她不像许多女人一样，在听到这事情后，麻痹茫茫，渺渺无力，无法接受它产生的后果。她的眼泪立刻掉了下来，在她姐姐的怀里突然地发出歇斯底里的哭声。在悲伤的暴风雨渐渐地平息时，她离开众人，独自进了她的房间。她不让任何人跟着。
正对开着的窗户，立着一把舒适宽敞的扶手椅。她陷落其中，疲劳已裹住她的身体，又将手伸进她的心灵，压着她向下沉。
她能够瞧见，在房子前空旷的广场上，树顶的枝葉都迎着新春的活力，兴奋地婆娑起来。美妙的雨之气息，漂浮在空中。下面街上，一个小贩在为他的货物哭泣。不知是谁正在唱一首歌，远远地，一个个音符微弱地触碰着她，还有屋檐下，数不过来的麻雀在鸣啭呢喃。
透过云层，晴空上的蓝色补丁，这里一块，那里一块。云层一片在另一片之上相抱堆叠，在对着窗户的西方。
她坐着，把头扔在椅子的靠垫上，一动也不动，除非有一声呜咽窜上喉咙使她摇动起来：就像一个孩子，自己哭着睡着了，又在梦中继续抽泣。
她还年轻，有一张白皙、平静的脸。那脸上的纹路显示一种压抑，甚至隐约有一种必然的力量。但现在，她的眼睛呆滞地盯着，钉在了远方那其中一片斑驳的碧空上。这不是对映像的简单一瞥，而是表明了智慧思想的出现。
某种东西正在靠近她，她也在等待着它，胆怯地。它是什麽？它不知道；它太微妙太难以捉摸，无法名之。但她感觉到了它，某样东西，缓慢地爬出天空，透过充溢空中的声音，气味，颜色触碰到了她。
此刻她的胸脯上下起伏，心情纷乱不安。她开始意识到这样东西正逐渐逼近并控制她，而她努力地用自己的意志回击，无力如她本来就白皙纤长的双手。在她放弃时，一串低语而出的字词从她轻微分开的唇边溜出：自由了，自由了，自由了！原先茫然的凝视和随之而生的恐惧的眼神从她的双眸消失了。它们显得敏锐且明亮。她的脉搏加快，血液涌至全身的每一个角落，感觉温暖而轻松。
她并未停下来问，是否是那怪异的巨大欢欣在掌握着她。一种清晰且得意的感觉使她能够忽略这个无关紧要的暗示。她明白它会再次痛苦，在她看到那双善良温柔的双手，合拢在死亡中；看到那张从未向她吝惜爱意的面庞，变得僵硬，灰白，失去生命。然而她望见了在这痛苦时刻之后的队列一样的长日，完完全全属于她的日子。她已经向它们张开了双臂，准备迎接了。
在那些即将到来的日子，她不必再为谁而活，她将为自己而活。不再有强力的意志使她屈服，因为一种盲目的固执，男人和女人相信他们拥有将私心私意强加给与他们为伴的生物的权力。這時她看待自己，好似因为这短暂的光明时刻，好心或恶意都使得这种行为看起来不亚于犯罪。
可是，她爱过他——有时。并不时常。这有什麽关系！爱，这个未解之谜，在她可以自作主张的意志面前，能算什麽！她突然意识到这种一意孤行是她生命存在的最强烈的跳动！
“自由了！身体和灵魂的双重自由！”她一直在窃窃私语。
约瑟芬正跪在关着的门前，她的嘴唇贴着锁眼，恳求着进去。“露易丝，开门！求你了，开开门，你会让自己生病的。你在干什么，露易丝？看在老天的份上开开门吧。”
“走开。我不会让自己生病的。”是啊；她正透过窗喝着那长生不老药呢。
她的幻想沿着在她前面的日子信马由缰地挥霍着。春天的日子和夏天的日子，所有季节的日子，都将是她自己的。她吸了口气，作了一个快速的祈祷，希冀人生可以长些。还仅是昨天，她的这个想法就让她发抖。
她终于起身，回应了姐姐的强求，开了门。她的眼睛冒着一种狂热的凯旋的神情，并不经意间把自己当作了一位胜利女神。她紧抱住姐姐的腰，一起下楼了。理查兹在底下正站着等她们。
这时，有人用钥匙打开了前门。进来的是布伦特里·玛兰德，风尘仆仆，沉着自若地带着手提包和雨伞。他那时远离事故地点，甚至不知道有发生了什麽事故。他站着，对约瑟芬悲痛欲绝的哭声大吃一惊；又对理查兹突然把他挡在他妻子视线之外的行为不知所措。
医生们赶到了，他们说她死于心脏病——高兴致死。
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
联系客服
