【英文读物】The Foolish Virgin.docx
《【英文读物】The Foolish Virgin.docx》由会员分享,可在线阅读,更多相关《【英文读物】The Foolish Virgin.docx(184页珍藏版)》请在得力文库 - 分享文档赚钱的网站上搜索。
1、【英文读物】The Foolish VirginCHAPTER I. A FRIENDLY WARNING“Mary Adams, youre a fool!”The single dimple in a smooth red cheek smiled in answer.“Youre repeating yourself, Jane”“You wont give him one hours time for just three sittings?”“Not a second for one sitting”“Hopeless!”Mary smiled provokingly, her wh
2、ite teeth gleaming in obstinate good humor.“Hes the most distinguished artist in America”“Ive heard so.”“It would be a liberal education for a girl of your training to know such a man”“Ill omit that course of instruction.”The younger woman was silent a moment, and a flush of anger slowly mounted her
3、 temples. The blue eyes were fixed reproachfully on her friend.“You really thought that I would pose?”“I hoped so.”“Alone with a man in his studio for hours?”Jane Anderson lifted her dark brows.“Why, no, I hardly expected that! Im sure he would take his easel and palette out into the square in front
4、 of the Plaza Hotel and let you sit on the base of the Sherman monument. The crowds would cheer and inspire himbah! Cant you have a little common-sense? There are a few brutes among artists, as there are in all professionseven among the superintendents of your schools. Gordons a great creative geniu
5、s. If youd try to flirt with him, hed stop his work and send you home. Youd be as safe in his studio as in your mothers nursery. Ive known him for ten years. Hes the gentlest, truest man Ive ever met. Hes doing a canvas on which he has set his whole heart.”“He can get professional models.”“For his u
6、sual work, yesbut this is the head of the Madonna. He saw you walking with me in the Park last week and has been to my studio a half-dozen times begging me to take you to see him. Please, Mary dear, do this for my sake. I owe Gordon a debt I can never pay. He gave me the cue to the work that set me
7、on my feet. He was big and generous and helpful when I needed a friend. He asked nothing in return but the privilege of helping me again if I ever needed it. You can do me an enormous favorplease.”Mary Adams rose with a gesture of impatience, walked to her window and gazed on the torrent of humanity
8、 pouring through Twenty-third Street from the beehives of industry that have changed this quarter of New York so rapidly in the last five years. She turned suddenly and confronted her friend.“How could you think that I would stoop to such a thing?”“Stoop!”“Yes,” she snapped, “pose for an artist! Id
9、as soon think of rushing stark naked through Twenty-third Street at noon!”The older woman looked at her flushed face, suppressed a sharp answer, broke into a fit of laughter and threw her arms around Marys neck.“Honey, youre such a hopeless little fool, youre delicious! You know that I love youdont
10、you?”The pretty lips quivered.“Yes.”“Could I possibly ask you to do a thing that would harm a single brown hair of your head?”The firm hand of the older girl touched a rebellious lock with tenderness.“Of course not, from your point of view, Jane dear,” the stubborn lips persisted. “But you see its n
11、ot my point of view. Youre older than I”Jane smiled.“Hoity toity, Miss! Im just twenty-eight and youre twenty-four. Age is not measured by calendars these days.”“I didnt mean that,” the girl apologized. “But youre an artist. Youre established and distinguished. You belong to a different world.”Jane
12、Anderson laid her hand softly on her friends.“Thats just it, dear. I do belong to a different worlda big new world of whose existence you are not quite conscious. You are living in the old, old world in which women have groped for thousands of years. I dont mind confessing that I undertook this job
13、of getting you to pose for Gordon for a double purpose. I wished to do something to repay the debt I owe himbut I wished far more to be of help to you. Youre living in the Dark Ages, and its a dangerous thing for a pretty girl to live in the Dark Ages and date her letters from New York to-day”“I don
14、t understand you in the least.”“And Im afraid you never will.”She paused suddenly and changed her tone.“Tell me now, are you happy in your work?”“Im earning sixty dollars a monthmy position is secure”“But are you happy in it?”“I dont expect to teach school all my life,” was the vague answer.“Exactly
15、. You loathe the sight of a school-room. You do the task they set you because your fathers a clergyman and cant support his big family. Youre waiting and longing for the day of your deliveranceisnt it so?”“Perhaps.”“And that day of deliverance?”“Will come when I meet my Fate!”“Youll meet him, too!”“
16、I will”Jane Anderson shook her fine head.“And may the Lord have mercy on your poor little soul when you do!”“And why, pray?”“Because youre the most helpless and defenseless of all the things He created.”Mary smiled.“Ive managed to take pretty good care of myself so far.”“And you willuntil the thunde
17、rbolt falls.”“The thunderbolt?”“Until you meet your Fate.”“Ill have someone to look after me then.”“Well hope so anyhow,” was the quick retort.“But cant you see, Jane dear, that we look at life from such utterly different angles. You glory in your work. Its your inspirationthe breath you breathe. I
18、dont believe in women working for money. I dont believe God ever meant us to work when He made us women. He made us women for something more wonderful. I dont see anything good or glorious in the fact that half the torrent of humanity you see down there pouring through the street from those factorie
19、s and offices is made up of women. They are wage-earnersso much the worse. They are forcing the scale of wages for men lower and lower. They are paying for it in weakened bodies and sickly, hopeless children. We should not shout for joy; we should cry. God never meant for woman to be a wage-earner!”
20、A sob caught her voice and she paused.The artist watched her emotion with keen interest.“Neither do I believe that God means to force woman at last to do the tasks of man. But shes doing them, dearand it must be so until a brighter day dawns for humanity. The new world that opens before us will neve
21、r abolish marriage, but it has opened our eyes to know what it means. You refuse to open yours. You refuse to see this new world about you. Ive begged you to join one of my clubs. You refuse. I beg you to meet and know such men of genius as Gordon”“As an artists model!”“Its the only way on earth you
22、 can meet him. You stick to your narrow, hide-bound conventional life and dream of the Knight who will suddenly appear some day out of the mists and clouds. You dream of the Fate God has prepared for you in His mysterious Providence. Its funny how that idea persists even today in novels. As a matter
23、 of fact we know that the old-fashioned girl met her Fate because her shrewd mother planned the meetingplanned it with cunning and stratagem. Youre alone in a great modern city, with all the conditions of the life of the old regime reversed or blotted out. Your mother is not here. And if she were, h
- 配套讲稿:
如PPT文件的首页显示word图标,表示该PPT已包含配套word讲稿。双击word图标可打开word文档。
- 特殊限制:
部分文档作品中含有的国旗、国徽等图片,仅作为作品整体效果示例展示,禁止商用。设计者仅对作品中独创性部分享有著作权。
- 关 键 词:
- 英文读物 【英文读物】The Foolish Virgin 英文 读物 The
限制150内