“I can’t say definitely,” replied Raine Chetwynd, rubbing his meerschaum bowl on his coat-sleeve.
“You had better,” urged the other. “We can make our arrangements fit into yours, if you’ll give us timely notice. Put aside a fortnight in July or August, and we will keep all the plums for then. You see we must have dates beforehand, on account of the guides.”
“Quite so,” Raine assented1; “and it’s very good of you, Rogers. But somehow I shouldn’t care to tie myself down. I am not certain how long I may be likely to stay in Switzerland; and I have half promised the Professor to take him away somewhere, if he has had enough of Geneva. No; you fellows make your own arrangements without reference to me. Tell me your dates, and I’ll very probably happen upon you and take my chance of what’s going.”
The Junior Dean did not press the matter. Chetwynd was not a man to be governed by caprice, and doubtless had excellent reasons for not wishing to make a specific engagement. But Raine thought it necessary to apologize. He got up, and walked to the open window.
“Don’t think me a disagreeable beast.”
The Junior Dean, laughed, and came and leant on the sill by his side.
“No one could be disagreeable on a day like this.”
The window gave upon the College Gardens. The lawn was flooded with sunlight, save for the splashes of shade under the two flowering chestnut-trees. The fresh voices of some girls up for Commemoration rose through the quiet afternoon air; the faint tinkle2 of a piano was heard from some rooms in the grey pile on the left that stood cool in shadow.
The two men stood side by side for a long time without speaking, Raine leaning on his elbow, blowing great puffs3 of smoke that curled lazily outwards4 in the stillness, and the Junior Dean with his hands behind his back.
“We ought to be accounted happy,” said the latter, meditatively5. “This life of ours—”
“Yes, it approaches Euthanasia sometimes,” replied Raine, allusively—“or it would, if one gave way to it.”
“I can’t see that,” rejoined the other. “A life of scholarly ease is not death—the charm of it lies in its perfect mingling7 of cloistered8 seclusion9 with the idyllic10. Here, for instance”—with a wave of a delicate hand—“is Arden without its discomforts11.”
“I am afraid I am not so ‘deep-contemplative’ as you,” said Raine, with a smile, “and the idyllic always strikes me as a bit flimsy. I never could lie under a tree and pretend to read Theocritus. I’d sooner read Rabelais over a fire.”
“I think you’re ungrateful, Chetwynd. Where, out of Oxford12—Cambridge, perhaps—could you get a scene like this? And not the scene alone, but the subtle spirit of it? It seems always to me thought-haunted. We have grown so used to it that we do not appreciate sufficiently13 the perfect conditions around us for the development of all that is spiritual in us—apart from ‘the windy ways of men.’”
“The ‘windy ways of men’ are very much better for us, if you ask me,” replied Raine. “I mean ‘men’ really and not technically,” he added, with a smile and a thought of undergraduate vanity.
“Ah, but with this as a haven14 of refuge—the grey walls, the cool cloisters15, the peaceful charm of rooms like these looking out on to these beautiful, untroubled gardens.”
“I don’t know,” said Raine. “Loving Oxford as I do, I sometimes breathe more freely out of it. There is too much intellectual mise en scène in all this. If you get it on your mind that you are expected to live up to it, you are rapidly qualifying yourself for the newest undergraduate culture-society, at a college that shall be nameless. Many a man is ruined by it.”
“But, my dear Chetwynd,” said the Junior Dean, “there is a difference between loving ‘to walk the studious cloysters pale’ and intellectual priggishness.”
“Doubtless. But it isn’t everyone who can walk honestly. The danger lies in finding another fellow doing the same. Then the two of you join together and say how beautiful it is, and you call in a third to share the sensation, and you proceed to admire yourselves as being vastly superior meditative6 persons. Then finally, according to modern instinct, you throw it into a Pale Cloyster Company, Limited, which is Anathema16.”
“Switzerland will do you good, Chetwynd,” remarked the Junior Dean quickly. “Particularly as your mind is so disorganized as to misinterpret Milton.”
Paine laughed, stretched himself lazily after the manner of big men, and lounged back on the window-sill, his hands in his pockets.
“I don’t care. I’d misinterpret anybody—even you. I’ve had enough of Oxford for a time. You see I have had a long spell since January. There were Entrance Scholarships and a lot of bursarial work for Evans to be done that kept me up nearly all the Easter vacation. I suppose you are right. I want a change.”
“The mountain air would be better for you than a stuffy17 town.”
“Oh, good gracious!” laughed Raine, swelling18 out his deep chest, “I am healthy enough. You don’t presume to say I am pale with overwork!”
“No,” said the Junior Dean, mentally contrasting his own spare form with his colleague’s muscular development. “You have a constitution like an ox. But you would get better air into your lungs and better rest in your mind.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Raine. “Anyhow, if Geneva gets too hot for me, I can come to you and sit on the top of the Jungfrau with some snow on my head and get cool.”
The Junior Dean, in spite of his sentiment, was a man of the world, and he scented19 a metaphor20 in Raine’s speech. He glanced at him keenly through his pince-nez. Whereupon Raine burst out laughing and took him by the arm.
“Look here, are you going to put in an appearance at the St. John’s garden-party?”
“Yes.”
“Well, time is getting on. Let us go.”
And on their way thither21 down the Broad, they discussed the Masonic Ball, the results of the Schools, the prospects22 of the cricket match, and kindred subjects, such as are dear to the hearts of dons in summer time.
The first person that Raine met at the Garden Party was his cousin, Mrs. Monteith. She skilfully23 disposed of a couple of pretty nieces she was chaperoning to some passing undergraduates, and walked up and down the lawn by his side.
She was a small, pretty, keen-faced woman, some two or three years his senior. Once upon a time she had fostered a conviction that Raine and herself had been born for one another, and had sought to share his soul’s secrets. As long as she depended upon his initiative, all went well; but one day, having forced open a scrupulously24 locked apartment, she recoiled25 in pained surprise. Whereupon she decided26 that she had mistaken the intentions of the Creator, and forthwith married Dr. Monteith, whose soul’s secrets were as neatly27 docketed and catalogued as the slips of his unfinished Homeric Lexicon28. But she always claimed a vested interest in Raine’s welfare, which he, in a laughing, contented29 way, was pleased to allow.
“So you’re off to Switzerland,” she said. “What are you going to do there, besides seeing Uncle Louis?”
“Rest,” he replied. “Live in a pension and rest.”
“You’ll find it dismally30 uninteresting. How long are you going to stay there?”
“Possibly most of the Long.”
Mrs. Monteith opened her eyes and stopped twirling her parasol.
“My dear Raine! In Geneva?”
“My dear Nora, I really don’t see anything in that to create such surprise. I’ve just had Rogers expressing himself on the subject. Why shouldn’t I live in Geneva? What objection have you?”
“If you talk to me in that vehement31 way you will make people fancy you are declaring a hopeless passion for me.”
“Let them,” said Kaine, “they won’t be greater fools than I am.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t be alarmed. I am not going to declare myself. I wonder whether you would laugh at me, if I told you something.”
“It would depend whether it were funny or not.”
“That would be a matter of opinion,” he replied with a smile.
“Well, first let me know in what capacity I am to listen to it.”
“As guide, philosopher, and friend,” he said. “Let us get out of the way of these people. There are the Kennets bearing down upon us.”
They found a garden seat in a secluded32 corner under a tree, and sat down. Mrs. Monteith laid her gloved fingers on his arm.
“Don’t tell me it’s about a woman, please.”
“How did you know it’s about a woman?”
“My dear boy, you wouldn’t drag me to this sequestered33 wilderness34 if it were about a man! Of course it’s a woman. You have it written all over your face. Well?”
“If you are not sympathetic I shan’t tell you.”
“Oh, Raine!”
She moved a little nearer to him, and settled her skirts. When a woman settles her skirts by a man’s side it impresses him with a sense of confidential35 relations.
“Nora,” he said, “when a man doesn’t know whether he is in love or not, what is the best thing he can do?”
“The best thing is to make up his mind that he isn’t. The next best is to find out.”
“Then I am going to do the next best thing. I am going to Geneva to find out.”
“And how long have you been like this?”
“Since January.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I did not relish36 telling it to myself. Now I have acknowledged it, I have been pulling the petals37 off the marguerite, in a kind of inverse38 way, for months, and the pastime has palled39. The dear old man thinks I am going solely40 for his sake, and I feel rather a humbug41. But of course—well—”
“Most of us are.”
“What?”
“Humbugs,” replied the lady sweetly. “Come, honour bright. Don’t you know whether you are in love or not?”
“No.”
“Would you like to be?”
“I don’t quite know. That’s the irritating part about it.”
“Oh, I see! Then it’s a question of the lady’s desirability. Oh, Paine, I know these pensions. I hope it isn’t a Polish countess with two poodles and a past. Tell me, what is she like?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” he replied, with a strange conjuncture of a humorous twinkle in his eyes and a deprecatory smile, “it is impossible to say.”
“Why?”
“Because she isn’t one, but two.”
“Two what?”
“Two individuals.”
“And you don’t know which, one to fall in love with?”
Raine nodded, lounging with arms extended along the back of the seat.
Mrs. Monteith looked at him in silence for a few moments, and then broke into rippling42 laughter.
“This is delicious. 3098 like the warrior43 in Anacreon!”
“Don’t quote, Nora,” said Raine. “It is one of your bad habits. You are trying enough with your list of first lines of Horace; but you know nothing at all about Anacreon.”
“I do!” she cried, wheeling round to face him. “Joshua was correcting the proofs of his edition during our honeymoon44. I used to make him translate them—it was a way of getting him to make love to me. There! Now I’ll repeat it:3099
“Oh, my dear Raine, it is too delicious! You, of all people in the world!”
“Then your verdict is that I am supremely45 ridiculous?”
“I am afraid I must say it strikes me in that light.”
“Thanks,” said Raine serenely46. “That was what I was trying to get at. I have been jesting a little, but there is a substratum of truth in my confession47. You confirm me in my own opinion—I am supremely ridiculous. I like to make certain of things. It is so futile48 to have this complicated state of mind—I hate it.”
“Do you?” said Mrs. Monteith. “How different from a woman; there is nothing she enjoys more.”
After Raine had taken her back to her charges, he remained to exchange a few civilities with the St. John’s people and their wives, and then strolled back to his own college. He mounted his staircase, with a smile on his lips, recalling his conversation with his cousin. How far had he been in earnest? He could scarcely tell. Certainly both Katherine and Felicia had attracted him during his Christmas visit. He had been thrown into more intimate contact with them than he usually was with women. Perhaps that was the reason that they stood out distinct against the half-known feminine group whom he was accustomed to meet at the crowded afternoon receptions to which Oxford society is addicted49. Perhaps, too, the fact of his going from Oxford, where men are a glut50 in the market, to the Pension Boccard, where they are at an extravagant51 premium52, had something to do with it. Some unsuspected index in his robust53 organization was sensitive to the sudden leap in values. Whatever was the reason, he retained a vivid impression of the two personalities54, and, as he had written to his father—in the same half-jesting strain as he had talked with his cousin—he found himself bound to admit that filial duty was not the only magnet that attracted him to Geneva. As for his disinclination to bind55 himself to a definite mountaineering engagement with Rogers and his party, he was glad of these nebulous fancies as affording him a conscientious56 reason. The Junior Dean as an excellent fellow and an Alpine57 enthusiast58, but he was apt to be academic, even on the top of the Jungfrau.
These considerations were running lightly through his mind as he sat down to his desk to finish off some tutorial work before dinner, in the little inner room which he made his sanctuary59, whither undergraduates only penetrated60 for strictly61 business purposes. The outer keeping-room was furnished with taste and comfort for the general eye, but here Raine kept such things as were nearly connected with his own life. As he wrote, he idly took up an ivory paper-knife in his left hand, and pressed it against his cheek.
He paused to think, looked mechanically at the paper-knife, and then lost himself in a day-dream. For the bit of ivory had taken him back many years—to the days when he had just entered on his manhood.
He started, threw down his pen, and leant back in his chair, a shadow of earnestness over his face.
“That was the boy,” he said, half aloud. “What would it be for the man? If this foolishness is serious—as the other—”
And, after a few seconds, he clapped both hands down on the leather arms of his chair.
“It is both equally—it must be—I’ll swear that it is! And so there’s nothing in it.”
He pushed aside his unfinished schedule, and took a sheet of note-paper from the stationery-case.
“My dear Nora,” he wrote, “I have been thinking you may have misunderstood my rubbish this afternoon. So don’t think I propose anything so idiotic62 as a search for a wife. Remember there are two, and there is safety in numbers. If you will go over to Geneva and make a third attraction, you may be absolutely unconcerned as to the safety of
“Your affectionate cousin,
“Raine Chetwynd.”
When he had tossed the letter into the tray for the next post, he felt relieved, and went on with his work.
But the next morning he received a note by hand from Mrs. Monteith, which he tore up wrathfully into little pieces and threw into the waste-paper basket.
It ran:—
“My dear Raine,—Men are the funniest creatures! I laughed over your letter till I cried.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“Nora Monteith.”
Which shows how a woman can know your mind from a sample, when you yourself are in doubt with the whole piece before you.
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1
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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cloistered
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| adj.隐居的，躲开尘世纷争的v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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anathema
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| n.诅咒；被诅咒的人(物)，十分讨厌的人(物) | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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lexicon
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| n.字典，专门词汇 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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sequestered
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| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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inverse
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| adj.相反的，倒转的，反转的；n.相反之物；v.倒转 | |
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palled
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| v.（因过多或过久而）生厌，感到乏味，厌烦( pall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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51
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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56
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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61
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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