📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 66
1"How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to you?" "I have known it these four months. When Lucy
2first came to Barton Park last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement." At these words, Marianne's eyes
3expressed the astonishment which her lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed-- "Four months!--Have
4you known of this four months?" Elinor confirmed it. "What! while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your
5heart? And I have reproached you for being happy!" "It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the
6reverse!" "Four months!" cried Marianne again. "So calm! so cheerful! How have you been supported?" "By feeling that I
7was doing my duty.--My promise to Lucy, obliged me to be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint
8of the truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them a solicitude about me, which it could not be
9in my power to satisfy." Marianne seemed much struck. "I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother,"
10added Elinor; "and once or twice I have attempted it;--but without betraying my trust, I never could have convinced
11you." "Four months! and yet you loved him!" "Yes. But I did not love only him; and while the comfort of others was dear
12to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt. Now, I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I
13would not have you suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer materially myself. I have many things to
14support me. I am not conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own, I have borne it as
15much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit Edward of essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I am
16so sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour some regret, in the end he must become so. Lucy
17does not want sense, and that is the foundation on which every thing good may be built. And after all, Marianne, after
18all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's happiness
19depending entirely on any particular person, it is not meant--it is not fit--it is not possible that it should be so.
20Edward will marry Lucy; he will marry a woman superior in person and understanding to half her sex; and time and habit
21will teach him to forget that he ever thought another superior to her." "If such is your way of thinking," said
22Marianne, "if the loss of what is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your resolution, your
23self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be wondered at.--They are brought more within my comprehension." "I
24understand you. You do not suppose that I have ever felt much. For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on
25my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most
26unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least. It was told me,--it was in a
27manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I
28thought, with triumph. This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent
29where I have been most deeply interested; and it has not been only once; I have had her hopes and exultation to listen
30to again and again. I have known myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that could
31make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I
32have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the
33punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time, when, as you
34know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness. If you can think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose
35that I have suffered now. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the
36consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion; they did not
37spring up of themselves; they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first. No, Marianne. Then, if I had not been bound
38to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely--not even what I owed to my dearest friends--from openly showing
39that I was very unhappy." Marianne was quite subdued. "Oh! Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for
40ever.--How barbarous have I been to you!--you, who have been my only comfort, who have borne with me in all my misery,
41who have seemed to be only suffering for me!--Is this my gratitude?--Is this the only return I can make you?--Because
42your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying to do it away." The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In
43such a frame of mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her whatever promise she required;
44and at her request, Marianne engaged never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of bitterness; to
45meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of dislike to her; and even to see Edward himself, if chance should
46bring them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality. These were great concessions; but where Marianne
47felt that she had injured, no reparation could be too much for her to make. She performed her promise of being discreet,
48to admiration.--She attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an unchanging complexion,
49dissented from her in nothing, and was heard three times to say, "Yes, ma'am."--She listened to her praise of Lucy with
50only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings talked of Edward's affection, it cost her only a spasm in
51her throat.--Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel equal to any thing herself. The next morning
52brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the
53dreadful affair, and bring them news of his wife. "You have heard, I suppose," said he with great solemnity, as soon as
54he was seated, "of the very shocking discovery that took place under our roof yesterday." They all looked their assent;
55it seemed too awful a moment for speech. "Your sister," he continued, "has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrars too--in
56short it has been a scene of such complicated distress--but I will hope that the storm may be weathered without our
57being any of us quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I would not alarm you too much.
58Donavan says there is nothing materially to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to
59any thing. She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an angel! She says she never shall think well of anybody again;
60and one cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived!--meeting with such ingratitude, where so much kindness had been
61shown, so much confidence had been placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart, that she had asked these
62young women to her house; merely because she thought they deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved girls,
63and would be pleasant companions; for otherwise we both wished very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us,
64while your kind friend there, was attending her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! 'I wish, with all my heart,' says
65poor Fanny in her affectionate way, 'that we had asked your sisters instead of them.'" Here he stopped to be thanked;
66which being done, he went on.
🎉 全部完成！共 66 行