Wuthering Heights
在英格兰北部荒凉的山区里,有座呼啸山庄。
主人恩萧收养了一个孤儿,取名希斯克利夫。在后
来的相处中,他爱上了主人的女儿凯瑟琳,但身份
的悬殊使他们不能在一起。希斯克利夫带着仇恨离
家。等他衣锦返乡时,凯瑟琳已经成为画眉山庄的
女主人。但最终悔恨离世,留下了女婴凯蒂。报复
心很强的希斯克利夫在孩子身上继续着他疯狂的报
复。但对凯瑟琳的爱化解了他心头的恨,在饱尝人
间的辛酸后愤然离世。
[ 英] 艾米莉·勃朗特(Emily Bronte)
They lifted their eyes together,to encounter Mr. Heathcliff:
perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely
similar,and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present
Catherine has no other likeness to her,except a breadth of
forehead,and a certain arch of the nostril that makes her appear
rather haughty,whether she will or not. With Hareton the
resemblance is carried farther: it is singular at all times,then it
was particularly striking ;because his senses were alert,and his
mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. I suppose this
resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff: he walked to the hearth
in evident agitation ;but it quickly subsided as he looked at the
young man: or,I should say,altered its character ;for it was
there yet. He took the book from his hand,and glanced at the
open page,then returned it without any observation ;merely
signing Catherine away: her companion lingered very little behind
her,and I was about to depart also,but he bid me sit still.
“It is a poor conclusion,is it not?”he observed,having
brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed:“an absurd
termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks
to demolish the two houses,and train myself to be capable of
working like Hercules,and when everything is ready and in my
power,I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished!
My old enemies have not beaten me ;now would be the precise
time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it ;
and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don’t care for
striking: I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as
if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of
magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty
of enjoying their destruction,and I am too idle to destroy for
nothing.”
“Nelly,there is a strange change approaching ;I’m in its
shadow at present. I take so little interest in my daily life that
I hardly remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left
the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material
appearance to me ;and that appearance causes me pain,
amounting to agony. About her I won’t speak ;and I don’t desire
to think ;but I earnestly wish she were invisible: her presence
invokes only maddening sensations. He moves me differently:
and yet if I could do it without seeming insane,I’d never see
him again! You’ll perhaps think me rather inclined to become
so,”he added,making an effort to smile,“if I try to describe
the thousand forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or
embodies. But you’ll not talk of what I tell you ;and my mind is
so eternally secluded in itself,it is tempting at last to turn it out
to another .”
“Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of
my youth,not a human being ;I felt to him in such a variety of
ways,that it would have been impossible to have accosted him
rationally. In the first place,his startling likeness to Catherine
connected him fearfully with her. That,however,which you may
suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination,is actually the
least: for what is not connected with her to me? And what does
not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor,but her features
are shaped in the flags! In every cloud,in every tree — filling the air
at night,and caught by glimpses in every object by day — I am
surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men
and women — my own features-mock me with a resemblance.
The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she
did exist,and that I have lost her! Well,Hareton’s aspect was
the ghost of my immortal love ;of my wild endeavours to hold
my right ;my degradation,my pride,my happiness,and my
anguish.”
“But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it
will let you know why,with a reluctance to be always alone,
his society is no benefit ;rather an aggravation of the constant
torment I suffer: and it partly contributes to render me regardless
how he and his cousin go on together. I can give them no
attention any more.”
“But what do you mean by a change,Mr. Heathcliff?”I
said,alarmed at his manner: though he was neither in danger of
losing his senses,nor dying,according to my judgment: he was
quite strong and healthy ;and,as to his reason,from childhood
he had a delight in dwelling on dark things,and entertaining odd
fancies. He might have had a monomania on the subject of his
departed idol ;but on every other point his wits were as sound as
mine.
“I shall not know that till it comes,”he said ;“I’m only half
conscious of it now.”
“You have no feeling of illness,have you?”I asked.
“No,Nelly,I have not,”he answered.
“Then you are not afraid of death?”I pursued.
“Afraid? No!”he replied.“I have neither a fear,nor a
presentiment,nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my