When a man's loss comes to him from his gain.”
Mrs. Vansittart told Roden that her house was in Park Street in The Hague. But she did not mention that it was at the corner of Orange Street, which makes all the difference. For Park Street is long, and the further end of it—the extremity1 furthest removed from the Royal Palace—is less desirable than the neighbourhood of the Vyverberg. Mrs. Vansittart's house was in the most desirable part of a most desirable little city. She was surrounded with houses inhabited by people bearing names well known in history. These people are, moreover, of a fascinating cosmopolitanism2. They come from all parts of the world, in an ancestral sense. There are, for instance, Dutch people living here whose names are Scottish. There are others of French extraction, others again whose forefathers3 came to Holland with the Don Juan of the religious wars whose history reads like a romance.
Outwardly Mrs. Vansittart's house was of dark red brick, with stone facings, and probably belonged to that period which in England is called Tudor. Inwardly the house was as comfortable as thick carpets and rich curtains and beautiful carvings4 could make it. The Dutch are pre-eminently5 the flower-growers of the world, and the observant traveller walking along Orange Street may note even in midwinter that the flowers in the windows are changed each day. In this, as in other menus plaisirs, Mrs. Vansittart had assumed the ways of the country of her adoption6. For Holland suggests to the inquiring mind an elderly gentleman, now getting a little stout7, who, after a wild youth, is beginning to appreciate the blessings8 of repose9 and comfort; who, having laid by a small sufficiency, sits peaceably by the fire, and reflects upon the days that are no more.
It was Mrs. Vansittart's pleasant habit to surround herself with every comfort. She was an eminently self-respecting person—of that self-respect which denies itself nothing except excess. She liked to be well dressed, well housed, and well served. She possessed10 money, and with it she bought these adjuncts, which in a minor11 degree are within the reach of nearly everybody, though few have the wit to value them. She was not, however, a vociferously12 contented13 woman. Like many another, she probably wanted something that money could not buy.
Mrs. Vansittart, in fulfilment of her promise to Percy Roden, called on Dorothy at the Villa14 des Dunes15, who in due course came to the house at the corner of Park Street and Orange Street to return the visit. Dorothy had been out when Mrs. Vansittart called, but she thought she knew from her brother's description what sort of woman to expect. For Dorothy Roden had been educated abroad, and was not without knowledge of a certain class of English lady to be met with on the Continent, who is always well connected, invariably idle, and usually refers gracefully16 to a great sorrow in the past.
But Dorothy knew, as soon as she saw Mrs. Vansittart that she had formed an entirely17 erroneous conception. This was not the sort of woman to seek the admiration18 of the first-comer, and Percy Roden had allowed his sister to surmise19 that, whether it had been sought or not, Mrs. Vansittart had certainly been accorded his highest admiration.
“It is good of you to return my call so soon,” she said, in a friendly voice. “You have walked, I suppose, all the way from the Villa des Dunes. English girls are such great walkers now—a most excellent thing. I belong to the semi-generation older than yours, which preferred a carriage. I am an atrocious walker. You are not at all like your brother.” And she threw back her head and looked speculatively20 at her visitor. “Sit down,” she said, with a laugh. “You probably came here harbouring a prejudice against me. One should never get to know a woman through her men-folk. That is a rule almost without exception; you may take it from one who is many years older than you. But—well, nous verrons. Perhaps we are the exception.”
“I hope so,” answered Dorothy, who was ready enough of speech. “At all events, all that Percy told me made me anxious to meet you. It is rather lonely, you know, at the Villa des Dunes. You see, Percy is engaged all day with his malgamiters. And, of course, we know no one here yet.”
“There is Herr von Holzen,” suggested Mrs. Vansittart, ringing the bell for tea.
“Oh yes. The man who is associated with Percy at the works? I do not know him. Percy has not brought him to the villa.”
“Ah! Is that so? That is nice of your brother. Sometimes men, you know, make use of their wives or their sisters to help them in their business relationships. I have known a man use his pretty daughter to gain a client. Beauty levels all, you see. Not nice, no; I suppose Herr von Holzen, is—well—let us call him a foreign savant. Such a nice broad term, you know; covers such a plentiful21 lack of soap.” And she laughed easily, with eyes that were quite grave and alert.
“My brother does not say much about him,” answered Dorothy Roden. “Percy never does tell me much of his affairs, and I am not sorry. I am sure I should not understand them. Stocks and shares and freights and things. I never quite know whether a freight is part of a ship; do you?”
“No. There are so many things more useful to know, are there not?—things about people and human nature, for instance.”
“Yes,” said Dorothy, looking at her companion thoughtfully—“yes.”
And Mrs. Vansittart returned that thoughtful glance. “And the other man,” she said suddenly, “Mr.—Cornish—do you know him?”
“He called at the Villa des Dunes. My brother brought him in to tea the evening of arrival of the first batch22 of malgamiters,” replied Dorothy.
“Mr. Cornish interests me,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “I knew him when he was a boy—or little more than a boy. He came to Weimar with a tutor to learn German when I happened to be living there. I have heard of him from time to time since. One sees his name in the society papers, you know. He is one of those persons of whom something is expected by his friends—not by himself. The young man who expects something of himself is usually disappointed. Have you ever noticed in the biographies of great men, Miss Roden that people nearly always began to expect something of them when they were quite young? As if they were cast in a different mould from the very first. Really great men, I mean not the fashionable pianist or novelist of the hour whose portrait is in every illustrated23 journal for perhaps two months, and then he is forgotten.”
Mrs. Vansittart spoke24 quickly in a foreign manner, asking with a certain vivacity25 questions which required no answer. Dorothy Roden was not slow of speech, but she touched topics with less airiness. Her mind seemed a trifle insular26 in its tendencies. One topic attracted her, and the rest were set aside.
“Why does Mr. Cornish interest you?” she asked.
“He strikes me as a person with infinite capacity for holding his cards. That is all. But perhaps he has no good cards in his hand? Nothing but rubbish—the twos and threes of ordinary drawing-room smartness—and never a trump28. Who can tell? Qui vivra verra, Miss. Roden. It may not be in my time that the world shall hear of Tony Cornish—the real world, not the journalistic world, I mean. He may ripen29 slowly, and I shall be dead. I am getting elderly. How old do you think I am, Miss Roden?”
“Thirty-five,” replied Dorothy; and Mrs. Vansittart turned sharply to look at her.
“Ah!” she said, slowly and thoughtfully. “Yes, you are quite right. That is my age. And I suppose I look it. I suppose others would have guessed with equal facility, but not everybody would have had the honesty to say what they thought.”
Dorothy laughed and changed colour. “I said it without thinking,” she answered. “I hope you do not mind.”
“No, I do not mind,” said Mrs. Vansittart, looking out of the window. “But we were talking of Mr. Cornish.”
“Yes,” answered Dorothy, buttoning her glove and glancing at the clock. “Yes; but I must not talk any longer or I shall be late, and my brother expects to find me at home when he returns from the works.”
She rose and shook hands, looking Mrs. Vansittart in the eyes. When Dorothy had gone, the lady of the house stood for a minute looking at the closed door.
“I wonder what she thinks of me?” she said.
And Dorothy Roden, walking down Park Straat, was doing the same. She was wondering what she thought of Mrs. Vansittart.
Although it was the month of April, the winter mists still rose at evening and swept seawards from the marshes30 of Leyden. The trees had scarcely begun to break into bud, for it had been a cold spring, and the ice was floating lazily on the canal as Dorothy walked along its bank. The Villa des Dunes was certainly somewhat lonely, standing31 as it did a couple of hundred yards back from a sandy road—one of the many leading from The Hague to Scheveningen. Between the villa and the road the dunes had scarcely been molested32, except indeed, to cut a narrow roadway to the house. When Dorothy reached home, she found that her brother had not yet returned. She looked at the clock. He was later than usual. The malgamite works had during the last few weeks been absorbing more and more of his attention. When he returned home, tired, in the evening, he was not communicative. As for Otto von Holzen, he never showed his face outside the works now, but seemed to live the life of a recluse33 within the iron fence that surrounded the little colony.
Percy Roden had not returned to the Villa des Dunes at the usual hour because he had other work to do. Von Holzen and he were now standing in one of the little huts in silence. The light of the setting sun glowed through the window upon their faces, upon the bare walls of the room, rendered barer and in no way beautified by a terrible German print purporting34 to represent the features of Prince Bismarck.
Von Holzen stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked out of the window across the dreary35 dunes. Roden stood beside him, slouching and heavy-shouldered, with his hands in his trouser pockets. His lower lip was pressed inward between his teeth. His eyes were drawn36 and anxious.
On the bed, between the two men, lay a third—an old-looking youth with lank37 red hair. It was the story of St. Jacob Straat over again, and it was new to Percy Roden, who could not turn his eyes elsewhere. The man was dying. He was a Pole who understood no word of English. Indeed, these three men had no language in common in which to make themselves understood.
“Can you do nothing at all?” asked Roden, for the second or third time.
The man lay on the bed and stared at Von Holzen's back. Perhaps that was the reason why Von Holzen so persistently39 looked out of the window. The work-hours were over, and from some neighbouring cottage the sounds of a concertina came on the quiet air. The musician had chosen a popular music-hall song, which he played over and over again with a maddening pertinacity40. Roden bit his lip, and frowned at each repetition of the opening bars. Von Holzen, with a still, pale face and stern eyes, seemed to hear nothing. He had no nerves. At times he twisted his lips, moistening them with his tongue, and suppressed an impatient sigh. The man was a long time in dying. They had been waiting there two hours. This little incident had to be passed over as quietly as possible on account of the feelings of the concertina player and the others.
The door stood ajar, and in the adjoining room a professional nurse, in cap and apron41, sat reading a German newspaper. This also was a bedroom. The cottage was, in point of fact, the hospital of the malgamite workers. The nurse, whose services had not hitherto been wanted, had since the inauguration42 of the works spent some pleasant weeks at a pension at Scheveningen. She read her newspaper very philosophically43, and waited.
Roden it was who watched the patient. The dying man never heeded44 him, but looked persistently towards Von Holzen. The expression of his eyes indicated that if they had had a language in common he would have spoken to him. Roden saw the direction of the man's glance, and perhaps read its meaning. For Percy Roden was handicapped with that greatest of all drags on a successful career—a soft heart. He could speak harshly enough of the malgamiters as a class, but he was drawn towards this dumb individual, with a strong desire to effect the impossible. Von Holzen had not promised that there should be no deaths. He had merely undertaken to reduce the dangers of the malgamite industry gradually and steadily45 until they ceased to exist. He had, moreover, the strength of mind to give to this incident its proper weight in the balance of succeeding events. He was not, in a word, handicapped as was his colleague.
The sun set beyond the quiet sea and over the sand dunes the shades of evening crept towards the west. The outline of Prince Bismarck's iron face faded slowly in the gathering46 darkness, until it was nothing but a shadow in a frame on the bare wall. The concertina player had laid aside his instrument. A sudden silence fell upon land and sea.
Von Holzen turned sharply on his heel and leant over the bed.
“Come along,” he said to Roden, with averted47 eyes. “It is all over. There is nothing more for us to do here.”
With a backward glance towards the bed, Roden followed his companion, out of the room into the adjoining apartment where the nurse was sitting, and where their coats and hats lay on the bed. Von Holzen spoke to the woman in German.
“So!” she answered, with a mild interest, and folded her paper.
The two men went out into the keen air together, and did not look towards each other or speak. Perhaps they knew that if there is any difficulty in speaking of a subject it is better to keep silence. They crossed the sandy space between this cottage and the others grouped round the factory like tents around their headquarters. One of these huts was Von Holzen's—a three-roomed building where he worked and slept. Its windows looked out upon the factory, and commanded the only entrance to the railed enclosure within which the whole colony was confined. It was Von Holzen's habit to shut himself within his cottage for days together, living there in solitude48 like some crustacean49 within its shell. At the door he turned, with his fingers on the handle.
“You must not worry yourself about this,” he said to Roden, with averted eyes. “It cannot be helped, you know.”
“No; I know that.”
“And of course we must keep our own counsel. Good night, Roden.”
“Of course. Good night, Von Holzen.”
And Percy Roden passed through the gateway50, walking slowly across the dunes towards his own house; while Von Holzen watched him from the window of the little three-roomed cottage.
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1
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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2
cosmopolitanism
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| n. 世界性,世界主义 | |
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3
forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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4
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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5
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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8
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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9
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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10
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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11
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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12
vociferously
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| adv.喊叫地，吵闹地 | |
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13
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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14
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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15
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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16
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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17
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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18
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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19
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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20
speculatively
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| adv.思考地，思索地；投机地 | |
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21
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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22
batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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23
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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24
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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25
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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26
insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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27
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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28
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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29
ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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30
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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31
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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32
molested
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| v.骚扰( molest的过去式和过去分词 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵 | |
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33
recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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34
purporting
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的现在分词 ) | |
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35
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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36
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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37
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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38
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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39
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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40
pertinacity
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| n.执拗，顽固 | |
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41
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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42
inauguration
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| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
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43
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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44
heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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46
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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47
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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48
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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49
crustacean
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| n.甲壳动物；adj.甲壳纲的 | |
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50
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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