“My dear Richard” (wrote Shelton's uncle the next day), “I shall be glad to see you at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon upon the question of your marriage settlement....” At that hour accordingly Shelton made his way to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where in fat black letters the names “Paramor and Herring (Commissioners for Oaths)” were written on the wall of a stone entrance. He ascended1 the solid steps with nervousness, and by a small red-haired boy was introduced to a back room on the first floor. Here, seated at a table in the very centre, as if he thereby3 better controlled his universe, a pug-featured gentleman, without a beard, was writing. He paused. “Ow, Mr. Richard!” he said; “glad to see you, sir. Take a chair. Your uncle will be disengaged in 'arf a minute”; and in the tone of his allusion4 to his employer was the satirical approval that comes with long and faithful service. “He will do everything himself,” he went on, screwing up his sly, greenish, honest eyes, “and he 's not a young man.”
Shelton never saw his uncle's clerk without marvelling5 at the prosperity deepening upon his face. In place of the look of harassment6 which on most faces begins to grow after the age of fifty, his old friend's countenance7, as though in sympathy with the nation, had expanded—a little greasily8, a little genially9, a little coarsely—every time he met it. A contemptuous tolerance10 for people who were not getting on was spreading beneath its surface; it left each time a deeper feeling that its owner could never be in the wrong.
“I hope you're well, sir,” he resumed: “most important for you to have your health now you're going-to”—and, feeling for the delicate way to put it, he involuntarily winked—“to become a family man. We saw it in the paper. My wife said to me the other morning at breakfast: 'Bob, here's a Mr. Richard Paramor Shelton goin' to be married. Is that any relative of your Mr. Shelton?' 'My dear,' I said to her, 'it's the very man!'.rdquo;
It disquieted11 Shelton to perceive that his old friend did not pass the whole of his life at that table writing in the centre of the room, but that somewhere (vistas of little grey houses rose before his eyes) he actually lived another life where someone called him “Bob.” Bob! And this, too, was a revelation. Bob! Why, of course, it was the only name for him! A bell rang.
He seemed to clip off intercourse14 as one clips off electric light. Shelton left him writing, and preceded the red-haired boy to an enormous room in the front where his uncle waited.
Edmund Paramor was a medium-sized and upright man of seventy, whose brown face was perfectly15 clean-shaven. His grey, silky hair was brushed in a cock's comb from his fine forehead, bald on the left side. He stood before the hearth16 facing the room, and his figure had the springy abruptness17 of men who cannot fatten18. There was a certain youthfulness, too, in his eyes, yet they had a look as though he had been through fire; and his mouth curled at the corners in surprising smiles. The room was like the man—morally large, void of red-tape and almost void of furniture; no tin boxes were ranged against the walls, no papers littered up the table; a single bookcase contained a complete edition of the law reports, and resting on the Law Directory was a single red rose in a glass of water. It looked the room of one with a sober magnanimity, who went to the heart of things, despised haggling19, and before whose smiles the more immediate20 kinds of humbug21 faded.
“Well, Dick,” said he, “how's your mother?”
Shelton replied that his mother was all right.
“Tell her that I'm going to sell her Easterns after all, and put into this Brass22 thing. You can say it's safe, from me.”
Shelton made a face.
“Mother,” said he, “always believes things are safe.”
His uncle looked through him with his keen, half-suffering glance, and up went the corners of his mouth.
“She's splendid,” he said.
“Yes,” said Shelton, “splendid.”
The transaction, however, did not interest him; his uncle's judgment23 in such matters had a breezy soundness he would never dream of questioning.
“Well, about your settlement”; and, touching24 a bell three times, Mr. Paramor walked up and down the room. “Bring me the draft of Mr. Richard's marriage settlement.”
The stalwart commissionaire reappearing with a document—“Now then, Dick,” said Mr. Paramor. “She 's not bringing anything into settlement, I understand; how 's that?”
“I did n't want it,” replied Shelton, unaccountably ashamed.
Mr. Paramor's lips quivered; he drew the draft closer, took up a blue pencil, and, squeezing Shelton's arm, began to read. The latter, following his uncle's rapid exposition of the clauses, was relieved when he paused suddenly.
Mr. Paramor waited, biting his pencil; a smile flickered27 on his mouth, and was decorously subdued28. It was Shelton's turn to walk about.
“If she marries again,” he repeated to himself.
Mr. Paramor was a keen fisherman; he watched his nephew as he might have watched a fish he had just landed.
“It's very usual,” he remarked.
Shelton took another turn.
“She forfeits,” thought he; “exactly.”
When he was dead, he would have no other way of seeing that she continued to belong to him. Exactly!
Mr. Paramor's haunting eyes were fastened on his nephew's face.
“Well, my dear,” they seemed to say, “what 's the matter?”
Exactly! Why should she have his money if she married again? She would forfeit25 it. There was comfort in the thought. Shelton came back and carefully reread the clause, to put the thing on a purely29 business basis, and disguise the real significance of what was passing in his mind.
“If I die and she marries again,” he repeated aloud, “she forfeits.”
What wiser provision for a man passionately30 in love could possibly have been devised? His uncle's eye travelled beyond him, humanely31 turning from the last despairing wriggles32 of his fish.
“I don't want to tie her,” said Shelton suddenly.
The corners of Mr. Paramour's mouth flew up.
“You want the forfeiture33 out?” he asked.
The blood rushed into Shelton's face; he felt he had been detected in a piece of sentiment.
“Sure?”
“Quite!” The answer was a little sulky.
Her uncle's pencil descended35 on the clause, and he resumed the reading of the draft, but Shelton could not follow it; he was too much occupied in considering exactly why Mr. Paramor had been amused, and to do this he was obliged to keep his eyes upon him. Those features, just pleasantly rugged36; the springy poise37 of the figure; the hair neither straight nor curly, neither short nor long; the haunting look of his eyes and the humorous look of his mouth; his clothes neither shabby nor dandified; his serviceable, fine hands; above all, the equability of the hovering38 blue pencil, conveyed the impression of a perfect balance between heart and head, sensibility and reason, theory and its opposite.
“'During coverture,'.rdquo; quoted Mr. Paramor, pausing again, “you understand, of course, if you don't get on, and separate, she goes on taking?”
If they didn't get on! Shelton smiled. Mr. Paramor did not smile, and again Shelton had the sense of having knocked up against something poised39 but firm. He remarked irritably40:
“If we 're not living together, all the more reason for her having it.”
This time his uncle smiled. It was difficult for Shelton to feel angry at that ironic13 merriment, with its sudden ending; it was too impersonal41 to irritate: it was too concerned with human nature.
“If—hum—it came to the other thing,” said Mr. Paramor, “the settlement's at an end as far as she 's concerned. We 're bound to look at every case, you know, old boy.”
The memory of the play and his conversation with Halidome was still strong in Shelton. He was not one of those who could not face the notion of transferred affections—at a safe distance.
“All right, Uncle Ted,” said he. For one mad moment he was attacked by the desire to “throw in” the case of divorce. Would it not be common chivalry42 to make her independent, able to change her affections if she wished, unhampered by monetary43 troubles? You only needed to take out the words “during coverture.”
Almost anxiously he looked into his uncle's face. There was no meanness there, but neither was there encouragement in that comprehensive brow with its wide sweep of hair. “Quixotism,” it seemed to say, “has merits, but—” The room, too, with its wide horizon and tall windows, looking as if it dealt habitually44 in common-sense, discouraged him. Innumerable men of breeding and the soundest principles must have bought their wives in here. It was perfumed with the atmosphere of wisdom and law-calf. The aroma45 of Precedent46 was strong; Shelton swerved47 his lance, and once more settled down to complete the purchase of his wife.
“I can't conceive what you're—in such a hurry for; you 're not going to be married till the autumn,” said Mr. Paramor, finishing at last.
Replacing the blue pencil in the rack, he took the red rose from the glass, and sniffed48 at it. “Will you come with me as far as Pall49 Mall? I 'm going to take an afternoon off; too cold for Lord's, I suppose?”
“Have you seen this new play of Borogrove's?” asked Shelton, as they passed the theatre to which he had been with Halidome.
“I never go to modern plays,” replied Mr. Paramor; “too d—-d gloomy.”
Shelton glanced at him; he wore his hat rather far back on his head, his eyes haunted the street in front; he had shouldered his umbrella.
“Psychology 's not in your line, Uncle Ted?”
“Is that what they call putting into words things that can't be put in words?”
“The French succeed in doing it,” replied Shelton, “and the Russians; why should n't we?”
Mr. Paramor stopped to look in at a fishmonger's.
“What's right for the French and Russians, Dick,” he said “is wrong for us. When we begin to be real, we only really begin to be false. I should like to have had the catching51 of that fellow; let's send him to your mother.” He went in and bought a salmon52:
“Now, my dear,” he continued, as they went on, “do you tell me that it's decent for men and women on the stage to writhe53 about like eels54? Is n't life bad enough already?”
It suddenly struck Shelton that, for all his smile, his uncle's face had a look of crucifixion. It was, perhaps, only the stronger sunlight in the open spaces of Trafalgar Square.
“I don't know,” he said; “I think I prefer the truth.”
“Bad endings and the rest,” said Mr. Paramor, pausing under one of Nelson's lions and taking Shelton by a button. “Truth 's the very devil!”
He stood there, very straight, his eyes haunting his nephew's face; there seemed to Shelton a touching muddle55 in his optimism—a muddle of tenderness and of intolerance, of truth and second-handedness. Like the lion above him, he seemed to be defying Life to make him look at her.
“No, my dear,” he said, handing sixpence to a sweeper; “feelings are snakes! only fit to be kept in bottles with tight corks56. You won't come to my club? Well, good-bye, old boy; my love to your mother when you see her”; and turning up the Square, he left Shelton to go on to his own club, feeling that he had parted, not from his uncle, but from the nation of which they were both members by birth and blood and education.
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1
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ted
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| vt.翻晒，撒，撒开 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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harassment
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| n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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8
greasily
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| adv.多脂，油腻，滑溜地 | |
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9
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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14
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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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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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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fatten
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| v.使肥，变肥 | |
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haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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20
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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22
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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forfeit
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| vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物 | |
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26
forfeits
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| 罚物游戏 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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humanely
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| adv.仁慈地；人道地；富人情地；慈悲地 | |
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32
wriggles
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| n.蠕动，扭动( wriggle的名词复数 )v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的第三人称单数 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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33
forfeiture
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| n.（名誉等）丧失 | |
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34
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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38
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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42
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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43
monetary
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| adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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45
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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46
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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47
swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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49
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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50
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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51
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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52
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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53
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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54
eels
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| abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system） | |
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55
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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56
corks
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| n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞 | |
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