Few battles are decisive, and perhaps least of all those that are won by a sudden charge or an accident, and not as the result of long-maturing causes. Doubtless the direction of a character or a career is often turned by a sudden act of the will or a momentary1 impotence of the will. But the battle is not over then, nor without long and arduous2 fighting, often a dreary3, dragging struggle without the excitement of novelty.
It was comparatively easy for Jack4 Delancy in Mr. Fletcher's office to face about suddenly and say yes to the proposal made him. There was on him the pressure of necessity, of his own better nature acting5 under a sense of his wife's approval; and besides, there was a novelty that attracted him in trying something absolutely new to his habits.
But it was one thing to begin, and another, with a man of his temperament6, to continue. To have regular hours, to attend to the details of a traffic that was to the last degree prosaic7, in short, to settle down to hard work, was a very different thing from the "business" about which Jack and his fellows at the club used to talk so much, and to fancy they were engaged in. When the news came to the Union that Delancy had gone into the house of Fletcher & Co. as a clerk, there was a general smile, and a languid curiosity expressed as to how long he would stick to it.
In the first day or two Jack was sustained not only by the original impulse, but by a real instinct in learning about business ways and details that were new to him. To talk about the business and about the markets, to hear plans unfolded for extension and for taking advantage of fluctuations8 in prices, was all very well; but the drudgery9 of details--copying, comparing invoices10, and settling into the routine of a clerk's life, even the life of a confidential11 clerk--was contrary to the habits of his whole life. It was not to be expected that these habits would be overcome without a long struggle and many back-slidings.
The little matter of being at his office desk at nine o'clock in the morning began to seem a hardship after the first three or four days. For Mr. Fletcher not to walk into his shop on the stroke of ten would have been such a reversal of his habits as to cause him as much annoyance12 as it caused Jack to be bound to a fixed13 hour. It was only the difference in training. But that is saying everything.
Besides, while the details of his work, the more he got settled in them, were not to his taste, he was daily mortified14 to find himself ignorant of matters which the stupidest clerk in the office seemed to know by instinct. This acted, however, as a sort of stimulus15, and touched his pride. He determined16 that he would not be humiliated17 in this way, and during office hours he worked as diligently18 as Mr. Fletcher could have desired. He had pledged himself to the trial, and he summoned all his intelligence to back his effort.
And it is true that the satisfaction of having a situation, of doing something, the relief to the previous daily anxiety and almost despair, raised his spirits. It was only when he thought of the public opinion of his little world, of some other occupation more befitting his education, of the vast change from his late life of ease and luxury to this of daily labor19 with a clerk's pay, that he had hours of revolt and cursed his luck.
No, Jack's battle was not won in a day, or a week, or a year. And before it was won he needed more help than his own somewhat irresolute21 will could give. It is the impression of his biographer that he would have failed in the end if he had been married to a frivolous22 and selfish woman.
Mr. Fletcher was known as a very strict man of business, and as little else. But he was a good judge of character, and under his notions of discipline and of industry he was a kindly23 man, as his clerks, who feared his sharp oversight24, knew. And besides, he had made a compact with Edith, for whom he had something more than family affection, and he watched Jack's efforts to adjust himself to the new life with sympathy. If it was an experiment for Jack, it was also an experiment for him, the result of which gave him some anxiety. The situation was not a very heroic one, but a life is often decided25 for good or ill by as insignificant26 a matter as Jack's ability to persevere27 in learning about the twine28 and cordage trade. This was a day of trial, and the element of uncertainty29 in it kept both Mr. Fletcher and Jack from writing of the new arrangement to Edith, for fear that only disappointment to her would be the ultimate result. Jack's brief notes to her were therefore, as usual, indefinite, but with the hint that he was beginning to see a way out of his embarrassment30.
After the passage of a couple of weeks, during which Mr. Fletcher had been quietly studying his new clerk, he suddenly said to him, one Saturday morning, after they had looked over and estimated the orders by the day's mail, "Jack, I think you'd better let up a little, and run down and see Edith."
"Oh!" said Jack, a little startled by the proposal, but recovering himself; "I didn't suppose the business could spare me."
"I didn't mean a vacation, but run down for over Sunday. It must be lovely there, and the change will make you as keen as a brier for business. It always does me. Stay over Monday if the weather is good. I have to be away myself the week after." As Jack hesitated and did not reply, Mr. Fletcher continued:
"I really think you'd better go, Jack. You have hardly had a breath of fresh air this summer. There's plenty of time to go up-town and get your grip and catch the afternoon train."
Jack was still silent. The thought of seeing Edith created a tumult31 in his mind. It seemed as if he were not quite ready, not exactly settled. He had been procrastinating32 so long, putting off going, on one pretext33 or another, that he had fallen into a sort of fear of going. At first, absorbed in his speculations35, enthralled36 by the company of Carmen and the luxurious37, easy-going view of life that her society created for him; he had felt Edith and his house as an irritating restraint. Later, when the smash came, he had been still more relieved that she was out of town. And finally he had fallen into a reckless apathy38, and had made himself believe that he never would see her again until some stroke of fortune should set him on his feet and restore his self-respect.
But since he had been with Fletcher & Co. his feelings had gradually undergone a change. With a regular occupation and regular hours, and in contact with the sensible mind and business routine of Mr. Fletcher, he began to have saner40 views of life, and to realize that Edith would approve what he was now attempting to do much more than any effort to relieve himself by speculation34.
As soon as he felt himself a little more firmly established, a little more sure of himself, he would go to Edith, and confess everything, and begin life anew. This had been his mood, but he was still irresolute, and it needed some outside suggestion to push him forward to overcome his lingering reluctance41 to go home.
But this had come suddenly. It seemed to him at first thought that he needed time to prepare for it. Mr. Fletcher pulled out his watch. "There is a later train at four. Take that, and we will get some lunch first."
An hour of postponement42 was such a relief! Why, of course he could go at four. And instantly his heart leaped up with desire.
"All right," he said, as he rose and closed his desk. "But I think I'd better not stay for lunch. I want to get something for the boy on my way uptown."
"Very good. Tuesday, then. My best regards to Edith."
As Jack came down the stairway from the elevated road at Twenty-third Street he ran against a man who was hurrying up--a man in a pronounced traveling-suit, grip-sack and umbrella in hand, and in haste. It was Mavick. Recognition was instantaneous, and it was impossible for either to avoid the meeting if he had desired to do so.
"You in town!" said Mavick.
"And you!" Jack retorted.
"No, not really. I'm just going to catch the steamer. Short leave. We have all been kept by that confounded Chile business."
"Going for the government?"
"No, not publicly. Of course shall confer with our minister in London. Any news here?"
"Yes; Henderson's dead." And Jack looked Mavick squarely in the face.
"Ah!" And Mavick smiled faintly, and then said, gravely: "It was an awful business. So sudden, you know, that I couldn't do anything." He made a movement to pass on. "I suppose there has been no--no--"
"I suppose not," said Jack, "except that Mrs. Henderson has gone to Europe."
"Ah!" And Mr. Mavick didn't wait for further news, but hurried up, with a "Good-by."
So Mavick was following Carmen to Europe. Well, why not? What an unreal world it all was, that of a few months ago! The gigantic Henderson; Jack's own vision of a great fortune; Carmen and her house of Nero; the astute43 and diplomatic Mavick, with his patronizing airs! It was like a scene in a play.
He stepped into a shop and selected a toy for the boy. It was a real toy, and it was for a real boy. Jack experienced a genuine pleasure at the thought of pleasing him. Perhaps the little fellow would not know him.
And then he thought of Edith--not of Edith the mother, but of Edith the girl in the days of his wooing. And he went into Maillard's. The pretty girl at the counter knew him. He was an old customer, and she had often filled orders for him. She had despatched many a costly44 box to addresses he had given her. It was in the recollection of those transactions that he said: "A box of marrons glaces, please. My wife prefers that."
"Shall I send it?" asked the girl, when she had done it up.
"No, thanks; we are not in town."
"Of course," she said, beaming upon him; "nobody is yet."
And this girl also seemed a part of the old life, with her little affectation of familiarity with its ways.
He went to his room--it seemed a very mean little room now--packed his bag, told the janitor45 he should be absent a few days, and hurried to the ferry and the train as if he feared that some accident would delay him. When he was seated and the train moved off, his thoughts took another turn. He was in for it now.
He began to regret that he had not delayed, to think it all out more thoroughly46; perhaps it would have been better to have written.
He bought an evening journal, but he could not read it. What he read between the lines was his own life. What a miserable47 failure! What a mess he had made of his own affairs, and how unworthy of such a woman as Edith he had been! How indifferent he had been to her happiness in the pursuit of his own pleasure! How would she receive him? He could hardly doubt that; but she must know, she must have felt cruelly his estrangement48. What if she met him with a royal forgiveness, as if he were a returned prodigal49? He couldn't stand that. If now he were only going back with his fortune recovered, with brilliant prospects50 to spread before her, and could come into the house in his old playful manner, with the assumed deference51 of the master, and say: "Well, Edith dear, the storm is over. It's all right now. I am awfully52 glad to get home. Where's the rascal53 of an heir?"
Instead of that, he was going with nothing, humiliated, a clerk in a twine-store. And not much of a clerk at that, he reflected, with his ready humorous recognition of the situation.
And yet he was for the first time in his life earning his living. Edith would like that. He had known all along that his idle life had been a constant grief to her. No, she would not reproach him; she never did reproach him. No doubt she would be glad that he was at work. But, oh, the humiliation54 of the whole thing! At one moment he was eager to see her, and the next the rattling55 train seemed to move too fast, and he welcomed every wayside stop that delayed his arrival. But even the Long Island trains arrive some time, and all too soon the cars slowed up at the familiar little station, and Jack got out.
"Quite a stranger in these parts, Mr. Delancy," was the easy salutation of the station-keeper.
"Yes. I've been away. All right down here?"
"Right as a trivet. Hot summer, though. Calculate it's goin' to be a warm fall--generally is."
It was near sunset. When the train had moved on, and its pounding on the rails became a distant roar and then was lost altogether, the country silence so impressed Jack, as he walked along the road towards the sea, that he became distinctly conscious of the sound of his own footsteps. He stopped and listened. Yes, there were other sounds--the twitter of birds in the bushes by the roadside, the hum of insects, and the faint rhythmical56 murmur57 of lapsing58 waves on the shore.
And now the house came in view--first the big roof, and then the latticed windows, the balconies, where there were pots of flowers, and then the long veranda59 with its hammocks and climbing vines. There was a pink tone in the distant water answering to the flush in the sky, and away to the west the sand-dune that made out into the Sound was a point of light.
But the house! Jack's steps were again arrested. The level last rays of the disappearing sun flashed upon the window-panes so that they glowed like painted windows illuminated60 from within, with a reddish lustre61, and the roofs and the brown sides of the building, painted by those great masters in color, the sun and the sea-wind, in that moment were like burnished62 gold. Involuntarily Jack exclaimed:
"It is the Golden House!"
He made his way through the little fore20 yard. No one was about. The veranda was deserted63. There was Edith's work-basket; there were the baby's playthings. The door stood open, and as he approached it he heard singing--not singing, either, but a fitful sort of recitation, with the occasional notes of an accompaniment struck as if in absence of mind. The tune39 he knew, and as he passed through the first room towards the sitting-room64 that looked on the sea he caught a line:
"Wely, wely, but love is bonny, for a little while--when it is new."
It was an old English ballad65, the ballad of the "Cockle-shells," that Edith used to sing often in the old days, when its note of melancholy66 seemed best to express her happiness. It was only that line, and the voice seemed to break, and there was silence.
He stole along and looked in. There was Edith, seated, her head bowed on her hands, at the piano.
In an instant, before she could turn to the sound of his quick footsteps, he was at her side, kneeling, his head bowed in the folds of her dress.
"Edith! I've been such a fool!"
She turned, slid from her seat, and was kneeling also, with her arms thrown about his neck.
"Oh, Jack! You've come. Thank God! Thank God!"
And presently they stood, and his arms were still around her, and she was looking up into his face, with her hands on his shoulders, and saying "You've come to stay."
"Yes, dear, forever."
收听单词发音 |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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invoices
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| 发票( invoice的名词复数 )； （发货或服务）费用清单； 清单上货物的装运； 货物的托运 | |
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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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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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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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mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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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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oversight
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| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
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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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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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persevere
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| v.坚持，坚忍，不屈不挠 | |
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twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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procrastinating
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| 拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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saner
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| adj.心智健全的( sane的比较级 )；神志正常的；明智的；稳健的 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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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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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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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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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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