【英文原著类】AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE(国际插曲).pdf

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE
AN INTERNATIONAL
EPISODE
By Henry James
1
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE
PART I
Four years ago--in 1874--two young Englishmen had occasion to go
to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving
in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid
temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into
one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the
hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course
through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not, perhaps,
the most favorable one; still, it is not without its picturesque and even
brilliant side. Nothing could well resemble less a typical English street
than the interminable avenue, rich in incongruities, through which our two
travelers advanced--looking out on each side of them at fortable
animation of the sidewalks, the high-colored, heterogeneous architecture,
the huge white marble facades glittering in the strong, crude light, and
bedizened with gilded lettering, the multifarious awnings, banners, and
streamers, the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horsecars, and other
democratic vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and
big straw hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young
persons on the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both
of people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations;
but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Washington-- in
the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the <i pater patriae>--
one of them remarked to the other, "It seems a rum-looking place."
"Ah, very odd, very odd," said the other, who was the clever man of
the two.
"Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the first speaker after a pause.
"You know we are in a low latitude," said his friend.
"I daresay," remarked the other.
"I wonder," said the second speaker presently, "i