HE stood, an hour later, on the pavement of that noiseless and forlorn thoroughfare, and stared at the latest catastrophe1 which, like all the others in his impulsive2 life, he had of his own deliberate act contrived3. As yet he failed fully4 to understand his defeat—for defeat it was, surrender absolute and unconditional5. He thrust his hat to the back of his head and mopped his forehead, and moved slowly up the street in amazed reaction from the glow of conquest which warmed him as he had entered the office. He had gone without any plan of campaign, confident in his intellectual resource to meet emergency. Merciless craft and cunning vindictiveness6 met him. Under the fierce sunshine, angry shame made him hotter, and the sweat poured down his face. He had been able only to bluster7 and threaten in vain retaliation8. The grey rat of a man had laughed at him with rasping thinness. The horse-faced lawyer had smiled professional deprecation of heroics. “I shall do this and that,” he declared. “Then our action will be so and so,” they countered. Like the Duke of Wellington, he cried: “Publish and be damned.” They pointed9 out with icy logic10 that not they but he and his would suffer inevitable11 condemnation12.
“You and yours.” That was the lawyer’s phrase. On the last word two pairs of eyes were bent13 on him narrowly and significantly. The unmistakable hint—the only one during the interview—of Godfrey’s complicity, he had repudiated14 with indignation. The consequences concerned himself alone. They smiled again. “Let it be so, then,” said they, “for the sake of argument. . . .” As he walked along the burning street he wondered how much they knew, how much they guessed. Save for that significant glance, both the grey politician and the longlipped lawyer had been as inscrutable as Buddhist15 idols16. And he, John Baltazar, had been hopelessly outmatched.
Yet, after all, at a cost, he had won the game. Godfrey was saved. Mechanically he put his hand to the breast pocket of his thin summer jacket and felt the incriminating document crackle beneath his touch. That and the sheet of clotted17 passion of which he had confessed himself the author. . . . He continued his way westwards, down the mean and noisy Theobald’s Road, half conscious of his surroundings. The drab men and women who jostled him on the pavement and passed him in the roadway traffic seemed the happy creatures of a dream—happy in the inalienable possession of their London heritage. . . . Fragments of the recent interview passed through his mind. His adversaries19 had threatened not to stand alone on the written disclosure of War Office secrets. They could bring evidence of leakage20 through Lady Edna, for some time past, of important military information. He could quite believe it. The written paper could scarcely be the boy’s sole infatuated indiscretion; and as for the lady—revealed as she was yesterday, he counted her capable of any betrayal. Bluff21 or not, he had yielded to the threat. While the paper remained in Donnithorpe’s possession, Godfrey was in grave peril22. . . . “You and yours.” The phrase haunted him. If he defied them, they would strike through him at Godfrey.
Were they aware of farce23? If so, why, save for this veiled allusion24, did Godfrey, the real lover, seem to matter so little? During the interview their attitude puzzled him, until he became aware of Donnithorpe’s implacable enmity towards him, John Baltazar. And now he wondered whether the pose of the injured husband were not a blind for revenge rooted in deeper motives25. Only a fortnight or so ago Godfrey had said:
“The little beast hates you like poison.”
He had asked why. Parrot-like, Godfrey had quoted from Lady Edna’s report of the conversation before his father’s visit to Moulsford.
“A Triton like you gives these political minnows the jumps.”
He had laughed at the affectionate exaggeration. But was the boy right after all? Certainly he had paid scant26 courtesy to Donnithorpe, whom he had lustily despised as one of the brood of little folk still parasitically27 feeding on the Empire which they had done their best to bring to ruin. Was this the abominable28 little insect’s vengeance29?
He halted at the hurrying estuary30 of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, took off his hat, and again mopped his forehead and the short thatch31 of thick brown hair. The words of Dr. Rewsby of Water-End flashed across his mind—“Have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant32 principles?” . . . and . . . “I should say you were cultivating a very bad habit, and I should advise you to give it up.” And he remembered his confession33, a year ago, to the sagacious doctor: “You have the most comforting way in the world of telling me that I’m the Great Ass18 of the Universe.”
“That man’s diagnosis,” said Baltazar to himself, putting on his hat, “was perfectly34 correct. I am.”
He marched in his unconsciously hectoring way down Holborn and Oxford35 Street, deep in his thoughts. Yes, once again his episodical life history had repeated itself. The same old extravagant principles had once again prevailed. They were part and parcel of his being, resistless as destiny. Once again, without thought of the future, he had cast the glowing present to the winds. Once again he had proved himself the Great Ass of the Universe. But what did it matter? Godfrey was saved. Again he made the papers crackle in his pocket. He had told him he would give his life for him. He strode along fiercely. By God! Stupendous Ass that he might be, he had never in his life broken a vow36 or a promise. . . . Apart from the passionate37 love he had conceived for the boy, there was no reparation adequate for his twenty years’ unconscious neglect. He swung his stick to the peril of the King’s lieges on the pavement. It was a young man’s world—this new world that was to follow the war. Old men like himself were of brief account. Godfrey should have his chance, unstained, unfettered in the new world which his generation, throwing mildewed38 tradition on a universal bonfire, would have to mould.
He drew nearer to the brighter life of West End London, Oxford Circus, with its proud sweep of great shops and its plentiful39 harbours from the streams of the four great thoroughfares. Reluctant to confine himself yet awhile within the four walls of his library, he abandoned the straight course home and went down Regent Street, and at last stood uncertain at Piccadilly Circus, the centre of London, more than any other one spot perhaps, the true heart of the Empire. Though it was the broad day of a summer afternoon, his memory sped swiftly back over twenty years to the night when he saw it alive with light and flashing movement and the great city’s joy of life, for the last time before he sailed for China; when, in spite of decorous and scholarly living, his heart had sunk within him at the realization40 that he was giving up all that, and all that it symbolized—the familiar and pulsating41 life of England. And now he stood in the same glamour-haunted precincts, and again his heart sank like a stone. He turned, crept for a few steps down Piccadilly and, catching42 a taxi putting down a fare at the Piccadilly Hotel, engaged it and drove home to Sussex Gardens.
The house appeared bleak43 and desolate44. Quong Ho had gone some whither. Godfrey—he thanked God—was on his way to France. Foolishly he had hoped that Marcelle might be awaiting him, to hear the latest tidings of the boy; but she was not there. For all its carpeting and pleasant luxury of furniture the house seemed to be full of echoes, as though it were an empty shell. For the first time in his life he shrank almost afraid, from the intolerable loneliness of the lot to which he had condemned45 himself. For the last year he had given way to his long-pent-up craving46 for human affection. He had cast his soul into the orgy of love that he had compelled from the only three dear to him in the world. It had been more than his daily bread. It had been a kind of daily debauch48. It had lifted him above himself. Marcelle loved him, Godfrey loved him, Quong Ho loved him, each in their separate ways. They were always there, ready at hand, to appease49 the hunger of the moment. And now, in a flash, he had cut himself adrift from the beloved three. The love would remain. That he knew. But from the precious food of its daily manifestations50 he would be many thousands of leagues sundered51 by oceans and continents. At thirty he could forsake52 love and face solitude53 with the brave fool’s confidence. At fifty he gazed terrified at the prospect54. He had embraced loneliness as a bride, three years ago, in order to save himself from perdition. But then his heart had been stone cold, unwarmed by any human touch. He had felt himself to be an unwanted wanderer in an alien planet. Spendale Farm had been a haven55 of comfort, an Eden of refuge. But the German bomb had revolutionized his world. It had magically brought him into indissoluble bondage56 to human things of unutterable dearness. And now once more—finis to the episode which he had thought to be the story ending only in death.
He sat mechanically at the writing-table in his library and began to open the letters that had come during his absence. A leathern Government despatch57 case containing the day’s papers from the office which he had only hurriedly visited that morning, awaited his attention. The deathly sensation that they no longer concerned him held him in a cold grip. There was a flaming article from a Croatian statesman which had reached The New Universe through devious58 channels, fraught59 with pregnant information. He glanced through it in impotent detachment, like that of a dead man brought back to the conduct of his affairs. He was no longer the dynamo of The New Universe. Other forces, who and what he knew not, would in a day or two take his place. The New Universe would have to get on, as best it could, without him. He was dead. He had no more to do with The New Universe than with the internal affairs of Mars.
He opened an envelope addressed in a well-known handwriting and franked with distinguished60 initials. It had been delivered by messenger. Like a dead man he read the achievement of his ambition: He was a Minister of the Crown. The public announcement awaited only his formal acceptance. He stared dully at the idle words. And then suddenly mad rage against the derisive61 irony62 of his destiny shook him and he sprang from his chair, and, in the unsympathetic privacy of the room which he had not furnished, he stormed in foolish fury and vain agony of soul. . . .
It was the end of John Baltazar—the John Baltazar in whom he had always believed, at the moment of proof positive of the justification63 of his faith. To Godfrey he had not boasted unduly64. A year ago he had awakened65, a new Rip Van Winkle, to a world for two years at war. In a few months, God knows how, save through his resistless energy, his new-born and flaming patriotism66 and his keen brain, he had established himself in England as a driving force compelling recognition and application to the country’s needs. He had won his position by sheer strength of personality. Transcendental mathematics and Chinese scholarship he had thrown into the dust-heap of broken toys. He had emerged from philosophic67 childhood into the active life of a man, with his strong hands fingering the strings68 of the world’s war. Now the strings were in his grasp. . . . He had looked far ahead. This Ministry69, though of vast importance, was yet subordinate to the Greater Powers of the State. He was young. What was fifty-one? The infancy70 stage of statesmanship. Why should not he, John Baltazar, rise to higher power and guide the civilized71 world to victory and to triumphant72 peace?
The man had dreamed many dreams. What great man does not? Never yet has the human being whose day’s vision is blackened by the curtain of the night reached the shadow of achievement. Then again: was it of England or of John Baltazar that he dreamed? Who can tell? Can any man of noble ambitions, of deep conviction of his own powers, strip himself naked before his God and tell?
And now the dreams were but dreams. Blankness confronted him. Raving47 against fate brought no consolation73 or relief. In utter dejection he threw himself into an arm-chair and once more gazed hopelessly at catastrophe.
There was no longer a John Baltazar. As far as England was concerned he had ceased to exist. In that lawyer’s office he had signed his abdication74. There was the letter written and addressed, formally declining the almost hourly expected offer of the ministerial appointment. The offer had now come. He had pledged his honour to give immediate75 signal for the posting of the answer. That was part of the price demanded for the surrender of the disastrous76 documents. He went to the telephone and curtly77 carried out those terms of his contract.
There remained the other condition to be fulfilled, for which they had no other guarantee than his word. There at least—and a gleam of pride irradiated his gloom—he had triumphed. He had compelled them to trust his word without a scrap78 of written obligation. He would sail for China within a month.
He sat there alone in the silent house, wondering again whether he had not set the final seal on himself as the Great Ass of the Universe. He had been driven, it is true, into a corner by the malignity79 and craft of his opponents; but it was he himself who had dictated80 the terms of surrender. Acting81 on one of the wild impulses that had deflected82 from childhood the currents of his life, he had made the amazing proposal.
It was the end of John Baltazar. He rose, went over to his table and filled his pipe. Anyhow, the House of Baltazar stood firm in honour. He would yet dandle the grandson on his knee. La course du flambeau was the beginning and end of human endeavour. The torch was in Godfrey’s hands now. . . . Feeling for his match-box, his wrist met the hidden papers in his jacket pocket which he had almost forgotten. He drew them out, folded the one fraught with court-martial and disgrace to Godfrey into a long strip and set fire to it, a torch not to be handed on. He lit his pipe with it instead and watched it burn till the flame touched his finger-tips. Then he went over to the grate and burned the love-letter.
He sat down and wrote to Godfrey.
“My dear Boy:
I think you ought to know that I have been as good as my word. Three hours after parting from you, I recovered possession of the document, and this time you may be certain that it no longer exists, for I have myself destroyed it. Your sheet now is clean in this respect, and also in others, if the barrage83 of silence is maintained.
I cannot possibly tell you how I shall miss you.
Your ever affectionate father,
John Baltazar.”
That was all. Time enough to tell him about China when he had made definite arrangements for the voyage. He prayed anxiously that he might make the announcement in such a way that Godfrey should never self-reproachfully suspect the cause of his exile.
Quong Ho, returning a short while afterwards, found him deeply engaged with the contents of the despatch-case.
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1
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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unconditional
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| adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的 | |
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vindictiveness
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| 恶毒；怀恨在心 | |
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bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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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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14
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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Buddhist
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| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
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idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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clotted
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| adj.凝结的v.凝固( clot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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adversaries
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| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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parasitically
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| adv.寄生地，由寄生虫引起地 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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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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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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mildewed
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| adj.发了霉的，陈腐的，长了霉花的v.（使）发霉，（使）长霉( mildew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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pulsating
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| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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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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45
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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46
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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debauch
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| v.使堕落，放纵 | |
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appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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51
sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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53
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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55
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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56
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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fraught
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| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
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60
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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derisive
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| adj.嘲弄的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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66
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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70
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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73
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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abdication
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| n.辞职；退位 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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76
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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77
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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78
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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79
malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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80
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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81
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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82
deflected
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| 偏离的 | |
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barrage
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| n.火力网，弹幕 | |
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