I often passed this mysterious dwelling3 without seeing any indications of life, but one chilly4 rainy day I saw smoke issuing from the bent5 piece of stove-pipe, protruding6 through the roof. The fact that it happened to be Thursday helped to overcome my reluctance7 to disturb the occupant.
A cordial and cheery call to “come in” was the response to my gentle knock.
I found a rather tall, pleasant faced, watery8 eyed old man, with a gray beard, aquiline9 nose,{180} and shaggy eyebrows10, who rose from a box on which he had been sitting before a small table. There was an unmistakable air of noblesse oblige in his polite offer of another box. His clothes bespoke11 the “shabby genteel,” which was accentuated12 by a somewhat battered13 and much worn plug hat, that hung on a peg14 near the window back of the table.
I apologized for my intrusion, told him that I had had rather a long walk, and would be glad to rest awhile before his fire. He seemed interested in some sketches15 made during the morning, which he asked to see. His courtly air did not desert him when he confessed that he “hadn’t had a smoke for a week.” I handed him some tobacco. He fished a disreputable looking big black pipe out of some rubbish on a shelf, and was soon enveloped16 in the comforting fumes17.
I was made to feel much at home, and his conversation soon lost its tinge18 of formality. He looked at me curiously19 and asked where I was from. When I told him, his eyes brightened, and he wanted to know what the principal society events had been during the winter. He said he{181} had only seen half a dozen papers in five or six months, and had lost all track of what had been going on.
Along one of the shelves at the end of the room were ranged several books on etiquette20, and thirty or forty much worn novels, of the variety usually absorbed by very young ladies in hammocks, scattered21 around the shaded lawns of white flannel22 summer resorts, where the most intense intellectual occupations are tennis and dancing—books in which are recorded the “dashing devilish beauty of Cyril,” With his “corking and perfectly23 ripping” ideas, and the bewildering charms of willowy Geraldine, the violet eyed heiress, with the long lashes24, her many stunning25 costumes and clinging gowns. Flashing glances, nonchalantly twirled canes26, faintly perfumed stationery27, and softly tearful moods adorn28 the pages.
The limousine29 of the “Soap King” goes whirling by, which is placed at the service of the duke, when he arrives, incognito30, to annex31, matrimonially, the anxious millions that await him. The story takes us up wondrously32 carved staircases, among many palms, and into marble halls, through{182} which faint voluptuous33 music flows. The walls are lined with long rows of priceless old masters. Modern society novelists have found and given to the world many more Rembrandts and Van Dykes34 than those two humble35 toilers at the lower end of the social scale could have painted in a geological era. The duke eventually fails to produce his coronet, and the true love match is off. Cupid disappears through a stained glass casement37. Dare Devil Cyril rescues the lovely Geraldine from under a fallen horse, or a purple touring car, and bravely carries her to another; her warm breath touches his cheek, and the wedding chimes come just in time to enable the fair reader to dress for dinner.
Oh, noble Cyril, and bewitching Geraldine!—your names may change on different pages, but ever and anon you flit through the countless38 cylinders39 of unnumbered presses. Like the lilies of the field, you toil36 not, neither do you spin. The triumphs and the failures of a thinking, striving world are not for you; its problems and its tears are not within your charmed circle, but He who marks the sparrow’s fall, may gather even you,{183} with the rest of the created things, if there are other worlds to come.
Noticing my glance at the book-shelf, my host said, rather apologetically, “my library is not as large as I would like to have it. The fact is that I take a great deal of interest in social matters. I am unfortunately placed in a very peculiar40 and humiliating position. A great many years ago I fell heir to a large fortune, on the death of my uncle, and expected to devote my time entirely41 to society, and the pleasures of a gentleman of leisure. A lot of contesting relatives came on the scene, and for over twenty years the case has been in the courts. Several times I almost got cheated out of my inheritance, but it looks now as though I might get it.
“I keep in touch with everything that may be of use to me when I go into the world in the way that my uncle intended that I should. As social novelists generally reflect their own periods quite accurately42, I feel that these books give me a very good idea of what is going on, and I get a great deal of pleasure out of them.
“I had a pretty good education, when I was{184} young, but I don’t care so much about that, as I do for the ability to do things in proper form when I get what is coming to me. This enforced residence in these miserable43 hills, is just to make certain people think that I am dead. I am going to be alive at just the right time, and when I show up there will be a lot of surprises.
“As a matter of fact my ancestry44 is very ancient. I looked it up in Burke’s Peerage when my uncle died, and found that I came from two of the very best families. On the other side I would be a baronet, but I don’t want to go over there until I get my money. When I walk into my estates, I will do so unknown. I will suddenly reveal myself, and there will be a scattering45 of a lot of upstarts and false nobility who have been enjoying what rightfully belongs to me.
“I don’t associate with these loafers that live around in these sand hills at all. They are low fellows, and I have no use for them. Every three months I go to a certain post-office, and get a money order for a certain amount, from a certain party who knows where I am, and is keeping track of things for me. It isn’t as big a money order as{185} I would like, but I assure you that these conditions are only temporary, and when the proper time comes, you will find me gone.”
I listened to the old man’s story, which occupied most of the afternoon, with some suspicion, but with much interest. Some mysterious tea and a couple of damp soda46 crackers47 were served at this impromptu48 reception. He expressed much pleasure that I had called, and said that he hoped I would come again.
The impressions of my visit were really very pleasant, until, a few days later, they came under the fire of the withering49 sarcasm50 and barbed satire51 of Sipes, who from his lonely eyrie four miles away, across a bend in the shore, could observe the home of J. Ledyard Symington through his little spy-glass.
“That feller down there makes me tired. When ’e fust come in the hills, about six years ago, ’e put up a sign that said ‘J. Simons.’ He used to go ’way oncet in a while, an’ ev’ry time ’e’d come back with a lot o’ red an’ green books that ’e’d set out on the sand an’ read. He’s got the society{186} bug52, an’ ’e thinks ’e’s cut out fer to shine in new clothes all the time.
“Some day ’e says ’e’s goin to live in a big house. He comes ’ere sometimes to see if I’ve got any newspapers. I got some oncet, to see if them Japs ’ad got them fellers in Port Arthur yet, an’ Simons set down an’ studied ’em all through to see wot the society push was doin’.
“He’s got a box out in front that says to drop in cards. Oncet, just to show ’im that I was polite, I stuck a seven spot into it. I wouldn’t hand nothin’ above a seven to a guy like ’im. After that I laid out a lot o’ games o’ sollytare that I couldn’t make work, an’ I seen sumpen was the matter with my deck, an’ then I recollected53 that cussed seven spot, an’ I skipped back there when that ol’ goat was snoozin’ one night an’ fished it out of ’is box. He’s plumb54 nutty, an’ ’e don’t amuse me a bit. You fellers may like ’im, but I’ll bet that when ’e gits ’is big house, you an’ me won’t be asked to it. Nothin’ like him goes with me.
“He never has no whisky, an’ I don’t never see ’im out on the lake. He don’t fish ner hunt, an’ Hell! I don’t know where ’e gits ’is money. After{187} ’e’d bin55 down there a couple o’ years, ’e changed the name on ’is door to ‘J. L. Simons’, an’ after that ’e had it ‘J. Ledward Simons’ an’ now its ‘J. Ledyard Symington—Tuesdays & Thursdays’. I s’pose ’e’ll ’ave ‘Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a part o’ that name ’e’s grad’ally constructin’ if ’e keeps it up. Mebbe ’e means that on them days ’e’s always out, but I ain’t goin’ to keep track o’ the days o’ the week fer him, and ’e and ’is ol’ hard-boiled hat can go to the devil.
“If ’e has ‘J. Ledyard Symington Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a name ’ere, wot d’ye s’pose ’e’ll ’ave it when ’e gits in ’is big house, that ’e’s always tellin’ about? I’ll bet ’e’ll ’ave a name that ye can’t git through the yard. His plug hat makes me sick. Wot d’ye s’pose Dewey at Maniller would ’av said to a man with a lid like that? He’d a said ‘Bingo!’ an’ smashed it. After that ’e’d a told Gridley to begin’ on ’im any time ’e was ready.”
At this point the old man’s comments began to be mingled56 with so much ornate profanity that it seems futile58 to attempt properly to expurgate his remarks. He declared that Simons was certainly{188} “bunk.” “A name like wot ’e’d built out o’ nothin’ would finish anybody.” He thought that something “ought to happen to everybody that got stuck on themselves, an’ usually it did. All o’ them geezers that live ’ere an’ there on the shore, are prob’ly ’ere an’ there ’cause it’s better so fer them. With me its different. I’m ’ere ’cause I want to be ’ere. Simons ’ll prob’ly light out some day, the same way Cal did. I’m goin’ down there some night an’ slip the whole darn deck in ’is card box, just to show my heart’s in the right place.”
Sipes was a captious59 critic, and to him the “mantle of charity” was an unknown fabric60. It was evident that the social strata61 in the dunes62 had some humps that would never be leveled.
I passed the shanty64 some months later, but there was no smoke or other sign of habitation. The disappointed old occupant had evidently “lit out.” The sad-looking “plug” was stuck over the top of the rusty65 section of stovepipe that had served as the chimney. It was now literally66 a “stovepipe hat”—that crown of absurdity67 among the follies68 of mankind, against which both art and nature have vainly protested through blinding tears.{189}
I suspected the subtle facetiousness69 of Sipes in the apt decoration of the protruding piece of stove pipe with this melancholy70 emblem71 of departed gentility. Its top was ripped around the edge, and it moved languidly up and down in the varying winds, as if in mockery of inconstant fashion, which is regulated by custom instead of artistic72 taste.
The building of the distinguished73 name had,{190} however, been continued, and the legend on the door was now, “J. Ledyard Symington-Symington, Bart.” The reception days had been effaced74. The old man may have achieved that point in his social aspirations75 when he “didn’t care to know anybody who wasn’t anybody.” Like Don Quixote, he may have departed to battle with hostile windmills, or he may have walked into his estates “unknown,” to mingle57 in phantom76 social functions in ghostly halls and silent chambers77 in the Great Beyond.
Perhaps there are no “Tuesdays and Thursdays” there, and calling cards and stovepipe hats are unnecessary. His blighted78 hopes, and those that may have ended in fruition, concern the widely distributed gossips along the coast no more.
While we may be interested and amused with the petty gossip, the rude philosophy, the quaint79 humor, the little antagonisms80, and the child-like foibles of these lonely dwellers81 in the dune63 country, the pathos82 that overshadows them must touch our hearts.
They have brought their life scars into the desolate83 sands, where the twilight84 has come upon them.{191} The roar of a mighty85 world goes on beyond them. Unable to navigate86 the great currents of life, they have drifted into stagnant87 waters.
Happy Cal’s unwelcome guests and his blighted affections—Catfish John’s rheumatism88 and his pork that “them fellers” stole—Old Sipes’s lost “kittle”—Doc Looney’s unappreciative wives—J. Ledyard Symington’s “humiliations,” and all the other troubles of the old outcasts, will disappear into the oblivion of the years, with the rest of the affairs and happenings of this life.
If they have not been ambitious, their rapacity89 has not destroyed empires, or deluged90 the earth with blood. If they have not been learned, they have not used knowledge to devise means for the destruction of human life. If they have not been powerful, their greed has not oppressed and impoverished91 their fellow-beings.
Let us hope that the storms from the lake, and civilization on the shore, will deal gently with these poor derelicts, as they peacefully fade away into the elements from which they came.
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1
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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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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6
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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bespoke
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| adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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12
accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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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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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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stunning
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| adj.极好的；使人晕倒的 | |
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canes
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| n.（某些植物，如竹或甘蔗的）茎( cane的名词复数 )；（用于制作家具等的）竹竿；竹杖 | |
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stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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incognito
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| adv.匿名地；n.隐姓埋名；adj.化装的，用假名的，隐匿姓名身份的 | |
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annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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wondrously
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| adv.惊奇地，非常，极其 | |
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voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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dykes
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| abbr.diagonal wire cutters 斜线切割机n.堤( dyke的名词复数 )；坝；堰；沟 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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cylinders
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| n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物 | |
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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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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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53
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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56
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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captious
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| adj.难讨好的，吹毛求疵的 | |
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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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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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dune
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| n.(由风吹积而成的)沙丘 | |
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shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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facetiousness
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| n.滑稽 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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73
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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74
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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75
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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76
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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77
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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78
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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79
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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80
antagonisms
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| 对抗，敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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81
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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82
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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83
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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84
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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85
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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86
navigate
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| v.航行，飞行；导航，领航 | |
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87
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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88
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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89
rapacity
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| n.贪婪，贪心，劫掠的欲望 | |
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90
deluged
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| v.使淹没( deluge的过去式和过去分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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91
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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