It may be that the course of conduct which he pursued in regard to his father's estate served as basis to the theory alluded4 to. At the time being, it created quite a little stir; it was looked upon as a piece of old-world folly5, an eccentricity6 worthy7 of the red-heeled days of seigneurial France, and, as such, altogether out of place in a money-getting age like our own. But it was not until after the tragedy that his behavior in that particular was brought up in evidence against him.
The facts in the case were these: Tristrem's father, Erastus Varick, was a man of large wealth, who, when well on in the forties, married a girl young enough to be his daughter. The lady in question was the only child of a neighbor, Mr. Dirck Van Norden by name, and very pretty is she said to have been. Before the wedding Erastus Varick had his house, which was situated8 in Waverley Place, refurbished from cellar to garret; he had the parlor—there were parlors9 in those days—fitted up in white and gold, in the style known as that of the First Empire. The old Dutch furniture, black with age and hair-cloth, was banished10. The walls were plastered with a lime cement of peculiar11 brilliance12. The floors of the bedrooms were carpeted with rugs that extended under the beds, a novelty in New York, and the bedsteads themselves, which were vast enough to make coffins13 for ten people, were curtained with chintz patterns manufactured in Manchester to frighten children. In brief, Erastus Varick succeeded in making the house even less attractive than before, and altogether acted like a man in love.
After three years of marriage, Tristrem was born and Mrs. Varick died. The boy had the best of care and everything that money could procure14. He was given that liberal education which usually unfits the recipient15 for making so much as his bread and butter, and at school, at college, and when he went abroad his supply of funds was of the amplest description. Shortly after his return from foreign lands Erastus Varick was gathered to his fathers. By his will he bequeathed to Tristrem a Panama hat and a bundle of letters. The rest and residue16 of his property he devised to the St. Nicholas Hospital. The value of that property amounted to seven million dollars.
Now Dirck Van Norden had not yet moved from the neighborhood to a better place. Tristrem was his only grandson, and when he learned of the tenor17 of the will, he shook his fist at himself in the looking-glass and swore, in a bountiful old-fashioned manner which was peculiar to him, that his grandson should not be divested18 of his rights. He set the lawyers to work, and the lawyers were not long in discovering a flaw which, through a wise provision of the legislature, rendered the will null and void. The Hospital made a bold fight. It was shown beyond peradventure that from the time of Tristrem's birth the intention of the testator—and the intention of a testator is what the court most considers—had been to leave his property to a charitable institution. It was proved that he had made other wills of a similar character, and that he had successively destroyed them as his mind changed in regard to minor19 details and distributions of the trust. But the wise law was there, and there too were the wise lawyers. The decision was made in accordance with the statute20, and the estate reverted21 to Tristrem, who then succeeded in surprising New York. Of his own free will he made over the entire property to the account of the Hospital to which it had been originally devised, and it was in connection with that transfer that he was taxed with old-world folly. But the matter was misunderstood and afterward22 forgotten, and only raked up again when the press of two continents busied itself with his name. At that time he was in his twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year.
He was slender, of medium height, blue of eye, and clear-featured. His hair, which was light in color, he wore brushed upward and back from the forehead. When he walked, it was with a slight stoop, which was the more noticeable in that, being nearsighted, he had a way of holding his chin out and raising his eyebrows23 as though he were peering at something which he could not quite discern. In his face there was a charm that grew and delighted and fastened on the beholder24. At the age of twenty-six he would have been recognized by anyone who had known him as a boy. He had expanded, of course, and a stoop and dimness of vision had come with years; but in his face was the same unmistakable, almost childish, expression of sweet good-will.
His school-days were passed at Concord25. When he first appeared there he looked so much like a pretty girl, in his manner was such gentleness, and his nature was found to be so vibrant26 and sensitive, that his baptismal name was promptly27 shortened into Trissy. But by the time he reached the fourth form it was lengthened28 back again to its rightful shape. This change was the result of an evolution of opinion. One day while some companions, with whom he happened to be loitering, scurried29 behind a fence, he stopped a runaway30 horse, clinging to the bridle31 though his arm had been dislocated in the earliest effort. Another time, when a comrade had been visited, unjustly it appeared, with some terrible punishment—five hundred lines, perhaps, or something equally direful—Tristrem made straight for the master, and argued with him to such effect that the punishment was remitted32. And again, when a tutor asked how it was that there was no W in the French language, Tristrem answered, "Because of Waterloo."
Boys are generous in their enthusiasms; they like bravery, they are not deaf to wit, but perhaps of all other things they admire justice most. And Tristrem seemed to exhale33 it. It is said that everyone has a particular talent for some one thing, whether for good or evil, and the particular talent which was accorded to Tristrem Varick was that of appreciation34. He was a born umpire. In disputes his school-fellows turned to him naturally, and accepted his verdict without question. When he reached the altitudes which the Upper School offers, no other boy at St. Paul's was better liked than he. At that time the form of which he was a member—and in which, parenthetically, he ranked rather low—was strengthened by a new-comer, a turbulent, precocious35 boy who had been expelled from two other schools, and with whom, so ran the gossip, it would go hard were he expelled again. His name was Royal Weldon, and on his watch, and on a seal ring which he wore on his little finger, he displayed an elaborate coat-of-arms under which for legend were the words, Well done, Weldon, words which it was reported an English king had bawled36 in battle, ennobling as he did so the earliest Weldon known to fame.
Between the two lads, and despite the dissimilarity of their natures, or perhaps precisely37 on that account, there sprang up a warm friendship which propinquity cemented, for chance or the master had given them a room in common. At first, Tristrem fairly blinked at Weldon's precocity38, and Weldon, who was accustomed to be admired, took to Tristrem not unkindly on that account. But after a time Tristrem ceased to blink and began to lecture, not priggishly at all, but in a persuasive39 manner that was hard to resist. For Weldon was prone40 to get into difficulties, and equally prone to make the difficulties worse than they need have been. When cross-questioned he would decline to answer; it was a trick he had. Now Tristrem never got into difficulties, except with Latin prosody41 or a Greek root, and he was frank to a fault.
It so happened that one day the headmaster summoned Tristrem to him. "My dear," he said, "Royal is not acting42 quite as he should, is he?" To this Tristrem made no reply. "He is a motherless boy," the master continued, "a poor motherless boy. I wish, Tristrem, that you would use your influence with him. I see but one course open to me, unless he does better—" Tristrem was a motherless boy himself, but he answered bravely that he would do what he could. That evening, as he was battling with the platitudes43 of that Augustan bore who is called the Bard44 of Mantua, presumably because he was born in Andes—Weldon came in, smelling of tobacco and drink. It was evident that he had been to town.
Tristrem looked up from his task, and as he looked he heard the step of a tutor in the hall. He knew, if the tutor had speech with Weldon, that on the morrow Weldon would leave the school. In a second he had seated him before the open dictionary, and in another second he was kneeling at his own bedside. Hardly had he bowed his head when there came a rap at the door, the tutor entered, saw the kneeling figure, apologized in a whisper, and withdrew.
When Tristrem stood up again, Weldon was sobered and very pale. "Tristrem—" he began, but Tristrem interrupted him. "There, don't say anything, and don't do it again. To-morrow you had better talk it over with the doctor."
Weldon declined to talk it over with anyone, but after that he behaved himself with something approaching propriety45. Two years later, in company with his friend, he entered Harvard, from which institution he was subsequently dropped.
Tristrem meanwhile struggled through the allotted46 four years. He was not brilliant in his studies, the memorizing of abstruse47 questions and recondite48 problems was not to his liking49. He preferred modern tongues to dead languages, an intricate fugue was more to his taste than the simplest equation, and to his shame it must be noted50 that he read Petrarch at night. But, though the curriculum was not entirely51 to his fancy, he was conscientious52 and did his best. There are answers that he gave in class that are quoted still, tangential53 flights that startled the listeners into new conceptions of threadbare themes, totally different from the usual cut and dried response that is learned by rote54. And at times he would display an ignorance, a stupidity even, that was fathomless55 in its abysses.
After graduation, he went abroad. England seemed to him like a rose in bloom, but when autumn came and with it a succession of fogs, each more depressing than the last, he fled to Italy, and wandered among her ghosts and treasuries56, and then drifted up again through Germany, to Paris, where he gave his mornings to the Sorbonne and his evenings to orchestra-stalls.
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1
onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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differentiates
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的第三人称单数 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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3
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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7
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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13
coffins
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| n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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statute
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| n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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32
remitted
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| v.免除（债务），宽恕( remit的过去式和过去分词 )；使某事缓和；寄回，传送 | |
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exhale
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| v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发 | |
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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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35
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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precocity
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| n.早熟，早成 | |
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39
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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prosody
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| n.诗体论，作诗法 | |
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42
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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43
platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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44
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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46
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abstruse
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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48
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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49
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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50
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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51
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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52
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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53
tangential
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| adj.离题的，切线的 | |
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54
rote
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| n.死记硬背，生搬硬套 | |
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55
fathomless
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| a.深不可测的 | |
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56
treasuries
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| n.（政府的）财政部( treasury的名词复数 )；国库，金库 | |
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