"Yes, by Jove, I have!" Harold answered, laying down the Times, and looking across the table with interest to his brother; "which one was yours?"
"The third from the canine1 on the upper left side," Ernest replied quickly. "And yours?"
"Let me see. This is the canine, isn't it? One, two, three; yes. The same, of course. It's really a very singular coincidence. How about the time? Was that as usual?"
"I'll tell you in a minute. Mine came on the day of the Guthries' hop2. I was down at Brighton that morning. What date? Let me think; why, the 9th, I'm certain. To-day's what, mother?"
"The 23rd," said Harold, glancing for confirmation3 at the paper. "The law works itself out once more as regularly as if by machinery4. I'm just a fortnight later than you, Ernest, as always."
Ernest drummed upon the table with his finger for a minute. "I'm afraid you'll have it rather badly to-day, Harold," he said, after a pause. "Mine got unbearable[Pg 129] towards midday, and if I hadn't had it looked to in the afternoon, I couldn't have danced a single dance to save my life that evening. I advise you to go round to the dentist's immediately, and try to get it stopped before it goes any further."
Harold finished his cup of coffee, and looked out of the window blankly at the fog outside. "It's an awful thought," he said at last, "this living, as we two do, by clockwork! Everybody else lives exactly the same way, but they don't have their attention called to it, as we do. Just to think that from the day you and I were born, Ernest, it was written in the very fabric5 of our constitutions that when we were twenty-three years and five months old, the third molar in our upper left jaws6 should begin to fail us! It's really appalling7 in its unanswerable physical fatalism, when ones comes to think upon it."
"So I said to myself at the Guthries', the morning it began to give me a twinge," said Ernest, in the self-same tone. "It seemed to me such a terrible idea that in a fortnight's time, as certain as the sun, the very same tooth in your head would begin to go, as the one that was going in mine. It's too appalling, really."
"But do you actually mean to say," asked pretty little Nellie Holt, the visitor, newly come the day before from Cheshire, "that whenever one of you gets a toothache, the other one gets a toothache in the same tooth a fortnight later?"
"Not a toothache only," Ernest answered—he was studying for his degree as a physician, and took this department upon himself as by right—"but every other disease or ailment8 whatsoever9. We're like two clocks wound up to strike at fixed10 moments; only, we're not wound up to strike exactly together. I'm fourteen days in advance of Harold, so to speak, and whatever happens to me to-day will happen to him, in all probability, exactly a fortnight later."[Pg 130]
"How very extraordinary!" said Nellie, looking quickly, from one handsome clear-cut face to its exact counterpart in the other. "And yet not so extraordinary, after all,—when one comes to think how very much alike you both are."
"Ah, that's not all," said Ernest, slowly; "it's something that goes a good deal deeper than that, Miss Holt. Consider that every one of us is born with a certain fixed and recognizable constitution, which we inherit from our fathers and mothers. In us, from our birth upward, are the seeds of certain diseases, the possibilities of certain actions and achievements. One man is born with hereditary11 consumption; another man with hereditary scrofula; a third with hereditary genius or hereditary drunkenness, each equally innate12 in the very threads and strands13 of his system. And it's all bound to come out, sooner or later, in its own due and appointed time. Here's a fellow whose father had gout at forty: he's born with such a constitution that, as the hands on his life-dial reach forty, out comes the gout in his feet, wherever he may be, as certain as fate. It's horrible to think of, but it's the truth, and there's no good in disguising it."
Nellie Holt shuddered14 slightly. "What a dreadful materialistic15 creed16, Mr. Carnegie," she said, looking at him with a half-frightened air. "It's almost as bad as Mohammedan fatalism."
"No, not so bad as that," Ernest Carnegie answered; "not nearly so bad as that. The Oriental belief holds that powers above you compel your life against your will: we modern scientific thinkers only hold that your own inborn17 constitution determines your whole life for you, will included. But whether we like it or dislike it, Miss Holt, there are the facts, and nobody can deny them. If you'd lived with a twin-sister, as Harold and I have lived together for twenty-three years, you'd see that the clocks go as they are set, with fixed and predestined regularity18.[Pg 131] Twins, you know, are almost exactly alike in all things, and in the absolute coincidence of their constitutions you can see the inexorable march of disease, and the inexorable unfolding of the predetermined life-history far better than in any other conceivable case. I'm a scientific man myself, you see, and I have such an opportunity of watching it all as no other man ever yet had before me."
"My dear," said Mrs. Carnegie, the mother, from the head of the table, "you've no idea how curiously19 their two lives have always resembled one other. When they were babies, they were so much alike that we had to tie red and blue ribbons round their necks to distinguish them. Ernest was red and Harold blue—no, Ernest was blue and Harold red: at least, I'm not quite certain which way it was, but I know we have a note of it in the family Bible, for Mr. Carnegie made it at the time for fear we should get confused between them when we were bathing them. So we put the ribbons on the moment they were christened, and never took them both off together for a second, even to bathe them, so as to prevent accidents. Well, do you know, dear, from the time they were babies, they were always alike in everything; but Ernest was always a fortnight before Harold. He said "Mamma" one day, and just a fortnight later Harold said the very same word. Then Ernest said "sugar," and so did Harold in another fortnight. Ernest began to toddle20 a fortnight the earliest. They took the whooping21 cough and the measles22 in the same order; and they cut all their teeth so, too, the same teeth first on each side, and just at a fortnight's distance from one another. It's really quite an extraordinary coincidence."
"The real difficulty would be," said Harold, "to find anything in which we didn't exactly resemble one another. Well, now I must be off to this horrid23 office with the Pater. Are you ready, Pater? I'll call in at Estwood's in the course of the morning, Ernest, and tell him to look[Pg 132] after my teeth. I don't want to miss the Balfours' party this evening. Curious that we should be going to a party this evening too. That isn't fated in our constitutions, anyhow, is it, Ernest? Good morning, Miss Holt; the first waltz, remember. Come along, Pater." And he went out, followed immediately by his father.
"I must be going too," said Ernest, looking at his watch; "I have an appointment with Dowson at Guy's at half-past ten—a very interesting case: hereditary cataract24; three brothers, all of them get it, each as he reaches twelve years old, and Dowson has performed the operation on two, and is going to perform it on the other this very day. Good morning, Miss Holt; the second waltz for me; you won't forget, will you?"
"How awfully25 alike they really are, Mrs. Carnegie," said Nellie, as they were left alone. "I'm sure I shall never be able to tell them apart. I don't even know their names yet. The one that has just gone out, the one that's going to be a doctor—that's Mr. Harold, isn't it?"
"Oh no, dear," Mrs. Carnegie answered, putting her arm round Nellie's waist affectionately, "that's Ernest. Harold's the lawyer. You'll soon learn the difference between them. You can tell Ernest easily, because he usually wears a horrid thing for a scarf-pin, an ivory skull26 and cross-bones: he wears it, he says, just to distinguish him professionally from Harold. Indeed, that was partly why Mr. Carnegie was so anxious that Harold should go into his own office; so as to make a distinction of profession between them. If Harold had followed his own bent27, he would have been a doctor too; they're both full of what they call physiological28 ideas—dreadful things, I think them. But Mr. Carnegie thought as they were so very much alike already we ought to do something to give them some individuality, as he says: for if they were both to be doctors or both solicitors29, you know, there'd really be no knowing them apart, even for ourselves; and I assure[Pg 133] you, my dear, as it is now even they're exactly like one person."
"Are they as alike in character, then, as they are in face?" asked Nellie.
"Alike in character! My dear, they're absolutely identical. Whatever the one thinks, or says, or does, the other thinks, says, and does at the same time, independently. Why, once Ernest went over to Paris for a week's holiday, while Harold went on some law business of his father's to Brussels. Would you believe it, when they came back they'd each got a present for the other. Ernest had seen a particular Indian silver cigar-case in a shop on the Boulevards, and he brought it home as a surprise for Harold. Well, Harold had bought an exactly similar one in the Montagne de la Cour, and brought it home as a surprise for Ernest. And what was odder still, each of them had had the other's initials engraved31 upon the back in some sort of heathenish Oriental characters."
"How very queer," said Nellie. "And yet they seem very fond of one another. As a rule, one's always told that people who are exactly alike in character somehow don't get on together."
"My dear child, they're absolutely inseparable. Their devotion to one another's quite unlimited32. You see they've been brought up together, played together, sympathized with one another in all their troubles and ailments33, and are sure of a response from each other about everything. It was the greatest trouble of their lives when Mr. Carnegie decided34 that Harold must become a solicitor30 for the sake of the practice. They couldn't bear at first to be separated all day; and when they got home in the evening, Ernest from the hospital and Harold from the office, they met almost like a pair of lovers. They've talked together about their work so much that Harold knows almost as much medicine now as Ernest, while Ernest's quite at[Pg 134] home, his father declares, in 'Benjamin on Sales,' and 'Chitty on Contract.' It's quite delightful35 to see how fond they are of one another."
At five o'clock Ernest Carnegie returned from his hospital. He brought two little bunches of flowers with him—some lilies of the valley and a carnation36—and he handed them with a smile, one to his sister and one to pretty little Nellie. "I thought you'd like them for this evening, Miss Holt," he said. "I chose a carnation on purpose, because I fancied it would suit your hair."
"Oh, Ernest," said his sister, "you ought to have got a red camelia. That's the proper thing for a brunette like Nellie."
"Nonsense, Edie," Ernest answered, "I hate camelias. Ugliest flowers out: so stiff and artificial. One might as well wear a starchy gauze thing from the milliner's."
"I'm so glad you brought Nellie Holt a flower. She's a sweet girl, Ernest, isn't she?" said Mrs. Carnegie a minute or two later, as Edie and Nelly ran upstairs. "I wish either of you two boys could take a fancy to a nice girl like her, now."
"My dear mother," Ernest answered, turning up his eyes appealingly. "A little empty-headed, pink-and-white thing like that! I don't know what Harold thinks, but she'd never do for me, at any rate. Very pretty to look at, very timid to talk to, very nice and shrinking, and all that kind of thing, I grant you; but nothing in her. Whenever I marry, I shall marry a real live woman, not a dainty piece of delicate empty drapery."
At six o'clock, Mr. Carnegie and Harold came in from the office. Harold carried in his hand two little button-hole bouquets37, of a few white lilies and a carnation. "Miss Holt," he said, as he entered the drawing-room, "I've brought you and Edie a flower to wear at the Balfours' this evening. This is for you, Edie, with the pale pink; the dark will suit Miss Holt's hair best."[Pg 135]
Edie looked at Ernest, and smiled significantly. "Why didn't you get us camelias, Harold?" she asked, with a faint touch of mischief38 in her tone.
"Camelias! My dear girl, what a question! I gave Miss Holt credit for better taste than liking39 camelias. Beastly things, as stiff and conventional as dahlias or sunflowers. You might just as well have a wax rose from an artificial flower-maker while you are about it."
Edie laughed and looked at Nellie. "See here," she said, taking up Ernest's bunches from the little specimen40 vases where she had put them to keep them fresh in water, "somebody else has thought of the flowers already."
Harold laughed, too, a little uneasily. "Aha," he said, "I see Ernest has been beforehand with me as usual. I'm always a day too late. It seems to me I'm the Esau of this duet, and Ernest's the Jacob. Well, Miss Holt, you must take the will for the deed; and after all, one will do for your dress and the other for your hair, won't they?"
"Harold," said his father, as they went upstairs together to dress for dinner, "Nellie Holt's a very nice girl, and I've reason to believe—you know I don't judge these matters without documentary evidence—I have reason to believe that she'll come into the greater part of old Stanley Holt's money. She's his favourite niece, and she benefits largely, as I happen to know, under his will. Verbum sap., my dear boy; she's a pretty girl, and has sweet manners. In my opinion, she'd make——"
"My dear Pater," Harold exclaimed, interrupting him, "for Heaven's sake don't say so. Pretty enough, I grant you; and no doubt old Stanley Holt's money would be a very nice thing in its way; but just seriously consider now, if you were a young man yourself, what on earth could you see in Nellie Holt to attract your love or admiration41? Why, she shrinks and blushes every time she speaks to you. No, no, whenever I marry I should like to marry a girl of some presence and some character."[Pg 136]
"Well, well," said his father, pausing a second at his bedroom door, "perhaps if she don't suit you, Harold, she'll suit Ernest."
"I should have thought, Pater, you knew us two better than that by this time."
"But, my dear Harold, you can't both marry the same woman!"
"No, we can't, Pater, but it's my opinion we shall both fall unanimously in love with her, at any rate, whenever we happen to see her."
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1
canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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ailment
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| n.疾病，小病 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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10
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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14
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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15
materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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toddle
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| v.（如小孩）蹒跚学步 | |
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whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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solicitors
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| 初级律师( solicitor的名词复数 ) | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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31
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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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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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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carnation
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| n.康乃馨（一种花） | |
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bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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40
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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