“If I had money to face the first necessities,” he said, swiftly turning over a collection of smeared4 papers with his yellow fingers, as if searching for his own identity, “I 'd leave today. This London blackens my spirit.”
“Are you certain to get this place,” asked Shelton.
“I think so,” the young foreigner replied; “I 've got some good enough recommendations.”
Shelton could not help a dubious5 glance at the papers in his hand. A hurt look passed on to Ferrand's curly lips beneath his nascent6 red moustache.
“You mean that to have false papers is as bad as theft. No, no; I shall never be a thief—I 've had too many opportunities,” said he, with pride and bitterness. “That's not in my character. I never do harm to anyone. This”—he touched the papers—“is not delicate, but it does harm to no one. If you have no money you must have papers; they stand between you and starvation. Society, has an excellent eye for the helpless—it never treads on people unless they 're really down.” He looked at Shelton.
“You 've made me what I am, amongst you,” he seemed to say; “now put up with me!”
“But there are always the workhouses,” Shelton remarked at last.
“Workhouses!” returned Ferrand; “certainly there are—regular palaces: I will tell you one thing: I've never been in places so discouraging as your workhouses; they take one's very heart out.”
“I always understood,” said Shelton coldly; “that our system was better than that of other countries.”
Ferrand leaned over in his chair, an elbow on his knee, his favourite attitude when particularly certain of his point.
“Well,” he replied, “it 's always permissible7 to think well of your own country. But, frankly8, I've come out of those places here with little strength and no heart at all, and I can tell you why.” His lips lost their bitterness, and he became an artist expressing the result of his experience. “You spend your money freely, you have fine buildings, self-respecting officers, but you lack the spirit of hospitality. The reason is plain; you have a horror of the needy9. You invite us—and when we come you treat us justly enough, but as if we were numbers, criminals, beneath contempt—as if we had inflicted10 a personal injury on you; and when we get out again, we are naturally degraded.”
Shelton bit his lips.
“How much money will you want for your ticket, and to make a start?” he asked.
The nervous gesture escaping Ferrand at this juncture11 betrayed how far the most independent thinkers are dependent when they have no money in their pockets. He took the note that Shelton proffered12 him.
“A thousand thanks,” said he; “I shall never forget what you have done for me”; and Shelton could not help feeling that there was true emotion behind his titter of farewell.
He stood at the window watching Ferrand start into the world again; then looked back at his own comfortable room, with the number of things that had accumulated somehow—the photographs of countless13 friends, the old arm-chairs, the stock of coloured pipes. Into him restlessness had passed with the farewell clasp of the foreigner's damp hand. To wait about in London was unbearable.
He took his hat, and, heedless of direction, walked towards the river. It was a clear, bright day, with a bleak14 wind driving showers before it. During one of such Shelton found himself in Little Blank Street. “I wonder how that little Frenchman that I saw is getting on!” he thought. On a fine day he would probably have passed by on the other side; he now entered and tapped upon the wicket.
No. 3 Little Blank Street had abated15 nothing of its stone-flagged dreariness16; the same blowsy woman answered his inquiry17. Yes, Carolan was always in; you could never catch him out—seemed afraid to go into the street! To her call the little Frenchman made his appearance as punctually as if he had been the rabbit of a conjurer. His face was as yellow as a guinea.
“Ah! it's you, monsieur!” he said.
“Yes,” said Shelton; “and how are you?”
“It 's five days since I came out of hospital,” muttered the little Frenchman, tapping on his chest; “a crisis of this bad atmosphere. I live here, shut up in a box; it does me harm, being from the South. If there's anything I can do for you, monsieur, it will give me pleasure.”
“Nothing,” replied Shelton, “I was just passing, and thought I should like to hear how you were getting on.”
“Come into the kitchen,—monsieur, there is nobody in there. 'Brr! Il fait un froid etonnant'.”
“What sort of customers have you just now?” asked Shelton, as they passed into the kitchen.
“Always the same clientele,” replied the little man; “not so numerous, of course, it being summer.”
“Could n't you find anything better than this to do?”
“When I first came to London,” said he, “I secured an engagement at one of your public institutions. I thought my fortune made. Imagine, monsieur, in that sacred place I was obliged to shave at the rate of ten a penny! Here, it's true, they don't pay me half the time; but when I'm paid, I 'm paid. In this, climate, and being 'poitrinaire', one doesn't make experiments. I shall finish my days here. Have you seen that young man who interested you? There 's another! He has spirit, as I had once—'il fait de la philosophie', as I do—and you will see, monsieur, it will finish him. In this world what you want is to have no spirit. Spirit ruins you.”
Shelton looked sideways at the little man with his sardonic19, yellow, half-dead face, and the incongruity20 of the word “spirit” in his mouth struck him so sharply that he smiled a smile with more pity in it than any burst of tears.
“Shall we 'sit down?” he said, offering a cigarette.
“Merci, monsieur, it is always a pleasure to smoke a good cigarette. You remember, that old actor who gave you a Jeremiad21? Well, he's dead. I was the only one at his bedside; 'un vrai drole'. He was another who had spirit. And you will see, monsieur, that young man in whom you take an interest, he'll die in a hospital, or in some hole or other, or even on the highroad; having closed his eyes once too often some cold night; and all because he has something in him which will not accept things as they are, believing always that they should be better. 'Il n'y a riens de plus tragique'.”
“According to you, then,” said Shelton—and the conversation seemed to him of a sudden to have taken too personal a turn—“rebellion of any sort is fatal.”
“Ah!” replied the little man, with the eagerness of one whose ideal it is to sit under the awning22 of a cafe, and talk life upside down, “you pose me a great problem there! If one makes rebellion; it is always probable that one will do no good to any one and harm one's self. The law of the majority arranges that. But I would draw your attention to this”—and he paused; as if it were a real discovery to blow smoke through his nose—“if you rebel it is in all likelihood because you are forced by your nature to rebel; this is one of the most certain things in life. In any case, it is necessary to avoid falling between two stools—which is unpardonable,” he ended with complacence.
Shelton thought he had never seen a man who looked more completely as if he had fallen between two stools, and he had inspiration enough to feel that the little barber's intellectual rebellion and the action logically required by it had no more than a bowing acquaintanceship.
“By nature,” went on the little man, “I am an optimist23; it is in consequence of this that I now make pessimism24. I have always had ideals; seeing myself cut off from them for ever, I must complain; to complain, monsieur, is very sweet!”
Shelton wondered what these ideals had been, but had no answer ready; so he nodded, and again held out his cigarettes, for, like a true Southerner, the little man had thrown the first away, half smoked.
“The greatest pleasure in life,” continued the Frenchman, with a bow, “is to talk a little to a being who is capable of understanding you. At present we have no one here, now that that old actor's dead. Ah! there was a man who was rebellion incarnate26! He made rebellion as other men make money, 'c'etait son metier'. when he was no longer capable of active revolution, he made it getting drunk. At the last this was his only way of protesting against Society. An interesting personality, 'je le regrette beaucoup'. But, as you see, he died in great distress27, without a soul to wave him farewell, because as you can well understand, monsieur, I don't count myself. He died drunk. 'C'etait un homme'.”
“It's difficult to make an end like that one has moments of weakness.”
“Oh!” he said, “it 's to the destitute32 that such things are important. When one has money, all these matters—”
He shrugged33 his shoulders. A smile had lodged34 amongst his crow's-feet; he waved his hand as though to end the subject.
A sense of having been exposed came over Shelton.
“Monsieur,” replied the little barber, “a plutocrat knows too well that if he mixes in that 'galere' there 's not a dog in the streets more lost than he.”
Shelton rose.
“The rain is over. I hope you 'll soon be better; perhaps you 'll accept this in memory of that old actor,” and he slipped a sovereign into the little Frenchman's hand.
The latter bowed.
“Whenever you are passing, monsieur,” he said eagerly, “I shall be charmed to see you.”
And Shelton walked away. “'Not a dog in the streets more lost,'.rdquo; thought he; “now what did he mean by that?”
Something of that “lost dog” feeling had gripped his spirit. Another month of waiting would kill all the savour of anticipation36, might even kill his love. In the excitement of his senses and his nerves, caused by this strain of waiting, everything seemed too vivid; all was beyond life size; like Art—whose truths; too strong for daily use, are thus, unpopular with healthy people. As will the bones in a worn face, the spirit underlying37 things had reached the surface; the meanness and intolerable measure of hard facts, were too apparent. Some craving38 for help, some instinct, drove him into Kensington, for he found himself before his, mother's house. Providence39 seemed bent40 on flinging him from pole to pole.
Mrs. Shelton was in town; and, though it was the first of June, sat warming her feet before a fire; her face, with its pleasant colour, was crow's-footed like the little barber's, but from optimism, not rebellion. She, smiled when she saw her son; and the wrinkles round her eyes twinkled, with vitality41.
“Well, my dear boy,” she said, “it's lovely to see you. And how is that sweet girl?”
“Very well, thank you,” replied Shelton.
“She must be such a dear!”
“Give it up? My dear Dick, give what up? You look quite worried. Come and sit down, and have a cosy43 chat. Cheer up!” And Mrs. Shelton; with her head askew44, gazed at her son quite irrepressibly.
“Mother,” said Shelton, who, confronted by her optimism, had never, since his time of trial began, felt so wretchedly dejected, “I can't go on waiting about like this.”
“My dear boy, what is the matter?”;
“Everything is wrong!”
“Wrong?” cried Mrs. Shelton. “Come, tell me all, about it!”
But Shelton, shook his head.
“You surely have not had a quarrel——”
“You know, my dear old Dick,” murmured his mother, “it seems a little mad.”
“I know it seems mad.”
“Come!” said Mrs. Shelton, taking his hand between her own; “you never used to be like this.”
“No,” said Shelton, with a laugh; “I never used to be like this.”
Mrs. Shelton snuggled in her Chuda shawl.
“Oh,” she said, with cheery sympathy, “I know exactly how you feel!”
Shelton, holding his head, stared at the fire, which played and bubbled like his mother's face.
“But you're so fond of each other,” she began again. “Such a sweet girl!”
“You don't understand,” muttered Shelton gloomily; “it 's not her—it's nothing—it's—myself!”
Mrs. Shelton again seized his hand, and this time pressed it to her soft, warm cheek, that had lost the elasticity47 of youth.
“Oh!” she cried again; “I understand. I know exactly what you 're feeling.” But Shelton saw from the fixed48 beam in her eyes that she had not an inkling. To do him justice, he was not so foolish as to try to give her one. Mrs. Shelton sighed. “It would be so lovely if you could wake up to-morrow and think differently. If I were you, my dear, I would have a good long walk, and then a Turkish bath; and then I would just write to her, and tell her all about it, and you'll see how beautifully it'll all come straight”; and in the enthusiasm of advice Mrs. Shelton rose, and, with a faint stretch of her tiny figure, still so young, clasped her hands together. “Now do, that 's a dear old Dick! You 'll just see how lovely it'll be!” Shelton smiled; he had not the heart to chase away this vision. “And give her my warmest love, and tell her I 'm longing49 for the wedding. Come, now, my dear boy, promise me that's what you 'll do.”
And Shelton said: “I'll think about it.”
Mrs. Shelton had taken up her stand with one foot on the fender, in spite of her sciatica.
“Cheer up!” she cried; her eyes beamed as if intoxicated50 by her sympathy.
Wonderful woman! The uncomplicated optimism that carried her through good and ill had not descended51 to her son.
From pole to pole he had been thrown that day, from the French barber, whose intellect accepted nothing without carping, and whose little fingers worked all day, to save himself from dying out, to his own mother, whose intellect accepted anything presented with sufficient glow, but who, until she died, would never stir a finger. When Shelton reached his rooms, he wrote to Antonia:
I can't wait about in London any longer; I am going down to Bideford to start a walking tour. I shall work my way to Oxford52, and stay there till I may come to Holm Oaks. I shall send you my address; do write as usual.
He collected all the photographs he had of her—amateur groups, taken by Mrs. Dennant—and packed them in the pocket of his shooting-jacket. There was one where she was standing25 just below her little brother, who was perched upon a wall. In her half-closed eyes, round throat, and softly tilted53 chin, there was something cool and watchful54, protecting the ragamuffin up above her head. This he kept apart to be looked at daily, as a man says his prayers.
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1
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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8
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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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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abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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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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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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jeremiad
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| n.悲欢；悲诉 | |
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awning
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| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
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optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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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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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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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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43
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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46
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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47
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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49
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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50
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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51
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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52
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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53
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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