燦爛夜空

You've known that for some time, haven't you? I suppose you think of escape, like a rat in a trap. But you can't escape. You can't leave here . . . but 1 could go with you.' Paul forced himself to keep his eyes looking straight into hers. 'We all go eventually, don't we, Annie? But I'd like to finish what I've started first.' She sighed and stood up. 'All right. 1 must have known that's what you'd want, because I've brought you your pills. I don't remember bringing them, but here they are. I have to e. If I don't, what you or I want won't make any difference. I do things, you see . . . I go somewhere when I feel like this - a place in the hills. I call it my Laughing Place.

Do you remember that I told you I was coming back from Sidewinder when I found you in the storm? I lied. I was coming back from my Laughing Place, in fact. Sometimes I do laugh when I'm there, but usually I just scream.' 38 'How long will you be away, Annie?' 'I don't know. I've brought you plenty of pills.' But what about food? Am I supposed to eat that rat? She left the room and he listened to her walking around the house, getting ready to go. He still half expected her to come back with her gun, and he didn't relax until he heard the car disappearing up the road outside,

Two hours later Paul unlocked his door with a hairpin for the last time, he hoped. He was determined to escape. He had blankets and all his tablets in his lap. Sidewinder was downhill from here and, even if he had to slide all the way in the rain, he intended to try. Why hadn't he tried to escape before? Writing the book had become an excuse. It was true that it kept him alive, because it gave Annie a reason to want him alive; he was her pet writer, producing a book just for her. But it was also true that he was enjoying writing the book and didn't want to leave it. But now he didn't care. Annie could destroy the book if she wanted. He rolled himself into the sitting-room. It had been tidy before, but now it was a mess. There were dirty dishes piled up on all the surfaces.

Empty containers of sweet things of all kinds - jam, ice-cream, cake, biscuits, Pepsi-Cola - were everywhere. There was no sign of any spoons or forks; Annie used her hands when she was in this condition. There were splashes of icecream on the floor and the sofa. The figure of the flying bird was still on the table, but most of the other figures had been thrown into a corner, where they had broken into sharp little pieces. In the middle of the floor was an overturned vase of dead flowers. Underneath a small table lay a photograph album. Don't you know it's a bad idea to think about the past when you're feeling depressed, Annie? 39 He rolled across the room. Straight ahead was the kitchen; on the right was the hall leading to the front door. He knew there was a door in the kitchen and he hoped he might get out of the house that way. But first he wanted to check the front door; he might get a surprise. He didn't.  

while the teachings of nature and the dignity of Cumbrian peasant life had confirmed his high opinion of the essential worth of man. The upheaval of the French people, therefore, and the downfall of privilege, seemed to him no portent for good or evil, but rather the tardy return of a society to its stable equilibrium. He passed through revolutionized Paris with satisfaction and sympathy, but with little active emotion, and proceeded first to Orleans, and then to Blois, between which places he spent nearly a year. At Orleans he became intimately acquainted with the nobly-born but republican general Beaupuis, an inspiring example of all in the Revolution that was self-devoted and chivalrous and had compassion on the wretched poor. In conversation with him Wordsworth learnt with what new force the well-worn adages of the moralist fall from the lips of one who is called upon to put them at once in action, and to stake life itself on the verity of his maxims of honour. The poet’s heart burned within him as he listened. He could not indeed help mourning sometimes at the sight of a dismantled chapel, or peopling in imagination the forest-glades in which they sat with the chivalry of a bygone day. But he became increasingly absorbed in his friend’s ardour, and the Revolution—mulier formosa superne—seemed to him big with all the hopes of man fucoidan.
He returned to Paris in October 1792,—a month after the massacres of September; and he has described his agitation and dismay at the sight of such world-wide destinies swayed by the hands of such men. In a passage which curiously illustrates that reasoned self-confidence and deliberate boldness which for the most part he showed only in the peaceful incidents of a literary career, he has told us how he was on the point of putting himself forward as a leader of the Girondist party, in the conviction that his singleheartedness of aim would make him, in spite of foreign birth and imperfect speech, a point round which the confused instincts of the multitude.
Such a course of action,—which, whatever its other results, would undoubtedly have conducted him to the guillotine with his political friends in May 1793,—was rendered impossible by a somewhat undignified hindrance. Wordsworth, while in his own eyes “a patriot of the world,” was in the eyes of others a young man of twenty-two, travelling on a small allowance, and running his head into unnecessary dangers. His funds were stopped, and he reluctantly returned to England at the close of 1792 .
And now to Wordsworth, as to many other English patriots, there came, on a great scale, that form of sorrow which in private life is one of the most agonizing of all—when two beloved beings, each of them erring greatly, become involved in bitter hate. The new-born Republic flung down to Europe as her battle-gage the head of a king. England, in an hour of horror that was almost panic, accepted the defiance, and war was declared between the two countries early in 1793. “No shock,” says Wordsworth．