10.JamesJoyceEVELINE

1、EvelineSHE sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head wasleaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dustycretonne She was tiredFew people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; sheheard his footsteps clacking along the concr

2、ete pavement and aftenvardscmnching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used tobe a field there in which they used to play eveiy evening with other peopleschildren. Tlien a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it一notlike theii little brown houses but bright

3、brick houses with shining roofs Thechildren of the avenue used to play together in that field一the Devines, theWaters, the Duims, little Keogli the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters.Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often tohunt them in out of the field with

4、his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogliused to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemedto have beenratherhappy then Herfatherwasnot so bad then; and besides,hermother was alive Tliat was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisterswere all grown up her moth

5、er was dead. Tizzie Dumi was dead, too, and theWaters had gone back to England. Eveiything changes. Now she was going togo away like the others, to leave her home.Home! She looked roiuid the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which shehad dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where o

6、n earth all thedust came from Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects fromwhich she had never dreamed of being divided. And yet during all those yearsshe had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photographhung on the wall above the broken hannonium beside the colou

7、red print of thepromises made to Blessed Margaret Maiy Alacoque He had been a schoolfriend of her father. WheneveT he showed the photograph to a visitor her fatherused to pass it with a casual word:nHe is in Melbourne now.nShe had consented to go away, to leave her home Was that wise? She tried towe

8、igh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food;she had those whom she had known all her life about her. O course she had towork hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in theStores when they found out that she had mn away with a fellow? Say she

9、 was afool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up by advertisement. Miss Gavanwould be glad. She had always had an edge oil her, especially whenever therewere people listening ”Miss Hill, dont you see these ladies are waiting?”*Look lively, Miss Hill, please.She would not ciy many tears at leavi

10、ng the Stores.But in her new home, in a distant unknown countiy it would not be like that.Then she would be mamed she, Eveline People would treat her with respectthen. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though shewas over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her

11、fathers violence.She knew it was that that had given her the palpitations. Wlien they weregrowing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for Hany and Ernest,because she was a girl but latterly he had begiui to threaten her and say what hewould do to her only for her dead mothers sake And no

12、 she had nobody toprotect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church decoratingbusiness, was nearly always down somewhere in the countiy. Besides, theinvariable squabble for money oil Saturday nights had begun to weaiy herunspeakably. She always gave her entile wages seven shillings and H

13、anyalways sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from herfather. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that hewasnt going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, andmuch more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the en

14、d he wouldgive herthemoney and ask herhad sheany intention ofbuyingSundays dimier.Then she had to msh out as quickly as she could and do her marketing, holdingher black leather purse tightly in her hand as she elbowed her way tlnough thecrowds and retiiniing home late under her load ofprovisions. Sh

15、e had hard workto keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had beenleft to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It washard work一a hard life but now that she was about to leave it she did not findit a wholly undesirable lifb.She was about to expl

16、ore another life with Frank. Frank was veiy kind, manly,open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the niglit-boat to be his wife andto live with him in Buenos Ayies where he had a home waiting for he匸Howwell she remembered the first time she had seen him: he was lodging in a houseon the main road

17、 where she used to visit It seemed a few weeks ago. He wasstanding at the gate, his peaked cap pushed back on his head and his hairtumbled fbnvard overa faceofbronze Then they had come to knoweach other.He used to meet her outside the Stores eveiy evening and see her home Hetook her to see The Bohem

18、ian Girl and she felt elated as she sat in anunaccustomed part of the theatre with him. He was awfiilly fond of music andsang a little. People knew that they were courting and, when he sang about thelass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confiised. He used to call herPoppens out of fUn

19、. First of all it had been an excitement for her to have afellow and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries Hehad started as a deck boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line goingout to Canada He told herthe names ofthe ships he had been on and the namesof the dif

20、ferent services. He had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and hetold her stories of the tenible Patagonians He had fallen on his feet in BuenosAyres, he said, and had come over to the old countiy just for a holiday. Ofcourse, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her to haveanyt

21、hing to say to him.nI know these sailor chaps J he said.One day he had quaixelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her loversecretly.The evening deepened in the avenue. Tlie white of two letters in her lap grewindistinct. One was to Hany; the other was to her father. Ernest had been herfavo

22、urite but she liked Hany too. Her father was becoming old lately, shenoticed; he would niiss her. Sometimes he could be veiy nice. Not long before,when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost stoiy and madetoast for her at the fire. Another day, when theii mother was alive, they

23、had allgone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her father putting on hermothers boimet to make the children laugh Her time was miming out but she continued to sit by the window, leaning herhead against the window curtain, iiilialing the odour of dusty cretonne. Downfar in the avenue s

24、he could hear a street organ playiiig. She knew the air Strangethat it should come that veiy night to remind her of the promise to her mother,her promise to keep the home together as long as she could. She rememberedthe last iiiglit of her mothers illness; she was again in the close dark room at the

25、other side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy. Tlieorgan-player had been ordered to go away and given sixpence Sheremembered her father stmtting back into the sickioom saying:”Damned Italians! coming over here!nAs she mused the pitifiil vision of hermothers life laid its spe

26、ll on the veiy quickof her being that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. Shetrembled as she heard again her mothers voice saying constantly with foolishinsistence:HDerevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraiui!nShe stood up in a sudden impulse of teiTor. Escape! She must escape! Frankwou

27、ld saveher.Hewould giveherlife, perhapslove,too.Butshewanted to live.Wliy should she be uiiliappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would takeher ill his amis, fold her in his anns He would save her.She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He heldher hand and she knew t

28、hat he was speaking to her, saying something about thepassage over and over again Tlie station was hill of soldiers with brownbaggages Tluough the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of theblack mass of the boat, lying ill beside the quay wall, with illumined portholes.She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a maze ofdistress, she prayed to God to