One man, the youngest of the three, a lad of fifty-five or so, had begun to say:
“I know every inch of that neighbourhood, and I tell you there’s no such place.”
His name was Harliss; and he was supposed to have something to do with chemicals and carboys and crystals.
They had been recalling many London vicissitudes1, these three; and it must be noted2 that the boy of the party, Harliss, could remember very well the Strand3 as it used to be, before they spoilt it all. Indeed, if he could not have gone as far back as the years of those doings, it is doubtful whether Perrott would have let him into the meeting in Mitre Place, an alley4 which was an entrance of the inn by day, but was blind after nine o’clock at night, when the iron gates were shut, and the pavement grew silent. The rooms were on the second floor, and from the front windows could be seen the elms in the inn garden, where the rooks used to build before the war. Within, the large, low room was softly, deeply carpeted from wall to wall; the winter night, with a bitter dry wind rising, and moaning even in the heart of London, was shut out by thick crimson5 curtains, and the three then sat about a blazing fire in an old fireplace, a fireplace that stood high from the hearth6, with hobs on each side of it, and a big kettle beginning to murmur7 on one of them. The armchairs on which the three sat were of the sort that Mr. Pickwick sits on for ever in his frontispiece. The round table of dark mahogany stood on one leg, very deeply and profusely8 carved, and Perrott said it was a George IV table, though the third friend, Arnold, held that William IV, or even very early Victoria, would have been nearer the mark. On the dark red wall-paper there were eighteenth-century engravings of Durham Cathedral and Peterborough Cathedral, which showed that, in spite of Horace Walpole and his friend Mr. Gray, the eighteenth century couldn’t draw a Gothic building when its towers and traceries were before its eyes: “because they couldn’t see it,” Arnold had insisted, late one night, when the gliding9 signs were far on in their course, and the punch in the jar had begun to thicken a little on its spices. There were other engravings of a later date about the walls, things of the thirties and forties by forgotten artists, known well enough in their day; landscapes of the Valley of the Usk, and the Holy Mountain, and Llanthony: all with a certain enchantment10 and vision about them, as if their domed11 hills and solemn woods were more of grace than of nature. Over the hearth was Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time.
Perrott would apologize for it.
“I know,” he would say. “I know all about it. It is a pig, and a goat, and a dog, and a damned nonsense”—he was quoting a Welsh story—“but it used to hang over the fire in the dining-room at home. And I often wish I had brought along Te Deum Laudamus as well.”
“What’s that?” Harliss asked.
“Ah, you’re too young to have lived with it. It depicts12 three choir-boys in surplices; one singing for his life, and the other two looking about them—just like choir-boys. And we were always told that the busy boy was hanged at last. The companion picture showed three charity girls, also singing. This was called Te Dominum Confitemur. I never heard their story.”
“I know.” Harliss brightened. “I came upon them both in lodgings13 near the station at Brighton, in Mafeking year. And, a year or two later, I saw Sherry, Sir in an hotel at Tenby.”
“The finest wax fruit I ever saw,” Arnold joined in, “was in a window in the King’s Cross Road.”
So they would maunder along, about the old-fashioned rather than the old. And so on this winter night of the cold wind they lingered about the London streets of forty, forty-five, fifty-five years ago.
One of them dilated14 on Bloomsbury, in the days when the bars were up, and the Duke’s porters had boxes beside the gates, and all was peace, not to say profound dullness, within those solemn boundaries. Here was the high vaulted15 church of a strange sect16, where, they said, while the smoke of incense17 fumed18 about a solemn rite19, a wailing20 voice would suddenly rise up with the sound of an incantation in magic. Here, another church, where Christina Rossetti bowed her head; all about, dim squares where no one walked, and the leaves of the trees were dark with smoke and soot21.
“I remember one spring,” said Arnold, “when they were the brightest green I ever saw. In Bloomsbury Square. Long ago.”
“That wonderful little lion stood on the iron posts in the pavement in front of the British Museum,” Perrott put in. “I believe they have kept a few and hidden them in museums. That’s one of the reasons why the streets grow duller and duller. If there is anything curious, anything beautiful in a street, they take it away and stick it in a museum. I wonder what has become of that odd little figure, I think it was in a cocked hat, that stood by the bar-parlour door in the courtyard of the bell in Holborn.”
They worked their way down by Fetter22 Lane, and lamented23 Dryden’s house—“I think it was in 87 that they pulled it down”—and lingered on the site of Clifford’s Inn—“you could walk into the seventeenth century”—and so at last into the Strand.
“Someone said it was the finest street in Europe.”
“Yes, no doubt—in a sense. Not at all in the obvious sense; it wasn’t belle24 architecture de ville. It was of all ages and all sizes and heights and styles: a unique enchantment of a street; an incantation, full of words that meant nothing to the uninitiated.”
A sort of Litany followed.
“The Shop of the Pale Puddings, where little David Copperfield might have bought his dinner.”
“That was close to Bookseller’s Row—sixteenth-century houses.”
“And ‘Chocolate as in Spain’; opposite Charing25 Cross.”
“The Globe office, where one sent one’s early turnovers26.”
“The narrow alleys27 with steps going down to the river.”
“The smell of making soap from the scent28 shop.”
“Nutt’s bookshop, near the Welsh mutton butcher’s, where the street was narrow.”
“The Family Herald29 office; with a picture in the window of an early type-setting machine, showing the operator working a contraption with long arms, that hovered30 over the case.”
“And Garden House in the middle of a lawn, in Clement’s Inn.”
“And the flicker31 of those old yellow gas-lamps, when the wind blew up the street, and the people were packing into that passage that led to the Lyceum pit.”
One of them, his ear caught by a phrase that another had used, began to murmur verses from “Oh, plump head waiter at the Cock.”
“What chops they were!” sighed Perrott. And he began to make the punch, grating first of all the lumps of sugar against the lemons; drawing forth32 thereby33 the delicate, aromatic34 oils from the rind of the Mediterranean35 fruit. Matters were brought forth from cupboards at the dark end of the room: rum from the Jamaica Coffee House in the City, spices in blue china boxes, one or two old bottles containing secret essences. The kettle boiled, the ingredients were dusted in and poured into the red-brown jar, which was then muffled36 and set to digest on the hearth, in the heat of the fire.
“Misce, fiat37 mistura,” said Harliss.
“Very well,” answered Arnold. “But remember that all the true matters of the work are invisible.”
Nobody minded him or his alchemy; and after a due interval38, the glasses were held over the fragrant39 steam of the jar, and then filled. The three sat round the fire, drinking and sipping40 with grateful hearts.
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1
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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2
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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7
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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8
profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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domed
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| adj. 圆屋顶的, 半球形的, 拱曲的 动词dome的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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12
depicts
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| 描绘，描画( depict的第三人称单数 )； 描述 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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16
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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17
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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18
fumed
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| 愤怒( fume的过去式和过去分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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22
fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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26
turnovers
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| n.营业额( turnover的名词复数 )；失误（篮球术语）；职工流动率；（商店的）货物周转率 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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28
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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29
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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30
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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31
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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32
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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36
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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37
fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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38
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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39
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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40
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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