Chapter XVI Dinner in the Hall of the Bloomsbury Market

As I spoke¹, I heard footsteps near the door; the latch² yielded, and in came our two lovers, looking so handsome that one had no feeling of shame in looking on at their little-concealed love-making; for indeed it seemed as if all the world must be in love with them. As for old Hammond, he looked on them like an artist who has just painted a picture nearly as well as he thought he could when he began it, and was perfectly³ happy. He said:

“Sit down, sit down, young folk, and don’t make a noise. Our guest here has still some questions to ask me.”

“Well, I should suppose so,” said Dick; “you have only been three hours and a half together; and it isn’t to be hoped that the history of two centuries could be told in three hours and a half: let alone that, for all I know, you may have been wandering into the realms of geography and craftsmanship⁴.”

“As to noise, my dear kinsman,” said Clara, “you will very soon be disturbed by the noise of the dinner-bell, which I should think will be very pleasant music to our guest, who breakfasted early, it seems, and probably had a tiring day yesterday.”

I said: “Well, since you have spoken the word, I begin to feel that it is so; but I have been feeding myself with wonder this long time past: really, it’s quite true,” quoth I, as I saw her smile, O so prettily⁵! But just then from some tower high up in the air came the sound of silvery chimes playing a sweet clear tune⁶, that sounded to my unaccustomed ears like the song of the first blackbird in the spring, and called a rush of memories to my mind, some of bad times, some of good, but all sweetened now into mere⁷ pleasure.

“No more questions now before dinner,” said Clara; and she took my hand as an affectionate child would, and led me out of the room and down stairs into the forecourt of the Museum, leaving the two Hammonds to follow as they pleased.

We went into the market-place which I had been in before, a thinnish stream of elegantly 1 dressed people going in along with us.

1 “Elegant,” I mean, as a Persian pattern is elegant; not like a rich “elegant” lady out for a morning call. I should rather call that genteel.

We turned into the cloister⁸ and came to a richly moulded and carved doorway⁹, where a very pretty dark-haired young girl gave us each a beautiful bunch of summer flowers, and we entered a hall much bigger than that of the Hammersmith Guest House, more elaborate in its architecture and perhaps more beautiful. I found it difficult to keep my eyes off the wall-pictures (for I thought it bad manners to stare at Clara all the time, though she was quite worth it). I saw at a glance that their subjects were taken from queer old-world myths and imaginations which in yesterday’s world only about half a dozen people in the country knew anything about; and when the two Hammonds sat down opposite to us, I said to the old man, pointing to the frieze¹⁰:

“How strange to see such subjects here!”

“Why?” said he. “I don’t see why you should be surprised; everybody knows the tales; and they are graceful¹¹ and pleasant subjects, not too tragic¹² for a place where people mostly eat and drink and amuse themselves, and yet full of incident.”

I smiled, and said: “Well, I scarcely expected to find record of the Seven Swans and the King of the Golden Mountain and Faithful Henry, and such curious pleasant imaginations as Jacob Grimm got together from the childhood of the world, barely lingering even in his time: I should have thought you would have forgotten such childishness by this time.”

The old man smiled, and said nothing; but Dick turned rather red, and broke out:

“What DO you mean, guest? I think them very beautiful, I mean not only the pictures, but the stories; and when we were children we used to imagine them going on in every wood-end, by the bight of every stream: every house in the fields was the Fairyland King’s House to us. Don’t you remember, Clara?”

“Yes,” she said; and it seemed to me as if a slight cloud came over her fair face. I was going to speak to her on the subject, when the pretty waitresses came to us smiling, and chattering¹³ sweetly like reed warblers by the river side, and fell to giving us our dinner. As to this, as at our breakfast, everything was cooked and served with a daintiness which showed that those who had prepared it were interested in it; but there was no excess either of quantity or of gourmandise; everything was simple, though so excellent of its kind; and it was made clear to us that this was no feast, only an ordinary meal. The glass, crockery, and plate were very beautiful to my eyes, used to the study of mediaeval art; but a nineteenth-century club-haunter would, I daresay, have found them rough and lacking in finish; the crockery being lead-glazed pot-ware¹⁴, though beautifully ornamented¹⁵; the only porcelain¹⁶ being here and there a piece of old oriental ware. The glass, again, though elegant and quaint¹⁷, and very varied¹⁸ in form, was somewhat bubbled and hornier in texture¹⁹ than the commercial articles of the nineteenth century. The furniture and general fittings of the ball were much of a piece with the table-gear, beautiful in form and highly ornamented, but without the commercial “finish” of the joiners and cabinet-makers of our time. Withal, there was a total absence of what the nineteenth century calls “comfort”— that is, stuffy²⁰ inconvenience; so that, even apart from the delightful²¹ excitement of the day, I had never eaten my dinner so pleasantly before.

When we had done eating, and were sitting a little while, with a bottle of very good Bordeaux wine before us, Clara came back to the question of the subject-matter of the pictures, as though it had troubled her.

She looked up at them, and said: “How is it that though we are so interested with our life for the most part, yet when people take to writing poems or painting pictures they seldom deal with our modern life, or if they do, take good care to make their poems or pictures unlike that life? Are we not good enough to paint ourselves? How is it that we find the dreadful times of the past so interesting to us — in pictures and poetry?”

Old Hammond smiled. “It always was so, and I suppose always will be,” said he, “however it may be explained. It is true that in the nineteenth century, when there was so little art and so much talk about it, there was a theory that art and imaginative literature ought to deal with contemporary life; but they never did so; for, if there was any pretence²² of it, the author always took care (as Clara hinted just now) to disguise, or exaggerate, or idealise, and in some way or another make it strange; so that, for all the verisimilitude there was, he might just as well have dealt with the times of the Pharaohs.”

“Well,” said Dick, “surely it is but natural to like these things strange; just as when we were children, as I said just now, we used to pretend to be so-and-so in such-and-such a place. That’s what these pictures and poems do; and why shouldn’t they?”

“Thou hast hit it, Dick,” quoth old Hammond; “it is the child-like part of us that produces works of imagination. When we are children time passes so slow with us that we seem to have time for everything.”

He sighed, and then smiled and said: “At least let us rejoice that we have got back our childhood again. I drink to the days that are!”

“Second childhood,” said I in a low voice, and then blushed at my double rudeness, and hoped that he hadn’t heard. But he had, and turned to me smiling, and said: “Yes, why not? And for my part, I hope it may last long; and that the world’s next period of wise and unhappy manhood, if that should happen, will speedily lead us to a third childhood: if indeed this age be not our third. Meantime, my friend, you must know that we are too happy, both individually and collectively, to trouble ourselves about what is to come hereafter.”

“Well, for my part,” said Clara, “I wish we were interesting enough to be written or painted about.”

Dick answered her with some lover’s speech, impossible to be written down, and then we sat quiet a little.

1 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 latch   

n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁

参考例句：

• She laid her hand on the latch of the door.她把手放在门闩上。
• The repairman installed an iron latch on the door.修理工在门上安了铁门闩。

3 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

4 craftsmanship   

n.手艺

参考例句：

• The whole house is a monument to her craftsmanship. 那整座房子是她技艺的一座丰碑。
• We admired the superb craftsmanship of the furniture. 我们很欣赏这个家具的一流工艺。

5 prettily   

adv.优美地；可爱地

参考例句：

• It was prettily engraved with flowers on the back.此件雕刻精美，背面有花饰图案。
• She pouted prettily at him.她冲他撅着嘴，样子很可爱。

6 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

7 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

8 cloister   

n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝

参考例句：

• They went out into the stil,shadowy cloister garden.他们出了房间，走到那个寂静阴沉的修道院的园子里去。
• The ancient cloister was a structure of red brick picked out with white stone.古老的修道院是一座白石衬托着的红砖建筑物。

9 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

10 frieze   

n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带

参考例句：

• The Corinthian painter's primary ornamental device was the animal frieze.科林斯画家最初的装饰图案是动物形象的装饰带。
• A careful reconstruction of the frieze is a persuasive reason for visiting Liverpool. 这次能让游客走访利物浦展览会，其中一个具有说服力的原因则是壁画得到了精心的重建。

11 graceful   

adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的

参考例句：

• His movements on the parallel bars were very graceful.他的双杠动作可帅了!
• The ballet dancer is so graceful.芭蕾舞演员的姿态是如此的优美。

12 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

13 chattering   

n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
• I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。

14 ware   

n.(常用复数)商品，货物

参考例句：

• The shop sells a great variety of porcelain ware.这家店铺出售品种繁多的瓷器。
• Good ware will never want a chapman.好货不须叫卖。

15 ornamented   

adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The desk was ornamented with many carvings. 这桌子装饰有很多雕刻物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ornamented her dress with lace. 她用花边装饰衣服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 porcelain   

n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的

参考例句：

• These porcelain plates have rather original designs on them.这些瓷盘的花纹很别致。
• The porcelain vase is enveloped in cotton.瓷花瓶用棉花裹着。

17 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

18 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

19 texture   

n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理

参考例句：

• We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。
• Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

20 stuffy   

adj.不透气的，闷热的

参考例句：

• It's really hot and stuffy in here.这里实在太热太闷了。
• It was so stuffy in the tent that we could sense the air was heavy with moisture.帐篷里很闷热，我们感到空气都是潮的。

21 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

22 pretence   

n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰

参考例句：

• The government abandoned any pretence of reform. 政府不再装模作样地进行改革。
• He made a pretence of being happy at the party.晚会上他假装很高兴。