BOOK 5 CHAPTER 1
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In the Red DeepsTHE family sittingroom was long room with a window at ead - one looking towards the croft and along the Ripple to the banks of the Floss, the other into the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her wainst the latter window when she saw Mr Wakem entering the yard, as usual, on his fine black horse; but not alone, as usual. Some one was with him - a figure in a clock, on a handsome pony. Maggie had hardly time to feel that it hilip e back, before they were in front of the window, and he was raising his hat to her, while his father, catg the movement by a side glance, looked sharply round at them both. Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work up-stairs; for Mr Wakem sometimes came in and ied the books, and Maggie felt that the meeting with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the presence of the two fathers. Some day, perhaps, she should see him when they could just shake hands and she could tell him that she remembered his goodo Tom, and the things he had said to her in the old days, though they could never be friends any more. It was not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again: she retained her childish gratitude and pity towards him and remembered his cleverness; and in the early weeks of her loneliness she had tinually recalled the image of him among the people who had been kind to her in life, often wishing she had him for a brother and a teacher, as they had fa might have been, ialk together. But that sort of wishing had been banished along with other dreams that savoured of seeking her own will; and she thought, besides, that Philip might be altered by his life abroad - he might have bee worldly, and really not care about her saying anything to him now. A, his face was wonderfully little altered - it was only a larger, more manly copy of the pale small-featured boys face, with the grey eyes and the boyish waving brown hair; there was the old deformity to awaken the old pity, and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really should like to say a few words to him. He might still be melancholy, as he always used to be, and like her to look at him kindly. She wondered if he remembered how he used to like her eyes. With that thought Maggie glaowards the square looking-glass which was o hang with its face towards the wall, and she half-started from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and snatched up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by f her memory to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father returning along the road, and she could go down again.
It was far on in June now, and Maggie was ined to lehe daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the following she was so busy with work which must be fihat she never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not obliged to go to St Oggs, was to a spot that lay beyond what was called the `hill - an insignifit rise of ground ed by trees, lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlill. Insignifit, I call it, because i it was hardly more than a bank; - but there may oments when Nature makes a mere bank a means towards a fateful result, and that is why I ask you to imagihis high bank ed with trees, making an uneven wall for some quarter of a mile along t<u>9９ｌｉｂ?</u>he left side of Dorlill and the pleasant fields behind it bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off ao the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very capricious hollows and mounds by the w of an exhausted stone-quarry - so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and needed all her fiden Toms bravery to recile her to an excursion thither, visions of robbers and fierimals haunting every hollow. But now it had the charm for her whiy broken ground, any mimic rod ravine have for the eyes that rest habitually on the level, especially in summer, when she could sit on a grassy hollow uhe shadow of a brang ash, stooping aslant from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of is, like ti bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight pierg the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly blue of the wild hyaths. In this Juime too, the dogroses were in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on the first day she was free to wa her will - a pleasure she loved so well that sometimes, in her ardours of renunciation, she thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgen it.
You may see her now, as she walks down the favourite turning aers the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs - her tall figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk shawl of some wide-meshed -like material; and now she is sure of being unseen, she takes off her bo and ties it over her arm. One would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her seveh year - perhaps because of the slned sadness of the glance, from which all seard u seem to have departed, perhaps because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood. Youth ah have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard floor for a penance have left no obvious trace: the eyes are liquid, the brown cheek is firm and rouhe full lips are red. With her dark c a surmountiall figure, she seems to have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of uneasiness in looking at her - a sense of opposing elements, of which a fierce collision is immi: surely there is a hushed expression such as oen sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with the resistant youth, whie expects to flash out in a sudden, passionate glahat will dissipate all the quietude, like a damped fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.
But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees and thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past storms which had only made the red stems sher. But while her eyes were still turned upward, she became scious of a moving shadow cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat, and then blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand. Maggie too coloured with surprise which soon gave way to pleasure. She put out her hand and looked down at the lower deformed figure before her with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of her childs feelings - a memory that was always strong in her. She was the first to speak.
`You startled me, she said, smiling faintly. `I never meet any one here. How came you to be walking here? Did you e to meet me?
It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child again.
`Yes, I did, said Philip, still embarrassed. `I wished to see you very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your house to see if you would e out; but you never came. Then I watched again today, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and came down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased with me.
`No, said Maggie with simple seriousness, walking on, as if she meant Philip to apany her, `Im very glad you came, for I wished very much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. Ive never fotten how good you were long ago to Tom, aoo; but I was not sure that you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of trouble sihen, and I think that makes ohink more of what happened before the trouble came.
`I t believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought of you, said Philip, timidly. `Do you know, when I was away, I made a picture of you as you looked that m iudy when you said you would not fet me.
Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and ope. Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks hanging down behind her ears, looking into space with strange, dreamy eyes. It was a water-colour sketch, of real merit as a portrait.
`O dear, said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure. `What a queer little girl I was. I remember myself with my hair in that way, in that pink frock. I really was like a gypsy. I daresay I am now, she added, after a little pause: `am I like what you expected me to be?
The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full bright glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said, quietly, `No, Maggie.
The light died out a little from Maggies face, and there was a slight trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn away her head, and Philip tio look at her. Then he said, slowly,
`You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be.
`Am I? said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She turned her face away from him and took some steps looking straight before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her sciouso this new idea. Girls are so aced to think of dress as the main ground of vanity, that in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie had thought more of abandoning all care for ador, than of renoung the plation of her face. paring herself with elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she could produy effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the silence well. He walked by her side, watg her face, as if that sight left no room for any other wish. They had <q></q>passed from among the fir-trees and had now e to a green hollow almost surrounded by an amphitheatre of the pale pink dogroses. But as the light about them had brightened, Maggies face had lost its glow. She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip again, she said in a serious, sad voice,
`I wish we could have been friends - I mean, if it would have been good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear ihing: I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little. The old books went; and Tom is different - and my father. It is like death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And I must part with you: we must ake any notice of each ain. That was that I wao speak to you for. I wao let you know, that Tom and I t do as we like about such things, and that if I behave as if I had fotten all about you, it is not out of envy or pride - or - or any bad feeling.
Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on, and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of pain of Philips face gave him a stronger resemblao his boyish self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.
`I know - I see all that you mean, he said in a voice that had bee feebler from discement, `I know what there is to keep us apart on both sides. But it is nht, Maggie - dont you be angry with me, I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts - it is nht to sacrifice everything to other peoples unreasonable feelings. I would give up a great deal for my father; but I would not give up a friendship or - or an attat of any sort, in obedieo any wish of his that I didnt reise as right.
`I dont know, said Maggie, musingly. `Often, when I have been angry and distented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up anything - and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I could think away all my duty. But no good has ever e of that - it was an evil state of mind. Im quite sure that whatever I might do, I should wish in the end that I had gohout anything for myself, rather than have made my fathers life harder to him.
`But would it make his life harder, if we were to see each other sometimes? said Philip. He was going to say something else, but checked himself.
`O, Im sure he wouldnt like it. Dont ask me why, or anything about it, said Maggie, in a distressed tone. `My father feels sly about some things. He is not at all happy.
`No more am I, said Philip, impetuously, `I am not happy.
`Why? said Maggie, gently. `At least - I ought not to ask - but Im very, very sorry.
Philip turo walk on as if he had not patieo stand still any longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and bushes in silence. After that last word of Philips Maggie could not bear to insist immediately on their parting.
`Ive been a great deal happier, she said, at last, timidly, `since I have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being distented because I couldnt have my own will. Our life is determined for us - and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing and only think of bearing what is laid upon us and doing what is given us to do.
`But I <var>99lib?</var>t give up wishing, said Philip, impatiently. `It seems to me we ever give up longing and wishing while we are thhly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures - I long to be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and t produce what I want. That is pain to me, and always will be pain, until my faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then, there are many other things I long for - here Philip hesitated a little, and then said - `things that other men have, and that will always be denied me. My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it - I would rather not have lived.
`O Philip, said Maggie, `I wish you didnt feel so. But her heart began to beat with something of Philips distent.
`Well, then, said he, turning quickly round and fixing his grey eyes eingly on her face, `I should be teo live, if you would let me see you sometimes. Then, checked by a fear which her face suggested, he looked away again, and said more calmly, `I have no friend to whom I tell everything - no one who cares enough about me. And if I could only see you now and then, and you would let me talk to you a little, and show me that you cared for me - and that we may always be friends i, and help each other - then I might e to be glad of life.
`But how I see you, Philip? said Maggie, falteringly. (Could she really do him good? It would be very hard to say `good-by this day, and not speak to him again. Here was a new io vary the days - it was so much easier to renouhe i before it came.)
`If you would let me see you here sometimes - walk with you here - I would be tented if it were only once or twi a month. That could injure no ones happiness, and it would sweeten my life. Besides-- Philip went on, with all the iive astuteness of love at one-and-twenty, `if there is ay between those who belong to us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship - I mean, that by our influen both sides we might bring about a healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could know everything about them. And I dont believe there is ay in my own fathers mind: I think he has proved the trary.
Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under flig thoughts. It seemed to her ination that to see Philip now and then and keep up the bond of friendship with him, was something not only i but good; perhaps she might really help him to find te, as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet musiaggie; but athwart it there came an urgent monotonous warning from another voice which she had been learning to obey - the warning that suterviews implied secrecy, implied doing something she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered, must cause anger and pain, and that the admission of anything so near doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuadihat the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for oo the injury of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk from because of an unjustifiable vindictiveowards his father - poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only because he was deformed. The idea that he might bee her lover, or that her meeting him could cause disap<details></details>proval in that light, had not occurred to her, and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough - saw it with a certain pang, although it made her sent to his request the less unlikely. There was bittero him in the perception that Maggie was almost as frank and unstraiowards him as when she was a child.
`I t say either yes or no, she said at last, turning round and walking towards the way she had e, `I must wait, lest I should decide wrongly. I must seek fuidance.
`May I e again, then - to-morrow - or the day - or week?
`I think I had better write, said Maggie faltering again. `I have to go to St Oggs sometimes, and I put the letter in the post.
`O no, said Philip eagerly. `That would not be so well. My father might see the letter - and - he has not ay, I believe, but he views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth and position. Pray let me e here once more. Tell me when it shall be; or, if you t tell me, I will e as often as I till I do see you.
`I think it must be so, then, said Maggie, `for I t be quite certain of ing here any particular evening.
Maggie felt a great relief in adj the decision. She was free now to enjoy the minutes of panionship - she almost thought she might linger a little: the ime they met, she should have to pain Philip by telling him her determination.
`I t help thinking, she said, looking smilingly at him, after a few moments of silence, `how stra is that we should have met and talked to each other just as if it had been only yesterday when we parted at Lorton. A we must both be very much altered in those five years - I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a sort of feeling that I was the same Maggie? - I was not quite so sure that you would be the same: I know you are so clever, and you must have seen a so much to fill your mind - I was not quite sure you would care about me now.
`I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I might see you, said Philip. `I mean, the same ihing that made me like you better than any one els<a></a>e. I dont want to explain that: I dont think any of the stro effects our natures are susceptible of ever be explained. We either detect the process by which they are arrived at nor the mode in which they a us. The greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child - he couldnt have told how he did it - and we t tell why we feel it to be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our uanding make no plete iory of. Certain strains of music affect me sely - I ever hear them without their ging my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would last I might be capable of heroisms.
`Ah! I know what you mean about music - I feel so, said Maggie, clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. `At least, she added, in a saddeone, `I used to feel so when I had any music: I never have any now, except the an at church.
`And you long for it, Maggie? said Philip, looking at her with affeate pity. `Ah, you have very little that is beautiful in your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were a little girl.
They were e back to the hollow, round which the dogroses grew, and they both paused uhe charm of the fa?ry evening light, reflected from the pale-pink clusters.
`No, I have given up books, said Maggie, quietly, `except a very, very few.
Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was looking at the back, as he said,
`Ah, this is the sed volume, I see, else you might have liked to take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a se for a picture.
Maggie had looked at the back too and saw the title: it revived an old impression with overmastering force.
`"The Pirate," she said, taking the book from Philips hands. `O, I began that once - I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland - and I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head, and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what is the real end. For a long while I could my mind away from the Shetland Isles - I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough sea.
Maggie spoke rapidly with glistening eyes.
`Take that volume home with you, Maggie, said Philip, watg her with delight. `I dont want it now. I shall make a picture of you, instead - you among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows.
Maggie had not heard a word he had said - she was absorbed in a page at which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it back to Philip shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to say `avaunt to floating visions.
`Do keep it, Maggie, said Philip, eingly, `it will give you pleasure.
`No, thank you, said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and walking on. `It would make me in love with this world again, as I used to be; it would make me long to see and know many things - it would make me long for a full life.
`But you will not always be shut up in your present lot: why should you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism - I dont like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.
`But not for me - not for me, said Maggie, walking more hurriedly. `Because I should want too much. I must wait - this life will not last long.
`Dont hurry away from me without saying "good by," Maggie, said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she tiill to walk along without speaking. `I must not go any farther, I think, must I?
`O no, I fot; goodby, said Maggie, pausing and putting out her hand to him. The a brought her feeling ba a strong current to Philip, and after they had stood looking at each other in silence for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand,
`Im very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks. I remember saying to you, that I thought you cared for me more than Tom did.
`Ah, Maggie, said Philip, almost fretfully, `you would never love me so well as you love your brother.
`Perhaps not, said Maggie, simply, `but then, you know, the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the Floss while he held my hand - everything before that is dark to me. But I shall never fet you - though we must keep apart.
`Dont say so, Maggie, said Philip. `If I kept that little girl in my mind for five years, didnt I earn some part in her? She ought not to take herself quite away from me.
`Not if I were free, said Maggie, `but I am not - I must submit. She hesitated a moment and then added, `And I wao say to you, that you had better not take more notiy brother than just bowing to him. He oold me not to speak to you again, and he doesnt ge his mind... O dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good by. She gave him her hand once more.
`I shall e here as often as I till I see you again, Maggie. - Have some feeling for me, as well as for others.
`Yes, yes, I have, said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philips gaze after her remained immovable for minutes, as if he saw her still.
Maggie went home, with an inward flict already begun; Philip went home to do nothing but remember and hope. You hardly help blaming him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a full sciousness of his feeling towards her to aid him in foreseeing the character his plated interviews with her would bear in the opinion of a third person. But you must not suppose that he was capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some happiness into Maggies life - seeking this even more than any direds for himself. He could give her sympathy - he could give her help. There was not the slightest promise of love towards him in her manner; it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was twelve: perhaps, she would never love him - perhaps no woman ever could love him: well, then, he would ehat - he should at least have the happiness of seeing her - of feeling some nearo her. And he clutched passiohe possibility, that she might love him: perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could e to associate him with that watchful tenderness, which her nature would be so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him - surely Maggie was that woman: there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no oo claim it all. Then - the pity of it that a mind like hers should be withering in its very youth, like a young forest tree, for want of the light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hihat, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be her guardian angel; he would do anything bear anything for her sake - except not seeing her.
百度搜索 The Mill on the Floss 天涯 或 The Mill on the Floss 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.