Even an American man has his lapses5 into unreasonableness6. Arthur especially encouraged the idea of my going to England on the ground that it would be so formative. He said that to gaze upon the headsman's block in the Tower was in itself a liberal education. As we sat together in the drawing-room—momma and poppa always preferred the sitting-room7 when Arthur was there—he used to gild8 all our future with the culture which I should acquire by actual contact with the hoary9 traditions of Great Britain. He advised me earnestly to disembark at Liverpool in a receptive and appreciative10, rather than a critical and antagonistic11, state of mind, to endeavour to assimilate all that was worth assimilating over there, remembering that this might give me as much as I wanted to do in the time. I remember he expressed himself rather finely about the only proper attitude for Americans visiting England being that of magnanimity, and about the claims of kinship, only once removed, to our forbearance and affection. He put me on my guard, so to speak, about only one thing, and that was spelling. American spelling, he said, had become national, and attachment12 to it ranked next to patriotism13. Such words as "color," "program," "center," had obsolete14 English forms which I could only acquire at the sacrifice of my independence, and the surrender of my birthright to make such improvements upon the common language as I thought desirable. And I know that I was at some inconvenience to mention "color," "program," and "center," in several of my letters just to assure Mr. Page that my orthography15 was not in the least likely to be undermined.
Indeed, I took his advice at every point. I hope I do not presume in asking you to remember that I did. I know I was receptive, even to penny buns, and sometimes simply wild with appreciation16. I found it as easy as possible to subdue17 the critical spirit, even in connection with things which I should never care to approve of. I shook hands with Lord Mafferton without the slightest personal indignation with him for being a peer, and remember thinking that if he had been a duke I should have had just the same charity for him. Indeed, I was sorry, and am still sorry, that during the four months I spent in England I didn't meet a single duke. This is less surprising than it looks, as they are known to be very scarce, and at least a quarter of a million Americans visit Great Britain every year; but I should like to have known one or two. As it was, four or five knights—knights are very thick—one baronet, Lord Mafferton, one marquis—but we had no conversation—one colonel of militia18, one Lord Mayor, and a Horse Guard, rank unknown, comprise my acquaintance with the aristocracy. A duke or so would have completed the set. And the magnanimity which I would so willingly have stretched to include a duke spread itself over other British institutions as amply as Arthur could have wished. When I saw things in Hyde Park on Sunday that I was compelled to find excuses for, I thought of the tyrant's iron heel; and when I was obliged to overlook the superiorities of the titled great, I reflected upon the difficulty of walking in iron heels without inconveniencing a prostrate19 population. I should defy anybody to be more magnanimous than I was.
As to the claims of kinship, only once removed, to our forbearance and affection, I never so much as sat out a dance on a staircase with Oddie Pratte without recognising them.
It seems almost incredible that Arthur should not have been gratified, but the fact remains20 that he was not. Anyone could see, after the first half hour, that he was not. During the first half hour it is, of course, impossible to notice anything. We had sunk to the level of generalities when I happened to mention Oddie.
"He had darker hair than you have, dear," I said, "and his eyes were blue. Not sky blue, or china blue, but a kind of sea blue on a cloudy day. He had rather good eyes," I added reminiscently.
"Had he?" said Arthur.
"But your noses," I went on reassuringly21, "were not to be compared with each other."
"Oh!" said Arthur.
"He was so impulsive22!" I couldn't help smiling a little at the recollection. "But for that matter they all were."
"Impulsive?" asked Arthur.
"Yes. Ridiculously so. They thought as little of proposing as of asking one to dance."
"Ah!" said Arthur.
"Of course, I never accepted any of them, even for a moment. But they had such a way of taking things for granted. Why one man actually thought I was engaged to him!"
"Really!" said Arthur. "May I inquire——"
"No, dear," I replied, "I think not. I couldn't tell anybody about it—for his sake. It was all a silly mistake. Some of them," I added thoughtfully, "were very stupid."
"Judging from the specimens23 that find their way over here," Arthur remarked, "I should say there was plenty of room in their heads for their brains."
Arthur was sitting on the other side of the fireplace, and by this time his expression was aggressive. I thought his remark unnecessarily caustic24, but I did not challenge it.
"Some of them were stupid," I repeated, "but they were nearly all nice." And I went on to say that what Chicago people as a whole thought about it I didn't know and I didn't care, but so far as my experience went the English were the loveliest nation in the world.
"A nation like a box of strawberries," Mr. Page suggested, "all the big ones on top, all the little ones at the bottom."
"That doesn't matter to us," I replied cheerfully, "we never get any further than the top. And you'll admit there's a great tendency for little ones to shake down. It's only a question of time. They've had so much time in England. You see the effects of it everywhere."
"Not at all. By no means. Our little strawberries rise," he declared.
"Do they? Dear me, so they do! I suppose the American law of gravity is different. In England they would certainly smile at that."
Arthur said nothing, but his whole bearing expressed a contempt for puns.
"Of course," I said, "I mean the loveliest nation after Americans."
I thought he might have taken that for granted. Instead, he looked incredulous and smiled, in an observing, superior way.
"Why do you say 'ahfter'?" he asked. His tone was sweetly acidulated.
"Why do you say 'affter'?" I replied simply.
"Because," he answered with quite unnecessary emphasis, "in the part of the world I come from everybody says it. Because my mother has brought me up to say it."
"Oh," I said, looking at the lamp, "they say it like that in other parts of the world too. In Yorkshire—and such places. As far as mothers go, I must tell you that momma approves of my pronunciation. She likes it better than anything else I have brought back with me—even my tailor-mades—and thinks it wonderful that I should have acquired it in the time."
"Don't you think you could remember a little of your good old American? Doesn't it seem to come back to you?"
All the Wicks hate sarcasm25, especially from those they love, and I certainly had not outgrown26 my fondness for Mr. Page at this time.
"It all came back to me, my dear Arthur," I said, "the moment you opened your lips!"
At that not only Mr. Page's features and his shirt front, but his whole personality seemed to stiffen27. He sat up and made an outward movement on the seat of his chair which signified, "My hat and overcoat are in the hall, and if you do not at once retract——"
"Rather than allow anything to issue from them which would imply that I was not an American I would keep them closed for ever," he said.
"You needn't worry about that," I observed. "Nothing ever will. But I don't know why we should glory in talking through our noses." Involuntarily I played with my engagement ring, slipping it up and down, as I spoke28.
Arthur rose with an expression of tolerant amusement—entirely29 forced—and stood by the fireplace. He stood beside it, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, not in front of it with his legs apart, and I thought with a pang30 how much more graceful31 the American attitude was.
"Have you come back to tell us that we talk through our noses?" he asked.
"I don't like being called an Anglomaniac," I replied, dropping my ring from one finger to another. Fortunately I was sitting in a rocking chair—the only one I had not been able to persuade momma to have taken out of the drawing-room. The rock was a considerable relief to my nerves.
"I knew that the cockneys on the other side were fond of inventing fictions about what they are pleased to call the 'American accent,'" continued Mr. Page, with a scorn which I felt in the very heels of my shoes, "but I confess I thought you too patriotic32 to be taken in by them."
"Taken in by them" was hard to bear, but I thought if I said nothing at this point we might still have a peaceful evening. So I kept silence.
"Of course, I speak as a mere product of the American Constitution—a common unit of the democracy," he went on, his sentences gathering33 wrath34 as he rolled them out, "but if there were such a thing as an American accent, I think I've lived long enough, and patrolled this little union of ours extensively enough, to hear it by this time. But it appears to be necessary to reside four months in England, mixing freely with earls and countesses, to detect it."
"Perhaps it is," I said, and I may have smiled.
"I should hate to pay the price."
Mr. Page's tone distinctly expressed that the society of earls and countesses would be, to him, contaminating.
Again I made no reply. I wanted the American accent to drop out of the conversation, if possible, but Fate had willed it otherwise.
"I sai, y'know, awfly hard luck, you're havin' to settle down amongst these barbarians35 again, bai Jove!"
I am not quite sure that it's a proper term for use in a book, but by this time I was mad. There was criticism in my voice, and a distinct chill as I said composedly, "You don't do it very well."
I did not look at him, I looked at the lamp, but there was that in the air which convinced me that we had arrived at a crisis.
"I suppose not. I'm not a marquis, nor the end man at a minstrel show. I'm only an American, like sixty million other Americans, and the language of Abraham Lincoln is good enough for me. But I suppose I, like the other sixty million, emit it through my nose!"
"I should be sorry to contradict you," I said.
Arthur folded his arms and gathered himself up until he appeared to taper36 from his stem like a florist's bouquet37, and all the upper part of him was pink and trembling with emotion. Arthur may one day attain38 corpulence; he is already well rounded.
"I need hardly say," he said majestically39, "that when I did myself the honour of proposing, I was under the impression that I had a suitable larynx to offer you."
"You see I didn't know," I murmured, and by accident I dropped my engagement ring, which rolled upon the carpet at his feet. He stooped and picked it up.
"Shall I take this with me?" he asked, and I said "By all means."
That was all.
I gave ten minutes to reflection and to the possibility of Arthur's coming back and pleading, on his knees, to be allowed to restore that defective40 larynx. Then I went straight upstairs to the telephone and rang up the Central office. When they replied "Hello," I said, in the moderate and concentrated tone which we all use through telephones, "Can you give me New York?"
Poppa was in New York, and in an emergency poppa and I always turn to one another. There was a delay, during which I listened attentively41, with one eye closed—I believe it is the sign of an unbalanced intellect to shut one eye when you use the telephone, but I needn't go into that—and presently I got New York. In a few minutes more I was accommodated with the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
"Mr. T.P. Wick, of Chicago," I demanded.
"Is his room number Sixty-two?"
That is the kind of mind which you usually find attached to the New York end of a trans-American telephone. But one does not bandy words across a thousand miles of country with a hotel clerk, so I merely responded:
"Very probably."
There was a pause, and then the still small voice came again.
"Mr. Wick is in bed at present. Anything important?"
I reflected that while I in Chicago was speaking to the hotel clerk at half-past nine o'clock, the hotel clerk in New York was speaking to me at eleven. This in itself was enough to make our conversation disjointed.
"Yes," I responded, "it is important. Ask Mr. Wick to get out of bed."
Sufficient time elapsed to enable poppa to put on his clothes and come down by the elevator, and then I heard:
"Mr. Wick is now speaking."
"Yes, poppa," I replied, "I guess you are. Your old American accent comes singing across in a way that no member of your family would ever mistake. But you needn't be stiff about it. Sorry to disturb you."
Poppa and I were often personal in our intercourse42. I had not the slightest hesitation43 in mentioning his American accent.
"Hello, Mamie! Don't mention it. What's up? House on fire? Water pipes burst? Strike in the kitchen? Sound the alarm—send for the plumber—raise Gladys's wages and sack Marguerite."
"My engagement to Mr. Page is broken. Do you get me? What do you suggest?"
I heard a whistle, which I cannot express in italics, and then, confidentially44:
"You don't say so! Bad break?"
"Very," I responded firmly.
"Any details of the disaster available? What?"
"Not at present," I replied, for it would have been difficult to send them by telephone.
I could hear poppa considering the matter at the other end. He coughed once or twice and made some indistinct inquiries45 of the hotel clerk. Then he called my attention again.
"Hello!" he said. "On to me? All right. Go abroad. Always done. Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and the other places. I'll stand in. Germanic sails Wednesdays. Start by night train to-morrow. Bring momma. We can get Germanic in good shape and ten minutes to spare. Right?"
"Right," I responded, and hung up the handle. I did not wish to keep poppa out of bed any longer than was necessary, he was already up so much later than I was. I turned away from the instrument to go down stairs again, and there, immediately behind me, stood momma.
"Well, really!" I exclaimed. It did not occur to me that the privacy of telephonic communication between Chicago and New York was not inviolable. Besides, there are moments when one feels a little annoyed with one's momma for having so lightly undertaken one's existence. This was one of them. But I decided46 not to express it.
"I was only going to say," I remarked, "that if I had shrieked47 it would have been your fault."
"I knew everything," said momma, "the minute I heard him shut the gate. I came up immediately, and all this time, dear, you've been confiding48 in us both. My dear daughter."
Momma carries about with her a well-spring of sentiment, which she did not bequeath to me. In that respect I take almost entirely after my other parent.
"Very well," I said, "then I won't have to do it again."
Her look of disappointment compelled me to speak with decision. "I know what you would like at this juncture49, momma. You'd like me to get down on the floor and put my head in your lap and weep all over your new brocade. That's what you'd really enjoy. But, under circumstances like these, I never do things like that. Now the question is, can you get ready to start for Europe to-morrow night, or have you a headache coming on?"
Momma said that she expected Mrs. Judge Simmons to tea to-morrow afternoon, that she hadn't been thinking of it, and that she was out of nerve tincture. At least, these were her principal objections. I said, on mature consideration, I didn't see why Mrs. Simmons shouldn't come to tea, that there were twenty-four hours for all necessary thinking, and that a gallon of nerve tincture, if required, could be at her disposal in ten minutes.
"Being Protestants," I added, "I suppose a convent wouldn't be of any use to us—what do you think?"
Momma thought she could go.
There was no need for hurry, and I attended to only one other matter before I went to bed. That was a communication to the Herald50, which I sent off in plenty of time to appear in the morning. It was addressed to the Society Editor, and ran as follows:
"The marriage arranged between Professor Arthur Greenleaf Page, of Yale University, and Miss Mamie Wick, of 1453, Lakeside-avenue, Chicago, will not take place. Mr. and Mrs. Wick, and Miss Wick, sail for Europe on Wednesday by s.s. Germanic."
I reflected, as I closed my eyes, that Arthur was a regular reader of the Herald.
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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unreasonableness
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| 无理性； 横逆 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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gild
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| vt.给…镀金，把…漆成金色，使呈金色 | |
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hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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antagonistic
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| adj.敌对的 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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orthography
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| n.拼字法，拼字式 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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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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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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