THE BACHELOR’S CLUB
BENNETT LAWRIE’S education began at the age of six, when, with his sister, Ph?be, he was every morning taken by Tibby to a little dame’s school where he learned the alphabet, the multiplication1 table, writing, and the stories of the Bible. He was also allowed to draw and taught to embroider2 little mats with rough silk and to make balls with pieces of wool. In five years he made a great many balls, but he was not allowed to play with them, for they were given to the poor.
When he was ten he passed from this establishment to Wellington House, where there were no girls, but a great many rough boys who frightened him. Among them were his two elder brothers, who afforded him no protection but rather supplied the others with material for teasing. Bennett could not understand that small boys should fight merely out of bluster3 and cockiness. He only wanted to fight when rage mastered him, and then he was out to kill. He only had one fight at that school and that was enough, for he cut open his adversary’s eye and tore the lobe4 of his ear away from his scalp. Thereafter he suffered from collective rather than individual bullying5.
He learned arithmetic as far as fractions, algebra6 as far as surds, the first, second and third books of Euclid, English composition and literature, French grammar, composition and easy translations, Latin grammar, composition and [Pg 211]easy translations, Scripture7 (the books of Samuel, Kings, and the Acts of the Apostles in rotation), geography, history (Tudor and Stuarts alternatively), elocution and dancing. Without being in the least interested in anything, he had no difficulty in memorising for the purposes of each day the tasks that were set before him. He was said to be intelligent, industrious8 and eager in his work and generally satisfactory in his conduct. At the end of each year he found himself with a prize, though he knew not how or why, and his mother became quite amiable9 to him. There remained one member of her husband’s family with whom she had not (as yet) quarrelled, namely Bennett’s Aunt Louisa, an ex-governess who had retired10 upon receipt of a legacy11 and taken up her residence in our town in order to be near her brothers, James the failure, whom she loved, and Keith the successful merchant, whom she both feared and disliked. This gentle lady offered to pay Bennett’s fees, twelve guineas a year, at the Grammar School, and thither12 accordingly he repaired with a brand new handbag and a quaking heart to find himself one of five hundred boys, of all shapes and sizes and classes and nationalities and religions—the town in little. In his first term he was in the Lower Third Form, and sat between the son of a cab-driver and the son of a millionaire mill-owner.
It does not matter very much what the young are taught, but it does matter enormously who teaches them. The curriculum of the Grammar School was the curriculum of Wellington House administered in larger and more unpleasant doses. Games were not compulsory13, and only one hour per week was allowed for them. What the parents wanted and what they got was a good, hard, thorough grounding and no nonsense. There may have been an ideal in the place once upon a time—(it was founded by a Bishop)—but that ideal had produced no offspring, and there were no little ideals to grow up with Bennett’s generation. Science had been added to the available subjects to be crammed14 into the boys’ heads, for the voice of Huxley was loud in the land; but though Bennett devoted15 two hours a week to physics and chemistry, [Pg 212]he never got beyond a vague notion that light and heat were not all they seemed, and a jocular idea that chemistry meant making a bad smell.
He was moved up regularly once a year, but he learned no history beyond George III, he devoted four terms to the study of the Acts of the Apostles, he dropped Latin in favour of German; having learned by heart the rivers and capitals of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and drawn16 maps of all of them, he left geography behind, and having studied the Tudors and the Stuarts until he was sick of them, he was suddenly, by promotion17, switched away from England, and directed to apply himself to the Thirty Years’ and the Seven Years’ Wars in Germany. Having partially18 grasped what they were about he was promoted into the middle of the French Revolution. Robespierre was not beheaded when he left school, and he never connected the upheaval19 in France with the rise of Napoleon.
His instruction in languages was entirely20 grammarian, and he had no notion but that the works of Corneille, Racine, Goethe and Schiller and Gustav Freytag might have been written expressly to be annotated21 by the various Masters and Bachelors of Arts whose names appeared on the title-pages of his text-books. He drew skeletons, profiles of girls and caricatures in the margins22, and beyond cramming23 enough of the notes and the dictionary to satisfy his masters he took no further interest in them. He was never asked to do so.
His career and mental development were exactly those of ninety-five per cent. of the boys who passed through the institution, except that he suffered more from fear. Fear was the directing force of the machinery24. The High Master was a bearded man with a huge voice, with which he bullied25 his assistants. The senior members of the staff bullied the junior members, and, without being given any standard of right and wrong, the boys were punished, punished, punished: detentions26, impositions, enforced drills, thrashings. The school was enormously successful, and everybody was immensely satisfied with it, though there was never a boy grown man who could look back with pleasure [Pg 213]on the years spent in its toils27. There were periodical attempts made to pump up the spirit of loyalty—esprit de corps—but they always flagged under the general listlessness. The boys understood that they attended day after day to be educated, a process which they regarded as extremely unpleasant, as indeed it was, and only tolerable in that its end was always in sight. The clever boys who were kept until they were nineteen and stuffed for Oxford28 and Cambridge and the professions were pitied rather than admired. There was nothing admirable in Oxford and Cambridge to those who knew nothing of them, save the second and third-class men who were so poor as to be glad of the miserable29 pittance30 granted them for the instruction of generations of Bennett Lawries and the sons of cab-drivers and millionaire mill-owners.
After his first term in the Fifth Form Mrs. Lawrie quarrelled with Bennett’s aunt Louisa. Her subsidy31 was withdrawn32, and Bennett left school with a mind untrained except in memory, and stored only with a curious litter of knowledge absolutely unrelated to the facts of his existence.
Education, like charity, should begin at home. Bennett had spent eleven years in being educated, but he had been taught nothing at all of the place in which he lived. He had not been told why it was, what it was, nor for what purpose it existed and grew and expanded. He knew nothing of its history except that it had once had a Latin name and had been occupied by the Romans, and that Oliver Cromwell had passed through or near it with his Roundheads. Everything that was told him was presented to him in such a desiccated form that his gorge33 rose at it and he could swallow it only with an effort. In a city of Puritans it seemed meet and right that education, like religion and life, should be made as unpleasant as possible.
The only real education that Bennett ever got was in his daily walk to and fro over the two miles that separated his home from the school. He could cover the distance in three ways: either he could go through slums and [Pg 214]under factories and engineering shops along the low ground, or he could take the high ground behind the Albert Station and soon come to suburbs and the streets where the middle classes gathered, or he could pass through the Jews’ quarter down by the Assize Courts and the gaol34. Most often he chose the third way. The mysterious, large-headed, thick-featured creatures with their oily, beady eyes exercised a strange fascination35 over him. He liked their Kosher shops, their bills written in weird36 characters, the women with their hard stiff wigs37, the men with their queer gnarled legs and their feet loosely hinged at the ankles. He always looked at their feet, because a boy at school had once pointed38 out to him how the Jews always wore their boots down on the outside edge of the sole. He never knew why the Jews were there in such large numbers, but they interested him. They were romantic. All the cleverest boys at school were Jews. They seemed to learn everything with an extraordinary facility. . . . Almost his only friend at school was a Jew named Kraus, whose father and mother were in Roumania, and at intervals39 they would send him over a hamper40 containing queer fishes and black olives and rose-leaf jam, and then Bennett would go home with Kraus and have an orgy. Once Kraus gave him some unleavened bread, and Bennett kept it as a curiosity, and frightened himself with pretending that the tragedy of the Passover was come again, and that the angels would not mark his house because he was not a Jew and had no right to the bread.
Kraus had an aunt who was a musician and a singer. She sang so sweetly that Bennett was moved to tears and fell violently in love with her, though he would not admit it to himself, for all thought of love disgusted him. It was Kraus who revealed to Bennett the mystery of his birth, and in the filthiest41 way possible explained to him the process by which he had his being. It took Bennett some time to recover from the despair into which the revelation threw him, but it never occurred to him to doubt the truth of his friend’s statements. The filthiness42 was in the world and not in Kraus. They became more intimate, and [Pg 215]their talk was almost always dirty, though innocent. It was a swaggering pose, their way of equalising matters with the bawdiness43 of the world that lay before them.
Bennett had no corrective. No grown person ever held out a hand to save him from his dark thoughts and uneasy desires when they came to him, nor troubled to enquire44 into what pitfalls45 he might be tumbling. Instructed by Kraus he went the way of all flesh and lost his peace of mind and the bloom of his boyhood. All around him he saw darkness and ugliness, but never any beauty. The one place in his daily walks that his imagination fastened on was the gaol, and he dreamed of prisoners and policemen and arrestments.
His friendship with Kraus lasted for three years, during which Bennett fell in and out of love (with absurd chivalry46 and nobility) with his sisters’ friends. The rupture47 came when one day Kraus filled the whole of their walk home with an account—largely invented—of an adventure with a loose factory girl whom he had encountered in the street seeking whom she might devour48. A black abyss yawned at Bennett’s feet, his brain whirled, and he said:
“You’ll go to Hell.”
Kraus replied with an obscene jingle49 which they had often chanted together, and offered to call for Bennett that night.
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” said Bennett, and he washed his hands of Kraus. Thereafter for the short remaining period of his term at school he avoided the Jewish quarter and took the high road through the most respectable-seeming middle-class streets.
The hours of the school were five, three in the morning and two in the afternoon, with three-quarters of an hour for lunch. This was not provided eatably in the school-building, and as, for most of the boys, the mid-day meal was the most serious of the day, they went, according to their means, to the various restaurants in the locality. Bennett was allowed sixpence a day, and used to repair to one of three or four cheap eating-houses, all in cellars. Here he saw men and youths of the type with which his future life would be spent—warehousemen and clerks, [Pg 216]all scraping as much off their food allowance as they could to pay for beer and betting and billiards50 and tobacco. They were all dull and timid and white-faced, foul-mouthed very many of them, and the conditions under which their food was placed before them were so uninviting that they hurried through their meals as quickly as possible. On the whole Bennett envied them because they were not at school and were independent and doing work for which they were paid. . . Very often he felt too timid or too listless to eat, and he saved the sixpence for his own purposes. When he did that he found it very hard to keep awake during the two hours in the afternoon, and very often he had his homework increased by a long imposition.
In the holidays he was required to read one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott with a view to examination on them when the school re-opened. This begot51 in him a loathing52 for Sir Walter from which he never recovered. He was always being examined—every term, every midterm; in some subjects, once a week. As information had been forced into him piecemeal53, so piecemeal it was pumped out of him. . . . Perhaps this is a wise provision. Perhaps, having fed their little boys’ minds with bran for weeks on end, it is merciful of the pedagogues54 at the end of term to administer an emetic55. Every term the examinations cleaned Bennett out, and by regular repetition of this process he was no further on at the end of five years than he was at the beginning. They even tried to rob him of his delight in Shakespeare by making him learn the stupid hotch-potch of the notes of some Cambridge pundit56 instead of helping57 him to discover the glory of the verses and confirming him in his taste for it.
Nothing was ever done to help him to understand the processes of his own existence, or to direct the forces stirring in him, or to pick his way through the whirling maze58 of divers59 emotions in which every now and then he lost himself. He was affectionate; no appeal was made to his affections. He was romantic; no food was forthcoming for his hunger. Spiritually and emotionally he was starved; mentally he was grossly and unsuitably fed. His was the average condition of the average boy in the [Pg 217]most touching60, perhaps the most beautiful period of the average man’s life.
He was told that he must be confirmed. Like the minister who prepared him, he understood nothing of the significance of the ceremony, but contact with one or two religiously minded young men released the pent-up emotion in him and it rushed out in such a flood that he was like to drown. He clutched at the first cause that came to hand, turned to the first manly61 and inspiring personality that he encountered, the rector of St. Saviour’s, and he embraced the High Church creed62 and all its tenets, prejudices, and shibboleths63.
Only an accident had saved him from the worst consequences of his education.
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1
multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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2
embroider
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| v.刺绣于(布)上；给…添枝加叶，润饰 | |
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3
bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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4
lobe
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| n.耳垂，（肺，肝等的）叶 | |
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5
bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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6
algebra
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| n.代数学 | |
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7
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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8
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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9
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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10
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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11
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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12
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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13
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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14
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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15
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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16
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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17
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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18
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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19
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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20
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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21
annotated
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| v.注解，注释( annotate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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23
cramming
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| n.塞满，填鸭式的用功v.塞入( cram的现在分词 )；填塞；塞满；（为考试而）死记硬背功课 | |
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24
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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25
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
detentions
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| 拘留( detention的名词复数 )； 扣押； 监禁； 放学后留校 | |
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27
toils
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| 网 | |
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28
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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29
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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30
pittance
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| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
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31
subsidy
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| n.补助金，津贴 | |
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32
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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33
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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34
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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35
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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36
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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37
wigs
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| n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 ) | |
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38
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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39
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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40
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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41
filthiest
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| filthy（肮脏的，污秽的）的最高级形式 | |
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42
filthiness
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43
bawdiness
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44
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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45
pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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46
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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47
rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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48
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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49
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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50
billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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51
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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52
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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53
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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54
pedagogues
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| n.教师，卖弄学问的教师( pedagogue的名词复数 ) | |
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55
emetic
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| n.催吐剂；adj.催吐的 | |
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56
pundit
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| n.博学之人；权威 | |
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57
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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58
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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59
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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60
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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61
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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62
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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63
shibboleths
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| n.（党派、集团等的）准则( shibboleth的名词复数 )；教条；用语；行话 | |
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