FELIX kept the little book in his desk, cultivated what he called the “Bab Ballad1 manner,” and waited, sceptically, to see how long his luck would last. In three weeks he was given a raise. But even this did not quite convince him.
It had been too easy—too astonishingly easy. It had come about, not because of any change in his character, not because he had ceased in some miraculous2 way to be a moon-calf, but precisely3 because he was just as much a moon-calf as ever. That was why he was compelled to suspect the authenticity4 of his good fortune.
“Stop worrying,” Clive told him one day at lunch. “What in the world are you afraid of?”
“That I’ll wake up,” said Felix.
“You’ll wake up, all right,” said Clive, “to discover that you’re being underpaid and overworked just like everybody else. You know, you go along looking as if you had had a telegram saying that your rich uncle in Australia had died and left you a million dollars, and you didn’t know whether to believe it or not. No one would guess to look at you that this remarkable5 good fortune of yours simply consists of eight or ten stiff hours a day for twenty-five dollars a week.”
This, to Felix, seemed an understatement of the merits of the situation. For one thing, he had become very much attached to Clive, whose odd, whimsical, theoretical conversation had a tang of its own; and this job on the Chronicle yielded him the opportunity to enjoy Clive’s company, though now on somewhat restricted terms.
Since Felix had become a reporter, taking his place as it were in the ranks of a lower caste, he had begun to feel that 53his visits to the editorial room were a kind of special privilege, which he endeavored to justify6 by an occasional piece of writing suited to the editorial page—some entertaining account of things seen in Chicago, the by-products of his work as a reporter. Or, more likely, things not seen at all, but pieced together out of his memory and hung on the slightest thread of contemporary incident.... Once he attended a meeting of “aurists,” and, with a reference to that meeting as a starting point, meandered7 through a column of odd and curious lore8 about ears: the ear as the organ of stability, by means of which we are enabled to stand upright—with the story of the little crustacean9 which puts sand in its ears, and upon whom some scientist played a mean trick, substituting iron filings for the sand-grains, and then applying a magnet overhead, with the result that the crustacean swam contentedly10 upside down!... In short, anything that happened to interest him!
He discovered that these writings gave him a special standing11 among his fellow-reporters. They had never ventured to aspire12 to the editorial page. Nor would Felix have ventured, except that he knew from loafing about the editorial room how welcome was an occasional column from the outside. He still felt himself to be an intruder into a superior realm, and he was grateful for those times, once or twice a week, when Clive stopped beside his desk and suggested that they lunch together.
He had wondered at first how it was that Clive Bangs, with a passion for ideas as intense as the one Felix had long been endeavoring to overcome within himself, should be a successful editorial writer on Chicago’s most conservative and respectable paper—and, for that matter, the valued committeeman of two or three eminently13 practical and sober reform organizations! Clive was not merely a moon-calf like himself; he was at the same time a quite sane14 and work-a-day young Chicagoan.
The thought of such an adjustment to the world fascinated and tantalized15 Felix. It held out for him the possibility of getting along successfully without going through any such 54violent psychic16 revolution as he had demanded of himself, Clive was inwardly an Anarchist17, a Utopian, a theorist and dreamer of the wildest sort; and outwardly something quite other.
That outward quality was what Felix envied in Clive—that practical adaptability18 to the world, so far beyond anything that seemed possible for Felix himself to achieve. He would have given much for Clive’s ease of manner, his ability to meet ordinary people on their own ground—as for instance in discussing the Yale-Harvard game with a college boy and an instant later local politics with a “reform” alderman who stopped in turn by their table in the City Club. At such a moment Felix was struck dumb; he felt like a child in the presence of grown-up people. Clive seemed to him an infinitely19 superior being.
And yet this practical adaptability to human occasions was a trait upon which Clive himself seemed to set no value. His easy worldliness—as Felix thought it—was only one side of his character; and he preferred to indulge the other side—the side that was fantastically idealistic.
Perhaps it was because Felix had felt obliged to carry all his theories into practice, that some bounds had been set to his theorizing. No such bounds existed for Clive Bangs. The most extreme ideas that Felix had ever timidly cherished with regard to some free and happy society of the future, were commonplaces to Clive. His speculations20 roved boldly into Platonic21, Nietzschean, and H. G. Wellsian spheres, and dwelt there as among solid realities.
They talked chiefly of love—of love in the future.
Sometimes Felix, too much allured22 and disturbed, had to protest that these were, after all, only dreams. One day at lunch Clive discoursed23 on freedom in love until Felix felt constrained24 to point out that human nature being what it is, jealousy25—whether one liked it or not—was nevertheless a fact.
“Oh, yes,” Clive laughed. “I realize that the red-haired young woman at the settlement would find it difficult not to be jealous! In that sense, of course jealousy is a fact, 55and has to be taken into consideration. But we are free men at present, dealing26 with ideas, not with Jane and Sue—and as free men we are at liberty to inquire what kind of fact jealousy is. Witchcraft27, too, was a fact—soberly attested28 by the greatest thinkers of the age. Anybody who didn’t believe in witchcraft was crazy, just like you and I. And jealousy is the same kind of fact—a socially-created fact. People are persuaded that it exists—that under certain circumstances it must exist. That’s all. How would I know when to be jealous, except that I am carefully taught what my rights of possession are and when they are infringed29? It’s the old barbaric code, still handed down in talk and writing. And that’s why I am interested in the development of a new kind of talk and writing.”
It was specifically as this “new kind of talk and writing” that Clive discussed modern literature. He repudiated30 any preoccupation with literature as an art. It was to him a kind of social dynamics31. It had been used to build up through the ages a vast system of “taboos”—and now it was being used to break them down again. In this work of social iconoclasm the chiefs were H. G. Wells, Shaw and Galsworthy—with Meredith as a breathless and stammering32 forerunner33 and Hardy34 as a blind prophet....
“Do you suppose the public knows what they are really up to?” Felix asked doubtfully.
“No. And it would hang them if it did. But fiction cuts deeper than any kind of argument. And it’s doing its work. Wait ten years.... The new younger generation won’t be like us, Felix—content to orate about these matters at luncheon35. They will despise us, Felix! They will say we did nothing but talk.”
“Quite right, too,” said Felix.
“They will have heard our talk—talk—talk, and they will be sick of it. They will be all for action. And you and I, Felix, who will then be respectably married, you to your settlement Egeria and I to God knows whom, will be shocked at the younger generation. We will remember how prayerfully we planned to be unconventional, in what a mood of 56far-seeing social righteousness we went about breaking the commandments, and how, after all, we stopped on the way to discuss the matter more thoroughly36, and ended by never doing anything at all—and we will be disgusted by the light-minded frivolity37 of those youngsters. Even our novels—instead of corrupting38 the youth of the land as we hope!—will probably be regarded by them as hopelessly old-fashioned. If we ever actually write them....”
When he had reached that point in the discussion, Clive would become silent and sullen40. “If I only had the energy to write!” he would complain bitterly.
He had been brooding over a novel for four years, and had not yet written a word of it.... They had long talks about that unwritten novel which was to corrupt39 the younger generation.
2
At Community House, Felix was having difficulties with his class. Not that they were lacking in enthusiasm; on the contrary, their enthusiasm carried him in directions where he had no intention of going. At the outset, he had conceived English composition to be a simple matter. Perhaps it might have been for children; but these young people of eighteen were already convinced of its difficulties, and haggled41 over semicolons. They wanted to know the “rules” by the observance of which one became a good writer!
Felix presently gave up prose as too hard to teach, and started in upon verse, with greater success. Yet when it came to explaining why love and rove are technically42 correct rhymes, and young and son no rhymes at all, he was nonplussed43. Very soon the class had hit upon a mode which was neither verse nor prose—a kind of free verse. It was quite other than Felix had any wish to encourage anybody to write. He doubted if the writing of free verse would ever enable them to appreciate the Ode to a Nightingale. But he was helpless in the situation, and could only let them go ahead.
His conception of verse was precisely that it was not free; 57he had thought that the pains and pleasures of rhyme and metre would give them a creative understanding of English poetry. This free verse of theirs seemed to him utterly44 unrelated to the tradition into which he sought to give them an insight. It was very free verse indeed—it mixed its metaphors45 recklessly, it soared into realms of vague emotion. And when its meaning was at all clear, it carried the burden of a hopeless reproach against circumstance, and a plaintive46 yearning47 for it knew not what. Felix fiercely disliked this plaintive hopelessness, and preached scornfully at his class. They seemed to be impressed; but they continued as before.
“I can’t believe you really feel like that,” he said to a merry-faced young Jewess who had just read aloud a poem full of world-sorrow.
She looked offended. “But I do!” she cried. “If you only knew!” and she put her hand expressively48 to her bosom49.
“My God!” he said. “What a broken-hearted crowd!”
There was a quick burst of laughter, and then a girl spoke50 up. “But Mr. Fay, do you not think we feel?”
“I know you feel unhappy. But don’t you ever feel anything else? Don’t you ever have a good time? Or don’t you think good times are worth writing about?”
“Yes,” said Felix defiantly52. “They wrote about lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon, and skylarks, and things like that; and they loved them to begin with—that was why they wrote about them. Don’t you love anything—anything that is right on hand to be loved—babies, or pet kittens, or pretty clothes, or pretty girls? Are you always pining for something you haven’t got?”
“Always!” two or three of them responded impressively in chorus.
“See here,” said Felix. “Shelley was a young aristocrat54 58with an income, living luxuriously55 in Italy, and he could afford to be unhappy.” They laughed, but Felix went on earnestly. “He could afford to be devoted56 to something afar from the sphere of his sorrow, because his sorrow consisted of the fact that after eloping with two girls, he couldn’t elope with a third and have a perfectly57 clear conscience. Added to the fact that he knew, if he did, he would be tired of her in a few weeks anyway. He had tried it before, and he knew. That was what Shelley’s sorrow was all about, and if any one here present is in the same situation, I grant that he is entitled to feel that the desire for happiness is the desire of the moth for the star. But for ordinary mortals like ourselves, happiness is no such impossible thing. It is not the desire of the moth for the star, but—” he hesitated, and the ironical youth broke in with:
“The desire of the moth for the candle-flame!”
“And suppose that it is!” said Felix. “What is life anyway, except a burning of ourselves up in action? Only I don’t see why you prefer such tragic58 figures of speech. Why not—”
The ironical youth interrupted again: “The desire of the caterpillar59 for the cabbage-leaf!”
“I give you up!” said Felix.
But he learned from Rose-Ann that his class was considered by the residents a real success. And fat old Mrs. Perk60, one evening at the tiny theatre, said to him: “I hear you’re making poets out of the boys and girls. They say you’re a grand teacher!”
It was very odd: it seemed to make no difference that they could not take what he wanted to give them, or that he did not want to give them what they were getting; the class was a success anyway!
“Who was telling you?” he asked.
“That David Arenstein,” she told him. “The one that always used to be talking about committing suicide.” David was the ironical youth who had quoted Shelley at him. “But he’s far from committing suicide now—” and she 59smiled her comfortable smile. “He’s going to be married. Oh, yes, he comes and tells me all his troubles.”
Felix laughed. “I hope he doesn’t hold me to blame!”
She shook her head. “Well, you’ll be getting married yourself, pretty soon, I suppose?”
He did not venture to challenge her as to whom. But he said, “What in the world makes you think that?”
“Oh,” she said, “young folks do, sooner or later, I’ve noticed.”
3
It was nonsense, of course. He was in no position to think about such things, at all. And as for Rose-Ann, he had in the course of weeks become as it were acclimated61 to her loveliness, so that it no longer tormented62 him as at first. He was secretly proud of his imperturbability63. And if Rose-Ann’s companionship had lately grown more disturbing than ever, it was for a very different reason. It was because of her flattering and at the same time annoying expectations of him as an artist—a poet—a creator. He attempted to deny any pretensions64 of this sort; he tried to evade65 any discussion of art at all. But they had formed the habit of going to the theater together, and he found it impossible to resist talking with her about how plays should be written.
“Why don’t you write a really-and-truly play?” she asked, one night on their way back to the Community House.
He attempted to turn the question aside. “Hawkins is writing one, according to office gossip,” he said. Hawkins was the young dramatic critic of the Chronicle.
“Well, if Hawkins can write a play—!” she said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You know what I think, Felix?”
“I never have any idea what you’re going to think. What is it this time?”
60“I think you’ve had your feelings hurt, somehow, back where you came from. In regard to writing. Something has made you afraid to show what you can do.”
There was something quaintly67 maternal68 in her manner which almost took the sting out of that word afraid. But Felix hardened. “Well, why don’t you write a play?” he countered.
“Don’t be brutal69, Felix. You know—and I know—that I’m not up to it. I can do little things. I can’t do a big thing. And you can.”
“It’s nice of you to be so sure, Rose-Ann. But I’m not. Or rather, I’m pretty sure I can’t. So there.”
“Why do you say that? It’s not true, and you know it.”
He wished Rose-Ann had not become so serious. They were walking home through one of the first winter snows. A little while ago she had thrown a fluffy70 snowball at him, and threatened to wash his face, reproaching him for not being enough of a child. This was even more embarrassing. He had an absurd fear that she would commence to talk to him about his soul.... This was coming dangerously near to it. He scuffed71 up the soft snow with his feet, while she looked sidewise at him waiting for a reply.
“Rose-Ann, you make me uncomfortable,” he said at last. “This business of having some one ‘believe’ in you isn’t what it’s cracked up to be in the romances. It—it’s a damned nuisance. I’d be perfectly happy if you didn’t come to me with your preposterous72 demands. I’m not the young genius in ‘The Divine Fire.’ I’m a reporter on a Chicago newspaper. Of course I want to write a play. Every young reporter wants to, I suppose. And of course, since you insist upon it, I think I could. But what of that? Every young reporter thinks the same thing.”
“Scared of what?” he demanded angrily.
She answered slowly, as though she had just discovered the reason. “Of letting people know your real ambitions.”
61“Of making a silly fool of myself,” he muttered.
“But where’s the harm?” she continued. “Suppose they did know? Suppose everybody knew all your secret dreams? Would that be so terrible? Do you think everybody is watching you, ready to laugh at you? You’re afraid of being laughed at, that’s the trouble.... Well, I know your secret, Felix, and I don’t laugh.”
He shrugged75 his shoulders. It was intolerable that she should think she knew his secret. “What if I do want to write plays? I want to write novels, and poems, and lots of other things. And if I had nothing else to do, perhaps I’d try my hand at them all. But my main concern now is to make a living.”
“Still worried about your job? Not really?”
“Yes, really. How do I know how long this fool stunt76 of mine is going to please the Chronicle? I haven’t done a single piece of straight reporting since I’ve been on the paper. And I know no more of the real Chicago—”
“Felix, you are absurd!”
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1
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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meandered
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| （指溪流、河流等）蜿蜒而流( meander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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crustacean
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| n.甲壳动物；adj.甲壳纲的 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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tantalized
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| v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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psychic
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| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
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anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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adaptability
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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speculations
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platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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allured
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| 诱引，吸引( allure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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jealousy
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dealing
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witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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infringed
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| v.违反（规章等）( infringe的过去式和过去分词 )；侵犯（某人的权利）；侵害（某人的自由、权益等） | |
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repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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dynamics
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| n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态 | |
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stammering
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forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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luncheon
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thoroughly
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frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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haggled
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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nonplussed
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| adj.不知所措的，陷于窘境的v.使迷惑( nonplus的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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expressively
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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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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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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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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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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perk
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| n.额外津贴；赏钱；小费； | |
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acclimated
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| v.使适应新环境，使服水土服水土，适应( acclimate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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63
imperturbability
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| n.冷静；沉着 | |
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64
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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66
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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70
fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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71
scuffed
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| v.使磨损( scuff的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚走 | |
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72
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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73
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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74
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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