He began by a quick survey of his early years — the years of drudgery1 and privation. His father, a charming man who could never say “no,” had so signally failed to say it on certain essential occasions that when he died he left an illegitimate family and a mortgaged estate. His lawful2 kin3 found themselves hanging over a gulf4 of debt, and young Granice, to support his mother and sister, had to leave Harvard and bury himself at eighteen in a broker’s office. He loathed5 his work, and he was always poor, always worried and in ill-health. A few years later his mother died, but his sister, an ineffectual neurasthenic, remained on his hands. His own health gave out, and he had to go away for six months, and work harder than ever when he came back. He had no knack6 for business, no head for figures, no dimmest insight into the mysteries of commerce. He wanted to travel and write — those were his inmost longings7. And as the years dragged on, and he neared middle-age without making any more money, or acquiring any firmer health, a sick despair possessed9 him. He tried writing, but he always came home from the office so tired that his brain could not work. For half the year he did not reach his dim up-town flat till after dark, and could only “brush up” for dinner, and afterward10 lie on the lounge with his pipe, while his sister droned through the evening paper. Sometimes he spent an evening at the theatre; or he dined out, or, more rarely, strayed off with an acquaintance or two in quest of what is known as “pleasure.” And in summer, when he and Kate went to the sea-side for a month, he dozed11 through the days in utter weariness. Once he fell in love with a charming girl — but what had he to offer her, in God’s name? She seemed to like him, and in common decency12 he had to drop out of the running. Apparently13 no one replaced him, for she never married, but grew stoutish14, grayish, philanthropic — yet how sweet she had been when he had first kissed her! One more wasted life, he reflected . . .
But the stage had always been his master-passion. He would have sold his soul for the time and freedom to write plays! It was in him — he could not remember when it had not been his deepest-seated instinct. As the years passed it became a morbid15, a relentless16 obsession17 — yet with every year the material conditions were more and more against it. He felt himself growing middle-aged18, and he watched the reflection of the process in his sister’s wasted face. At eighteen she had been pretty, and as full of enthusiasm as he. Now she was sour, trivial, insignificant19 — she had missed her chance of life. And she had no resources, poor creature, was fashioned simply for the primitive20 functions she had been denied the chance to fulfil! It exasperated21 him to think of it — and to reflect that even now a little travel, a little health, a little money, might transform her, make her young and desirable . . . The chief fruit of his experience was that there is no such fixed22 state as age or youth — there is only health as against sickness, wealth as against poverty; and age or youth as the outcome of the lot one draws.
At this point in his narrative23 Granice stood up, and went to lean against the mantel-piece, looking down at Ascham, who had not moved from his seat, or changed his attitude of rigid24 fascinated attention.
“Then came the summer when we went to Wrenfield to be near old Lenman — my mother’s cousin, as you know. Some of the family always mounted guard over him — generally a niece or so. But that year they were all scattered25, and one of the nieces offered to lend us her cottage if we’d relieve her of duty for two months. It was a nuisance for me, of course, for Wrenfield is two hours from town; but my mother, who was a slave to family observances, had always been good to the old man, so it was natural we should be called on — and there was the saving of rent and the good air for Kate. So we went.
“You never knew Joseph Lenman? Well, picture to yourself an amoeba or some primitive organism of that sort, under a Titan’s microscope. He was large, undifferentiated, inert26 — since I could remember him he had done nothing but take his temperature and read the Churchman. Oh, and cultivate melons — that was his hobby. Not vulgar, out-of-door melons — his were grown under glass. He had miles of it at Wrenfield — his big kitchen-garden was surrounded by blinking battalions27 of green-houses. And in nearly all of them melons were grown — early melons and late, French, English, domestic — dwarf28 melons and monsters: every shape, colour and variety. They were petted and nursed like children — a staff of trained attendants waited on them. I’m not sure they didn’t have a doctor to take their temperature — at any rate the place was full of thermometers. And they didn’t sprawl29 on the ground like ordinary melons; they were trained against the glass like nectarines, and each melon hung in a net which sustained its weight and left it free on all sides to the sun and air . . .
“It used to strike me sometimes that old Lenman was just like one of his own melons — the pale-fleshed English kind. His life, apathetic30 and motionless, hung in a net of gold, in an equable warm ventilated atmosphere, high above sordid31 earthly worries. The cardinal32 rule of his existence was not to let himself be ‘worried.’ . . I remember his advising me to try it myself, one day when I spoke33 to him about Kate’s bad health, and her need of a change. ‘I never let myself worry,’ he said complacently34. ‘It’s the worst thing for the liver — and you look to me as if you had a liver. Take my advice and be cheerful. You’ll make yourself happier and others too.’ And all he had to do was to write a cheque, and send the poor girl off for a holiday!
“The hardest part of it was that the money half-belonged to us already. The old skin-flint only had it for life, in trust for us and the others. But his life was a good deal sounder than mine or Kate’s — and one could picture him taking extra care of it for the joke of keeping us waiting. I always felt that the sight of our hungry eyes was a tonic35 to him.
“Well, I tried to see if I couldn’t reach him through his vanity. I flattered him, feigned36 a passionate37 interest in his melons. And he was taken in, and used to discourse38 on them by the hour. On fine days he was driven to the green-houses in his pony-chair, and waddled39 through them, prodding40 and leering at the fruit, like a fat Turk in his seraglio. When he bragged41 to me of the expense of growing them I was reminded of a hideous42 old Lothario bragging43 of what his pleasures cost. And the resemblance was completed by the fact that he couldn’t eat as much as a mouthful of his melons — had lived for years on buttermilk and toast. ‘But, after all, it’s my only hobby — why shouldn’t I indulge it?’ he said sentimentally44. As if I’d ever been able to indulge any of mine! On the keep of those melons Kate and I could have lived like gods . . .
“One day toward the end of the summer, when Kate was too unwell to drag herself up to the big house, she asked me to go and spend the afternoon with cousin Joseph. It was a lovely soft September afternoon — a day to lie under a Roman stone-pine, with one’s eyes on the sky, and let the cosmic harmonies rush through one. Perhaps the vision was suggested by the fact that, as I entered cousin Joseph’s hideous black walnut45 library, I passed one of the under-gardeners, a handsome full-throated Italian, who dashed out in such a hurry that he nearly knocked me down. I remember thinking it queer that the fellow, whom I had often seen about the melon-houses, did not bow to me, or even seem to see me.
“Cousin Joseph sat in his usual seat, behind the darkened windows, his fat hands folded on his protuberant46 waistcoat, the last number of the Churchman at his elbow, and near it, on a huge dish, a fat melon — the fattest melon I’d ever seen. As I looked at it I pictured the ecstasy47 of contemplation from which I must have roused him, and congratulated myself on finding him in such a mood, since I had made up my mind to ask him a favour. Then I noticed that his face, instead of looking as calm as an egg-shell, was distorted and whimpering — and without stopping to greet me he pointed48 passionately49 to the melon.
“‘Look at it, look at it — did you ever see such a beauty? Such firmness — roundness — such delicious smoothness to the touch?’ It was as if he had said ‘she’ instead of ‘it,’ and when he put out his senile hand and touched the melon I positively50 had to look the other way.
“Then he told me what had happened. The Italian under-gardener, who had been specially51 recommended for the melon-houses — though it was against my cousin’s principles to employ a Papist — had been assigned to the care of the monster: for it had revealed itself, early in its existence, as destined52 to become a monster, to surpass its plumpest, pulpiest sisters, carry off prizes at agricultural shows, and be photographed and celebrated53 in every gardening paper in the land. The Italian had done well — seemed to have a sense of responsibility. And that very morning he had been ordered to pick the melon, which was to be shown next day at the county fair, and to bring it in for Mr. Lenman to gaze on its blonde virginity. But in picking it, what had the damned scoundrelly Jesuit done but drop it — drop it crash on the sharp spout54 of a watering-pot, so that it received a deep gash55 in its firm pale rotundity, and was henceforth but a bruised56, ruined, fallen melon?
“The old man’s rage was fearful in its impotence — he shook, spluttered and strangled with it. He had just had the Italian up and had sacked him on the spot, without wages or character — had threatened to have him arrested if he was ever caught prowling about Wrenfield. ‘By God, and I’ll do it — I’ll write to Washington — I’ll have the pauper57 scoundrel deported58! I’ll show him what money can do!’ As likely as not there was some murderous Black-hand business under it — it would be found that the fellow was a member of a ‘gang.’ Those Italians would murder you for a quarter. He meant to have the police look into it . . . And then he grew frightened at his own excitement. ‘But I must calm myself,’ he said. He took his temperature, rang for his drops, and turned to the Churchman. He had been reading an article on Nestorianism when the melon was brought in. He asked me to go on with it, and I read to him for an hour, in the dim close room, with a fat fly buzzing stealthily about the fallen melon.
“All the while one phrase of the old man’s buzzed in my brain like the fly about the melon. ‘I’ll show him what money can do!’ Good heaven! If I could but show the old man! If I could make him see his power of giving happiness as a new outlet59 for his monstrous60 egotism! I tried to tell him something about my situation and Kate’s — spoke of my ill-health, my unsuccessful drudgery, my longing8 to write, to make myself a name — I stammered61 out an entreaty62 for a loan. ‘I can guarantee to repay you, sir — I’ve a half-written play as security . . . ’
“I shall never forget his glassy stare. His face had grown as smooth as an egg-shell again — his eyes peered over his fat cheeks like sentinels over a slippery rampart.
“‘A half-written play — a play of yours as security?’ He looked at me almost fearfully, as if detecting the first symptoms of insanity63. ‘Do you understand anything of business?’ he enquired64 mildly. I laughed and answered: ‘No, not much.’
“He leaned back with closed lids. ‘All this excitement has been too much for me,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll prepare for my nap.’ And I stumbled out of the room, blindly, like the Italian.”
Granice moved away from the mantel-piece, and walked across to the tray set out with decanters and soda-water. He poured himself a tall glass of soda-water, emptied it, and glanced at Ascham’s dead cigar.
“Better light another,” he suggested.
The lawyer shook his head, and Granice went on with his tale. He told of his mounting obsession — how the murderous impulse had waked in him on the instant of his cousin’s refusal, and he had muttered to himself: “By God, if you won’t, I’ll make you.” He spoke more tranquilly65 as the narrative proceeded, as though his rage had died down once the resolve to act on it was taken. He applied66 his whole mind to the question of how the old man was to be “disposed of.” Suddenly he remembered the outcry: “Those Italians will murder you for a quarter!” But no definite project presented itself: he simply waited for an inspiration.
Granice and his sister moved to town a day or two after the incident of the melon. But the cousins, who had returned, kept them informed of the old man’s condition. One day, about three weeks later, Granice, on getting home, found Kate excited over a report from Wrenfield. The Italian had been there again — had somehow slipped into the house, made his way up to the library, and “used threatening language.” The house-keeper found cousin Joseph gasping67, the whites of his eyes showing “something awful.” The doctor was sent for, and the attack warded68 off; and the police had ordered the Italian from the neighbourhood.
But cousin Joseph, thereafter, languished69, had “nerves,” and lost his taste for toast and butter-milk. The doctor called in a colleague, and the consultation70 amused and excited the old man — he became once more an important figure. The medical men reassured71 the family — too completely! — and to the patient they recommended a more varied72 diet: advised him to take whatever “tempted him.” And so one day, tremulously, prayerfully, he decided73 on a tiny bit of melon. It was brought up with ceremony, and consumed in the presence of the house-keeper and a hovering74 cousin; and twenty minutes later he was dead . . .
“But you remember the circumstances,” Granice went on; “how suspicion turned at once on the Italian? In spite of the hint the police had given him he had been seen hanging about the house since ‘the scene.’ It was said that he had tender relations with the kitchen-maid, and the rest seemed easy to explain. But when they looked round to ask him for the explanation he was gone — gone clean out of sight. He had been ‘warned’ to leave Wrenfield, and he had taken the warning so to heart that no one ever laid eyes on him again.”
Granice paused. He had dropped into a chair opposite the lawyer’s, and he sat for a moment, his head thrown back, looking about the familiar room. Everything in it had grown grimacing75 and alien, and each strange insistent76 object seemed craning forward from its place to hear him.
“It was I who put the stuff in the melon,” he said. “And I don’t want you to think I’m sorry for it. This isn’t ‘remorse,’ understand. I’m glad the old skin-flint is dead — I’m glad the others have their money. But mine’s no use to me any more. My sister married miserably77, and died. And I’ve never had what I wanted.”
Ascham continued to stare; then he said: “What on earth was your object, then?”
“Why, to get what I wanted — what I fancied was in reach! I wanted change, rest, life, for both of us — wanted, above all, for myself, the chance to write! I travelled, got back my health, and came home to tie myself up to my work. And I’ve slaved at it steadily78 for ten years without reward — without the most distant hope of success! Nobody will look at my stuff. And now I’m fifty, and I’m beaten, and I know it.” His chin dropped forward on his breast. “I want to chuck the whole business,” he ended.
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1
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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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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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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stoutish
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| 略胖的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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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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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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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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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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sprawl
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| vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延 | |
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apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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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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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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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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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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waddled
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prodding
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| v.刺，戳( prod的现在分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳 | |
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41
bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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protuberant
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| adj.突出的，隆起的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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51
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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52
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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53
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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54
spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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55
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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57
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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deported
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| v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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64
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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65
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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66
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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68
warded
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| 有锁孔的，有钥匙榫槽的 | |
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languished
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| 长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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70
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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71
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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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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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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75
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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77
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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