisely at the moment when Glennard was beginning to criticise her. It was not that she bored him; she did what was infinitely worse--she made him feel his inferiority. The sense of mental equality had been gratifying to his raw ambition; but as his self-knowledge defined itself, his understanding of her also increased; and if man is at times indirectly flattered by the moral superiority of woman, her mental ascendency is extenuated by no such oblique tribute to his powers. The attitude of looking up is a strain on the muscles; and it was becoming more and more Glennard's opinion that brains, in a woman, should be merely the obverse of beauty. To beauty Mrs. Aubyn could lay no claim; and while she had enough prettiness to exasperate him by her incapacity to make use of it, she seemed invincibly ignorant of any of the little artifices whereby women contrive to palliate their defects and even to turn them into graces. Her dress never seemed a part of her; all her clothes had an impersonal air, asthough they had belonged to someone else and been borrowed in an emergency that had somehow become chronic. She was conscious enough of her deficiencies to try to amend them by rash imitations of the most approved models; but no woman who does not dress well intuitively will ever do so by the light of reason, and Mrs. Aubyn's plagiarisms, to borrow a metaphor of her trade, somehow never seemed to be incorporated with the text.

Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair. The fame that came to Mrs. Aubyn with her second book left Glennard's imagination untouched, or had at most the negative effect of removing her still farther from the circle of his contracting sympathies. We are all the sport of time; and fate had so perversely ordered the chronology of Margaret Aubyn's romance that when her husband died Glennard felt as though he had lost a friend.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 一阵微风

    一阵微风

    她年纪轻轻却一肚子伤心。。。。。。。。。。。。。微风袭来,他们紧紧相拥
  • 左右逢源的姿态与心态

    左右逢源的姿态与心态

    本书展示“鱼”的人生方略和奋斗技巧,而像鱼一样左右逢源的姿态与心态与其刻意模仿,不如静心感悟;与其把它当作某种终极目标实现的捷径,不如当作享受柳暗花明的快意人生的功课。
  • 梦里寻花

    梦里寻花

    见到你那一刻才知道什么是爱!三年后的重逢才明白什么是真正的幸福!
  • 尘倾天下

    尘倾天下

    生是女儿身,奈何帝王命。几年前的初见到如今还能够记得?千百年来的宫斗何时能够停止?拂轻尘的一身究竟是谁在修改?“我们不过是上天的提线木偶,说什么身不由己,太可笑了!”是谁在最后了无生忘的说着……
  • 龙女之情殇离泪人

    龙女之情殇离泪人

    “亲爱滴啊为什么我从没看见过你吃海鲜呢,难道是因为你当时就知道我不会吃海鲜的,所以…”古玲儿一脸通红,害羞的说。唐云溪正看着报纸,漫不经心地打住了她的话,说:“哦,不是啊,我只是海鲜过敏。”“呵呵,搓衣板拿来!”古玲儿回答道。
  • 最强少主

    最强少主

    从小就是孤儿的陈想,在受尽了欺辱的童年中成长,他发誓终有一天一定要成为人人所敬仰的人,在一次意外的撞车,陈想的力量开始觉醒,以前世的戒指中的灵魂交谈,开始了修真的道路,就这样,在修...
  • 中山狼传

    中山狼传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 诸天生灭

    诸天生灭

    修行,不只是为了炼气长生.修行,不一定要杀人夺宝.修行,不一定要美人在怀.修行,一定要一往无前,披荆斩棘.修行,一定要顺其本心,不留遗憾.诸天万界,万族争雄!天地间英杰辈出,荡气回肠;此世间物华天宝,颇多壮丽;此一生安能宝剑蒙尘,虚度年华?
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 巨魔之王的自我修养

    巨魔之王的自我修养

    小说从巨魔之王特朗德尔的身世出发,随小特走出丛林,探索整个瓦洛兰大陆的秘密