With this purpose the man of whom I speak looked at several houses, going first to agents, but finding himself disappointed in all. He soon learned a wiser way, which was to ask friends of what houses they had heard, and then to see for himself whether he liked them, and to do this before even he knew what rent was asked. Also he would wander up and down the streets, his heavy, well-dressed figure ponderous5 and moving at a measured pace, and as he so wandered he would cast his eyes over houses.
London, like all great things, has about it a quality for which I do not know the word, but when I was at school there was a Greek word for it. “Manifold” is too vague; “multitudinous” would not explain the idea at all. What I mean is a quality by which one thing contains several (not many) parts,[9] each individual, each with a separate life and colour of its own, and yet each living by a common spirit which builds up the whole. Thus London, a great town, is also a number (not a large number) of towns within. And to this man, who had cultivation6 and so often wrote upon the creative work of other men, the spirit and the delight of each quarter was well known. The words “Chelsea,” “Soho,” “Mayfair,” “Westminster,” “Bloomsbury”—all meant to him things as actual as colours or as chords of music, and each represented to him not measurable advantages or drawbacks, but separate kinds of pleasure. He loved them all, but he gravitated, as it is right and natural that a man of his wealth and sort should do, to the houses north of Oxford7 Street and south of the Marylebone Road. He had no territorial8 blood, nor had his ancestry9 engaged in commerce; he was European in every ramification10 of his descent. He came of doctors, of soldiers, of lawyers, and in a word, of that middle class which has now disappeared as a body and remains11 among us only in a few examples whose tradition, though we respect it, is no longer a corporate12 tradition. For three hundred years his people had had Greek, Latin, and French, and had in alternate generations experienced ease or constraint13 according to the circumstances of English life. He was the first to enjoy so complete a leisure.
To this part of London, therefore, he naturally turned at last, and following the sound rule that[10] a man’s rent should be one-tenth of his income—if that income is moderate—he looked about for a large and comfortable house. The very streets had separate atmospheres for him. He fixed14 at last upon what seemed a very nice house indeed in Queen Anne Street. First he looked at it well from without, admired the ironwork and the old places for lanterns, and the extinguishers; he looked at the solid brick, and at that expression which all houses have from the position of their windows. It was a house such as his own people might have built or lived in under George III, and in the earlier part of the reign15 of that unfortunate, though virtuous16, monarch17. In a little while he had gone so far as to get his ticket from the agent, and he would view the house. He came one day and another; he was very much taken with the arrangement of it and with the quiet rooms at the back, and he was pleased to see that the second staircase was so arranged that there would be little noise of service. He remembered with a sort of sentimental18 but pleasing feeling his childhood passed in such a house, for his father had been a surgeon, somewhat famous, and they lived in such rooms and in such a neighbourhood. He was pleased with the old-fashioned arrangements for heating the water; he did not propose to change them. But he was glad that electric light had taken the place of gas, and he did propose to change the disposition19 of this light made by the last tenants20.
With every day that he visited the place it pleased[11] him more. It became a daily occupation of his, and it took up most of his thoughts. The agents were gentle and kind; no mention of competitors was made, and the reason for this would have been plain to any other but himself, for he was offering a larger rent than the house was worth. But his offer was not yet confirmed. Many years of successful investment, in which, as I have said, he had neither increased nor diminished his fortune, had given him a just measure of prudence21 in these affairs, and he would not sign in a definite way until the whole scheme was quite clear in his mind. For a week he visited and revisited, until the caretaker, an elderly woman of rich humour, began to count upon the conversation which she enjoyed at his daily appearances.
In the wealthier part of London—next door to the modern abomination of some new man or other who was destined22 to no succession, to no honour, and whose fate in the future would probably prove to be some gamble or other upon the Continent—next door to such a house, just round the corner, so that you could only see the Park sideways, lived an admirable woman. She was the wife of a Peer and the mother of numerous children, of whom the eldest23 now served as a soldier and was an expense to them, as was the youngest, from the traditions of his school, which was also expensive. It was her[12] husband’s business, when that half of the politicians to which he belonged was not in office, to speak at meetings and to write lithographed letters imploring24 aid of the financial kind for institutions designed to relieve the necessities of the poor. He also shot both on his own land and on that of friends, and he would fish in Scotland, but as he had no land there, he had to hire the fishing. The same was true of his sport with the birds in that Northern Kingdom; so one way and another they were not rich for their position, and this admirable woman it was who made all things go well. She was strong in body, handsome in face, and of a clear, vivacious25 temper, which pleased all the world about her, and made it the better for her presence. But none of these attributes were so worthy26, nor gave her so general an admiration27, as the splendid and evident virtue28 of her soul. There was in her very gesture, and in every tone of her voice when she chose to be serious, that fundamental character of goodness which is at once the chief gift to mortals from Almighty29 God, and the chief glory and merit of those recipients30 who have used it well. She had done so, and the whole of her life was a sacrament and a support to all who were blessed with her acquaintance.
Among these was the Man who was taking the House, for he had known her brother very well at college. She was much of the same rank as himself, though a little older. During many years of[13] his youth he had so taken for granted her perfections and her companionship, that these had, as it were, made his world for him; he had judged the world by that standard. Now that he knew the world, he used that standard no more. It would not be just to say that at her early marriage he had felt any pain save a necessary loss of some companionship. He had never had a sister; he continued to receive her advice and to enter her house as a relative, for though he was not a relative, the very children would have been startled had they ever chosen to remember that he was not one, and his Christian31 name came as commonly upon their lips, upon hers, and upon her husband’s as any name under their own roof. He would not, of course, finally take this house until she had seen it.
He was waiting, therefore, in the hall one morning of that winter a little impatiently to show her his choice, and to take her verdict upon certain details of it before he should write the last letter which should bind32 him to the place. He heard a motor-car come up, looked out and saw that it was hers, and met her upon the steps and led her in. She also was pleased with everything she saw, and her pleasure suddenly put light into the house, so that if you had seen her there, moving and speaking and laughing, you would have had an illusion that the sun had come shining in all the windows; a true physical illusion. You would have remembered the place as sunlit. She noted33 the panelling, she[14] approved of one carved fireplace, she disapproved34 of another; she said the house was too large for him; she was sure it would suit him. She showed him where his many books would go, and warned him on a hundred little things which he had never guessed at, in the arrangement of a home. She was but half an hour in his company, and still smiling, still full of words, she went away. He was to see her again in a very short time; he was to lunch at their house, and he stood for a moment after the door had shut in the silence of the big place, as though wondering how he should pass his time. The hall in which he lingered was surely very desolate35; the bare boards he was sure he would remember, however well they were covered; he never could make those cold walls look warm.... Anyhow, one didn’t live in one’s hall. He just plodded36 upstairs slowly to what had been the drawing-room of the house, and the big brass37 curtain rods offended him; the rings were still upon them. He would move them away, but still they offended him. The lines were too regular, and there was too little to appeal to him. He hesitated for a moment as to whether he would go up farther and look again at the upper rooms which they had discussed together, but the great well of the staircase looked emptier than all the rest; the great mournful windows, filled with a grey northern sky, lit it, but gave it no light. And he noticed, as he trod the bare wood of the last flight, how dismally38 his[15] footsteps echoed. Then he called up the caretaker and gave her the key, surprised her with a considerable fee, and said he would communicate that day with the agents, and left.
When he got to lunch at his friends’ house he told them that he would not take the Empty House after all, whereat they all buzzed with excitement, and asked him what he had found at the last moment. And he said, in a silly sort of way, that it was not haunted enough for him. But anyhow he did not take it: he went back to live in his rooms, and he lives there still.
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1
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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7
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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8
territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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ramification
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| n.分枝，分派，衍生物 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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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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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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recipients
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| adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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34
disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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36
plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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37
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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