“And all that strange adventure,” I thought, “has occupied the space of a single comma in Lady Muriel's speech! A single comma, for which grammarians tell us to 'count one'!” (I felt no doubt that the Professor had kindly2 put back the time for me, to the exact point at which I had gone to sleep.)
When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur's first remark was certainly a strange one. “We've been there just twenty minutes,” he said, “and I've done nothing but listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I feel exactly as if I had been talking with her for an hour at least!”
And so he had been, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had been put back to the beginning of the tete-a-tete he referred to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into nothingness! But I valued my own reputation for sanity3 too highly to venture on explaining to him what had happened.
For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home. It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he had for some days been away in London: so that, having Lady Muriel almost 'all to himself'—for I was only too glad to hear those two conversing4, to have any wish to intrude5 any remarks of my own—he ought, theoretically, to have been specially6 radiant and contented7 with life. “Can he have heard any bad news?” I said to myself. And, almost as if he had read my thoughts, he spoke8.
“He will be here by the last train,” he said, in the tone of one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.
“Captain Lindon, do you mean?”
“Yes—Captain Lindon,” said Arthur: “I said 'he,' because I fancied we were talking about him. The Earl told me he comes tonight, though to-morrow is the day when he will know about the Commission that he's hoping for. I wonder he doesn't stay another day to hear the result, if he's really so anxious about it as the Earl believes he is.”
“He can have a telegram sent after him,” I said: “but it's not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!”
“He's a very good fellow,” said Arthur: “but I confess it would be good news for me, if he got his Commission, and his Marching Orders, all at once! I wish him all happiness—with one exception. Good night!” (We had reached home by this time.) “I'm not good company to-night—better be alone.”
It was much the same, next day. Arthur declared he wasn't fit for Society, and I had to set forth9 alone for an afternoon-stroll. I took the road to the Station, and, at the point where the road from the 'Hall' joined it, I paused, seeing my friends in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.
“Will you join us?” the Earl said, after I had exchanged greetings with him, and Lady Muriel, and Captain Lindon. “This restless young man is expecting a telegram, and we are going to the Station to meet it.”
“There is also a restless young woman in the case,” Lady Muriel added.
“That goes without saying, my child,” said her father. “Women are always restless!”
“For generous appreciation10 of all one's best qualities,” his daughter impressively remarked, “there's nothing to compare with a father, is there, Eric?”
“Cousins are not 'in it,'” said Eric: and then somehow the conversation lapsed11 into two duologues, the younger folk taking the lead, and the two old men following with less eager steps.
“And when are we to see your little friends again?” said the Earl. “They are singularly attractive children.”
“I shall be delighted to bring them, when I can,” I said! “But I don't know, myself, when I am likely to see them again.”
“I'm not going to question you,” said the Earl: “but there's no harm in mentioning that Muriel is simply tormented12 with curiosity! We know most of the people about here, and she has been vainly trying to guess what house they can possibly be staying at.”
“Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at present—”
“Thanks. She must bear it as best she can. I tell her it's a grand opportunity for practising patience. But she hardly sees it from that point of view. Why, there are the children!”
So indeed they were: waiting (for us, apparently) at a stile, which they could not have climbed over more than a few moments, as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it without seeing them. On catching13 sight of us, Bruno ran to meet us, and to exhibit to us, with much pride, the handle of a clasp-knife—the blade having been broken off—which he had picked up in the road.
“And what shall you use it for, Bruno?” I said.
“Don't know,” Bruno carelessly replied: “must think.”
“A child's first view of life,” the Earl remarked, with that sweet sad smile of his, “is that it is a period to be spent in accumulating portable property. That view gets modified as the years glide14 away.” And he held out his hand to Sylvie, who had placed herself by me, looking a little shy of him.
But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, human or fairy, could be shy for long; and she had very soon deserted15 my hand for his—Bruno alone remaining faithful to his first friend. We overtook the other couple just as they reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel and Eric greeted the children as old friends—the latter with the words “So you got to Babylon by candlelight, after all?”
“Yes, and back again!” cried Bruno.
Lady Muriel looked from one to the other in blank astonishment16. “What, you know them, Eric?” she exclaimed. “This mystery grows deeper every day!”
“Then we must be somewhere in the Third Act,” said Eric. “You don't expect the mystery to be cleared up till the Fifth Act, do you?”
“But it's such a long drama!” was the plaintive17 reply. “We must have got to the Fifth Act by this time!”
“Third Act, I assure you,” said the young soldier mercilessly. “Scene, a railway-platform. Lights down. Enter Prince (in disguise, of course) and faithful Attendant. This is the Prince—” (taking Bruno's hand) “and here stands his humble18 Servant! What is your Royal Highness next command?” And he made a most courtier-like low bow to his puzzled little friend.
“Oo're not a Servant!” Bruno scornfully exclaimed. “Oo're a Gemplun!”
“Servant, I assure your Royal Highness!” Eric respectfully insisted. “Allow me to mention to your Royal Highness my various situations—past, present, and future.”
“What did oo begin wiz?” Bruno asked, beginning to enter into the jest. “Was oo a shoe-black?”
“Lower than that, your Royal Highness! Years ago, I offered myself as a Slave—as a 'Confidential19 Slave,' I think it's called?” he asked, turning to Lady Muriel.
But Lady Muriel heard him not: something had gone wrong with her glove, which entirely20 engrossed21 her attention.
“Did oo get the place?” said Bruno.
“Sad to say, Your Royal Highness, I did not! So I had to take a situation as—as Waiter, which I have now held for some years haven't I?” He again glanced at Lady Muriel.
“Sylvie dear, do help me to button this glove!” Lady Muriel whispered, hastily stooping down, and failing to hear the question.
“And what will oo be next?” said Bruno.
“Don't puzzle the child so!” Lady Muriel interrupted. “What nonsense you talk!”
“—after that,” Eric persisted, “I hope to obtain the situation of Housekeeper23, which—Fourth Act!” he proclaimed, with a sudden change of tone. “Lights turned up. Red lights. Green lights. Distant rumble24 heard. Enter a passenger-train!”
And in another minute the train drew up alongside of the platform, and a stream of passengers began to flow out from the booking office and waiting-rooms.
“Did you ever make real life into a drama?” said the Earl. “Now just try. I've often amused myself that way. Consider this platform as our stage. Good entrances and exits on both sides, you see. Capital background scene: real engine moving up and down. All this bustle25, and people passing to and fro, must have been most carefully rehearsed! How naturally they do it! With never a glance at the audience! And every grouping is quite fresh, you see. No repetition!”
It really was admirable, as soon as I began to enter into it from this point of view. Even a porter passing, with a barrow piled with luggage, seemed so realistic that one was tempted26 to applaud. He was followed by an angry mother, with hot red face, dragging along two screaming children, and calling, to some one behind, “John! Come on!” Enter John, very meek27, very silent, and loaded with parcels. And he was followed, in his turn, by a frightened little nursemaid, carrying a fat baby, also screaming. All the children screamed.
“Capital byplay!” said the old man aside. “Did you notice the nursemaid's look of terror? It was simply perfect!”
“You have struck quite a new vein,” I said. “To most of us Life and its pleasures seem like a mine that is nearly worked out.”
“Worked out!” exclaimed the Earl. “For any one with true dramatic instincts, it is only the Overture28 that is ended! The real treat has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it's a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural29 in their overdone30 caricature of farmers' dress—more unnatural in their constrained31 attitudes and gestures—most unnatural in their attempts at ease and geniality32 in their talk. Go instead and take a seat in a third-class railway-carriage, and you'll get the same dialogue done to the life! Front-seats—no orchestra to block the view—and nothing to pay!”
“Which reminds me,” said Eric. “There is nothing to pay on receiving a telegram! Shall we enquire33 for one?” And he and Lady Muriel strolled off in the direction of the Telegraph-Office.
“I wonder if Shakespeare had that thought in his mind,” I said, “when he wrote 'All the world's a stage'?”
The old man sighed. “And so it is,” he said, “look at it as you will. Life is indeed a drama; a drama with but few encores—and no bouquets34!” he added dreamily. “We spend one half of it in regretting the things we did in the other half!”
“But not in the modern aesthetic36 sense, I presume? Like the young lady, in Punch, who begins a conversation with 'Are you intense?'”
“By no means!” replied the Earl. “What I mean is intensity of thought—a concentrated attention. We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not really attending. Take any instance you like: it doesn't matter how trivial the pleasure may be—the principle is the same. Suppose A and B are reading the same second-rate circulating-library novel. A never troubles himself to master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the interest of the story depends: he 'skips' over all the descriptions of scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn't half attend to the passages he does read: he goes on reading merely from want of resolution to find another occupation—for hours after he ought to have put the book aside: and reaches the 'FINIS' in a state of utter weariness and depression! B puts his whole soul into the thing—on the principle that 'whatever is worth doing is worth doing well': he masters the genealogies37: he calls up pictures before his 'mind's eye' as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely38 shuts the book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner: and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily life like 'a giant refreshed'!”
“But suppose the book were really rubbish—nothing to repay attention?”
“Well, suppose it,” said the Earl. “My theory meets that case, I assure you! A never finds out that it is rubbish, but maunders on to the end, trying to believe he's enjoying himself. B quietly shuts the book, when he's read a dozen pages, walks off to the Library, and changes it for a better! I have yet another theory for adding to the enjoyment39 of Life—that is, if I have not exhausted40 your patience? I'm afraid you find me a very garrulous41 old man.”
“No indeed!” I exclaimed earnestly. And indeed I felt as if one could not easily tire of the sweet sadness of that gentle voice.
“It is, that we should learn to take our pleasures quickly, and our pains slowly.”
“But why? I should have put it the other way, myself.”
“By taking artificial pain—which can be as trivial as you please—slowly, the result is that, when real pain comes, however severe, all you need do is to let it go at its ordinary pace, and it's over in a moment!”
“Very true,” I said, “but how about the pleasure?”
“Why, by taking it quick, you can get so much more into life. It takes you three hours and a half to hear and enjoy an opera. Suppose I can take it in, and enjoy it, in half-an-hour. Why, I can enjoy seven operas, while you are listening; to one!”
“Always supposing you have an orchestra capable of playing them,” I said. “And that orchestra has yet to be found!”
The old man smiled. “I have heard an 'air played,” he said, “and by no means a short one—played right through, variations and all, in three seconds!”
“When? And how?” I asked eagerly, with a half-notion that I was dreaming again.
“It was done by a little musical-box,” he quietly replied. “After it had been wound up, the regulator, or something, broke, and it ran down, as I said, in about three seconds. But it must have played all the notes, you know!”
“Did you enjoy it? I asked, with all the severity of a cross-examining barrister.
“No, I didn't!” he candidly42 confessed. “But then, you know, I hadn't been trained to that kind of music!”
“I should much like to try your plan,” I said, and, as Sylvie and Bruno happened to run up to us at the moment, I left them to keep the Earl company, and strolled along the platform, making each person and event play its part in an extempore drama for my especial benefit. “What, is the Earl tired of you already?” I said, as the children ran past me.
“No!” Sylvie replied with great emphasis. “He wants the evening-paper. So Bruno's going to be a little news-boy!”
“Mind you charge a good price for it!” I called after them.
Returning up the platform, I came upon Sylvie alone. “Well, child,” I said, “where's your little news-boy? Couldn't he get you an evening-paper?”
“He went to get one at the book-stall at the other side,” said Sylvie; “and he's coming across the line with it—oh, Bruno, you ought to cross by the bridge!” for the distant thud, thud, of the Express was already audible.
Suddenly a look of horror came over her face. “Oh, he's fallen down on the rails!” she cried, and darted43 past me at a speed that quite defied the hasty effort I made to stop her.
But the wheezy old Station-Master happened to be close behind me: he wasn't good for much, poor old man, but he was good for this; and, before I could turn round, he had the child clasped in his arms, saved from the certain death she was rushing to. So intent was I in watching this scene, that I hardly saw a flying figure in a light grey suit, who shot across from the back of the platform, and was on the line in another second. So far as one could take note of time in such a moment of horror, he had about ten clear seconds, before the Express would be upon him, in which to cross the rails and to pick up Bruno. Whether he did so or not it was quite impossible to guess: the next thing one knew was that the Express had passed, and that, whether for life or death, all was over. When the cloud of dust had cleared away, and the line was once more visible, we saw with thankful hearts that the child and his deliverer were safe.
“All right!” Eric called to us cheerfully, as he recrossed the line. “He's more frightened than hurt!”
{Image...Crossing the line}
He lifted the little fellow up into Lady Muriel's arms, and mounted the platform as gaily44 as if nothing had happened: but he was as pale as death, and leaned heavily on the arm I hastily offered him, fearing he was about to faint. “I'll just—sit down a moment—” he said dreamily: “—where's Sylvie?”
Sylvie ran to him, and flung her arms round his neck, sobbing45 as if her heart would break. “Don't do that, my darling!” Eric murmured, with a strange look in his eyes. “Nothing to cry about now, you know. But you very nearly got yourself killed for nothing!”
“Course I would!” Bruno said, looking round with a bewildered air.
Lady Muriel kissed him in silence as she put him down out of her arms. Then she beckoned48 Sylvie to come and take his hand, and signed to the children to go back to where the Earl was seated. “Tell him,” she whispered with quivering lips, “tell him—all is well!” Then she turned to the hero of the day. “I thought it was death,” she said. “Thank God, you are safe! Did you see how near it was?”
“I saw there was just time,” Eric said lightly.
“A soldier must learn to carry his life in his hand, you know. I'm all right now. Shall we go to the telegraph-office again? I daresay it's come by this time.”
I went to join the Earl and the children, and we waited—almost in silence, for no one seemed inclined to talk, and Bruno was half-asleep on Sylvie's lap—till the others joined us. No telegram had come.
“I'll take a stroll with the children,” I said, feeling that we were a little de trop, “and I'll look in, in the course of the evening.”
“We must go back into the wood, now,” Sylvie said, as soon as we were out of hearing. “We ca'n't stay this size any longer.”
“Then you will be quite tiny Fairies again, next time we meet?”
“Yes,” said Sylvie: “but we'll be children again some day—if you'll let us. Bruno's very anxious to see Lady Muriel again.”
“She are welly nice,” said Bruno.
“I shall be very glad to take you to see her again,” I said. “Hadn't I better give you back the Professor's Watch? It'll be too large for you to carry when you're Fairies, you know.”
Bruno laughed merrily. I was glad to see he had quite recovered from the terrible scene he had gone through. “Oh no, it won't!” he said. “When we go small, it'll go small!”
“And then it'll go straight to the Professor,” Sylvie added, “and you won't be able to use it anymore: so you'd better use it all you can, now. We must go small when the sun sets. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” cried Bruno. But their voices sounded very far away, and, when I looked round, both children had disappeared.
“And it wants only two hours to sunset!” I said as I strolled on. “I must make the best of my time!”
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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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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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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8
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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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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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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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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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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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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overdone
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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genealogies
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| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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43
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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45
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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46
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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47
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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48
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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