One of the most interesting of Basil's motley group of acquaintances was Professor Chadd. He was known to the ethnological world (which is a very interesting world, but a long way off this one) as the second greatest, if not the greatest, authority on the relations of savages6 to language. He was known to the neighbourhood of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, as a bearded man with a bald head, spectacles, and a patient face, the face of an unaccountable Nonconformist who had forgotten how to be angry. He went to and fro between the British Museum and a selection of blameless tea-shops, with an armful of books and a poor but honest umbrella. He was never seen without the books and the umbrella, and was supposed (by the lighter8 wits of the Persian MS. room) to go to bed with them in his little brick villa9 in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush. There he lived with three sisters, ladies of solid goodness, but sinister10 demeanour. His life was happy, as are almost all the lives of methodical students, but one would not have called it exhilarating. His only hours of exhilaration occurred when his friend, Basil Grant, came into the house, late at night, a tornado11 of conversation.
Basil, though close on sixty, had moods of boisterous12 babyishness, and these seemed for some reason or other to descend13 upon him particularly in the house of his studious and almost dingy14 friend. I can remember vividly15 (for I was acquainted with both parties and often dined with them) the gaiety of Grant on that particular evening when the strange calamity16 fell upon the professor. Professor Chadd was, like most of his particular class and type (the class that is at once academic and middle-class), a Radical17 of a solemn and old-fashioned type. Grant was a Radical himself, but he was that more discriminating18 and not uncommon19 type of Radical who passes most of his time in abusing the Radical party. Chadd had just contributed to a magazine an article called “Zulu Interests and the New Makango Frontier”, in which a precise scientific report of his study of the customs of the people of T'Chaka was reinforced by a severe protest against certain interferences with these customs both by the British and the Germans. He was sitting with the magazine in front of him, the lamplight shining on his spectacles, a wrinkle in his forehead, not of anger, but of perplexity, as Basil Grant strode up and down the room, shaking it with his voice, with his high spirits and his heavy tread.
“It's not your opinions that I object to, my esteemed21 Chadd,” he was saying, “it's you. You are quite right to champion the Zulus, but for all that you do not sympathize with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose; but for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know an assegai from an alligator22. You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians23 of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis24? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent25, you are well informed, but, Chadd, you are not savage5. Live no longer under that rosy26 illusion. Look in the glass. Ask your sisters. Consult the librarian of the British Museum. Look at this umbrella.” And he held up that sad but still respectable article. “Look at it. For ten mortal years to my certain knowledge you have carried that object under your arm, and I have no sort of doubt that you carried it at the age of eight months, and it never occurred to you to give one wild yell and hurl27 it like a javelin—thus—”
And he sent the umbrella whizzing past the professor's bald head, so that it knocked over a pile of books with a crash and left a vase rocking.
Professor Chadd appeared totally unmoved, with his face still lifted to the lamp and the wrinkle cut in his forehead.
“Your mental processes,” he said, “always go a little too fast. And they are stated without method. There is no kind of inconsistency”—and no words can convey the time he took to get to the end of the word—“between valuing the right of the aborigines to adhere to their stage in the evolutionary28 process, so long as they find it congenial and requisite29 to do so. There is, I say, no inconsistency between this concession30 which I have just described to you and the view that the evolutionary stage in question is, nevertheless, so far as we can form any estimate of values in the variety of cosmic processes, definable in some degree as an inferior evolutionary stage.”
Grant was shaking with laughter as he watched him.
“True,” he said, “there is no inconsistency, my son of the red spear. But there is a great deal of incompatibility33 of temper. I am very far from being certain that the Zulu is on an inferior evolutionary stage, whatever the blazes that may mean. I do not think there is anything stupid or ignorant about howling at the moon or being afraid of devils in the dark. It seems to me perfectly philosophical34. Why should a man be thought a sort of idiot because he feels the mystery and peril35 of existence itself? Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?”
Professor Chadd slit36 open a page of the magazine with a bone paper-knife and the intent reverence37 of the bibliophile38.
“Beyond all question,” he said, “it is a tenable hypothesis. I allude39 to the hypothesis which I understand you to entertain, that our civilization is not or may not be an advance upon, and indeed (if I apprehend40 you), is or may be a retrogression from states identical with or analogous41 to the state of the Zulus. Moreover, I shall be inclined to concede that such a proposition is of the nature, in some degree at least, of a primary proposition, and cannot adequately be argued, in the same sense, I mean, that the primary proposition of pessimism42, or the primary proposition of the non-existence of matter, cannot adequately be argued. But I do not conceive you to be under the impression that you have demonstrated anything more concerning this proposition than that it is tenable, which, after all, amounts to little more than the statement that it is not a contradiction in terms.”
Basil threw a book at his head and took out a cigar.
“You don't understand,” he said, “but, on the other hand, as a compensation, you don't mind smoking. Why you don't object to that disgustingly barbaric rite43 I can't think. I can only say that I began it when I began to be a Zulu, about the age of ten. What I maintained was that although you knew more about Zulus in the sense that you are a scientist, I know more about them in the sense that I am a savage. For instance, your theory of the origin of language, something about its having come from the formulated44 secret language of some individual creature, though you knocked me silly with facts and scholarship in its favour, still does not convince me, because I have a feeling that that is not the way that things happen. If you ask me why I think so I can only answer that I am a Zulu; and if you ask me (as you most certainly will) what is my definition of a Zulu, I can answer that also. He is one who has climbed a Sussex apple-tree at seven and been afraid of a ghost in an English lane.”
“Your process of thought—” began the immovable Chadd, but his speech was interrupted. His sister, with that masculinity which always in such families concentrates in sisters, flung open the door with a rigid45 arm and said:
“James, Mr Bingham of the British Museum wants to see you again.”
The philosopher rose with a dazed look, which always indicates in such men the fact that they regard philosophy as a familiar thing, but practical life as a weird46 and unnerving vision, and walked dubiously47 out of the room.
“I hope you do not mind my being aware of it, Miss Chadd,” said Basil Grant, “but I hear that the British Museum has recognized one of the men who have deserved well of their commonwealth48. It is true, is it not, that Professor Chadd is likely to be made keeper of Asiatic manuscripts?”
The grim face of the spinster betrayed a great deal of pleasure and a great deal of pathos49 also. “I believe it's true,” she said. “If it is, it will not only be great glory which women, I assure you, feel a great deal, but great relief, which they feel more; relief from worry from a lot of things. James' health has never been good, and while we are as poor as we are he had to do journalism50 and coaching, in addition to his own dreadful grinding notions and discoveries, which he loves more than man, woman, or child. I have often been afraid that unless something of this kind occurred we should really have to be careful of his brain. But I believe it is practically settled.”
“I am delighted,” began Basil, but with a worried face, “but these red-tape negotiations51 are so terribly chancy that I really can't advise you to build on hope, only to be hurled52 down into bitterness. I've known men, and good men like your brother, come nearer than this and be disappointed. Of course, if it is true—”
“If it is true,” said the woman fiercely, “it means that people who have never lived may make an attempt at living.”
Even as she spoke the professor came into the room still with the dazed look in his eyes.
“Is it true?” asked Basil, with burning eyes.
“Not a bit true,” answered Chadd after a moment's bewilderment. “Your argument was in three points fallacious.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Grant.
“Well,” said the professor slowly, “in saying that you could possess a knowledge of the essence of Zulu life distinct from—”
“Oh! confound Zulu life,” cried Grant, with a burst of laughter. “I mean, have you got the post?”
“You mean the post of keeper of the Asiatic manuscripts,” he said, opening his eye with childlike wonder. “Oh, yes, I got that. But the real objection to your argument, which has only, I admit, occurred to me since I have been out of the room, is that it does not merely presuppose a Zulu truth apart from the facts, but infers that the discovery of it is absolutely impeded54 by the facts.”
“I am crushed,” said Basil, and sat down to laugh, while the professor's sister retired55 to her room, possibly to laugh, possibly not.
It was extremely late when we left the Chadds, and it is an extremely long and tiresome56 journey from Shepherd's Bush to Lambeth. This may be our excuse for the fact that we (for I was stopping the night with Grant) got down to breakfast next day at a time inexpressibly criminal, a time, in point of fact, close upon noon. Even to that belated meal we came in a very lounging and leisurely57 fashion. Grant, in particular, seemed so dreamy at table that he scarcely saw the pile of letters by his plate, and I doubt if he would have opened any of them if there had not lain on the top that one thing which has succeeded amid modern carelessness in being really urgent and coercive—a telegram. This he opened with the same heavy distraction58 with which he broke his egg and drank his tea. When he read it he did not stir a hair or say a word, but something, I know not what, made me feel that the motionless figure had been pulled together suddenly as strings59 are tightened60 on a slack guitar. Though he said nothing and did not move, I knew that he had been for an instant cleared and sharpened with a shock of cold water. It was scarcely any surprise to me when a man who had drifted sullenly61 to his seat and fallen into it, kicked it away like a cur from under him and came round to me in two strides.
It ran: “Please come at once. James' mental state dangerous. Chadd.”
“What does the woman mean?” I said after a pause, irritably63. “Those women have been saying that the poor old professor was mad ever since he was born.”
“You are mistaken,” said Grant composedly. “It is true that all sensible women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the matter of that, all women of any kind think all men of any kind mad. But they don't put it in telegrams, any more than they wire to you that grass is green or God all-merciful. These things are truisms, and often private ones at that. If Miss Chadd has written down under the eye of a strange woman in a post-office that her brother is off his head you may be perfectly certain that she did it because it was a matter of life and death, and she can think of no other way of forcing us to come promptly64.”
“It will force us of course,” I said, smiling.
“Oh, yes,” he replied; “there is a cab-rank near.”
Basil scarcely said a word as we drove across Westminster Bridge, through Trafalgar Square, along Piccadilly, and up the Uxbridge Road. Only as he was opening the gate he spoke.
“I think you will take my word for it, my friend,” he said; “this is one of the most queer and complicated and astounding65 incidents that ever happened in London or, for that matter, in any high civilization.”
“I confess with the greatest sympathy and reverence that I don't quite see it,” I said. “Is it so very extraordinary or complicated that a dreamy somnambulant old invalid66 who has always walked on the borders of the inconceivable should go mad under the shock of great joy? Is it so very extraordinary that a man with a head like a turnip67 and a soul like a spider's web should not find his strength equal to a confounding change of fortunes? Is it, in short, so very extraordinary that James Chadd should lose his wits from excitement?”
“It would not be extraordinary in the least,” answered Basil, with placidity69. “It would not be extraordinary in the least,” he repeated, “if the professor had gone mad. That was not the extraordinary circumstance to which I referred.”
“What,” I asked, stamping my foot, “was the extraordinary thing?”
“The extraordinary thing,” said Basil, ringing the bell, “is that he has not gone mad from excitement.”
The tall and angular figure of the eldest70 Miss Chadd blocked the doorway71 as the door opened. Two other Miss Chadds seemed in the same way to be blocking the narrow passage and the little parlour. There was a general sense of their keeping something from view. They seemed like three black-clad ladies in some strange play of Maeterlinck, veiling the catastrophe72 from the audience in the manner of the Greek chorus.
“Sit down, won't you?” said one of them, in a voice that was somewhat rigid with pain. “I think you had better be told first what has happened.”
Then, with her bleak73 face looking unmeaningly out of the window, she continued, in an even and mechanical voice:
“I had better state everything that occurred just as it occurred. This morning I was clearing away the breakfast things, my sisters were both somewhat unwell, and had not come down. My brother had just gone out of the room, I believe, to fetch a book. He came back again, however, without it, and stood for some time staring at the empty grate. I said, 'Were you looking for anything I could get?' He did not answer, but this constantly happens, as he is often very abstracted. I repeated my question, and still he did not answer. Sometimes he is so wrapped up in his studies that nothing but a touch on the shoulder would make him aware of one's presence, so I came round the table towards him. I really do not know how to describe the sensation which I then had. It seems simply silly, but at the moment it seemed something enormous, upsetting one's brain. The fact is, James was standing74 on one leg.”
Grant smiled slowly and rubbed his hands with a kind of care.
“Standing on one leg?” I repeated.
“Yes,” replied the dead voice of the woman without an inflection to suggest that she felt the fantasticality of her statement. “He was standing on the left leg and the right drawn75 up at a sharp angle, the toe pointing downwards76. I asked him if his leg hurt him. His only answer was to shoot the leg straight at right angles to the other, as if pointing to the other with his toe to the wall. He was still looking quite gravely at the fireplace.
“'James, what is the matter?' I cried, for I was thoroughly77 frightened. James gave three kicks in the air with the right leg, flung up the other, gave three kicks in the air with it also and spun78 round like a teetotum the other way. 'Are you mad?' I cried. 'Why don't you answer me?' He had come to a standstill facing me, and was looking at me as he always does, with his lifted eyebrows79 and great spectacled eyes. When I had spoken he remained a second or two motionless, and then his only reply was to lift his left foot slowly from the floor and describe circles with it in the air. I rushed to the door and shouted for Christina. I will not dwell on the dreadful hours that followed. All three of us talked to him, implored80 him to speak to us with appeals that might have brought back the dead, but he has done nothing but hop7 and dance and kick with a solemn silent face. It looks as if his legs belonged to some one else or were possessed81 by devils. He has never spoken to us from that time to this.”
“Doctor Colman is with him,” said Miss Chadd calmly. “They are in the garden. Doctor Colman thought the air would do him good. And he can scarcely go into the street.”
Basil and I walked rapidly to the window which looked out on the garden. It was a small and somewhat smug suburban83 garden; the flower beds a little too neat and like the pattern of a coloured carpet; but on this shining and opulent summer day even they had the exuberance84 of something natural, I had almost said tropical. In the middle of a bright and verdant85 but painfully circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat (I presume Dr Colman), who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with a nervous twitch86, as it were, in his face. The other was our old friend, listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes, the strong sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the night before, when the boisterous Basil had rallied him on his studious decorum. But for one thing the figure of this morning might have been the identical figure of last night. That one thing was that while the face listened reposefully87 the legs were industriously88 dancing like the legs of a marionette89. The neat flowers and the sunny glitter of the garden lent an indescribable sharpness and incredibility to the prodigy90—the prodigy of the head of a hermit91 and the legs of a harlequin. For miracles should always happen in broad daylight. The night makes them credible92 and therefore commonplace.
“You know, Adelaide,” she said, “that Mr Bingham from the Museum is coming again at three.”
“I know,” said Adelaide Chadd bitterly. “I suppose we shall have to tell him about this. I thought that no good fortune would ever come easily to us.”
Grant suddenly turned round. “What do you mean?” he said. “What will you have to tell Mr Bingham?”
“You know what I shall have to tell him,” said the professor's sister, almost fiercely. “I don't know that we need give it its wretched name. Do you think that the keeper of Asiatic manuscripts will be allowed to go on like that?” And she pointed53 for an instant at the figure in the garden, the shining, listening face and the unresting feet.
Basil Grant took out his watch with an abrupt94 movement. “When did you say the British Museum man was coming?” he said.
“Then I have an hour before me,” said Grant, and without another word threw up the window and jumped out into the garden. He did not walk straight up to the doctor and lunatic, but strolling round the garden path drew near them cautiously and yet apparently96 carelessly. He stood a couple of feet off them, seemingly counting halfpence out of his trousers pocket, but, as I could see, looking up steadily97 under the broad brim of his hat.
Suddenly he stepped up to Professor Chadd's elbow, and said, in a loud familiar voice, “Well, my boy, do you still think the Zulus our inferiors?”
The doctor knitted his brows and looked anxious, seeming to be about to speak. The professor turned his bald and placid68 head towards Grant in a friendly manner, but made no answer, idly flinging his left leg about.
“Have you converted Dr Colman to your views?” Basil continued, still in the same loud and lucid98 tone.
Chadd only shuffled99 his feet and kicked a little with the other leg, his expression still benevolent and inquiring. The doctor cut in rather sharply. “Shall we go inside, professor?” he said. “Now you have shown me the garden. A beautiful garden. A most beautiful garden. Let us go in,” and he tried to draw the kicking ethnologist by the elbow, at the same time whispering to Grant: “I must ask you not to trouble him with questions. Most risky100. He must be soothed101.”
Basil answered in the same tone, with great coolness:
“Of course your directions must be followed out, doctor. I will endeavour to do so, but I hope it will not be inconsistent with them if you will leave me alone with my poor friend in this garden for an hour. I want to watch him. I assure you, Dr Colman, that I shall say very little to him, and that little shall be as soothing102 as—as syrup103.”
The doctor wiped his eyeglass thoughtfully.
“It is rather dangerous for him,” he said, “to be long in the strong sun without his hat. With his bald head, too.”
“That is soon settled,” said Basil composedly, and took off his own big hat and clapped it on the egglike skull104 of the professor. The latter did not turn round but danced away with his eyes on the horizon.
The doctor put on his glasses again, looked severely105 at the two for some seconds, with his head on one side like a bird's, and then saying, shortly, “All right,” strutted106 away into the house, where the three Misses Chadd were all looking out from the parlour window on to the garden. They looked out on it with hungry eyes for a full hour without moving, and they saw a sight which was more extraordinary than madness itself.
Basil Grant addressed a few questions to the madman, without succeeding in making him do anything but continue to caper107, and when he had done this slowly took a red note-book out of one pocket and a large pencil out of another.
He began hurriedly to scribble108 notes. When the lunatic skipped away from him he would walk a few yards in pursuit, stop, and make notes again. Thus they followed each other round and round the foolish circle of turf, the one writing in pencil with the face of a man working out a problem, the other leaping and playing like a child.
After about three-quarters of an hour of this imbecile scene, Grant put the pencil in his pocket, but kept the note-book open in his hand, and walking round the mad professor, planted himself directly in front of him.
Then occurred something that even those already used to that wild morning had not anticipated or dreamed. The professor, on finding Basil in front of him, stared with a blank benignity109 for a few seconds, and then drew up his left leg and hung it bent110 in the attitude that his sister had described as being the first of all his antics. And the moment he had done it Basil Grant lifted his own leg and held it out rigid before him, confronting Chadd with the flat sole of his boot. The professor dropped his bent leg, and swinging his weight on to it kicked out the other behind, like a man swimming. Basil crossed his feet like a saltire cross, and then flung them apart again, giving a leap into the air. Then before any of the spectators could say a word or even entertain a thought about the matter, both of them were dancing a sort of jig111 or hornpipe opposite each other; and the sun shone down on two madmen instead of one.
They were so stricken with the deafness and blindness of monomania that they did not see the eldest Miss Chadd come out feverishly112 into the garden with gestures of entreaty113, a gentleman following her. Professor Chadd was in the wildest posture114 of a pas-de-quatre, Basil Grant seemed about to turn a cart-wheel, when they were frozen in their follies115 by the steely voice of Adelaide Chadd saying, “Mr Bingham of the British Museum.”
Mr Bingham was a slim, well-clad gentleman with a pointed and slightly effeminate grey beard, unimpeachable116 gloves, and formal but agreeable manners. He was the type of the over-civilized, as Professor Chadd was of the uncivilized pedant117. His formality and agreeableness did him some credit under the circumstances. He had a vast experience of books and a considerable experience of the more dilettante118 fashionable salons119. But neither branch of knowledge had accustomed him to the spectacle of two grey-haired middle-class gentlemen in modern costume throwing themselves about like acrobats120 as a substitute for an after-dinner nap.
The professor continued his antics with perfect placidity, but Grant stopped abruptly121. The doctor had reappeared on the scene, and his shiny black eyes, under his shiny black hat, moved restlessly from one of them to the other.
“Dr Colman,” said Basil, turning to him, “will you entertain Professor Chadd again for a little while? I am sure that he needs you. Mr Bingham, might I have the pleasure of a few moments' private conversation? My name is Grant.”
Mr Bingham, of the British Museum, bowed in a manner that was respectful but a trifle bewildered.
“Miss Chadd will excuse me,” continued Basil easily, “if I know my way about the house.” And he led the dazed librarian rapidly through the back door into the parlour.
“Mr Bingham,” said Basil, setting a chair for him, “I imagine that Miss Chadd has told you of this distressing122 occurrence.”
“She has, Mr Grant,” said Bingham, looking at the table with a sort of compassionate124 nervousness. “I am more pained than I can say by this dreadful calamity. It seems quite heart-rending that the thing should have happened just as we have decided125 to give your eminent126 friend a position which falls far short of his merits. As it is, of course—really, I don't know what to say. Professor Chadd may, of course, retain—I sincerely trust he will—his extraordinarily127 valuable intellect. But I am afraid—I am really afraid—that it would not do to have the curator of the Asiatic manuscripts—er—dancing about.”
“I have a suggestion to make,” said Basil, and sat down abruptly in his chair, drawing it up to the table.
“I am delighted, of course,” said the gentleman from the British Museum, coughing and drawing up his chair also.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked for just the moments required for Basil to clear his throat and collect his words, and then he said:
“My proposal is this. I do not know that in the strict use of words you could altogether call it a compromise, still it has something of that character. My proposal is that the Government (acting, as I presume, through your Museum) should pay Professor Chadd £800 a year until he stops dancing.”
“Eight hundred a year!” said Mr Bingham, and for the first time lifted his mild blue eyes to those of his interlocutor—and he raised them with a mild blue stare. “I think I have not quite understood you. Did I understand you to say that Professor Chadd ought to be employed, in his present state, in the Asiatic manuscript department at eight hundred a year?”
Grant shook his head resolutely128.
“No,” he said firmly. “No. Chadd is a friend of mine, and I would say anything for him I could. But I do not say, I cannot say, that he ought to take on the Asiatic manuscripts. I do not go so far as that. I merely say that until he stops dancing you ought to pay him £800 Surely you have some general fund for the endowment of research.”
Mr Bingham looked bewildered.
“I really don't know,” he said, blinking his eyes, “what you are talking about. Do you ask us to give this obvious lunatic nearly a thousand a year for life?”
“Not at all,” cried Basil, keenly and triumphantly129. “I never said for life. Not at all.”
“What for, then?” asked the meek130 Bingham, suppressing an instinct meekly131 to tear his hair. “How long is this endowment to run? Not till his death? Till the Judgement day?”
“No,” said Basil, beaming, “but just what I said. Till he has stopped dancing.” And he lay back with satisfaction and his hands in his pockets.
Bingham had by this time fastened his eyes keenly on Basil Grant and kept them there.
“Come, Mr Grant,” he said. “Do I seriously understand you to suggest that the Government pay Professor Chadd an extraordinarily high salary simply on the ground that he has (pardon the phrase) gone mad? That he should be paid more than four good clerks solely132 on the ground that he is flinging his boots about in the back yard?”
“Precisely,” said Grant composedly.
“That this absurd payment is not only to run on with the absurd dancing, but actually to stop with the absurd dancing?”
“One must stop somewhere,” said Grant. “Of course.”
Bingham rose and took up his perfect stick and gloves.
“There is really nothing more to be said, Mr Grant,” he said coldly. “What you are trying to explain to me may be a joke—a slightly unfeeling joke. It may be your sincere view, in which case I ask your pardon for the former suggestion. But, in any case, it appears quite irrelevant133 to my duties. The mental morbidity134, the mental downfall, of Professor Chadd, is a thing so painful to me that I cannot easily endure to speak of it. But it is clear there is a limit to everything. And if the Archangel Gabriel went mad it would sever20 his connection, I am sorry to say, with the British Museum Library.”
He was stepping towards the door, but Grant's hand, flung out in dramatic warning, arrested him.
“Stop!” said Basil sternly. “Stop while there is yet time. Do you want to take part in a great work, Mr Bingham? Do you want to help in the glory of Europe—in the glory of science? Do you want to carry your head in the air when it is bald or white because of the part that you bore in a great discovery? Do you want—”
Bingham cut in sharply:
“And if I do want this, Mr Grant—”
“Then,” said Basil lightly, “your task is easy. Get Chadd £800 a year till he stops dancing.”
With a fierce flap of his swinging gloves Bingham turned impatiently to the door, but in passing out of it found it blocked. Dr Colman was coming in.
“Forgive me, gentlemen,” he said, in a nervous, confidential135 voice, “the fact is, Mr Grant, I—er—have made a most disturbing discovery about Mr Chadd.”
Bingham looked at him with grave eyes.
“I was afraid so,” he said. “Drink, I imagine.”
“Drink!” echoed Colman, as if that were a much milder affair. “Oh, no, it's not drink.”
Mr Bingham became somewhat agitated136, and his voice grew hurried and vague. “Homicidal mania—” he began.
“No, no,” said the medical man impatiently.
“Thinks he's made of glass,” said Bingham feverishly, “or says he's God—or—”
“No,” said Dr Colman sharply; “the fact is, Mr Grant, my discovery is of a different character. The awful thing about him is—”
“Oh, go on, sir,” cried Bingham, in agony.
“The awful thing about him is,” repeated Colman, with deliberation, “that he isn't mad.”
“Not mad!”
“There are quite well-known physical tests of lunacy,” said the doctor shortly; “he hasn't got any of them.”
“But why does he dance?” cried the despairing Bingham. “Why doesn't he answer us? Why hasn't he spoken to his family?”
“The devil knows,” said Dr Colman coolly. “I'm paid to judge of lunatics, but not of fools. The man's not mad.”
“What on earth can it mean? Can't we make him listen?” said Mr Bingham. “Can none get into any kind of communication with him?”
Grant's voice struck in sudden and clear, like a steel bell:
“I shall be very happy,” he said, “to give him any message you like to send.”
Both men stared at him.
“Give him a message?” they cried simultaneously137. “How will you give him a message?”
Basil smiled in his slow way.
“If you really want to know how I shall give him your message,” he began, but Bingham cried:
“Well,” said Basil, “like this.” And he suddenly sprang a foot into the air, coming down with crashing boots, and then stood on one leg.
His face was stern, though this effect was slightly spoiled by the fact that one of his feet was making wild circles in the air.
“You drive me to it,” he said. “You drive me to betray my friend. And I will, for his own sake, betray him.”
The sensitive face of Bingham took on an extra expression of distress123 as of one anticipating some disgraceful disclosure. “Anything painful, of course—” he began.
Basil let his loose foot fall on the carpet with a crash that struck them all rigid in their feeble attitudes.
“Idiots!” he cried. “Have you seen the man? Have you looked at James Chadd going dismally139 to and fro from his dingy house to your miserable140 library, with his futile141 books and his confounded umbrella, and never seen that he has the eyes of a fanatic142? Have you never noticed, stuck casually143 behind his spectacles and above his seedy old collar, the face of a man who might have burned heretics, or died for the philosopher's stone? It is all my fault, in a way: I lit the dynamite144 of his deadly faith. I argued against him on the score of his famous theory about language—the theory that language was complete in certain individuals and was picked up by others simply by watching them. I also chaffed him about not understanding things in rough and ready practice. What has this glorious bigot done? He has answered me. He has worked out a system of language of his own (it would take too long to explain); he has made up, I say, a language of his own. And he has sworn that till people understand it, till he can speak to us in this language, he will not speak in any other. And he shall not. I have understood, by taking careful notice; and, by heaven, so shall the others. This shall not be blown upon. He shall finish his experiment. He shall have £800 a year from somewhere till he has stopped dancing. To stop him now is an infamous145 war on a great idea. It is religious persecution146.”
Mr Bingham held out his hand cordially.
“I thank you, Mr Grant,” he said. “I hope I shall be able to answer for the source of the £800 and I fancy that I shall. Will you come in my cab?”
“No, thank you very much, Mr Bingham,” said Grant heartily147. “I think I will go and have a chat with the professor in the garden.”
The conversation between Chadd and Grant appeared to be personal and friendly. They were still dancing when I left.
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1
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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2
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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3
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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4
scrupulosity
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| n.顾虑 | |
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5
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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7
hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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8
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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9
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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10
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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11
tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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12
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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13
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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14
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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15
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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16
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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17
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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18
discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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19
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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20
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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21
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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22
alligator
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| n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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23
barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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24
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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25
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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26
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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27
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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28
evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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29
requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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30
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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31
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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32
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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33
incompatibility
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| n.不兼容 | |
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34
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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35
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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36
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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37
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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38
bibliophile
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| n.爱书者；藏书家 | |
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39
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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40
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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41
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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42
pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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43
rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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44
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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45
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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46
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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47
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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48
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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49
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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50
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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51
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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52
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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53
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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54
impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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56
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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57
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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58
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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59
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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60
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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61
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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62
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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63
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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64
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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65
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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66
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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67
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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68
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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69
placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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70
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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71
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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72
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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73
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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74
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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75
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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76
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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77
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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78
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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79
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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80
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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82
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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83
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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84
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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85
verdant
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| adj.翠绿的，青翠的，生疏的，不老练的 | |
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86
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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87
reposefully
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| adv.平稳地 | |
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88
industriously
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89
marionette
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| n.木偶 | |
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90
prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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91
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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92
credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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93
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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94
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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95
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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96
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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97
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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98
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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99
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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100
risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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101
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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102
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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103
syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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104
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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105
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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106
strutted
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| 趾高气扬地走，高视阔步( strut的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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107
caper
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| v.雀跃，欢蹦；n.雀跃，跳跃；续随子，刺山柑花蕾；嬉戏 | |
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108
scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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109
benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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110
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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111
jig
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| n.快步舞（曲）；v.上下晃动；用夹具辅助加工；蹦蹦跳跳 | |
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112
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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113
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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114
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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115
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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116
unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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117
pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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118
dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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119
salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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120
acrobats
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| n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人 | |
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121
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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122
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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123
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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124
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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morbidity
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| n.病态；不健全；发病；发病率 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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