Not that Mr. Katamoto ever forgave George when he erred2. He was always instantly ready to inform him that he had taken a false step again (the word is used advisedly), but he was so infinitely3 patient, so unflaggingly hopeful of George’s improvement, so unfailingly good-natured and courteous4, that no one could possibly have been angry or failed to try to mend his ways. What saved the situation was Katamoto’s gleeful, childlike sense of humour. He was one of those microscopic5 gentlemen from Japan, scarcely five feet tall, thin and very wiry in his build, and George’s barrel chest, broad shoulders, long, dangling6 arms, and large feet seemed to inspire his comic risibilities from the beginning. The first time they met, as they were just passing each other in the hall, Katamoto began to giggle7 when he saw George coming; and as they came abreast8, the little man flashed a great expanse of gleaming teeth, wagged a finger roguishly, and said:
“Tramp-ling! Tramp-ling!”
For several days, whenever they passed each other in the hall, this same performance was repeated. George thought the words were very mysterious, and at first could not fathom9 their recondite10 meaning or understand why the sound of them was enough to set Katamoto off in a paroxysm of mirth. And yet when he would utter them and George would look at him in a surprised, inquiring kind of way, Katamoto would bend double with convulsive laughter and would stamp at the floor like a child with a tiny foot, shrieking11 hysterically12! “Yis — yis — yis! You are tramp-ling!”— after which he would flee away.
George inferred that these mysterious references to “tramp-ling” which always set Katamoto off in such a fit of laughter had something to do with the bigness of his feet, for Katamoto would look at them quickly and slyly as he passed, and then giggle. However, a fuller explanation was soon provided. Katamoto came upstairs one afternoon and knocked at George’s door. When it was opened, he giggled13 and flashed his teeth and looked somewhat embarrassed.. After a moment, with evident hesitancy, he grinned painfully and said:
“If you ple-e-eze, sir! Will you — have some tea — with me — yis?” He spoke14 the words very slowly, with a deliberate formality, after which he flashed a quick, eager, and ingratiating smile.
George told him he would be glad to, and got his coat and started downstairs with him. Katamoto padded swiftly on ahead, his little feet shod in felt slippers15 that made no sound. Half-way down the stairs, as if the noise of George’s heavy tread had touched his funny-bone again, Katamoto stopped quickly, turned and pointed16 at George’s feet, and giggled coyly: “Tramp-ling! You are trampling17!” Then he turned and fairly fled away down the stairs and down the hall, shrieking like a gleeful child. He waited at the door to usher18 his guest in, introduced him to the slender, agile19 little Japanese girl who seemed to stay there all the time, and finally brought George back into his studio and served him tea.
It was an amazing place. Katamoto bad redecorated the fine old rooms and fitted them up according to the whims20 of his curious taste. The big back room was very crowded, intricate, and partitioned off into several small compartments21 with beautiful Japanese screens. He had also constructed a flight of stairs and a balcony that extended around three sides of the room, and on this balcony George could see a couch. The room was crowded with tiny chairs and tables, and there was an opulent-looking sofa and cushions. There were a great many small carved objects and bric-à-brac, and a strong smell of incense22.
The centre of the room, however, had been left entirely23 bare save for a big strip of spattered canvas and an enormous plaster figure. George gathered that he did a thriving business turning out sculptures for expensive speak-easies, or immense fifteen-foot statues of native politicians which were to decorate public squares in little towns, or in the state capitals of Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wyoming. Where and how he had learned this curious profession George never found out, but he had mastered it with true Japanese fidelity24, and so well that his products were apparently25 in greater demand than those of American sculptors27. In spite of his small size and fragile build, the man was a dynamo of energy and could perform the labours of a Titan. God knows how he did it — where he found the strength.
George asked a question about the big plaster cast in the centre of the room, and Katamoto took him over and showed it to him, remarking as he pointed to the creature’s huge feet:
“He is — like you! . . . He is tramp-ling! . . . Yis! . . . He is tramp-ling!”
Then he took George up the stairs on to the balcony, which George dutifully admired.
“Yis? — You like?” He smiled at George eagerly, a little doubtfully, then pointed at his couch and said: “I sleep here!” Then he pointed to the ceiling, which was so low that George had to stoop. “You sleep there?” said Katamoto eagerly.
George nodded.
Katamoto went on again with a quick smile, but with embarrassed hesitancy and a painful difficulty in his tone that had not been there before:
“I here,” he said, pointing, “you there — yis?”
He looked at George almost pleadingly, a little desperately29 — and suddenly George began to catch on.
“Oh! You mean I am right above you —” Katamoto nodded with instant relief —“and sometimes when I stay up late you hear me?”
“Yis! Yis!” He kept nodding his head vigorously. “Sometimes —” he smiled a little painfully —“sometimes — you will be tramp-ling!” He shook his finger at George with coy reproof30 and giggled.
“I’m awfully31 sorry,” George said. “Of course, I didn’t know you slept so near — so near the ceiling. When I work late I pace the floor. It’s a bad habit. I’ll do what I can to stop it.”
“Oh, no-o!” he cried, genuinely distressed32. “I not want — how you say it? — change your life! . . . If you ple-e-ese, sir! Just little thing — not wear shoes at night!” He pointed at his own small felt-shod feet and smiled up at George hopefully. “You like slippers yis?” And he smiled persuasively33 again.
After that, of course, George wore slippers. But sometimes he would forget, and the next morning Katamoto would be rapping at his door again. He was never angry, he was always patient and good-humoured, he was always beautifully courteous — but he would always call George to account. “You were tramp-ling!” he would cry. “Last night — again — tramp-ling!” And George would tell him he was sorry and would try not to do it again, and Katamoto would go away giggling34, pausing to turn and wag his finger roguishly and call out once more, “Tramp-ling!”— after which he would flee downstairs, shrieking with laughter.
They were good friends.
In the months that followed, again and again George would come in the house to find the hall below full of sweating, panting movers, over whom Katamoto, covered from head to foot with clots35 and lumps of plaster, would hover36 prayerfully and with a fearful, pleading grin lest they mar28 his work, twisting his small hands together convulsively, aiding the work along by slight shudders37, quick darts39 of breathless terror, writhing40 and shrinking movements of the body, and saying all the while with an elaborate, strained, and beseeching41 courtesy:
“Now, if —you— gentleman — a little! . . . You . . . yis — yis — yis-s!” with a convulsive grin. “Oh-h-h! Yis — yis-s! If you ple-e-ese, sir! . . . If you would down — a little — yis-s! — yis-s! — yis-s!” he hissed42 softly with that prayerful and pleading grin.
And the movers would carry out of the house and stow into their van the enormous piecemeal43 fragments of some North Dakota Pericles, whose size was so great that one wondered how this dapper, fragile little man could possibly have fashioned such a leviathan.
Then the movers would depart, and for a space Mr. Katamoto would loaf and invite his soul. He would come out in the backyard with his girl, the slender, agile little Japanese — who looked as, if she had some Italian blood in her as well — and for hours at a time they would play at handball. Mr. Katamoto would knock the ball up against the projecting brick wall of the house next door, and every time he scored a point he would scream with laughter, clapping his small hands together, bending over weakly and pressing his hand against his stomach, and staggering about with delight and merriment. Choking with laughter, he would cry out in a high, delirious44 voice as rapidly as he could:
“Yis, yis, yis! Yis, yis, yis! Yis, yis, yis!”
Then he would catch sight of George looking at him from the window, and this would set him off again, for he would wag his finger and fairly scream:
“You were tramp-ling! . . . Yis, yis, yis! . . . Last night — again tramp-ling!”
This would reduce him to such a paroxysm of mirth that he would stagger across the court and lean against the wall, all caved in, holding his narrow stomach and shrieking faintly.
It was now the full height of steaming summer, and one day early in August George came home to find the movers in the house again. This time it was obvious that a work of more than usual magnitude was in transit45. Mr. Katamoto, spattered with plaster, was of course hovering46 about in the hall, grinning nervously47 and fluttering prayerfully around the husky truckmen. As George came in, two of the men were backing slowly down the hall, carrying between them an immense head, monstrously48 jowled and set in an expression of farseeing statesmanship. A moment later three more men backed out of the studio, panting and cursing as they grunted49 painfully around the flowing fragment of a long frock coat and the vested splendour of a bulging50 belly51. The first pair had now gone back in the studio, and when they came out again they were staggering beneath the trousered shank of a mighty52 leg and a booted Atlantean hoof53, and as they passed, one of the other men, now returning for more of the statesman’s parts, pressed himself against the wall to let them by and said:
“Jesus! If the son-of-a-bitch stepped on you with that foot, he wouldn’t leave a grease spot, would he, Joe?”
The last piece of all was an immense fragment of the Solon’s arm and fist, with one huge forefinger54 pointed upwards55 in an attitude of solemn objurgation and avowal56.
That figure was Katamoto’s masterpiece; and George felt as he saw it pass that the enormous upraised finger was the summit of his art and the consummation of his life: Certainly it was the apple of his eye. George had never seen him before in such a state of extreme agitation57. He fairly prayed above the sweating men: It was obvious that the coarse indelicacy of their touch made him shudder38. The grin was frozen on his face in an expression of congealed58 terror. He writhed59, he wriggled60, he wrung61 his little hands, he crooned to them. And if anything had happened to that fat, pointed finger, George felt sure that he would have dropped dead on the spot.
At length, however, they got everything stowed away in their big van without mishap62 and drove off with their Ozymandias, leaving Mr. Katamoto, frail63, haggard, and utterly64 exhausted65, looking at the kerb. He came back into the house and saw George standing1 there and smiled wanly66 at him.
“Tramp-ling,” he said feebly, and shook his finger, and for the first time there was no mirth or energy in him.
George had never seen him tired before. It had never occurred to him that he could get tired. The little man had always been so full of inexhaustible life. And now, somehow, George felt an unaccountable sadness to see him so weary and so strangely grey. Katamoto was silent for a moment, and then he lifted his face and said, almost tonelessly, yet with a shade of wistful eagerness:
“You see statue — yis?”
“Yes, Kato, I saw it.”
“And you like?”
“Yes, very much.”
“And —” he giggled a little and made a shaking movement with his hands —“you see foot?”
“Yes.”
“I sink,” he said, “he will be tramp-ling — yis?”— and he made laughing sound.
“He ought to,” George said, “with a hoof like that. It’s almost as big as mine,” he added, as an afterthought.
Katamoto seemed delighted with this observation, for he laughed shrilly67 and said: “Yis! Yis!”— nodding his head emphatically. He was silent for another moment, then hesitantly, but with an eagerness that he could not conceal69, he said:
“And you see finger?”
“Yes, Kato.”
“And you like?”— quickly, earnestly.
“Very much.”
“Big finger — yis?”— with a note of rising triumph in his “Very big, Kato.”
“And pointing— yis?” he said ecstatically, grinning from ear to ear and pointing his own small finger heavenward.
“Yes, pointing.”
He sighed contentedly70. “Well, zen,” he said, with the appeased’ air of a child, “I’m glad you like.”
For a week or so after that George did not see Katamoto again or even think of him. This was the vacation period at the School for Utility Cultures, and George was devoting every minute of his time, day and, night, to a fury of new writing. Then one afternoon; a long passage completed and the almost illegible71 pages of his swift scrawl72 tossed in a careless heap upon the floor, he sat relaxed, looking out of his back window, and suddenly he thought of Katamoto again. He remembered that he had not seen him recently, and it seemed strange that he had not even heard the familiar thud of the little ball against the wall outside or the sound of his high, shrill68 laughter. This realisation, with its sense of loss, so troubled him that he went downstairs immediately and pressed Katamoto’s bell.
There was no answer. All was silent. He waited, and no one came. Then he went down to the basement and found the janitor73 and spoke to him. He said that Mr. Katamoto had been ill, No, it was not serious, he thought, but the doctor had advised a rest, a brief period of relaxation74 from his exhausting labours, and had sent him for care and observation to the near-by hospital.
George meant to go to see him, but he was busy with his writing and kept putting it off. Then one morning, some ten days later, coming back home after breakfast in a restaurant, he found a moving van backed up before the house. Katamoto’s door was open, and when he looked inside the moving people had already stripped the apartment almost bare. In the centre of the once fantastic room, now empty, where Katamoto had performed his prodigies75 of work, stood a young Japanese, an acquaintance of the sculptor26, whom George had seen there several times before. He was supervising the removal of the last furnishings.
The young Japanese looked up quickly, politely, with a toothy grin of frozen courtesy as George came in. He did not speak until George asked him how Mr. Katamoto was. And then, with the same toothy, frozen grin upon his face, the same impenetrable courtesy, he said that Mr. Katamoto was dead.
George was shocked, and stood there for a moment, knowing there was nothing more to say, and yet feeling somehow, as people always feel on these occasions, that there was something that, he ought to say. He looked at the young Japanese and started to speak, and found himself looking into the inscrutable, polite, untelling eyes of Asia.
So he said nothing more. He just thanked the young man and went out.
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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erred
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
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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15
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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usher
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| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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22
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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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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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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34
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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35
clots
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| n.凝块( clot的名词复数 )；血块；蠢人；傻瓜v.凝固( clot的第三人称单数 ) | |
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36
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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39
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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40
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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41
beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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42
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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43
piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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44
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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45
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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46
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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47
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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48
monstrously
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49
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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50
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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51
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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52
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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53
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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54
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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55
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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56
avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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57
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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58
congealed
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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59
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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61
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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62
mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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63
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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64
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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66
wanly
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| adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地 | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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68
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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69
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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70
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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71
illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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72
scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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73
janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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74
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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75
prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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