The Pit and the Pendulum 05（文稿）

英语有声·短篇故事集

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The Oval Portrait
I was in the Italian mountains when I fell from my horse and hurt myself.
I needed to rest but in that wild, lonely place there was only one house.
It was a fine old building, very big, but dark and empty.
My servant, Pedro, broke the lock on a door and helped me inside.
I looked around at the furniture, the carpets, the paintings.
‘The people who lived here,’ I thought, ‘left only a short time ago.’
We used one of the smaller rooms in a far corner of the building.
There were a great many modern paintings on the walls, and more in the dark corners of the room.
It was getting dark and Pedro lit the tall candles on the table by my bed.
There was a book on the table, and I began reading it.
It described and told the story of each of the pictures on the walls.
Midnight came and went, and I moved the candles closer to me, to give a better light for reading.
But the light also fell on one of the darker corners of the room-
and there I saw for the first time an oval portrait of a beautiful young woman, just her head and shoulders.
It was a very fine painting, but there was also something different about it, something strange,
something... I did not know what it was, but I could not take my eyes away from that portrait.
For about an hour I sat in the bed, staring at it.
And at last I found its secret. It was in her face, in her eyes.
‘She could easily be... alive,’ I thought. ‘She looks alive. Those eyes...’
Suddenly I felt cold, and a great fear filled me.
My hands began to shake, and I had to look away.
Carefully, I moved the candles again until the light no longer fell in that corner, and the portrait went back into darkness.
I found the place in the book which told the story of the oval portrait, and began to read.
She was a young woman of great beauty, and even more beautiful when she was smiling and laughing.
It was a dark day when she saw, and loved, and married the painter.
He was already famous for his art, and was always studying and working.
The great love of his life was his work, his painting.
His beautiful young wife was playful, full of life and light and smiles, as happy and as loving as a child.
But she learned to fear and then to hate everything about painting.
Her husband's work was her enemy, because it kept him away from her, hour after hour.
So it was a terrible thing for her when he said he wanted to paint her portrait.
But she agreed because she loved him and wanted to please him.
For many weeks she sat in a dark high room where the light from above fell onto the painting and onto her.
Day after day, she sat still and silent, not moving, not speaking.
But she went on smiling and smiling because she saw that the painter loved his work so much.
He painted hour after hour, not speaking a word, thinking only of his work.
Those who saw the portrait looked and said softly, 'It is your finest work.
'Oh, you do love her dearly! We can see this in the portrait.'
And it was true. But he did not look at her now.
He went on working, more and more wildly, thinking and dreaming only of the portrait and never of his wife.
Day by day she looked more and more unhappy, but he did not see it.
Her face and body were now thin, but he did not see it.
He took the warm colour from her face, and painted it into the face in his portrait- but he could not, he would not see it.
After many weeks, he finished.
One last touch of paint on the mouth, a last touch to the eye...
The painter stood back and looked at the portrait of his wife. How wonderful it was!
But while he stared, he began to shake and his face went white.
Then he cried out with a loud voice, 'This is LIFE itself! She LIVES in this portrait!'
and he turned suddenly to look at the woman he loved. She was dead!