“Your telegram made me very unhappy. Not merely because of the accident—though it made me shudder6 to think that something terrible might have happened, poor darling—but also, selfishly, my own disappointment. I had looked forward so much. I had made a picture of it all so clearly. I should have met you at the station with the horse and trap from the Chequers, and we’d have driven back to the cottage—and you’d have loved the cottage. We’d have had tea and I’d have made you eat an egg with it after your journey. Then we’d have gone for a walk; through the most heavenly wood I found yesterday to a place where there’s a wonderful view—miles and miles of it. And we’d have wandered on and on, and sat down under the trees, and the sun would have set, and the twilight7 would slowly have come to an end, and we’d have gone home again and found the lamps lighted and supper ready—not 239very grand, I’m afraid, for Mrs. Vole isn’t the best of cooks. And then the piano; for there is a piano, and I had the tuner come specially8 from Hastings yesterday, so that it isn’t so bad now. And you’d have played; and perhaps I would have made my noises on it. And at last it would have been time for candles and bed. When I heard you were coming, Theodore, I told Mrs. Vole a lie about you. I said you were my husband, because she’s fearfully respectable, of course; and it would dreadfully disturb her if you weren’t. But I told myself that, too. I meant that you should be. You see, I tell you everything. I’m not ashamed. I wanted to give you everything I could, and then we should always be together, loving one another. And I should have been your slave, I should have been your property and lived inside your life. But you would always have had to love me.
“And then, just as I was getting ready to go and call at the Chequers for the horse and trap, your telegram came. I saw the word ‘accident,’ and I imagined you all bleeding and smashed—oh, dreadful, dreadful. But then, when you seemed to make rather a joke of it—why did you say ‘a little indisposed?’ that seemed, somehow, so stupid, I thought—and said you were coming to-morrow, it wasn’t that which upset me; it was the dreadful, dreadful disappointment. It was like a stab, that disappointment; it hurt so terribly, so unreasonably11 much. It made me cry and cry, so that I thought I should never be able to stop. And then, gradually, I began to see that the pain of the disappointment wasn’t unreasonably great. It wasn’t merely a question of your coming being put off for a day; it was a question of its being put off for ever, of my never seeing you again. I saw that that accident had been something 240really arranged by Providence12. It was meant to warn me and show me what I ought to do. I saw how hopelessly impracticable the happiness I had been imagining really was. I saw that you didn’t, you couldn’t love me in anything like the same way as I loved you. I was only a curious adventure, a new experience, a means to some other end. Mind, I’m not blaming you in the least. I’m only telling you what is true, what I gradually came to realize as true. If you’d come—what then? I’d have given you everything, my body, my mind, my soul, my whole life. I’d have twisted myself into the threads of your life. And then, when in due course you wanted to make an end to this curious little adventure, you would have had to cut the tangle13 and it would have killed me; it would also have hurt you. At least I think it would. In the end, I thanked God for the accident which had prevented you coming. In this way, Providence lets us off very lightly—you with a bruise14 or two (for I do hope it really is nothing, my precious darling), and me with a bruise inside, round the heart. But both will get well quite soon. And all our lives, we shall have an afternoon under the trees, an evening of music and in the darkness, a night, an eternity15 of happiness, to look back on. I shall go away from Robertsbridge at once. Good-bye, Theodore. What a long letter! The last you’ll ever get from me. The last—what a dreadful hurting word that is. I shall take it to post at once, for fear, if I leave it, I may be weak enough to change my mind and let you come to-morrow. I shall take it at once, then I shall come home again and pack up and tell some new fib to Mrs. Vole. And after that, perhaps I shall allow myself to cry again. Good-bye.”
Aridly16, the desert of sand stretched out with not a tree 241and not even a mirage, except perhaps the vague and desperate hope that he might get there before she started, that she might conceivably have changed her mind. Ah, if only he’d read the letter a little earlier! But he hadn’t woken up before eleven, he hadn’t been down before half-past. Sitting at the breakfast-table, he had read the letter through.
The eggs and bacon had grown still colder, if that was possible, than they were. He had read it through, he had rushed to the A.B.C. There was no practicable train before the two o’clock.
If he had taken the seven-twenty-seven he would certainly have got there before she started. Ah, if only he had woken up a little earlier! But then he would have had to go to bed a little earlier. And in order to go to bed earlier, he would have had to abandon Mrs. Viveash before she had bored herself to that ultimate point of fatigue17 at which she did at last feel ready for repose18. And to abandon Mrs. Viveash—ah, that was really impossible, she wouldn’t allow herself to be left alone. If only he hadn’t gone to the London Library yesterday! A wanton, unnecessary visit it had been. For after all, the journey was short; he didn’t need a book for the train. And the Life of Beckford, for which he had asked, proved, of course, to be out—and he had been utterly19 incapable20 of thinking of any other book, among the two or three hundred thousand on the shelves, that he wanted to read. And, in any case, what the devil did he want with a Life of Beckford? Hadn’t he his own life, the life of Gumbril, to attend to? Wasn’t one life enough, without making superfluous21 visits to the London Library in search of other lives? And then what a stroke of bad luck to have run into Mrs. 242Viveash at that very moment! What an abject22 weakness to have let himself be bullied23 into sending that telegram. “A little indisposed....” Oh, my God! Gumbril shut his eyes and ground his teeth together; he felt himself blushing with a retrospective shame.
And of course it was quite useless taking the train, like this, to Robertsbridge. She’d be gone, of course. Still, there was always the desperate hope. There was the mirage across the desiccated plains, the mirage one knew to be deceptive24 and which, on a second glance, proved not even to be a mirage, but merely a few livery spots behind the eyes. Still, it was amply worth doing—as a penance25, and to satisfy the conscience and to deceive oneself with an illusion of action. And then the fact that he was to have spent the afternoon with Rosie and had put her off—that too was highly satisfying. And not merely put her off, but—ultimate clownery in the worst of deliriously26 bad taste—played a joke on her. “Impossible come to you, meet me 213 Sloane Street, second floor, a little indisposed.” He wondered how she’d get on with Mr. Mercaptan; for it was to his rococo27 boudoir and Crébillon-souled sofa that he had on the spur of the clownish moment, as he dashed into the post office on the way to the station, sent her.
Aridly, the desiccated waste extended. Had she been right in her letter? Would it really have lasted no more than a little while, and ended as she prophesied28, with an agonizing29 cutting of the tangle? Or could it be that she had held out the one hope of happiness? Wasn’t she perhaps the one unique being with whom he might have learned to await in quietness the final coming of that lovely terrible thing, from before the sound of whose secret footsteps 243more than once and oh! ignobly30 he had fled? He could not decide, it was impossible to decide until he had seen her again, till he had possessed31 her, mingled32 his life with hers. And now she had eluded33 him; for he knew very well that he would not find her. He sighed and looked out of the window.
The train pulled up at a small suburban34 station. Suburban, for though London was already some way behind, the little sham10 half-timbered houses near the station, the newer tile and rough-cast dwellings35 farther out on the slope of the hill proclaimed with emphasis the presence of the business man, the holder36 of the season ticket. Gumbril looked at them with a pensive37 disgust which must have expressed itself on his features; for the gentleman sitting in the corner of the carriage facing his, suddenly leaned forward, tapped him on the knee, and said, “I see you agree with me, sir, that there are too many people in the world.”
Gumbril, who up till now had merely been aware that somebody was sitting opposite him, now looked with more attention at the stranger. He was a large, square old gentleman of robust38 and flourishing appearance, with a face of wrinkled brown parchment and a white moustache that merged39, in a handsome curve, with a pair of side whiskers, in a manner which reminded one of the photographs of the Emperor Francis Joseph.
“I perfectly40 agree with you, sir,” Gumbril answered. If he had been wearing his beard, he would have gone on to suggest that loquacious41 old gentlemen in trains are among the supernumeraries of the planet. As it was, however he spoke42 with courtesy, and smiled in his most engaging fashion.
“When I look at all these revolting houses,” the old 244gentleman continued, shaking his fist at the snuggeries of the season-ticket holders43, “I am filled with indignation. I feel my spleen ready to burst, sir, ready to burst.”
“It’s not the architecture I mind so much,” retorted the old gentleman, “that’s merely a question of art, and all nonsense so far as I’m concerned. What disgusts me is the people inside the architecture, the number of them, sir. And the way they breed. Like maggots, sir, like maggots. Millions of them, creeping about the face of the country, spreading blight45 and dirt wherever they go; ruining everything. It’s the people I object to.”
“Ah well,” said Gumbril, “if you will have sanitary46 conditions that don’t allow plagues to flourish properly; if you will tell mothers how to bring up their children, instead of allowing nature to kill them off in her natural way; if you will import unlimited47 supplies of corn and meat: what can you expect? Of course the numbers go up.”
The old gentleman waved all this away. “I don’t care what the causes are,” he said. “That’s all one to me. What I do object to, sir, is the effects. Why sir, I am old enough to remember walking through the delicious meadows beyond Swiss Cottage, I remember seeing the cows milked in West Hampstead, sir. And now, what do I see now, when I go there? Hideous48 red cities pullulating with Jews, sir. Pullulating with prosperous Jews. Am I right in being indignant, sir? Do I do well, like the prophet Jonah, to be angry?”
“You do, sir,” said Gumbril, with growing enthusiasm, “and the more so since this frightful49 increase in population is the world’s most formidable danger at the present time. 245With populations that in Europe alone expand by millions every year, no political foresight50 is possible. A few years of this mere5 bestial51 propagation will suffice to make nonsense of the wisest schemes of to-day—or would suffice,” he hastened to correct himself, “if any wise schemes were being matured at the present.”
“Very possibly, sir,” said the old gentleman, “but what I object to is seeing good cornland being turned into streets, and meadows, where cows used to graze, covered with houses full of useless and disgusting human beings. I resent seeing the country parcelled out into back gardens.”
“And is there any prospect,” Gumbril earnestly asked, “of our ever being able in the future to support the whole of our population? Will unemployment ever decrease?”
“I don’t know, sir,” the old gentleman replied. “But the families of the unemployed52 will certainly increase.”
“You are right, sir,” said Gumbril, “they will. And the families of the employed and the prosperous will as steadily53 grow smaller. It is regrettable that birth control should have begun at the wrong end of the scale. There seems to be a level of poverty below which it doesn’t seem worth while practising birth control, and a level of education below which birth control is regarded as morally wrong. Strange, how long it has taken for the ideas of love and procreation to dissociate themselves in the human mind. In the majority of minds they are still, even in this so-called twentieth century, indivisibly wedded54. Still,” he continued hopefully, “progress is being made, progress is certainly, though slowly, being made. It is gratifying to find, for example, in the latest statistics, that the clergy55, as a class, are now remarkable56 for the smallness of their families. The old jest is out of date. Is it too much to hope that 246these gentlemen may bring themselves in time to preach what they already practise?”
“It is too much to hope, sir,” the old gentleman answered with decision.
“You are probably right,” said Gumbril.
“If we were all to preach all the things we all practise,” continued the old gentleman, “the world would soon be a pretty sort of bear-garden, I can tell you. Yes, and a monkey-house. And a wart-hoggery. As it is, sir, it is merely a place where there are too many human beings. Vice57 must pay its tribute to virtue58, or else we are all undone59.”
“I admire your wisdom, sir,” said Gumbril.
The old gentleman was delighted. “And I have been much impressed by your philosophical60 reflections,” he said. “Tell me, are you at all interested in old brandy?”
“Well, not philosophically,” said Gumbril. “As a mere empiric only.”
“As a mere empiric!” The old gentleman laughed. “Then let me beg you to accept a case. I have a cellar which I shall never drink dry, alas61! before I die. My only wish is that what remains62 of it shall be distributed among those who can really appreciate it. In you, sir, I see a fitting recipient63 of a case of brandy.”
“You overwhelm me,” said Gumbril. “You are too kind, and, I may add, too flattering.” The train, which was a mortally slow one, came grinding for what seemed the hundredth time to a halt.
“Not at all,” said the old gentleman. “If you have a card, sir.”
Gumbril searched his pockets. “I have come without one.”
“Never mind,” said the old gentleman. “I think I 247have a pencil. If you will give me your name and address, I will have the case sent to you at once.”
“Now, sir,” he said.
The train crept on, with slowly gathering67 momentum68, through the station. Happening to look out of the window at this moment, Gumbril saw the name of the place painted across a lamp. It was Robertsbridge. He made a loud, inarticulate noise, flung open the door of the compartment69, stepped out on to the footboard and jumped. He landed safely on the platform, staggered forward a few paces with his acquired momentum and came at last to a halt. A hand reached out and closed the swinging door of his compartment and, an instant afterwards, through the window, a face that, at a distance, looked more than ever like the face of the Emperor Francis Joseph, looked back towards the receding70 platform. The mouth opened and shut; no words were audible. Standing71 on the platform, Gumbril made a complicated pantomime, signifying his regret by shrugging his shoulders and placing his hand on his heart; urging in excuse for his abrupt72 departure the necessity under which he laboured of alighting at this particular station—which he did by pointing at the name on the boards and lamps, then at himself, then at the village across the fields. The old gentleman waved his hand, which still held, Gumbril noticed, the notebook in which he had been writing. Then the train carried him out of sight. There went the only case of old brandy he was ever likely to possess, thought 248Gumbril sadly, as he turned away. Suddenly, he remembered Emily again; for a long time he had quite forgotten her.
The cottage, when at last he found it, proved to be fully9 as picturesque73 as he had imagined. And Emily, of course, had gone, leaving, as might have been expected, no address. He took the evening train back to London. The aridity74 was now complete, and even the hope of a mirage had vanished. There was no old gentleman to make a diversion. The size of clergymen’s families, even the fate of Europe, seemed unimportant now, were indeed perfectly indifferent to him.
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1
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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7
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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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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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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15
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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aridly
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| adv.arid（干燥的，干旱的）的变形 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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21
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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deliriously
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| adv.谵妄（性）；发狂；极度兴奋/亢奋；说胡话 | |
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rococo
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| n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的 | |
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28
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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ignobly
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| 卑贱地，下流地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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32
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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33
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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34
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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36
holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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39
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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40
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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41
loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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42
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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43
holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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44
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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45
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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46
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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47
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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48
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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49
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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50
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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51
bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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52
unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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53
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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54
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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56
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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57
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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58
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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59
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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60
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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61
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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62
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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63
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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64
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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65
dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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66
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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67
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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68
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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69
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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70
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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71
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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72
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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73
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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74
aridity
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| n.干旱，乏味；干燥性；荒芜 | |
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