The Moon And Sixpence 58.1

The time camefor my departure from Tahiti. According to the gracious custom of the island,presents were given me by the persons with whom I had been thrown in contact --baskets made of the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, mats of pandanus, fans; andTiare gave me three little pearls and three jars of guava-jelly made with herown plump hands. When the mail-boat, stopping for twenty-four hours on its wayfrom Wellington to San Francisco, blew the whistle that warned the passengersto get on board, Tiare clasped me to her vast bosom, so that I seemed to sinkinto a billowy sea, and pressed her red lips to mine. Tears glistened in hereyes. And when we steamed slowly out of the lagoon, making our way gingerlythrough the opening in the reef, and then steered for the open sea, a certainmelancholy fell upon me. The breeze was laden still with the pleasant odours ofthe land. Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again.A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitabledeath.Not much morethan a month later I was in London; and after I had arranged certain matterswhich claimed my immediate attention, thinking Mrs. Strickland might like tohear what I knew of her husband's last years, I wrote to her. I had not seenher since long before the war, and I had to look out her address in thetelephone-book. She made an appointment, and I went to the trim little house onCampden Hill which she now inhabited. She was by this time a woman of hard onsixty, but she bore her years well, and no one would have taken her for morethan fifty. Her face, thin and not much lined, was of the sort that agesgracefully, so that you thought in youth she must have been a much handsomerwoman than in fact she was. Her hair, not yet very gray, was becominglyarranged, and her black gown was modish. I remembered having heard that hersister, Mrs. MacAndrew, outliving her husband but a couple of years, had left moneyto Mrs. Strickland; and by the look of the house and the trim maid who openedthe door I judged that it was a sum adequate to keep the widow in modestcomfort.我离开塔希提的日子已经到了。根据岛上好客的习惯，凡是萍水相逢和我有一面之识的人临别时都送给我一些礼物——椰子树叶编的筐子、露兜树叶织的席、扇子……。蒂阿瑞给我的是三颗小珍珠和用她一双胖手亲自做的三罐番石榴酱。最后，当从惠灵顿开往旧金山的邮船在码头停泊了二十四小时，汽笛长鸣，招呼旅客上船的时候，蒂阿瑞把我搂在她肥大的胸脯里（我有一种掉在波涛汹涌的大海中的感觉），眼睛里闪着泪珠，把她的红嘴唇贴在我的嘴上。轮船缓缓驶出咸水湖，从珊瑚礁的一个通道小心谨慎地开到广阔的海面上，这时，一阵忧伤突然袭上我的心头。空气里仍然弥漫着从陆地飘来的令人心醉的香气，塔希提离我却已经非常遥远了。我知道我再也不会看到它了。我的生命史又翻过了一页；我觉得自己距离那谁也逃脱不掉的死亡又迈近了一步。一个月零几天以后，我回到了伦敦。我把几件亟待处理的事办好以后，想到思特里克兰德太太或许愿意知道一下她丈夫最后几年的情况，便给她写了一封信。从大战前很长一段日子我们就没有见面了，我不知道她这时住在什么地方，只好翻了一下电话簿才找到她的地址。她在回信里约定了一个日子，到了那一天，我便到她在坎普登山的新居——一所很整齐的小房子——去登门造访。这时思特里克兰德太太已经快六十岁了，但是她的相貌一点儿也不显老，谁也不会相信她是五十开外的人。她的脸比较瘦，皱纹不多，是那种年龄很难刻上凿痕的面孔，你会觉得年轻时她一定是个美人，比她实际相貌要漂亮得多。她的头发没有完全灰白，梳理得恰合自己的身份，身上的黑色长衫样子非常时兴。我仿佛听人说过，她的姐姐麦克安德鲁太太在丈夫死后几年也去世了，给思特里克兰德太太留下一笔钱。从她现在的住房和给我们开门的使女的整齐利落的样子看，我猜想这笔钱是足够叫这位寡妇过着小康的日子的。