-
Главная
-
- Книги
-
- Авторы
-
- Эдит Уортон
-
- Пробный камень
-
- Стр. 4/70
Для того чтобы воспользоваться озвучкой предложений, необходимо
Войти или зарегистрироваться
Озвучка предложений доступна при наличии PRO-доступа
Купить PRO-доступ
Mrs
.
Aubyn
was
at
that
time
an
eager
and
somewhat
tragic
young
woman
,
of
complex
mind
and
undeveloped
manners
,
whom
her
crude
experience
of
matrimony
had
fitted
out
with
a
stock
of
generalizations
that
exploded
like
bombs
in
the
academic
air
of
Hillbridge
.
In
her
choice
of
a
husband
she
had
been
fortunate
enough
,
if
the
paradox
be
permitted
,
to
light
on
one
so
signally
gifted
with
the
faculty
of
putting
himself
in
the
wrong
that
her
leaving
him
had
the
dignity
of
a
manifesto
—
made
her
,
as
it
were
,
the
spokeswoman
of
outraged
wifehood
.
In
this
light
she
was
cherished
by
that
dominant
portion
of
Hillbridge
society
which
was
least
indulgent
to
conjugal
differences
,
and
which
found
a
proportionate
pleasure
in
being
for
once
able
to
feast
openly
on
a
dish
liberally
seasoned
with
the
outrageous
.
So
much
did
this
endear
Mrs
.
Aubyn
to
the
university
ladies
that
they
were
disposed
from
the
first
to
allow
her
more
latitude
of
speech
and
action
than
the
ill
-
used
wife
was
generally
accorded
in
Hillbridge
,
where
misfortune
was
still
regarded
as
a
visitation
designed
to
put
people
in
their
proper
place
and
make
them
feel
the
superiority
of
their
neighbors
.
The
young
woman
so
privileged
combined
with
a
kind
of
personal
shyness
an
intellectual
audacity
that
was
like
a
deflected
impulse
of
coquetry
:
one
felt
that
if
she
had
been
prettier
she
would
have
had
emotions
instead
of
ideas
.
She
was
in
fact
even
then
what
she
had
always
remained
:
a
genius
capable
of
the
acutest
generalizations
,
but
curiously
undiscerning
where
her
personal
susceptibilities
were
concerned
.
Her
psychology
failed
her
just
where
it
serves
most
women
and
one
felt
that
her
brains
would
never
be
a
guide
to
her
heart
.
Of
all
this
,
however
,
Glennard
thought
little
in
the
first
year
of
their
acquaintance
.
He
was
at
an
age
when
all
the
gifts
and
graces
are
but
so
much
undiscriminated
food
to
the
ravening
egoism
of
youth
.
In
seeking
Mrs
.
Aubyn
’
s
company
he
was
prompted
by
an
intuitive
taste
for
the
best
as
a
pledge
of
his
own
superiority
.
The
sympathy
of
the
cleverest
woman
in
Hillbridge
was
balm
to
his
craving
for
distinction
:
it
was
public
confirmation
of
his
secret
sense
that
he
was
cut
out
for
a
bigger
place
.
It
must
not
be
understood
that
Glennard
was
vain
.
Vanity
contents
itself
with
the
coarsest
diet
;
there
is
no
palate
so
fastidious
as
that
of
self
-
distrust
.
To
a
youth
of
Glennard
’
s
aspirations
the
encouragement
of
a
clever
woman
stood
for
the
symbol
of
all
success
.
Later
,
when
he
had
begun
to
feel
his
way
,
to
gain
a
foothold
,
he
would
not
need
such
support
;
but
it
served
to
carry
him
lightly
and
easily
over
what
is
often
a
period
of
insecurity
and
discouragement
.
It
would
be
unjust
,
however
,
to
represent
his
interest
in
Mrs
.
Aubyn
as
a
matter
of
calculation
.
It
was
as
instinctive
as
love
,
and
it
missed
being
love
by
just
such
a
hair
-
breadth
deflection
from
the
line
of
beauty
as
had
determined
the
curve
of
Mrs
.
Aubyn
’
s
lips
.
When
they
met
she
had
just
published
her
first
novel
,
and
Glennard
,
who
afterward
had
an
ambitious
man
’
s
impatience
of
distinguished
women
,
was
young
enough
to
be
dazzled
by
the
semi
-
publicity
it
gave
her
.
It
was
the
kind
of
book
that
makes
elderly
ladies
lower
their
voices
and
call
each
other
“
my
dear
”
when
they
furtively
discuss
it
;
and
Glennard
exulted
in
the
superior
knowledge
of
the
world
that
enabled
him
to
take
as
a
matter
of
course
sentiments
over
which
the
university
shook
its
head
.
Still
more
delightful
was
it
to
hear
Mrs
.
Aubyn
waken
the
echoes
of
academic
drawing
-
rooms
with
audacities
surpassing
those
of
her
printed
page
.
Her
intellectual
independence
gave
a
touch
of
comradeship
to
their
intimacy
,
prolonging
the
illusion
of
college
friendships
based
on
a
joyous
interchange
of
heresies
.
Mrs
.
Aubyn
and
Glennard
represented
to
each
other
the
augur
’
s
wink
behind
the
Hillbridge
idol
:
they
walked
together
in
that
light
of
young
omniscience
from
which
fate
so
curiously
excludes
one
’
s
elders
.
Husbands
who
are
notoriously
inopportune
,
may
even
die
inopportunely
,
and
this
was
the
revenge
that
Mr
.
Aubyn
,
some
two
years
after
her
return
to
Hillbridge
,
took
upon
his
injured
wife
.
He
died
precisely
at
the
moment
when
Glennard
was
beginning
to
criticise
her
.
It
was
not
that
she
bored
him
;
she
did
what
was
infinitely
worse
—
she
made
him
feel
his
inferiority
.
The
sense
of
mental
equality
had
been
gratifying
to
his
raw
ambition
;
but
as
his
self
-
knowledge
defined
itself
,
his
understanding
of
her
also
increased
;
and
if
man
is
at
times
indirectly
flattered
by
the
moral
superiority
of
woman
,
her
mental
ascendency
is
extenuated
by
no
such
oblique
tribute
to
his
powers
.
The
attitude
of
looking
up
is
a
strain
on
the
muscles
;
and
it
was
becoming
more
and
more
Glennard
’
s
opinion
that
brains
,
in
a
woman
,
should
be
merely
the
obverse
of
beauty
.
To
beauty
Mrs
.
Aubyn
could
lay
no
claim
;
and
while
she
had
enough
prettiness
to
exasperate
him
by
her
incapacity
to
make
use
of
it
,
she
seemed
invincibly
ignorant
of
any
of
the
little
artifices
whereby
women
contrive
to
palliate
their
defects
and
even
to
turn
them
into
graces
.
Her
dress
never
seemed
a
part
of
her
;
all
her
clothes
had
an
impersonal
air
,
as
though
they
had
belonged
to
someone
else
and
been
borrowed
in
an
emergency
that
had
somehow
become
chronic
.
She
was
conscious
enough
of
her
deficiencies
to
try
to
amend
them
by
rash
imitations
of
the
most
approved
models
;
but
no
woman
who
does
not
dress
well
intuitively
will
ever
do
so
by
the
light
of
reason
,
and
Mrs
.
Aubyn
’
s
plagiarisms
,
to
borrow
a
metaphor
of
her
trade
,
somehow
never
seemed
to
be
incorporated
with
the
text
.
Genius
is
of
small
use
to
a
woman
who
does
not
know
how
to
do
her
hair
.
The
fame
that
came
to
Mrs
.
Aubyn
with
her
second
book
left
Glennard
’
s
imagination
untouched
,
or
had
at
most
the
negative
effect
of
removing
her
still
farther
from
the
circle
of
his
contracting
sympathies
.
We
are
all
the
sport
of
time
;
and
fate
had
so
perversely
ordered
the
chronology
of
Margaret
Aubyn
’
s
romance
that
when
her
husband
died
Glennard
felt
as
though
he
had
lost
a
friend
.
It
was
not
in
his
nature
to
be
needlessly
unkind
;
and
though
he
was
in
the
impregnable
position
of
the
man
who
has
given
a
woman
no
more
definable
claim
on
him
than
that
of
letting
her
fancy
that
he
loves
her
,
he
would
not
for
the
world
have
accentuated
his
advantage
by
any
betrayal
of
indifference
.
During
the
first
year
of
her
widowhood
their
friendship
dragged
on
with
halting
renewals
of
sentiment
,
becoming
more
and
more
a
banquet
of
empty
dishes
from
which
the
covers
were
never
removed
;
then
Glennard
went
to
New
York
to
live
and
exchanged
the
faded
pleasures
of
intercourse
for
the
comparative
novelty
of
correspondence
.
Her
letters
,
oddly
enough
,
seemed
at
first
to
bring
her
nearer
than
her
presence
.
She
had
adopted
,
and
she
successfully
maintained
,
a
note
as
affectionately
impersonal
as
his
own
;
she
wrote
ardently
of
her
work
,
she
questioned
him
about
his
,
she
even
bantered
him
on
the
inevitable
pretty
girl
who
was
certain
before
long
to
divert
the
current
of
his
confidences
.
To
Glennard
,
who
was
almost
a
stranger
in
New
York
,
the
sight
of
Mrs
.
Aubyn
’
s
writing
was
like
a
voice
of
reassurance
in
surroundings
as
yet
insufficiently
aware
of
him
.
His
vanity
found
a
retrospective
enjoyment
in
the
sentiment
his
heart
had
rejected
,
and
this
factitious
emotion
drove
him
once
or
twice
to
Hillbridge
,
whence
,
after
scenes
of
evasive
tenderness
,
he
returned
dissatisfied
with
himself
and
her
.
As
he
made
room
for
himself
in
New
York
and
peopled
the
space
he
had
cleared
with
the
sympathies
at
the
disposal
of
agreeable
and
self
-
confident
young
men
,
it
seemed
to
him
natural
to
infer
that
Mrs
.
Aubyn
had
refurnished
in
the
same
manner
the
void
he
was
not
unwilling
his
departure
should
have
left
.
But
in
the
dissolution
of
sentimental
partnerships
it
is
seldom
that
both
associates
are
able
to
withdraw
their
funds
at
the
same
time
;
and
Glennard
gradually
learned
that
he
stood
for
the
venture
on
which
Mrs
.
Aubyn
had
irretrievably
staked
her
all
.
It
was
not
the
kind
of
figure
he
cared
to
cut
.
He
had
no
fancy
for
leaving
havoc
in
his
wake
and
would
have
preferred
to
sow
a
quick
growth
of
oblivion
in
the
spaces
wasted
by
his
unconsidered
inroads
;
but
if
he
supplied
the
seed
it
was
clearly
Mrs
.
Aubyn
’
s
business
to
see
to
the
raising
of
the
crop
.
