英汉翻译中英文小说

Certain Things Last

（某些持续的事情）

For a year now I have been thinking of writing a certain book. (这一年来，我一直想写一本有把握（在思考着写一本自己已经酝酿许久）的书）―Well, tomorrow I‘ll get at it,‖ I‘ve been saying to myself.（“好吧，明天我就完成它”过去自己一直这么说）（好，明天就开始动手写，我一直对自己这么说。）Every night when I get into bed I think about the book（每天晚上上床睡觉时就想着那本书）. The people that are to be put between its covers dance before my eyes. I live in the city of Chicago and at night motor trucks to rumbling along the roadway outside my house. Not so very far away there is an elevated railroad and after twelve o‘clock at night trains pass at pretty long intervals.听到家外面的公路上那些运货卡车隆隆地响。不远处有一条高架铁路，晚上过了十二点以后火车就开始通过，相互间隔得很远）Before it began I went to sleep during one of the quieter intervals but now that the idea of writing this book has got into me I lie awake and think.（过去在十二点之前趁着那一会儿的安静空隙入睡，但现在我躺在床上思考，脑海出现了写书的想法）

For one thing it is hard to get the whole idea of the book fixed in the setting of the city I live in now.（在我如今居住的城市环境中要想得到这本书确切的想法很难） I wonder if you who do not try to write books, perhaps will understand what I mean.（我很惊奇如果你没有尝试过写书，也许会明白我说什么） Maybe you will, maybe you won‘t. It is a little hard to explain. You see, it‘s something like this. （也许你会明白，或者不明白。这解释起来有点困难。就好比这样）You as a reader will, some evening or some afternoon, be reading in my book and put it down. You will go out of your house and into the street.（书，读完后把它放下。你可能会离开家，走到街上） The sun

is shinning and you meet people you know. There are certain facts of your life just the same as of mine（太阳在照耀着大地，你遇到你认识的人。这些就是我跟你生活中的一些确切的事实）. If you are a man, you go from your house to an office and sit at a desk where you pick up a telephone and begin to talk about some matter of business with a client or a customer of your house. （如果你是一个男人，离开家到办公室上班，坐在桌子边接电话，开始跟你的客户或公司的顾客讨论一些关于生意上的问题）If you are an honest housewife, the ice man has come or there drifts into your mind the thought that yesterday you forgot to remember some detail concerned with running your house.(如果你是个老实的家庭主妇，那个看起来酷酷的男人已经来过，或者你突然想起来你忘记了那个男人昨天来过这里） Little outside thoughts come and go in your mind, and it is so with me too. （你的脑子里，我也不例外）For example when I have written the above sentence, I wonder why I have written the words ―honest housewife.‖A housewife I suppose can be as dishonest as I can. （比如说，当我写完上面那些句子时，会很惊讶自己为什么要写“老实的家庭主妇。”我假设的家庭主妇也可以像自己一样一点都不老实）What I am trying to make clear is that, as a writer, I am up against the same things that confront you, as a reader.（我想弄清楚的是一个作家与读者面对的是同样的事情）

What I want to do is to express in my book a sense of the strangeness that has gradually , since I was a boy , been creeping more and more into my feeling about everyday life .（我想做的就是表达日常生活中所表现出来的陌生冷淡，这种感觉从我小时候开始渐渐地爬进我的内心）（在我心里，这种感觉可能在我小时候就开始萌芽了。） It would all be very simple if I would write of life in an interior city of China or in an African forest .（面的生活，一切就变得简单多了） A man I know has recently told me of another man who , wanting to write a book about

Parisian life and having no money to go to Paris to study the life there , went instead to the city of New Orleans whose ancestors were French .（最近一个我认识的人告诉我说，有一个人想写一本关于巴黎人生活的书，但是没有钱去巴黎感受当地的生活，无奈选择去了新奥尔良，因为他们的祖先是法国人）"They will have retained enough of the flavor of Parisian life for me to get the feeling ," he said to himself . The man told me that the book turned out to be very successful and that the life of Paris read with delight a translation of his work as a study of French life , and I am only sorry I can't as simple a way out of my own job .（“对我来说，巴黎人的生活将会保持足够的风味，这点让我有自己的灵感。”他自言自语说。那个人告诉我说那本书非常成功，很出人意料，而且人们把它翻译出来作为研究法国人生活的作品，但是我很抱歉，因为在我看来不能对自己的工作如此地草草了事） (“他们会沿袭着法国人生活的独特韵味，这点对于我来说，我非常有感觉，”他对自己说到。）

The whole point with me is that my wish to write this book springs from a somewhat different notion . " If I can write everything out plainly , perhaps I will myself understand better what has happened , " （我的整个中心就是我写这本书的意愿来自于一个不一样的概念。“如果我能够把任何事都写得明明白白地，也许自己会更好地理解发生了什么） I said to myself and smile . During these days I spend a good deal of time smiling at nothing . It bothers people . " What are you smiling about now ?" they ask , and I am up against as hard a job trying to answer as I am trying to underway my book . （我自言自语，微笑着。这几天我大多数时候都会无缘无故地微笑。这烦扰到别人。“你现在在笑什么？”他们问我，而我此时面）

Sometimes in the morning I sit down at my desk and begin writing , taking as my subject a scene from my own boyhood . Very well , I am coming home from school .（有时候，早上我

坐在桌子旁，开始写作，仿佛回到自己的童年时代。恰巧的是，我正从学校回家）The town in which I was born and raised was a dreary , lonely little place in the far western section of the state of Nebraska , and I imagine myself walking along one of its streets .（我出生和成长在内布拉斯加州往西很远的一个沉闷，孤寂的小镇，我想象自己沿着其中一条街道走） Sitting upon a curbing before a store is a sheep herder who has left his flock many miles away in the foothills at the base of the western mountains and has come into our town , for what purpose he himself does not seem to know . （在一个羊群牧人商店前面的石头坐着，那个牧人把他的羊群丢在距离很远的西边高山底下的山麓小丘，然后来到我们小镇，至于有什么目的，他也不知道）He is a bearded man without a hat and sits with his mouth slightly open , staring up and down the street .（他长着胡须，没有戴帽子，就坐在那里，嘴巴微微张开，盯着街上看） There is a half-wild uncertain look in his eyes and his eyes has awakened a creepy feeling in me.(他的眼睛透出一种不确定的眼神，并唤醒了我那令人毛骨悚然的想法） I hurry away with a kind of dread of some unknown thing cating at my vital organs. Old men are great talkers. It may be that only kids know the real terror of loneliness.（我赶紧跑开，感觉在自己重要的器官里有着一些害怕却又不知道的东西。上了年纪的人都是比较健谈的。） （）

I have tried, you see, to start my book at that particular point in my own life. ‖（你看，我已经以我生活中一种特定的视野作为出发点来开始写作。）If I can catch exactly the feeling of that afternoon of my boyhood, I can give the reader the key to my character,‖ I tell myself.（“如果我能准确地把握孩提时代那个下午的感觉，就能够给出了解我性格的关键点。”我告诉自己。）

The plan won‘t work. When I have written five, ten, fifteen hundred words, I stop writing and look out at my window.（计划

失效了。当我写下500个，1000个，1500个单词时，我停了下来，望着窗外。） A ma is diving a team of horses hitched to a wagon-load of coal along my street and is swearing at another man who drives a Ford. (有个人开着一辆载着煤的四轮运货马车从街道经过，马被钩套住，排成一排，驾驶人正在咒骂另外一个开着福特汽车的人）They have both stopped and are cursing each other. The coal wagon driver‘s face is black with coal dust but anger has reddened his cheeks and the red and black have produced a dusky brown like the skin of a Negro.（他们都停了下来，互相咒骂着。四轮运货马车的司机像煤一般黑，但是怒气使他的脸颊变得通红，跟黑人几乎没区别）（由于煤灰的原因，四轮运货马车司机的脸是黑的，但是怒气使他的脸颊变得通红，而红黑相加就显得有点像黑人一样的颜色）

I have got up from my typewriter and walk up and down in my room smoking cigarettes. My fingers pick up little things on my desk and then put them down.（从趴在打字机的发呆状态醒过来，抽着雪茄在房间里踱来踱去。手指从桌子上拿起一点东西，又把它放下）

I am nervous like the race horses I used to be with at one period of my boyhood. （童年时代曾经有一段时间我很害怕与比赛用马呆在一起）Before a race and when they have been brought out on the tracks before all the people and before the race started, their legs quivered. （在比赛开始前，或者它们在观众面前的跑道上留下自己的痕迹，它们的腿在抖动）Sometimes there was a horse got into such a state that when the race started he would do nothing. ―Look at him. He can‘t untrack himself,‖ we said.（种状态：当比赛开始后，什么也不做。“看，它输给了自己”。我们说）

Right now I am in that state about my book. I run to the typewriter, write for a time, and then walk nervously about. I smoke a whole package of cigarettes during the morning.（现在，当我写作的时候就处于这种状态。我走到打字机旁，写一会

儿，然后很紧张似的走来走去。整个上午，我抽了一整盒雪茄。）（香烟）

And then suddenly I have again torn up all I have written. ―It won‘t do,‖ I have told myself.（作的纸张。）

In this book I am not intending to try to give you the story of my life. ―What of life, any man‘s life?—forked radishes running about, writing declarations of independence, telling themselves little lies, having dreams, getting puffed now and then with what is called greatness. （在这本书里，我并不打算给你们讲我生活的故事。“什么是生活？什么是男人的生活？---经常出现的叉状小萝卜，撰写独立宣言，讲一些小小的谎言，拥有自己的梦想，放轻松，知道什么叫伟大。）Life begins, runs its course and ends,‖ a man I once knew told me one evening, and it is true. Even as I write these words a hearse is going through my street. （“生活开始了，有它自己的经过，然后结束。”这是一天晚上有个算认识的人告诉我的，很相信他。当我写到这里时一辆灵车正在从街道经过。）Two young girls, who are going off with two young men to walk I suppose in the fields where the city ends, stop laughing for a moment and look up at the hearse. It will be a moment before they forget the passing hearse and begin laughing again.（两个年轻男人扶着两个年轻女孩子走，我在想只有当这个城市末日了，他们才不会笑，才会认真地看着灵车。也有可能他们忘记了刚经过不久的灵车，）

―A life is like that, it passes like that,‖ I say to myself as I tear up my sheets and begin again walking and smoking my cigarettes.（“生活就是这样子，时间在慢慢地流去。”我对自己说，撕碎了纸张，开始抽着雪茄走来走去。）

If you think I am sad, having these thoughts about the brevity and insignificance of a life, you are mistaken. In the state I am in such things do not matter. ―Certain things last,‖ I say to myself.（如果你有觉得我伤心这样简洁，没有意义的

想法，你就错了。在我所处于的状态中有些事情显得没那么重要。“某些事情在持续着。”我对自己说。） ―One might make things a little clear. One might even imagine a man, say a Negro, going along a city street and humming a song. It catches the ear of another man who repeats it on the next day. A thin strand of song, like a tiny stream far up in some hill, begins to flow down into the wide plains. It waters the fields. It freshens the air above a hot stuffy city.‖（“单。有人可能想象出一个男人，在城市的街道上行走，嘴里哼唱着歌。歌声走进另外一个男人的耳朵，并使他第二天重复哼唱。歌曲中的一小部分就好像高山上一条小小的河流，慢慢地流下宽阔的平原。它湿润了田野。它给这个闷热枯燥的城市净化了空气。）

Now I have got myself worked up into a state. I am always doing that these days. I write again and again tear up my words. I go out of my room and walk about.（入到那种状态工作。这些天我都这么做。我反复写作，又反复撕碎纸张。我走出房间，到处走走。）

I have been with a woman I have found and who loves me. It has happened that I am a man who has not been loved by women and have all my life been awkward and a little mixed up when in their presence. Perhaps I have had too much respect for them, have wanted them too much. That may be. Anyway I am not so rattled in her presence.（我找到一个喜欢我的人，并住在一起。我不容易被别人喜欢，生活中非常笨拙，与其他人的风度相比，存在着一点点不和谐。也许我对他们有太多的尊重，太想得到他们。也许是这样。不管怎样，在她面前，我并没有显得很慌乱。）

She, I think, has a certain control over herself and that is helpful to me. When I am with her I keep smiling to myself and thinking, ―it would be rather a joke all around if she found me out.‖（

于我的。与她在一起的时候，我保持微笑，想：“如果她看穿了我的内心，就说是开玩笑好了。”）

When she is looking in another direction I study her a little. That she should seem to like me so much surprises me and I am sore at my own surprise. I grow humble and do not like my humbleness either. ―what is she up to? She is very lovely. Why is she wasting her time with me?‖（我注意了她一下。看起来她应该喜欢给我很多惊喜。从小我就很谦逊，现在不喜欢这样子了。“她想做什么？她那么可爱。为什么要在我身上浪费时间呢？”）

I shall remember always certain hours when I have been with her. Late on a certain Sunday afternoon I remember I sat in a chair in a room in her apartment. I sat with my hand against my cheek, leaning a little forward. I had dressed myself carefully because I was going to see her, had put on my best suit of clothes. My hair was carefully combed and my glasses carefully balanced on my rather large nose.（我仍然记得跟她在一起的某些特别的时刻。记得是一个星期天的下午，我坐在她公寓房间的椅子上。用手托着脸颊，身体稍微向我的头发梳得很有条理，很仔细地戴好自己的眼镜。）

And there I was, in her apartment in a certain city, in a chair in a rather dark corner, with my hand against my cheek, looking as solemn as an old owl.(我就这样坐在她的公寓里面一个角落的椅子上，双手摸着脸颊，样子严肃得像只猫头鹰。） We had been walking about and had come into the house and she had gone away leaving me sitting there, as I have said. The apartment was in a part of the city where many foreign people lived and from my chair I could, by turning my head a little, look down into a street filled with Italians.（我们走了很久，进入到屋子里，她走开，剩我一个人坐在那里。公寓

从我的位置就可以看到下面条街有很多意）

It was growing dark outside and I could just see the people in the street. If I cannot remember facts about my own and other people‘s lives, I can always remember every feeling that has gone through me, or that I have thought went through anyone about me.（外面夜幕降临，我还可以看到街上的人们。如果我不能记住自己和别人生活中的事情，那我可以记住脑海里的每一个感觉，或者是任何一个从我身边经过的人。） The men going along the street below the window all had dark swarthy faces and nearly all of them wore, somewhere about them, a spot of color. The younger men, who walked with a certain swagger, all had on flaming red ties. （沿着街道走的男人都是黑皮肤的，几乎所有人都被灯光照射成一种颜色。一些走路大摇大摆的年轻点的男人都戴着发光的红色领带。）The street was dark but far down the street there was a spot where a streak of sunlight still managed to find its way in between two tall buildings and fell sharp against the face of a smaller red-brick building. It pleased my fancy to imagine the street had also put on a red necktie, perhaps because there would be lovemaking along the street before Monday morning.（虽然大街比较暗，但是在街的远端有一束灯光照射着，它仍然想在两幢高楼大厦之间找到自己的路线。这引起了我的好奇，自己想象这条街仿佛戴上了红色领带，也许人们想在周一早上到来前玩得开心点。）

Anyway I sat there looking and thinking such thoughts as came to me. The women who went along the street nearly all had dark colored shawls drawn up about their faces. The roadway was filled with children whose voices made a sharp tinkling sound.（我就坐在椅子上看着下面，想着很多东西。沿着街行走的女人几乎每个都用黑色的披肩掩住她们的脸。很多小朋友在街上玩耍，充满欢声笑语。）

My fancy went out of my body in a way of speaking, I suppose, and I began thinking of myself as being at that moment

in a city in Italy. Americans like myself who have not traveled are always doing that. (想象力蹦出我的身体，我把它说出来，开始幻想自己此时就在意大利的某个城市。没有旅游过得美国人经常这样做。） （我的想象力通过言语从我的脑子里跳了出来）I suppose the people of another nation would not understand how doing it is almost necessity in our lives, but any American will understand. The American, particularly a middle-American, sits as I was doing at that moment, dreaming you understand, and suddenly he is in Italy or in a Spanish town where a dark-looking man is riding a bony horse along a street, or he is being driven over the Russian steppes in a sled by a man whose face is all covered with whiskers.（） It is an idea of the Russians got from looking at cartoons in newspapers but it answers the purpose. In the distance a pack of wolves are following the sled. A fellow I once knew told me that Americans are always up to such tricks because all of our old stories and dreams have come to us from over the sea and because we have no old stories and dreams of our own.（这是俄罗斯人从报纸上看卡通而启发的主意。不远处，一群狼跟在雪橇后面。有个人告诉我说美国人总是使用这些招数，因为我们古老的故事和梦想都是从海洋彼岸传过来的，因为我们并没有属于自己的故事与梦想。）

Of that I can‘t say. I am not putting myself forward as a thinker on the subject of the causes of the characteristics of the American people or any other monstrous or important matter of that kind.（我不能这么说。我没有把自己认为是一个研究者

来研究美国人性格形成的原因或者其他一些怪异，重要的事情。）

But anyway , there I was , sitting , as I have told you , in the Italian section of a American city and dreaming of myself in Italy . （但是不管怎样，正如我说的，就坐在某个美国城市的意大利人口集中区，然后幻想着自己就在意大利。）

To be sure I wasn't alone . Such a fellow as myself never is alone in his dreams .And as I sat having my dream , the woman with whom I had been spending the afternoon , and with whom I am no doubt what is called "in love " , passed between me and the window through which I had been looking . She had on a dress of some soft clinging stuff and her slender figure made a very lovely line across the light . Well , she was like a young tree you might see on a hill , in a windstorm perhaps .（说真的，我并不觉得孤独。像我这类人在自己的梦中是不会孤独的。当我沉醉在梦中的时候，一个女人和一个男人在我的视线中经过，而我毫不犹豫认为这就是“在热恋中”。那个女人穿着件紧身的衣服，）

What I did , as you may have supposed , was to take her with me into Italy .（你可能想到，我做的这些就是想把她带回意大利。）

The woman became at once , and in my dream , a very beautiful princess in a strange land I have never visited . It may be that when I was a boy in my western town some traveler came there to lecture on life in Italian cities before a club that met at the Presbyterian church an to which my mother belonged , or perhaps later I read some novel the name of which I can't remember .（在我的梦里面，一片我从未探索过的土地上，曾经一度觉得那个女人是一位美丽的公主。可能因为当我还是小男孩的时候，居住在一个西方小镇上，一些游客来到意大利城市，在俱乐部的前面进行关于生活方面的演讲，俱乐

部的对面就是基督教长老会，我母亲就是属于哪个教会的，也可能是因为我读了一些忘记了名字的小说。）

And so my princess had come down to me along a path out of a green wooded hill where her castle was located . She had walked under blossoming trees in the uncertain evening light and some blossoms had fallen on her black hair . The perfume of the Italian nights was in her hair . That notion came into me head . That's what I mean . （）

What really happened was that she saw me sitting there lost in ma dream and , coming to me , rumpled my hair and upset the glasses perched on my big nose and , having done that , went laughing out of the room .（真正发生的是她看见我坐在那里发呆，走过来弄乱我的头发，动乱我戴在大鼻子上的眼镜，然后笑着走开。）

I speak all of this because later , on that same evening , I lost all notion of the book I am now writing and sat until three in the morning writing on another book , making the woman the central figure . " It will be a story of old times , filled with moons and stars and the fragrance of half-decayed trees in an old land , " I told myself , but when I had written many pages I tore them up too . （我把这些事情全部讲出来是因为在后来的某一天（同一天）晚上，我突然失去了当时正在写书的所有灵感，就一直坐到凌晨三点，开始写另外一本书，把那个女人定义为主角。“这将是一个古老时代的故事，）

―Something has happened to me or I should not be filled with the idea of writing this book at all,‖I told myself going to my window to look out at the night. ―At a certain hour of a certain day and in a certain place, something happened that has changed the whole current of my life.（“有些事情在我身上发生或者我不应该老是想着写书的事情。”我跟自己说去床边（窗边）看看外面夜晚的景色。“在某个地方，某一天的某个时刻，有些事情发生了（那些事情的发生），是以至于改变我（如今）生活的整个趋势。”）

―The thing to be done,‖ I then told myself, ―is to begin writing my book by telling as clearly as I can the adventures of that certain moment.‖（己说，）

“Unused”二

When the soft darkness of the summer evening came May went a little way along the street and stopped by the deserted shed. The girl in the rocking chair on the porch saw her there , and seemed to understand May‘s fear of her aunt. Arising she opened the door and peered into the house to be sure she was unobserved and then came down a brick walk to the gate and along the street to May, occasionally looking back to be sure she had escaped unnoticed. A large stone lay at the edge of the sidewalk before the shed and May urged the new girl to sit down beside her and rest herself.

May was flushed with excitement. ―I wonder if she knows? I wonder if she knows about me?‖ she thought.

―I saw you wanted to be friendly and I thought I‘d come and talk,‖ the new girl said. She was filled with a vague curiosity. ―I heard something about you but I know it ain‘t true, ‖ she said.

May‘s heart jumped and her hands trembled. ―I‘ve let myself in for something, ‖ she thought. The impulse to jump to her feet and run away along the sidewalk, to escape at once from the situation her hunger for companionship had created, almost overcame her and she half arose from the stone and then sat down again. She became suddenly angry and when she spoke her voice was firm, filled with indignation. ―I know what you mean,‖ she said sharply, ―you mean the fool story about me and Jerome Hadley in the woods?‖ The new girl nodded. ―I don‘t believe it, ‖ she said. ―My aunt heard it from a woman.‖

Now that Maud had boldly mentioned the affair, that had, May knew, made her an outlaw in the town‘s life May felt suddenly free, bold, capable of meeting any situation that might arise and was lost in wonder at her own display of courage. Well, she had wanted to love the new girl, take her as a friend, but now that impulse was lost in another passion that swept through her. She wanted to conquer, to come out of a bad situation with flying colors. With the boldness of another Lilian she began to speak, to tell lies. ―It just shows what happens, ‖ she said quickly. A re-creation of the incident in the wood with Jorome had come to her swiftly, like a flash of sunlight on a dark day. ―I went into the woods with Jerome Hadley—why? You won‘t believe it when I tell you, maybe, ‖ she added.

May began laying the foundation of her lie. ―He said he was in trouble and wanted to speak with me, off somewhere where no one could hear, in some secret place, ‖ she explained. ―I said, If you‘re in trouble let‘s go over into the woods at noon.‘ It was my idea, our going off together that way. When he told me he was in

trouble his eyes looked so hurt I never thought of reputation or nothing. I just said I‘d go and I been paid for it. A girl always has to pay if she‘s good to a man I suppose.‖

May tried to look and talk like a wise woman, as she imagined Lillian would have talked under the circumstances. ―I‘ve got a notion to tell what that Jerome Hadley talked to me about all the time when we were in there---in the woods ---but i won‘t , ‖ she declared . ―He lied about me afterwards because i wouldn‘t do what he want me to , but I‘ll keep my word. I won‘t tell you many names but I‘ll tell you this much ---I know enough to have Jerome Hadley sent to jail if i want to do it.‘‘

May watched her companion. To Maud , whose life had always been a dull affairs, the evening was like going to a theatre. It as better than that. It as like going to the theatre where the star is your friend, where you sit among strangers and have the sense of superiority that comes with knowing, as a person much like yourself, the hero in the velvet gown with the sword clanking at his side. ―Oh,do tell me all you dare. I want to know,‖ she said.

― It was about a woman he was in trouble,‖ May answered. ―One of these days maybe the whole town will find out what I alone know.‖ She leaned forward and touched Maud‘s arm. The lie she was telling made her feel glad and free. As on a dark day, when the sun suddenly breaks through clouds ,everything in life now seemed bright and glowing and her imagination took a great leap forward. She had been inventing a tale to save herself but went on for the joy of seeing what she could do with the story that had come suddenly, unexpectedly, to her lips. As when she was a girl in school her mind worked swiftly, eagerly. ―listen,‖ she said impressively,― and don‘t you never tell no one. Jerome Hadley wanted to kill a man here in this town, because he was in love with the man‘s woman. He had got poison and intended to give it to the woman. She is married and rich too. Her husband is a big man here in Bidwell. Jerome was to give the poison to the woman and she was to put it in her husband‘s coffee and, when the man died, the woman was to marry Jerome. I put a stop to it. I prevented the murder. Now do you understand why I went into the woods with that man?‖

The fever of excitement that had taken possession of May was transmitted to her companion. It drew them closer together and now Maud put her arm about May‘s waist. ―The nerve of him,‖ May said boldly, ―he wanted me to take the stuff to the woman‘ house and he offered me money too. He said the rich woman would give me

a thousand dollars, but I laughed at him. If anything happens to that man I‘ll tell and you‘ll get hung for murder,‘ that s what I said to him.

May described the scene that had taken place there in the deep dark forest with the man, intent upon murder. They fought, she said, for more than two hours and the man tried to kill her. She would have had him arrested at once, she explained, but to do so involved telling the story of the poison plot and she had given her word to saved him, and if he reformed, she would not tell. After a long time, when the man saw she was not to be moved and would neither take part in the plot or allow it to be carried out, he grew quieter. Then, as they were coming out of the woods, he sprang upon her again and tried to choke her. Some berry pickers in a field, among whom she had been working during the morning, saw the struggle.

―They went and told lies about me,‖ May said emphatically. They saw us struggling and they went and said he was making love to me. A girl there, who was in love with Jerome herself and was jealous when she saw us together, started the story. It spread all over town and now I‘m so ashamed I hardly dare to show my face.‖

With an air of helpless annoyance May arose. ―Well ,‖ she said, ―I promised him I wouldn‘t tell the name of the man he was going to murder or nothing about it and I won‘t. I‘ve told you too much as it is but you gave me your word you wouldn‘t tell. It‘s got to be a secret between us.‖ She started off along the sidewalk toward the Edgley house and then turned and ran back to the new girl, who had got almost to her own gate. ―You keep still,‖ May whispered dramatically. ―If you go talking now remember you may get a man hung.‖

Chapter III

A new life began to unfold itself to May Edgley. After the affair in the berry field, and until the time of conversation with Mard Welliver, she had felt as one dead. As she went about, in the Edgley household, doing the daily work, she sometimes stopped and stood still, on the stairs or in the kitchen by the stove. A whirlwind seemed to be going on around her while she stood thus, becalmed----fear made her body tremble. It had happened even in the moments when she was hidden under the elders by the creek. At such times the trunks of the willow trees and the fragrance of the elders comforted but did not comfort enough. There was something wanting. They were too impersonal, too sure of themselves.

To herself, at such moments, May was like one sealed up in a vessel of glass. The light of days came to her and from all sides came the sound of life going on but