I succeeded in giving Fox what his journal wanted; I got the atmosphere of Churchill and his house, in a way that satisfied the people for whom it was meant. His house was a pleasant enough place, of the sort where they do you well, but not nauseously well. It stood in a tranquil1 countryside, and stood there modestly. Architecturally speaking, it was gently commonplace; one got used to it and liked it. And Churchill himself, when one had become accustomed to his manner, one liked very well—very well indeed. He had a dainty, dilettante2 mind, delicately balanced, with strong limitations, a fantastic temperament3 for a person in his walk of life—but sane4, mind you, persistent5. After a time, I amused myself with a theory that his heart was not in his work, that circumstance had driven him into the career of politics and ironical6 fate set him at its head. For myself, I had an intense contempt for the political mind, and it struck me that he had some of the same feeling. He had little personal quaintnesses, too, a deference7, a modesty8, an open-mindedness.
I was with him for the greater part of his weekend holiday; hung, perforce, about him whenever he had any leisure. I suppose he found me tiresome—but one has to do these things. He talked, and I talked; heavens, how we talked! He was almost always deferential9, I almost always dogmatic; perhaps because the conversation kept on my own ground. Politics we never touched. I seemed to feel that if I broached10 them, I should be checked—politely, but very definitely. Perhaps he actually contrived11 to convey as much to me; perhaps I evolved the idea that if I were to say:
“What do you think about the ‘Greenland System’"—he would answer:
“I try not to think about it,” or whatever gently closuring phrase his mind conceived. But I never did so; there were so many other topics.
He was then writing his Life of Cromwell and his mind was very full of his subject. Once he opened his heart, after delicately sounding me for signs of boredom12. It happened, by the merest chance—one of those blind chances that inevitably14 lead in the future—that I, too, was obsessed15 at that moment by the Lord Oliver. A great many years before, when I was a yearling of tremendous plans, I had set about one of those glorious novels that one plans—a splendid thing with Old Noll as the hero or the heavy father. I had haunted the bookstalls in search of local colour and had wonderfully well invested my half-crowns. Thus a company of seventeenth century tracts16, dog-eared, coverless, but very glorious under their dust, accompany me through life. One parts last with those relics17 of a golden age, and during my late convalescence18 I had reread many of them, the arbitrary half-remembered phrases suggesting all sorts of scenes—lamplight in squalid streets, trays full of weather-beaten books. So, even then, my mind was full of Mercurius Rusticus. Mr. Churchill on Cromwell amused me immensely and even excited me. It was life, this attending at a self-revelation of an impossible temperament. It did me good, as he had said of my pseudo-sister. It was fantastic—as fantastic as herself—and it came out more in his conversation than in the book itself. I had something to do with that, of course. But imagine the treatment accorded to Cromwell by this delicate, negative, obstinately19 judicial20 personality. It was the sort of thing one wants to get into a novel. It was a lesson to me—in temperament, in point of view; I went with his mood, tried even to outdo him, in the hope of spurring him to outdo himself. I only mention it because I did it so well that it led to extraordinary consequences.
We were walking up and down his lawn, in the twilight21, after his Sunday supper. The pale light shone along the gleaming laurels22 and dwelt upon the soft clouds of orchard23 blossoms that shimmered24 above them. It dwelt, too, upon the silver streaks25 in his dark hair and made his face seem more pallid26, and more old. It affected27 me like some intense piece of irony28. It was like hearing a dying man talk of the year after next. I had the sense of the unreality of things strong upon me. Why should nightingale upon nightingale pour out volley upon volley of song for the delight of a politician whose heart was not in his task of keeping back the waters of the deluge29, but who grew animated30 at the idea of damning one of the titans who had let loose the deluge?
About a week after—or it may have been a fortnight—Churchill wrote to me and asked me to take him to see the Jenkins of my Jenkins story. It was one of those ordeals31 that one goes through when one has tried to advance one’s friends. Jenkins took the matter amiss, thought it was a display of insulting patronage32 on the part of officialism. He was reluctant to show his best work, the forgotten masterpieces, the things that had never sold, that hung about on the faded walls and rotted in cellars. He would not be his genial33 self; he would not talk. Churchill behaved very well—I think he understood.
Jenkins thawed34 before his gentle appreciations36. I could see the change operating within him. He began to realise that this incredible visit from a man who ought to be hand and glove with Academicians was something other than a spy’s encroachment37. He was old, you must remember, and entirely38 unsuccessful. He had fought a hard fight and had been worsted. He took his revenge in these suspicions.
We younger men adored him. He had the ruddy face and the archaic39 silver hair of the King of Hearts; and a wonderful elaborate politeness that he had inherited from his youth—from the days of Brummell. And, whilst all his belongings40 were rotting into dust, he retained an extraordinarily41 youthful and ingenuous42 habit of mind. It was that, or a little of it, that gave the charm to my Jenkins story.
It was a disagreeable experience. I wished so much that the perennial43 hopefulness of the man should at last escape deferring44 and I was afraid that Churchill would chill before Jenkins had time to thaw35. But, as I have said, I think Churchill understood. He smiled his kindly45, short-sighted smile over canvas after canvas, praised the right thing in each, remembered having seen this and that in such and such a year, and Jenkins thawed.
He happened to leave the room—to fetch some studies, to hurry up the tea or for some such reason. Bereft46 of his presence the place suddenly grew ghostly. It was as if the sun had died in the sky and left us in that nether47 world where dead, buried pasts live in a grey, shadowless light. Jenkins’ palette glowed from above a medley48 of stained rags on his open colour table. The rush-bottom of his chair resembled a wind-torn thatch49.
“One can draw morals from a life like that,” I said suddenly. I was thinking rather of Jenkins than of the man I was talking to.
“Why, yes,” he said, absently, “I suppose there are men who haven’t the knack50 of getting on.”
“It’s more than a knack,” I said, with unnecessary bitterness. “It’s a temperament.”
“I think it’s a habit, too. It may be acquired, mayn’t it?”
“No, no,” I fulminated, “it’s precisely51 because it can’t be acquired that the best men—the men like . . . ” I stopped suddenly, impressed by the idea that the thing was out of tone. I had to assert myself more than I liked in talking to Churchill. Otherwise I should have disappeared. A word from him had the weight of three kingdoms and several colonies behind it, and I was forced to get that out of my head by making conversation a mere13 matter of temperament. In that I was the stronger. If I wanted to say a thing, I said it; but he was hampered52 by a judicial mind. It seemed, too, that he liked a dictatorial53 interlocutor, else he would hardly have brought himself into contact with me again. Perhaps it was new to him. My eye fell upon a couple of masks, hanging one on each side of the fireplace. The room was full of a profusion54 of little casts, thick with dust upon the shoulders, the hair, the eyelids55, on every part that projected outward.
“By-the-bye,” I said, “that’s a death-mask of Cromwell.”
“Ah!” he answered, “I knew there was. . . . ”
He moved very slowly toward it, rather as if he did not wish to bring it within his field of view. He stopped before reaching it and pivotted slowly to face me.
“About my book,” he opened suddenly, “I have so little time.” His briskness56 dropped into a half complaint, like a faintly suggested avowal57 of impotence. “I have been at it four years now. It struck me—you seemed to coincide so singularly with my ideas.”
His speech came wavering to a close, but he recommenced it apologetically—as if he wished me to help him out.
“I went to see Smithson the publisher about it, and he said he had no objection. . . . ”
He looked appealingly at me. I kept silence.
“Of course, it’s not your sort of work. But you might try. . . . You see. . . . ” He came to a sustained halt.
“I don’t understand,” I said, rather coldly, when the silence became embarrassing. “You want me to ‘ghost’ for you?”
“‘Ghost,’ good gracious no,” he said, energetically; “dear me, no!”
“Then I really don’t understand,” I said.
“I thought you might see your . . . I wanted you to collaborate58 with me. Quite publicly, of course, as far as the epithet59 applies.”
“To collaborate,” I said slowly. “You. . . . ”
I was looking at a miniature of the Farnese Hercules—I wondered what it meant, what club had struck the wheel of my fortune and whirled it into this astounding60 attitude.
“Of course you must think about it,” he said.
“I don’t know,” I muttered; “the idea is so new. It’s so little in my line. I don’t know what I should make of it.”
I talked at random61. There were so many thoughts jostling in my head. It seemed to carry me so much farther from the kind of work I wanted to do. I did not really doubt my ability—one does not. I rather regarded it as work upon a lower plane. And it was a tremendous—an incredibly tremendous—opportunity.
“You know pretty well how much I’ve done,” he continued. “I’ve got a good deal of material together and a good deal of the actual writing is done. But there is ever so much still to do. It’s getting beyond me, as I said just now.”
I looked at him again, rather incredulously. He stood before me, a thin parallelogram of black with a mosaic62 of white about the throat. The slight grotesqueness63 of the man made him almost impossibly real in his abstracted earnestness. He so much meant what he said that he ignored what his hands were doing, or his body or his head. He had taken a very small, very dusty book out of a little shelf beside him, and was absently turning over the rusty64 leaves, while he talked with his head bent65 over it. What was I to him, or he to me?
“I could give my Saturday afternoons to it,” he was saying, “whenever you could come down.”
“It’s immensely kind of you,” I began.
“Not at all, not at all,” he waived66. “I’ve set my heart on doing it and, unless you help me, I don’t suppose I ever shall get it done.”
“But there are hundreds of others,” I said.
“There may be,” he said, “there may be. But I have not come across them.”
I was beset67 by a sudden emotion of blind candour.
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense,” I said. “Don’t you see that you are offering me the chance of a lifetime?”
Churchill laughed.
“After all, one cannot refuse to take what offers,” he said. “Besides, your right man to do the work might not suit me as a collaborator68.”
“It’s very tempting,” I said.
“Why, then, succumb,” he smiled.
I could not find arguments against him, and I succumbed69 as Jenkins reentered the room.
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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ordeals
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| n.严峻的考验，苦难的经历( ordeal的名词复数 ) | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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thawed
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| 解冻 | |
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thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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appreciations
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| n.欣赏( appreciation的名词复数 )；感激；评定；（尤指土地或财产的）增值 | |
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encroachment
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| n.侵入，蚕食 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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deferring
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| v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的现在分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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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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bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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medley
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| n.混合 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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briskness
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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collaborate
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| vi.协作，合作；协调 | |
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epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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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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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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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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grotesqueness
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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66
waived
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| v.宣布放弃( waive的过去式和过去分词 )；搁置；推迟；放弃（权利、要求等） | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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collaborator
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| n.合作者，协作者 | |
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succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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