No Signposts in the Sea

1. No Signposts in the Sea

2. Questions for further discussion • If one has been informed that one’s days in the world are numbered, what do you think one may choose to do as the best option?

3. . . . Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. …But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sound hazily, without concentration, and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we conscious of health until we are ill.

4. New Words • ...a Chinese woman improbably called Mm Merveille... improbably: unlikely • Doubtless some instinct impels me gluttonously to cram these... glutton: a person who eats too much food and drink gluttonous: indulging in sth excessively. greedy greed ravenous ravenousness rapacious rapacity voracious voracity covetous covetousness avaricious avarice

5. …releasing some suppressed inclination which in fact was always latent. latent: potential e.g. latent energy; latent ability • Or maybe Laura’s unwitting influence has called it out. unwitting: unaware, unconscious, unintentional, unknowing, oblivious

6. gluttonous: glutton: a glutton of books a glutton for work • gluttonous: Indulging in something, such as an activity, voracious. • voracious. avarice voracity be avid of • cupidity • Excessive desire, especially for wealth; covetousness or avarice. • Immoderate desire for wealth; cupidity.

7. voracious gluttonous rapacious ravenous: • The central meaning shared by these adjectives is “having or marked by boundless greed” • a voracious observer of the political scene; a voracious reader. • 如饥似渴的读者 • a gluttonous appetite; a voracious observer of the political scene; • 对政治事件的饥渴观察者； • a gluttonous appetite; • 贪吃的大胃口； • rapacious demands; • 贪婪的需要； • ravenous for power. • 对权利的贪欲

8. Unwitting: Not knowing; unaware:Not intended; unintentional:

9. latent dormant quiescent • These adjectives mean present or in existence but not active or manifest. • What is latent is present but not visible or apparent: • latent energy; 潜在的能量； • latent ability. 潜在的能力。 • His critical remark immediately awakened all her latent hostility.他的批评立刻引起了她潜在的敌意。 • Dormant evokes the idea of sleep; the term applies to what is inactive or in suspended animation: ormant含有睡眠的意思；这个词含有处于不活跃状态或暂停状态： • a dormant volcano. 休眠火山。 • Her enormous talents were dormant. 她非凡的天才被暂时埋没了。 • Persons or things are quiescent when they cease to be active; sometimes—but not always—the term suggests temporary inactivity: • 。当不再活跃的时候人或事情使处于 quiescent状态；有时——但不是经常——这个词含有暂时性不活跃的意思： • “How for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment . . . I can never comprehend.” Charlotte Bronte. • “这九年来你是如何面对各种遭遇保持耐心和缄默的……我永远也不可能知道”（夏洛特·勃朗特）。 • For a time, he [the whale] lay quiescent. (Herman Melville). • “过了一会儿，他 躺在那里不动了”（赫尔曼·麦尔维尔）

10. Summary of Characters

11. a) Edmund Carr: an influential political columnist and bachelor who had devoted all of his time to the career, having little time to entertain himself before he decided to take the voyage abroad

12. b) Laura: a widow and an acquaintance of Edmund Carr’s, who could be considered as the incarnation of Vita Mary Sackville-West. Her qualities, her intelligence and warmth stiffened by a deep reserve, have struck him as uncommon; he decides to be abroad with her.

13. c) Colonel: an Empire builder, who tended to appear quite knowledgeable which was the result of his frequent travels worldwide, who often tried to put right what Edmund Carr was commenting on the natural surroundings, say, the seas, the mountains, to name just a few.

14. Summary of the Story • Edmund Carr is at sea in more ways than one. An eminent journalist and self-made man, he has recently discovered that he has only a short time to live. Leaving his job on a Fleet Street paper, he takes a passage on a cruise ship where he knows that Laura, a beautiful and intelligent widow whom he secretly admires, will be a fellow passenger. Exhilarated by the distant vista of exotic islands never to be visited and his conversations with Laura, Edmund finds himself rethinking all his values. A voyage on many levels, those long purposeless days at sea find Edumnd relinquishing the past as he discovers the joys and the pain of a love he is simultaneously determined to conceal.

15. Question for further discussion: • Suppose if one has been informed that his days in the world are numbered, what do you think he may choose to do as the best option?

16. The ending of the story

17. ‘Laura,’ I said, ‘forgive me if I seem impertinent; you need not answer if you don’t want to; but are you speaking personally or theoretically?’ There was a long pause. Her face was almost hidden from me in the shadow. She bent down to do something to her shoe. ‘Personally’, she said then. ‘I have been wanting to tell you this for some time, but although I tried you gave me no encouragement.’

18. ‘And now what do you want me to give you? My advice?’ She turned to me, and I saw that her eyes were lit with all the radiance of love. And not her eyes only; her whole being dissolved into a softness, a readiness, a loveliness of assent. ‘Your advice?’ she said. ‘Well, I suppose you are my best friend. What is your advice?’

19. At all costs I must save her from falling into irretrievable error. ‘You are not a conventional woman,’ I said; ‘your appearance belies you. You have told me your views on marriage, your insistence on individual liberty. To achieve that, you must have the agreement of the other person. I cannot believe that you would get it, or at least you might obtain all kinds of promises, given in the blindness of the moment—a man in love will say anything he is asked—but they would very soon be broken. Try it out first, Laura, before you find yourself committed for good.’

20. … ‘But I told you I was so sure,’ she said, a pitiable note coming into her voice. ‘How can one be sure, when one is besotted? Your conception of marriage—I say marriage, not the lover-relationship—includes companionship and an affinity of outlook. Something durable. Would you find that, I ask you, with Dalrymple? ‘Dalrymple?’ she said. ‘The Colonel? Oh, you fool, Edmund,’ she said. ‘You blind fool!’ ★ ★ ★ ★

21. I cannot think, I dare not think…Folly, folly, folly! She got up and went, leaving me alone with the lighted ship in the night. How shall I meet her tomorrow? Shall I ★ ★ ★ ★

22. Edmund Carr was found dead in his cabin the morning after this conversation had taken place. He had fallen forward on to his table, his diary open at the page where he had recorded these last broken-off words. The ship’s doctor, in the strength of the medical report found in Carr’s wallet, had no hesitation in signing a certificate of death from natural causes.

23. Carr had also included a note to the effect that he wished to be buried at sea. These instructions were duly carried out in the Pacific Ocean, latitude 25 ° south, longitude 175 ° west. A canister of lighted petrol was thrown in after him, briefly to mark the spot, and those on board watched it burning as the ship proceeded on her way, until the flame died down and nothing more was seen.