“Just when did you come in, Augusta?”
She got up and came over to him.
“Are you feeling comfortable, Doctor St. Peter?”
“Oh, very thank you. When did you happen in?”
“Not any too soon, sir,” she said gravely, with a touch of reproof3. “You never would take my cautions about that old stove, and it very nearly asphyxiated4 you. I was barely in time to pull you out.”
“You pulled me out, literally5? Where to?”
“Into the hall. I came over in the storm to ask you for the keys of the new house — I didn’t get Mrs. St. Peter’s letter until I got home from work this evening, and I came right over. When I opened the front door I smelled gas, and I knew that stove had been up to its old tricks. I supposed you’d gone out and forgot to turn it off. When I got to the second floor I heard a fall overhead, and it flashed across me that you were up here and had been overcome. I ran up and opened the two windows at the head of the stairs and dragged you out into the wind. You were lying on the floor.” She lowered her voice. “It was perfectly6 frightful7 in here.”
“I seem to remember Dudley’s being here.”
“Yes, after I’d turned off the stove and opened everything up, I went next door and telephoned for Doctor Dudley. I thought I’d better not say what the trouble was, but I asked him to come at once, as you’d been taken ill. You soon came round, but you were flighty.” Augusta hurried over her recital8. She was evidently embarrassed by the behaviour of the stove and the condition in which she had found him. It was an ugly accident, and she didn’t want the neighbours to know of it.
“You must have great presence of mind, Augusta, and a strong arm as well. You say you found me on the floor? I thought I was lying here on the couch. I remember waking up and smelling gas.”
“You were stupefied, but you must have got up and tried to get to the door before you were overcome. I was on the second floor when I heard you fall. I’d never heard anyone fall before, that I can remember, but I seemed to know just what it was.
“I’m sorry to have given you a fright. I hope the gas hasn’t made your head ache.”
“All’s well that ends well, as they say. But I doubt if you ought to be talking, sir. Could you go to sleep again? I can stay till morning, if you prefer.”
“I’d be greatly obliged if you would stay the night with me, Augusta. It would be a comfort. I seem to feel rather lonely — for the first time in months.”
“That’s because your family are coming home. Very well, sir.”
“You do a good deal of this sort of thing — watching and sitting up with people, don’t you?”
“Well, when happen to be sewing in a house where there’s sickness, I am sometimes called upon.”
Augusta sat down by the table and again took up little religious book. St. Peter, with half-closed eyes, lay watching her — regarding in her humankind, as if after a definite absence from the world of men and women. If he had thought of Augusta sooner, he would have got up from the couch sooner. Her image would have at once suggested the proper action.
Augusta, he reflected, had always been a corrective, a remedial influence. When she sewed for them, she breakfasted at the house — that was part of the arrangement. She came early, often directly from church, and had her breakfast with the Professor, before the rest of the family were up. Very often she gave him some wise observation or discreet9 comment to begin the day with. She wasn’t at all afraid to say things that were heavily, drearily10 true, and though he used to wince11 under them, he hurried off with the feeling that they were good for him, that he didn’t have to hear such sayings half often enough. Augusta was like the taste of bitter herbs; she was the bloomless side of life that he had always run away from, — yet when he had to face it, he found that it wasn’t altogether repugnant. Sometimes she used to telephone Mrs. St. Peter that she would be a day late, because there had been a death in the family where she was sewing just then, and she was “needed.” When she met him at the table the next morning, she would look just a little more grave than usual. While she ate a generous breakfast, she would reply to his polite questions about the illness or funeral with befitting solemnity, and then go readily to another topic, not holding the dolorous12 note. He used to say that he didn’t mind hearing Augusta announce these deaths which seemed to happen so frequently along her way, because her manner of speaking about it made death seem less uncomfortable. She hadn’t any of the sentimentality that comes from a fear of dying. She talked about death as she spoke of a hard winter or a rainy March, or any of the sadnesses of nature.
It occurred to St. Peter, as he lay warm and relaxed but undesirous of sleep, that he would rather have Augusta with him just now than anyone he could think of. Seasoned and sound and on the solid earth she surely was, and, for all her matter-of-factness and hard-handedness, kind and loyal. He even felt a sense of obligation toward her, instinctive13, escaping definition, but real. And when you admitted that a thing was real, that was enough — now.
He didn’t, on being quite honest with himself, feel any obligations toward his family. Lillian had had the best years of his life, nearly thirty, and joyful14 years they had been, nothing could ever change that. But they were gone. His daughters had outgrown15 any great need of him. In certain wayward moods Kitty would always come to him. But Rosamond, on that shopping expedition in Chicago had shown him how painful the paternal16 relation could be. There was still Augusta, however; a world full of Augustas, with whom one was outward bound.
All the afternoon he had sat there at the table where now Augusta was reading, thinking over his life, trying to see where had made his mistake. Perhaps the mistake was merely in an attitude of mind. He had never learned to live without delight. And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition17 country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry. Theoretically he knew that life is possible, may be even pleasant, without joy, without passionate18 griefs. But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that.
Though he had been low-spirited all summer, he told the truth when he told Dr. Dudley that he had not been melancholy19. He had no more thought of suicide than he had thought of embezzling20. He had always regarded it as a grave social misdemeanour — except when it occurred in very evil times, as a form of protest. Yet when he was confronted by accidental extinction21, he had felt no will to resist, but had let chance take its way, as it had done with him so often. He did not remember springing up from the couch, though he did remember a crisis, a moment of acute, agonized22 strangulation.
His temporary release from consciousness seemed to have been beneficial. He had let something go — and it was gone: something very precious, that he could not consciously have relinquished23, probably. He doubted whether his family would ever realize that he was not the same man they had said good-bye to; they would be too happily preoccupied24 with their own affairs. If his apathy25 hurt them, they could not possibly be so much hurt as he had been already. At least, he felt the ground under his feet. He thought he knew where he was, and that he could face with fortitude26 the Berengaria and the future.
The End
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1
kerosene
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| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
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2
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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3
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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4
asphyxiated
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| v.渴望的，有抱负的，追求名誉或地位的( aspirant的过去式和过去分词 )；有志向或渴望获得…的人 | |
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5
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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6
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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7
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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8
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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9
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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10
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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11
wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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12
dolorous
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| adj.悲伤的；忧愁的 | |
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13
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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14
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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15
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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16
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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17
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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18
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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19
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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20
embezzling
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| v.贪污，盗用（公款）( embezzle的现在分词 ) | |
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21
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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22
agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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23
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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24
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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25
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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26
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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