Unit 1 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Markheim
Ⅰ 作者简介
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh as the son of Thomas Stevenson,joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses.A victim to tuberculosis,who,at times,could scarcely breathe and seemed to need all his energies in order to live,he was a lover of the sea and a daring voyager,and,long after he had reached manhood,still played with tireless zest,a war-game of his own invention.In his case,broken health did not quench,but rather stimulated the heroic in his nature.Hence,feeble as was his hold on life,in forty-four years he accomplished far more than the vast majority of those who live the full span in the enjoyment of vigorous health.The body was weak,but the spirit was indomitable.It was the eagerness of his spirit and his keen sympathy with men of action that saved Stevenson from the besetting sin of the artist in words,the temptation to subordinate meaning to sound.During his short life he traveled the world,defied convention,and made himself one of the most famous writers of the 19th century and a representative of Neo-romanticism during the Modernist period of English literature,whose well-known books include the Gothic-tradition classic—Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1886),children's adventure tales—Treasure Island (1883)and children's nursery rhymes—A Child's Garden of Verses (1885).
Stevenson was one the earliest British writers to perceive the artistic possibilities of the true short-story as it had been formulated by Poe and as it had been practiced in America and in France.He wrote long romantic fictions and he essayed the novel of adventure,but he was most indisputably within his powers in the compact short-story.His short stories show the haunting hold that the strange,weird and macabre had on his imagination with wonderful and exemplary instances of the storyteller's art.Stevenson's characters often prefer unknown hazards to everyday life of the Victorian society.
Many of Stevenson's stories are set in colorful locations,they also have horror and supernatural elements.Arguing against realism,Stevenson underlined the"nameless longings of the reader",the desire for experience.His most successful work of fiction,Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde,is a novelette about the duality of human nature and the interplay of good and evil which was much depicted in plays and films.It is also influential in the growth of understanding of the subconscious mind through its treatment of a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychopathic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality,but it has the swiftness and the compactness of the short-story.
Stevenson's work was incredibly popular and he received great critical acclaim and he has been greatly admired by many authors,including Jorge Luis Borges,Ernest Hemingway,Graham Greene,Vladimir Nabokov,J.M.Barrie,and G.K.Chesterton,who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen,like a man playing spillikins".
Ⅱ 原文细读
Markheim
"Yes," said the dealer,"our windfalls are of various kinds.Some customers are ignorant,and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge.Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle,so that the light fell strongly on his visitor,"and in that case," he continued,"I profit by my virtue."
Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets,and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop.At these pointed words,and before the near presence of the flame,he blinked painfully and looked aside.
The dealer chuckled."You come to me on Christmas Day,"he resumed,"when you know that I am alone in my house,put up my shutters,and make a point of refusing business.Well,you will have to pay for that;you will have to pay for my loss of time,when I should be balancing my books;you will have to pay,besides,for a kind of manner that I remark in you today very strongly.I am the essence of discretion[1],and ask no awkward questions;but when a customer cannot look at me in the eye,he has to pay for it."The dealer once more chuckled,and then,changing to his usual business voice,though still with a note of irony."You can give,as usual,a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?"he continued."Still your uncle's cabinet?A remarkable collector,sir!"
And the little pale,round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe,looking over the top of his gold spectacles,and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief.Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity,and a touch of horror.
"This time,"said he,"you are in error.I have not come to sell,but to buy.I have no curiosity to dispose of;my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot;even were it still intact,I have done well on the Stock Exchange,and should more likely add to it than otherwise,and my errand today is simplicity itself.I seek a Christmas present for a lady,"he continued,waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared[2];"and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter.But the thing was neglected yesterday;I must produce my little compliment at dinner;and,as you very well know,a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected."
There followed a pause,during which the dealer seemed to weigh this statement incredulously.The ticking of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop,and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare,filled up the interval of silence.
"Well,sir," said the dealer,"be it so.You are an old customer after all;and if,as you say,you have the chance of a good marriage,far be it from me to be an obstacle.Here is a nice thing for a lady now," he went on,"this hand glass—fifteenth century,warranted;comes from a good collection,too;but I reserve the name,in the interests of my customer,who was just like yourself,my dear sir,the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector."
The dealer,while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice[3],had stooped to take the object from its place;and,as he had done so,a shock had passed through Markheim,a start both of hand and foot,a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face.It passed as swiftly as it came,and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand that now received the glass.
"A glass," he said hoarsely[4],and then paused,and repeated it more clearly."A glass?For Christmas?Surely not?"
"And why not?" cried the dealer."Why not a glass?"
Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression."You ask me why not?" he said."Why,look here—look in it—look at yourself!Do you like to see it?No!nor—nor any man."
The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror;but now,perceiving there was nothing worse on hand,he chuckled."Your future lady,sir,must be pretty hard favoured," said he.
"I ask you," said Markheim,"for a Christmas present,and you give me this—this damned reminder of years,and sins and follies—this hand—conscience!Did you mean it?Had you a thought in your mind?Tell me.It will be better for you if you do.Come,tell me about yourself.I hazard a guess now,that you are in secret a very charitable man?"
The dealer looked closely at his companion.It was very odd,Markheim did not appear to be laughing;there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope,but nothing of mirth.
"What are you driving at?"[5] the dealer asked.
"Not charitable?" returned the other gloomily."Not charitable;not pious;not scrupulous;unloving,unbeloved;a hand to get money,a safe to keep it.[6] Is that all?Dear God,man,is that all?"
"I will tell you what it is,"began the dealer,with some sharpness,and then broke off again into a chuckle."But I see this is a love match of yours,and you have been drinking the lady's health."
"Ah!" cried Markheim,with a strange curiosity."Ah,have you been in love?Tell me about that."
"I," cried the dealer."I am in love!I never had the time,nor have I the time today for all this nonsense.Will you take the glass?"
"Where is the hurry?"returned Markheim."It is very pleasant to stand here talking;and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no,not even from so mild a one as this.We should rather cling,cling to what little we can get,like a man at a cliff's edge.Every second is a cliff,if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high enough,if we fall,to dash us out of every feature of humanity.Hence it is best to talk pleasantly.Let us talk of each other:why should we wear this mask?Let us be confidential.Who knows,we might become friends?"
"I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer."Either make your purchase,or walk out of my shop!"
"True,true," said Markheim."Enough fooling.To business.Show me something else."
The dealer stooped once more,this time to replace the glass upon the shelf,his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so.Markheim moved a little nearer,with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat;he drew himself up and filled his lungs;at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror,horror,and resolve,fascination and a physical repulsion;and through a haggard lift of his upper lip,his teeth looked out.
"This,perhaps,may suit," observed the dealer:and then,as he began to re-arise,Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim.The long,skewerlike dagger flashed and fell.The dealer struggled like a hen,striking his temple on the shelf,and then tumbled on the floor in a heap.
Time had some score of small voices in that shop,some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age;others garrulous and hurried.All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings.Then the passage of a lad's feet,heavily running on the pavement,broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings.He looked about him awfully.The candle stood on the counter,its flame solemnly wagging in a draught;and by that inconsiderable movement,the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea:the tall shadows nodding,the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration,the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images in water.The inner door stood ajar,and peered into that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
From these fear-stricken rovings,Markheim's eyes returned to the body of his victim,where it lay both humped and sprawling,incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life.
In these poor,miserly clothes,in that ungainly attitude,the dealer lay like so much sawdust.Markheim had feared to see it,and,it was nothing.And yet,as he gazed,this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices.There it must lie;there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found.Found!and then?Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England,and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit.Ay,dead or not,this was still the enemy."Time was that when the brains were out," he thought;and the first word struck into his mind.Time,now that the deed was accomplished—time,which had closed for the victim,had become instant and momentous for the slayer.
The thought was yet in his mind,when,first one and then another,with every variety of pace and voice,one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret,another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz,the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him.He began to bestir himself,going to and fro with the candle,beleaguered by moving shadows,and startled to the soul by chance reflections.In many rich mirrors,some of home designs,some from Venice or Amsterdam,he saw his face repeated and repeated,as it were an army of spies;his own eyes met and detected him;and the sound of his own steps,lightly as they fell,vexed the surrounding quiet[7].And still,as he continued to fill his pockets,his mind accused him with a sickening iteration,of the thousand faults of his design.He should have chosen a more quiet hour;he should have prepared an alibi;he should not have used a knife;he should have been more cautious,and only bound and gagged the dealer,and not killed him;he should have been more bold,and killed the servant also;he should have done all things otherwise:poignant regrets,weary,incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable[8],to plan what was now useless,to be the architect of the irrevocable past.Meanwhile,and behind all this activity,brute terrors,like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic,filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot;the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder,and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish;or he beheld,in galloping defile,the dock,the prison,the gallows,and the black coffin.
Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army.It was impossible,he thought,but that some rumor of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity;and now,in all the neighboring houses,he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear-solitary people,condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past[9],and now startlingly recalled from that tender exercise;happy family parties,struck into silence round the table,the mother still with raised finger:every degree and age and humor,but all,by their own hearths,prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him.Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly;the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell;and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking,he was tempted to stop the clocks.And then,again,with a swift transition of his terrors,the very silence of the place appeared a source of peril,and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by;and he would step more boldly,and bustle aloud among the contents of the shop,and imitate,with elaborate bravado,the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.
But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that,while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning,another trembled on the brink of lunacy[10].One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity.The neighbor hearkening with white face beside his window,the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect,they could not know;through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate.But here,within the house,was he alone?He knew he was;he had watched the servant set forth sweet-hearting,in her poor best,"out for the day" written in every ribbon and smile.Yes,he was alone,of course;and yet,in the bulk of empty house above him,he could surely hear a stir of delicate footing,he was surely conscious,inexplicably conscious of some presence.Ay,surely;to every room and corner of the house his imagination followed it;and now it was a faceless thing,and yet had eyes to see with;and again it was a shadow of himself;and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer,reinspired with cunning and hatred.
At times,with a strong effort,he would glance at the open door which still seemed to repel his eyes.The house was tall,the skylight small and dirty,the day blind with fog;and the light that filtered down to the ground story was exceedingly faint,and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop.And yet,in that strip of doubtful brightness,did there not hang wavering a shadow?
Suddenly,from the street outside,a very jovial gentleman began to beat with a staff on the shop-door,accompanying his blows with shouts and railleries in which the dealer was continually called upon by name.Markheim,smitten into ice,glanced at the dead man.But no!he lay quite still;he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows and shoutings;he was sunk beneath seas of silence;and his name,which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm,had become an empty sound.And presently the jovial gentleman desisted from his knocking and departed.
Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done,to get forth from this accusing neighborhood,to plunge into a bath of London multitudes,and to reach,on the other side of day,that haven of safety and apparent innocence—his bed.One visitor had come:at any moment another might follow and be more obstinate.To have done the deed,and yet not to reap the profit,would be too abhorrent a failure.The money,that was now Markheim's concern;and as a means to that,the keys.
He glanced over his shoulder at the open door,where the shadow was still lingering and shivering;and with no conscious repugnance of the mind,yet with a tremor of the belly,he drew near the body of his victim.The human character had quite departed.Like a suit half-stuffed with bran,the limbs lay scattered,the trunk doubled,on the floor;and yet the thing repelled him.Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye,he feared it might have more significance to the touch.He took the body by the shoulders,and turned it on its back.It was strangely light and supple,and the limbs,as if they had been broken,fell into the oddest postures.The face was robbed of all expression[11];but it was as pale as wax,and shockingly smeared with blood about one temple.That was,for Markheim,the one displeasing circumstance.It carried him back,upon the instant,to a certain fair-day in a fishers'village:a gray day,a piping wind,a crowd upon the street,the blare of the brasses,the booming of drums,the nasal voice of a ballad singer;and a boy going to and fro,buried over head in the crowd and divided between interest and fear,until,coming out upon the chief place of concourse,he beheld a booth and a great screen with pictures,dismally designed,garishly coloured:Brown rigg with her apprentice;the Mannings with their murdered guest;We are in the death,grip of Thurtell;and a score besides of famous crimes.The thing was as clear as an illusion;he was once again that little boy;he was looking once again,and with the same sense of physical revolt,at these vile pictures;he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums.A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory;and at that,for the first time,a qualm came over him,a breath of nausea,a sudden weakness of the joints,which he must instantly resist and conquer.
He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these considerations;looking the more hardily in the dead face,bending his mind to realise the nature and greatness of his crime.So little a while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment,that pale mouth had spoken,that body had been all on fire with governable energies;and now,and by his act,that piece of life had been arrested as the horologist[12] ,with interjected finger,arrests the beating of the clock.So he reasoned in vain;he could rise to no more remorseful consciousness;the same heart which had shuddered before the painted effigies[13] of crime,looked on its reality unmoved.At best,he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been endowed in vain with all those faculties that can make the world a garden of enchantment,one who had never lived and who was now dead.But of penitence,no,not a tremor.
With that,shaking himself clear of these considerations,he found the keys and advanced towards the open door of the shop.Outside,it had begun to rain smartly;and the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished silence[14] .Like some dripping cavern,the chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing,which filled the ear and mingled with the ticking of the clocks.And,as Markheim approached the door,he seemed to hear,in answer to his own cautious tread,the steps of another foot withdrawing up the stair.The shadow still palpitated loosely on the threshold.He threw a ton's weight of resolve upon his muscles,and drew back the door.
The faint,foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and stairs;on the bright suit of armour posted,halbert in hand,upon the landing;and on the dark wood-carvings,and framed pictures that hung against the yellow panels of the wainscot.So loud was the beating of the rain through all the house that,in Markheim's ears,it began to be distinguished into many different sounds.Footsteps and sighs,the tread of regiments marching in the distance,the chink of money in the counting,and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar,appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes.The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness.On every side he was haunted and begirt by presences.He heard them moving in the upper chambers;from the shop,he heard the dead man getting to his legs;and as he began with a great effort to mount the stairs,feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind.If he were but deaf,he thought,how tranquilly he would posses his soul!And then again,and hearkening with ever fresh attention,he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life.His head turned continually on his neck;his eyes,which seemed starting from their orbits,scouted on every side,and on every side were half-rewarded as with the tail of something nameless vanishing.The four-and-twenty steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies.
On that first story,the doors stood ajar,three of them like three ambushes,shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon.He could never again,he felt,be sufficiently immured and fortified from men's observing eyes;he longed to be home,girt in by walls,buried among bedclothes,and invisible to all but God.And at that thought he wondered a little,recollecting tales of other murderers and the fear they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers.It was not so,at least,with him.He feared the laws of nature,lest,in their callous and immutable procedure[15] ,they should preserve some damning evidence of his crime.He feared tenfold more,with a slavish,superstitious terror,some scission in the continuity of man's experience,some wilful illegality of nature.He played a game of skill,depending on the rules,calculating consequence from cause;and what if nature,as the defeated tyrant overthrew the chessboard,should break the mould of their succession?The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said)when the winter changed the time of its appearance.The like might befall Markheim:the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive;the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch;ay,and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him:if,for instance,the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim;or the house next door should fly on fire,and the firemen invade him from all sides.These things he feared;and,in a sense,these things might be called the hands of God reached forth against sin.But about God himself he was at ease;his act was doubtless exceptional,but so were his excuses,which God knew;it was there,and not among men,that he felt sure of justice.
When he had got safe into the drawing-room,and shut the door behind him,he was aware of a respite from alarms.The room was quite dismantled,uncarpeted besides,and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture;several great pier-glasses,in which he beheld himself at various angles,like an actor on a stage;many pictures,framed and unframed,standing,with their faces to the wall;a fine Sheraton sideboard,a cabinet of marquetry,and a great old bed,with tapestry hangings.The windows opened to the floor;but by great good fortune the lower part of the shutters had been closed,and this concealed him from the neighbours.Here,then,Markheim drew in a packing case before the cabinet,and began to search among the keys.It was a long business,for there were many;and it was irksome[16] ,besides;for,after all,there might be nothing in the cabinet,and time was on the wing.But the closeness of the occupation sobered him.With the tail of his eye he saw the door,even glanced at it from time to time directly,like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences.But in truth he was at peace.The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant.Presently,on the other side,the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn,and the voices of many children took up the air and words.How stately,how comfortable was the melody!How fresh the youthful voices!Markheim gave ear to it smilingly,as he sorted out the keys;and his mind was thronged with[17] answerable ideas and images;church-going children and the pealing of the high organ;children afield,bathers by the brookside,ramblers on the brambly common,kite-flyers in the windy and cloud navigated sky;and then,at another cadence of the hymn,back again to church,and the somnolence of summer Sundays,and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall)and the painted Jacobean tombs,and the dim lettering of the Ten Commandments in the chancel.
And as he sat thus,at once busy and absent,he was startled to his feet.A flash of ice,a flash of fire,a bursting gush of blood,went over him,and then he stood transfixed and thrilling.A step mounted the stair slowly and steadily,and presently a hand was laid upon the knob,and the lock clicked,and the door opened.
Fear held Markheim in a vice[18] .What to expect he knew not,whether the dead man walking,or the official ministers of human justice,or some chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows.But when a face was thrust into the aperture,glanced round the room,looked at him,nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition,and then withdrew again,and the door closed behind it,his fear broke loose from his control in a hoarse cry[19] .At the sound of this the visitant returned.
"Did you call me?" he asked pleasantly,and with that he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes.Perhaps there was a film upon his sight,but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candlelight of the shop;and at times he thought he knew him;and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself;and always,like a lump of living terror,there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing was not of the earth and not of God.
And yet the creature had a strange air of the commonplace,as he stood looking on Markheim with a smile;and when he added:"You are looking for the money,I believe?" it was in the tones of everyday politeness.
Markheim made no answer.
"I should warn you," resumed the other,"that the maid has left her sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here.If Mr.Markheim be found in this house,I need not describe to him the consequences."
"You know me?" cried the murderer.
The visitor smiled."You have long been a favourite of mine," he said;"and I have long observed and often sought to help you."
"What are you?" cried Markheim,"the devil?"
"What I may be," returned the other,"cannot affect the service I propose to render you."
"It can," cried Markheim,"it does!Be helped by you?No,never;not by you!You do not know me yet;thank God,you do not know me!"
"I know you,"replied the visitant,with a sort of kind severity or rather firmness."I know you to the soul.[20]"
"Know me!"cried Markheim."Who can do so?My life is but a travesty[21] and slander on myself.I have lived to belie my nature[22] .All men do;all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them.You see each dragged away by life,like one whom bravos have seized and muffled in a cloak.If they had their own control,if you could see their faces,they would be altogether different,they would shine out for heroes and saints!I am worse than most;myself is more overlaid;my excuse is known to men and God.But,had I the time,I could disclose myself."
"To me?" inquired the visitant.
"To you before all,"returned the murderer."I supposed you were intelligent.I thought—since you exist—you could prove a reader of the heart.And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts!Think of it;my acts!I was born and I have lived in a land of giants;giants have dragged me by the wrists since I was born out of my mother—the giants of circumstance.And you would judge me by my acts!But can you not look within?Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me[23]?Can you not see within me the clear writing of conscience,never blurred by any wilful sophistry,although too often disregarded?Can you not read me for a thing that surely must be as common as humanity,the unwilling sinner?"
"All this is very feelingly expressed," was the reply,"but it regards me not.These points of consistency are beyond my province,and I care not in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away,so as you are but carried in the right direction.But time flies;the servant delays,looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures on the hoardings,but still she keeps moving nearer;and remember,it is as if the gallows itself was striding towards you through the Christmas streets!Shall I help you;I,who know all?Shall I tell you where to find the money?"
"For what price?" asked Markheim.
"I offer you the service for a Christmas gift," returned the other.
Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph."No," said he,"I will take nothing at your hands;if I were dying of thirst,and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips,I should find the courage to refuse.It may be credulous,but I will do nothing to commit myself to evil."
"I have no objection to a deathbed repentance[24] ,"observed the visitant.
"Because you disbelieve their efficacy!" Markheim cried.
"I do not say so,"returned the other,"but I look on these things from a different side,and when the life is done my interest falls.The man has lived to serve me,to spread black looks under colour of religion,or to sow tares in the wheat field,as you do,in a course of weak compliance with desire.Now that he draws so near to his deliverance,he can add but one act of service to repent,to die smiling,and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous of my surviving followers.I am not so hard a master.Try me.Accept my help.Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto;please yourself more amply,spread your elbows at the board;and when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn,I tell you,for your greater comfort,that you will find it even easy to compound your quarrel with your conscience,and to make a truckling peace with God.I came but now from such a deathbed,and the room was full of sincere mourners,listening to the man's last words:and when I looked into that face,which had been set as a flint against mercy,I found it smiling with hope."
"And do you,then,suppose me such a creature?" asked Markheim."Do you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin,and sin,and,at the last,sneak into heaven?My heart rises at the thought.Is this,then,your experience of mankind?or is it because you find me with red hands that you presume such baseness?and is this crime of murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very springs of good?"
"Murder is to me no special category," replied the other.
"All sins are murder,even as all life is war.I behold your race,like starving mariners on a raft,plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other's lives.I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting;I find in all that the last consequence is death;and to my eyes,the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball,drips no less visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself.Do I say that I follow sins?I follow virtues also;they differ not by the thickness of a nail,they are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death.Evil,for which I live,consists not in action but in character.The bad man is dear to me;not the bad act,whose fruits,if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages,might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues.And it is not because you have killed a dealer,but because you are Markheim,so that I offer to forward your escape."
"I will lay my heart open to you,"answered Markheim."This crime on which you find me is my last.On my way to it I have learned many lessons;itself is a lesson,a momentous lesson.Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not;I was a bond-slave to poverty,driven and scourged[25] .There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations;mine are not so:I had a thirst of pleasure.But today,and out of this deed,I pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself.I become in all things a free actor in the world;I begin to see myself all changed,hands the agents of good,this heart at peace.Something comes over me out of the past;something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath[26] evenings to the sound of the church organ,of what I forecast when I shed tears over noble books,or talked,an innocent child,with my mother.There lies my life;I have wandered a few years,but now I see once more my city of destination."
"You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange,I think?" remarked the visitor;"and there,if I mistake not,you have already lost some thousands?"
"Ah," said Markheim,"but this time I have a sure thing."
"This time,again,you will lose," replied the visitor quietly.
"Ah,but I keep back the half!" cried Markheim.
"That also you will lose," said the other.
The sweat started upon Markheim's brow."Well,then,what matter?"he exclaimed."Say it be lost,say I am plunged again in poverty[27] ,shall one part of me,and that the worse,continue until the end to override the better?Evil and good run strong in me,haling me both ways.I do not love the one thing,I love all.I can conceive great deeds,renunciations,martyrdoms;and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder,pity is no stranger to my thoughts[28] .I pity the poor;who knows their trials better than myself?I pity and help them;I prize love,I love honest laughter;there is no good thing not true thing on earth but I love it from my heart.And are my vices only to direct my life,and my virtues without effect,like some passive lumber of the mind?Not so;good,also,is a spring of acts."
But the visitant raised his finger."For six-and-thirty years that you have been in this world," said he,"through many changes of fortune and varieties of humour,I have watched you steadily fall.Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft.Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder.Is there any crime,is there any cruelty or meanness,from which you still recoil?Five years from now I shall detect you in the fact!Downward,downward,lies your way;nor can anything but death avail to stop you."
"It is true,"Markheim said huskily,"I have in some degree complied with evil.But it is so with all:the very saints,in the mere exercise of living,grow less dainty,and take on the tone of their surroundings[29] ."
"I will propound to you one simple question," said the other,"and as you answer,I shall read to you your moral horoscope.You have grown in many things more lax;possibly you do right to be so;and at any account,it is the same with all men.But granting that,are you in any one particular,however trifling,more difficult to please with your own conduct,or do you go in all things with a looser rein?"
"In any one?" repeated Markheim,with an anguish of consideration."No," he added,with despair,"in none!I have gone down in all."
"Then," said the visitor,"content yourself with what you are,for you will never change;and the words of your part on this stage are irrevocably written down."
Markheim stood for a long while silent,and indeed it was the visitor who first broke the silence."That being so," he said,"shall I show you the money?"
"And grace?" cried Markheim.
"Have you not tried it?" returned the other."Two or three years ago,did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings,and was not your voice the loudest in the hymn?"
"It is true," said Markheim,"and I see clearly what remains for me by way of duty.I thank you for these lessons from my soul;my eyes are opened,and I behold myself at last for what I am."
At this moment,the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the house;and the visitant,as though this were some concerted signal for which he had been waiting,changed at once in his demeanour.
"The maid!"he cried."She has returned,as I forewarned you,and there is now before you one more difficult passage.Her master,you must say,is ill;you over-acting in,with an assured but rather serious countenance㉚,no smiles,no over-acting,and I promise you success!Once the girl within,and the door closed,the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path.Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night,if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety.This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger.Up!"he cried,"up,friend;your life hangs trembling in the scales:up,and act!"
Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor."If I be condemned to evil acts," he said,"there is still one door of freedom open I can cease from action.If my life be an ill thing,I can lay it down.Though I be,as you say truly,at the beck of every small temptation,I can yet,by one decisive gesture,place myself beyond the reach of all.My love of good is damned to barrenness;it may,and let it be!But I have still my hatred of evil;and from that,to your galling disappointment,you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage."
The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely change:they brightened and softened with a tender triumph,and,even as they brightened,faded and dislimned.But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation.He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly,thinking to himself.His past went soberly before him;he beheld it as it was,ugly and strenuous like a dream,random as chance-medley[31]—a scene of defeat.Life,as he thus reviewed it,tempted him no longer;but on the farther side he perceived a quiet haven for his bark.He paused in the passage,and looked into the shop,where the candle still burned by the dead body.It was strangely silent.Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind,as he stood gazing.And then the bell once more broke out into impatient clamour.
He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile.
"You had better go for the police," said he,"I have killed your master."
Ⅲ 难点释义
[1] I am the essence of discretion：我是一个非常慎重的人。
[2] waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared：滔滔不绝地讲准备好的话。
[3] while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice：继续用干瘪刺耳的声音说。
[4] hoarsely：嘶哑地。
[5] What are you driving at？你到底在说什么？
[6] Not charitable；not pious；not scrupulous；unloving，unbeloved；a hand to get money，a safe to keep it：不仁慈；不虔诚；不谨慎；无恻隐慈爱之心，亦无他人之爱；一只手抓钱，一个柜锁钱。
[7] vexed the surrounding quiet：扰乱了周围的沉寂。
[8] incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable：心中无休止地挣扎折磨。
[9] dwelling alone on memories of the past：独自回想过去的事。
[10] while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning，another trembled on the brink of lunacy：他一部分思维依然很警觉精明，另一部分却在颤抖中近乎发疯。
[11] The face was robbed of all expression：脸上惨淡无表情。
[12] horologist：钟表商。
[13] effigies：肖像；雕像。
[14] the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished silence：大雨落在屋顶的声音打破了沉寂。
[15] in their callous and immutable procedure：法律无情和不可改变的程序。
[16] irksome：厌恶的；讨厌的。
[17] was thronged with：占满。
[18] Fear held Markheim in a vice：恐惧像钳子一样夹住了马克海姆的心。
[19] his fear broke loose from his control in a hoarse cry：他的恐惧像脱缰的野马，从他的嘶哑喊声中跑了出来。
[20] I know you to the soul：我对你了如指掌。
[21] travesty：滑稽化的作品，漫画。
[22] belie my nature：掩饰我的天性。
[23] evil is hateful to me：我天性不邪恶。
[24] deathbed repentance：临死前的忏悔。
[25] I was a bond-slave to poverty，driven and scourged：我是被贫困束缚，被驱赶，被鞭笞。
[26] Sabbath：安息日，犹太人的新年。
[27] I am plunged again in poverty：我再次陷入贫困。
[28] pity is no stranger to my thoughts：我从不缺乏同情。
[29] take on the tone of their surroundings：染上了世俗的尘埃。
㉚ an assured but rather serious countenance：有把握，严肃的面容。
[31] chance-medley：过失杀伤；自卫杀伤。
Ⅳ 问题思考
1.How are the mirrors and clocks used as symbols in Markheim?
2.Is any person completely good or completely evil?Instead,are people usually a mixture of the two?Evaluate the decision that Markheim makes.Do you think that the decision is reasonable or that it is a hasty action arising from a tormented mind?Explain your answer.In your opinion,is Markheim different from Edward Hyde?Why or why not?
3.Evaluate the story's success,focusing on such elements as the presentation of themes,use of symbols,characterization,plot construction,setting and atmosphere,and point of view.In which areas does the story succeed?Which areas are less successful?Use details from the story to support your evaluation.
4.The 19 th century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne took as his special subject the Puritan past of his native New England.In Dr.Heidegger's Experiment,one of his best-known stories and an early form of science fiction,Hawthorne presents an important moral lesson.Compare the two,and judge which work,Dr.Heidegger's Experiment or,Markheim seems more realistic to you?Which seems more like a fairy tale?Why?What qualities of the two works help create this distinction?
ⅴ 简评导读
《马克海姆》出版于1885年，是斯蒂文森的短篇小说经典之作，后收录于短篇小说集《快乐的男人们及其他故事》（The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fable，1887）之中。《马克海姆》将哥特式小说的神秘元素与恐怖小说的罪恶巧妙地加以融合，以诗意化的笔触，戏剧性地将压抑在人心灵深处的恐惧与矛盾诉诸笔端，着力营造超自然的诡异气氛和象征寓意丰富的场景，烘托人物善与恶的心理之战。通过展现主人公马克海姆圣诞节当日进入典当店将店主杀死之后与一个诡异地出现在门口的幽灵般的陌生到访者之间的心理对话，小说深入展开对“双重人格”主题的探讨，以其深刻的思想内涵和精湛的叙事艺术确立它在英国文学史上的独特地位。
《马克海姆》的故事时间是圣诞节的下午。故事发生在一个明暗交参的古玩典当店里，人物只有典当店老板和作为光顾者的马克海姆两个人，故事情节异常简单——36岁的马克海姆在一个圣诞节下午为谋财故意装作为选择求婚礼物而进入古董店，店老板不屑不敬的势利辱谩态度将其激怒（尤其在被推荐购买一面镜子之后），马克海姆遂用匕首将其捅死。在寻找财物的过程中马克海姆遭遇一个似己非己的幽灵，马克海姆原本可以一不做二不休地杀害女仆，敛财逃逸，但他最终决定放下屠刀，不再继续作恶。小说的事件性在于店老板的被杀，但是可述性的意义点却在于马克海姆最终的自我精神救赎。与《罪与罚》相似的是，在近7 000字的小说中，整个杀人罪行只是寥寥数语，从小说开始到杀死店主仅覆盖六分之一的篇幅，而“罚”贯穿了剩下的全部——不是身体和法律之罚，而是灵魂与道德的心理之罚。小说择取第三人称叙事视角，主要通过马克海姆的内心世界推动小说进程。这种叙事方式似乎直接深入罪犯内心：“极少作家曾如此鞭辟入里、笔力传神地刻画过一个刚刚犯下命案的罪人在血腥弥漫的犯罪现场恐惧感和罪恶感同时盘踞心头时内心所展开的心理之战。”因此，马克海姆的内心活动笼罩了叙事的全部篇幅。
斯蒂文森特别擅长运用有质感的语言材料和颇具象征意义的意象来渲染气氛，生动地体现人物在特定情境中的特定心态，将现实性描写与奇异的想象、丰富的象征、鲜明的意象、深刻的寓意和神秘的氛围等哥特式手法完美地结合在一起，这就使得小说的语言有了一种诗意的美。斯蒂文森有意将故事设置在圣诞节这个特别的日子里发生是有其深刻寓意的。他在杂文《圣诞训诫》（1900）中曾说过，圣诞节意味着旧的一年结束，新的一年开始，是回顾反省过往、洗心革面的最佳时间。小说开场语言中的象征意义就已预示了贯穿整个小说的典型哥特式主题，影像确立了小说的基调：黑暗与光明交错，邪恶与良善交锋。摇曳的烛光、阴郁黯淡的氛围、萦绕于耳的噪音，一切都是哥特式小说的熟悉影像和经典符码。
蜡烛和火焰代表万劫不复的地狱之火，“无恻隐慈爱之心，亦无他人之爱”的店主只会用“一只手抓钱，一个柜子锁钱”（a hand to get money，a safe to keep it）。马克海姆从店主身上看到了人性普遍的恶。以人为镜，马克海姆从中也看到了自身的恶。这点可以从斯蒂文森对店主的描述中得到印证——“矮小、苍白、手臂粗圆”。通过将店主的声音描述成“干瘪瘪、食人肉咬人心般的声音”，斯蒂文森赋予店主圣经里的毒蛇般的意象。店主的丑恶也在马克海姆杀死他后与陌生到访者谈及谋杀和罪恶这个话题时得以影射——“难道杀人罪行真的就如此大不敬，就连温善之泉也因此而干涸枯竭了吗？”斯蒂文森用滋润人心的“温善之泉”与店主喉咙里干瘪哑滞的声音形成善与恶的对比。
斯蒂文森让店主将镜子作为求婚礼物推荐给马克海姆。当马克海姆看见自己在镜中的样子，他变得异常激动和焦虑，对典当店老板说：“看，看这——看镜子里面——看着你自己！你想看到那个样子吗？不，我也不想——没有人想看到镜子里的样子。”马克海姆从明辨美丑的镜子里目睹了一个令自己毛骨悚然的样子，让他透视和意识到自己的猥琐，除了罪恶、愚蠢和沧桑，镜子里的自己一无是处。
如果说马克海姆的态度和店内幽暗的氛围透着杀气的话，那么店内令人心烦意乱的钟声，飘忽不定的幻影，无处不在、直视肺腑的镜子，通过声、影、光等各种感官刺激着马克海姆，无一不在驱使他复苏人性、止恶向善。“他仍然在往口袋里塞钱，内心却百般谴责自己在错误的时间犯下了错误的罪行，疾言厉色缠萦于心，让人心煎肠慌，早知如此他该选择一个宁静时分才好。”对于他的杀人行为来说，他确实选错了时间；但对于他的自我忏悔而言（斯蒂文森最终的叙事意图在于凸显主人公作恶后的向善），没有什么比小说设定的时间和环境更适合。
《马克海姆》中的恐怖成分并非来自于主人公的杀人行为，而是来自恐惧和罪恶双重折磨下所产生的幻觉，发自内在世界的黑暗罪恶和心魔。他不是被时间非此即彼地分割成形象迥然不同、善恶截然对立的二重身，而是在他杀害了他阴险狡诈的对手之后，外在于他自身的另一个自我出现在眼前，循循善诱地引导他悬崖勒马、恢复良知，最终令他弃恶从善。
马克海姆与《罪与罚》（Crime and Punishment）中拉斯柯尔尼科夫之间是否有相似之处，他是否说服自己店老板本该受死，或者在内心深处（如同拉斯柯尔尼科夫一样）并不想杀死他？应该说，穷得叮当响的马克海姆在光天化日之下进入典当店的那一刻最多只有敛点小财的小算盘，并没有草菅人命的谋杀大计。当他犯下卑鄙的杀人罪行之后，在孤身一人、周围没有任何监视的情况下，马克海姆开始被不断地涌现的大量强制性思维充斥，好像是在神奇的外力作用下别人的思想在自己脑中运行似的。他知道这将是他生命中的最好转折点。他没有急于攫取财物逃离杀人现场，而是让自己的过去接受最严苛的审查和检讨。随着他越来越专注于这种对过去的人生和现在的心理状况的沉思默想，本可能是自言自语的独白变成了对话，一场刚刚犯下杀人罪行的旧“我”与开始厌恶和反抗旧“我”的新“我”之间的对话。旧“我”催促马克海姆继续已开始的恶行，而新“我”却在督促自我立即辍弃罪恶，抓住最后机会，放下屠刀，立地向善。他本性中的“善性”战胜了“恶性”。他发现尽管他以前无恶不作，他“仍然能转善念、举善行，舍己忘我（在面临继续杀人逃逸和杀人罪行暴露并被绳之于法两种选择时），殉道取义”。如果他在作出决定前的所有行为都是离经叛道的，那么，这一决定却让马克海姆通过舍身求法实现了“堕落之幸”。