登陆注册
19565700000016

第16章

"We mightn't, as it were, have got across--?""To where we are--no.We're HERE"--she made her weak emphasis.

"And much good does it do us!" was her friend's frank comment.

"It does us the good it can.It does us the good that IT isn't here.It's past.It's behind," said May Bartram."Before--" but her voice dropped.

He had got up, not to tire her, but it was hard to combat his yearning.She after all told him nothing but that his light had failed--which he knew well enough without her."Before--?" he blankly echoed.

"Before you see, it was always to COME.That kept it present.""Oh I don't care what comes now! Besides," Marcher added, "it seems to me I liked it better present, as you say, than I can like it absent with YOUR absence.""Oh mine!"--and her pale hands made light of it.

"With the absence of everything." He had a dreadful sense of standing there before her for--so far as anything but this proved, this bottomless drop was concerned--the last time of their life.

It rested on him with a weight he felt he could scarce bear, and this weight it apparently was that still pressed out what remained in him of speakable protest."I believe you; but I can't begin to pretend I understand.NOTHING, for me, is past; nothing WILL pass till I pass myself, which I pray my stars may be as soon as possible.Say, however," he added, "that I've eaten my cake, as you contend, to the last crumb--how can the thing I've never felt at all be the thing I was marked out to feel?"She met him perhaps less directly, but she met him unperturbed.

"You take your 'feelings' for granted.You were to suffer your fate.That was not necessarily to know it.""How in the world--when what is such knowledge but suffering?"She looked up at him a while in silence."No--you don't understand.""I suffer," said John Marcher.

"Don't, don't!"

"How can I help at least THAT?"

"DON'T!" May Bartram repeated.

She spoke it in a tone so special, in spite of her weakness, that he stared an instant--stared as if some light, hitherto hidden, had shimmered across his vision.Darkness again closed over it, but the gleam had already become for him an idea."Because I haven't the right--?""Don't KNOW--when you needn't," she mercifully urged."You needn't--for we shouldn't.""Shouldn't?" If he could but know what she meant!

"No--it's too much."

"Too much?" he still asked but with a mystification that was the next moment of a sudden to give way.Her words, if they meant something, affected him in this light--the light also of her wasted face--as meaning ALL, and the sense of what knowledge had been for herself came over him with a rush which broke through into a question."Is it of that then you're dying?"She but watched him, gravely at first, as to see, with this, where he was, and she might have seen something or feared something that moved her sympathy."I would live for you still--if I could." Her eyes closed for a little, as if, withdrawn into herself, she were for a last time trying."But I can't!" she said as she raised them again to take leave of him.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 撼龙经

    撼龙经

    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。
  • 创新青年工作

    创新青年工作

    本书分“前厅篇”和“客房篇”两部分,围绕前厅和客房运营的基本程序和内容,阐述了客观实用的管理方法。
  • 优秀班级管理的智慧

    优秀班级管理的智慧

    本书围绕教师如何才能形成属于自己的、生动有趣的并且易于让学生接受的课堂教学艺术技巧展开论述。阐述了教师除了要有高度的热情与责任感之外,还要有渊博的知识和一定的讲课技巧等全面素质能力。
  • 中国爷们儿

    中国爷们儿

    民国26年初冬,青岛地界发生了一件蹊跷事儿。城里的几家日本纱厂接二连三地遭了雷劈,浓烟与云彩连接在一起,天空跟罩了棉被似的黑。一时间,人心惶惶,以为来了灾年。那些日子,城里涌出来的人蚂蚁一样多,一群一群拖家带口,沿着黑黢黢的地平线,风卷残云一般,一路向北。沧口以北空旷的原野上,北风呼啸,枯枝摇曳,黑色的天幕更显得萧瑟与沉寂。(本故事纯属虚构。)
  • 残疾妈咪

    残疾妈咪

    一场车祸使纪小露失去了右小腿,肇事司机是她的主刀医生,同时也是她半年后下嫁的对象。医生很爱她,二人孕有一子。狄克帆,医生收养的长子,为人淡漠如水。高中三年级,通灵异者,可看见世间一切的幽魂。狄克非,医生收养的次子,为人阳光豪迈。高中二年级,无特殊异能。亲子狄克超两岁时医生心脏病猝死,留下了她孤儿寡母与两名养子。成了寡妇的纪小露带着亲子、养子过活。没有家人的庇护、遭受亲朋的非议、年仅25岁的她要如何在社会的滚滚浪潮中存活下去?惨遭强暴的她还能不能再站起身重新面对人生?
  • 春官宗伯

    春官宗伯

    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。
  • 中华上下五千年6

    中华上下五千年6

    《中华上下五千年》记述了中国从原始社会到中华民国成立的历史进程,对历代重大事件和重要历史人物都做了详细、准确的介绍。在祖国源远流长的传统文化中,中国历史是其中重要的组成部分。中华民族五千年来创造的奇迹有如夏夜的繁星,数不胜数,向世界展示了东方智慧的无穷魅力。丰厚的文化遗产不仅是炎黄子孙的骄傲,也是我们民族得以凝聚并且繁衍不息的源泉。
  • 迟年

    迟年

    彷徨着,我们都褪去了稚嫩的脸庞,却还忘不记,那些曾出现在我们生命里的人。
  • 穿越之姻缘错弄

    穿越之姻缘错弄

    她只想从容一世,奈何天意作弄,竟然落入青楼成为卖笑之人。她狠心毁掉容貌又费尽心机装傻装病,只求逃脱命运的掌控。一切都在她的计划之中,唯一的意外却是遇上了他……她是青楼丑丫头,他是当朝大太师。她满身脏污满手血腥,他却翩若谪仙潇洒自如。错位的身份,怎样都不是对的爱情……情节虚构,请勿模仿!
  • 亦魔亦道

    亦魔亦道

    道之源,神州之地,道与魔,人与仙,与天斗,与地斗……神州之外,神秘恐怖降临……臣服,亦或坚守