The Age of Innocence, Chapter 35

歌手： Edith Wharton • 专辑：The Age of Innocence (unabridged) • 发布时间：2017-01-27 
But Archer had seen, on his last visit to Paris,
the delicious play of Labiche,
“Le Voyage de M. Perrichon,”
and he remembered M. Perrichon’s dogged and undiscouraged attachment to the young man whom he had pulled out of the glacier.
The van der Luydens had rescued Madame Olenska from a doom almost as icy;
and though there were many other reasons for being attracted to her,
Archer knew that beneath them all
lay the gentle and obstinate determination to go on rescuing her.

He felt a distinct disappointment on learning that she was away;
and almost immediately remembered that,
only the day before, he had refused an invitation
to spend the following Sunday with the Reggie Chiverses at their house on the Hudson,
a few miles below Skuytercliff.

He had had his fill long ago
of the noisy friendly parties at Highbank,
with coasting, ice-boating, sleighing,
long tramps in the snow,
and a general flavour of mild flirting and milder practical jokes.
He had just received a box of new books from his London book-seller,
and had preferred the prospect of a quiet Sunday at home with his spoils.
But he now went into the club writing-room,
wrote a hurried telegram,
and told the servant to send it immediately.
He knew that Mrs. Reggie didn’t object
to her visitors suddenly changing their minds,
and that there was always a room to spare in her elastic house.

End of Chapter 14

The AGE of INNOCENCE

BY EDITH WHARTON

BOOK I

Chapter 15

Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses’ on Friday evening,
and on Saturday went conscientiously
through all the rites appertaining to a week-end at Highbank.

In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few of the hardier guests;
in the afternoon he “went over the farm” with Reggie,
and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables,
to long and impressive disquisitions on the horse;
after tea
he talked in a corner of the firelit hall with a young lady
who had professed herself broken-hearted when his engagement was announced,
but was now eager to tell him
of her own matrimonial hopes;
and finally, about midnight,
he assisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor’s bed,
dressed up a burglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt,
and saw in the small hours by joining
in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the basement.
But on Sunday after luncheon
he borrowed a cutter,
and drove over to Skuytercliff.

People had always been told
that the house at Skuytercliff
was an Italian villa.
Those who had never been to Italy believed it;
so did some who had.
The house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in his youth,
on his return from the “grand tour,”
and in anticipation of his approaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet.
It was a large square wooden structure,
with tongued and grooved walls
painted pale green and white,
a Corinthian portico,
and fluted pilasters between the windows.
From the high ground on which it stood
a series of terraces
bordered by balustrades and urns
descended in the steel-engraving style
to a small irregular lake
with an asphalt edge
overhung by rare weeping conifers.
To the right and left,
the famous weedless lawns
studded with “specimen” trees
(each of a different variety)
rolled away to long ranges of grass
crested with elaborate cast-iron ornaments;
and below, in a hollow,
lay the four-roomed stone house
which the first Patroon
had built on the land granted him in 1612.

Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky
the Italian villa loomed up rather grimly;
even in summer it kept its distance,
and the boldest coleus bed
had never ventured nearer
than thirty feet from its awful front.
Now, as Archer rang the bell,
the long tinkle seemed
to echo through a mausoleum;
and the surprise of the butler who at length responded to the call
was as great as though he had been summoned from his final sleep.

Happily Archer was of the family,
and therefore,
irregular though his arrival was,
entitled to be informed
that the Countess Olenska was out,
having driven to afternoon service with Mrs. van der Luyden exactly three quarters of an hour earlier.

“Mr. van der Luyden,” the butler continued, “is in, sir;
but my impression is
that he is either finishing his nap
or else reading yesterday’s Evening Post.
I heard him say, sir, on his return from church this morning,
that he intended to look through the Evening Post after luncheon;
if you like, sir,
I might go to the library door and listen—”

But Archer, thanking him,
said that he would go and meet the ladies;
and the butler, obviously relieved,
closed the door on him majestically.

A groom took the cutter to the stables,
and Archer struck through the park to the high-road.
The village of Skuytercliff was only a mile and a half away,
but he knew that Mrs. van der Luyden never walked,
and that he must keep to the road to meet the carriage.
Presently, however,
coming down a foot-path that crossed the highway,
he caught sight of a slight figure in a red cloak,
with a big dog running ahead.
He hurried forward,
and Madame Olenska stopped short
with a smile of welcome.

“Ah, you’ve come!”
she said,
and drew her hand from her muff.

The red cloak made her look gay and vivid,
like the Ellen Mingott of old days;
and he laughed as he took her hand,
and answered:
“I came to see what you were running away from.”

Her face clouded over,
but she answered:
“Ah, well—you will see, presently.”

The answer puzzled him.
“Why—
do you mean that you’ve been overtaken?”

She shrugged her shoulders,
with a little movement like Nastasia’s,
and rejoined in a lighter tone:
“Shall we walk on?
I’m so cold after the sermon.
And what does it matter, now you’re here to protect me?”

The blood rose to his temples
and he caught a fold of her cloak.
“Ellen—what is it?
You must tell me.”

“Oh, presently—
let’s run a race first:
my feet are freezing to the ground,”
she cried; and gathering up the cloak
she fled away across the snow,
the dog leaping about her
with challenging barks.
For a moment Archer stood watching,
his gaze delighted by the flash of the red meteor against the snow;
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